Ivory Coast rebels seek backing for war threat

Rebels controlling the north of Ivory Coast yesterday shuttled between West African capitals to rally support for their midnight ultimatum to launch all-out war today unless they are given seats in the government.

An offensive by the rebels to capture the government-held south of the country would place France, the former colonial power, in an untenable position. France has deployed 3,000 troops to Ivory Coast and their role so far has been to push back the rebels threatening the government of President Laurent Gbagbo.

But France has grown impatient with the Ivorian leader since he signed a French-brokered plan for peace, which envisages power-sharing, last month, then blatantly ignored it.

A spokesman for the main rebel group, the Patriotic Movement of the Ivory Coast (MPCI), said its leader, Guillaume Soro, would visit the capitals of Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Benin and Burkina Faso, with the message that unless the MPCI is invited to join the government by today it will – with the support of two other rebel groups – launch an offensive on the biggest city, government-held Abidjan.

Ivory Coast is the world's leading cocoa producer and because of its position and infrastructure it acts as a trading centre for the West African region. The rebellion that started on 19 September has cut the country in two and damaged the economies of landlocked neighbours such as Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

So far the mission of the French deployment – based on a years-old bilateral agreement – has been to protect the elected government. But since signing the Marcoussis plan for peace on 24 January, President Gbagbo has proved himself to be an ungrateful protégé.

Under the Marcoussis plan, the rebels were given the Interior and Defence portfolios. But since signing the plan and travelling home, Mr Gbagbo has claimed such a power-sharing formula would be unconstitutional. He now refers to the Marcoussis agreement as a "working framework'' and it took him until last Monday to install Seydou Diarra, a northerner chosen under the plan, as Prime Minister.

The MPCI's ultimatum and hasty round of shuttle diplomacy comes before a two-day Franco-African summit in Paris on Wednesday, which Mr Gbagbo says he will attend. The rebels have tried to gain an invitation but have been turned down, prompting elements of the MPCI to fear that France will use the summit to bolster support for President Gbagbo.

Until the first coup in Ivory Coast in 1999, France nursed and spoiled the country's leaders to maintain economic stability in the country. It tolerated a north-south divide which was economic as well as tribal and religious.

President Gbagbo himself came to power after a coup but he was condoned by the then French government because of his years as a socialist activist while living in France. He was elected after drawing on southern Ivorian resentment against the north and by barring his challenger, the northern Muslim Alassane Ouattara. Mr Gbagbo said Mr Ouattara was not a legitimate Ivorian because he was born in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso).

It has become widely accepted that the well-equipped MPCI – and to a lesser extent the two other rebel groups – are financed by Burkina Faso.

¿ Human rights groups said yesterday they believed that government troops were responsible for most of the thousands of killings since September in the western Ivorian city of Man, where several mass graves have been found. Civilians have supported the claims of rebels from the Movement for Justice and Peace and the Ivorian Patriotic Movement for the Great West that most of the dead were targeted because they had foreign-sounding names.