Mbeki wraps up I Coast trip
2004-12-06 13:36
Abidjan - South African President Thabo Mbeki met his Ivory Coast counterpart Laurent Gbagbo and other high-ranking officials Monday as he wrapped up a four-day peace-making trip to a nation embroiled in conflict since 2002.
Even as Mbeki met Gbagbo, a key figure in Ivory Coast's struggling peace process, Benin's Albert Tevoedjre resigned as the United Nations' secretary general's special envoy to the west African country.
Tevoedjre took his decision to resign early last month, when Ivorian government forces launched a series of air raids on cities in the north of the country, held by rebels since a failed coup in September 2002, said Margherita Amodeo, spokesperson for the UN Mission in Ivory Coast, ONUCI.
"His resignation has been accepted," Amodeo said.
Tevoedjre, 75, is also the head of an international committee monitoring the application of a peace accord signed in France in January 2003, aimed at ending the conflict in Ivory Coast and dragging the country out of its political impasse.
The peace accord has never been fully implemented and even been openly breached, notably when forces loyal to President Gbagbo carried out the air strikes on the north early last month, in one of which nine French peacekeepers and a US aid worker were killed.
Mbeki visited Ivory Coast shortly after the raids, armed with an African Union mandate and charged with the tricky task of restoring peace a former in a former haven of stability and economic growth in west Africa, but mired in political bickering and violence since a coup in December 1999.
On his latest visit, Mbeki presented all parties to the Ivorian conflict with a roadmap to peace, about which few details have emerged.
Since arriving in Ivory Coast late on Thursday, Mbeki has criss-crossed the country, meeting all the key players in the crisis.
"He (Mbeki) has come here to listen to the various stakeholders and when he goes back he will have a clearer idea of how to take peace forward from point A to point B," Mbeki's spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said.
On Sunday Mbeki held talks in the central city of Bouake with rebels whose uprising in September 2002, aimed at ousting Gbagbo, sparked the simmering conflict and left the country geographically and politically divided.
Mbeki met on Monday with Gbagbo to brief him on what he discussed with the rebels.
After his meeting with Gbagbo, Mbeki was to meet with Prime Minister Seydou Diarra, who was appointed under the 2003 peace pact brokered by France, which called for Gbagbo to cede many of his executive powers to "a consensus prime minister".
Mbeki was also to meet with parliamentary speaker Mamadou Coulibaly before heading back to South Africa later on Monday, said Khumalo.
Although little has filtered through about progress towards peace achieved by Mbeki, he appeared to have made some headway after Gbagbo's government pledged to amend Ivory Coast's constitution to broaden the range of Ivorians who can run for the presidency.