I Coast ex-rebels to disarm
2010-03-15 20:03
Abidjan - Ivory Coast's former rebel New Forces, led by Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, on Monday pledged to disarm before a presidential election slated for late April or early May.
FN leaders, who control the north of the divided west African country since a foiled coup bid against Gbagbo in September 2002, met at the weekend in their headquarters town of Bouake in central Ivory Coast.
The FN "commit themselves to DDR," or disarmament, demobilisation and reinsertion of former fighters, "one month" before the holding of the presidential election, they said in a statement sent to AFP.
"I ask Ivorians to be patient and above all calm because disarmament will take place in line with the (peace) accords... We made a commitment, we will apply it," Soro said in the text.
"The question of disarmament should not frighten anybody," he added, warning that it will be a "long process".
The last peace accord, signed at the end of 2008, provides for the disarmament of FN members who will not have been demobilised nor made part of the joint brigades to be formed with the army to oversee the presidential poll.
President Laurent Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front party (FPI) regularly calls for the rebels to be disarmed before an election.
Elections have been postponed seven times since Gbagbo's mandate ran out in 2005, the latest delay coming in February when the head of state scrapped both the government and the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI).
He accused the latter of fraud in compiling the electoral roles.
Soro now heads a new government and a new CEI has gone to work, leading the mediator in the peace process, Ivory Coast's President Blaise Compaore, to say that the presidential election is now due in "late April-early May."
Soro has called for the election to take place by June.
- SAPA