Rebels back away from threat to quit government

The rebel movement in Cote d'Ivoire watered down its threat to withdraw from a three-month-old government of national reconciliation on Wednesday. "For us, this war is finished. There is no question of taking up arms again," said Sports Minister Michel Gueu, one of nine rebel leaders who sit in the cabinet of Prime Minister Seydou Diarra. Rebel military commanders, who still control all of northern Cote d'Ivoire, also sounded a more conciliatory note, after declaring a state of emergency on Monday and ordering all the rebel ministers to return to rebel capital Bouake. Colonel Soumaili Bakayoko, the military chief of staff of the Patriotic Movement of Cote d'Ivoire (MPCI) and its two smaller allies, the Movement for Justice and Peace (MJP) and the Popular Movement of the Great West (MPIGO), told IRIN that rebel leaders would meet in Bouake on Wednesday to consider the situation and would make their position known on Thursday. "The(UN) Security Council has given us reassurances on our various demands," he added. The rebels threatened to withdraw from government after members of a militant youth movement opposed to any concessions to them, attacked Communications Minister Guillaume Soro last Friday as he attempted to visit the headquarters of state television. The militants trapped Soro in a room for two hours until police escorted him out of the building. As secretary general of the MPCI, Soro is the highest ranking rebel leader in government. Three days later, as a mission from the UN Security Council was about to visit Abidjan, the rebel military commanders in Bouake issued a three-point statement, imposing a state of emergency, ordering rebel ministers to suspend their participation in government and ordering the closure of road corridors across the front line between government and rebel forces. The rebels said they would only resume their seats in cabinet once President Laurent Gbagbo had named acceptable candidates to the vacant posts of defence minister and internal security minister and ordered the disbanding of militant youth movements opposed to the rebels, which are widely known as "militias." Under the terms of a verbal accord reached alongside a peace agreement signed in January, the defence and security portfolios were supposed to have gone to rebel representatives. However, Gbagbo, facing strong opposition from the army, has so far failed to fill these sensitive posts. Despite the strident tone of Monday's rebel communique, the rebel ministers remained in Abidjan, where they held an inconclusive meeting with the Security Council mission on Tuesday, and cars, buses and trucks continued to cross the front line between government and rebel forces. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's ambassador to the United Nations, who is leading the Security Council mission to West Africa, said after separate meetings with President Gbagbo and rebel ministers that the Ivorian peace process was still on track. "We are happy that the implementation of the (peace) accords continues and are conscious that a lot remains to be done," he told reporters on Tuesday night. "We have listened to critics on one side and the other, but we insist that dialogue, compromise and sacrifices must be made by each party in order to achieve national reconciliation." Warning the government and rebels not to backslide on the progress achieved so far, Greenstock stressed: "We invite the Ivorian parties to make a choice between chaos and the rule of law in the country." Bakayoko, the rebel military commander, said on Wednesday: "The responses given by the Security Council will be the subject of a general consultation and we will give you a reply tomorrow." Gueu gave strong hints that the crisis would be resolved. "The Security Council asked us to put forward alternative names for the posts defence and interior minister," he told IRIN. Government officials declined to comment on when the rebel ministers might resume their normal functions. Tension between the government and rebels had been building up before the attack on Soro last Friday and had been slowing down progress towards the planned demobilisation and disarmament of the rebels under the supervision of French and West African peacekeeping forces and restoration of government rule to the rebel-held north. The disarmament process had been due to begin on August 1.