By Ange Aboa

BOUAKE, Ivory Coast, May 2 (Reuters) - More than 1,000 former rebels in Ivory Coast joined a disarmament process on Friday aimed at reuniting a country split in two by a civil war in time for long-delayed elections due on Nov. 30.

Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa grower and one of West Africa's biggest economies, has been divided into a rebel north and government-controlled south since a failed coup in September 2002 triggered the brief war that lasted into 2003.

After years of delay, a 2007 peace pact between the government and rebels opened the way for elections.

At a barracks in Bouake, Ivory Coast's second city and the rebel headquarters, the more than 1,000 ex-fighters from the rebel New Forces stood unarmed and at attention and sang the national anthem before the orange, white and green Ivorian flag.

The men, mostly carrying their possessions in civilian rucksacks and many in civilian clothes, each got a disarmament bonus of 90,000 CFA francs ($210). A similar ceremony took place in the northern town of Seguela, officials said.

"This demobilisation operation is a strong signal to show the peace process is irreversible," said Karim Ouattara, a New Forces officer and deputy commander of the integrated command centre set up to coordinate both rebel and government forces.

Previous attempts to kick-start disarmament have foundered, but the latest peace drive has torn down barriers between the two sides, giving hope to donors who unblocked 27 million euros ($42 million) in aid last month to help fund the elections.

NEW NATIONAL ARMY

However, most analysts say organising credible elections by November will be a major challenge, and some details still had to be worked out even for Friday's disarmament process.

"The New Forces will stockpile their own arms, which they will take back from their demobilised combatants, while awaiting a plan for neutral forces to gather and secure weapons from both former warring parties," said General Soumaila Bakayoko, the chief of staff for the rebels.

U.N. peacekeepers and soldiers from former colonial power France have manned a buffer zone along the front line between the two sides for most of the last five years, but withdrew from most of their outposts following the March 2007 peace deal.

Bakayoko said it would take five months to demobilise the 26,000 New Forces ex-combatants. Government soldiers and militia fighters will also go through the same process.

Some 5,000 former rebel fighters are to be integrated into a new national army and the rest trained up as builders, tailors, farmers or in other civilian professions.

Ivory Coast was long seen as the jewel among France's former colonial possessions in Africa, becoming relatively wealthy in the decades following independence in 1960 as peasant farmers, many from neighbouring states, planted lucrative fields of cocoa, coffee and other crops for export.

But it tottered in the late 1990s amid growing ethnic tensions fuelled by huge immigration from nearby countries, leading to a series of coups and army mutinies culminating in the civil war.

Economic growth has been sluggish since the war due to disruption to industry, investment and foreign aid flows.

But cocoa exports have kept going, and expectations are high that peace, renewal of foreign aid and successful elections would reinvigorate francophone West Africa's biggest economy. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com) (Writing by Alistair Thomson; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

AlertNet news is provided by