.....without key players

A national reconciliation forum is to open Tuesday in the troubled Ivory Coast, even though the country's main political rivals are expected to stay away, each apparently seeking to avoid blame if the talks fail.

Of the four main "brother enemies" who dominate Ivorian politics, only President Laurent Gbagbo is expected to attend the opening ceremony for an event termed a national "catharsis" following nearly two years of social and political tensions in Ivory Coast, once a bastion of stability in Africa.

A coup in late 1999 followed by tarnished elections last year spawned violence that claimed 303 lives according to official figures.

Henri Konan Bedie, the president who was toppled in the December 1999 coup, the first in the country's history, is not expected to turn up.

Nor is Robert Guei, the general who ousted Bedie and then refused to accept the result of October elections won by Gbagbo until he was forced to step aside in a popular uprising.

A third expected stayaway is former prime minister Alassane Ouattara, whom the Supreme Court barred from standing in the elections because of questions over his nationality.

However, many delegates are expected from the former ruling Ivory Coast Democraty Party (PDCI) and the Democratic and Patriotic Union of the Ivory Coast (UDPCI).

Bedie remains the titular head of the PDCI, while the UDPCI backs Guei.

Ouattara's party, the Rally of Republicans (RDR), however said Saturday that it would not send delegates unless his rights are "rehabilitated."

Ouattara's supporters including associations and non-governmental organizations are also expected to boycott the proceedings.

The forum's director Seydou Diarra, who was Guei's civilian prime minister, tried in vain to get the four rivals to hold a preliminary meeting, and also failed to get Gbagbo and Ouattara to have a tete-a-tete, but said he still hoped to turn the situation around.

He has begun referring to the forum as the "start of a process" than might continue beyond the scheduled closing date of December 10.

Each political heavyweight appears bent on blaming the other in advance for a failure to meet.

"We have made every possible concession -- on security, accommodation, politics. Now it's up to each one to take his responsibilities," a member of Gbagbo's cabinet said.

But on the key dispute of Ouattara's eligibility to stand in elections, Gbagbo did not waffle. "The forum will not be the occasion for revising the constitution," Gbagbo said last week.

He said that if Ouattara had a quibble he should take it up with the courts that determined that he was not eligible to run for president.

However the stakes are high for a successful forum, a condition set by the European Union for the complete resumption of desperately needed economic cooperation in January 2002.

French Cooperation Minister Charles Josselin is expected to attend the opening of the forum, as well as Gabonese Presisdent Omar Bongo and presidents Alpha Oumar Konare of Mali and John Kufuor of Ghana.

"The leadership has to hold the forum. He (Gbagbo) wants it to fail, and find a scapegoat for this failure," RDR secretary general Henriette Diabate said on Saturday.

"Do they want reconcilation? Does he want peace in our country? Does he want the forum to succeed? I don't think so," she said.