Hopes of October disarmament dashed as reforms remain blocked

Hopes that rebel forces in Cote d'Ivoire would start to hand in their weapons on 15 October have evaporated after a special session of parliament closed without approving a series of political reforms which were meant to pave the way for disarmament. An agreement signed by President Laurent Gbagbo, the parliamentary opposition and rebels occupying the north of the country in the Ghanaian capital Accra on July 30 committed all sides to legislating long delayed political reforms by the end of August. It also established 15 October as the starting date for disarmament. When the end of August came and went with no reforms on the statute book, diplomats reinterpreted the deal to mean that the legislation - sought by the rebels, but resisted by Gbagbo and his Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party - should be passed by the end of September. However, a special session of parliament, summoned on 11 August to legislate the reform package, was brought to a close on 28 September with just one very minor measure approved - a law approving state funding for political parties and their election campaigns. The United Nations, which has 6,000 peacekeeping troops in the country, expressed its concern. The rebels meanwhile said flatly that they would not hand in their weapons until the reforms called for in a fragile January 2003 peace agreement, had been fully implemented. The reforms are aimed at giving four million immigrants to Cote d'Ivoire from other West African countries and their descendents greater rights to own land, take Ivorian nationality and run for the presidency. They are also aimed at securing free and fair elections. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed "regret at the very limited progress made during this session in the adoption of legislative reforms that are key to the peace process in Cote d'Ivoire." But rebel spokesman Sidiki Konate was much blunter. He told the opposition newspaper Patriote in an interview published on Thursday: "The laws must be voted through first and then the connected process of DDR (disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation) should follow." "That is our position and that is in reality what will happen on the ground," Konate said. "Any other course of action to disarm the New Forces will be considered an act of war and will therefore mark the end of the peace process." What happens now? Nobody appears to have any clear idea of what will happen next, although political tension in the country is once more rising. More road blocks have appeared in the commercial capital Abidjan in recent days and the government's Russian-built Mi-24 helicopter gunships have made a rare appearance flying over the capital. Charles Ble Goude, the leader of a militia-style pro-Gbagbo youth movement, has meanwhile re-emerged from two months of relative inactivity to threaten a fresh round of protest demonstrations against the continued presence of 4,000 French troops working alongside the UN peacekeepers to keep the peace on the frontline. Gbagbo, a former history professor who spent 30 years in opposition before being elected president in 2000, has been keeping a low profile ever since he signed the Accra Three agreement under pressure from a dozen other African heads of state at the July summit in Ghana. However, his hardline allies in the FPI, such as former prime minister Pascal Affi N'guessan and Mamadou Koulibaly, the speaker of parliament, have been saying loudly that the rebels must disarm in October with or without the passage of political reforms. As the impasse continues, diplomats and political analysts are increasingly starting to question whether the holding of planned presidential elections in October 2005 is still viable. Alphonse Djedje-Mady, the official spokesman of the G7 alliance of four parliamentary opposition parties and the rebel New Forces rebel movement, told IRIN that the elections could still go ahead providing the reforms were placed on the statute book by the end of this year. But many of his colleagues are less sure. "The entire calendar has been put off track," one parliamentary opposition leader told IRIN privately. "I think everybody now is beginning to realise that Gbagbo is going to have great difficulty in organising the October 2005 elections," said Stephen Ellis, an Africa expert at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. He outlined three possible scenarios: partial elections in the government-controlled south of Cote d'Ivoire, but not in the north, botched elections, which would fail to command the confidence of most Ivorians and the international community, or finally no elections at all, an option which would leave Gbagbo still in power beyond the end of his current five-year term. But Ellis, who has just completed a year as Africa director of the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, said none of these options would be satisfactory. "Any of those outcomes would reduce his legitimacy (as president) even more than is the case at this moment," he concluded. Another coup? As Cote d'Ivoire faces a continuation of political deadlock two years after the West African country plunged into civil war, some analysts are now beginning to wonder whether a coup d'etat is the only way out. There are various theories as to where such a military move might come from. The government-owned daily newspaper Fraternite Matin said earlier this week that a coup was being prepared against Gbagbo in Burkina Faso, a country which the president has long accused of aiding and abetting the northern rebels. But Ellis suggested that hardliners within Gbagbo's own party might try to seize power in order to tear up the French-brokered Linas-Marcoussis agreement, which Gbagbo only accepted with great reluctance in the first place. "There is a very prominent threat of a coup from within" Ellis said. "He is under threat from his own right wing." Meanwhile, Gbagbo, who has a reputation of making concessions under pressure and backtracking on his commitments later, is trying the patience of the United Nations the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and France, the former colonial power in Cote d'Ivoire, which remains influential in the country. All have both consistently argued that full application of the Linas-Marcoussis peace agreement is the only way forward. "He can't afford to continue tricking the international community," said one exasperated UN diplomat in Cote d'Ivoire who comes from a nearby West African country. But Gbagbo governs what is still the most prosperous country in West Africa and his government still controls most of the income from cocoa and coffee exports, which underpin its wealth. His government has survived the suspension of most international development aid and Abidjan's plush supermarkets remain well-stocked with a wide range of imported goods. "We are not yet out of the turbulence," observed Jean M'Bahia, a sociologist at Abidjan University.