Lingering crisis still threatens regional stability

Cote d'Ivoire almost relapsed into all-out civil war during 2004, raising fears that a fresh outbreak of full-scale hostilities could undermine security and stunt economic growth in several neighbouring countries. As the year ended, the prospects for putting its faltering peace process back on the rails in time for elections to be held on schedule in October 2005 looked slim. During 2004 the country which was once the economic motor of the region, lurched from one major outbreak of violence to another. In March, at least 120 people were killed when government security forces smashed opposition attempts to stage a demonstration in the economic capital Abidjan in March. And 99 freshly interred bodies were found in mass graves after fighting broke out between rival rebel factions in the northern city of Korhogo in June. During the same month, President Laurent Gbagbo sent helicopter gunships to strafe a column of rebel vehicles near the frontline, killing 20 people. But the peace process nearly broke down completely in early November when Gbagbo's small air force bombed cities in the rebel-held north of Cote d'Ivoire for two days in a row as his army prepared to launch a ground offensive. That violation of an 18-month-old ceasefire was stopped in its tracks by French peacekeepers. They destroyed Gbagbo's fleet of jet bombers and helicopter gunships on the ground after nine of their colleagues were killed in an air raid on the rebel capital Bouake. Following this psychological blow, the columns of government troops that were preparing to push their way past UN peacekeepers maintaining a buffer zone along the frontline, turned round and returned to their barracks Mbeki tries to mediate President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa subsequently became the latest in a long line of mediators to try and resolve the conflict. He spent five days in Cote d'Ivoire in early December trying to persuade Gbagbo and the New Forces rebel movement to agree on a new timetable for political reform and disarmament that would allow presidential elections to take place on schedule, with all the country's main political leaders taking part. Mbeki was called in by the African Union after France, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the United Nations had all failed to push the peace process forward. But as the year drew to a close, there were no indications that his mediation efforts had achieved a significant breakthrough. The level of distrust between Gbagbo and the northern rebels was greater than ever, with rebel spokesmen proclaiming publicly that no peace deal would be possible so long as Gbagbo remained head of state. And the expatriate business community, which runs much of Cote d'Ivoire's cocoa-based economy, battened down the hatches in anticipation of further trouble ahead. Nearly 9,000 French residents and other European nationals fled Cote d'Ivoire in November after pro-Gbagbo mobs rampaged through Abidjan protesting at France's military intervention to halt the government offensive. The demonstrators, led by the hardline "Young Patriots" militia movement, torched French schools, looted the homes and businesses of many white residents and confronted French troops which took control of the airport and several other key locations. The government said 57 people were killed and more than 2,000 were injured in these clashes. Meanwhile, there were fears that a renewal of full-scale hostilities in Cote d'Ivoire could destabilise the UN-supervised peace processes in neighbouring Liberia and nearby Sierra Leone. Both countries are still nursing the wounds of bitter civil wars which destroyed their economies and ripped apart the fabric of society. Liberian factions disarm By the end of November, the UN peacekeeping force in Liberia had disarmed over 100,000 former combatants who claimed to have fought in the country's 14-year civil war. The blue helmets only managed to collect one gun for every four Liberians who stepped forward to claim the US$300 resettlement allowance paid to ex-fighters following the signing of a peace accord in August 2003. But the disarmament of Liberia's three warring factions and the deployment of 15,000 UN peacekeepers throughout the interior of the country encouraged over 600,000 refugees and internally displaced people to start returning to their abandoned villages. Liberia's shattered economy remained hamstrung by a UN ban on the export of timber and diamonds - which was extended into 2005. And with virtually no source of domestic revenue, the transitional government remained totally reliant on foreign aid to function. Rioting between Muslims and Christians in the capital Monrovia in late October led to the death of 29 people and showed that the security situation was still fragile. A curfew was imposed for several days afterwards. However, in December, Liberia's interim parliament finally passed long-delayed