Diarra stays on as prime minister

Seydou Diarra has announced that he plans to stay on as the prime minister of Cote d’Ivoire’s broad-based government of national reconciliation, despite a call from President Laurent Gbagbo’s Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party for his resignation. Diarra, a politically independent former civil servant, said in a televised speech on Friday night that he would stay on as prime minister to struggle for the full implementation of a January 2003 peace agreement, so long as he continued to enjoy the support of the president, the parliamentary opposition and the rebel movement occupying the north of the country. “As far as I am concerned, I will keep serving the state and my compatriots for as long as the president of the republic and the parties involved in the conflict assure me of their trust,” Diarra said. He said full implementation of the French-brokered Linas-Marcoussis peace agreement and the Accra Three agreement of July 30, which set a timetable for reforms to be legislated and disarmament to start, were the only way forward for Cote d’Ivoire. The West African country plunged into civil war two years ago and rebel forces now control the northern half of its territory. “The resumption of the war is impossible and can under no circumstances be considered as an alternative solution to the Ivorian crisis,” Diarra said. “A peaceful solution remains the only valid solution,” he stressed. “The experiences of armed crises in Africa and elsewhere in the world have clearly shown that we should not extinguish fire with fire and that we must avoid the infernal spiral of violence which needlessly sheds the blood of innocent victims.” Diarra was speaking in reply to a challenge from former prime minister Pascal Affi N’Guessan, the president of the FPI, and a close political associate of Gbagbo. Affi N’Guessan had called for Diarra to quit and had hinted at a return to war after rebels failed to start disarming on 15 October, as stipulated by the Accra Three agreement. The rebels refused to disarm on the grounds that Gbagbo had not fulfilled his side of Accra Three by legislating long-delayed political reforms by the agreed deadline of 30 September. Gbagbo has not publicly reiterated his confidence in Diarra since Affi N’Guessan, speaking in the name of the FPI, called for his removal. However, Diarra said in his speech on Friday that head of state had pledged to continue supporting his coalition government by convening a special cabinet meeting to approve all the remaining political reforms outlined in Marcoussis. Most are aimed at granting greater political and economic rights to the four million immigrants from other West African countries and their offspring. Between a quarter a third of Cote d’Ivoire’s 16 million people are immigrants or the children of settlers from neighbouring countries. The prime minister made clear that the principle established by Accra Three, that the passage of political reforms should precede disarmament, continued to apply. Diarra said the armed forces of both the government and the New Forces rebel movement were technically ready to start the process of disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation (DDR). But he added: “They are waiting for politicians to give a signal for the effective start of DDR by removing all the remaining obstacles, which are of a political nature.” Diarra admitted that the deadlines for implementing the Accra Three agreement had been missed, but he said the accord remained valid as a way forward to lasting peace and the holding of presidential elections in October 2005. Many of the political reforms demanded by the January 2003 Marcoussis peace agreement have so far been blocked by the FPI’s insistence on amendments which are unacceptable to the opposition parties and the rebels. Diarra called on all parliametary deputies “to work in favour of the adoption of the bills…..preserving their spirit and content in order to stick to the peace accords.” He also urged the political class stop mounting provocations, ”thinking of the blood that has already been widely shed,” and called for an end to violent street demonstrations. In recent months these have involved attacks of UN and French peacekeeping troops by both supporters of both Gbagbo and the rebel movement. The G7 opposition alliance, which groups the rebel movement and four opposition parties represented in parliament, reiterated its backing for Diarra as prime minister earlier in the week. “The G7 assures Seydou Elimane Diarra, the prime minister of the government of national reconciliation, of its support and requests him to remain at his post, in accordance with the Linas-Marcoussis agreement,” Alphonse Djedje Mady, the official spokesman of the G7, said in a statement on Wednesday. The G7 accounts for 27 of the 41 ministers in Diarra’s cabinet. Earlier on Wednesday, all 10 FPI ministers in the government boycotted a cabinet meeting. Meanwhile, a group of about 100 women supporters of Gbagbo attempted to hold a protest demonstration outside the building where Diarra and his other ministers were in session. The daily newspaper “24 Heures” reported that most of the demonstrators had been bussed to the venue in a coach belonging to the presidency. They were dispersed by police with tear gas.