In this issue:

Peace Plan for Ivory Coast Is Under Consideration

British Again Float Option for Invasion of Zimbabwe

Nigerian President Sends Foreign Minister to Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe Military Chief Calls for Task Force To Address Country's Economic Crisis

From Volume 2, Issue Number 4 of Electronic Intelligence Weekly, Published Jan. 27, 2003
Africa News Digest

Peace Plan for Ivory Coast Is Under Consideration

A peace plan for Ivory Coast—or at least elements of one—are contained in document obtained by Reuters and reported on from Paris Jan. 23.

According to the British wire service, "A copy of the peace plan was obtained by Reuters and carried the signatures of representatives of all the Ivorian political parties and rebel groups around the table, including from President Laurent Gbagbo's ruling Ivorian Popular Front (FPI). It calls for a new government of national reconciliation to be led by a prime minister chosen by wide consensus."

The planned government would "set dates for 'credible and transparent' elections and to organize the disarmament of fighting forces.... All parties to the talks were to be included in the new government..., it said. Participants earlier said rebel chiefs and opposition parties ... made a proposal under which Gbagbo could remain in office if he agreed to a premier from outside his party. 'This government of national reconciliation will be led by a prime minister of consensus who will stay in place until the next presidential election, at which he will not be able to stand,' the plan said."

The government of President Gbagbo and its political base are reportedly not at all happy with the proceedings underway at the peace talks in Marcoussis. The President of the National Assembly, Mamadou Koulibaly, who is considered the Number Two man in the government, left the talks in anger Jan. 20 and flew back to Abidjan. He denounced the French coordinator of the talks, Pierre Mazeaud, saying "what the rebels did not succeed in doing militarily, he has done at Marcoussis." Koulibaly said Mazeaud was "too favorable to the rebels and to the RDR," the party of former Prime Minister (and former IMF official) Alassane Ouattara, which supports the rebels, and is promoted by Western interests. Koulibaly also said he felt "under attack as a representative of the state," and called the peace conference "a constitutional coup d'etat," according to the French publication Liberation Jan. 23.

Koulibaly's departure did not, however, constitute a departure of the government side from the peace talks, and was either a factional move or just symbolic. At the moment, the government is desperate for an increase in military support from France, and therefore has little room for maneuver. A spokesman for the Ivorian government in Paris, Toussaint Alain, told Associated Press Jan. 22, "We have no other choice but peace, so there will be an accord," even as he condemned Mazeaud for "refusing to describe the rebels as 'rebels.'"

Mazeaud was to have briefed French President Jacques Chirac Jan. 24, and Chirac was to have received President Gbagbo at the Elysée Palace later that day. Reuters added, "Delegates acknowledge the [peace] plan can only work if Gbagbo—who over the next three days can expect elbow-twisting from both his West African neighbors and France—sticks with it."

British Again Float Option for Invasion of Zimbabwe

The British are again floating the option of invasion of Zimbabwe, laundered—as before—through their roundtable organization, the South African Institute of International Affairs. The national director of the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), Greg Mills, has written that, in regard to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his adherents, "the 'Taliban option' should not be excluded." The Mills article, titled "Fly Now, Pay Later with Mugabe," was printed as an opinion column in the Straits Times (Singapore) on Jan. 21.

Almost as an afterthought, Mills noted that, in the event of an invasion of Zimbabwe, "There would be an incalculable fall-out, in terms of both regional and North-South relations, and it is likely that such an option could be considered only in a case of extreme humanitarian emergency." The last time the SAIIA floated the idea, in June 2002, it suggested that South Africa should be the one doing the invading, but South Africa is not mentioned in this latest version.

The proposal—or the psychological warfare, as the case may be—also emerged briefly last year from the U.S. State Department. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Mark Bellamy told a panel discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington last fall that "we may have to be prepared to take some very intrusive, interventionist measures to ensure [food and related] aid delivery to Zimbabwe. The dilemmas in the next six months may bring us face to face with Zimbabwe's sovereignty." This played big in the Zimbabwean government-run Herald in Harare, as reflecting an American plan to invade. The only denial from the State Department was from someone speaking on background, saying "the concept of a U.S. invasion is nonsense."

Nigerian President Sends Foreign Minister to Zimbabwe

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has sent his Foreign Minister, Sule Lamido, to Zimbabwe, and will arrive there in person himself, in February. Lamido arrived in Harare, Zimbabwe on Jan. 20, to deliver a letter from President Obasanjo to President Mugabe. The visit follows a "botched retirement deal [for Mugabe] between leader of the opposition Morgan Tsvangirai and [leaders of the Zimbabwe ruling party] Zanu-PF," as reported in This Day of Lagos.

On arrival in Harare, Lamido said, "As a friend of Zimbabwe and a personal friend of President Mugabe, President Obasanjo is very much concerned about the situation in Zimbabwe," according to Sapa-AFP, which cited the Ziana News Agency in its Jan. 20 report.

After meeting with Mugabe, Lamido said there was a danger that the issue of Zimbabwe could divide the (British) Commonwealth along racial lines, with African countries aligning themselves with Zimbabwe. Sapa-AFP quoted him as saying, "If they want to make it an issue of kith and kin"—an apparent reference to what Zimbabweans regard as excessive Anglo-American concern over the property rights of white farmers in the country—"then we will also make it a kith and kin issue."

Lamido said that the land redistribution had been "successfully completed in Zimbabwe" and that he hoped Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth could now be lifted.

South African Labor Minister Membathisi Mdladlana also expressed his satisfaction with Zimbabwe's land reform Jan. 9, after visiting the country.

Zimbabwe Military Chief Calls for Task Force To Address Country's Economic Crisis

According to Britain's Independent News of Jan. 17, Gen. Vitalis Zvinavashe, who heads Zimbabwe's Army and Air Force, has "called for a national task force involving all branches of government, 'and not necessarily Cabinet ministers,' to be set up urgently to deal with what he called an emergency situation in Zimbabwe." Independent News was reporting on a Jan. 16 interview with the weekly Business Tribune, owned by prominent businessman Mutumwa Mawere, who has strong ties with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and the Zanu-PF party. Zvinavashe has not publicly ventured beyond military affairs before.

Zvinavashe was quoted as saying: "First we must admit there is a crisis. Everyone can see that. So we must do something about it.... It is not right to keep quiet and let nature take its course." Independent News added that Gen. Zvinavashe "did not say whether the task force should include the opposition, but said it must have powers to make substantive decisions that would not be overturned by civil servants or Cabinet ministers. He said the task force should be supervised by the 79-year-old President" Mugabe.

Zvinavashe has denied press claims of his involvement in reported contacts between leading Zanu-PF figures and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on the subject of removing Mugabe from power. Information Minister Jonathan Moyo said rumors about exile for Mugabe were "the sinister work of coup plotters," according to Zimbabwe state radio Jan. 16, the Star of Johannesburg reported Jan. 17.

President Mugabe returned about Jan. 12 from an 11-day vacation—but accompanied by a government entourage—to Thailand. He may have been accompanied by Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge. Differing press accounts say he also visited Malaysia or Vietnam or Singapore, or some combination of these.

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