POLITICS-COTE D’IVOIRE: New Ceasefire Fails to Signal an End to Conflict

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Georges Konan

ABIDJAN, May 12 2003 (IPS) - Although a new ceasefire has been signed by rebel and government representatives in Cote d’Ivoire, there is little evidence that sustainable peace can be hoped for in the former French colony.

The ceasefire – signed by the head of the Ivorian army, Mathias Doue, and rebel representative and now Minister of Sport and Leisure, Michel Gueu – was agreed to and signed last week. Government, opposition party, and rebel officials praised the accord at the time, saying they thought it could signal the end to nearly eight months of combat.

But within hours of the signing, reports filtered from the battle-scarred west of Cote d’Ivoire that fighting had erupted again between government and rebel forces. The clashes, which took place near Danane, close to the country’s border with Liberia, continued into Saturday night, stopping just before the ceasefire deadline took effect at midnight, Sunday morning.

Antoine Beugre, a spokesperson for the Patriotic Movement for Cote d’Ivoire (MPCI) accused the army, loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo, of trying to acquire as much territory as possible before the ceasefire took hold. "They know the accord starts at midnight," Beugre said. "That’s why they launched the offensive when they did."

Cote d’Ivoire’s army denied the charge that they had begun the fight, saying their forces only respond if attacked.

Also last week the Liberian government claimed to have shot and killed Sam Bockarie – known widely by his battle name, "Mosquito" – who was said to have been spotted crossing in Liberia from western Cote d’Ivoire.

Bockarie was one of Africa’s most-wanted men from his days as a warlord with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) during Sierra Leone’s 10 years of civil war, where he was renowned for chopping off the limbs of innocent civilians. In late April he was blamed for the death of Cote d’Ivoire rebel commander Felix Doh near Danane.

Liberia President Charles Taylor, meanwhile, was busy crying foul that the United Nations had voted to extend sanctions against his country – imposed for Taylor’s support of the RUF rebels in Sierra Leone as well as his general sponsoring of unrest in the region, including in Cote d’Ivoire.

On May 7 the Democratic Party of Cote d’Ivoire (PDCI) – the country’s oldest party and the party of Felix Houphouet-Boigny, its first president – led a movement in congress giving President Gbagbo an ultimatum for filling the position of Minister of Defence. Representatives of all parties but Gbagbo’s signed the ultimatum. That move prompted the emergence, once again, of the Young Patriots – the young men virulently loyal to Gbagbo who organised riots that wreaked destruction in Abidjan over the course of several weeks in January and February.

A group of men aligned with the Young Patriots threatened to set fire to the PDCI headquarters in Abidjan on Friday, but they were pushed back by PDCI loyalists. The incident prompted the secretary general of PDCI to announce that his party would soon organise a large demonstration "to declare peace in Cote d’Ivoire".

All of these machinations might seem like so many vulgar moves on a checker board. But they are the stuff of politics-as-usual in this part of West Africa over the past few years, and there is little sign of change on the horizon.

Local newspapers continue to print headlines that seethe – proudly displaying the papers’ allegiances as their writers point angry fingers of blame at rebels, Gbagbo, Taylor, or Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore, depending on whom the paper supports.

Gbagbo’s spokespersons continue to show their disdain for French involvement in the conflict, saying angrily – and off the record – that they wish the French peacekeeping force (nearly 4,000 in number) would pick up, fly home, and leave the army and the rebels to fight it out.

Meanwhile Gbagbo talks of peace and courts ambassadors and officials from corporations and aid organisations, hoping to convince the world that it is safe, once again, to invest in Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa, coffee, oil, rubber, and other natural resources.

But the United States has refused to approve the creation of a U.N. aid mission for Cote d’Ivoire, and international reprimands for ceasefire violations on either side of the conflict have amounted to little more than verbal slaps on the wrist.

Perhaps what is needed in Cote d’Ivoire is sanctions. All too often sanctions – be they U.S. or U.N. in nature – come too late into a conflict, after war has destroyed so much that the prospect of more punishment is met with shoulder shrugs.

Evidence abounds that President Gbagbo’s army is helping fan the flames of conflict in Liberia. His attack helicopters have repeatedly fired on villages, long after agreements were signed calling for the helicopters to be grounded. And although mercenaries were supposed to have been told to leave in January, it is not hard to find government or army officials who acknowledge – again, off the record – their continued presence.

The rebels are no saints either. They, too, have mixed and mingled with hired guns from Liberia and Sierra Leone. And throughout the rebel-held north there are boys – with squeaky voices who refuse to give their age – toting AK-47 assault rifles.

Tough sanctions imposed today could serve as an abrupt wake-up call in Cote d’Ivoire. Abidjan, though not the glamorous city it once was, is still one of the most modern cities in West Africa, with good roads, communications systems that work, decent healthcare, and shopping malls that rival those found in Europe.

Sanctions would quickly make life hard on the thousands of foreigners who still live here, not to mention what it would do to locals. The country’s economy, already in shambles, would move to the brink of near-collapse.

Sanctions would make life worse here before it could get better. But that may be, at this point, the only good option left.

There are reports of walls being built along the front line between government and rebel troops. Not just road blocks made of car skeletons and palm fronds – but walls; sturdy structures built of bricks and cement.

Those walls say far more about the state of the rebel-government relationship than any public calls for peace.

Sitting at the same table in a unity government has not fostered trust among the still-warring sides. Recently witnesses reported that when one rebel leader came to Abidjan to begin to work in his role as a minister in the new government, he arrived to find his offices looted by his predecessor.

Such actions may continue until Cote d’Ivoire’s government and rebels are punished by something harsher than a sternly worded memo.

It may take sanctions to move this country – and the region along with it – further down the road to true peace.