COTE D IVOIRE: UN scolds Ivorian leaders, brandishes threat of sanctions

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ABIDJAN, 22 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - With mediation efforts to end Cote d’Ivoire’s three-year war floundering yet again, the United Nations wagged a finger at leaders on both sides of the divide and brandished the threat of sanctions.

The uncertainty surrounding the mediation by South African President Thabo Mbeki is fuelling tension on the ground. At the same time it is highlighting rifts among African nations involved in trying to bring peace to the country that was once a regional haven of peace and prosperity.

Upping the stakes in the drive for peace, the 15-nation UN Security Council is sending one of its members, Greek Ambassador Adamantios Vassilakis, to decide whether to impose sanctions on Ivorian leaders deemed to be blocking the peace process.

Vassilakis, who is head of the council’s sanctions committee, is scheduled to visit in mid-October, just days before peace-sealing elections are supposed to be held on 30 October.

Cote d’Ivoire has been split in two since September 2002 between a rebel-held north and government-controlled south, with around 10,000 UN and French peacekeepers patrolling the buffer zone.

After an upsurge in violence last November, the UN Security Council approved individual sanctions such as travel bans and asset freezes against Ivorian leaders found to be blocking peace efforts. But the sanctions have not yet been brought into effect.

In a statement late Wednesday, the UN said the ambassador’s visit had been arranged “so that the Council will be in a position to take appropriate action in response to those who pose a threat to the peace and national reconciliation process … or who are determined to be responsible for serious violations of human rights.”

According to Pierre Schori, the head of the UN mission in Cote d'Ivoire, all sides are guilty of failing to fully commit to peace.

“Every actor still has a role to play. Nobody has done everything (in their power),” he told a press conference on Thursday. "There’s no role for people who say ‘There’s nothing I can do’. There’s work to be done, just look at the (peace) agreements.”

Under an April peace deal mediated by Mbeki, which is just the latest in a string of draft accords, Cote d’Ivoire was to have disarmed by beginning of October so that presidential elections could be held in a reunified country on 30 October.

But even UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has acknowledged that the poll is "not going to be possible", so the crunch election is now almost certainly going to be postponed, stoking fears that the country could slide into chaos.

“No time to lose” says UN

Schori said rebels must show goodwill by preparing to gather in cantonment sites ahead of an eventual disarmament while President Laurent Gbagbo ensures that pro-government militia hand in their weapons and an independent election committee begins its work.

“Some very good things have been achieved, but we must continue," he said. "There is no time to lose.”

Meanwhile the two sides are rowing about who should lead future international mediation efforts.

Mbeki has fallen out of favour with the rebels after one of his ministers recently chided them while patting Gbagbo on the back for his peace efforts. The rebels have banned South African mediators from the north and have been urging the AU and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to officially declare his mission as mediator over.

“Mbeki does not understand this crisis at all,” rebel leader Guillaume Soro told IRIN in an interview this weekend in the rebel headquarters of Bouake.

AU and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose country vies with South Africa as the voice of the continent, last weekend appeared to lean in the rebels' favour when he pledged “renewed efforts by Nigeria, ECOWAS and the AU to find new ways of solving the crisis."

But media reports that the AU had halted Mbeki’s mission as peacemaker were angrily denied by the South African president’s office as untrue and "nothing but fabrications".

Gbagbo in the meantime has reiterated his refusal to join any other peace effort but Mbeki’s.

He is also refusing to attend an ECOWAS summit that has not yet been officially announced, saying the regional bloc had tried but failed in the past to draw a line under the Ivorian war and that some members had already shown themselves to be in the rebel camp.

“I will not take this business back to ECOWAS. That’s over, we need to move ahead,” he said on Wednesday evening. “When you walk you put one foot forward, then another, you don’t take a step back.”

Gbagbo said this week that he had written to the UN suggesting all parties join a parley in the Ivorian capital Yamoussoukro that would be chaired by Mbeki.

In Addis Ababa, an official said the AU was planning to bring the continent's heads of state together for a summit on Cote d’Ivoire before 30 October.

Should the poll not take place as scheduled, Gbagbo has said he will stay on as president until fresh elections are held. However, his political rivals and the rebels claim he does not have a mandate beyond 30 October and have called on him to stand down and give way to a transitional authority.

[ENDS]