Army and rebels agree to confine forces, exchange prisoners

The government and rebels in Cote d'Ivoire have agreed to move their forces back from frontline positions to 17 quartering areas, where the process of disarmament is due to begin shortly, Colonel Mathieu Boni, a senior commander of the West African peacekeeping force in the country said on Wednesday. The government and rebels had also agreed to release prisoners of war next month after exchanging lists of the people held by each side, he added. Boni, the chief of staff of the West African peacekeeping force, said top-ranking military officers from the government and the rebel Patriotic Movement of Cote d'Ivoire (MPCI) had agreed on these initiatives at a meeting in the country's official capital Yamoussoukro on Tuesday. The meeting was also attended by senior officers of the French and West African peacekeeping forces in the country, he added. However Bony stressed that the process of confining troops to barracks would not actually begin until political decisions had been taken by the government and rebels to make available the necessary resources, such as transport, accommodation and food supplies. Boni noted there was already a problem in rebel-held areas of northwestern Cote d'Ivoire, where many MPCI fighters were running short of food and had resorted to stealing supplies to survive. Military sources said it would also be difficult for the disarmament process to begin before the government published an amnesty law covering those who took up arms for the rebel cause. Cote d'Ivoire has been divided in two since a civil war erupted in September last year. The government controls the south of the country and three quarters of Cote d'Ivoire's 16 million population. The MPCI controls the north. The two sides signed a peace agreement in January and a government of national reconciliation was formed in April, since when fighting has subsided. However the MPCI still administers the north of the country. A spokesman for the 4,000-strong French peace-keeping force in Cote d'Ivoire said the MPCI troops would be confined to barracks in the northern towns of Bouake, Odienne, Seguela, Man, Ouangolo, Ferekssedougou, Bouna, Vavoua and Korhogo. Government soldiers would meanwhile be withdrawn to bases in the southern towns of Abidjan, Yamoussoukro, San Pedro, Guiglo, Duekoue, Daloa, Bondoukou and Daoukro, he added. The French military spokesman said the government and MPCI would exchange lists of prisoners of war between June 25 and July 2, when their military chiefs of staff would meet again in the rebel-held town of Sakassou. The intention was to release these prisoners shortly afterwards, he added. The West African peace-keeping force currently numbers about 1,400 men from Senegal, Ghana, Benin, Togo and Niger. Diplomats said the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) would like to increase its strength to more than 3,000 to help deal with the process of disarmament and demobilisation, but such a move is dependent on western donors coming up with about US $40 million of additional funding. The agreement in principle to confine all combatants to designated quartering areas and release prisoners came shortly after further government moves to reduce tension in the country and send civil administrators back into rebel-held areas. Patrick Achi, the minister of economic infrastructure and official spokesman of the government of prime minister Seydou Diarra, said after a special cabinet meeting on Monday, that the government had ordered all politicians to tone down their statements to avoid weakening the peace process. Mamadou Coulibaly, the speaker of parliament and a prominent leader of President Laurent Gbagbo's Ivorian Patriotic Front (FPI) party, had controversially urged civil servants, policemen and military officers to disregard any instructions they received from the nine MPCI ministers in the government of national reconciliation. An official statement issued after Monday's cabinet meeting said that over the next few weeks, each ministry would send a team of officials to visit the rebel-held north of the country with a view to re-establishing the government's administration there. Alain Donvahi, the prime minister's adviser on security matters, meanwhile indicated that policemen and soldiers who had joined the rebel camp would be re-integrated into the government's security forces as the process of disarmament and demobilisation got under way. "In a situation of peace the regular army stays in the barracks and its weapons remain in the arsenal, so they are not actually disarmed, but the police and gendarmerie look after security," Donvahi said. "Deserters from the regular army, the gendarmerie and the police who today form part of the New Forces (rebels) will be re-integrated by mutual agreement and we will not talk any more about New Forces or ex-rebels, just about the armed forces of Cote d'Ivoire."