Rebels expected to return to government within days

Rebels occupying the north of Cote d'Ivoire who walked out of a government of national reconciliation three months ago, could resume their seats in cabinet within the next few days, government and rebel sources said on Tuesday. Their return would end a stand-off which has threatened to plunge West Africa's most prosperous country back into armed conflict. It would also pave the way for disarmament to begin and for the government to re-establish administrative control over the north, where most schools and health centres have been closed since Cote d'Ivoire plunged into civil war on 19 September last year. Sidiki Konate, the spokesman of the northern rebels who are officially known as "The New Forces," told IRIN there had been good progress in negotiations on a deal that would allow the rebels to return to government. These negotiations have been conducted indirectly through a UN-led Monitoring Committee, set up to supervise the implementation of a peace agreement signed between President Laurent Gbagbo and the rebels in January. “On Wednesday or Thursday, the monitoring committee will give an answer to our proposals," Konate told IRIN by telephone from the rebel headquarters in the central city of Bouake. Judging by the “favourable feedback” received from the monitoring comittee, the eight rebel ministers who withdrew from the broad-based coalition government on 23 September could return to Abidjan "at the beginning of next week," he added. Le Patriote, an opposition daily, which sympathises with the rebel cause, said in its front page headline on Tuesday that the rebel ministers would be back in Abidjan on Friday. A Foreign Ministry source told IRIN that the monitoring committee had virtually finished its assessment of the conditions set by the rebels for their return to government and its final recommendations "should satisfy both sides." However, he did not say when the committee, chaired by Albert Tevoedjre, the United Nations special envoy to Cote d'Ivoire, would announce its decision. Neither would he speculate when the New Forces might return to the coalition cabinet headed by Prime Minister Seydou Diarra. The UN Mission in Cote d’Ivoire has announced a press briefing in Abidjan on Wednesday. The rebels withdrew from government in protest at Gbagbo's refusal to delegate effective power to ministers and the president's reluctance to implement fully all aspects of the French-brokered peace agreement. Since late October, the United Nations, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the European Union and France have been engaged in intensive diplomacy to try and overcome the crisis and bring the rebels fully back on board the peace process. The latest series of contacts with rebel leaders have been made by Lansana Kouyate, a Guinean diplomat and former executive secretary of ECOWAS who is the special envoy of the International Organisation of Francophone Countries (OIF). Progress towards a solution began on 4 December when Gbagbo met the rebel military commander, Colonel Soumaila Bakayoko. They agreed that a timetable for disarmament would be agreed by 15 December and Gbagbo said after the meeting that he would travel to the rebel capital Bouake soon to declare the civil war at an end. No timetable for the rebels to disarm had been agreed by Monday's deadline, but both sides began to withdraw heavy weapons from the frontline over the weekend and dismantle some road blocks as a confidence building measure. Military sources said that for disarmament to succeed, Cote d'Ivoire would need a peacekeeping force of around 10,000 troops. At present 4,000 French peacekeepers and 1,300 troops from several West African countries are enforcing the ceasefire. A diplomatic source told IRIN that a UN assessment team which visited Cote d'Ivoire recently was expected to recommend the deployment of a 6,000-strong UN peacekeeping force that would include the West Africans and work alongside the French. "If they go through the DDR (disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation) process properly, they are going to need a force on the ground," he stressed. Despite recent progress in bringing the rebels back into government, the situation remains on edge. The government said 19 unidentified attackers were killed in Abidjan in a series of shoot-outs with the security forces on Thursday night, in which a soldier and a gendarme also died. However, one diplomat said there was strong evidence that the 12 people who were alleged to have been killed in an attack on the state television station had been killed elsewhere and their bodies had simply been dumped there. Defence minister Rene Amani said on Tuesday that those killed were not linked to the northern rebels, but he did not explain who they represented or what they were seeking to achieve.