Chad names former rebel chief as defence minister

N’DJAMENA, March 4 (Reuters) – Chad’s new prime minister named former rebel leader Mahamat Nour Abdelkerim as his defence minister on Sunday, just two months after he signed a peace deal to end his uprising against President Idriss Deby.  

Nour led the United Front for Democratic Change (FUC) which launched a raid on the Chadian capital N’Djamena in April in which hundreds of people were killed, but factional feuds have since split his movement. He signed the peace deal in late December in Tripoli, under the mediation of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and called on other rebel leaders fighting a low-intensity war in Chad’s east to lay down their weapons. They dismissed his appeal.  

Nour’s appointment came after Nouradine Delwa Kassire took over as Chad’s prime minister following the death of his predecessor from a heart attack on Feb. 23.  

Former FUC spokesman Laona Gong Raoul was named Government Secretary General in charge of relations with National Assembly, another cabinet post. In all, nine new ministers entered the government.

Deby, who won a fresh five-year term at elections in May which were boycotted by the opposition, has faced mounting opposition to his 17-year rule in the arid, landlocked central African oil producer.

Central African rebels clash with French forces

(Adds details, French comment) By Paul-Marin Ngoupana BANGUI, March 4 (Reuters) – Rebels in Central African Republic said they attacked French army positions in the northern town of Birao on Sunday after French warplanes bombed their troops, killing three of them.  

Rebel spokesman Ahmat Amadine said the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR) had seized Birao and its airport on Sunday, a day after an unsuccessful assault on the isolated northeast town near the border with strife-torn Chad and Sudan.  

“The French Mirages bombed our positions and we sustained three deaths and some wounded in our ranks,” Amadine told Reuters.  

“We responded by attacking the French positions and they have also taken several wounded,” he said, adding that the townsfolk had fled into the bush to avoid the fighting. France’s Defence Ministry confirmed the rebels had attacked French forces in Birao, but denied they had sustained any casualties.  

“The French detachment defended itself as they have the right and the duty to do, and they were supported by Mirage F1 fighter jets,” Christophe Prazuck, a Defence Ministry official, told Reuters. “Several vehicles were destroyed so in all likelihood there were casualties on the rebel side.” Dramane Zakhari, head of operations for the UFDR, said the French army and government forces had repelled an attack on Birao on Saturday, but only after the rebels had been able to seize a large cache of weapons.  

France sent special forces backed by helicopters and fighter jets to dislodge rebel fighters from Birao and a large swathe of its former colony in December, and has maintained forces in and around the town since.  

“We appeal to France to observe a strict neutrality and leave aside this problem which only concerns Central Africans,” Amadine said.  

Diplomats in Bangui say the ill-resourced government army has full control of as little as 2 percent of the country, which is larger than mainland France.

The deeply impoverished, landlocked country has been racked by years of instability with a series of coups, army mutinies and rebel uprisings, especially in the northwest where over the past 18 months government troops have burned dozens of villages suspected of aiding rebels opposed to President Francois Bozize. (Additional reporting by Swaha Pattanaik in Paris))

Ivory Coast president, rebels sign new peace deal

(Adds Gbagbo quote, details, French reaction) By Mathieu Bonkoungou  

OUAGADOUGOU, March 4 (Reuters) – Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel leader Guillaume Soro signed a new peace deal on Sunday, calling for the departure of U.N. and French troops and the creation of a new transitional government.  

The deal, after nearly a month of talks in the capital of neighbouring Burkina Faso, came after a series of U.N.-backed plans failed to deliver long-delayed elections in the world’s largest cocoa exporter, divided since a brief 2002-2003 civil war.  

“This is peace in Africa, this is peace by Africa,” Gbagbo said after signing the deal. “All the problems which are born in Africa can find their solution in Africa.”  

Under the terms of the agreement, brokered by Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Compaore, Gbagbo and Soro pledged to relaunch a stalled voter registration and identification process to prepare for elections within 10 months — slightly later than the U.N.-backed deadline of October.  

The agreement called on the United Nations and the French mission in Ivory Coast, known as Licorne, to dismantle a buffer zone which they have policed between the rebel-held north and government south since the brief civil war.  

“With the aim of allowing the free circulation of goods and people, the parties of the direct dialogue agree to ask the impartial forces of Licorne and the United Nations’ mission to suppress the buffer zone,” read a text of the agreement, obtained by Reuters.  

The peace plan envisages a line of observation posts staffed by “impartial forces”, running through the centre of the current buffer zone. These observation posts would be halved in number every two months. Gbagbo, whose mandate officially expired in 2005 but has been twice-extended under U.N.-backed deals, has frequently denounced foreign meddling in Ivory Coast in the past.  

FRANCE WELCOMES DEAL France, which has repeatedly expressed its willingness to scale back its obligations in Ivory Coast, welcomed the deal.  

“I think that from now on we can envisage a retreat of the international community, no doubt gradually, but I think the conditions are there so that the Ivorians can begin to surmount their difficulties themselves,” said French Cooperation and Development Minister Brigitte Girardin.  

Gbagbo and Soro agreed to appoint a new transitional government within five weeks, in an apparent snub to the current premier Charles Konan Banny who was named under the U.N. plan to oversee disarmament and hold elections.  

“The transitional government will work in a spirit of permanent dialogue and openness to other political forces to achieve the unification of Ivory Coast,” read the document.  

The international community has welcomed the talks, which began on Feb. 5 at Gbagbo’s instigation, after a string of international peace deals have foundered as government, rebel and opposition sides squabble over how they should be implemented.