VZCZCXRO3488
PP RUEHPA
DE RUEHAB #0686/01 1791523
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 281523Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY ABIDJAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1507
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEHSA/AMEMBASSY PRETORIA 1372
RUEHKI/AMEMBASSY KINSHASA 0319
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0156

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ABIDJAN 000686 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
KINSHASA PASS TO BRAZZAVILLE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/28/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KPKO IV
SUBJECT: COTRE D'IVOIRE: EIGHTH MEETING OF THE 
INTERNATIONAL WORKING GROUP 
 
REF: A. ABIDJAN 568 
 
     ¶B. ABIDJAN 417 
 
Classified By: POL/ECON Jim Wojtasiewicz, reasons 1.4 (B) and (D). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary.  At the eighth meeting of the International 
Working Group (IWG), Prime Minister Banny gave a long, 
evasive presentation seeking to reassure the group that he is 
determined to succeed in bringing the country to elections, 
while IWG members tried to pin him down on why so little 
progress is being made.  Banny did make important points 
about how he plans to proceed with identification, how he 
believes the dispute over the National Assembly should be 
resolved, concessions he believes the rebel New Forces (FN) 
have made on disarmament, and steps he is taking to pave the 
way for World Bank funding for disarmament.  He was joined by 
Guillaume Soro, FN leader and second ranking minister in the 
government, but Soro made only two brief interventions.  The 
commanders of the UN and French peacekeeping forces expressed 
optimism about disarmament but concern about recent internal 
divisions within the FN.  In the communique from this 
meeting, the IWG sought to reassert that the National 
Assembly's mandate expired in December while also demanding 
that the former deputies be paid equally, for undertaking 
missions of peace and reconciliation around the country.  A 
confrontation may be building within the group between the 
French, who want to start sooner rather than later discussing 
what to do this October, when it is increasingly clear that 
there will be no elections in sight, and the South Africans 
(and perhaps other African countries as well) who want to 
avoid this subject as long as possible.  End Summary. 
 
¶2. (U) The IWG held its eighth meeting in Abidjan June 23, 
co-chaired as usual by Congolese Foreign Minister Rodolphe 
Adada and UN Special Representative of the Secretary General 
in Cote d'Ivoire (SRSG) Pierre Schori.  In attendance were 
French Cooperation Minister Brigitte Girardin; Ghanaian 
Foreign Minister Nana Akufo-Addo; Niger'an Foreign Minister 
Aichatou Mindaoudou; South African Defense Minister Mosiuoa 
Lekota; ECOWAS Executive Secretary Mohamed Ibn Chambas; UN 
High Representative for Elections in Cote d'Ivoire (HRE) 
Gerard Stoudmann; and representatives from Benin, Guinea, 
Nigeria, the United Kingdom, the United States, the EU, the 
African Union, and the International Organization of French 
Speaking Countries. 
 
¶3. (C) As has become an IWG tradition, the meeting led off 
with a review of the last month's developments in the peace 
process by Prime Minister Banny, followed by questions and 
answers.  This time Banny's presentation lasted some three 
hours, and he was flanked by Guillaume Soro, leader of the 
rebel New Forces (FN) and second ranking minister in Banny's 
government.  Banny was characteristically verbose, rambling, 
vague and evasive.  As IWG members sought to pin him down on 
why so little progress is being made in the peace process, 
Banny clung to three main generalities: he is determined to 
succeed, he is committed to building consensus, and he is 
confronted by so many obstacles and problems that he can only 
tackle them one at a time as they come along, leaving the 
rest to be dealt with in due course. 
 
¶4. (C) Banny did make a number of important points: 
 
--  He promised that after what he called a successful pilot 
citizen identification project  last month (ref A), the 
identification process would swing into full gear the 
following week.  (Note: As of mid-week there are no signs of 
movement on this yet.) 
 
--  Banny indicated that he wants to proceed with voter 
registration on the basis of Certificates of Nationality. 
(Note: As explained ref B, the Certificate of Nationality is 
only an intermediate step in the identification process.  It 
is accepted as proof of identity, for getting a driver's 
license or a passport, for example, but not proof of 
citizenship.  It would be a major concession on the part of 
the FN and the political opposition to go forward with 
disarmament and elections without the final step -- citizen 
identification cards.  President Gbagbo's FPI (Ivoirian 
Popular Front ) party has fought for over ten years to deny 
these cards to Northerners, and this issue was a major cause 
of the 2002 attempted coup and rebellion.) 
 
--  Banny said he wants Ivoirians to only need to come in 
once, to be identified and registered to vote at the same 
time.  (Note: One of UN HRE Stoudmann's assistants later told 
us this will not be possible -- identification lists will 
 
ABIDJAN 00000686  002 OF 003 
 
 
need to be compiled and collated into a single data base 
before voters can be registered.) 
 
