I Coast breaks arms embargo
2005-07-01 11:58
Yamoussoukro - The United Nations on Thursday accused Ivory Coast's army of breaking an arms embargo slapped on the West African nation last year by importing 22 military jeeps through a port normally used to off-load fruit.
The vehicles arrived in the main city, Abidjan, on June 23, a week before all sides in a three-year conflict recommitted themselves to a faltering peace agreement during talks on Wednesday in Pretoria, South Africa, said UN mission spokesperson Margherita Amodeo.
The army issued a brief statement confirming it had ordered the jeeps, but without saying where they would be used or from whom they had been ordered. The jeeps did not have weapons affixed to them.
Amodeo said the discovery was the first confirmed case of military equipment being imported in violation of the 13-month embargo, imposed by the UN Security Council in November. She said UN troops had carried out about 100 random inspections since March at strategic sites in the country including at ports, airports and borders.
The incident was reported to a UN sanctions committee in New York, Amodeo said.
UN troops had not seized the jeeps, but the army offered to hand them over if the sanctions committee determined there was an official violation, UN officials said.
Amodeo expressed hope the find would not affect the warring parties' latest commitment to peace.
"Hopefully now that the parties have shown their commitment and the political will by signing this declaration in Pretoria, things will go smoothly," Amodeo said.
After Wednesday's talks brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki, Ivory Coast rivals set a new August 20 deadline for a disarmament campaign that repeatedly has been delayed. The last missed deadline was June 27.
In Pretoria, the parties also agreed the UN Security Council and the 53-nation African Union should impose sanctions against any party that fails to live up to its obligations under an April peace deal, brokered by South Africa.
Elections are scheduled for October, but concerns the ballot will not take place on time are growing.
The UN imposed the embargo shortly after government forces tried to re-ignite the country's long-dormant civil war with several days of air attacks on rebels in the north.
When Ivorian jets killed nine French peacekeepers in an air raid, France wiped out the Ivorian military's modest air force in Yamoussoukro - touching off violent demonstrations that led to the evacuation of thousands of foreigners.
About 6 000 UN peacekeepers and 4 000 French troops are deployed in Ivory Coast, a former French colony, to try to monitor and promote peace in the wake of a failed September 2002 coup attempt that sparked a war in which rebels seized the northern half of the country.
Ivory Coast, the world's No 1 cocoa producer, was an oasis of stability in war-ravaged West Africa until the country's first-ever coup in 1999.
- AP