Johannesburg — The people of Cote dIvoire are in a state of high anxiety as they await the word from their president, Laurent Gbagbo, on the faltering peace accord agreed last weekend in France.
First the Ivorian armed forces objected Tuesday to reports that the rebels were to be given two key cabinet portfolios - defence and interior. Army spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jules Yao Yao confirmed that senior military officers met Gbagbo to voice their concerns. "We told him officially that the army does not agree with certain elements of the peace agreement," said Yao Yao.
On Wednesday it was the turn of leading political parties - including Gbagbos governing Popular Front Party (FPI) and several others who had signed the French-brokered deal in Paris. Cote dIvoires politicians are also now saying they are opposed to giving the important defence and interior ministries to the rebels, who first launched an uprising and failed coup last September and still hold the north and parts of the west.
In a joint statement, the parties complained that: "The summit of (African) heads of state, on its own authority, named the prime minister, dished out the ministries and attributed the defence and interior posts" to the rebel factions.
"This decision was taken against the letter and the spirit of the Marcoussis accord," concluded the parties, referring to the venue of the French-sponsored conference in Linas-Marcoussis in the outskirts of Paris.
Former president Henri Konan Bedie, who leads the Democratic Party of Cote dIvoire (PDCI), echoed the collective statement and the reservations of the security forces, giving his reasons for not wanting the rebels in the government. "These are decisions that were taken by the heads of state, by the great powers, to be more precise. The Ivorian political parties did not have their say in the matter."
Although they say they cannot accept the rebels in government, the parties say they are committed to power-sharing.
The Rally of the Republicans (RDR), the party of the main opposition leader and former prime minister, Alassane Ouattara, did not put its signature to the statement.
Rebel claims that they were to receive the sensitive cabinet posts have yet to be confirmed officially. But Gbagbo told his supporters in the main city, Abidjan, this week that much of what was being said in relation to the accord was sheer speculation and rumour.
Confusion sparked by Gbagbo
Gbagbo sparked almost immediate confusion about the validity of the agreement, on his return from Paris to Abidjan, Sunday, telling jittery and enraged youths at his presidential palace: "Do not worry, the things that were said [in Paris] were proposals". This was widely interpreted to mean that the president was not ready to endorse the deal he had signed.
Paul Yao Ndre - Gbagbos interior minister who may lose his job under the new coalition government of national reconciliation - is reported to have told state television in Togo that the peace plan was now "null and void", adding that to allow the rebels to join the government could "destabilise the whole of the (West African) sub-region."
Everyone is awaiting his promised presidential address to the nation, to explain his view of the accord. It was expected late Wednesday but apparently delayed again, while the president continued his consultations.
France, the former colonial power, helped to mediate the peace package, hosting the all-party Ivorian round-table negotiations to try to reach a negotiated settlement on the deep roots of the problems in Cote dIvoire. Paris hinted Tuesday that the ball lay now in Gbagbos court to ensure the deal went ahead.
And as France prepared to evacuate its nationals from Cote dIvoire, the French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin had this message Wednesday for Gbagbo and other influential individuals. "Today everything depends on the political courage of the Ivorian leaders. An agreement has been reached".
Villepins energetic shuttle diplomacy in West Africa was instrumental in bringing the Ivorian warring factions together .
But pro-government supporters accuse Paris of pressuring Gbagbo into accepting the peace plan, which they claim gives the rebels too much power and too many concessions. There have been violent anti-French demonstrations in Abidjan since Saturday by Gbagbos followers, enraged at the peace settlement which, they believe, favours the insurgents and legitimises the rebellion.
France has 2,500 troops in Cote dIvoire, monitoring the ceasefires agreed between government and rebel forces but some French soldiers have had to be redeployed to protect their embassy and military base and other French interests, as well as French citizens.
Evacuation plans
Villepin said the evacuation of French citizens could be organised swiftly. "Our soldiers in the area will able to do it very quickly. Of course we are following the situation hour by hour and we will not hesitate to take such a decision if the situation requires it."
The Cote dIvoire peace accord may well be a non-starter, amid so many objections to the rebels entering the government in any form. The spokesman of the main rebel Patriotic Movement of Cote dIvoire (MPCI), Guillaume Soro, said this week that he hoped all parties would stand by the deal.
But Soro has accused Gbagbo of being two-faced: "I must say we are not surprised by this double game and the doublespeak, because we knew he would call these accords into question."
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The agreement was witnessed in Paris by African leaders, the United Nations secretary general, the French president and the head of the European Union, among other top-level dignitaries in Paris on Sunday.
But lining up the continental and international big guns to give added credibility to the peace deal - and increase the pressure on all the parties involved - may have backfired. France, the rebels and others are now being blamed for putting forward proposals at the negotiations which were unworkable back home in a bitterly divided Cote dIvoire.
If the agreement currently languishing in limbo collapses, then the prospect of a return to war will again be a painful reality that the people of Cote dIvoire must face.
Many Ivorians fear that a fresh outbreak of violence on Tuesday in Agboville, 80km (50 miles) north of Abidjan - between rival political supporters from different ethnic groups - may just be a taste of things to come.
Churches and mosques were destroyed and as many as 12 people reported killed in Agboville. The clashes between the local Abbey ethnic group and the Dioulas -- Muslims from the north -- were reminiscent of the split between the rebels, who control the predominantly Muslim north, and their government rivals in the largely Christian and animist south.
