UN/government may extend joint street patrols

After a first smooth week patrolling the streets of Abidjan, joint security teams made up of UN peacekeepers and Ivorian government forces may be set up in other towns in the troubled West African country, a UN spokesman said on Tuesday. “So far, so good,” said Hamadoun Toure, referring to the 24-hour patrols launched on 22 December in the country’s economic capital. At any one time, a mega-patrol of 100 soldiers and policemen from the joint force cruises the city streets in a convoy of trucks, ready to intervene in possible trouble spots. “We will assess the operation to see whether we extend it to other centres,” said Toure, the official spokesman of the United Nations Operation in Cote d'Ivoire (ONUCI). Other towns where similar joint patrols may be launched include the official capital Yamoussoukro, 200 km northwest of Abidjan, Daloa in the volatile west of Cote d'Ivoire, and the port city of San Pedro, a major outlet for exports of cocoa and timber. Toure declined to say how soon joint patrols might be established there. Cote d'Ivoire has been split between a loyalist south and rebel north since September 2002, with ONUCI forces and French peacekeepers now monitoring the buffer zone between. French-speaking Togolese peacekeepers have been assigned to the round-the-clock patrols carried out with police, paramilitary gendarmes and soldiers, Toure said. “There’s good coordination between the different forces.” Referring to the patrols, armed forces chief of staff Colonel Philippe Mangou said “Ivorians will be able to live with a bit of peace and quiet in Abidjan.” Supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo ran riot in the city in early November in protest at the destruction of the Ivorian air force by French peacekeepers to prevent a planned government offensive against the rebels from going ahead. About 3,000 prisoners from Abidjan's main jail escaped in the confusion and attacks on the homes and businesses of white residents persuaded 9,000 mainly French expatriates to leave. Meanwhile, militias linked to both sides in Cote d’Ivoire’s simmering civil war as well as criminal gangs have terrorized many other areas of the interior The idea of joint patrols first surfaced last March after at least 120 people died when government security forces crushed opposition attempts to stage a protest march in Abidjan. Interior Minister Martin Bleou warned Ivorians at the time that “not everyone wearing fatigues and toting a gun is a member of the security forces. A lot of weapons are in circulation.” An inquiry into the bloodshed by UN human rights experts found that many of the killings were carried out by shadowy militia groups with close links to the government security forces. “The patrols are a good thing because we are still scared in the pit of our stomach,” said a 40-year-old craftsman in the working class district of Koumassi. He said he had never seen the white UN jeeps or the Ivorian military trucks used by the mobile force. A 30-year-old student, Judith Allangba, said she had seen the patrols but complained that they were failing to take action against police corruption. “Every night police extorting money from drivers cause huge traffic jams near Adjame train station. We thought the joint patrols would bring an end to this,” she told IRIN. Captain Arsene Seka Abe, the Ivorian officer in charge of the joint patrols said his men had intervened several times over the Christmas period to break up street fights and clamp down on petty crime. “We are building up confidence among the population and we’re reassuring the international community,” he said.