Abidjan — Rebels in Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) claimed they captured the country's key cocoa producing town of Daloa on Sunday, as West African envoys reported progress in their efforts to find a negotiated settlement to the three-week rebellion.
Residents of Daloa, which lies 250 miles northwest of the economic capital Abidjan, reported that the rebels had entered the town around midday local time and immediately taken control of the military and paramilitary bases, with no resistance.
Earlier reports said loyalist soldiers were seen fleeing with their families and commandeering civilian vehicles as the mutineers advanced on Daloa, the first and most important trading hub in Cote d'Ivoire's cocoa belt to fall into rebel hands.
Cocoa prices on the international markets hit almost 17-year highs on Friday, because of the impact of the current crisis in the world's number one cocoa producing country. Cote d'Ivoire accounts for almost 40 percent of global supply and the cost of cocoa has skyrocketed by 12 percent since the fighting began on 19 September.
The military uprising has already severely disrupted trade and production, in the build up to Cote d'Ivoire main cocoa harvest. Analysts predict that Monday trading could see more uncertainty as buyers assess their options and as demand threatens to outstrip supply.
Buyers have turned to other cocoa growers in the region, boosting the markets across the border in Ghana -- the world's third largest cocoa producer -- and in Cameroon, which supplies only a tenth of Cote d'Ivoire's output. Both Ghana and Cameroon are expecting a bumper year.
The backbone of the cocoa workforce in Cote d'Ivoire comes from Burkina Faso, a neighbouring country to the north that has been obliquely implicated in the coup led by disgruntled soldiers.
Hundreds of Burkinabe and other immigrants, as well as poor Ivorians, have been left displaced and homeless, after their shantytowns were destroyed by Ivorians, and paramilitary gendarmes. Locals were furious that Burkina's president Blaise Compaore was mentioned as one of the main backers of the rebels and 'instigator' of the rebellion.
While the mutineers in the cocoa heartland of Daloa continued to consolidate their military strength on the ground, presumably to enter into any proposed negotiations with the government from a position of strength, a West African peace envoy was talking to their colleagues in their central stronghold of Bouake.
The Senegalese foreign minister, Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, flew to Bouake for the second consecutive day for meetings with rebel commanders in the city they control, 225 miles north of Abidjan. Senegal is the current chair of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), which is spearheading a regional peace initiative to try to end the bloody rebellion in Cote d'Ivoire.
Gadio told journalists he had reached a 'verbal understanding,' with both government and rebel representatives, which he said could open the way to a ceasefire, a peace plan and negotiations. Meanwhile the Ecowas executive secretary, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, held a parallel meeting with Ivorian President, Laurent Gbagbo, in Abidjan on Sunday.
News of diplomatic developments in the Cote d'Ivoire crisis, and the slim hope this raised, came exactly a week after an initial West African-brokered peace deal collapsed without a truce between the two sides. The Ivorian government declined the offer, saying it could not agree a ceasefire until the rebels laid down their arms.
Reuters reported Sunday that the Bouake rebels had agreed in principle to freeze their frontlines, as long as they were not attacked by government troops. But no mention has been made about whether they were prepared to surrender their weapons. The answer last week was an unequivocal 'no'.
The insurgents accused President Laurent Gbagbo of negotiating in bad faith during the first tentative round, after his army launched a major offensive on Bouake but failed to retake the city on Monday.
Thousands of desperate and hungry civilians poured out of Bouake by foot over the weekend, fearful that the fighting would intensify and trap them in the besieged city. State television on Sunday night featured the tales of a number of young men who said they had fled Bouake to avoid being forcibly recruited into the ranks of the rebels.
The capture of Daloa by the dissidents is another blow for the government and loyalist army. And it has led to fears that more displaced people will take to the road to escape the fate of people in Bouake, where food is becoming scarce and costly.
Gbagbo fired the hardline Defence Minister, Moise Lida Kouassi, who has been advocating a military solution to the conflict on Saturday, although he was reassigned to the president's office and has kept his ministerial rank. Gbagbo has taken on the defence portfolio himself. The insurgents had long demanded Lida Kouassi's removal from the government.
"The president is positioning himself to wage the war as he wants to -- that is, to switch from being on the defensive to going on the offensive. It's a new strategy," Mamadou Koulibay, the president of the National Assembly, and the nation's second most senior official said on Saturday.
Lida Kouassi's dismissal came after the highly visible minister repeatedly pledged an all-out government assault on key centers captured by the rebels. He failed to deliver. Loyalist troops have faltered in their counter offensives, despite premature celebrations after official announcements that they had retaken Bouake on Monday. Analysts said the minister was axed from defence, because of the army's failure to crush the rebellion. He was also opposed to negotiations with the rebels, unless they disarmed.
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The dissident soldiers are predominantly from the Muslim-dominated north, which they claim is marginalised in favour of the mainly Christian south and west -- Gbagbo's native heartland. The mutineers, unhappy at their early retirement from the army, want reintegration into the security forces and an end to what they describe as ethnic discrimination in Cote d'Ivoire. They have also called for fresh elections.
Despite Koulibaly's utterances on Gbagbo favouring a tougher military approach, the Ivorian leader has come under increasing regional and international pressure to opt for peace mediation and agree a ceasefire. The rebels agreed to the regionally brokered truce with the government last week.
West African leaders, joined by influential Western powers, have warned that any alternative could escalate the Cote d'Ivoire conflict into a full-scale regional war.
Very little has been heard from the Ivorian army chief, General Mathias Doue, since he was seen on television, receiving government and cabinet financial donations from the prime minister on behalf of the army almost two weeks ago.
News agencies initially reported Sunday that Angola had sent troops and armoured vehicles to the military airport in Abidjan to back Gbagbo's beleaguered army. But an Angolan presidential spokesman denied this to Reuters saying "The position of the Angolan government is not to send troops to Ivory Coast".
