VZCZCXRO1161
PP RUEHPA
DE RUEHAB #0320/01 0831621
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 241621Z MAR 06
FM AMEMBASSY ABIDJAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1133
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLQTIVE
RUEHSA/AMEMBASSY PRETORIA 1319
RUEHKI/AMEMBASSY KINSHASA 0288

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ABIDJAN 000320 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
KINSHASA PASS TO BRAZZAVILLE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/23/2016 
TAGS: PREL PGOV KPKO ASEC IV
SUBJECT: COTE D'IVOIRE: FIFTH MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL 
WORKING GROUP 
 
 
Classified By: POL/ECON Jim Wojtasiewicz, reasons 1.4 (B) and (D). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary.  The International Working Group (IWG) held a 
largely uneventful fifth meeting March 17.  Prime Minister 
Banny, UN High Representative for Election (HRE) Monteiro, 
and the new Chairman of Cote d'Ivoire's Independent Electoral 
Commission (CEI) gave presentations.  Some element of drama 
was provQed by an Ivoirian mini-crisis involving the funeral 
in the rebel-held north of the brother of one of President 
Gbagbo's closest confidants, which was playing itself out 
over the course of the IWG meeting.  The next meeting is 
April 20.  The IWG is becoming increasingly less central to 
the political process.  The sum of its impact is its monthly 
communiques, which only comment on the situation and, after 
the street disturbances in reaction to the January 
communique, are increasingly bland.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (U) The International Working Group (IWG) held its fifth 
meeting in Abidjan on March 17.  Congolese Foreign Minister 
Rodolphe Adada and UN Special Representative of the Secretary 
General (SRSG) Pierre Schori co-chaired the meeting.  Linda 
Thomas-Greenfield, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for 
African Affairs, led the U.S. delegation.  Also attending 
were Benin Foreign Minister Rogatien Biaou; French 
Cooperation Minister Brigitte Girardin; Ghanaian Foreign 
Minister Nana Akufo-Addo; Guinean Foreign Minister Fatouma 
Sidibe Kaba; Nigeran Foreign Minister Aichatou Mindaoudou; 
Nigerian Foreign Minister Oluyemi Adeniji; South African 
Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma; ECOWAS Executive 
Secretary Mohamed Ibn Chambas; UN High Representative for 
 
SIPDIS 
Elections in Cote d'Ivoire (HRE) Antonio Monteiro; and 
representatives from the United Kingdom, the AU, the EU, the 
International Organization of French Speaking Countries, and 
the World Bank. 
 
¶3. (SBU) The meeting was largely uneventful, featuring a 
series of presentations by Prime Minister Banny, HRE 
Monteiro, and the new Chairman of Cote d'Ivoire's Independent 
Electoral Commission Robert Beugre Mambe.  No substantive 
decisions were made. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Banny's presentation lasted almost two hours.  He 
spoke for about 30 minutes then answered questions, at great 
length, for over an hour.  Banny listed and elaborated on his 
accomplishments in his first 100 days in office, including 
the February 28 summit of Ivoirian political leaders in 
Yamoussoukro, the return of rebel New Forces (FN) leader 
Guillaume Soro's to Abidjan, and the holding of school 
examinations in the North for the first time since 2004. 
Monteiro gave a brief farewell speech -- he was about to 
leave his position to become Portuguese Ambassador to France. 
 Buegre gave a brief presentation pledging that the CEI would 
work in a spirit of consensus to bring about free, fair and 
transparent elections by October of this year. 
 
¶5. (C) Some element of drama was provided by an Ivoirian 
mini-crisis involving the funeral in the far northern city of 
Korhogo for the brother of  Laurent Fologo, Chairman of the 
Economic and Social Commission and one of President Gbagbo's 
closet confidants.  The previous day, Fologo had attempted to 
drive from Abidjan to Korhogo for the funeral with an 
entourage of over 500 people, but the motorcade was turned 
back by the FN.  By morning, Fologo had relented and agreed 
to be flown to Korhogo by UN helicopter, with an entourage of 
only about 50.  Over the course of the morning SRSG Schori 
gave the IWG regular updates on Fologo's movements: when he 
took off from Abidjan, when he landed in Korhogo, when he was 
greeted warmly by the FN in Korhogo, and when he arrived in 
his brother's village 20 kilometers away. 
 
¶6. (C) The only other matter that gave rise to some 
discussion was when, in the course of deciding the date of 
the next IWG meeting, the World Bank Representative floated 
the idea of combining the next meeting with a pledging 
session for donors to step forward with assistance to help 
Cote d'Ivoire implement the IWG road map.  The United States 
and others pointed out that a pledging session was a very 
different thing from an IWG meeting, and the idea was dropped. 
 
¶7. (C) There were also no substantive disagreements over the 
communique, though the ministers spent about two hours 
wrangling as usual over the wording of practically every 
sentence.  The next meeting will be April 20. 
 
¶8. (C) Comment.  The IWG is becoming increasingly less 
relevant to the political situation here.  Though Prime 
Minister Banny is happy to come to the monthly meetings to 
dwell on his accomplishments and bask in the IWG's praise for 
 
ABIDJAN 00000320  002 OF 002 
 
 
them, he refuses to work with the IWG's Mediation Group on a 
daily basis.  As a result, the sum of the IWG's impact is its 
monthly communiques, which only comment on the situation, and 
which, after the violent reaction by pro-Gbagbo militias to 
the January communique, are increasingly bland.  End Comment. 
 
 
Hooks