Nairobi — In their first joint statement, Cote d'Ivoire's three rebel factions warned France, Monday, that they would consider any future attacks on their positions by French forces an 'act of war'. The decision came at a gathering of rebels in the central city of Bouaké, the stronghold of the main rebel group, the Patriotic Movement of Cote d'Ivoire (MPCI), which launched the original uprising in September.
The rebel threat followed clashes between French and rebel troops, Saturday, near the key town of Duékoué in the west of the country where the newest insurgents, belonging to the Ivorian Popular Movement of the Far West (MPIGO) and the Movement for Justice and Peace (MJP) have their base. French troops have set up a checkpoint at the strategic junction of Duékoué, leading south towards the commercial metropolis, Abidjan, which remains under loyalist army control.
The infuriated rebels claim French soldiers blocked their southward march to confront President Laurent Gbagbo's troops, backed by mercenaries. The rebels told Paris that a repeat of Saturday's incident - the first time French forces had opened fire to stop the rebels - would be considered a "casus belli" and would prompt them to join forces in an all-out offensive against the French military. "The MPCI, the MPIGO and the MJP will then launch a widespread attack on all fronts," a group statement said.
Paris responded immediately, denying repeated rebel charges that it has taken sides in the conflict in Cote d'Ivoire. A foreign ministry spokesman in Paris, Bernard Valero, reiterated the official French line that "only a peaceful, political and negotiated solution will allow a durable settlement of the conflict."
But increasingly the former colonial power in Cote d'Ivoire appears to have been drawn into the messy crisis, despite its initial mandate only to protect and evacuate French and other expatriates in Cote d'Ivoire. The French military role changed to ceasefire monitors after an agreement between President Laurent Gbagbo's government and the MPCI rebels in October. The mandate was again modified in early December, when the French troops received orders to enforce peace and shoot to kill any violators of the cease fire or of human rights.
In the past decade or so, Paris has ostensibly changed its military and foreign policy in its former colonies, from one of direct intervention to a more subtle influence on developments in francophone Africa.
But announcing Sunday that its soldiers would remain in Cote d'Ivoire for as long as was necessary, to seek a peaceful political resolution to the Ivorian crisis, Paris broke with recent tradition. By increasing its military presence, ensuring its most significant African military intervention force since the 1980s, Paris demonstrated that it was prepared to take the risk of being sucked into the turmoil in Cote d'Ivoire.
But analysts warned that France might find it difficult to extricate itself from a conflict that has divided the country in two and threatens to destabilise an already turbulent West Africa in an orgy of anarchy and violence.
West African peacekeepers are meant to be taking over from the French military.
Apart from considering the French role in the Ivorian conflict, the rebels also held the Bouaké talks to consider a possible alliance between the three factions, but stopped short of a formal merger. But they remain united in their desire to see the departure of Gbagbo, whose controversial October 2000 election victory the rebels contest. They accuse the Ivorian leader of whipping up ethnic tensions, encouraging intolerance and allowing a pernicious culture of xenophobia to explode in Cote d'Ivoire.
The joint statement issued Monday repeated a rebel call for Gbagbo to resign and to make way for all-inclusive democratic elections. Cote d'Ivoire's main opposition leader and former prime minister, Alassane Dramane Ouattara - a Muslim northerner and kinsman of many of the original rebels - has also called for Gbagbo to step down.
Speaking in Dakar, Senegal at the weekend - in his first reported public statement since he fled from hiding in Cote d'Ivoire - Ouattara said Cote d'Ivoire was in a terrible mess and that Gbagbo "should resign". He said: "The only way to get out of this crisis is to have early elections, with all the participants, be they political parties or those who represent the rebels".
On the grounds of his disputed nationality, and subsequent court challenges, Ouattara was barred from standing in the presidential election Gbagbo won after many years as the main opposition leader.
Despite a widely held perception in government loyalist circles in Cote d'Ivoire, and claims by Gbagbo's supporters that Ouattara is in cahoots with the rebels, he denies having any contact with them to date.
Parallel to the worsening political and military situation in Cote d'Ivoire is the humanitarian crisis. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has warned that tens of thousands of Liberian refugees are under serious threat, trapped by the fighting and "caught between opposing forces" in western Cote d'Ivoire.
The UNHCR country representative, Panos Moumtsis, told the BBC: "The situation is deteriorating daily. Politically there is no resolution. Militarily the government is losing more and more ground. From the humanitarian point of view, the needs are getting greater every day."
Moumtsis said he feared reprisal attacks against the refugees who, he said, could become potential targets for both sides - loyal government troops and the rebels, who might consider the Liberians as traitors. He urged the Ivorian government to authorise a new location, so the UNHCR could urgently move up to 60,000 refugees from the troubled west to safety along the southern coast.
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UNHCR headquarters in Geneva said it was negotiating with other West African countries, including Guinea, to take in the Liberians if the situation continued to deteriorate in Cote d'Ivoire.
On Friday, the UN in New York condemned the rebel attempts to topple Gbagbo's elected government and said it was disturbed by the reports of mass killings and violations of human rights in Cote d'Ivoire. France welcomed the UN statement, calling it a "positive development" and the discussions "very constructive". Paris has been pushing for greater international involvement to end the crisis, which West African peace brokers have so far failed to resolve.
For the first time, the UN Security Council expressed grave concern over the volatile situation in Cote d'Ivoire, warning against "its serious consequences for the population of this country and the region."
A deepening of the already chaotic crisis in Cote d'Ivoire raises the spectre of further debilitating regional war, memories of which are still fresh in West Africa after the brutal civil conflicts in neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone.
