A buffer zone “I’ve heard only mere rhetoric from the media lately, reality is far different” says our source, whose name is not revealed for security reasons, from Bouakè , the stronghold of the Northern area controlled by the rebels. “Of course things have improved, the rebels are kinder to people than before, but, besides this, nothing has been really done towards peace”. What arouses more doubts is the withdrawal of UN troops as a consequence of the dismantling of the buffer zone created to separate the Northern area in the rebels’ hands from the South under the Government control. “We fear that the former buffer zone may become the haunt of those rebels who won’t be recruited into the new national police force” our sources continues “There’s a big difference between the leaders of the Forces Nouvelles who have been able to buy villas in Burkina Faso with the profits of the conflict and the ranks made of badly paid bully boys”. Since Monday all checkpoints, which separated the two sides and were controlled by UN peacekeepers and the French troops of Operation Licorne, have been dismantled. Moreover, despite formal denial, UN peacekeepers seem ready to leave the country. “The Bengali contingent, stationed in the extreme North, has already left” says our source.

Carve-up The dismantling of the buffer zone has been one of the first joint decisions taken by President Gbagbo together with Soro, head of the Forces Nouvelles and appointed the new Prime Minister as part of the peace deal signed in Ouagadougou on the 4^th of March. The reunification of a split country has a symbolic value but it also presses some answers. “I fear that they have hastened the withdrawal of the international peacekeepers in order to be free to settle the matter without witnesses” our interlocutor continues “Gbagbo and Soro have known each other for ages as, when the former was a teacher, the latter was his pupil. People are not willing to speak because war wounds are still open, but there’s a widespread suspicion that the two of them just want to carve-up the country”. Nevertheless, international peacekeepers have a different opinion, they consider the peace deal as a progress in the communication between the two sides and trust the two leaders’ determination to held the presidential elections which have been delayed for two years. Gbagbo has announced that he will give out the election days as soon as the long and complicated process of the identification of voters is completed.

Waiting “We cannot but wait and hope that our doubts are groundless” our source sums up. Five years after the beginning of the conflict, Ivory Coast is in a limbo: on the one hand it is hopeful that a solution can be found to a crisis often considered as inextricable, on the other hand it is suspicious of a peace process which has been surprisingly fast and smooth. Soro has already formed a new Government, the rebel armed forces and the Ivorian army are working together on how to form a united national army and all political forces are confident in the possibility of positive agreements. The first results are expected soon, meanwhile UN peacekeepers and French troops are ready to withdraw.