Three years into a conflict that has cut the once-prosperous Côte d’Ivoire in two and plunged the West African country into its deepest political crisis, no resolution is in sight.
Even United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has admitted that presidential elections planned for October 30 will most likely be abandoned, and tensions threaten to boil over into fresh conflict between President Laurent Gbagbo’s supporters and opposition forces.
Although the UN announced on Friday the demobilisation of more than 5 000 militiamen loyal to the president in accordance with disarmament plans, earlier this month Annan voiced his despair over the lack of political progress, and threatened the president with sanctions if no advance is made.
”Each side is waiting for the other. They’ve signed several agreements. They have no problem signing them, but implementation is another story,” said Annan.
For the armed opposition, Guillaume Soro, leader of the rebel New Forces (FN) and part of a government supposed to usher in a transition, has again called on the president to step down and said he no longer recognises South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki as a mediator in the long-running dispute.
On September 18 and 19 2002, the FN staged an armed rebellion, but its coup attempt failed.
A first attempt to end the conflict with the French-led Linas-Marcoussis peace accords of January 2003 reinforced the division of the country with the introduction of peacekeepers, with efforts to resolve the political stand-off making halting progress.
FN rebels control the largely Muslim north and loyalist forces retain the mainly Christian south, while 10 000 UN and French troops patrol the truce lines.
The government of national reconciliation — established by the 2003 peace accords, bringing together all Ivorian groups including the former rebels — has been described as increasingly moribund by observers in Abidjan, often handicapped by dissent and reluctant participation.
Agreements signed in April and June in South Africa, which was appointed by the African Union to try to move forward the 2003 accords, remain unenforced.
Before the September 2002 coup attempt, Côte d’Ivoire was considered to be a relatively successful post-colonial state and, as the world’s largest producer of cocoa, was the strongest economic power in its region.
In the intervening years, the northern rebel forces have gradually established their own parallel ”government” in the 60% of the country under their control, which is home to five million of the country’s 17-million citizens.
Having failed to take the country’s economic centre, Abidjan, from loyalists, Soro’s forces set up their own capital in the second city, Bouake, and though they cannot profit from the economic riches of the south, namely cocoa, coffee and oil, their northern territory is strong in cotton production. — Sapa-AFP