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African peacekeepers sail for Ivory Coast
( 2003-01-15 10:04 ) (7 )

Ivory Coast's rebels and government insisted Tuesday they were ready for compromise - but remained unyielding on their key demands - as they entered French-brokered peace talks to end their devastating war.

"No sacrifice is too great to achieve peace," said Guillaume Soro, head of the main northern rebel movement, flanked by leaders of two western factions bound for Wednesday's talks in Paris.

Soro's comments, on a brief stop in Dakar to meet with Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, came as the first major deployment of West African peacekeepers set sail to oversee a fragile new truce there.

"May God accompany you," Senegalese Army Chief of Staff Babacar Gaye told 179 Senegalese soldiers in camouflage, as their tanks were driven aboard the French warship L'Orage for the 72-hour Atlantic voyage to Ivory Coast.

The soldiers are the first sizable fighting force under way in what is to be a 1,500-strong West African peace force for Ivory Coast, a cocoa- and coffee-rich regional anchor now divided by a nearly 4-month-old rebellion.

The first 77 troops from Niger were also leaving for Ivory Coast on Tuesday. France already has more than 2,000 crack troops struggling to restore order in the former French colony.

As the peacekeepers set sail, Ivory Coast's rebel leaders flew out Tuesday for Paris. The government delegation left Monday.

Traveling in a French military plane, leaders of all three rebel factions stopped in Dakar, en route to Paris.

Soro said the insurgents had asked to meet with the Senegalese president in his capacity as chairman of the Economic Community of West African States, to seek advice ahead of the talks. Wade told them he hoped compromise would prevail in Paris.

The rebels were unyielding, however, in their demand that Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo resign to pave the way for new elections. Gbagbo says that is out of the question and insists the rebels disarm.

Weeks of West African-brokered negotiations foundered on the standoff, which makes for the chief challenge in Paris.

Gbagbo argues he was democratically elected in 2000. The insurgents reject the poll, saying it excluded one of the country's leading opposition leaders and was tainted by violence.

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin told lawmakers Tuesday this time "we must succeed" in brokering a deal for the sake of Ivory Coast's 17 million people.

The former French colony is the world's largest cocoa producer as well as a financial center and port for all of West Africa - shipping goods and providing employment for the entire region.

Villepin cleared the way for the talks by persuading Gbagbo and leaders of the two western factions to sign an accord suspending hostilities during the Paris session.

Soro's northern-based rebels already had signed on to the October cease-fire.

Ivory Coast's war began with a failed coup attempt on Sept. 19, and quickly saw rebels seize the northern half of the country. They accused Gbagbo's southern-based government of discrimination against northerners and of fanning ethnic hatreds.

The western factions emerged in November. The West quickly became the war's fiercest front, drawing in lawless ex-combatants from the 1990s civil wars that devastated neighboring Sierra Leone and Liberia.

France's military commitment already is its strongest in years in Africa. France says its troops are in Ivory Coast to try to uphold an often-violated October cease-fire and protect foreigners.

But Western diplomats have expressed fears that foreign fighters may not go along with a peace even if rebel leaders agree on one in Paris. France's concern, with 2,000 troops already committed, is to avoid becoming militarily bogged down.

The influx of looting, raping, drunken and drugged fighters has added to the impetus on mediators to end the conflict before Ivory Coast goes the same route as its two neighbors.