Cote d’Ivoire is preparing to hold long-delayed presidential elections on October 31.
Disputed polls held in 2000 led to widespread violence and the division of the country between the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south. During the conflict the nation became awash in arms. Among those who were armed were former militia members recruited by the government of President Laurent Gbagbo. However, efforts at disarmament have failed. Now armed men, largely operating out of western Cote d’Ivoire, are terrorizing the local population, according to a report released today by U.S.-based Human Rights Watch (HRW). Matt Wells, HRW West Africa researcher, spoke with allAfrica about the violations occurring in the west, particularly against women.
Who are these armed men?
It’s difficult to say exactly who the perpetrators frequently are because they’re always masked and they generally don’t do anything that identifies them easily to their victims. What we can say is that in some cases it’s clear that there’s a link to the militia elements that were armed by Gbagbo during the conflict and that there has been a complete failure of disarmament since the crisis, which has allowed for Kalashnikovs, in particular, to flood into the region and be used by these criminal gangs.
Can you tell us about some of the violations that are being committed?
This touches almost everyone in the west. There is this overwhelming sense of fear that’s incredibly striking. People are terrified to move; they cannot move at night. I think women in the west certainly suffer the brunt of this. There were cases where 15 to 20 women were forced off a public transport vehicle, taken five to 10 meters into the bush and raped by one or multiples of these well-armed bandits.
It’s really changed their way of life. Many of them say they no longer feel safe going to market, which has really crippled their ability to provide for their families financially. And, again, there is just this overwhelming sense of fear that they live with on a daily basis.
Press reports out of Cote d’Ivoire have referred to the involvement of Liberians in the banditry. Is there any evidence to support this?
No. In fact, the victims that we spoke to constantly described that their attackers spoke French with an Ivorian accent. They didn’t feel that there was much of a Liberian presence at all. Certainly, the border is quite porous there. The International Crisis Group reported back in April that arms continued to come across the border from Liberia to Cote d’Ivoire. And communities are closely related on both sides of the border. But in general the victims of these attacks made clear that they believed their attackers were Ivorian.
The cocoa harvest is coming up soon. Why is it particularly urgent for action to be taken before this gets underway?
People we spoke with certainly made clear that the worst times for these attacks is during the cocoa harvest. It’s a very important region of the country in terms of cocoa production so there’s far more money available during the harvest season when farmers are selling their cocoa. As a result, during that period the bandits come out in full force and attacks rise.
Since the cocoa harvest starts up in the next month it demands immediate action on the part of the government to make sure that this period is one that benefits the people of Cote d’Ivoire rather than is a nightmare for those in the west.
Is there any evidence of collusion between the gendarmes, police and bandits?
There’s no evidence of direct collusion. I think while the Gbagbo government supported these militia back during the war, in the aftermath of the war [it’s] … much less clear … that the Gbagbo government is still supporting these militias and certainly not to the extent that they were before. I think it’s more just a lack of will, a lack of care on the part of the police and the gendarmes, and the perception that the militia is well armed and they [the police] just can’t be bothered going after these guys.
Why do you think Ivorian authorities as well as international peacekeepers have failed to prevent, or respond more robustly, to the violence in the west?
The UN peacekeepers [Unoci – the UN Operation in Cote d’Ivoire] have started a patrol in which they accompany women who are moving from the main towns, particularly Guiglo, out to markets in the village areas. But no such protection has been done for the women coming from the villages to the towns. Nearly every market day women who are walking or riding to the towns to sell goods, to buy their essentials are subject to attack.
The Ivorian authorities have done essentially nothing. There have been no patrols undertaken by them and when people report crimes that may take place only one or two kilometers from a checkpoint, generally the police and gendarmes refuse to move from the checkpoint to pursue the attackers or undertake investigations. In fact, frequently they force those reporting crimes to pay bribes and then there is still no follow up. So it has been almost a complete failure on the part of the state in the western part of the country.
Why has there been no disarmament?
