The formal end of the hostilities, which sliced the world's leading cocoa producer in half after September 19, was marked by a joint warning from the reunited military that civilians who tried to fuel unrest would face dire consequences.

"In case of disorder we will be forced to assume our responsibilities," a joint statement by the former foes warned as President Laurent Gbagbo accepted a Kalashnikov to symbolise the end of the west African nation's worst crisis.

"We are speaking of a roadmap," an Ivorian military official said on condition of anonymity.

A diplomat, who attended the ceremony, added: "Like many of my colleagues I view it as a soft coup de force."

The former rebels, who are now called the "new forces" since joining a unity government in line with a French-brokered peace accord in January, and forces loyal to President Gbagbo made it clear that the peace pact would have to be strictly observed.

Acording to informed sources the "new forces" and government troops met secretly at a hotel in the main city of Abidjan, two days before the war was formally declared over, to chalk out their warning.

They submitted it to President Gbagbo the next day, who then decided to organise the July 4 ceremony at the presidential palace to declare the end of the war.

The united military urged Gbagbo in a delicate but firm tone to speedily name the defence and security ministers of the new government.

Gbagbo has been dragging his feet on the two key portfolios.

The reunited military also exhorted parliamentarians to pass an amnesty law, recently adopted by the new government, and asked politicians to "wholeheartedly" follow the tenets of the French-mediated peace accord.

Gbagbo, who reluctantly accepted the pact -- named after the French town of Marcoussis where it was painstakingly brokered -- had earlier said it was a "medicine" which could be tried and rejected, if it failed to bring peace.

Others who share this view include his powerful wife Simone, a stalwart in the ruling Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party and national assembly president Mamadou Koulibaly, another hardliner in the FPI.

Koulibaly has stormed out of the Marcoussis parleys complaining of a "constitutional coup" against Gbagbo by France, Ivory Coast's former colonial ruler.

Lieutenant Colonel Aka N'goran, the spokesman for the Ivorian chief of staff, on Tuesday sought to douse speculation that the military had something up its sleeve.

"The army... today cannot allow itself to stage a coup d'etat", he told a newspaper.

Ivory Coast's first coup in 1999 was staged by general Robert Guei, who led a short-lived military regime that ended with Gbagbo's election the following year.

Guei was killed on the first day of the September 19 military uprising last year which rapidly transformed into civil war.

Two other rebels groups quickly joined the Ivory Coast Patriotic Movement to wage war aganist Gbagbo, a Christian southerner, whom they accused of marginalising the Muslim-majority population of the north as well as the large expatriate population.

The Ivorian press has evoked the fact that Gbagbo is at the military's mercy.

The Ivorian president has meanwhile sought to play down such speculation, saying that he alone who can determine when real peace returns to Ivory Coast.

"The end of the war between the military forces does not mean the end of the war. I will address the nation the day I think the page has been turned," he said.

WAR.WIRE