Mbeki gets more time to mediate but runs into trouble

African leaders gave South African President Thabo Mbeki more time to negotiate peace in Cote d’Ivoire, but his mediation initiative ran into trouble hours later when rebels boycotted a special cabinet meeting on Tuesday at which he was guest of honour. A rebel spokesman accused Mbeki, who has been trying to broker a peace deal for the past two months, of “betrayal.” The African Union’s Peace and Security Council wrapped up a summit in the Gabonese capital, Libreville, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, with a plea to all the Ivorian factions to overcome political sticking points and proceed with disarmament to pave the way for elections in October. It also recommended that the UN Security Council delay imposing travel bans and asset freezes on key individuals seen as blocking the peace process in order to give Mbeki more time. But rebel leaders failed to turn up for a planned meeting with Mbeki in Cote d'Ivoire's official capital Yamoussoukro on Tuesday afternoon, saying they would prefer to see him later in South Africa. The rebels, who have occupied the northern half of Cote d’Ivoire since civil war erupted in September 2002, may have been irked by the AU's refusal to call for further UN sanctions on the country. Shortly before the Libreville summit, the G7 coalition, which groups Cote d’Ivoire’s New Forces rebel movement and the four main opposition parties in parliament, issued a statement accusing President Laurent Gbagbo of preparing for an imminent return to war. It urged the United Nations to impose a second round of sanctions immediately. An 18-month ceasefire between Gbagbo and the rebels was broken in early November, when government forces launched an abortive offensive to try and recapture the north. The flare-up in violence prompted the AU to call in Mbeki, a seasoned mediator, to try and put Cote d’Ivoire’s flagging peace process back on track. Getting everyone around cabinet table A key step would be to get the country’s power-sharing government of national reconciliation working again. The rebels have been boycotting cabinet meetings in the main city Abidjan for months, saying their security cannot be guaranteed there. Diplomats had hoped that by moving the venue of Tuesday’s cabinet meeting from Cote d’Ivoire’s main city Abidjan, where pro-Gbagbo mobs often rule the streets, to Yamoussoukro,200 km to the north, and by having Mbeki at the table, the rebels could be persuaded to return. But they refused to come. “We are very disappointed by the Libreville summit. They gave Gbagbo a back door,” rebel spokesman Sidiki Konate told IRIN by telephone from Bouake. “The population has been betrayed by the South Africans. It’s a step backwards for which there is no precedent.” Before the cabinet meeting began, officials close to Gbagbo said a no-show by the rebels would spell only one thing. “If they don’t come, it will show us that they don’t want to disarm and they don’t want peace. The international community should draw lessons from that,” a senior presidential aide told IRIN. South African diplomats said they were still trying to convince New Forces leader, Guillaume Soro, to meet Mbeki before the president returns home. But Konate said the rebels didn’t think Yamoussoukro was a safe venue. He said they had asked to see the South African leader in Pretoria instead. Another thing that may have annoyed the rebels was an AU statement in Libreville that Gbagbo was entitled to hold a referendum on a controversial constitutional amendment. The G7 opposition alliance believes that parliamentary approval of the reform, which allows people with only one Ivorian parent to run for head of state, should suffice. The immediate beneficiary of constitutional ammendment would be Alassane Ouattara, an exiled opposition learder who is popular in the north. He was banned from running against Gbagbo in the 2000 presidential election on the disputed grounds his father was from Burkina Faso. “The Council recognizes that a referendum is one of the options – not the exclusive one – to which the President could have recourse, providing it is organised in a way which respects the spirit of Linas-Marcoussis,” the AU said in a statement. Linas-Marcoussis is a suburb of Paris where the Ivorian factions negotiated a peace agreement two years ago. The deal thrashed out there still forms the blueprint for Mbeki’s peace initiative. Keeping spirit of Linas-Marcoussis Diplomats say privately that anyone campaigning against the constitutional change after parliament had approved the measure by an overwhelming majority, would be betraying the spirit of Linas-Marcoussis. Many also question whether there is enough time left to hold a referendum before presidential polls set for October. But officials close to the Ivorian president told IRIN insisted there was. “I’ll take you back to the year 2000 when there was a referendum in July and elections followed in October so why can’t we do the same thing this year?” one senior aide of Gbagbo said. But diplomats note that for a referendum to take place Cote d’Ivoire would have to be reunited and the rebels would have to disarm first. Mbeki’s proposed timetable for putting the peace process back on track, agreed with Gbagbo and the rebels on 6 December, envisaged disarmament starting on 15 January and ending by early April. UN officials say the cantonment sites are ready. But Konate, the rebel spokesman, said categorically on Tuesday that no rebel fighters would be handing in their guns this week. “There will be no disarmament,” he said. With no breakthrough in sight in Mbeki's mediation efforts, the AU Peace and Security Council has urged the United Nations to increase the number of UN peacekeepers in Cote d’Ivoire and give them a stronger mandate. Some 6,000 UN peacekeepers along with 4,000 French soldiers are deployed in the West African country to keep the two sides apart. Last month UN Secretary General Kofi Annan recommended that the UN force be increased to 7,466 after several days of mob violence in November left it “strained to the limit.” The UN Security Council has not so far reacted to this request.