Lawmakers in Côte d’Ivoire have begun debating revisions to a controversial law on the status of foreigners in the West African country, which has been blamed for sparking tensions that led to civil war in 2002.
The National Assembly met on Monday and Tuesday in an extraordinary session to debate changes to the law, which opposition parties and rebels who signed a peace pact last year have said should be revoked, saying it provides an excuse for security forces in Côte d’Ivoire to harass foreigners.
The ”current law on identification of persons and foreigners’ residency has been shown to be a source of conflict both among nationals and foreigners,” said government minister Alphonse Douaty as he presented the proposed changes to Parliament for debate.
Early last month, Ivorian lawmakers called for the immediate and full application of the 2003 peace pact, in particular clauses on eligibility for the presidency, land ownership and a code covering the status of foreigners in the country, where about one-fifth of the population are migrant workers.
The Bills were proposed in a peace accord, brokered in January 2003 by France and signed in the French town of Marcoussis.
Under the Marcoussis accord, rebels who rose up against President Laurent Gbagbo in September 2002 were brought into a transitional government set up to restore peace in the world’s leading cocoa producer.
One of the proposals of the Marcoussis pact is to change Article 35 of the Constitution, which currently specifies that a presidential candidate must have parents who are both of Ivorian nationality. Opposition politician Alassane Ouattara was prevented from standing in the October 2000 presidential poll, in which Gbagbo was elected, because his father was from Burkina Faso.
The three issues were said by the signatories to the January 2003 peace pact to be the main causes of the rebellion that broke out in September 2002 and boiled over into civil war, the repercussions of which are still being felt in Côte d’Ivoire.
More than a year after the signing of the Marcoussis accord, Côte d’Ivoire is still divided, with rebels holding the north and west and Gbagbo loyalists the south.
The Cabinet passed Bills on all three issues in December last year, but the proposed changes to the laws have stalled at the level of the interim government, which fell apart late last month as the opposition walked out in protest at the violent quashing of a protest against Gbagbo, in which the opposition has said 500 people were killed.
Parliament is due to wrap up its extraordinary session on April 23. — Sapa-AFP