Another civil war, in Ivory Coast, adds to African troubles

YAMOUSSOUKRO, October 4 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Intense negotiations took place Friday, October 4, to overcome hurdles to signing a ceasefire between the Ivory Coast government and the rebels who captured half of the world's largest cocoa producing country.

The insurgents and the government were scheduled to sign the ceasefire pact Friday in the inland city of Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast's administrative capital, guarded by French troops, who set up a base and an evacuation center for foreigners at the airport, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The accord - to pave the way for negotiations on the rebels' myriad demands – was due to be signed at 4 pm (1600 GMT), but was delayed.

Earlier Friday, West African negotiators met the Ivorian Foreign Affairs and Defense Ministers in Abidjan to discuss points raised by the rebels during their talks with the mediators Thursday, October 3.

The rebels, meanwhile, appeared disappointed with the fine print of the draft.

Informed sources said the rebels, in their first meeting with the ministerial mediators from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Thursday, insisted on the departure of the extra 400 or so French troops brought into Ivory Coast to reinforce a standing 600-strong garrison.

France, Ivory Coast's former colonial ruler, stationed the troops at Yamoussoukro and other points to ensure the security of French and other foreign nationals, according to Paris.

Master Sergeant Tuho Fozie, who led the rebel negotiators in Thursday's talks at the insurgents' headquarters in the central city of Bouake, said Friday that the government army flouted an agreement to freeze troop movements in the run-up to the ceasefire signing.

"Seven four-wheel-drive vehicles full of men left Yamoussoukro to reinforce the so-called loyalists, probably at Tiebissou," he complained. Tiebissou is a government-held frontline town about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Bouake.

Fozie, wanted by Ivorian authorities for his alleged involvement in a December 1999 coup and a subsequent failed putsch, did not discuss the details of the draft ceasefire proposal.

The proposal stipulates that "the mutineers lay down their arms" and that "the authority of the government be re-established over the entire territory".

The plan also calls on rebels to return to "legal authorities ... all arms and equipment" used by them since the start of their mutiny on September 19.

The mediators, sent after an emergency ECOWAS summit last weekend on ways to defuse the Ivorian crisis, were expected to meet President Laurent Gbagbo later Friday.

One of the members said the team was optimistic about the ceasefire being signed Friday.

ECOWAS mandated Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Nigeria and Togo to form a mediation group, along with South Africa, which is the current chairman of the African Union.

Meanwhile, Malian immigrants in the rebel-held northern town of Korhogo, said Friday they were asking their government to evacuate Malians, who wanted to leave Ivory Coast.

"Our government needs to come and evacuate those who want to leave and reassure those who want to stay," said Abourhamane Zaccaria Traore, the president of an association of young Malians in Korhogo, the biggest town in Ivory Coast's predominantly Muslim north.

"The rebels are not harming us but we are scared about what is going to happen. There are risks of settling of scores," he told AFP.

The Ivory Coast government blamed an unspecified neighboring country for the unrest, taken by most to mean Burkina Faso. That charge fuelled dormant resentment in Ivory Coast against immigrants from other West African countries and a wave of hate attacks.

The rebels' demands are manifold. They want the government to rescind plans to demobilize more than 700 soldiers; the return from exile and reintegration into the army of soldiers, who fled during political violence over the past three years; compensation for these exiled soldiers; and the release of soldiers jailed for their part in the violence.

They also want an end to discrimination against the Muslim-majority northerners and the disbanding of a gendarmerie unit being established "on ethnic lines".  

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