South African President Thabo Mbeki met some of the key figures in Côte d’Ivoire as he held talks on Friday aimed at pushing a ”roadmap to peace” for the divided West African nation, but he faced big hurdles.
Rebel leaders who control most of the north said they were refusing to talk to the Ivorian army, while hardline backers of President Laurent Gbagbo called for a march to demand that French military peacekeepers leave the country.
Mbeki arrived on Thursday in the troubled country’s commercial capital Abidjan and has been shuttling between talks with the main players.
He was due to travel Sunday to Bouake, the base in central Côte d’Ivoire of the rebels, whose uprising in September 2002 sparked the ongoing crisis.
Côte d’Ivoire’s New Forces rebels said in a statement they were ”not willing to enter into any kind of discussion with the current leaders of the Côte d’Ivoire armed forces, even if such talks are mediated by UN peacekeepers”.
In Abidjan, the leader of a group of hardline Gbagbo backers called for a ”huge march” next week to ”demand the French army leave Côte d’Ivoire”.
Seen as a neutral figure in the peace process, Mbeki met Prime Minister Seydou Diarra early on Friday for more than an hour at an Abidjan hotel, before later meeting Gbagbo at the presidential residence in the coastal city’s central business district.
Neither president made a statement after the meeting.
”He [Mbeki] is meeting all the political role-players to present them with a plan, a roadmap to peace,” said Mbeki’s spokesperson Bheki Khumalo.
Mbeki also was meeting with members of the ruling Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) and smaller parties, and the opposition alliance known as the G7.
”Mr Mbeki above all has been listening to us and our proposals,” said FPI president Pascal Affi N’guessan.
”We are trying to find solutions to the problem because as you know, the international community is asking for the applications of the agreements,” said G7 spokesperson Alphonse Djedje Mady, referring to a peace deal signed in Marcoussis, near Paris in January 2003 to bring the rebel leaders into a unity government, and a ceasefire that was reached in May that year.
Another agreement to shore up the Marcoussis pact was signed in Accra in July of this year.
”A bad agreement that is applied is better than a good agreement that is not,” added Mady, who is also the spokesperson for the former single ruling Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI).
Talks were believed to revolve around the issues of the disarmament of fighters in Côte d’Ivoire, the reunification of the country and constitutional reforms.
Mbeki visited the country early last month as part of an African Union mission aimed at restoring calm to Côte d’Ivoire after government air raids on rebel-held cities in the north marked a sharp escalation in the conflict.
The last of the air strikes hit a camp housing French peacekeepers in Bouake, killing nine of them and a United States aid worker.
France retaliated swiftly, wiping out the Ivorian air force and sparking riots targeting French and other expatriates, many of whom have fled Côte d’Ivoire.
African leaders fear that the unrest in Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s leading producer of cocoa and once the economic powerhouse of West Africa, could spill across its borders and destabilise the volatile region.
Mbeki was due to wrap up his visit and return to South Africa on Monday. – Sapa-AFP