Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo arrived in the rebel headquarters and second city of Bouake on Monday for the first time since civil war split the country in two nearly five years ago.
Gbagbo met former rebel chief Guillaume Soro, whom he appointed prime minister in April under the latest plan to reunite the country, ahead of a ”Flame of Peace” ceremony to burn weapons later on Monday.
”I was cut off from Bouake for four, five years. I’m moved but I am happy. I am happy because the country has regained its unity. It’s really all I was aiming for. I’m happy,” Gbagbo told reporters while waiting at Bouake airport with Soro.
The ceremony is meant as the symbolic start of a disarmament process whose details still have to be agreed on by Soro’s New Forces rebels, who took control of the north of the world’s top cocoa producer in a brief 2002/03 civil war.
Gbagbo has declared Monday a public holiday, and thousands of people massed around Bouake’s main sports stadium hoping to get inside for the gun-burning ceremony later on.
Among them were hard-line Gbagbo supporters known as ”Young Patriots”, who had travelled north from the main city, Abidjan, where in the past they have led violent protests against those they suspect of supporting the northern rebellion.
Security
Security was tight, with large numbers of government army soldiers, distinguished by bright orange bands on their shoulders, mixing with rebel New Forces soldiers in Bouake and on the main roads in and out of town.
Gbagbo travelled by road to Monday’s celebrations, which were delayed by several weeks due to an assassination attempt against Soro.
The prime minister escaped unhurt when several rockets were fired at his plane shortly after he arrived in Bouake on June 29, but the blast hit four of his aides.
Some analysts and diplomats have said rebel factions who feel they have lost income or influence due to the latest peace deal may have been responsible, although neither Soro nor Gbagbo have said who they suspect and investigations are ongoing.
On Monday Gbagbo and Soro waited side by side at the same airport, greeting heads of state from Niger, Togo and other nearby countries as they arrived for the ceremony.
Among those expected was Blaise Compaore, president of Côte d’Ivoire’s northern neighbour, Burkina Faso, who some Gbagbo supporters accused of complicity in the rebellion in the early days of the war, but who has emerged as the prime mediator and helped clinch the latest peace deal in March.
While the worst of the fighting ended within a few months of the war starting, a string of peace deals has failed to reunite the country, disarm fighters and organise long-overdue elections, which Soro is tasked with arranging by early 2008. — Reuters