Mbeki tackles Ivorian conflict

South African President Thabo Mbeki was on Tuesday to meet his Côte d’Ivoire counterpart Laurent Gbagbo, hoping to ease tensions after a weekend of violence that has evoked fears of a return to the conflict that has split the West African state for two years.

Escorted by the United Nations special envoy to Côte d’Ivoire, Albert Tevoedjre of Benin, Mbeki was whisked through the economic capital, Abidjan, which suffered heavy damage over four days of vandalism and looting by rampaging hardline Gbagbo supporters but appeared calm, if deserted, on Tuesday morning.

The South African president was mandated by the African Union to lead a peace mission to Côte d’Ivoire after government air strikes on positions in the rebel-held north, including a French military base, unleashed a torrent of violence.

AU chief Alpha Oumar Konare, who was expected to join the day-long mission, had to postpone his departure for logistical reasons, his office said.

The spike in simmering tensions in the divided country has evoked fears that unrest could spread through volatile West Africa and destabilise the nascent peace in western neighbours Liberia and Sierra Leone, long torn by civil war.

It has also sent prices for cocoa, of which Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s top producer, into a tailspin, hitting a three-month high on Monday and tumbling back down on Tuesday.

Prices for December delivery on the London market hit £958 a tonne at midday on Tuesday, compared with £993 on Monday evening.

Joint Ivorian, UN and French patrols hit the streets on Monday night following a meeting of civilian and military officials who pledged to cooperate to quell the violence that has injured at least 600 people, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Local media have reported between nine and 30 deaths, but those figures have not been confirmed.

“The mixed patrols went through the southern neighbourhoods of the city, between the bridges [that cross Abidjan’s lagoon] and the airport,” one soldier said after returning home early on Tuesday. “It went pretty well.”

The latest phase in Côte d’Ivoire’s two years of crisis, sparked by a botched September 2002 coup to oust Gbagbo, opened on Thursday when government planes bombed rebel military positions in the northern towns of Bouake and Korhogo.

Gbagbo defended the strikes as a legitimate attempt “to liberate and reunify the country” but a final raid on Saturday hit a French military base in Bouake, killing nine French troops and a US civilian and wounding 38 others.

French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier has called the strike “deliberate”.

In an immediate riposte, France wiped out Côte d’Ivoire’s aerial fleet and seized the international airport in Abidjan, once one of Africa’s most modern cities but now a battered symbol of the conflict that has devastated the country of 17-million.

France’s retaliation provoked a fierce response from “patriot” supporters of the president, who set off on a looting and vandalism spree that spared few Europeans in Abidjan.

One in four homes was estimated to have been hit by looters, who at times stayed behind to beat the terrified residents, many of whom were pulled from their rooftops by passing helicopters.

More than 2 000 foreigners have since sought shelter at the headquarters of the UN mission in Côte d’Ivoire or at a French military base that has been a regular target of the vitriol hurled at Côte d’Ivoire’s former colonial power.

The French military announced from Paris that it will mount a forward base in nearby Togo to keep aircraft within easy reach, though spokesperson Colonel Gerard Dubois ruled out any firm plans to evacuate the estimated 14 000 French nationals or other foreigners.

Debate was expected to resume on Tuesday in the UN Security Council on a French proposal to slap an arms embargo and other targeted sanctions, including a travel ban, on Côte d’Ivoire.

Permanent council member China, which generally opposes sanctions as an instrument of UN policy, was waiting for input from Côte d’Ivoire’s neighbours and the AU mission led by Mbeki before making its decision. — Sapa-AFP