allAfrica.com: Côte d'Ivoire: Peace Efforts Redoubled as Fighting Flares in West (Page 1 of 2)

Government troops in Cote d’Ivoire report fresh fighting in the west of the country on Sunday, as efforts continued to persuade President Laurent Gbagbo and his rivals to implement a peace accord agreed in France last month.

Quoted by Reuters, the Ivorian loyalist army spokesman, Jules Yao Yao, issued a statement Sunday afternoon saying that the rebels had attacked government positions in Toulepleu, a small town in the west, close to Cote d’Ivoire’s border with Liberia.

"The attack was launched simultaneously from three directions: north, south and west of the town," Sunday morning, the army statement said. "The fighting lasted one hour and the enemy, mainly comprising Liberians, was repulsed."

Reports say both the government and the rebels are using mercenaries to help fight their battles.

The rebels accused the government troops of attacking first. In a satellite phone conversation with Reuters, a rebel commander calling himself "Israel" denied the army claim that the rebels were responsible for the latest reported upsurge in fighting. "Israel" said rebel positions were bombarded by government tanks and heavy weapons and that the clashes were continuing.

These troubling developments come as West African leaders struggle to bring the rival Ivorian sides together for a mini-summit, which they hope will consolidate agreement to implement the French-brokered peace deal.

But there is some confusion about the venue for the talks. The Ivorian presidency said the meeting was to be held Monday in the Ivorian capital, Yamoussoukro, 250km (160 miles) north of the coastal commercial centre, Abidjan.

Reports said the rebels were unhappy to attend a meeting in government-held territory, despite assurances from the former colonial power, France. Paris said its military on the ground in Cote d’Ivoire could guarantee the rebels’ security.

Speaking from their stronghold in the central city of Bouake, rebel commander, Tuo Fozie - representing the main faction, the Patriotic Movement of Cote d’Ivoire (MPCI) - said they had not yet decided whether or not to go to Yamoussoukro, 100km (60 miles) to the south.

The French have upwards of 3,000 troops in Cote d’Ivoire, sent in initially to protect their nationals and other foreigners. Since October, French forces have been trying to enforce ceasefires between government and rebel troops and keep the rival sides apart.

More French troops

Paris has considerably bolstered its military presence in Cote d’Ivoire since violent anti-French riots broke out in Abidjan late last month, led by angry pro-Gbagbo supporters demonstrating their strength in the government’s power base. The protestors hold the French responsible for imposing a peace package on the Ivorian leader which they claim both favours and rewards the rebels, to the detriment of Gbagbo.

The peace deal signed by rebels, Gbagbo's negotiators and Ivorian political parties - and ultimately by Gbagbo himself - is known as the Marcoussis accord, named after the venue of the talks last month in Linas-Marcoussis, outside Paris.

After signing the accord in Paris, Gbagbo allowed two weeks to elapse before addressing the nation on the agreement. His critics argue that his silence allowed tensions in Abidjan to rise sharply, with his supporters demanding the agreement should be ditched, and the rebels insisting from afar that it was non-negotiable. But Gbagbo gave the agreement a provisional green-light on Friday, albeit conditional upon certain factors, and while insisting that it could not override the Ivorian constitution. "I invite you to accept the spirit of the Marcoussis agreements and therefore the test of the Marcoussis accord, as a basis to work on," Gbagbo said on national television. Earlier he had called the accord a ‘set of proposals".

"Let’s try this medicine. If we get better, then we keep it. If not, we try something else," said the Ivorian leader.

But, crucially, he cast doubt on whether the rebels would be granted the strategic and powerful defence and interior ministries they claimed they had been assigned under the agreement.

It was this information that had incensed Gbagbo’s followers, who immediately went on the warpath against French targets in Abidjan, denouncing the Marcoussis accord as a conspiracy by Paris and a constitutional coup.

The Ivorian security forces, leading political parties, traditional leaders and pro-government civilians all opposed rebel control of the key ministerial portfolios. Not only did the armed forces warn that they would refuse to report to rebel ministers, but they also objected vehemently to a provision in the agreement for the security units to disarm and return to barracks, calling the Paris agreement a ‘national humiliation’ which Ivorians could not accept.

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