Disarmament to start on 8 March – Prime Minister

The process of disarming government and rebel fighters in Cote d’Ivoire will start on 8 March, well before a planned UN peacekeeping force arrives in the country, Prime Minister Seydou Diarra, said. Diarra made the announcement on Friday while visiting a military base in the rebel capital Bouake in central Cote d’Ivoire, which will be used as one of the first three disarmament centres. The others will be at Yamoussoukro, the official capital of Cote d’Ivoire, about one hour’s drive south of Bouake in government territory, and at Douakro, a government-held town to the east of Yamoussoukro. “The DDR (disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation) process will start on 8 March. All the financial arrangements have been made and the process can start without risk of interruption. Cote d’Ivoire is now in a phase of reunification,” Diarra said. The announcement provoked no immediate comment from the rebel movement which has controlled the northern half of Cote d’Ivoire since the country plunged into civil war in September 2002. Many deadlines have come and gone in Cote d’Ivoire’s 13-month-old peace process without key actions taking place on the promised date. Many diplomats had only expected the rebels to start handing in their guns once a UN peace-keeping force arrived in the country to supervise the process, but this is unlikely to establish a presence on the ground until April. The UN Security Council is widely expected to approve a recommendation by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that 6,240 peacekeeping troops and 350 civilian police be sent to Cote d’Ivoire at a meeting on February 27. The United States said last week it had dropped its earlier objections to the creation of a peacekeeping force to supervise the DDR process and maintain security during presidential elections planned for October 2005. That effectively cleared the way for its creation and rapid deployment. The United States, which pays for 27 percent of the cost of all UN peacekeeping forces, had been the only permanent member of the Security Council to oppose the sending of blue helmets to Cote d’Ivoire. Annan has recommended that 1,400 West African peacekeeping troops already stationed in Cote d’Ivoire should be incorporated into the UN force, but diplomats do not expect additional troops to arrive until April, with full deployment unlikely until June. The French government has said that a 4,000-strong French peacekeeping force which has born the brunt of peacekeeping duties in Cote d’Ivoire over the past year and a half, would remain in the country, independent of UN control, to provide a rapid reaction force that could act in support of the blue helmets if necessary. The DDR programme, which was originally due to have started in August last year, has been modelled on plans drawn up by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and will be implemented with financial support from the World Bank and European Union. One source closely linked to the disarmament programme said the World Bank had lined up a soft loan of US$50 to $60 milllion to support the demobilisation of an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 combatants. These include about 3,000 child soldiers who signed up to join the rebel forces when they were under 18, the source told IRIN. The European Union had meanwhile made available 5 million euros (US$6 million) and several other western countries, including Belgium and Japan, had pledged smaller amounts of money on a bilateral basis. All rebel combatants are due to be disarmed over a period of several months. The extra troops recruited by the government army since the outbreak of hostilities 19 months ago will also be demobilised. The source said that disarmament would take place in three phases covering different parts of West Africa’s most prosperous country. It would begin at the three centres already prepared in central Cote d’Ivoire, with up to 300 combatants being brought in each day. Combatants who had been civilians before the conflict began would undergo a three to four week screening and demobilisation process, during which their photo, fingerprints and vital information about them would be recorded on a computer database. They would then be sent home with a special ID card entitling them to rehabilitation benefits and a resettlement allowance of 500,000 CFA (US$900), payable in six equal monthly instalments. The source close to the DDR process said all those demobilised would qualify for special support to complete their education or undertake professional training over the next one to two years. Some would also receive small grants and loans to help them set up their own business. However, the source said the 800 or so rebel fighters who had previously been part of the police of armed forces, would be sent directly from the disarmament camps for reintegration into the government security forces. Once the first phase of disarmament is completed in central Cote d’Ivoire, the second phase is due to get under way in the volatile west of the country and the relatively calm east. The source said combatants stationed there would be invited to hand in their weapons at new centres to be established in those regions. The third and final phase of disarmament would take place later this year in the extreme south and extreme north of the country, he added. All the weapons surrendered by combatants will be registered and guarded at special arsenals in the demobilisation centres by the French and West African troops stationed there and later by the UN force which is due to take over responsibility for supervising the disarmament process. A question mark remains however over what will happen to several thousand Liberians who fought in unofficial militias for both the government and rebel forces. Most of them have since returned to Liberia. But they may well be tempted to cross back into Cote d’Ivoire to disarm, since the financial package on offer is three times more than the US$300 being offered by the UN peacekeeping force in Liberia. Another unresolved issue is what, if any, compensation and training will be available for members of the “Young Patriot” militia-style youth groups that were formed to support President Laurent Gbagbo. These groups, which frequently staged rowdy demonstrations in Abidjan and took part in the persecution of immigrants from other West African countries, often claimed to have access to weapons. Alain Donwahi, the chairman of the government’s National Commission for Disarmament Demobilisation and Rehabilitation, which is overseeing the DDR process, said recently that the Young Patriots, many of whom are unemployed, were not the responsibility of his organisation and would be taken care of in other ways.