Paris steps up peace effort

Press, 25 August 1983, Page 10

Paris steps up peace effort

NZPA-Reuter Paris A French special envoy, Maurice Faure, was in Addis Ababa yesterday as part of a fresh attempt by his President, Mr Francois Mitterrand, to seek a negotiated settlement in the civil war.

Mr Faure, the head of the National Assembly’s Foreign Relations Committee, left Paris earlier for talks with the Ethiopian head of State, LieutenantColonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, who is also the head of the Organisation of

African Unity. A French lawyer, Roland Dumas, a friend of the French leaders, who went to Tripoli on Mr Mitterrand’s behalf last week, was quoted in the newspaper “Le Matin” yesterday as saying that France had not relaxed diplomatic efforts to end the crisis. Messrs Faure and Dumas indicated that the French troops would not join a Habre counter-offensive to retake Faya-Largeau.

Mr Dumas told “Le Matin” that France would not get entangled in post-coloni-

alist operations in Chad, and Mr Faure said: “Our action has not been intended to involve us in the war.” Mr Faure said that France wanted to bring in the United Nations, as well as the 0.A.U., in seeking a negotiated settlement.

The O.A.U. has taken no overt role during the latest, seven-week-old phase of the war, despite an appeal last week from 11 African leaders for its intervention. Mr Faure said that France had been reluctant at first to commit troops, adding: “We waited for irre-

futable proof of foreign military intervention, in this case aggression by Libya.”

But he said that the mission of the French paratroopers, originally sent as instructors to Mr Habre’s hard-pressed Army, was now to "stop Libyan aggression and stop it on a lasting basis.”

The Defence Ministry refused immediate comment on the American decision to withdraw two Awacs aircraft sent to neighbouring Sudan earlier in the conflict to monitor movements by Libyan forces.