--  Banny called the bitter dispute over whether opposition 
members of the former National Assembly should be paid 
(septel) a purely political issue which the political parties 
should resolve among themselves.  He tried to distance 
himself from this contentious issue by stating that it was 
not his problem. 
 
--  However, Banny repeated several times that the Assembly's 
mandate expired in December, and there is no legal basis for 
extending it.  He swore that he would submit no legislation 
to the Assembly, in particular the 2006 budget.  The budget, 
he said, has been approved by the Cabinet and as far as he is 
concerned that is enough to implement it.  (Note:  By our 
reading of articles 42 and 80 of the Constitution, it is the 
President, not the Prime Minister, who submits the budget to 
the National Assembly after the Cabinet approves it.) 
 
--  Banny said the FN has made two important concessions on 
disarmament: decoupling the commencement of disarmament from 
the commencement of dismantling of the militias, and allowing 
UN and French peacekeeping forces to enter FN preregroupment 
sites to verify that preregroupment is in fact proceeding. 
(Note: Preregroupment is the first step in the disarmament 
process.  Soldiers from both sides are currently supposed to 
be assembling at designated sites under their own commanders. 
 Later they are to come under the control of international 
peacekeepers, and eventually surrender their weapons -- 
septel). 
 
--  Banny expressed confidence that the bond issuance to pay 
for clearing Cote d'Ivoire's arrears with the World Bank, 
which ends June 30, would be fully subscribed.  He revealed 
(and the World Bank representative at the IWG confirmed) that 
Cote d'Ivoire has increased its request for World Bank 
funding for disarmament from $80 million to $100 million, and 
that a mission would travel to Washington this week to 
discuss the details of this funding. 
 
¶5. (C) Soro sat impassively though most of Banny's 
presentation, making only two brief interventions.  He 
confirmed that the FN would allow international verification 
of the FN preregroupment sites, and he put in a plea for the 
opposition deputies to be paid.  Soro did not comment on 
Banny's plan to register voters based on Certificates of 
Nationality rather than citizen identification cards. 
 
¶6. (C) Prime Minister Banny's long presentation left time for 
only relatively short briefings on the security situation by 
General Fernand Marcel Amoussou, acting Commander of the UN 
Operation in Cote d'Ivoire (ONUCI) and General Antoine 
Lecerf, Commander of the French Licorne peacekeeping force; 
and on preparations for elections by UN HRE Stoudmann.  The 
force commanders reported that the security situation was 
generally quiet over the past month, and that disarmament is 
moving ahead, though slowly.  Both expressed concern that 
recent internal divisions within the FN could result in only 
part of the FN disarming.  Stoudmann came under sharp 
questioning from IWG members about a recent letter from the 
Gbagbo-controlled National Statistical Institute  (INS) to 
the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI), 
asserting that the INS will go ahead on its own with 
preparing voter registration lists.  Stoudmann called the 
letter a provocation based on a deliberate misinterpretation 
of the Pretoria Agreements, and he and the CEI intended to 
ignore it. 
 
¶7. (C) The biggest issue for the IWG to deal with in its 
communique was the National Assembly.  In the days leading up 
to the meeting, opposition parties were saying loudly and 
repeatedly that the only reason why they were boycotting 
Assembly sessions was because the IWG said in its January 
communique that the Assembly's mandate had expired. 
Therefore, they said, it was up to the IWG to do something 
about that fact that FPI deputies, attending the sessions, 
were being paid, while boycotting opposition deputies were 
not.  The IWG decided on language indirectly reasserting that 
the Assembly has no mandate, by referring to the January 
communique and UN Security Council Resolution 1633 and by 
calling the deputies "former deputies," while at the same 
time demanding that all former deputies be paid equally for 
undertaking missions of peace and reconciliation round the 
country.  (Note: The January communique recommended that the 
Prime Minister make use of the former deputies for such 
missions, and the day before the June IWG meeting Banny 
 
ABIDJAN 00000686  003 OF 003 
 
 
announced that he would do so.) 
 
¶8. (C) Other than that, the communique contained predictable 
language expressing concern about delays in identification 
and disarmament, asserting that the CEI, not the INS, is 
solely responsible for voter registration, and warning that 
those who block the peace process may be subject to UN 
sanctions. 
 
¶9. (C) Comment.  The IWG is growing increasingly impatient 
with Banny's evasive answers and vague assurances.  A 
confrontation may be building within the group between the 
French, who want to start discussing what to do this October, 
if as is likely there are no elections in sight, and the 
South Africans (and perhaps other African countries as well) 
who want to avoid this subject as long as possible.  End 
Comment. 
 
Hooks