South Africa on Thursday defended President Thabo Mbeki’s maligned mediation efforts in the world’s top cocoa producer, Côte d’Ivoire, which has been split in half since a September 2002 rebellion.
”South Africa did not go and start mediating in the Côte d’Ivoire issue because we had nothing to do,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad told reporters in Cape Town.
”We were requested by the African Union and the then-chairperson of [West African regional bloc] Ecowas, [Nigerian] President Olusegun Obasanjo, to get involved at a time when the crisis was really serious.”
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade last month indirectly called on Mbeki to keep out of Côte d’Ivoire politics, saying it was essentially a West African problem.
Mbeki, as AU mediator, had attempted to jumpstart a stalled peace process, but has so far failed to attain any concrete breakthroughs.
Côte d’Voire’s rebel New Forces, which have held the north of the country since a failed coup against President Laurent Gbagbo, have also asked for Mbeki to be replaced as mediator.
New Forces leader Guillaume Soro and a western diplomat said on Thursday that Ecowas no longer wanted Mbeki as peacebroker as he was deemed to be too close to Gbagbo.
The AU’s Peace and Security Council is to discuss the Côte d’Ivoire situation on October 17, examining a recommendation from Ecowas that recently called for Gbagbo’s tenure to be extended again by one year amid the continuing political crisis.
Gbagbo was elected in 2000 for a five-year mandate.
Elections were set for last October, but the UN extended Gbagbo’s tenure for a year while empowering the Ivorian prime minister to oversee a transitional period until presidential and general elections. — Sapa-AFP