Representatives of the rebel New Forces arrived in Pretoria on Thursday convinced they hold the moral high ground in African-led efforts to end the two-year crisis in Côte d’Ivoire.
They have seized the initiative in being first to come back to President Thabo Mbeki since his visit to the troubled West African state last week.
Louis Dacoury-Tabley, the deputy chief of the New Forces, comes with a draft peace plan. ”We have analysed the proposals made by President Mbeki with the solemnity that these circumstances dictate,” his organisation said on his departure.
As the African Union’s mediator in Côte d’Ivoire, Mbeki is now in his third round of talks with the Ivorian players.
On the surface the positions of both sides have not softened. The New Forces say there can be no settlement while President Laurent Gbagbo remains in power.
For his part, Gbagbo insists on seeking a humiliating stand-down by the rebels before making progress on implementing the peace deal to which he has already committed.
Mbeki has carefully stayed within the ambit of that deal, known as Linas Marcoussis and signed in France in January 2003.
Gbagbo’s refusal to bring the opposition — both armed and unarmed — into a transitional government has paralysed the country politically.
Gbagbo’s attack on the rebel stronghold of Bouake precipitated the crisis that brought Côte d’Ivoire back into the United Nations Security Council.
The UN powerhouse even-handedly slapped a weapons ban on all Ivorian parties and threatened further action — travel bans and freezing bank accounts — against anyone seeking to retard or hamper peace efforts.
The UN appears inclined to give Mbeki’s mediation attempts some time and space before lowering the boom. But Western members — particularly France — want to keep Gbagbo on a short leash.
By killing nine French peacekeepers in his attack on Bouake, Gbagbo moved swiftly from friend to foe in Parisian eyes. The immediate French retaliation — destroying Gbagbo’s civilian and military jets — is proving less damaging than the long-term political havoc it may cause.
Security Council members are content, but not entirely convinced, by small signs of progress from Mbeki’s efforts so far. The most important of these is getting Gbagbo to have the Côte d’Ivoire national assembly review controversial nationality legislation relating to presidential candidates.
Gbagbo has used the requirement that both parents of a candidate must be born in Côte d’Ivoire to block his major rival, Alassane Ouattara, from running against him.
The rebels’ announcement that they were coming to have further talks with Mbeki — and that they were bringing a piece of paper with them — was carefully timed to meet the UN deadline for deciding on further punishment.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan underlined the delicacy of the Ivorian situation in his latest report to the Security Council this week. He called for 1 200 troops to augment the 6 250 blue berets already in the country.