Rife with rivalries, Ivory Coast faces the possibility of more

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast -- The pastry shops and luxury boutiques are open. Children in neat blue and white uniforms are back in school. And vendors selling everything from parrots to air freshener have returned to streets choked with cars.

But beneath the surface calm, unresolved ethnic, regional, political and religious rivalries still roil after a week of unprecedented violence. The next burst of bloodletting in a country that was long a model of peace and prosperity in Africa is likely only a matter of time, diplomats and U.N. officials warn.

"It is a downward spiral," said Alan Doss, the United Nations' deputy special representative in Ivory Coast. "Each time, the violence gets more nihilistic."

President Laurent Gbagbo's fellow African leaders fear that the consequences for their fragile region, in which many countries are still emerging from their own turbulent pasts, could be devastating.

Under threat of sanctions, the U.N. Security Council ordered Ivory Coast this week to go back to carrying out peace accords, under which Gbagbo appointed a power-sharing Cabinet to oversee disarmament, reunification and elections in 2005.

But after months of haggling over the details, western diplomats privately question whether either side has the will to make peace -- unless outside powers leave them no other choice.

The roots of suspicions run deep in Ivory Coast and with each new round of violence become stronger.

Already, there are reports of ethnic clashes in the west of the country, causing thousands of Ivorians to stream into neighboring Liberia.

"We, the people of the north, are targeted just like the whites, but no one comes to protect us," said an Abidjan truck driver, too afraid to give his name. When government forces raided his home in March, looking for opposition supporters, they dragged away seven relatives and shot them, he said.

"The situation is calm now," he said, "But it can explode at any time."