African leaders were set to convene in Addis Ababa on Tuesday in a renewed attempt to resolve the crisis of Côte d’Ivoire, but observers here predicted a continued stalemate with the problem likely to be passed on to the United Nations.
More than a dozen African leaders belonging to the African Union (AU) were once again addressing the problem of a lasting settlement in the West African state of Côte d’Ivoire, divided since a failed coup four years ago.
Meanwhile more than 10 000 people demonstrated on Sunday in this major Côte d’Ivoire city, calling for President Laurent Gbagbo to step down, a day after the United Nations postponed elections.
The UN announced on Saturday it would postpone planned Ivorian elections for up to a year, and predicted a new resolution would be passed in a fresh bid to secure peace.
The final recommendations of the AU meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa will go to the UN Security Council, meeting on October 25 to decide details of a new plan for Côte d’Ivoire.
”This time the new delay absolutely must serve as a way to emerge from the crisis,” Gerard Stoudman, top UN representative in Côte d’Ivoire, told the organisation’s radio station in Abidjan.
”Something must happen in 2007… We can’t remain in the status quo.”
The AU meeting in Addis Ababa was expected to echo a recent conclusion by the West Africa’s Ecowas bloc that the current UN resolution on Côte d’Ivoire is a failure.
Resolution 1633 extended Gbagbo’s mandate in office for one year, and stipulated that presidential elections must take place by October 31.
But a year later, the elections have been postponed a second time, and Gbagbo is still president.
Moreover there appears to be little international consensus on how to overcome the roadblocks to peace — which arguably include the Ivorian leader.
Gbagbo can count on support from Angola, Libya, Rwanda, South Africa and Zimbabwe, several diplomats say. But others — including Burkina Faso, Gabon and Senegal — side with France and other Gbagbo critics.
The latter group wants a new UN resolution to reinforce the powers of Ivorian Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny, appointed by the international community in December to advance the peace process — to the arguable detriment of Gbagbo’s political interests.
Those divisions will force the latest AU meeting to merely reaffirm the main principles of UN resolution 1633, several diplomats speculated, without weighing in on controversial power-sharing questions.
”The supporters and opponents of Mr Gbagbo are going to neutralise each other,” one European diplomat said. ”The AU doesn’t want to hear talk of suspending Mr Gbagbo’s powers — that is suspending the Ivorian Constitution — out of solidarity among the heads of state. Moreover, a number of countries believe that Mr Banny hasn’t used all the powers given to him by 1633.”
As a result, it will be up to the UN to settle on an acceptable compromise between the rival stances — but not necessarily a way out of the impasse, several diplomats said.
The AU was also expected to discuss Tuesday the future of Côte d’Ivoire mediation efforts by South African President Thabo Mbeki.
Ecowas, the West African group, is pressing for Mbeki’s departure, diplomats say, judging him too close to Gbagbo to fulfill his function.
Meanwhile, despite calls for calm from UN peacekeepers in Côte d’Ivoire, opponents of Gbagbo rallied more than 10 000 demonstrators in a stadium here on Sunday, brandishing banners reading ”Gbagbo must be chased from power.”
The UN force said in a statement it had received information that demonstrations were planned in Abidjan in the next few days.
It appealed to ”all sides to abstain from any acts of provocation that could cause unnecessary clashes and thus endanger the security situation”.
Ahead of the Addis Ababa session, ”it is imperative to preserve a climate of peace and calm in the country,” it said. – Sapa-AFP