Forces loyal to Ivory Coast presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara seized two towns in the heart of the western cocoa belt on Monday night, in an offensive that may soon enable them to control a major port.
Witnesses and fighters from both sides said yesterday that the former rebels, who have controlled northern Ivory Coast since the civil war of 2002 to 203, had seized Daloa from incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo’s troops.
They also took Duekoue, which opens up a direct route to the major exporting port of San Pedro. The area they now control produces about 600,000 tonnes of cocoa a year, half of Ivory Coast’s output.
A violent dispute over last -November’s presidential election that UN-certified results showed Ouattara won, but which Gbagbo refuses to concede, has rekindled the civil war it was meant to be settled for good, with heavy fighting in the main city Abidjan and across a north-south ceasefire line.
A source in the pro-Gbagbo military said Daloa and Duekoue had fallen, but fighting continued in parts of Duekoue.
“The combat was very violent in Daloa the whole night, but we couldn’t keep our positions,” he said. “It has fallen into rebel hands.”
The rebels have this week opened up two fresh military fronts, seizing Bondoukou in the east, near the Ghana border, and Daloa in the west, in an -escalation of their offensive. Fighting had been limited to Abidjan and the far west.
“They took Daloa and they are circulating everywhere,” hotel owner Jean Marie Gado said. “No one is going out, all the shops are shut. The place is like a cemetery.”
Unlike the last war, when French peacekeepers stepped in at Duekoue to stop the rebels advancing on San Pedro, world powers are this time furious with Gbabgo for torpedoing the peace process by rejecting the election results.
All recognize Ouattara as president and diplomats say they are therefore unlikely to hinder the advance of the former rebels fighting Ouattara’s cause.
“We have taken both towns. They are in our hands, that’s -certain, but there is still shooting going on,” Seydou Ouattara, a military spokesman for Ouattara’s forces, said by telephone.
On the diplomatic front meanwhile, the stalemate continued.
Ouattara has rejected the African Union’s choice of former Cape Verde foreign minister Jose Brito to mediate an end to the crisis, objecting that he had close links with Gbagbo.
“President Ouattara has his reasons, which I respect,” Brito said.
But, “I don’t think it will be possible to advance if this position continues,” he added.
“I assume that the AU [African Union] will analyze this deadlock and decide on the best path to follow,” he said.
However, he said that his closeness with Gbagbo was a trump card and not a constraint.
In Paris, a lawyer for Ouattara deplored what he said were the double standards of the international community.
“They have launched an operation in Libya fearing that Qaddafi … kills people in Benghazi, while Laurent Gbagbo has already started killing people and is continuing to do so,” he added.
Ivory Coast’s civilians deserved at least as much international public attention and concern as Libya’s “unhappy people,” he said.
Aid agencies have reported massive displacement of people in the country’s west which, along with Abidjan, has witnessed most of the violence.
The dire humanitarian crisis and the growing bloodshed has increased pressure on the international community to do more.
The UN Security Council is examining a draft resolution to strengthen the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast and protect civilians.
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