Rebel leaders controlling half of the West African state of Côte d’Ivoire said on Tuesday their forces have begun pulling back from sections of the front line as agreed under an ongoing peace process.
”We have dismantled checkpoints in the region of Botro [centre] and begun transporting our elements to a regroupment site,” rebel New Forces spokesperson Sidiki Konate said.
He said 230 soldiers have ”disengaged” from about 40km of front line and all the rebel forces deployed in forward areas will be eventually pulled back over the next two weeks.
The military council of the New Forces (FN) rebels, who have controlled half the West African country since late 2002, said earlier on Tuesday it is committed to ”applying peace accords in full”.
”This is why the New Forces plan to begin a pre-regroupment starting Tuesday March 23 at Botro” in central Côte d’Ivoire, said a communiqué released after a meeting on Monday of the council.
The FN gave no details of a timetable for disarmament, but the top military meeting was announced by rebel leader Guillaume Soro during a weekend visit to the north by transitional Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny, named by foreign mediators to end years of stalemate.
The rebels had hitherto refused to withdraw from their forward positions facing a so-called ”confidence zone” bisecting the former French colony and patrolled by United Nations and French troops.
The regular army at the weekend said it had begun withdrawing troops last week and an Agence France-Presse correspondent on Tuesday watched one advance unit pull out of Didieve close to the ”confidence zone”.
The army general staff said it plans to have all its men pulled back from the lines into 35 bases by Sunday, three days ahead of a planned May 31 Yamoussoukro meeting between the general staff on both sides.
Côte d’Ivoire, a country of 16-million, has been divided since a failed coup attempt against President Laurent Gbagbo in September 2002 by the FN, who have controlled the north ever since.
Soro announced rebel moves at the weekend, in remarks carried by the FN press service, saying he wants to commit his military team to implementing the timetable of a disarmament programme signed a year ago.
In a conciliatory tone towards his political foes in the Abidjan government, with the prime minister present as he spoke, Soro said: ”I have personally decided to be at your side to push forward the reconciliation process towards completion.”
”With your methodical and progressive approach you are succeeding slowly but surely in definitively extricating Côte d’Ivoire from its crisis,” he told the prime minister.
Banny — appointed by international peace brokers as the head of a transitional government after failed elections last October — was accompanied by several of his ministers plus foreign envoys on his weekend tour of the rebel north.
The parallel troop withdrawals are supposed to lead to the demobilisation of 42 500 FN rebels, with 5 000 regular army troops and 12 000 members of hard-line militias loyal to Gbagbo. — Sapa-AFP