GUIGLO, Ivory Coast (AFP) - There are weapons everywhere along the strip of land between Danane and Toulepleu in the west of Ivory Coast, slung over the shoulders of men in uniform or casually concealed under civilian clothes.
It makes no difference whether the territory is held by rebels or by the government: soldiers, militias and rebel forces are holding fast to their weapons, unwilling to be the first to disarm in a process aimed at restoring peace to the former west African powerhouse and ending a crisis that began two years ago with a failed coup and civil war.
"Why should we start? It is they who took up arms against us, not the other way around," said an officer at a checkpoint near Duekoue, just south of the 400-kilometer (240-mile) "confidence zone" running east to west through fertile cocoa and coffee fields and thick, verdant forest.
"Why should we start when we took up arms for a political cause that has not been resolved?" asked a self-styled revolutionary on the northern, rebel-held side of the zone, a portrait of Che Guevara on his chest.
Ivory Coast's conflict has its roots in demands for equality from the north, and the descendants of migrants during the 1960s and 70s who heeded the call from post-independence president Felix Houphouet Boigny.
He called on them to come and help build the society that became the world's top cocoa producer and west Africa's most prosperous economy.
More than one-quarter of Ivory Coast's 17 million people have foreign roots, making them constitutionally ineligible for land ownership or a presidential bid -- even if they themselves were born in the country.
Bills envisioned under peace accords signed in January 2003 to resolve such concerns have stalled in the fractious national legislature, despite repeated mediation by African heads of state and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
"We took up our weapons to draw attention to this injustice, to make known our grievances and the inequality we face," said Abou Faman Coulibaly, head of the Movement for the Population of the Ivorian Grand West (MPIGO), which retains control of the agricultural town of Danane across the border from Liberia.
"As soon as there is the political will to change, we will lay down our weapons. But not until then."
The scars of the heaviest fighting in the short Ivorian civil war are burned deeply into the towns in the government-held west, which -- despite their allegiance to President Laurent Gbagbo and his ruling party -- are virtually cut off from the rest of the country, without access to phones, mail service or newspapers.
"I am still not sure why we were attacked by the rebels, I don't really understand the roots of the war," said Bloatord, a struggling student trying to make up the schooling he lost during the two years of conflict.
"I just know that the rebels should disarm. That is all I know."
Three launch dates for the disarmament campaign, also envisioned under the peace accords, have come and gone. Construction on sites for an estimated 30,000 fighters to regroup nationwide has barely begun in either zone.
That has not stopped militias on the government side from positioning themselves to join the programme, say humanitarian officials in Guiglo, seen as the most volatile city in the government-held west because of continued tensions between indigenous Ivorians and long-time foreign residents.
Militia groups FLGO, UPRGO and APWe, self-proclaimed resistance movements which, according to aid workers, continue to sow unrest among the local populations have in recent weeks moved to position themselves as armed groups eligible for the disarmament benefits of 900 dollars and vocational training.
"Everybody wants a little piece of the pie," said one Guiglo-based humanitarian official.
Leaders of the groups were due Wednesday to meet representatives of the national disarmament commission. They have warned that should the process not open by Saturday, they will begin to "liberate" the zones under rebel control, beginning with the road linking the north to the south.
10/26/2004 - 19:20 GMT - AFP