April 22, 2004
The United Nations' top peacekeeping official has urged President Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d'Ivoire and the rebels and opposition parties who walked out of a government of national reconciliation last month to resume cooperation without setting pre-conditions. Jean-Marie Guehenno, the UN under secretary-general for peacekeeping, made the appeal on Tuesday night at the end of a five-day visit to the West African country, where a 6,000-strong UN peacekeeping force began arriving earlier this month.
In separate interviews with the BBC and Radio France Internationale, Guehenno hammered home the point that both Gbagbo and the opposition should drop their "pre-conditions" and simply get on with the job of implementing a January 2003 peace agreement. The UN Security Council agreed to send a peacekeeping force to Cote d'Ivoire at the end of February when slow progress towards implementing the accord appeared to be picking up steam. However since then political tension has been risen to new highs following the security forces' bloody repression of an opposition demonstration in Abidjan on 25 March and the peace process has ground to a standstill.
The rebel "New Forces" movement, which occupies the northern half of Cote d'Ivoire, and the country's four main parliamentary opposition parties withdrew their 26 ministers from Cote d'Ivoire's broad-based coalition government in protest at the security forces' iron-fisted reaction. The government claims 37 people were killed as troops opened fire on unarmed civilian demonstrators and rounded up suspects in house-to-house searches, but the opposition says up to 500 perished. Abidjan residents fear a fresh outbreak of political violence on Saturday as opposition parties take to the streets to honour those who died in last month's bloodbath. Pro-Gbagbo militia-style youth groups known as "Young Patriots" have announced plans to demonstrate in support of the president at the same time.
Guehenno appealed to both Gbagbo and the opposition to set aside the pre-conditions they had put forward for resuming cooperation and he urged the opposition forces to resume their seats in government. "Fifteen months after the agreement, it is urgent to catch up on lost time", Guehenno said. He rejected a suggestion by Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade that the two sides should convene a special conference to re-jig the French-brokered Linas-Marcoussis peace accord, insisting that the agreement be applied in full in its present form. Guehenno said that meant the rapid passage of political reforms through parliament and disarmament by the rebels in good time for the holding of UN-supervised elections in October 2005.
He stressed that the arrival of a UN peacekeeping force would create an improved level of security guarantees for both sides. But he warned that Cote d'Ivoire risked losing "hundreds of millions of dollars" of international aid to support the peace process if implementation of the peace agreement remained frozen. "Very large sums have been set aside (to finance a disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation programme). These funds may be lost if we fail to catch up on the time already lost," Guehenno warned. The opposition has set five conditions for resuming a political dialogue with Gbagbo and returning to government. These include the right to hold peaceful public demonstration. Independent Prime Minister Seydou Diarra promised last weekend that the opposition demands would be met, but Gbagbo himself has yet to comment publicly.
Meanwhile fears are growing for the safety of Guy-Andre Kieffer, an investigative journalist of joint French and Canadian nationality who was last seen alive in Abidjan five days ago. It is widely feared that he has been abducted and killed by an armed group linked to the president. Last October, Jean Helene, a French radio journalist, was shot dead by a uniformed policeman in Abidjan while he waited to interview detainees who were about to be released at police headquarters. Radio France Internationale said it was feared that Kieffer, who had angered powerful figures in Cote d'Ivoire by writing about murky financial deals in the cocoa and coffee trade, had been tortured to death. "I hope it is not the case", an African diplomat told IRIN. The Ivorian authorities have not publicly commented on the case and French and Canadian diplomats remain tight-lipped when asked about the reasons for Kieffer's disappearance.
Rebel moves towards developing a more permanent administration in the north and recent hints by rebel leader Guillaume Soro that he may move towards recession if the peace process remains blocked, are also giving cause for concern. Talks of secession by the north again resurfaced in Abidjan newspapers on Wednesday as the New Forces announced they had begun paying regular salaries to their figthers. Amadou Kone, a senior aide of Soro, told IRIN that the rebels begun paying their men "an amount that is slightly more than what government recruits get". "The money comes essentially from money paid by businesses", he added. "They are symbolic payments to motivate our soldiers", he said.
Soro announced two weeks ago that the New Forces would soon begin to pay their soldiers. In the same speech he remarked that the rebels "no longer needed Abidjan" and had already learned to live without the government-controlled south of the country. Asked about the possibility of secession by the north, Guehenno said: "Let us pray to God that partition will not happen", Guehenno told reporters shortly before leaving the country.
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