If peace prevails, Annan may recommend expanding UN mission in Côte d'Ivoire

Secretary-General Kofi Annan may recommend that the Security Council send a full peacekeeping force to Côte d'Ivoire, but only if the parties carry out their existing peace agreement, maintain a unitary government and disband disruptive militant groups, according to a document published today.

"I would like to recommend that, should the Ivorian parties make sufficient progress in carrying out these important steps by 4 February 2004 … the Security Council consider authorizing the deployment of a multidimensional United Nations peacekeeping operation to support the peace process in Cote d'Ivoire," he writes in his report to the Council on the latest developments in the West African country.

The date set by Mr. Annan coincides with the planned end of the present UN Mission in Cote d'Ivoire (MINUCI) - comprising just 34 military liaison officers - as well as a West African military force known as ECOMICI and the French peacekeeping operation called Licorne.

An agreement signed in Linas-Marcoussis, France, in January last year ended fierce fighting between the Government and the rebel Forces Nouvelles.

The expanded peacekeeping operation would comprise 6,240 troops, including 200 military observers and 120 staff officers, and a civilian component of electoral, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, human rights, public information, police, judicial and political advisers.

The UN has recently run into difficulties in recruiting adequately equipped military and police personnel for its peacekeeping operations. Should the Council set up the Côte d'Ivoire mission, the Secretary-General says he would urge Member States to provide the necessary resources, though not at the expense of other missions.

The report points to a set of challenges facing the country. In addition to the task of disarming and reintegrating the many ex-combatants in the region, a number of other interrelated cross-border problems underlie the instability in Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, including "the use of child soldiers, the use and proliferation of mercenaries, flows of refugees and the culture of impunity," Mr. Annan says.

He also notes that "neither the Forces Nouvelles nor the Government have taken effective steps to bring perpetrators of human rights violations to justice," citing cases of sexual slavery and rape, as well as harassment of the media and of "so-called foreigners."

Members of Security Council as well as troop contributing countries are expected to discuss the report's proposals next week.