Ivory Coast’s main political parties and rebel groups reached unanimous agreement early yesterday on a peace plan aimed at ending a four-month civil war that has left hundreds dead and displaced up to a million more.
The deal, thrashed out after 10 days of closed-door talks, was cautiously welcomed by France, the former colonial ruler.
It leaves the president, Laurent Gbagbo, in office but requires him to share power with a new prime minister at the head of a government of national unity.
Due to be ratified by a summit of west African leaders in Paris this weekend, the plan also proposes changes to Ivory Coast’s discriminatory nationality laws, believed by many to be at the root of the ethnic strife.
The accord, reached early yesterday and celebrated, participants said, with ”champagne, the national anthem and tears of joy”, came as violence flared again on the western border with Liberia.
The Ivory Coast government accused Liberian forces of involvement in a rebel attack on the town of Toulepleu — an allegation denied by Liberia — and asked France to bolster its 2 500-strong peacekeeping force in the country.
All the main protagonists praised the plan. ”This is a decisive advance toward peace that will put an end to the division of the country,” said Toussaint Alain, the Paris representative for Mr Gbagbo’s ruling Ivorian Popular Front.
Konate Siriki of the Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement, the main northern rebel group, said the talks outside Paris had produced ”a good accord to start the reconstruction and reconciliation of Ivory Coast”.
A French foreign ministry representative said the plan was ”an important step” but warned that it had yet to be approved at this weekend’s summit and implemented.
Observers predicted that the new prime minister to replace Gbagbo’s ally, Pascal Affi Nguessan, could be appointed this weekend. He must stay in place until the next presidential elections, in which he will not be allowed to stand.
The plan also calls for the future government — to be formed from all the parties present at the talks — to prepare for ”credible and transparent” elections and supervise the disarmament of all fighters.
But some of the accord’s most important provisions concern nationality codes. Around 25% of the population are immigrants, many of whom qualify for citizenship on residency grounds but are denied it by bureaucratic delays.
Anyone who does not have two Ivorian parents is barred from political office — an eligibility clause that prevented Alassane Ouattara, who has huge support in the north, from running for president. The peace plan reduces the requirement to one Ivorian parent. – Guardian Unlimited Â