legislation that paved the way for presidential and parliamentary elections to be held in October 2005. Sierra Leone, which emerged from 10 years of civil war at the end of 2001, remained peaceful throughout the year. Relief agencies celebrated the success of a drive to resettle those displaced by the conflict. Most are now back in their villages growing their own food once more. A war crimes trial finally got under way at the UN-backed Special Court in Freetown in June. But many of those deemed to bear the greatest responsibility for the appalling atrocities committed were either dead or absent from the courtroom. Former rebel leader Foday Sankoh died in custody awaiting trial and his military commander, Sam Bockerie, was cut down by a hail of bullets in Liberia. Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who was accused of backing their Revolutionary United Front (RUF), continued to enjoy political asylum in Nigeria. And Johnny Paul Koroma, the leader of a military junta which once tried to make common cause with the rebels, was in hiding. Uncomfortably for the government, that left Sam Hinga Norman, the former defence minister of elected President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, as the highest ranking warlord on trial. Diplomats and foreign aid workers expressed concern at crippling levels of corruption in Tejan Kabbah's government and voiced doubts about the ability of his British-trained army to maintain security and support the democratic process. The UN Security Council decided to prolong the mandate of a scaled-down UN peacekeeping force of 3,500 men until June 2005 as a precautionary measure. An even bigger worry for diplomats in the region was that Guinea could become the next country to be drawn into the vortex of confict. Fragile stability in Guinea Guinea has so far remained quiet as a result of draconian security measures imposed by President Lansana Conte. But the country's economy, based on foreign exchange income from bauxite exports, is in ruins. Public services such as electricity, water, education and healthcare barely function. And the meagre living standards of Guinea's eight million people have fallen further as food prices have soared. Meanwhile ethnic tensions bubble away beneath the surface. Conte is a former army colonel who has ruled the country with an iron hand for 20 years, but he appears to be increasingly ill with diabetes - he can no longer walk unassisted - and he has no obvious successor Diplomats are concerned that an outburst of popular discontent, such as when food riots swept the capital Conakry in June, could plunge the country into chaos. Student unrest led to the closure of the country's main university in the capital Conakry in mid-December. Diplomats also fear an overspill of the conflict in Cote d'Ivoire into the volatile Forest Region of eastern Guinea. This is already a social powder keg. About 100,000 Guinean migrants to Cote d'Ivoire fled to seek refuge in the Forest Region following the outbreak of the Ivorian civil war in September 2003. Idle former fighters from Liberia's Mandingo ethnic group roam the countryside, mingling with Liberian refugees and siding with their Guinean kinsmen whenever ethnic clashes break out. And the remnants of a pro-Conte militia group which was created four years ago to repel incursions from Liberia, still bear arms. Running out of patience with Cote d'Ivoire But the most immediate concern of diplomats and aid workers is Cote d'Ivoire itself. As 2004 drew to a close, there were several indications that the international community was running out of patience with the continuing impasse in the country's peace process and was preparing to toughen its attitude towards the warring parties. Following the renewed outbreak of hostilities in early November, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the Security Council to send more than 1,200 extra troops and a contingent of attack helicopters to Cote d'Ivoire to beef up the 6,000-strong UN peacekeeping force already in the country. There was no immediate response to this. However, the Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Cote d'Ivoire and agreed to keep alive the threat of further sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes on leading personalities. On 24 December, a so far unpublished UN report on human rights abuses committed during Cote d'Ivoire's two-year-old civil war was leaked to the French daily newspaper Liberation. The Parisian daily quoted this document as saying that some of the most serious abuses committed by both the government and rebels amounted to crimes against humanity. It also reported that a secret annex to the report listed the names of 200 individuals who could face prosecution or UN sanctions. Earlier in the year other UN reports on human rights abuse in Cote d'Ivoire were also leaked to the media before their official publication. Diplomats said there was little doubt that the document published