Ivory Coast seeks donor funds to keep polls on track (03/07/08)

 

Ivory Coast urgently needs nearly $100 million from donors to finance preparations for elections in November and pay disgruntled rebels who staged a brief revolt at the weekend, officials said.

 
 
Dissident followers of a sacked rebel chief in western Ivory Coast fought on Saturday with soldiers from the New Forces rebel movement which supports an internationally backed peace process in the world's No. 1 cocoa producer.

The national reunification process, launched by a deal signed last year by President Laurent Gbagbo and the New Forces insurgents who fought him in a 2002/2003 civil war, is due to culminate in a presidential election on Nov. 30.

But Gbagbo's government is insisting the international community speed up delivery of assistance to fund poll preparations and the demobilisation of ex-combatants.

"We need 40 billion CFA francs ($96 million) now, by the end of this month," an official at Prime Minister Guillaume Soro's press office said on Wednesday.

"The (peace) process could suffer because of how slow the donors are," the official told Reuters, adding that Ivory Coast had so far only received 6 billion CFA francs of assistance, out of nearly 200 billion CFA promised a year ago by donors.

The clashes at the weekend at Seguela and Vavoua in the western cocoa belt, more than 400 km (250 miles) northwest of the main commercial city Abidjan, killed three civilians and one dissident insurgent, a local television journalist said.

But Tourism Minister Sidiki Konate, who acts as spokesman for the New Forces rebels in the coalition government, said calm had returned in the west after the violence.

The western dissident fighters had rebelled against the sacking last month of their commander Kone Zakaria by New Forces military leaders. The dissidents were also demanding the payment of promised demobilisation bonuses.

Ivory Coast's 2002/2003 civil war divided the country into two, with the New Forces controlling the north and the government of President Gbagbo holding the south.

Gbagbo and his prime minister, New Forces leader Soro who was appointed under the 2007 peace pact, have said they are committed to holding peaceful elections and to demobilising rebel units and pro-government militias.

But there have been sometimes violent protests in the rebel ranks from fighters who complain they have not received the demobilisation pay they were promised.

Source: Reuters

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