African leaders on Tuesday gave South African President Thabo Mbeki more time to negotiate peace in Côte d’Ivoire, but his mediation initiative ran into trouble hours later when rebels boycotted a special Cabinet meeting on Tuesday night at which he was guest of honour.
A rebel spokesperson accused Mbeki, who has been trying to broker a peace deal for the past two months, of ”betrayal”.
The African Union’s Peace and Security Council wrapped up a summit in the Gabonese capital, Libreville, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, with a plea to all the Ivorian factions to overcome political sticking points and proceed with disarmament to pave the way for elections in October.
It also recommended that the United Nations Security Council delay imposing travel bans and asset freezes on key individuals seen as blocking the peace process in order to give Mbeki more time.
But rebel leaders failed to turn up for a planned meeting with Mbeki in Côte d’Ivoire’s official capital, Yamoussoukro, on Tuesday night, saying they would prefer to see him later in South Africa.
The rebels, who have occupied the northern half of Côte d’Ivoire since civil war erupted in September 2002, may have been irked by the AU’s refusal to call for further UN sanctions on the country.
Shortly before the Libreville summit, the G7 coalition, which groups Côte d’Ivoire’s New Forces rebel movement and the four main opposition parties in Parliament, issued a statement accusing President Laurent Gbagbo of preparing for an imminent return to war.
It urged the UN to impose a second round of sanctions immediately.
An 18-month ceasefire between Gbagbo and the rebels was broken in early November, when government forces launched an abortive offensive to try to recapture the north.
The flare-up in violence prompted the AU to call in Mbeki, a seasoned mediator, to try to put Côte d’Ivoire’s flagging peace process back on track.
Key step
A key step would be to get the country’s power-sharing government of national reconciliation working again.
The rebels have been boycotting Cabinet meetings in the main city, Abidjan, for months, saying their security cannot be guaranteed there.
Diplomats had hoped that by moving the venue of Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting from Côte d’Ivoire’s main city, Abidjan — where pro-Gbagbo mobs often rule the streets — to Yamoussoukro, 200 km to the north, and by having Mbeki at the table, the rebels could be persuaded to return.
But they refused to come.
‘We are very disappointed by the Libreville summit. They gave Gbagbo a back door,†rebel spokesperson Sidiki Konate said by telephone from Bouake. ‘The population has been betrayed by the South Africans. It’s a step backwards for which there is no precedent.â€
Before the Cabinet meeting began, officials close to Gbagbo said a no-show by the rebels would spell only one thing.
‘If they don’t come, it will show us that they don’t want to disarm and they don’t want peace. The international community should draw lessons from that,†a senior presidential aide said.
South African diplomats said they are still trying to convince New Forces leader Guillaume Soro to meet with Mbeki before the president returns home.
But Konate said the rebels do not think Yamoussoukro is a safe venue. He said they have asked to see the South African leader in Pretoria instead.
AU statement
Another thing that may have irked the rebels was an AU statement in Libreville that Gbagbo is entitled to hold a referendum on a controversial constitutional amendment.
The G7 opposition alliance believes that parliamentary approval of the reform, which allows people with only one Ivorian parent to run for head of state, should suffice.
The immediate beneficiary of constitutional amendment would be Alassane Ouattara, an exiled opposition leader who is popular in the north. He was banned from running against Gbagbo in the 2000 presidential election on the disputed grounds that his father was from Burkina Faso.
‘The council recognises that a referendum is one of the options — not the exclusive one — to which the president could have recourse, providing it is organised in a way which respects the spirit of Linas-Marcoussis,†the AU said in a statement.
Linas-Marcoussis is a suburb of Paris where the Ivorian factions negotiated a peace agreement two years ago. The deal thrashed out there still forms the blueprint for Mbeki’s peace initiative.
Diplomats say privately that anyone campaigning against the constitutional change after Parliament had approved the measure by an overwhelming majority, would be betraying the spirit of Linas-Marcoussis.
A question of time
Many also question whether there is enough time left to hold a referendum before presidential polls set for October.
But officials close to the Ivorian president insisted there is.
‘I’ll take you back to the year 2000 when there was a referendum in July and elections followed in October, so why can’t we do the same thing this year?†one senior aide of Gbagbo said.
But diplomats note that for a referendum to take place, Côte d’Ivoire would have to be reunited and the rebels would have to disarm first.
Mbeki’s proposed timetable for putting the peace process back on track, agreed with Gbagbo and the rebels on December 6, envisaged disarmament starting on January 15 and ending by early April.
UN officials say the cantonment sites are ready. But Konate, the rebel spokesperson, said categorically on Tuesday that no rebel fighters will be handing in their guns this week.
‘There will be no disarmament,†he said.
With no breakthrough in sight in Mbeki’s mediation efforts, the AU Peace and Security Council has urged the UN to increase the number of UN peacekeepers in Côte d’Ivoire and give them a stronger mandate.
About 6Â 000 UN peacekeepers, along with 4Â 000 French soldiers, are deployed in the West African country to keep the two sides apart.
Last month, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recommended that the UN force be increased to 7 466 after several days of mob violence in November left it ‘strained to the limit.â€
The UN Security Council has not so far reacted to this request. — Irin