South African President and peace-broker Thabo Mbeki resumed a second day of make-or-break talks on Monday with Côte d’Ivoire leaders to try to end a civil conflict that has split the country since 2002, his spokesperson said.
”The talks resumed at 10am and will continue throughout the day,” Mbeki’s spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said.
Earlier, Khumalo said on SAFM radio that Mbeki, mandated by the African Union to broker a peace deal, was determined to succeed.
”That’s why the president said yesterday… in a light-hearted way that the leaders are not going to leave from [Pretoria’s] Waterkloof airforce base until such time as in fact they have found a solution,” he said.
The talks come ahead of the imminent expiry of the mandate of some 10 000 peacekeepers, of whom 6 000 are from the United Nations and 4 000 from Côte d’Ivoire’s former colonial ruler France.
An Ivorian source had earlier appeared upbeat about the talks, saying: ”There was progress today [Sunday]. We are satisfied. There is a lot of hope. We will leave Pretoria with a concrete proposal for peace.”
The talks began Sunday on an optimistic note and carried on late into the night, with all the key players temporarily shelving a hotly disputed clause that forbids anyone who is not 100% Ivorian from contesting the presidency, another Ivorian source said on condition of anonymity.
The source said the discussions had moved to legislative reforms and added that the conditions of eligibility to contest the presidency would be taken up later on Monday.
The leaders attending the meeting include President Laurent Gbagbo; main opposition leader Alassane Ouattara; former president Henri Konan Bedie who was toppled in Côte d’Ivoire’s first coup; Seydou Diarra, consensus prime minister of a government of national reconciliation, and rebel leader Guillaume Soro.
Côte d’Ivoire’s rebellion broke out in September 2002 in the Muslim-dominated north against the government of Gbagbo, a Christian from the south, whom the rebels accused of marginalising and ignoring their region and people.
The main stumbling block to peace is the question of disarmament with rebels refusing to lay down their arms until pro-government militias disarm. The government, however, denies the existence of militias and says ”patriotic” groups do not bear weapons.
Another thorny point is the contentious Article 35 of the Ivorian constitution, which prevents main opposition leader Ouattara from contesting elections due in October this year.
It stipulates that anyone who does not have two Ivorian parents cannot contest the top job and was used to bar him from standing in the last presidential election won by Gbagbo in 2000. — Sapa-AFP