Central bank in rebel-held town nearly robbed

The branch office of the Central Bank of West African States(BCEAO) in the rebel-held town of Korhogo was nearly robbed this week when armed men kidnapped the bank’s sole representative in the town, French peacekeepers said on Friday. They said the bank's representative in Korhogo was lured to the bank building on Thursday by a phone call, purportedly from a rebel soldier, who said the local rebel commander, Fofie Kouakou, wanted to see him. However, the man was met on arrival at the bank by a group of armed men who ordered him to open the open the safe. He refused to do so and was beaten and kept hostage until Friday morning when French peacekeeping troops who had been alerted by relatives, found the group negotiated his release. French soldiers told a correspondent for IRIN in Korhogo that no-on one was killed in the incident and no money was taken from the local branch of the central bank that issues the CFA franc currency used by 14 mainly Francophone countries in West and Central Africa. This is the third reported attempt to break into a BCEAO office in the rebel-held north of Cote d'Ivoire since the country erupted into civil war in September 2002. Last September armed men broke into the BCEAO office in the rebel capital Bouake and made out with millions of CFA francs. The theft was widely believed to be the work of rebels anxious to lay their hands on extra cash. A similar attack on the BCEAO branch in the western city of Man shortly afterwards was foiled. Days before the civil war erupted, armed men robbed more than one billion CFA francs (US$20 million) from the main branch of the BCEAO in Cote d'Ivoire in downtown Abidjan. All banks in the rebel-held north of Cote d'Ivoire have been closed since the conflict began. News of this latest incident in Korhogo emerged as West African heads of state, joined by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan met with Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, rebel leader Guillaume Soro, and several Ivorian opposition leaders at a two-day summit in Accra, Ghana, to try and put the country's faltering peace process back on track During the summit, the rebel New Forces movement, has placed its armed forces on high alert.