Nairobi — The French foreign minister, Dominque de Villepin, flew to Cote d'Ivoire Friday and immediately began knocking heads together, to try to end the four-month civil war which has split the country in two. He received a commitment from President Laurent Gbagbo, who pledged to observe a "total ceasefire" and to expel all foreign mercenaries.
Villepin announced that faltering West African brokered peace talks in Togo, which have made little progress since October, would shift to a new venue in Paris. He said he expected all parties to meet in the French capital in mid-January. "We need to have very strong and fast results and I do believe that everyone wants to have a political solution," Villepin told journalists shortly after he arrived in the main city, Abidjan.
In a bid to restore peace to the former French colony, Paris sent Villepin to Cote d'Ivoire to turn up the pressure on the Ivorian leader, whose loyalist army has been fighting the rebels who launched a failed coup d'etat on September 19.
Gbagbo was instructed by Paris to get rid of foreign mercenaries reported to be fighting on the side of his troops and ground all helicopter gunships, one of the rebels' main demands. The French military is currently monitoring a ceasefire between the government and the main rebel northern Patriotic Movement of Cote d'Ivoire (MPCI).
Condemnation of government loyalist attack on civilian village
But Paris announced this week that the government had violated the truce, with a loyalist helicopter gunship raid behind northern rebel lines on Tuesday, on the fishing village of Menakro. The French military said a dozen civilians were killed. France strongly condemned the attack and called the incident unacceptable. Menakro is deep inside a ceasefire line being manned and monitored by French troops.
Washington shared French outrage, describing the government's aerial bombing as "senseless and ill conceived". But the Americans said the incident should not be a pretext to end peace efforts. "Individual actions such as the recent helicopter attack (on Menakro) should not be used as an excuse to abandon a ceasefire that has been relatively effective for more than two months," said Julie Reside, a State Department spokeswoman. She added: "We share with them (the French) a strong commitment to a peaceful political solution to the conflict (in Cote d'Ivoire)".
Gbagbo's government said the raid was in retaliation for a rebel attack on government positions.
Villepin appears to have won immediate concessions on both his demands. Gbagbo agreed to stricter controls on his troops and to throw out the mercenaries - this weekend. "The last of them will leave Ivorian territory tomorrow. There will be no more mercenaries on our side," Gbagbo told journalists. "We're going to abstain from all acts of war on all fronts, north, centre, west." The Ivorian leader added: "We're even going to demobilise our helicopters and stop our men in the positions they are in, because in the end we need peace."
The rebels are accused also of using the services of foreign mercenaries.
At a joint news conference on Friday, both Gbagbo and Villepin said they hoped the French peace initiative would jumpstart stalled efforts to restore peace to Cote d'Ivoire. France has been itching to relocate stop-start peace negotiations to Paris as the war intensified, with the emergence of two new rebel groups to complicate an already confused conflict in Cote d'Ivoire.
So, government and rebel delegations - and most likely representatives from the newer rebel groups, the Ivorian Popular Movement for the Far West (MPIGO) and the Movement for Peace and Justice (MJP) - are scheduled to meet in Paris, along with West African leaders.
"We hope in the next few days there will be a conference of concerned heads of state to support the peace plan," said Villepin, confirming that Paris would be the venue for the fresh talks, probably on January 15. "The steps taken today are a good example of what needs to be done."
Villepin was scheduled to head to the rebel-held north on Saturday for discussions with the MPCI.
Anti-French sentiment running high
Gbagbo had to step in to protect the French minister, who was confronted by a hostile crowd of angry men and women. They prevented him from leaving the president's home in the main city Abidjan. Villepin's convoy was blocked outside Gbagbo's residence in Cocody for half an hour, after a rumour spread that the French minister was in Cote d'Ivoire to encourage Gbagbo to step down. This is one of the conditions set down by rebels, which have dragged out the talks in Togo.
Ivorian soldiers swiftly formed a security cordon, keeping the screaming hordes from surging forward. But it took Gbagbo's personal intervention to calm the mob. He struggled to be heard above the din of whistle-blowing and shouting, but eventually managed to convince them that he was not stepping down. Yelling "Dominque has come today to help us quickly find a way out of this awful war before the end of January Do you agree?" The crowds finally responded "yes, yes". Gbagbo then accompanied the French foreign minister on the two-minute walk to his next appointment next-door at the French ambassador's residence.
The demonstration was one of several against the French in Cote d'Ivoire in recent months. The protestors shouted insults "Villepin the terrorist! Villepin the attacker!", spat and threatened to "kill all of you". The Ivorian prime minister, Affi N'Guessan, apologised to the French envoy and expressed deep regret for what happened.
But journalists who witnessed the incident said Villepin appeared annoyed and considered that the protest was "not spontaneous". "We are in Cote d'Ivoire where emotions are heated, very tense, very worrying," he said.
Feelings against the former colonial power are running high, with both sides accusing the French of taking sides.
Gbagbo's supporters say the French should be doing more to help the government rout the rebels and allege that Paris is supporting the insurgents, who have vowed to depose the Ivorian leader. On the rebel side, France stands of accused of blocking their advance southwards towards the coastal metropolis, Abidjan, which has remained under government control since the rebellion began.
Ambiguous French role?
The original rebels signed a ceasefire deal agreed by the government on 17 October. French troops, already in Cote d'Ivoire to safeguard theirs and other foreign nationals, took on the task of monitoring the truce. But the French ceasefire supervision role became more difficult after the additional rebel groups appeared and opened up a western front, near the Liberian border. The new rebels are not a party to the truce agreement.
The French had vowed not to get militarily involved in the Cote d'Ivoire conflict, but changed that stance last month, with a push to stop the fighting. The French military mandate was amended from ceasefire monitoring to enforcement of the truce and Paris saw itself increasingly sucked into the civil war.
French diplomatic efforts were increased simultaneously, leading to the latest visit by Villepin to West Africa.
Faltering regional peace efforts
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Regional leaders have tried and failed to get the rival Ivorian sides to end the fighting, despite the best efforts of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas). Fearing that the Cote d'Ivoire conflict will spill spread to the rest of the region, heads of state have held a number of summits to try to find a negotiated settlement, without success.
Ecowas pledged to sent regional peacekeepers to Cote d'Ivoire to take over from the French troops and ceasefire a peace deal. They were meant to arrive by the end of October, then November, then by the end of the year. But the main West African force is still not in place, although an advance guard has reached Cote d'Ivoire. Senegal will take command of the regional peacekeeping army.
Can Cote d'Ivoire step back from the brink?
Meanwhile, Cote d'Ivoire remains divided, literally in two, and also split on ethnic and regional lines. The government holds the south, including Abidjan, while the MPCI controls the north, with the west in a state of volatile confusion. Unlike the original well-disciplined rebels who are reported to have committed summary executions sparingly, the western rebels are said to be poorly disciplined, looting, harassing, killing and raping civilians indiscriminately.
This savage and unruly behaviour is reminiscent of the brutal civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, where drugged child soldiers were given orders to kill.
Cote d'Ivoire - an eldorado and home to millions of immigrants - was long regarded as an island of calm and stability in a turbulent region. It has now conclusively lost that cherished reputation. Instead, Ivorians can hardly recognise the image of their own country, as they watch Cote d'Ivoire hurtle down the same ruinous route towards civil war, a fate they would never have believed possible, even a year ago.
