Global Policy Forum

By Loucoumane Coulibaly

French peacekeepers enforcing a ceasefire in war-divided Ivory Coast must leave the West African country if its faltering peace process is to succeed, the ruling party said on Friday. Pascal Affi N'Guessan, head of the Ivorian Popular Front party (FPI), also called for the scrapping of a group of mediators trying to implement the peace deals which followed a brief 2002-2003 war.

French troops helped end the war which erupted after rebels tried to oust President Laurent Gbagbo then seized the north of the world's top cocoa grower. Gbagbo supporters say French troops and a further 7,000 U.N. peacekeepers manning a buffer zone splitting the country in two have shown bias towards the rebels and delayed a resolution by maintaining a situation of neither war nor peace.

"Peace in Ivory Coast will come through France's withdrawal from the process," N'Guessan told a news conference. "The FPI therefore demands the dissolution of the international working group and the departure from the country of all the French military forces." N'Guessan's comments came just days after Gbagbo said the U.N. peacekeepers were free to leave the country if they wished because "their plan (for peace) has failed".

Tension is mounting in Ivory Coast before next month's expiry of a year-long U.N.-backed transition which kept Gbagbo in power after elections could not be held last October. The polls were postponed after all sides missed deadlines on disarmament, army integration and voter registration and rebels pulled out of the process, saying independent elections would be impossible.

Rebels have refused any prolongation of Gbagbo's mandate in a new transition framework to be proposed by the African Union and regional leaders in the next few weeks. Gbagbo says he remains the lawful leader until an elected successor is named.

N'Guessan called on the party's militants to mobilise and engage in "the main battle - that of the departure from our country of the French armed forces, a force of occupation, exploitation and enslavement". Pro-Gbagbo "Young Patriots" have previously attacked French and U.N. peacekeepers' bases in the government-run south with rocks and petrol bombs, most recently in January during riots over perceived foreign interference in Ivorian affairs.

A working group of foreign mediators which meets monthly in Abidjan to monitor implementation of the latest U.N.-backed peace plan should be dissolved, N'Guessan said, adding to Gbagbo's criticism of the group in a speech a week ago.

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