afrol News / IRIN, 15 September - Cote d'Ivoire’s President Laurent Gbagbo has said he believes the UN roadmap meant to bring peace to the country has “failed” and he will not attend a United Nations meeting in New York next week that was meant to yield a new way forward.

"It is four years now that we are in this process and we are not reaching peace. That means the process has failed," Gbagbo told hundreds of army troops invited to a meeting at the presidential palace in the main city Abidjan on Thursday evening.

African statesmen and the UN Security Council are scheduled to evaluate the Ivorian peace process on the margins of the UN General Assembly meeting on 20 September, and to meet political leaders from the country.

Last week, the UN-appointed International Working Group (IWG), the body which overseas the UN’s peace blueprint for Cote d’Ivoire, called on the UN Security Council to find a new transitional framework for the country. The IWG said deadlock over disarmament and voter registration has made peace-sealing presidential elections scheduled for 31 October elections impossible.

"I am not going to New York and I am not sending a delegation," Gbagbo said on Thursday, greeted by applause and cheers. "I will not go to protest against the impolite way [the international community] deals with the affairs of my country. I will not support the farce of the United Nations.”

"[The foreign mediators] want to lay into the President of the Republic and then into the Constitution, meaning that all that has been elected annoys them. But they annoy me," Gbagbo said.

Many observers in Cote d’Ivoire and abroad favour suspending any parts of the Constitution that hold up the peace blueprint and the organisation of the elections.

The chief of the army, the powerful Colonel Major Philippe Mangou, agreed with Gbagbo, accusing the international community of “a sickening partiality” and “machiavelism”.

Cote d'Ivoire has been split in two since a failed coup in September 2002. Four years of negotiations have failed to reunite the country, rebel and pro-government fighters have not been disarmed and a key programme to issue identity cards to some three million disenfranchised Ivorians hangs in the balance.

Under the UN’s roadmap, adopted in October last year, Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny was in charge of disarmament, identification and organising elections. Gbagbo was allowed to remain in office for up to a year, on condition that the country holds "free, fair, open and transparent" elections and provided he worked alongside Banny.

Analysts say supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo are likely to challenge the IWG’s recommendations, which if carried out would see Gbagbo’s powers reduced when his current mandate expires on the 31 October.

But the UN’s most senior official in Cote d'Ivoire, Pierre Schori, told journalists on Thursday that a new strategy was essential to overcome the obstacles that have plagued efforts to organize the presidential elections and ending the crisis.

President Gbagbo also said on Thursday he would submit measures for a new peace process to the African Union (AU) regional body, a move that analysts warn could be a prelude for kicking the 8,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission (UNOCI) out of Cote d’Ivoire when the transition period ends at the end of next month.

Gilles Yabi, a Dakar-based West Africa analyst for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (Crisis Group), the AU could help to relax tensions, but would not likely to set out on another path.

"Gbagbo is isolated and he will certainly have more chance to be heard by the African Union than by the international community," said Yabi.

"It seems that Gbagbo is trying something, maybe without a clear view of where it is going," Yabi added.

"Gbagbo could ask for the departure of the UN peacekeeping force in Cote d'Ivoire (UNOCI)," Yabi added. "He could ask the AU to help towards rebel disarmament."

Congolese President and AU Chairman, Denis Sassou Nguesso, flew to Cote d’Ivoire on Sunday for meetings but failed to break the political deadlock.

Determining that the situation in Côte d'Ivoire “continues to pose a threat to international peace and security”, the UN Security Council on Thursday voted to extend the mandate of a three-person team monitoring an arms embargo against the West African country.

The Group of Experts, which was established early last year to gather and analyse information on arms caches and flows in the region, will continue working through 15 December.

Cote d’Ivoire’s government is currently in turmoil, after the entire cabinet resigned last week amid public outcry over a toxic dumping scandal. Prime Minister Banny was supposed to have appointed a new cabinet by the end of this week.

© afrol News / IRIN

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