Rebels in Ivory Coast signed a truce in their central stronghold of Bouake, agreeing to halt fighting with effect from midnight Thursday.
The deal was signed by representatives of the rebels after a 90-minute meeting with Senegalese Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio and the executive secretary of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), Mohamed Ibn Chambas.
The agreement calls for an end to the fighting as of midnight, and should allow the deployment of an ”Ecowas mechanism … with the shortest delay possible” to oversee the truce, Gadio said.
The talks with the rebels were revived by West African mediators as President Laurent Gbagbo warned of all-out war if the insurgents spurned the peace initiative.
Gadio and Mohamed Ibn Chambas began talks with the rebels around noon in the insurgents’ stronghold of Bouake.
The talks began at Bouake’s French high school, the same location as two meetings last weekend which ended in failure when rebels pulled out protesting the alleged use of Angolan troops by the government to bolster their forces.
The truce came a day after government troops gained their first major victory since the September 19 military uprising by retaking the cocoa capital of Daloa from the rebels, who occupy half the territory of the world’s biggest cocoa producer.
Earlier, the United States warned that a humanitarian catastrophe could engulf Ivory Coast and spill over into neighbouring countries, such as Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea, if the conflict led to a flood of refugees.
”The humanitarian situation has gotten more complex over the last few days and it is now beyond existing humanitarian systems to adequately assess or address in several significant areas,” State Department analysts said in a report obtained by AFP.
Immigrants, especially from neighbouring Burkina Faso, have become the target of hate attacks in Ivory Coast since the uprising began. The government has made thinly veiled accusations that Burkina Faso had fomented the unrest.
The uprising began with a coordinated revolt in Ivory Coast’s main cities by army mutineers and former soldiers, who were defeated in Abidjan but swiftly seized Bouake and a main northern city, Korhogo.
They have said they want to oust Gbagbo, reverse an order on the imminent demobilisation of about 700 troops, and fight for the rights of Ivory Coast’s Muslim majority population who they claim have been marginalised. – Sapa-AFP