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Analysis: Ivory Coast remains beset with problems

By William M. Reilly
UPI United Nations Correspondent

Published January 30, 2006


Opposition leader Alassane Ouattara returned to Ivory Coast earlier in the week as nearly a quarter of the "U.N. family" of humanitarians fled violence in the cocoa-rich West African nation once held up as a model of success.
    
    Verbal and physical attacks were directed, especially in government-controlled areas of the divided country, against U.N. personnel and property. Rebels hold the north, the government the south, with international peacekeepers separating.
    
    Making a plea for peace, the leader of the opposition Rally of the Republicans party and former Prime Minister Ouattara fled the country with the help of French special forces following the torching of his home at the 2002 outbreak of civil war.
    
    "I would like to issue a call for union, for appeasement, and say that it's with much love that I'm returning to my country to participate in the political process, in reconciliation," Ouattara said on his return from self-imposed exile Wednesday before driving off under the protection of U.N. peacekeepers.
    
    Presidential elections in Ivory Coast have been scheduled by the U.N. Security Council for later this year under terms that prolonged the five-year mandate of President Laurent Gbagbo by up to 12 months after the country failed to meet the previous schedule last October.
    
    Ouattara, who notably has support from the north, was banned from running in previous presidential polls on the grounds one of his parents was not from the Ivory Coast. Under pressure from peace mediators, Gbagbo last year pledged that his rival would be allowed to participate in the race.
    
    Contention over citizenship has long been a problem for Ivory Coast, the government having set strict standards in a move to limit certain ethnic groups' voting rights.
    
    Coinciding with Ouattara's return Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council extended until Dec. 15 the mandate for the peacekeeping force, known by its French acronym, UNOCI, which was brought in to maintain peace and help steer the war-divided country toward disarmament and elections.
    
    However, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's request for some 4,000 extra troops was rejected.
    
    The U.N. Mission has a strength of up to 7,090 troops and 725 international police. The blue helmets work with a 4,000-strong force of French peacekeepers.
    
    France, the former colonial power and already suppliers of its own force allowed under U.N. mandate, also wanted an increase.
    
    The United States did not, despite the flare up of violence earlier in the week.
    
    John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador, said he wanted to study the situation more carefully, saying, in so many words, he did not want to throw good money after bad, questioning whether additional troops were needed.
    
    The French are still pushing for an increase. Washington is studying the situation and the feeling in the corridors at U.N. World Headquarters is there will most likely be an increase.
    
    Extension of the peacekeeping mandate came ahead of meetings in New York expected to determine whether the United Nations will impose individual sanctions against Ivorian leaders seen as sabotaging the peace process, or inciting hatred and violence.
    
    Following attacks last week on U.N. offices in Ivory Coast, about 400 staff members were evacuated to Gambia and Senegal for their safety, said Pierre Schori, special representative of the secretary-general and the chief of the UN mission in Ivory Coast.
    
    Schori was at U.N. World Headquarters in New York Thursday to deliver a closed-door briefing to the council on the situation.
    
    Schori said there were about 1,200 civilians in the peacekeeping mission and, adding in the humanitarian agencies, staff of the "U.N. family" assigned to the non-family post numbered about 2,000 people.
    
    Attacks on the United Nations took place in the commercial capital, Abidjan, in the west and other government-controlled areas, he said. Given the vitriolic nature of anti-United Nations propaganda by government-controlled broadcasters and other media, the situation might not improve for several days.
    
    Schori, who spent four days sleeping on a mattress while under siege in his own office, told reporters after his council briefing that some of the staff had been traumatized and needed to rest.
    
    In the west of the country, humanitarian agencies were chased out and their offices and warehouses were looted and destroyed. The government, especially the Ministry of Defense, was asked to check out the situation before U.N. staff would be allowed to return.
    
    However, the situation was reported to have eased.
    
    There were no major reports of violence Thursday or Friday, one U.N. official told United Press International.
    
    Because the recent unrest was unexpected, UNOCI had not been given certain equipment and was not well-equipped for riot control, having only three formed police units and three armored vehicles in Abidjan, said Schori, who told reporters he had requested additional equipment from the council.
    
    A non-binding recommendation from the U.N.-authorized International Working Group to close down the Assembly, whose mandate had expired, had triggered the unrest by Gbagbo's supporters.
    
    While Gbagbo was not saying anything publicly, his supporters, called Young Patriots, saw the assembly's closing as undermining his position, transferring powers to newly appointed Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny.
    
    "I don't want this to happen again and I want those who are behind this to be punished," Schori said.
    
    





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