France hopes for an international investigation on 'graves'

The French government hopes that an international investigation would be established to bring to book those responsible for the killings of people buried in mass graves either already uncovered or are suspected. "We hope the perpetrators will be held accountable for their actions before a court of justice. Impunity in Côte d'Ivoire must end," French foreign ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau told journalists on Tuesday. He said France remained engaged in Cote d'Ivoire and encouraged all initiatives that might move the discussions forward with a view to achieving a political settlement to the crisis. "In short, we are working hard and we are very involved," he added. Villagers in Monoko-Zohi near Vavoua town in western Cote d'Ivoire said that some 120 of their relatives were killed and buried in the grave after "men in uniform" invaded the village, news organisations had reported at the weekend. Rebels of Mouvement Patriotique de Côte d'Ivoire (MPCI) had blamed government troops for the massacre and had threatened to pull out of the negotiations in Lome, Togo. The government has absolved itself from the killing in Monoko-Zohi and conversely accused the MPCI. MPCI secretary-general Guillaume Soro denied it on Tuesday. News reports also said another mass grave with some 86 gendarmes killed by MPCI rebels was discovered in the central town of Bouake. Radio France Internationale (RFI) quoted MPCI rebels as acknowledging the presence of the mass grave and said the loyalist soldiers and gendarmes had been killed in the "early hours of the Ivorian crisis". "There is a difference between a mass grave containing bodies of civilians and a mass grave where combatants have been buried," MPCI said. Amnesty International on Tuesday reiterated its appeals to the government and rebels which now include the recently formed rebel groups of - Ivorian Popular Movement of the Great West (MPIGO) and the Movement for Peace and Justice (MPJ) to halt summary executions, arbitrary arrests, secret detention and the recruitment of child soldiers. Meanwhile, President Laurent Gbagbo is expected to meet the leaders of the main political parties in the commercial capital, Abidjan, on Thursday to discuss the crisis. The head of the government delegation at the Lome peace talks Laurent Dona Fologo told RFI that Gbagbo was expected to sign an all inclusive political accord with all the political parties represented in parliament and the cabinet. "These political parties are the representative forces of the Ivorian society. All these parties condemned the aggression against Cote d'Ivoire and offered their support for the legally instituted government of Cote d'Ivoire," Fologo said. "All these parties are getting ready to appeal to ECOWAS [Economic Community of West African States] so that stringent measures could be taken to rid our country of rebels. We are awaiting this highly important document in which we will discover the identity of the rebels and what they stand for," he added. An advisor of President Gbagbo was on the other hand quoted by BBC on Wednesday as saying that Cote d'Ivoire needed foreign intervention. Alain Toussaint, said in Madrid, Spain, that France, the United States and the European Union must intervene because regional mediation efforts were deadlocked. On Tuesday, the United Kingdom and Belgium joined several other western countries in advising their citizens to leave Ivory Coast because of the escalating crisis. "You are advised to leave Cote d'Ivoire immediately, while commercial air services are still available. It is your responsibility to decide whether to act on this advice. You must, however, understand that this is a final warning," the message said. Belgium, Britain, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and the United States have so far issued advisories for their nationals to leave the country. The crisis in Cote d'Ivoire had started as a mutiny on 19 September and saw the country divided in two with the south in the government's hand and the north in the hands of MPCI. It however took a new twist on 28 November with the emergence of two new rebel groups MPJ and MPIGO who captured four towns in the west.