Annan wants more peacekeepers on ground

The UN peacekeeping force in Cote d'Ivoire is overstretched and needs thousands of reinforcements as long-delayed elections near, and there remains "the possibility that another major violent crisis might occur", Secretary-General Kofi Annan said. In his latest report on the divided West African nation, Annan recommended that an extra 3,400 soldiers and 475 policemen be sent in, boosting the peacekeeping force by some 50 percent. Currently almost 6,900 blue-hats officers, alongside 4,000 peacekeepers from former colonial power France, patrol the buffer zone which cuts a swath between the government-run south and the rebel-held north. And around 700 police officers help keep the peace in urban areas and train local officers. But Annan says even more are needed, and hopes the UN Security Council will sign off on reinforcements when the current mission's mandate expires on 24 January. However, analysts and past experience suggest it may be tough going at the cost-conscious council. Last time a request for reinforcements was put to the 15-nation council, they granted a series of one-month extensions before finally acquiescing to an extra 850 troops, which fell short of the 2,000 soldiers UN officials had been hoping for. "It's a secret to nobody that both the United States and the Japanese have opposed increases in peacekeeping in Cote d'Ivoire before, almost exclusively because of financial reasons," said Mike McGovern, West Africa Project Director for think tank Crisis Group. "But you have to look at the maths in the short-term versus the maths in the long-term," he added. "If you do have explosions of violence, refugees fleeing, it's going to cost orders of magnitude more. If 3,400 extra peacekeepers can help stave off such a situation, then it's to be welcomed." He also recommended that a portion of any eventual reinforcements be used as a rapid reaction force to take some of the pressure off French troops. The latest request for more peacekeepers for Cote d'Ivoire became public in the same week that unidentified gunmen attacked two military camps on the north-eastern edge of the de facto capital, Abidjan. Around 10 people were killed in the attacks which happened just days after the formation of a new unity government had injected fresh impetus and revived hopes of a peaceful end to the three-year crisis. "The mutiny is [probably] seen as evidence of the fact that it's a very precarious situation still," said Crisis Group's McGovern. In his report, a copy of which was obtained by IRIN on Thursday, Annan said the UN forces were "thinly stretched throughout the country." And peacekeepers would be put under additional strain because the disarmament programme, electoral identification and poll preparations would be happening simultaneously rather than sequentially. Elections, initially scheduled for 30 October, 2005 have been postponed for up to a year, and the man charged with making sure another deadline doesn't slip is new prime minister, Charles Konan Banny, who began swearing in his cabinet this week.