More than a million people were displaced because of the conflict in Ivory Coast

ABIDJAN, January 14 (News Agencies) - As France brokers a week of negotiations starting Wednesday, January 15, to end four months of devastating conflict in its former colony Ivory Coast, the west African state’s economy has been brought to its knees - something that rebels and politicians attending the peace talks will bear in mind as they discuss the political issues.

Three insurgent groups who have gained control of the north and west of the country since a rebellion in September, the government of Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo as well as opposition political parties have all agreed to attend the talks outside the French capital, which President Jacques Chirac has described as the "last chance" for peace.  

The French government is expected to press for political concessions from Gbagbo leading to early elections in return for the demobilization of the rebel armies, with the aim of safeguarding the country's unity and extricating 2,500 French troops deployed there to keep the peace.  

"For Paris, Ivory Coast is a real regional challenge, because if it breaks apart, then Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea will follow," a French diplomatic official told Agence France-Presse (AFP), on condition of anonymity.

The ensuing conflict is the culmination of three years of instability that have smashed the country's reputation as a haven of west African prosperity, cruelly underlining divisions between northerners and southerners, Muslims and Christians and true "Ivorians" and foreign immigrants.

Wednesday's talks should take place against a background of relative quiet in Ivory Coast, thanks to ceasefire agreements signed Monday in Lome by the government and two smaller insurgent groups in the west - the Ivorian Popular Movement of the Far West (MPIGO) and the Movement of Justice and Peace (MJP).

If the negotiations end in agreement, they should be followed by a second meeting in the French capital on January 27 of west African heads of government - to be attended by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan - at which a regional peace-keeping force is to be decided on.

France's involvement in Ivory Coast is its biggest in Africa since it pulled out in disgrace from Rwanda after the 1994 genocide there, and represents a return to a forward policy after years in which it appeared to disengage from its former colonies.

However, the French army remains vulnerable to rebel charges that it intervened in October to save Gbagbo's skin, and the Paris government is anxious not to commit itself to a long-term and dangerous period of nation-building.

French officials said the talks at the national rugby-training centre at Marcoussis, 35 kilometers (20 miles) south of Paris, would have to address issues that have poisoned the political climate in Ivory Coast, such as Gbagbo's shaky legitimacy and his alleged exclusion of non-southerners from positions of influence.

Gbagbo came to power in October 2000 on the back of a popular uprising that forced out military ruler, the late Robert Guei, who claimed to have won presidential elections held that month.

But his accession to power was marred by the ban in the elections on the main candidate from the Muslim north of the country - Alassane Ouattara - because of a dispute over his nationality.

Ouattara, who was given refuge in the French embassy in Abidjan in September, is now in exile in France and expected to attend Wednesday's talks at the head of a delegation of his Rally of Republicans (RDR) party.

The other main political parties set to attend are Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI) - the vehicle for independence champion Felix Houphouet-Boigny - and the Union for Democracy and Peace in Ivory Coast (UDPCI), which supported Guei until his murder during September's revolt.

Humanitarian & Economic Crisis

The September 19 rebellion has not only ruined Ivory's Coast's reputation as a regional economic engine and a beacon of stability but also hit production, consumption patterns and revenues.

The grim situation is a far cry from the halcyon days when the west African country was hailed as a model of prosperity and free enterprise.

The rebels control more than half the country, which produces around 40 percent of the world's cocoa, including the second city of Bouake, a key industrial base.

"The growth target that we had fixed for 2002 cannot be realized," Finance Minister Paul Bohoun Bouabre said in a New Year message.

After two years of recession, the country had aimed at three percent growth - a highly optimistic projection.

Last month International business watchdog Coface downgraded Ivory Coast from C to D, the lowest category saying "this situation and the general climate of insecurity puts at risk the cocoa sector, the main source of revenue for the country."

Coface also expressed concern that several public investment programs had been interrupted.

According to customs chief Gnamien Konan, his department's earnings in the last trimester plunged 20 percent, representing a whopping 45.7 million euros or 1.5 percent of the provisional budget for 2002 voted in March.

The only silver lining in recent times appears to be French President Jacques Chirac's promise of economic aid if Ivory Coast pulls back from the brink of civil war.

"The open crisis threatens at any minute to consume the country," Chirac said but added that if peace broke out "France will take charge of an alliance of donors for the economic reconstruction of Ivory Coast."

The war has wreaked havoc across west Africa causing monumental economic damage and sparking a humanitarian crisis with the UN saying nearly a million people have been displaced.

The war has not only ruined Ivory Coast's credentials as a regional economic locomotive but also dealt a crippling blow to its hinterland, which earlier relied on solely on Abidjan, Ivory Coast's main city, as its lifeline.

The worst affected nations are Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso which have been forced to turn to other ports - Cotonou in Benin, Tema in Ghana and Dakar, the Senegalese capital - leading to a huge increase in transport costs.

In better times, 70 percent of Mali's imports and exports transited through Abidjan.

But the new routes will cost an extra 123 million euros (130 million dollars), according to Malian officials.

Northern neighbor Burkina Faso, which Abidjan accuses of masterminding the unrest, estimates it lost nearly 30.4 million euros in revenues and customs duties between September and December.

Other countries, especially the eight members of West African Monetary and Economic Union sharing the CFA franc as currency, have also been devastated, especially since Ivory Coast accounted for 40 percent of the bloc's gross domestic product.

Ivory Coast itself has been split in half by the conflict, severely hampering the movement of people and goods, and Abidjan's status as a regional aviation hub has been dented with several carriers pulling out.

The conflict has also fuelled a wave of xenophobia and hate attacks against west African immigrants who had been welcomed with open arms earlier, leading to a massive exodus to their native countries or elsewhere.

And in neighboring countries, some of them among the world's poorest, prices have skyrocketed, often making essentials out of reach of the common man.

Carolyn McAskie, the Special Envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for the Ivory Coast crisis, recently told reporters that the number of displaced people was probably more a million.

Thousands of people have fled Ivory Coast to seek refuge in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia and Mali.

The last Ivorian census listed nearly 4.5 million foreigners, of whom some 140,000 west African workers have left since the rebellion broke out, the UN World Food Program (WFP) said in late December.