UNOCI trains
Ivorian gendarmes

Nord Sud   -

The police of the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire
(UNPOL) began training 29 Ivorian gendarmes in the scientific techniques of
handling crime scenes on Tuesday 6 April 2010 at the Mission's headquarters.
According to Commissioner Abdounasir Awalé, chief of UNPOL's Restructuration,
Capacity Building and Redeployment Section, the training will last three weeks
and will enable Ivorian gendarmes to work efficiently on the scene of a crime. 

Electoral
process- the main thrust of the IEC's policy

Fraternité Matin
 -
The Independent Electoral Commission is taking the time it needs
to find a working method which will ensure unquestionable elections for lasting
peace in Côte d'Ivoire. The new Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) will end
tomorrow the sixth week since its appointment on 25 February 2010. There has
been a succession of contacts with political actors, civil society and diplomats
accredited to Côte d'Ivoire as well as working sessions of the IEC's executive.
[...]  Our investigations reveal that the resumption of the electoral process
should start finally in April and should last 21 days according to the decisions
made during the visit of the Facilitator, Blaise Compaoré, to Abidjan on 22
February.

Sokouri Bohoui
insists: "No disarmament, no election"

Nord Sud Source:
Afrique Election

Twenty-four (24)
hours after the interview of Prime Minister Guillaume Soro was published in
Jeune Afrique, Sokouri Bohoui, the Front Populaire Ivoirien's "Mister Elections"
has responded to the Secretary- General of the Forces Nouvelles. He reiterated
the presidential camp's positions on disarmament and the reunification of the
country, saying "as long as the disarmament is not done, there will never be
elections in Côte d'Ivoire". [Below are excerpts from an interview he did with
Afrique Election]

Afrique Election:
In an interview with Jeune Afrique, Mr. Soro explained that President Laurent
Gbagbo has never said that disarmament is a precondition for the holding of
elections. What is your response to that?

Sokouri Bohoui:
The fourth Ouagadougou Agreement [the fourth supplementary accord to the
Ouagadougou Political Agreement signed on 4 March 2007 in Ouagadougou between
President Gbagbo and Guillaume Soro) says in its Article 3 that disarmament
should be completed two months before the holding of elections. This is not the
President of the Republic's affair. This agreement was signed and the Prime
Minister should honour his commitment. Listen, it shall be done. Soro was
appointed Prime Minister precisely so that he can deliver disarmament to the
Ivorians. Otherwise why was he appointed? It's not a prize for the rebellion.
The place he is occupying, it's so that the Ivorians can have disarmament.  Our
brothers who took up arms asked for everything. They said Alassane Ouatara
(leader of the Rally of Republicans, RDR, opposition) had to be a candidate. The
President used Article 48 (which grants him exceptional powers) so that Ouattara
could be a candidate. This was the main demand. Even all of the other things
they asked for, they obtained them. The only thing we ask of them is
disarmament. And as long as disarmament does not take place, there will never be
elections in Côte d'Ivoire. This should be very clear in people's minds. (...)

Karamoko Yayoro in Agboville
and Anyama - "It's time to snatch the elections and democracy from Gbagbo"

L'Expression -The
National President of the Young Republicans, Karamoko Yayoro, believes the time
has come to put an end to the FPI (Front populaire ivoirien) regime. According
to him, this regime has exposed its limits. For the president of the youth wing
of the Rally of Republicans (RDR), the march that opposition youth plan to hold
on May 15 is important to set the country free. To give this event every chance
of success, he started a public awareness campaign yesterday in Agboville and
Anyama to explain to the young people of his party the significance of this
demonstration. [...] "We are preparing ourselves to start the final battle," he
said. "It was necessary to come and see our militants' state of mind. We are
convinced that as long as Laurent Gbagbo is in power, the obstacles to the
electoral process will never end. His role is to manufacture obstacles. Our duty
is to remove them to have not only the elections, but also legitimate power and
democracy." He added: "On May 15, we must demonstrate our power. We will demand
elections with or without Gbagbo". To that end, he recommended the revival of
the party's monitoring committees on the electoral appeal process and the
reinforcement of its structures for the final sprint to the presidential palace.

Disarmament, electoral
appeals: Dialogue of the deaf between Gbagbo and Soro

Inter
 - Sharp differences oppose
President Laurent Gbagbo and his Prime Minister on the issues of disarmament and
voter's list appeals. This is clear from the recent interview given by Guillaume
Soro to Jeune Afrique. The views of the Prime Minister on these sensitive
subjects run counter to the Head of State's. For Soro Guillaume, disarmament,
for example, does not mean weapons will be taken away from all soldiers prior to
the presidential election. "In countries that have experienced this type of
conflict, people agree on a minimum security platform to hold the elections.
They do not wait for the last soldier to give up his weapon before the vote",
the Secretary General of the Forces Nouvelles said, making it clear that there
was no question of the former rebels handing over their military arsenal prior
to the presidential elections. (...) The clash seems inevitable in these
circumstances. The different views on the provisional voters' list seem to be
inflexible. On that issue, Gbagbo and Soro do not speak the same language. While
Gbagbo called for an audit of the list of 5.3 million people whose Ivorian
nationality was supposed to have been established, Guillaume Soro does not want
to hear about it. (...) However, Laurent Gbagbo is determined to find fraudsters
on the list of 5.3 million by using what he calls "human cross-checking".