COTE D'IVOIRE: GETTING THE PEACE PROCESS BACK ON

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ABIDJAN 000947

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C O R R E C T E D C O P Y (PARA RENUMBERED)

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KINSHASA PASS TO BRAZZAVILLE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/22/2016
TAGS: PREL KPKO PGOV ASEC IV
SUBJECT: COTE D'IVOIRE: GETTING THE PEACE PROCESS BACK ON
TRACK

REF: ABIDJAN 926

ABIDJAN 00000947 001.2 OF 002


Classified By: POL/ECON Jim Wojtasiewicz, reasons 1.4 (B) and (D).


1. (C) Summary. What can the United States do to try to
break the current gridlock in the Cote d'Ivoire peace
process? We suggest that the United States consult with
France and the UK and together with those governments jointly
approach the African Union (AU) to urge that African leaders
re-engage robustly in the Cote d'Ivoire peace process, to
share our thinking on how the current transition arrangements
can be improved upon after October, and to urge that the AU
take the lead in proposing sanctions against Ivoirians who
block the peace process. We believe it would greatly improve
upon current arrangements for the Prime Minister to be given
enhanced powers, especially control over the defense and
security forces, although that gets deeply into
constitutional questions, and for the authority of the UN
High Representative for Elections (HRE) to arbitrate disputes
over electoral procedures to be reinforced. End Summary.


2. (C) What can the United States do to try to break the
current gridlock in the Cote d'Ivoire peace process (reftel)?
The main Ivoirian political actors have largely abandoned
the peace and reconciliation process and are eyeing each
other suspiciously as they jockey for position in the
post-October transition. International, particularly AU,
efforts to move the peace process forward have also lost
momentum. However, African diplomatic efforts to address the
Cote d'Ivoire crisis forward have met with some success in
the past, and the Africans probably have the best chance of
getting it back on track now. The international community
will also look to the AU to take the lead in coming up with a
plan for the post-October transition, as they did a year ago.



3. (C) However, at the moment African diplomacy is almost
nowhere to be seen. The current chairman of the AU, Republic
of the Congo President Sassou-Nguesso, has been here once, to
engineer a vague agreement on simultaneous disarmament and
identification that the Gbagbo camp repudiated as soon as
Sassou left. His foreign minister, Rodolphe Adada, comes
here once a month for the IWG meetings, arriving just before
the meeting and leaving right after it. It was almost a year
ago that the AU's Peace and Security Commission concluded
that the South African President Mbeki's efforts as mediator
had lost momentum, but the AU left him in the job. Mbeki's
ability to mediate has been significantly undercut by the
refusal of both the FN and the political opposition to meet
with his emissaries as they consider him too pro-Gbagbo.
Mbeki's most recent ruling on the role of the National
Institute of Statistics (INS) in the electoral process,
siding with Gbagbo's interpretation of Pretoria II, will only
fuel those suspicions.


4. (C) We suggest, therefore, that the United States together
with France and perhaps the UK, approach the AU to:

-- urge the AU to robustly re-engage in the Cote d'Ivoire
peace process;

-- underscore that the international community will look to
the AU to take the lead in proposing a plan for the
post-October transition;

-- share our thinking about how the current arrangements can
be improved upon after October; and

-- urge the AU to take the lead in proposing sanctions
against those Ivoirians who block the peace process, instead
of resisting those sanctions as they are doing now.


5. (C) What should the post-October plan look like? Both the
Gbagbo Camp and the opposition are advancing the same
arguments they put forth in 2005: Gbagbo maintains that he
is President until elections take place, whereas the FN and
the political opposition are rejecting any extension of
President Gbagbo's term in office. African ambassadors in
Abidjan tell us that the AU has little appetite for the
international community to intervene here more intrusively
than it already has, so they will probably propose mostly a
rollover of the current arrangements.


6. (C) How can those arrangements be improved upon? Enhanced
powers for the Prime Minister should be spelled out and, if
necessary reconciled with the constitution. In retrospect,
this was probably the single biggest flaw in the transition

ABIDJAN 00000947 002.2 OF 002


institutional arrangements. The international community made
clear its intention that the transition prime minister should
have enhanced powers, but they were never spelled out, the
question of how these enhanced powers could be reconciled
with the constitution was not addressed, and he did not get
them. In reality, the only enhanced powers Banny has,
compared with his predecessor Seydou Diarra, are somewhat
better powers of persuasion. Banny got off to a fairly good
start, but now he appears in danger of running out of steam
perhaps in no small part because the will to compromise has
disappeared among the main political actors. It does not
help, of course, that Banny himself does not indicate how the
international community can best support him.


7. (C) As long as PM Banny does not control the defense and
security forces, his authority is largely derivative from the
Presidency. The security forces continue to play an
ambiguous role in the peace process. Sometimes they seem to
side with the PM, and sometimes they actively side with the
street toughs associated with President Gbagbo. For example,
most recently the security forces refused to provide security
for the mobile courts identifying undocumented Ivoirians and
foreigners born in Cote d'Ivoire, and there were a number of
deaths in demonstrations by the militias against these
courts. The reluctance of the defense and security forces to
confront the militias fosters the latter's sense of impunity
and makes the entire peace process hostage to street
thuggery. However, control of the security forces is a
constitutional question, and Gbagbo will strongly resist
relinquishing control of the defense and security forces,
especially if this means he will no longer be able to call
out his street militias to intimidate the opposition.


8. (C) In a similar vein, the authority of the UN High
Representative for elections (HRE) to arbitrate disputes
should be reinforced. The new HRE, Gerard Stoudmann, is
bolder than his predecessor, but he faces a daunting array of
obstacles, and he has little leverage to push them aside.
UNSCR 1603, which established the HRE position, does state,
in paragraph 7(b),that he has the authority to "make
necessary determinations," but it should be made more
explicit that this means he can and should arbitrate disputes
among the Ivoirians over electoral procedures. Again, it may
take a considerable amount of African arm-twisting to
persuade Gbagbo to accept this, but we see no other way
forward. Otherwise the electoral process will remain mired
in endless procedural squabbles.


9. (C) Comment. We realize this is a lot to ask of the AU.
However, the AU has sought to take the lead position on the
Cote d'Ivoire crisis, with the UN Security Council playing a
supportive role. The peace process is breaking down and
needs urgent attention. France clearly cannot take the lead
role, and neither can the European Union, which is seen in
Cote d'Ivoire as dominated by France on issues relating to
Cote d'Ivoire. In the absence of outside help, Cote
d'Ivoire will continue to remain adrift. The USG can best
meet its objective of a stable and prosperous Cote d'Ivoire
by contributing ideas and political backing to the AU. End
Comment.


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