Laurent Dona Fologo, a former minister in the government of Ivory Coast's founder president Felix Houphouet-Boigny, told AFP that his new movement, the Rally for Peace (RPP), would "fight to bring back peace" in this west African country.

"The RPP is a movement comprising people of all convictions, conditions, origins," he said, which aimed at promoting "reconciliation in the hearts of all Ivorians."

The movement has as its rallying cry the slogan: "Let's not lose any more time, let's work towards peace as we have worked at war."

A ceasefire between Ivory Coast's armed forces and the country's rebel movements to end seven and a half months of civil war came into force at midnight on Saturday.

Ivory Coast's new government of national unity, which includes ministers from three rebel groups holding the north and west of the country, was forged after protracted peace talks in Togo, France and Ghana.

Fologo represented the government during the parleys in Togo, which ended in stalemate. But there were further discussions between the belligerents in France and in the Ghanaian capital Accra which led to the formation of the unity government.

Saturday's ceasefire pact covers the whole of the country, including the west, where neighbouring Liberia has been accused of backing the rebels against the former government of President Laurent Gbagbo, a source close to Gbagbo had said on Friday.

It also contains a clause that provides for the disarmament of mercenaries and armed groups operating on both sides, the source said.

Under the agreement, the warring parties accept the deployment in the troubled west of the country of peacekeeping troops from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and some 900 troops from France, Ivory Coast's former colonial ruler.

SPACE.WIRE