COTE D'IVOIRE: PEACE EFFORTS CONTINUE BUT REAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ABIDJAN 000128

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/02/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV ASEC IV
SUBJECT: COTE D'IVOIRE: PEACE EFFORTS CONTINUE BUT REAL
PROGRESS UNCERTAIN

REF: ABIDJAN 43

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


1. (C) Summary. Peace efforts here continue but it is far
from clear whether they will bear fruit. Burkina Faso
President Compaore, as new Chairman of ECOWAS, has moved
quickly to take on a central mediating role in the upcoming
direct dialogue between President Gbagbo and rebel New Forces
(FN) leader Soro. According to the French ambassador, Gbagbo
might be considering inviting Soro and the other two main
opposition leaders to be co-vice presidents. Pro-Gbagbo
youth militia leader Ble Goude has launched a "peace caravan"
to promote reconciliation around the country including the
North, but FN contacts tell us they consider this a joke and
they will not let the peace caravan into their areas.
Identification, which is sure to be at the top of the agenda
in the direct dialogue, is proceeding but very slowly.
President Gbagbo, the FN, and court clerks are all in
different ways currently blocking it from going forward more
quickly. We see more promise in Compaore,s more pro-active
ECOWAS mediation than in the direct dialogue per se. This is
exactly the kind of re-energized African effort that we
believe is essential to move the peace process forward, and
which we believe the United States should strongly support
(reftel). The recent naming of Ghanaian President Kufuor
could also foreshadow more pro-active AU involvement. Still,
stronger outside African pressure may well not be enough.
The basic underlying problems today are exactly the same
difficult and complex ones that precipitated this crisis in
the first place and that have so far defied every effort to
resolve them. Even if the direct dialogue does produce yet
another peace agreement, it will take time, patience and
determination on the part of the AU and ECOWAS to press the
Ivoirians to implement it. The graveyard of unimplemented
Ivoirian peace agreements has many headstones. End Summary.


2. (C) International and Ivoirian efforts to advance this
country's peace process are continuing, but it is not certain
whether they will bear fruit any time soon.


3. (C) Burkina Faso President Compaore, the new Chairman of
ECOWAS, has moved quickly to play a much more pro-active role
than his predecessors in Cote d,Ivoire,s peace process.
Earlier this week Compaore sent Security Minister (and
reportedly third-ranking member of Burkina Faso,s
government) Djibril Bassole to the rebel capital of Bouake to
participate in a meeting between FN leader Guillaume Soro and
President Gbagbo,s Press Spokesman and shadow justice
minister Desire Tagro. FN Deputy Press Spokesman Alain
Lobognon told us that the talks were cordial (except for
Tagro,s refusal to accept an FN military honor guard) but
non-substantive. Next, on February 5, Compaore himself will
chair a meeting in Ouagadougou directly between Gbagbo and
Soro. According to local press reports, in the days after
this meeting Compaore plans to meet in Ouagadougou with the
two main political opposition leaders, former President Bedie
and former Prime Minister Ouattara, and then, some time
before February 15, he will announce the results of this
dialogue, presumably mainly to identify the key areas of
disagreement rather than to propose his own solutions.


4. (C) The French Ambassador told the Ambassador February 1
that the French believe the Presidential camp is considering
proposing to bring Soro, Ouattara and Bedie into the
presidency as three vice presidents, two vice presidents and
a prime minister, or some other arrangement. (The idea to
appoint all three as vice presidents was proposed last
September by Gabonese President Bongo. It met with guarded
interest from the three opposition leaders but was scorned at
that time by Gbagbo.)


5. (C) Meanwhile, Charles Ble Goude, leader of the pro-Gbagbo
Young Patriots militia, announced on January 20 that he would
lead a "peace caravan" around the country to promote
reconciliation, including to the North to "embrace his
northern brothers." Ble Goude, once a fiery, combative
Gbagbo partisan not hesitant to resort to violence, for some
months now has been trying to recast himself as a man of
peace and reconciliation. Last fall, for example, he and
most of the pro-opposition youth groups announced a truce
after violent street confrontations over the identification
public hearings had led to several deaths. The opposition
youth groups appeared to be getting the upper hand in at
least some of these street clashes. So far all of the peace
caravan's stops have been in government-controlled areas. FN
Deputy Press Spokesman Alain Lobognon told us February 2 that
the FN consider the peace caravan a joke and have no
intention of allowing it to enter areas of the country they
control.


