President Thabo Mbeki arrived to a rousing welcome in the central Ivorian rebel stronghold of Bouake, where a rebel spokesman said the South African statesman was regarded as a "guarantee" to the peace process in the divided west African nation. Mbeki was met as his plane touched down by Guillaume Soro, leader of the New Forces (FN) rebels, who have staged an uprising against Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo since September 2002, effectively splitting the country into a Muslim-dominated rebel north and Christian government-held south.
| Just another flash point on Islam's bloody border... |
"We have reached a point where the Ivory Coast peace process went off the tracks. We want to reach a point where the process gets back on track," Soro said later.
| "Now that the Frenchies are leaving, we need somebody else to take up our cause..." |
"We have no problem with President Thabo Mbeki being here," FN spokesman Konate Sidiki shortly before Mbeki arrived at around 10:00 am in the city, some 350 kilometres north of the commercial capital Abidjan. "President Thabo Mbeki must take the peace process in his hands. He's the only guarantee," Sidiki told AFP.
| "Gosh, I miss the Frenchies!" |
Mbeki and Soro -- under a military escort which included South African special forces and two helicopters overhead -- then drove to a hotel in the city centre while tens of thousands of people, many dressed in white traditional costume, lined the streets. Many carried placards in French and English saying "We demand that Gbagbo resign" and "Welcome President Mbeki. Gbagbo must leave power." At the Ran Hotel, some five kilometres from the airport, Mbeki pressed rebels at a public meeting, saying the FN leadership owed it to the people of Bouake, which has an estimated 600,000-strong population, "to reach a decision."
"The challenge is that later today when we leave Bouake and we tell people 'no decision has been made', we would have let them down," Mbeki said, before meeting Soro behind closed doors.
| Yeah. But what's the decision, Thabo? |
Adressing Mbeki, Soro added he (Mbeki) was "the only man in the world who can understand the situation in the Ivory Coast. You give hope to all the people in the Ivory Coast."
| "Now that the Frenchies are leaving, you're better than nothing..." |
One of the issues to be discussed is the disarmament of his soldiers as a prerequisite for the peace process, Mbeki's spokesman Bheki Khumalo told AFP on Saturday. In a speech to the Ivorian parliament, Mbeki called for "a return to safety" in the country, warning that a culture of violence should not be entrenched here. Mbeki arrived in the troubled country late Thursday and has been shuttling between talks with with various groups in the country, caught in the grip of a bitter conflict with political and ethnic origins. 
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