Cote d'Ivoire Govt., Rebels Doubt Each Other's Peace Commitment

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, January 06, 2003

Cote d'Ivoire Govt., Rebels Doubt Each Other's Peace Commitment

Cote d'Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo will "honor a pledge to France to respect a truce in Ivory Coast's 15-week-old war," Toussaint Alain, the president aide, said Sunday in a communique.

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Cote d'Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo will "honor a pledge to France to respect a truce in Ivory Coast's 15-week-old war," Toussaint Alain, the president aide, said Sunday in a communique.

In the communique released just one day after French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin ended a two-day peace mission to the former French colony, Alain also aired his doubt about the main rebel group Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement's (MPCI) commitment to peace.

"While congratulating all Ivorian political parties for agreeing to the ceasefire and to attend the meeting in Paris, it is pertinent to seriously doubt the sincerity of the MPCI with respect to their promises," Alain said.

According to him, the MPCI repeatedly torpedoed earlier peace talks in the Togolese capital Lome with repeated U-turns and had violated the ceasefire 24 times while carrying out murderous attacks on civilians.

On the other hand, MPCI spokesman Antoine Beugre said, "we're waiting to see ... if the (government) troops can respect the ceasefire."

Although acknowledging the military situation was calm on Sunday along the ceasefire front that splits the world's largest cocoa grower in half, the MPCI spokesman said they "know very wellthat Mr. Laurent Gbagbo will not keep his word."

Though France has sent more than 2,500 troops to monitor a fragile ceasefire between the government and the MPCI, fighting inthe war-torn west African country has been becoming fierce in recent days.

The situation in the country has been getting subtle as the rebels rejected peace proposals presented by the west African mediators because of what they declared as favoring the government.

The war, which erupted out of a failed Sept. 19 coup, has splitthe country of 16 million people along ethnic lines and destroyed its reputation as a bulwark of stability in an often turbulent region.

The Sept. 19 uprising has turned into a full-scale coup attemptto oust President Laurent Gbagbo with MPCI rebels seizing more than half of the country in the north.

Since the war broke out last September, hundreds of people havebeen killed and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes.

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