ABIDJAN 00000128 002 OF 003



6. (C) One issue that is certain to be at the top of the
agenda in the direct dialogue is identification. This
process is still progressing, but very slowly because there
is no political agreement on the revised procedures which
Prime Minister Banny is trying painstakingly to implement.
The mobile courts -- audiences foraines, which President
Gbagbo insists can only issue birth certificates, did resume
operations on January 19, but only in the Abidjan area.
Sources in the office of the UN High Representative for
Elections tell us that the number of people who have appeared
before these re-launched audiences foraines is still in the
low hundredQ but they expect that to increase next week as
more of them are re-launched.


7. (C) Gbagbo adamantly insisted that the nationality
certificate -- the key document through which an Ivoirian
citizen establishes eligibility to receive an identity
card and to vote -- must be issued by a different court
called a tribunal. There are only 33 such tribunals in the
country and they are not mobile, making it, according to the
opposition, prohibitively difficult for people to obtain the
certificates. Banny therefore proposed that the number of
tribunals be increased by 175 and that they be made mobile.
Gbagbo agreed to increase the number, and created the new
courts. However, he refused to allow them to be mobile.
Therefore, Banny proposed a compromise under which court
clerks, who are already accompanying the judges to the
audiences foraines, would go to the people to collect their
paperwork and subsequently deliver their nationality
certificates. That is, there would be three ways to apply
for a nationality certificate. One would be, as now, to go
to the tribunal and apply. The second would be to submit the
paperwork to the court clerk at the audience foraine, who
would bring it back to the tribunal for the judge to issue
the certificate. The third would be for court clerks also to
travel on their own around the countryside specifically to
collect applications for nationality certificates and later
to deliver them.


8. (C) There are three obstacles preventing Banny,s
compromise from being implemented. One is that, although
Gbagbo agreed to create more tribunals, he has so far refused
to sign a decree appointing more judges to preside over them.
The second obstacle is that the court clerks are threatening
to block the entire identification process, over some of the
proposed new procedures and over unrelated labor grievances.
What they say they don't like about the proposed new
procedures is the idea of traveling alone in the countryside,
because they say they would fear for their safety in the
rebel-controlled areas. They are also trying to use the
leverage from the key role that is envisioned for them in the
identification process to gain higher pay and enhanced job
status. They issued an ultimatum to Prime Minister Banny
that they would bring the entire identification process to a
halt if their demands were not met by January 31. It is
still not clear whether they have done so.


9. (C) The third obstacle to implementing the new procedures
is that the FN still refuse to accept them, and continue to
insist that the audiences foraines must be empowered to issue
both birth and nationality certificates on the spot, as was
the case until Gbagbo stepped in to stop them. FN leader
Soro indicated at the January 12 International Working Group
meeting that he would be willing to consider some mechanism
involving separate courts, but it would be up to Gbagbo to
propose something that guarantees every citizen not only the
right but the ability to obtain a nationality certificate.
This is certain to be Soro,s bottom line in the upcoming
direct dialogue.


10. (C) Comment. We see more promise in Compaore,s more
pro-active ECOWAS mediation than in the direct dialogue per
se. This is exactly the kind of re-energized African effort
that we believe is essential to move the peace process
forward, and which we believe the United States should
strongly support. The recent naming of Ghana President Kufuor
as AU Chairman could also foreshadow more pro-active AU
involvement -- Kufuor hosted three high profile Ivoirian
peace conferences in 2003 and 2004. Still, stronger outside
African pressure may well not be enough. The basic
underlying problems today are exactly the same difficult and
complex ones that precipitated this crisis in the first place
and that have so far defied every effort to resolve them. Up
to now, every time international mediation has produced a
burst of good will among the Ivoirian parties, they have only
been able to reach the point of signing an agreement, never
of fully implementing one. Kufuor,s Accra I, II and III
mark only three of the many headstones in the graveyard of
Ivoirian peace agreements. Thus, even if the direct dialogue
does produce yet another agreement, it will take time,
patience and determination on the part of the AU and ECOWAS

ABIDJAN 00000128 003 OF 003


to press the Ivoirians to implement it. End Comment.

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