by Liberation represented an accurate picture of the findings of the UN human rights investigators. Indeed, the report may have been leaked deliberately to put pressure on both government and rebel leaders to accept the Mbeki peace plan. A UN source confirmed to Reuters news agency that the blacklist of about 200 names existed and could well be used as a basis for punitive action against key individuals. A summit of the AU Peace and Security Commission was to be held in Addis Ababa on 10 January to review the progress achieved by Mbeki. The UN Security Council was due to review the imposition of further sanctions on Cote d'Ivoire at about the same time. Mbeki's road map to a political settlement is still the French-brokered Linas-Marcoussis accord, agreed by the parties to the conflict in January 2003. It is only the deadlines for implementing various key points of the deal have changed. The Marcoussis deal was only accepted grudgingly by Gbagbo. He has consistently complained that it grants too many concessions to the rebels. Stalling by his Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party led to endless delays in legislating the political reforms called for by the peace agreement. By the end of December, all the Marcoussis reforms had been approved by parliament. But a political row continued to simmer over whether a constitutional ammendment endorsed by the legislature should be put to a referendum as well. Ggagbo continued to insist on a referendum to approve the change which would allow Alassane Ouattara, a former prime minister who is popular in the north, to stand against him in the 2005 presidential elections. Ouattara, who lives in exile in Paris, was banned from taking part in the 2000 presidential election which brought Gbagbo to power on the disputed grounds that his father was born in Burkina Faso. So long as the political reforms promised by Marcoussis were not on the statute book, the rebels refused to hand in their weapons, but this justification for retaining their guns has been largely removed. However, given Gbagbo's attempt to resume war in November, the rebels may well seek additional guarantees from the international community before agreeing to disarm. Meanwhile, a question mark has arisen over the future role of France's 5,000 troops in Cote d'Ivoire. These work alongside the UN peacekeeping force under independent command with a specific mandate to intervene quickly in trouble spots. Since the French intervened to destroy Gbagbo's air force on 6 November, they are no longer viewed by the president and his supporters as a neutral force in the conflict. Rowdy street demonstrations by Gbagbo's supporters have urged them to leave. However, French troops prevented the rebels from marching on Abidjan when the civil war first erupted in September 2003 and Gbagbo himself has so far stopped short of demanding their withdrawal. Poverty rises in a poisoned atmosphere Within Cote d'Ivoire, the political atmosphere remained poisonous at the year end, offering little prospect for the early return of more than 500,000 migrant workers and their families who have fled back to Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea. They left to escape persecution by Gbagbo's supporters who regard them as rebel sympathisers. Most immigrants from other West African countries have stayed on, but they and people from the north of Cote d'Ivoire remain a favourite target for extortion by government soldiers and policemen at road blocks. Pro-Gbagbo newspapers continue to stir up distrust and hatred of foreigners. Such ethnic tensions, stoked by land ownership disputes, occasionally lead to orgies of blood-letting. Just before Christmas 18 people were reported killed near the southern town of Gagnoa when Burkinabe settlers who had been driven off their farms by members of Gbagbo's Bete ethnic group attacked a village near the president's own home. The army said 11 people died in the raid and the Burkinabe consul in Gagnoa reported that seven Burkinabes were subsequently shot or hacked to death in reprisal killings. Conditions are no better in the rebel-held north, where most schools and hospitals have remained closed for the past two years, those who disagree with the rebels are forced to remain silent and many farmers who once grew cash crops have reverted to subsistence farming. This year's harvest in the north has been poor and as the rebels grow short of funds there have been regular reports of rebel gunmen extorting money from villagers. Indeed, although Cote d'Ivoire was once the most prosperous country in West Africa, unemployment and poverty are on the increase on both sides of the front line and immigrants' remittances to neighbouring countries have fallen sharply. The United Nations estimated in December that 44 percent of Cote d'Ivoire's 16 million population lived below the poverty line - up from 38 percent in 2002 - and that the need for humanitarian aid would rise further in 2005.