Peace is back in the country and the state is everywhere. That was the assessment of Cote d’Ivoire by the head of the UN’s 13-year peacekeeping mission that will fully withdraw from the country at the end of June.
The outgoing Special Representative of the Secretary General acknowledged that while not everything has been solved, the country is on the right track after a failed coup in 2002 that led to a civil war, a fragile peace and then an election dispute in 2010 that eventually saw the violent ouster of former President Laurent Gbagbo.
Most of the six thousand peacekeepers and international police have already exited the country. As the UN hails its mission as a success story in a global climate where there’s often no peace to keep.
“A peacekeeping mission is not meant to solve everything in a country, it is not meant to do so. The situation today in Cote d’Ivoire is that the peacekeeping mission has done its part and now it is up to the authorities, to the population to take up with the support of the international community to continue it,” said special Representative Aichatou Mindaoudou.
The Secretary General pointed to successful legislative elections in December 2016 and improved security in the country as paving the way for their exit, admitting that while not everything has been achieved, the country is on the right path.
“The mission worked towards the reintegration of ex-combatants and the programme ended in June 2015. More than 65-thousand ex combatants have been reintegrated and the programme in Cote d’Ivoire was a very, very positive experience and in 2016 we also organized a conference to share our experiences with other missions, this has been done. With regard to the national reconciliation, the work has been done by the mission to bring together Ivoirians to make them sit down together and make them talk to each other, it wasn’t the case at the beginning.”
Former President Laurent Gbagbo remains on trial at the International Criminal Court after refusing to hand over power after losing an election in 2010, while a recent mutiny by the army continues to point to the country’s fragility.
“This mutiny began in November 2014. Since then, never ever the mutineers attempted to overthrow the state or the population. The only claim they had and they still have is related to the payment they were expecting, they were promised. So there was never a threat to the state,but it is true that it shows fragility of the army in the country but we were not surprised about that because one of the steps we have taken before the withdrawal of the mission is to put together all the remaining fragilities in Cote d’Ivoire around which not only Cote d’Ivoire but also the international partners of Cote d’Ivoire should work to sustain the gains achieved so far by the mission.”
Mindaoudou believes the success of their mission was largely due to the strong inclusion of the population in the implementation of their mandate.
Meanwhile, Cote d’Ivoire was Friday elected to a two-year non-permanent seat on the Security Council starting January 1st 2018.
– By Sherwin Bryce-Pease
