Ghana tries to break deadlock in peace process

Ghanaian President John Kufuor is trying to arrange a summit in Accra between Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel leaders to unblock the peace process in Cote d'Ivoire which has been deadlocked for the past month, diplomatic sources said on Monday. The planned meeting would take place later this month or in early November with the aim of persuading the rebels to resume their participation in Cote d'Ivoire's government of national reconciliation and start a delayed process of demobilisation and disarmament, they added. The sources said the attempt to bring the two sides together was being spearheaded by Kufuor in his capacity as chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which has 1,300 peacekeeping troops stationed in Cote d'Ivoire. Kufuor hosted two previous meetings between Gbagbo and the rebels in Accra earlier this year. The sources said the United Nations was also closely involved in the initiative, which led Gbagbo to make a flying visit to see Kufuor in the town of Akosombo, 100 km north of Accra, on Sunday before flying on to Nigeria, the regional superpower, to meet President Olusegun Obasanjo. His trip followed talks between Kufuor and the UN special envoy to Cote d'Ivoire, Albert Tevoedjre, on Saturday, when exiled Ivorian opposition leader Alassane Ouattara was also seen passing through Accra airport. "There is a disagreement and hitch and our attempts are to unblock what is blocked," Ralph Uwechue, the ECOWAS special envoy to Cote d'Ivoire, who accompanied Teveoedjre to Accra, told IRIN. "We realised that we had to move into action to persuade the Forces Nouvelles (rebels) to look into the matter very quickly." Meanwhile, Ivorian police sources said on Monday the government had arrested a further 11 people at the weekend in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate President Gbagbo in August. The government said last month it was holding 18 people in connection with the plot, including a senior police commander and an army general. The latest arrests bring to 29 the number of suspects being officially held in Cote d'Ivoire. A further 13 people were arrested in France when the plot was uncovered in August, including the supposed Ibrahim Coulibaly, a former master sargent in the Ivorian army who was involved in several previous coup attempts. They have since been released. An Ivorian government source said the flurry of weekend diplomatic activity last weekend also saw the presidents of Togo and Benin fly to Tripoli to ask Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi to put pressure on his close ally, Blaise Campaore of Burkina Faso to send the Ivorian rebels back to the negotiating table. The rebels, who occupy the north of Cote d'Ivoire, signed a peace agreement with Gbagbo in January. However, they suspended their participation in the peace process on 23 September, in protest at what they said was the president's refusal to give the broad-based government of national reconciliation effective powers. Campaore is widely seen as sympathetic to the rebels who rely on Burkina Faso for most of their links to the outside world. The diplomatic sources said rebel leader Guillaume Soro was in the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou on Monday. Uwechue said ECOWAS was putting pressure on both sides to come to their senses and end the stand-off before the situation deteriorates to one of renewed conflict. "To President Gbagbo, we tell him that he is the president of the whole country so he needs to have 'elastic patience,' while to the rebels we tell them that they are young and should not destroy their future heritage," he said. Gbagbo himself tried to defuse the mood of growing tension at the weekend by telling reporters after his meeting with Kufuor that despite difficulties in the peace process, a ceasefire agreement with the rebels had held firm for nearly six months and he was going home "happy." However, Uwechue stressed that the situation in Cote d'Ivoire was still dangerously unstable. "Those who have the weapons have lowered them, but they are still holding them," he told IRIN. Last week, the government banned all demonstrations for three months and ordered the disbanding of a militia-style youth group after it was accused of wrecking offices of French-owned water,electricity and mobile companies in Abidjan during protest marches against the rebels' refusal to disarm. Gbagbo's Ivorian Patriotic Front (FPI) party, which has close links with the "Young Patriot" hardline youth groups, has often accused France of backing the rebel cause.