Donors fund West African peacekeepers until November

The United States and several European donors have pledged sufficient funding to keep a West African peacekeeping force of nearly 1,400 troops deployed in Cote d'Ivoire until the end of November, military sources said on Wednesday. The donors had failed to provide the additional sums required to increase the size of the West African force to 3,200 men, but France, which provided the largest chunk of initial funding, was still to announce the size of its second phase contribution, they added. Lieutenant Colonel Messan Ekue, the financial controller of the five-nation peace-keeping force, told IRIN that the donors commited about US $8 million of assistance for the second half of this year at a meeting in Paris on Friday. This included $2.2 million of new money from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Italy and Luxembourg. But since it cost $1.3 million a month to keep the peacekeepers in the field, the new funding package would only guarantee their presence until the end of November, he added. The soldiers from Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger and Senegal are helping 4,000 French troops to keep the peace between Ivorian government forces and rebels occupying the north of the country. The West Africans had been hoping for additional funding to enable them to deploy up to 3,200 troops to oversee the planned process of disarmament and demobilisation that is due to start shortly under the terms of a January peace agreement. However, Ekue said the United States and Britain had merely reaffirmed their earlier commitments to provide $5.8 million of support for the West African peacekeepers during the second half of the year. The US is providing fuel, equipment and transport services worth $4.2 million, while Britain is giving its entire cash contribution of $1.6 million to Ghana to support the presence of its troops in Cote d'Ivoire. There was no word of any fresh commitment from France, which provided strong financial support for the West African peacekeepersearlier this year. Commander Nestor Djibo, the official spokesman of the West African force, said France provided an initial contribution of seven million euros ($7.7 million) to help launch the West African peacekeeping mission in February, but it was still mulling the extent to which it would provide further assistance. A French military source in Cote d'Ivoire confirmed that further French aid would be provided, but the amount had yet to be decided. Cote d'Ivoire, the most prosperous country in West Africa, erupted into civil war in September last year, but there has been little fighting since the formation in April of a government of national reconciliation, which includes nine rebel ministers. However, the rebel ministers have little real authority and rebel forces have not yet allowed the return of government administrators to the north of the country, where banks remain shut, civil servants unpaid and most schools closed.