Security Council bolsters troubled peacekeeping force

The United Nations Security Council on Monday agreed to send a company of peacekeeping troops from the UN mission in Liberia to war-torn neighbour Cote d’Ivoire after a spate of anti-UN violence. Sanctions against individuals seen as blocking Cote d’Ivoire’s peace process are expected on Tuesday, said a UN official, a move many fear is likely to spark further attacks on UN staff and facilities in the country. The 200 soldiers to be transferred to the Cote d’Ivoire mission (ONUCI) until 31 March will come from the Nigerian contingent though it was not immediately clear whether they would be from long-serving battalions or troops recently arrived in Liberia, the a diplomat told IRIN. The United States blocked proposals to send police officers as well from the UN mission in Liberia to assist Cote d’Ivoire, the diplomat said. On Sunday UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, recommended bolstering Cote d’Ivoire’s existing 7,000-strong mission following recent violent anti-UN demonstrations across the government-controlled south and the main city, Abidjan. More military and police “would contribute to enhancing the mission capacity to address the security challenges in Abidjan,” Annan’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in New York. UN soldiers along with some 4,000 troops from former colonial power France maintain a shaky peace in West Africa’s one-time bastion of stability, more than three years after rebels staged a coup in September 2002. But last month, gangs of young supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo known as the Young Patriots attacked UN and French facilities to protest their anger at international intervention in the peace process. Individual sanctions such as a travel ban and assets freezes are expected against Young Patriots leader Charles Ble Goude and Eugene Djue of the same movement. Fofie Kouakou, a rebel commander, is also expected to be slapped with sanctions by the 15-member Security Council. On Friday Annan requested that a battalion of troops and a unit of police officers be loaned to Cote d’Ivoire from the Liberia mission for an initial period of three months. Shortly after the January anti-UN attacks, Annan asked for an extra 3,400 peacekeepers for Cote d’Ivoire and an additional 475 police personnel, but the Security Council rejected that request. According to diplomats, the United States is leading the opposition to an increase. Following the anti-UN violence, US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton questioned whether the mission was more of a problem than a solution to Cote d’Ivoire’s conflict. At a press conference in the Senegalese capital Dakar over the weekend, ONUCI head Pierre Schori said that Cote d’Ivoire had hit a crunch period and the peace process could go either way. “The paradox [in Cote d’Ivoire] is that while we have everything ready for the path to peace, we are also ready for the road to crisis,” Schori said. This week, Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny – newly appointed by international mediators – is expected to lay out his time table for the disarmament of rebel and pro-Gbagbo militia fighters. On a two-day visit to the rebel stronghold of Bouake – Banny’s first stop in rebel territory – the former banker said that talks over the reintegration of the national army were important but safeguarding conditions for peace were paramount. “The resumption of military dialogue is an important question. It is one of the priorities – but the priority of priorities is to create an environment that is conducive to peace,” said Banny, as rebel leader Guillaume Soro and spokesman Sidiki Konate looked on. A perception of inequality within the armed forces between northerners and southerners was a key motivating factor in the 2002 rebellion. Schori also warned that a potential humanitarian crisis was unravelling in the volatile western region where aid workers and UN personnel – civilian and military – had been forced to abandon their operations in the January violence.