USA/IVORY COAST: U.N. Security Council votes unanimously to give Ivory Coast's prime minister sweeping new powers/ Some Ivorians were more positive than others on hearing the news

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Wednesday (November 1) to give Ivory Coast's prime minister the power to guide the volatile West African nation to elections within a year. The U.N. Security Council's resolution handed President Laurent Gbagbo a second and final 12-month extension to his mandate, and gave consensus Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny wider powers to reunite the country after a 2002/03 civil war. The move came in a resolution quickly rewritten earlier in the day after the 15-nation council deadlocked the day before over a previous draft written by France. Critics had said the French draft gave the prime minister too much power. "We have stated very clearly that it would not be any more possible to use any legal means to put obstacles now to the peace process and this is very clear in the resolution. And we have, according and on the basis of the African Union proposal, empowered the Prime Minister," said France's ambassador to the U.N., Jean Marc de la Sabliere. However the Ivory Coast's U.N. ambassador, Philippe Djangoné-Bi, speaking to reporters after the security council vote, contradicted de la Sabliere with a different interpretation of resolution 1721. He said, "The powers will not be transferred to the prime minister. If you read the resolution very carefully you will see that the necessary powers, the powers needed to do the job, will be granted to the prime minster by the president of the republic. The resolution does not say that you get the executive powers from the president to give it to the prime minster and the president would remain like a sort of honorary president, no, no, no." The resolution extended Ivory Coast's transitional government for a second and hopefully final year -- until Oct. 31, 2007 -- so that elections can be held and a democratically chosen government installed. France had argued the resolution had to be adopted before the end of October 2006 to avoid a legal vacuum in the once prosperous cocoa-growing nation. But the United States, Russia, China and Tanzania had threatened on Tuesday (October 31) to abstain if the resolution were put to a vote without changes, arguing that as written, it impinged on Ivory Coast's constitution and its sovereignty. The earlier draft had stressed Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny's need to have "all the necessary powers, including appointment of civilian and military officials," to take the country through to elections. As amended, the resolution deleted the reference to the appointment of civilian and military officials. The amended version also trimmed the authority of Gerard Stoudmann, the U.N. high representative for Ivory Coast elections, to resolve election disputes, requiring him to work in consultation with the prime minister. De la Sabliere emphasised that council members had taken into account specific requests from the AU (African Union) and ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States) when modifying the resolution. U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton said that it was important, in order for elections to take place, that Ivorian parties reach agreement. "It's part of our feeling the peace-keeping operation should come to a conclusion and that's why we're hopeful that this time we actually will have an election," he added. The former French colony has been split in two since rebels seized its northern half after a failed attempt to oust President Laurent Gbagbo in September 2002 and a stuttering peace plan has since failed to cement lasting stability. Elections were due a year ago when Gbagbo's five-year term expired but they could not be held after rebels who seized the north of the country in a 2002/03 civil war refused to disarm. But a year after a U.N. peace plan extended Gbagbo's term, little has changed. Ivory Coast's president and rebels cautiously welcomed the U.N. resolution for a year-long transition to delayed elections, but diplomats warned the war-divided nation could again struggle to meet the deadline. Considerable obstacles remained to disarming the combatants and pushing ahead with the identification of tens of thousands of people without papers, diplomats said. Identity -- determining who is a pure "Ivorian" -- has been one of the most sensitive issues in the conflict. The rebels say Ivory Coast's mainly Muslim northerners are treated as foreigners in their own country and that thousands have had their ID papers torn up during spot checks by security forces from the Christian or animist south. Ggabo's allies denounced a scheme this year to provide identity documents to some 3.5 million people as a ploy to fraudulently swell the voting register devised by Justice Minister Mamadou Kone, a rebel in the U.N.-backed transitional administration. One man interviewed in Abidjan said: "The resolution gives the people of Ivory Coast the possibility to review the situation and to go in the direction of solving the crisis. Because we can't wait for the international community to sort out the problems for us without there being mutual trust between us Ivorians and without having the will to resolve the crisis. So the resolution is good, but the Ivorians have to put their minds to getting out of this crisis." Asked for his opinion, another man said: " We will continue to go round in circles. It's not because ... As long as our politicians continue to ignore the facts, we will continue to go around in circles , especially, those who are around who get more money... they prefer that it last longer. The more it last, the more money they make. If we cannot rely on our own politicians to take on board the situation, make the final decision, I think we cannot rely on the exterior world to bring us peace." Premier Charles Konan Banny, in office since last December, has faced resistance from all of the factions who some analysts say gain too much financially from the crisis to want to hasten its end. About 11,000 U.N. and French troops patrol a fragile ceasefire line between the rebel and government areas.

ITN Source | November 2, 2006

Tags:. .factions. .colony. .peacekeeping. .empowered. .emphasised