AU envoy warns of Ivory Coast war, calls for talks - Summary

Fri, 28 Jan 2011

Addis Ababa - Ivory Coast's political rivals must be forced into direct talks to find a solution to a crisis that has brought the nation to the brink of a civil war, the African Union's mediator, Raila Odinga, told a meeting of the 53-nation bloc Friday.

"This summit must send a strong and unequivocal message that the two parties must negotiate face-to-face," the Kenyan premier told a special meeting on Ivory Coast ahead of a heads-of-state summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

"Given its (Ivory Coast's) long history of strife and civil war, and with the preparations for armed conflict underway on both sides, a small spark could ignite a major conflagration which would also threaten the regions stability."

November's presidential election was supposed to open a more positive chapter in Ivory Coast's history, eight years after a civil war split the nation into the mainly Muslim north and the Christian south.

Instead, the West African nation was plunged into a violent crisis when incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, who has support in the south, refused to hand over power to Alassane Ouattara, the man the electoral commission declared the winner, who gets his backing from the north.

A Gbagbo ally on the constitutional council overturned the result, sparking unrest, condemnation and months of increasingly frantic international pressure aimed at removing the defiant leader.

Over 270 people have died in the crisis, according to the United Nations, and Gbagbo's security forces stand accused of extrajudicial killings and excessive force.

The AU, which has suspended the West African nation, is not expected to endorse the use of force to oust Gbagbo at the meeting, as the continent's leaders seem to be backing down from earlier tough language.

West African bloc ECOWAS had threatened to send in troops to the world's largest cocoa producer to remove Gbagbo. But, as the leader continues to cling to power with the backing of the army, talk has turned to finding a peaceful solution.

"The declared African Union and ECOWAS positions are not about the use of force," Odinga, whose two visits to Ivory Coast have produced no results, said. "Both organizations are committed to a peaceful resolution of the crisis."

However, he said Africa must be "ready to deploy other measures" if no negotiated settlement could be reached, warning the electoral problems in Ivory Coast could further entrench a culture of presidents clinging to power on the continent.

"Cote dIvoire symbolizes the great tragedy that seem to have befallen Africa, whereby some incumbents are not willing to give up power if they lose," said Odinga, who was appointed prime minister in Kenya after agreeing to share power with a president he accused of stealing elections.

"Africa will never have a stable political base unless we internalize the democratic culture of ceding power after losing in a competitive electoral process," he added.