IVORY COAST: Deal to create joint patrols of government and rebel forces gives hope to Ivorians living in the war-torn land
Record ID:
182026
IVORY COAST: Deal to create joint patrols of government and rebel forces gives hope to Ivorians living in the war-torn land
- Title: IVORY COAST: Deal to create joint patrols of government and rebel forces gives hope to Ivorians living in the war-torn land
- Date: 21st March 2007
- Summary: (AD1) GABEAGI, IVORY COAST (MARCH 12, 2007) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF COCOAS FARMER HARVESTING COCOA VARIOUS OF COCOA FARMER DRYING COCOA
- Embargoed: 5th April 2007 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVAAUHDYOQ4RYJOSAN5P9NAQWC4L
- Story Text: French peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast prepares to dismantle a buffer zone which they have policed between the rebel-held north and government-run south since the 2002-2003 civil war in preparation to hand over the region to a joint force of Government and rebel military, in a first step towards unifying government and rebel forces in the West African Country.
French peacekeeping forces were still patrolling to ensure security in a buffer area between the government and rebel-controlled territories in western Ivory coast, around 600 km from the capital Abidjan, in preparation to hand over the task to a joint Ivorian force, made up of government troops and rebels New Forces soldiers.
This is a first step towards unifying government and rebel forces in the West African Country.
The French peacekeeping force deal with the day-to-day security in the region, to prevent villagers getting caught in armed conflicts.
The agreement called on the United Nations and French peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast to dismantle a buffer zone which they have policed between the rebel-held north and government-run south since the 2002-2003 civil war.
People in the area, whose security had been ensured by the French force Licorne, and who have been living in uncertainty for years, are taking this latest move with mixed feelings.
"What we would like is for the living conditions to improve, because here we are a little stuck, true enough that we are in the buffer zone (zone of confidence), we are stuck, if we go towards the (government) loyalists, that makes our life difficult, and the people from the other side, from the rebels' side are the same. So we are truly stuck here," said one of the villagers living in Toulepleu, a village around 600 Km from Ivory Coast's capital Abidjan.
Scores of cocoa farmers plan to return next week to plantations they fled in western Ivory Coast due to a 2002-03 civil war, as renewed efforts to reunite the war-divided state ease ethnic tensions.
Nearly 500 people, including planters, their wives and children, will go back to villages around Toulepleu near the Liberian border after sheltering for nearly four years in a camp for internally displaced, often to avoid inter-communal clashes.
Fighting in the war was most intense in the west, uprooting thousands of villagers.
Most farmers in the camp hail from Burkina Faso, from where thousands of migrants arrived in Ivory Coast in the 1970s, their manpower transforming the west of Ivory Coast into the most productive cocoa region in the world's No.1 grower.
"We were there at the time when they didn't even have the word 'reconciliation,' and at the time we didn't even feel there was a word like 'return' (going back home), so truly, we were like in a box. We didn't know what to do, in truth, that's when we started losing hope. But with the years of 2006, up to 2007 and to this day, we talk about reconcilliation, and even we talk about going back, which is a reality, so this is going straight to our heart," said Adama Zimtogo, one of the cocoa growers sheltering in the Nicla camp.
"The peace agreement signed, this was passed to calm things down, I could say, for those who could refuse having peace in the villages, this agreement came to reduce their willingness to refuse it," said Jean Lambert Yoni, from a non-governmental organisation bringing farmers in the region together.
The peace agreement, reached after nearly a month of talks, came after a series of U.N.-backed plans failed to deliver long-delayed elections in the world's largest cocoa producer, divided since the brief civil war.
Ivory Coast's President Laurent Gbagbo signed the decree on Friday (March 16) creating a joint military command centre, which will take over the task of ensuring security in the area.
The creation of the Integrated Command Centre (CCI) was part of a peace deal signed by Gbagbo and rebel leader Guillaume Soro in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou two weeks ago, the latest in a series of agreements aimed at reunifying the country.
The new centre will focus on demobilising militia fighters from the government and rebel sides but will not immediately replace the existing command structures for each force.
The head of the Ivorian army, Gen. Philippe Mangou, and the chief of staff for the rebel New Forces, General Soumaila Bakayoko, met Gbagbo in the economic capital Abidjan where they were handed copies of the decree and the Ouagadougou accord.
"We started as per the instructions of the Ouagadougou agreement of putting in place the foundations for the joint centre of command. From here on, my colleague (General Phillip Mangou) and me, we are going to make sure we are looking after all the details so that this integrated joint centre of command is a reality as specified in the Ouagadougou agreement," Bakayoko told reporters after leaving the presidential palace with Mangou by his side.
"The (two separate) army centres of command remain in place, we are starting a joint centre of command to sort out the problems concerning precise missions included in the agreement," Mangou said.
Under the terms of the deal, brokered by Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore, Gbagbo and Soro pledged to relaunch a stalled voter registration and identification process to prepare for presidential elections within 10 months.
The deal envisages a line of observation posts staffed by "impartial forces" running through the centre of the current buffer zone. These would be halved in number every two months.
France, which has repeatedly expressed willingness to scale back its obligations in Ivory Coast, has welcomed the deal while the interim head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission has said he believes it could succeed because all parties had backed it. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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