UN to conduct three-month human rights investigation

The United Nations said it has appointed a five-member independent commission to investigate human rights violations committed during the four months of civil war that followed a September 2002 rebellion. The inquiry team will seek to “establish the facts and responsibilities concerning serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law that were committed between 19 September 2002 and 24 January 2003,” the UN’s human rights agency, UNHCHR, said in a statement on Tuesday. UNHCHR spokesman Jose Luis Diaz told IRIN on Wednesday that the mission will arrive in Abidjan at the “end of June, early July” and stay for three months, probing rights abuses both in the government-controlled south of the country and the rebel-held north. The five members of the investigation team are Djiboutian lawyer Aref Mohamed Aref; Judge Gerald Balanda of Democratic Republic of Congo; Ms. Fatima Mbaye, a Mauritanian lawyer, Ms. Radhia Nazraoui of Tunisia, and the former judge of the Internal Tribunal Court for the Former Yugoslavia, Almiro Rodriguez of Portugal. The UNHCHR statement said investigations may extend into neighbouring countries. Cote d’Ivoire was split in two following a 19 September 2002 rebellion against President Laurent Gbagbo. Rebels, now known as the New Forces, signed the Linas-Marcoussis peace deal with the government and opposition parties the following January -- the close of the commission's investigation period. However, the peace deal is faltering. The G7 coalition of opposition and rebel ministers has not attended cabinet meetings since March. And in May Gbagbo sacked three G7 ministers from the cabinet. A UN Security Council delegation is currently in Cote d’Ivoire where it is assessing the state of an ailing peace process. In a statement before the trip it promised to deliver "a fairly tough message on the need for all parties to live up to their responsibilities and to keep the national reconciliation process on track". The delegation is expected to give a briefing at the end of its visit late on Wednesday.