Yamoussoukro — It took an hour and a half, and a long wait under a tree in a French schoolyard, for West African mediators to get agreement from Cote d'Ivoire's rebels to an immediate ceasefire 'in principal'.
Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the executive secretary of the Economic Community of West Africa States (Ecowas), led the contact group of ministers from Nigeria, Niger, Mail, Togo, and Ghana. (The sixth member, Guinea Bissau, was not represented.)
They flew to the rebel-held central city of Bouake Thursday, courtesy of the French army, for the first face-to-face encounter with Cote d'Ivoire's shadowy dissidents.
Armed with a ceasefire dossier, and a nod from the government of President Laurent Gbagbo that it was ready to sign a ceasefire, the delegation left Bouake late afternoon aboard French military helicopters, with a provisional rebel pledge also to stop fighting.
"They have agreed to a ceasefire," Chambas told journalists, adding that he expected the government and the rebels to sign a formal accord on Friday, here in the country's administrative capital, south of Bouake.
The negotiations placed Cote d'Ivoire's mutineers center stage. "This is the first contact by anybody really with the other stop, so we are all a bit mystified as to who the other side is and what they are demanding," the Ecowas chief said before the talks with the rebels. Chambas said: "The first priority is let's have a ceasefire. We cannot have a dialogue with guns pointing at each other."
The historic Bouake meeting, in front of cameras and television crews, gave Cote d'Ivoire, West Africa and the rest of the world community the first opportunity to scrutinise the rebels. Chambas assured reporters that he felt the rebel representatives they met had the authority to negotiate on behalf of their leaders and their colleagues in the north. Together, the rebels control up to 40 percent of the country.
In the two short weeks since the mutineers stepped into the limelight, launching their September 19 uprising and failed coup, they have remained an unknown quantity. They began calling themselves the Patriotic Movement of Cote d'Ivoire on Tuesday, but little is known about the leadership, their allegiances or who finances them.
The rebels themselves are said to be well armed, with sophisticated weapons loyalist government troops do not have, and well behaved. People in areas under their control have reported that they are organised, polite, disciplined and pay for whatever they take. Money, say residents of Bouake and the strategic northern city of Korhogo, which is also under rebel control, does not seem to be a problem for the dissident soldiers.
For the past three days, there have been pro-rebel demonstrations in Bouake, with protesters chanting anti-Gbagbo and anti-French slogans. France, the former colonial power, has steadily increased its military presence in the country and has been accused of slowing advance southwards, towards Yamoussoukro and the economic capital Abidjan.
On Wednesday, tens of thousands of Ivorians, sporting colourful rosettes, bandanas, T-shirts and head-ties, displaying the orange, white and green of the national flag, took to the streets of Abidjan to show their support for Gbagbo and his government.
Later in the day, cabinet ministers, led by the prime minister -- Pascal Affi N'Guessan - expressed their gratitude to the army. In a ceremony outside N'Guessan's Abidjan office, he handed over manila envelopes filled with money from the salaries of ministers and senior officials to the Ivorian army commander, Gen. Mathais Doue.
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On Thursday, in Bouake, a bearded rebel and local commander, Tuo Fozie, who has recently emerged as a spokesman, led the dissidents' negotiating team in Bouake. French soldiers created a protected cordon around the semi-outdoor school venue, where African ministers, in traditional boubous and African and European suits, sat down with rebels dressed for combat.
"We want a stable Cote d'Ivoire, in which everyone is Ivorian and everybody is equal," said Fozie, who hails from the north, a predominantly Muslim region, often thought to have been marginalised by the mainly Christian south.
Earlier this week, Fozie told Reuters the rebels want Gbagbo out, to allow fresh elections, which all political parties will be allowed to contest.
The rebel spokesman said the talks will continue in Yamoussoukro Friday, when the ceasefire is scheduled to be signed.
