I Coast 'rebels' boycott Mbeki
2005-01-12 10:19
Yamoussoukro - President Thabo Mbeki, attempting to mediate the peace efforts in Ivory Coast, attended a cabinet meeting in the divided West African country on Tuesday but a no-show by ex-rebel members of the government of national reconciliation highlighted the problems he faces.
The New Forces, who control the Muslim majority north, "will not be in Yamoussoukro. We have informed the mediator," said spokesperson Sidiki Konate.
"We proposed, for security reasons, that the meeting take place in South Africa," he added.
The rebels have refused to attend such meetings since November when a string of government air strikes on the rebel-held north reportedly claimed dozens of lives and shattered an 18-month-old ceasefire.
This was Mbeki's third trip to Ivory Coast since he took up a mandate in November from the 53-nation African Union (AU) to try to clinch a peace deal in the former French colony.
He arrived in Yamoussoukro, 250km north of Abidjan, earlier on Tuesday from Gabon where he briefed other African Union leaders gathered for a Peace and Security Council summit on his discussions with the various Ivorian parties.
The AU's Security Council said on Monday a referendum may be the way to solve the division over nationality restrictions on presidential candidates.
Last month, Ivorian deputies voted to scrap the contentious Article 35, an amendment to the constitution that says the father and mother of the president must be Ivorians, eliminating many people of mixed parentage, including popular opposition politician Alassane Ouattara.
But President Laurent Gbagbo has insisted he wants the changes to the article, a key factor behind the country's crisis, put to a referendum.
AU 'backtracking'
The opposition and former rebels contend that his insistence is an obstacle to peace and to the implementation of the peace deal signed in France in January 2003.
On Tuesday a rebel spokesperson said the AU was "backtracking" by saying that a referendum might be the solution.
One-quarter of Ivory Coast's 16.8 million people have foreign roots which, under a xenophobic policy known as Ivorianness, prevented them from holding national identity cards or owning land.
Konate warned that in the current circumstances "the referendum could mean war".
Upon his arrival here, Mbeki met Gbagbo and then prime minister Seydou Diarra before taking part in the "extraordinary" cabinet meeting shunned by the ex-rebels.
Mbeki also met members of the independent national electoral commission set up under a two-year-old peace agreement signed in Marcoussis, France.
This commission includes representatives from the African Union, the UN, the EU, the United States, the World Bank, France and the 15-nation west African regional bloc Ecowas.
Mbeki last month unveiled a four-point roadmap to peace in the onetime economic powerhouse of west Africa, including an agreement on the need to tackle the thorny issue of nationality.