Ivory Coast’s army on Monday rejected rebel claims they carried out a massacre of hundreds of people in a lawless region contested by several rebel and pro-government groups.
The claims came as the government said it was close to forming a unity government called for in the West African nation’s shaky January peace deal.
French army representative Lt. Col. Philippe Perret said French soldiers dispatched to Bangolo, about 50 kilometres south of the western town of Man, in the cocoa- and coffee-rich western reaches of the former French colony, had seen ”numerous dead” and evidence of significant violence.
However Perret could not confirm the number of casualties or the parties responsible. Western rebel commander Felix Doh, reached via satellite telephone from the Man area, accused government forces of killing as many as 1 000 civilians, including many women and children.
”It’s criminal,” Doh said. ”(Ivory Coast President Laurent) Gbagbo sent his loyalists to kill everyone there.”
Ivorian army representative Lt. Col. Jules Yao Yao denied the charge. ”We had nothing to do with that,” he said. ”The chaos out west worries all of us, but we don’t know who” is responsible for the killings.
Western Ivory Coast has grown increasingly unstable over the past weeks as Liberian fighters — notorious for their drug use and indiscriminate violence — have joined in the fighting.
About 3 000 French troops are stationed in Ivory Coast to monitor a shaky cease-fire and protect foreign nationals. Although the front between the Ivorian army and northern rebels — who started the rebellion on September 19 with a failed coup attempt — has been largely quiet the past couple months, sporadic fighting continues to be reported in the country’s west.
Meanwhile in the commercial capital Abidjan, Gbagbo met on Monday with officials from the United Nations, African Union and a West African economic bloc to discuss an agreement reached in neighbouring Ghana over the weekend concerning the allotment of ministry posts in a reconciliation government.
The coalition government was first proposed in a January 24 French-brokered peace accord, but has yet to be implemented. Prime Minister Seydou Diarra — appointed as part of the peace accord — said the new government would be revealed in the political capital, Yamoussoukro, on Thursday.
Rebel leader Guillaume Soro said late Monday that all rebel movements would be represented in meetings with Ivorian government officials in Yamoussoukro starting on Tuesday to begin selecting individuals for ministry posts.
Tuesday will thus mark the first official trip for rebel leaders into government-held territory since the conflict began in September.
Albert Tevoedjre, a special representative of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, released a statement after meeting with Gbagbo saying a UN committee would soon prepare a report for the UN Security Council on the killings in Bangolo.
A 1999 coup in Ivory Coast shattered decades of prosperity and calm in the West African nation. Since then the country has been plagued by political and economic instability.
The current war — now more than five and a half months old — has displaced more than one-million people, according to the United Nations.
Presidential representative Toussaint Alain said on Monday the government estimates the war has killed at least 3 000 people, blaming Liberian fighters in the west for the most serious atrocities.
The Liberians ”are going to be disarmed by all necessary means,” he said. It will be done ”with the cooperation of the rebel movements.”
A recent government health report said as many as 70 000 people have been displaced in four western towns — Duekoue, Guiglo, Blolequin, and Toulepleu — alone. Fighting in that area has made food scarce and has disrupted the cocoa harvest.
Ivory Coast is the world’s top producer of cocoa, and until the country’s first coup in 1999 it was among Africa’s most stable and prosperous nations. – Sapa-AP