Security Council urges adherence to peace deal

A UN Security Council mission left Cote d’Ivoire’s economic capital, Abidjan, on Wednesday, promising to hold to account key players who did not adhere to a peace deal signed in January 2003. “We will hold accountable everyone here for their contribution, those who contribute positively, and indeed those who seek to obstruct [peace],” said Sir Emyr Jones Parry, head of the mission. “Those who wish to obstruct should not assume that it will be business as usual,” warned Parry, who is Britain’s permanent representative to the United Nations. Diplomatic sources who declined to be named told IRIN on Thursday that the Security Council was considering levying sanctions against Cote d’Ivoire. Sanctions would likely target the guilty parties, and not the entire Ivorian population, they said, adding that all political actors, including President Laurent Gbagbo, opposition leaders and the rebels, could be targeted. Cote d’Ivoire, once a model of stability in West Africa, was rocked by a coup d’etat in 1999. Less than three years later, in September 2002, a failed uprising in Abidjan developed into a rebellion that divided the country. The rebels, known as the New Forces, continue to occupy the north while the government holds the south. An accord signed in January 2003 in Marcoussis, France, paved the way for a power-sharing government including parties loyal to the president, opposition groups and rebels. In March 2004, however, opposition and New Forces ministers walked out of the government after more than 100 of their supporters were killed by security forces and pro-Gbagbo militias as they tried to stage a demonstration for peace. In May, Gbagbo responded to the boycott by sacking three opposition ministers, including New Forces leader Guillaume Soro. The Security Council mission, representing 14 of the 15 Security Council members, arrived in Cote d'Ivoire on Tuesday from Ghana, where it began an eight-day West African tour to promote "coherent policy-making" in a region wracked by more than a decade of war. Speaking to the press in Abidjan on Wednesday, just before the mission left for Liberia, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, France’s ambassador to the UN, called on all sides to adhere to the terms of the Marcoussis Agreement. “The Security Council expects all parties in Cote d’Ivoire to respect the engagements they have undertaken," he said at the press conference, which followed meetings with President Laurent Gbabgo and Prime Minister Seydou Diarra. “We repeated the aim, which I think is shared by the president, to allow free, open and transparent elections in October 2005. Marcoussis is the way to do this," de la Sabliere said. The Security Council mandated a UN peacekeeping force of more than 6,000 for Cote d’Ivoire, the country's first, in March.