Leaders in the West African regional bloc Ecowas (Economic Community of West African States) have decided to end the mediation role of South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki in Côte d’Ivoire, seen to be aligned to President Laurent Gbagbo, sources said on Thursday.
The leaders in Ecowas ”decided to set aside the South African mediation” said Ivorian New Forces rebel leader Guillaume Soro in an interview with the daily Nord-Sud.
”The Ecowas recommendations are firm: Thabo Mbeki is no longer mediator in Côte d’Ivoire,” Soro said, on the basis of recommendations unofficially published after last week’s Ecowas summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja.
”The Ecowas heads of state decided to set aside Thabo Mbeki, judged too close to the Côte d’Ivoire case. They have therefore asked the African Union president for new, more neutral mediation,” a European diplomatic source confirmed to Agence France Presse.
”They believe that as long as Mbeki is the mediator, Gbagbo’s opponents will refuse any concessions,” said the diplomat.
”Thabo Mbeki’s indecent activism and his bias have revolted the heads of states, who would not want to accept a new South African imperialism in West Africa,” Soro said.
The African Union (AU) asked Mbeki in November 2004 to mediate in the crisis amid little progress in the peace process, more than a year after the foes signed the Marcoussis peace accords.
The president of the AU Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, at the weekend defended Mbeki’s role in Ivory Coast, saying his contribution ”would be conclusive at some given time”.
”As long as there is no harmony among the AU, Ecowas and the mediation, we cannot find a good solution to this question,” said Konare.
Both the opposition and rebels last month expressed their disquiet with Mbeki’s mediation.
The opposition described Mbeki as a ”staunch supporter” of Gbagbo while rebels outrightly asked for the appointment of a new AU mediator.
Gbagbo in his speech in Abuja threw his weight behind Mbeki, who ”has done his work with serenity and determination in spite of the verbal attacks of which he been wrongfully and regularly the object”.
”He has acted with tact, respect and diplomacy to his interlocutors and has obtained, thanks to that, results,” said Gbagbo.
”He is a very good mediator and a proud African [and] I will not accept that his name be dragged through the mud,” Gbagbo said.
The AU Peace and Security Council meets on Tuesday to consider recommendations from the 15-member Ecowas, which in turn should be forwarded to the UN Security Council for a decision on the fate of the one-time bastion of stability in the region.
Côte d’Ivoire has been split into a rebel-held north and a south controlled by the government since a brief civil war that broke out in 2002 when the rebels tried to topple Gbagbo. — Sapa-AFP