Ivory Coast militias start disarmament process

Militiamen in war-divided Ivory Coast gave up their guns on Wednesday, starting a long-delayed disarmament process and marking a rare advance in a faltering peace plan meant to lead to elections by the end of October.

The first 150 of 2,000 armed men who fought alongside government troops in a 2002-03 civil war handed over machineguns and cannon to the U.N. force that mans a cease-fire line dividing them from the rebel-controlled north.

It was the first formal mass disarmament since the war. Last year, the same militias symbolically handed over a single gun, but failed to follow through with disarmament as the peace process became bogged down in political wrangling.

Process begins
“It has started. They brought arms in a pick-up truck and gave them to the U.N.,” said an official from the reconciliation government’s disarmament program who watched the handover in Guiglo, a militia stronghold near the Liberian border.

The official told Reuters the militiamen would receive an initial payment of 125,000 CFA francs ($240) of a total 499,500 CFA francs for disarming, money intended for transport to their homes and to help them make a fresh start in civilian life.

The militias, who have controlled several areas of the country’s volatile west since the war, missed several previous disarmament dates. The rebels say government militias must disarm before they themselves give up their weapons.

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Disarmament of all sides is a key part of a U.N.-backed peace plan leading to October presidential polls.

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Elections still up in the air
At least two people have been killed since Sunday in clashes between rival political groups over a scheme to issue identity papers before the elections, which many diplomats fear may have to be delayed once again.

Leaders of the youth wings of rival political movements met in the economic capital Abidjan on Wednesday, issuing an unprecedented joint call for an end to violence and for more dialogue between groups in the West African country.