Lome, Togo — Rebels of the Patriotic Movement of Cote d'Ivoire (MPCI) Sunday, accused neighbouring Ghana of allowing its territory to be used by troops loyal to Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo to launch an attack on rebel positions at Bouna, in the northeast.
A senior rebel representative also alleged that the Gbagbo government was preparing to attack its forces.
The rebel allegations were immediately rejected by the Ghanaian authorities in the capital Accra. In a telephone interview with AllAfrica, the foreign minister, Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, said "Our response is one of complete amazement and the alleged statement is outrageous and a complete fabrication with absolutely no substance".
Addressing a news conference Sunday night in the Togolese capital, Lome -- where rival Ivorian government and rebel delegations are holding peace talks -- the MPCI's secretary general, Guillaume Soro, told reporters Ghana's President John Kufuor had agreed to Gbagbo's request that the Cote d'Ivoire be authorized to use Ghanaian territory, northwest of its border.
In a second accusation, the Ivorian rebels claimed that Ghana had supplied between 70 and 100 soldiers to Gbagbo "destined to fight against the MPCI, also from the western side of the Ghanaian border." A statement issued to journalists in Lome said this would effectively make a part of Ghana a rear base for both Ivorian and Ghanaian troops and came by way of a warning to the Accra government.
Owusu-Agyemang countered that the rebel declaration bordered on "absurdity to think that President Kufuor would send 70 men to assist in the fight against the MPCI. Indeed, what the president has done has been publicly and quietly to advocate for a conference, a meeting and dialogue between President Gbagbo and the major political players in Cote d'Ivoire".
The Ghanaian minister said it was strange to suggest that Kufuor, would "ever grant passage for any force to use Ghana as a conduit to attack the forces of the MPCI from the north. I cannot understand why Mr Soro would make such a statement".
But Ghana's alleged action, said Soro, could seriously compromise the peace negotiations with the Ivorian government delegation in Lome. He added that Gbagbo's forces were preparing an imminent attack against the rebel stronghold of Bouake, in central Cote d'Ivoire. Soro said the French troops, currently monitoring a ceasefire agreed last month, had been asked by Gbagbo to pull back from their current positions.
The rebel statement, quoting informed and reliable sources, was simultaneously a condemnation of as well as an appeal to President Kufuor and to Ghana, which hosted the first emergency regional heads of state summit in Accra on the crisis on Cote d'Ivoire, one week after the uprising on 19 September. Ghana is also a member of the six-nation high level contact group on Cote d'Ivoire, set up to try to mediate an end to the conflict there.
"The MPCI would like to remind the Ghanaian authorities that, after the meeting in Accra, all the protagonists were encouraged to use peaceful and political means to resolve the Ivorian conflict. But by putting its territory and troops at the disposal of Mr Laurent Gbagbo, so that they can attack our positions at Bouna, President John Kufuor is violating the resolutions of the Contact Group of which he is a member," said the rebel statement.
Soro said they had made public this information to sensitise international opinion and to ensure that Accra understood that its alleged action that could jeopardise the Lome talks.
The leader of the Ivorian government delegation in Togo, Laurent Dona Fologo, defended Gbagbo and the Ghanaians, in his own hastily arranged news briefing on Sunday night. Fologo denied what he called "wild accusations" by the rebels. He denounced the statement by the MCPI rebels, saying Soro's accusation was totally false.
Fologo called the rebels' move a "propaganda gimmick" and a pretext not to sign the proposed Lome peace plan adding that, until now, his delegation had chosen not to respond to rebel provocation. But speaking alone for 30 minutes, during a news conference where he took no questions, Fologo made up for the official delegation's comparative silence in Lome. He called Soro's declaration "ill conceived, full of malice and without foundation."
"They are just crying wolf," said Fologo, "choosing peace instead of war." "If we had chosen the path of war," he continued "we would not be in Lome," concluding that Ghana had done as much as any regional country to organize the peace talks on Cote d'Ivoire.
Fologo said Gbagbo's government did not want to see another drop of blood spilt in Cote d'Ivoire and would not consider entering into alliances that will lead to more war. "The panther does not growl and make too much noise when it does not yet have its prey within its paws."
The Cote d'Ivoire rebels tried and failed to seize power from Laurent Gbagbo in September in what the government first called a mutiny, then a coup d'etat, a rebellion and an act of terrorism and destabilization.
Since then, the country has been split in two, with the northern predominantly Muslim half controlled by the rebels and the southern metropolis, Abidjan, in government hands. As the war of words continues, the substantive peace talks in Togo have dragged on with little progress, despite the continued optimism of the mediators, led by the chief coordinator, Togo's president Gnassingbe Eyadema. The current chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade, recently declared in Paris that the Lome peace process was "finished" and offered his own individual mediation services "as long as I can work alone, in my own way".
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But both the rebels and the government renewed their confidence in Eyadema's efforts, saying the Lome negotiations were still on course. However, the main hurdles remain. The Ivorian government insists the rebels must disarm. The insurgents are, in turn, demanding the resignation of Gbagbo, fresh elections and a "new political order" in Cote d'Ivoire. They say the Ivorian leader was not legitimately elected, in disputted 2000 presidential poll, and has since discriminated against northerners, kinsmen of most of the rebels.
Hundreds of people were killed in a month of fighting and tens of thousands more displaced. Thousands of foreigners from neighbouring countries, who have felt the brunt of Ivorian hostility and violence, have fled the country, once considered the economic powerhouse of West Africa and a haven of peace and political stability in a turbulent region.
Troops from France, the former colonial power, are monitoring a ceasefire agreed in October, which is still in force despite mutual allegations of bad faith between the government and the rebels. West African peacekeepers are scheduled to take over from the French forces, with a small advance guard already in place in Cote d'Ivoire.
Each side has accused the other of summary executions and political killings. Human rights' organizations have appealed to both camps to stop humanitarian abuses and violations.
