Military

DATE=2/20/2004

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=IVORY COAST / DISARMAMENT (L-O)

NUMBER=2-313317

BYLINE=NICO COLOMBANT

DATELINE=ABIDJAN

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The prime minister in Ivory Coast says rebel disarmament will begin next month, more than one year after the signing of a peace accord to reunite the divided west African country. But as V-O-A's Nico Colombant reports from Abidjan, northern-based rebels say there also must be progress in implementing the peace deal before full disarmament takes place.

TEXT: Ivorian Prime Minister Seydou Diarra says about 100-million-dollars have been secured to begin the much-awaited disarmament process on March eighth.

He made the announcement Friday in the northern rebel headquarters of Bouake, after symbolically surrendering an A-K-47 rifle. Mr. Diarra also said Ivory Coast was in what he called an active reunification phase.

His comments follow the decision by the United States to back a U-N plan to send a peacekeeping force of six-thousand troops to Ivory Coast.

Both rebels and the government have welcomed the expected deployment, which will supplement four-thousand French soldiers already on the ground.

But rebels have complained nothing has been implemented in the peace deal, which includes giving many northerners who are now considered immigrants, voting rights in 2005 elections.

The rebel military leader Colonel Soumaila Bakayoko says disarmament and political progress must go hand in hand.

/// BAKAYOKO ACT IN FRENCH FADED UNDER ///

Colonel Bakayoko says disarmament is not just for rebels who call themselves New Forces, but for pro-government militias and four-thousand army soldiers who were recruited after the civil war broke out in September 2002.

He says March eighth will mark the start of preparing disarmament sites throughout Ivory Coast, rather than the actual disarming. (SIGNED)

NEB/NC/MAR/KL/TW