Cote D'ivoire

Once hailed as a model of stability, Ivory Coast has slipped into the kind of internal strife that has plagued many African countries.

An armed rebellion in 2002 split the nation in two, and the main players in the conflict have so far failed to find a political solution.

For more than three decades after independence under the leadership of its first president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Ivory Coast was conspicuous for its religious and ethnic harmony. Its economy was among the most developed on the continent.

All this ended when the late Robert Guei led a coup which toppled Felix Houphouet-Boigny's successor, Henri Bedie, in 1999.

Mr Bedie fled, but not before planting the seeds of ethnic discord by trying to stir up xenophobia against Muslim northerners, including his main rival, Alassane Ouattara.

This theme was also adopted by Mr Guei, who had Alassane Ouattara banned from the presidential election in 2000 because of his foreign parentage, and by the only serious contender allowed to run against Mr Guei, Laurent Gbagbo.

When Mr Gbagbo replaced Robert Guei after he was deposed in a popular uprising in 2000, violence replaced xenophobia. Scores of Mr Ouattara's supporters were killed after their leader called for new elections.

In September 2002 a troop mutiny escalated into a full-scale rebellion, voicing the ongoing discontent of northern Muslims who felt they were being discriminated against in Ivorian politics. Thousands were killed in the conflict.

Although the fighting has stopped, Ivory Coast remains tense and divided. French and UN peacekeepers patrol the buffer zone which separates the north, held by rebels known as the New Forces, and the government-controlled south.

Peace talks brokered by other African nations and France have, so far, failed to reunite the country. Under a 2003 peace deal the government is to disband loyalist militias and pass political reforms. In return, the New Forces are to lay down their weapons. But disarmament has yet to begin.