Ivory Coast: Disarmament before or after the elections?

  1. Posted on Thursday 27 March 2008 - 09:26
    Selay
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    The disarmament issue in Ivory Coast has been and still is one of the toughest topics in the process of national reconciliation. When the former fighters hand over their weapons this will be an important step towards the organization of general elections scheduled for June this year.

    In the streets, in the offices and in the headquarters of political parties, all the discussions are centered on the disarmament issue; people are debating whether to disarm former fighters before or after the election normally due to June.

    The point of views of President Laurent Gbagbo and Soro Guillaume, the Prime Minister and former leader of the Forces Nouvelles (FN) and Henri Konan Bedie and Allassane Ouattara, the leaders of the main opposition parties are diametrically opposed. President Laurent Gbagbo and his Prime Minister Soro Guillaume are determined to carry out the disarmament operation till to its end before the holding of the long-postponed elections.

    Weapons have been assembled at disarmament sites and barracks, but the former fighters of both the governmental and rebel troops have not been disarmed yet. On the other side, Konan Bedie and Allassane Ouattara, assert that, though weapons have been assembled within barracks, President Gbagbo and Prime Minister Soro Guillaume are not willing to disarm their fighters and organize the elections in June 2008, as planned by Ouagadougou Agreement.

    Gbagbo and Soro Guillaume are suspected of using the disarmament as a pretext to delay the election once more in order to prepare electoral fraud. Konan Bedie the leader of PDCI-RDA and Allassane Ouattara, the leader of RDR, the main opposition parties said that full implementation of the peace agreement, including total disarmament of the Forces Nouvelles, is not necessary prior to the holding of the election normally due to June 2008. Pascal Affi N'guessan, the President of the FPI, Gbagbo's party, has said that disarmament must be completed before the election.

    The question of disarmament stands on while Ivorians are waiting for pending elections.

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