IVORY COAST: President Laurent Gbagbo names a new government led by rebel leader Guillaume Soro

Record ID: 181750

  • Title: IVORY COAST: President Laurent Gbagbo names a new government led by rebel leader Guillaume Soro
  • Date: 8th April 2007
  • Summary: PALACE WITH CARS AND PEOPLE LEAVING
  • Embargoed: 23rd April 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA6P7F3144NWZJV7K25Z0HZBAJV
  • Story Text: Ivory Coast's President Laurent Gbagbo named a new government on Saturday (April 7), led by rebel leader Guillaume Soro under a deal to reunite a country divided since a 2002-03 civil war.
    The two agreed last month to disarm fighters and organise elections within 10 months. Gbagbo subsequently appointed Soro prime minister, stoking hopes the home-grown deal would succeed where a series of internationally brokered accords have failed.
    "The mission of this government is very clear, it is the government of mission that has to resolve the question of the identification, resolve the question of the revision of the army, which has to resolve the question of organization of elections. And to be a part of this team is fascinating and we think that together with the others, we are going to see that the peace process can know a happy outcome," Sidiki Konate, spokesman for Soro's New Forces rebels told reporters.
    Konate was named as tourism minister in a presidential decree read out after Gbagbo met Soro in the main city Abidjan.
    Mass immigration to prosperous Ivory Coast since independence from France in 1960 has exacerbated ethnic divisions, and the thorny issue of distributing identity papers to many people who don't have them has torn apart previous consensus governments designed to end the conflict.
    The new government includes six new ministerial appointees but leaves many portfolios unchanged from the previous unity government of interim prime minister Charles Konan Banny. The number of ministers was cut by three to
    Following the March 4 deal, brokered at Gbagbo's request by neighbouring Burkina Faso, government and rebel military chiefs agreed this week to deploy a joint force of 180 troops to start taking over the zone, patrolled by peacekeepers since 2003.
    Fernand Marcel Amoussou, commander of U.N. peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, said on Friday (April 6) the 7,000-strong U.N. force, backed by French troops, would start withdrawing on April 16.
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