[ 2011-09-11 ]

W.Africa asks UN to boost I.Coast, Liberia border monitoring
ABUJA (AFP) - Leaders from a select West African
countries on Saturday called on the UN to bolster
monitoring of Ivory Coast's border with neighbour
Liberia, which is set to hold general elections
next month.

Liberian authorities last month announced a
seizure of a "worrisome" amount of arms and
ammunition near the border with Ivory Coast, which
is still recovering from a bloody post-election
crisis.

Presidents from six countries "urged the United
Nations to intensify joint UNOCI-UNMIL
(peacekeeping missions) monitoring and control of
the common border zone between the two
countries."

The special mini summit was called to thrash out
ways to address the security concerns after
Liberian immigration said they had seized weapons
which included rockets, machine guns and assault
rifles and a large amount of ammunition from
unnamed people.

The caches were unearthed as war-scarred Liberia
prepared for its second post-war democratic
presidential and parliamentary elections due on
October 11.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia,
Africa's first female elected president, is
seeking re-election.

In a statement the leaders meeting under the aegis
of the regional bloc Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS) "declared zero tolerance
for any attempt to oppose the verdict of the
ballot box."

The four-month post-poll dispute in Ivory Coast
was sparked by the refusal by the former strongman
Laurent Gbagbo to cede power to elected leader
Alassane Ouattara.

An estimated 3,000 people died in the violence
that broke out after the November vote. Gbagbo was
later arrested in April by pro-Ouattara forces
aided by France and the UN.

Establishing security has remained a major
challenge in Ivory Coast, the world's leading
cocoa producer, after the election dispute.

Liberia itself is still fragile as it recovers
from successive civil wars waged by warloards and
drugged child soldiers, that left some 150,000
dead between 1989 and 2003. The October vote is
the second since the end of those devastating
wars.

Presidents Ouattara and Sirleaf were joined at the
summit in the Nigerian capital by Blaise Compaore
of Burkina Faso, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, John
Atta Mills of Ghana and host Goodluck Jonathan.

Nigeria currently chairs the 15-nation Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Source - AFP

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