By Ange Aboa KONDOROBO, Ivory Coast, April 20 (Reuters) - French peacekeepers patrolling Ivory Coast's ceasefire zone this week were greeted with smiles and flowers when their jeeps and armoured cars rolled through villages that once bristled with tension. The atmosphere was relaxed, reflecting the spirit of reconciliation permeating the war-split West African state since President Laurent Gbagbo and his former rebel foe, now prime minister, Guillaume Soro shook hands on a peace deal last month. "All we want is peace and if Gbagbo and Soro have got together for that, that's a good thing," said primary school head Patrice Yao Kouakou as he turned out with his pupils to watch the French convoy pass through the village of Kondorobo. In the sticky heat of central Ivory Coast, the young French soldiers riding the vehicles eased off their helmets to mop sweat from their sun-reddened faces. Children streamed from straw-thatched mud huts to surround them, smiling and joking. Under the March 4 deal, Gbagbo and Soro agreed to dismantle the 600 km (375 mile) buffer zone which has kept apart the rebel-held north and government-controlled south since a brief 2002/2003 civil war cut the world's No. 1 cocoa producer in two. Several thousand United Nations and French peacekeepers are to pull back and be replaced with mixed government-rebel patrols as the so-called "confidence zone" is gradually dismantled to unite the war-weary country for elections by early next year. Kouakou said patrols by the French and Moroccan U.N. troops had helped keep villages safe from gangs of bandits armed with automatic rifles, pistols and machetes who killed and robbed across the country long after the civil war fighting had halted. But he voiced fears about whether Ivory Coast's new unified armed forces would be capable of keeping the peace in the countryside, where communal and ethnic tensions still simmer. "We're pleased it'll be our own Ivorian brothers doing the job but we don't know if they'll do it as well as the 'blancs' (whites) who pass through the villages to talk to us," he said. "WAR IS OVER" "We have a lot of bandits here who attack villages and steal everything we have," Kouakou said, referring to the armed criminals known as "coupeurs de route" who waylay motorists in the bush by blocking roads and tracks with tree trunks. Ivorian army Lt. Col. Rene Sako said the buffer zone was a hotbed of insecurity and the new joint government-rebel military command would take time to make its presence felt there. "Calm will progressively return in these areas when the deployment of the integrated units is completed," he said. When he inaugurated the joint command headquarters with Soro on Monday, Gbagbo told U.N. commanders he counted on the support of their troops to help maintain security. "The U.N. mission, your mission, is not over yet," said Gbagbo, whose supporters have in the past called for withdrawal of the around 10,000 U.N. and French peacekeepers. The villagers of Kondorobo and nearby Alangouassou are not yet summoning back relatives who fled the fighting. "I want to see first how things go, if we really do have security," said another local teacher Felix Kouame Kouadio.
