By Loucoumane Coulibaly

ABIDJAN, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Ivory Coast has abolished the need for residency permits for inhabitants from other West African states, eliminating a document which had exacerbated ethnic tensions behind a 2002-2003 civil war.

The decision, published by Ivorian media on Friday, allows immigrants from other members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to reside in Ivory Coast with identity papers obtained from their embassy.

Around a quarter of the former French colony's 18 million people are foreign and most hail from poorer neighbours Mali and Burkina Faso. They were encouraged by the Ivorian government to come in the 1960's and 1970's to boost farming output.

These immigrant farmers became caught up in often deadly land conflicts with locals. This fuelled the ethnic tensions that triggered the 2002-2003 war which split the world's top cocoa producer between a rebel-controlled north and a government-held south.

While the New Forces rebels said they were defending the rights of some ethnic groups shunned as foreigners, government supporters often saw the immigrants as rebel sympathisers.

Ivorian nationality is reserved for those born of at least one Ivorian parent and many immigrants and their families had been unable to afford the residency permit.

This had led to undocumented immigrants being frequently stopped by police, who harassed them and asked for bribes.

"Instead of being a document for identification and statistics as exists everywhere, the residency permit quickly became the object of political considerations which tarnished relations between Ivory Coast and foreign communities living on its soil," government spokesman Theodore Eg Mel said.

Mel said the government hoped the abolition of the residency permit would help create a new spirit of reconciliation in the country after the signing of a peace deal in March between President Laurent Gbagbo and the rebels.

"It's recommended that all Ivorians banish from their language the question of origin or the ethnicity in order that each contributes to the promotion of diversity, cultural synthesis and consolidation of national unity," he said.

The deal foresees programmes of disarmament and national identification to promote peaceful reunification leading to free elections next year.

But the timetable for these programmes has slipped badly and the United Nations, which still has a peacekeeping force in Ivory Coast, has expressed worries about the delay in holding the elections, which have already been postponed twice. (Writing by Peter Murphy; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

AlertNet news is provided by