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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
COTE D IVOIRE: Mbeki calls another summit to try to salvage peace process
DAKAR, 20 Jun 2005 (IRIN) - With the peace process in Cote d'Ivoire running into fresh difficulties and the rebels once more resisting pressure to disarm, international mediator and South African president Thabo Mbeki has called the warring factions to a new summit.
"The president proposed the 25th and 26th (of June) as the dates but all the parties can't make it. Therefore arrangements are being made to find another suitable date," Mbeki's spokesman Bheki Khumalo was quoted as saying by Agence France Presse.
The invitation, issued while Mbeki was attending an African economic summit in Nigeria on Sunday, was widely reported by Monday's newspapers in Abidjan.
There was no immediate response from Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, who was on a private visit to the United States.
A rebel spokesman declined to comment on Mbeki's initiative, saying New Forces rebel movement had yet to receive an official invitation.
Mbeki was mandated by the African Union last November to broker a deal to end the crisis in the world's top cocoa grower. Civil war has split the West African country into a government-run south and a rebel-held north for almost three years.
In April, Mbeki managed to hammer out a new accord between Gbagbo and opposition and rebel leaders in the South African capital Pretoria, reviving hopes that elections would be held on schedule in October.
However, before polls can be organised, disarmament has to begin. The initial deadline set out after the Pretoria talks was 14 May, but that date came and went without a single weapon being turned in.
The start of the process was then put back to 27 June, but this new target date is increasingly in doubt after an explosion of ethnic violence in the volatile west of Cote d'Ivoire and a militant speech by Gbagbo that has raised rebel hackles.
More than 100 people were shot, hacked or burned to death near the government-held town of Duekoue in early June and 15,000 people fled their homes fearing more attacks.
The government and rebels blamed each other for sparking the attacks in Duekoue, which lies close to the frontline.
The spate of tit-for-tat killings was the second flare-up of violence to take place in the "Wild West" in as many months.
In a televised speech to the nation on Friday night, Gbagbo placed the entire zone under military government to prevent more trouble erupting.
He said a military governor would be appointed for the west of the country, to be based in Duekoue, with military prefects placed beneath him in the other main towns of the cocoa-growing region.
"I cannot let insecurity compromise the electoral process," Gbagbo said in his speech. "The only way out of this crisis for us is to have elections."
The president also pledged a security crackdown to combat a rising wave of violent crime in the capital Abidjan.
He said the city would be split into five zones, each of which would be patrolled by a special rapid intervention force.
Residents with security problems would be able to call these teams of soldiers and military police at any time of day or night, he said.
The rebel New Forces movement said Gbagbo's speech was further evidence that the president was bent on a military solution to Cote d'Ivoire's problems.
"For us, this speech is dangerous for peace. It's a military speech which aims to put a military regime in place," rebel spokesman Sidiki Konate told IRIN on Monday.
Asked whether disarmament would go ahead as scheduled in seven days time, Konate was pessimistic.
"First of all that was not a date fixed by us, and secondly you can't skip the start of the process and begin at the end," he said. "What should have been done by the 27th has not been done yet. Laws have not been voted through and pro-Gbagbo militias have not been disarmed and dismantled."
The disarmament of pro-government militias began at the end of May with four groups handing in a token Kalashnikov rifle to Colonel Philippe Mangou, the chief of staff of the armed forces.
But shortly the violence erupted in Duekoue, Colonel Jules Yao Yao, the army spokesman, told reporters that fewer weapons than expected had actually been turned over by these groups, throught to number several thousand strong.
Mbeki's main task at the Pretoria II summit will be trying to persuade both sides to overcome their mutual distrust and keep preparations for the October elections on track.
If elections are not held, Gbagbo has already announced that he will stay in power. That is a prospect which the opposition does not relish.
Since the first summit in the South African capital two months ago, there has been some concrete progress.
Gbagbo agreed for the first time to let Alassane Ouattara, an opposition leader supported by the rebels, stand against him at the ballot box. He also announced 30 October as the election date.
Ouattara's exclusion from polls in 2000 on the disputed grounds that one of his parents was not Ivorian is widely seen as a root cause of the civil war, which erupted in September 2002.
But Gbagbo's critics are not yet convinced that the elections will be free and fair elections.
They point out that the president has ordered the National Statistics Institute (INS) to start compiling electoral lists and sorting out voter cards.
Opposition leaders say voter registration should be carried out by the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI), not by the INS, an organisation headedy by a close ally of Gbagbo whose impartiality cannot be guaranteed.
[ENDS]
This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2005
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