There is a lack of trust on all sides. The militia don’t trust that the Forces Nouvelles [the former rebels who held the north] are going to disarm, the Forces Nouvelles don’t trust that the militia are going to disarm, or that the government is going to treat them adequately in terms of reintegrating the country. So the end result has been essentially that everyone has kept their arms.
People in Unoci told me that they’ve accounted for 715 arms in a country where there have been more than 70,000 registered combatants, when you include all of the Forces Nouvelles rebels and the militia, which number 25,000 alone in the region of Moyen Cavally. No one has taken the next step to demand that these arms are handed over, and the result is that in the west, in particular, the region is just awash in arms.
Elections are supposed to take place on October 31. With so many arms this must raise concerns.
In the previous election in 2000 most of the violence took place after the elections. I think it’s difficult to predict exactly what will happen, but what’s clear is that the rule of law has disintegrated over the last 10 years throughout the country, but particularly in the west. And there’s been complete impunity for those who committed abuses both during the last round of elections and during this long crisis period leading up to the current elections.
So certainly there are concerns that the mechanisms in place to address violence, should it occur, may not be there, particularly with a very low level of trust of security forces on the part of the population after these abuses have gone on with complete impunity for so long.
I think with the heavy UN presence, combined with the French peacekeepers that are there, one would hope that they would be able to keep the peace, to make sure that the polling stations are well protected, and that violence is kept to a minimum.
But with all the weapons in the country, if the election is somehow disputed, it sounds like a potentially explosive situation.
Certainly, and the UN Group of Experts which monitors the arms embargo has noted in its previous reports that not only is there this massive amount of arms from the conflict, but in fact the Forces Nouvelles continue to rearm from the north.
So it’s a disconcerting situation when you have a country that really is just awash in Kalashnikovs, in particular, leading up to this delicate election period.
Your report also talks about extortion. Can you tell us more about that?
In the government-controlled region of Moyen Cavally, police, gendarmes, as well as customs officials, continue to use checkpoints essentially as their means of financial gain. They extort the population routinely as they travel through these checkpoints, subjecting immigrant populations and perceived immigrant populations to particularly harsh treatment, frequently subjecting them to taunts, to verbal abuse and even physical abuse should they refuse to pay the demanded bribe.
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In the north, the Forces Nouvelles continues to exercise nearly complete economic control. They continue to operate their checkpoints where they demand [money] as well, but they also perform racketeering of small and enlarged businesses throughout the region, taking in an extreme amount of money from the cocoa and timber industries, in particular. We found that in Dix-Huit Montagnes [region] alone the Forces Nouvelles is likely reaping a financial windfall of tens of millions of U.S. dollars every year, mostly off of the cocoa and timber industries.
Generally, a lot of cocoa from the north actually bypasses Ivorian state authorities altogether and is taken out via Burkina Faso, Mali and some of the other neighboring countries. So the Forces Nouvelles is sort of taking over complete control of the cocoa industry in those areas.
Is there any evidence that elements of the Forces Nouvelles are involved in banditry?
We didn’t find any cases where active Forces Nouvelles were engaged in banditry. In fact, in the Forces Nouvelles-controlled Dix-Huit Montagnes the incidences of banditry were lower than in the government-controlled Moyen Cavally.
What are your recommendations for action to help stop the banditry, extortion and other violations?
The first thing is simply undertaking routine patrols on market day and regularly throughout the harvest season. If there is a greater presence, whether it’s just state authorities or [them] in combination with Unoci, ensuring that these women, in particular, can get to market safely without being attacked by these bandit groups, it’s not something that takes a significant amount of effort but it would go a long way to improving security in the region.
Secondly, the legal institutions in the west have fallen into almost complete disrepair in the last 10 years. There’s no court or prison that functions in the region of Moyen Cavally. There’s no judicial officials even stationed there. People have to travel 70 up to over 200 kilometers to get to the nearest courthouse, which in general means there is no real access to justice, even in the few cases in which the police do investigate or pursue the bandits.
