Johannesburg — There were reports of renewed fighting in Cote dIvoire Tuesday, less than 24 hours after Seydou Diarra was installed as the country's new consensus prime minister - with the difficult task of trying to bring peace and forming a government of national reconciliation.
Rebels in the cocoa-producing west of the country claimed to have come under attack by government troops on Monday night and said fighting continued Tuesday in Toulepleu, a town 20km (13 miles) from the Liberian border. These reports were not immediately independently confirmed. The Ivorian army also was not available for comment.
Diarra, who has received unconditional backing from regional and western leaders, as well as the United Nations secretary-general, even got a lukewarm reception from pro-Gbagbo supporters who were initially suspicious about his appointment and prevented him from flying home.
The new prime minister was holding consultations Tuesday, as he tried to draw up a list of prospective ministers to serve in his all-party cabinet. But it will not be easy.
The rebels are still insisting they must be assigned the sensitive ministerial portfolios they say they were promised - defence and interior. They have also repeated their threats to return to war if President Laurent Gbagbo does not implement the French-brokered Cote dIvoire peace accord by the end of the week.
Some of Gbagbos aides say it is out of the question that the rebels will get these strategic cabinet posts, adding that it would be a dangerous precedent for democracy on the continent were they to be given plum positions in the government.
"Gbagbo cannot be trusted. No sooner has he signed (a peace deal) than he attacks. We are just defending our positions," said Felix Doh, a commander of one of two rebel factions operating in the west, of the latest reported upsurge in fighting.
The main rebel Patriotic Movement of Cote dIvoire (MPCI) has held most of the north since it launched a failed coup in September last year. The MPCI says the defence and interior ministries are "not negotiable".
The rebels declined an invitation from the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) to join a regional presidential summit Monday in the political capital, Yamoussoukro. It was called to try to kick start peace efforts. Diarra, Gbagbo and other regional heads of state attended.
"Gbagbo must be clear about the accord first, then we can start talking about the government," Guillaume Soro, an MPCI leader, told reporters in the central rebel stronghold of Bouake. The Ivorian leader has been less than enthusiastic about the Paris-mediated peace package agreed last month in the French capital, refusing to give the deal the ringing endorsement it has received from West African and western leaders, as well as the UN.
"There wont be peace and there wont be territorial integrity (of Cote dIvoire) as long as the accords are not applied and the reconciliation government is not formed," said Soro.
AfDB Evacuates
The continuing insecurity, tension and confusion in Cote dIvoire has triggered more significant departures from the country. In the latest move, the African Development Bank (AfDB), based in Abidjan - the government-controlled main commercial hub - has announced that it will transfer some of its staff out of the city.
It is against this backdrop of a dramatic loss in confidence in Cote dIvoire that the new prime minister is struggling to restore trust in the country and the faltering peace process. Diarra has to sooth egos as well as mutual suspicion, hostility and political and ethnic rivalries.
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The MPCIs Soro warned that "if Diarra is a puppet prime minister, then theres a problem." But the Ghanaian president and newly-elected Ecowas chairman, John Agyekum Kufuor, said, Sunday, he was confident and hopeful that Diarras appointment would go some way to easing tensions [since that was] "a major feature of the Marcoussis accord [signed in Paris]".
Diarra, a respected former diplomat and Muslim northerner, hails from the same part of Cote dIvoire as the main rebel MPCI. That faction, backed by the other rebels, complains that Gbagbo has marginalised the north, concentrating his attention on the south and his native west and fanning ethnic enmity in the country that is home to millions of immigrants from neighbouring countries.
