Leaders meet in SA over I Coast
2004-11-13 19:38
Pretoria - Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore arrived here on Saturday to meet with President Thabo Mbeki ahead of a summit of African leaders aimed at resolving the latest upsurge of violence in Ivory Coast, a foreign affairs spokesperson said.
Regional leaders are intensifying efforts to find a lasting solution to the country's now 2-year-old civil war amid fears the crisis could destabilize the rest of West Africa.
Compaore and Mbeki would meet on Saturday afternoon to discuss the situation in Ivory Coast, South African foreign affairs spokesperson Manusha Pillay said.
Ivory Coast has accused Compaore of supporting the rebels in the north. Burkina Faso in turn accuses Ivory Coast of attempting a coup against Compaore earlier this year.
"President Mbeki is very keen to resolve the crisis. Ivory Coast is a very important country. It is important to both the region and the continent," Mbeki's spokesperson, Bheki Khumalo, said before the meeting in Pretoria.
At least 27 people - and possibly many more - have been killed in violence that erupted more than a week ago when an Ivorian airstrike in the rebel-held north killed nine French peacekeepers and an American aid worker.
Met President Laurent Gbagbo
The bombing came days after the Ivorian government broke a year-long cease fire and attacked the rebels. French troops retaliated to the bombing by destroying the country's tiny airforce, sparking anti-foreigner riots by loyalist youth in south.
Mbeki flew to Ivory Coast last week to meet President Laurent Gbagbo before hosting talks in South Africa with representatives of the country's political opposition. He was due to meet later on Saturday with Ivory's Coast former prime minister, Alassane Ouattara, now the main opposition leader.
On Sunday, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the current chairperson of the African Union, will host a summit of African leaders to discuss the crisis. Gbagbo, Mbeki and Compaore are among those expected to attend the meeting, but Mbeki's office has indicated that he would not attend.
But Ivory Coast's main rebel movement is refusing to participate in peace talks as long as Gbagbo remains in power.
France has 4 000 troops in the west African country, serving alongside about 6 000 UN troops, most of them deployed around a buffer zone between the north and south.
Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, was West Africa's economic powerhouse for decades. But dwindling commodity prices and growing political unrest opened the way for its first-ever coup, in 1999.
- AP