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| Monday, 5 May 2003 |
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Ivory Coast truce comes into effect ABIDJAN, Sunday (Reuters) - A deadline for all factions in Ivory Coast to stop fighting once and for all came into effect on Sunday, with all sides vowing to abide by the accord despite clashes flaring right to the end. The rebels and the army blamed each other for fighting on Saturday near the rebel town of Danane, close to the border with anarchic Liberia, just as both sides signed the truce agreement in the main city Abidjan amid warm smiles and handshakes. Despite the clashes, the army and the rebels said they were confident the new ceasefire, meant to end more than seven months of civil war in the West African country, would hold after it came into effect at midnight. "After midnight, no one will move," Antoine Beugre told Reuters from Bouake, a rebel stronghold in central Ivory Coast. He dismissed Saturday's clashes, some 600 km (400 miles) from Abidjan, as a last-minute attempt by Liberians allied to President Laurent Gbagbo's forces to gain ground ahead of the truce. The army also pledged to honour the ceasefire, signed by its chief of staff and a top rebel commander in the presence of international peace monitors. "We are intelligent people. We don't want to pointlessly destroy this country. You can trust us," army Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Kadio told state media. As the truce came into force, there was no word on the situation in the remote and densely forested western region, where the war has been complicated by the involvement of Liberian fighters on both sides. Once the stable centre of conflict-ridden West Africa, Ivory Coast slipped into war last September after a failed coup that had its roots in long-standing ethnic divisions. Thousands of people have been killed and more than a million driven from their homes. More limited truces have been agreed before and a French-brokered peace deal has started to make headway, but clashes have continued in the west, threatening to plunge the world's top cocoa producer back into all-out war. Troops from former colonial power France said on Saturday they were prepared to move swiftly into the west once it was clear the new ceasefire was being respected. War in Ivory Coast is entangled with years of savage conflict in neighbouring Liberia, where President Charles Taylor's forces are battling rebels on several fronts. The same ethnic groups - with their tribal rivalries - straddle the border and the two countries have in the past accused each other of supporting their rebel enemies. But Gbagbo and Taylor agreed last week to the deployment of a joint force to secure their porous common border, with the help of French and West African troops. General Emmanuel Beth, the commander of the nearly 4,000-strong French force sent to the former colony to stop the fighting spiralling out of control, said on Saturday between 600 and 900 French soldiers could soon be deployed in the west. |
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