arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

AFRICA ACTION
Africa Policy E-Journal
January 9, 2003 (030109)

Cote d'Ivoire: Updates and Analysis, 1
(reposted from sources cited below)

This posting contains excerpts from a summary analysis of the
current crisis in the Cote d'Ivoire, from the Global Internally
Displaced Peoples Project in Geneva.  Another posting today
contains other shorter documents and links on the same topic.

Note: The Africa Policy E-Journal, with a principal focus on
continent-wide policy issues, does not provide regular coverage on
specific countries. Occasional updates such as these focus on
country-specific issues of wider regional significance, and also
include links to other sources which readers can consult for more
frequent updates.

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COTE D'IVOIRE: THOUSANDS UPROOTED IN WORSENING ETHNIC TURMOIL

December 1, 2002

The Global IDP Project of the Norwegian Refugee Council
59, chemin Moise-Duboule, 1209 Geneve
Tel:0041 22 799 07 00
Fax: 0041 22 799 07 01
http://www.idpproject.org

[excerpts from a longer report - see website address cited above]

Many thousands of people have fled fighting, hardship and
demolition of their houses in Cote d'Ivoire since a military
uprising in September. Displaced civilians remain vulnerable, as
the crisis looks set to deepen in the region.

Some 200,000 thousand people have fled recent fighting and
worsening hardship in Cote d'Ivoire's second city, Bouake,
heading mainly for the capital, Yamoussoukro, before joining
families in the commercial capital, Abidjan, and elsewhere. In
Abidjan, meanwhile, thousands of residents - West African
immigrants, refugees and northern Ivorians - have been left
homeless after their houses were demolished by government forces
and their supporters following a September 2002 coup attempt.
Civilians have been attacked, arrested and killed by both
government and rebel forces targeting them for their ethnic
origin.

United Nations agencies have launched a humanitarian appeal for
around $16m to meet needs in Cote d'Ivoire and the region, while
encouraging the Government to ensure protection for all affected
people. The agencies have been working together to provide
shelter, food, water and medicine in Abidjan, but insecurity has
complicated their access to rebel-held war zones, leaving
capacities strained in Yamoussoukro. Any renewed fighting could
displace more people and overwhelm humanitarian capacity in this
crisis-prone region.

Exodus from northern war zone

Many thousands of people have fled recent fighting and hardship
in Cote d'Ivoire's second city as rebels gained control of the
predominantly Muslim north of the country. The ongoing fighting
and worsening humanitarian conditions caused approximately
200,000 people - about one third of the population - to flee the
rebel-held town of Bouake (UNHCR, 8 October 2002; IRIN, 11
October 2002). ...

By mid-October 2002, rapidly increasing numbers of civilians were
fleeing the designated 'war zones', many of them arriving in the
Ivorian capital, Yamoussoukro. The city effectively became a
transit town for the displaced with about 1,500 displaced people,
mostly women and children, sheltered in the city's cathedral and
other church buildings. Some were in a state of extreme
exhaustion after walking for several days with little or no food.
Church officials reported that food, accommodation and medical
attention were the most pressing needs.

Most of the displaced were 'in transit' in Yamoussoukro and would
be assisted to join their families in Abidjan or other major
towns (IRIN, 11 October 2002). IDPs were usually spending 8-10
days in transit centres before finding transport to other parts
of the country, while up to 500 were residing there on a
permanent basis, either waiting for family members lost during
displacement or waiting for the situation in Bouake to improve if
they had no family members to take them in (UN OCHA, 14 November
2002).

For people remaining in Bouake, the humanitarian situation became
increasingly difficult. They had little or no access to food,
water and medicine (UN OCHA, 15 October 2002). A food security
assessment by Action Contre la Faim (ACF) at the end of October
2002 showed that the urban middle-class were most vulnerable,
especially as cash reserves were drying up, while for those
dependant on a subsistence economy before the uprising, nothing
much had changed. Many Bouake residents had reduced their food
intake, and while there was no evidence of malnutrition, the
situation had the potential of worsening dramatically if the
conflict continued (ACF, 30 October 2002).

Abidjan residents lose homes

Thousands of Abidjan residents have also been displaced in recent
weeks by attacks on their houses following the September 2002
coup attempt. The Cote d'Ivoire Government had openly accused
neighbouring states of supporting the rebels, Burkina Faso in
particular. This accusation apparently gave security forces and
civilian supporters of the Government a green light to
systematically attack and burn down Abidjan shantytowns housing
West African immigrants, refugees and Ivorians accused of
supporting the rebels.

In the two weeks following the attempted coup, UNHCR reported
that in Abidjan more than 6,000 Ivorians, immigrants and refugees
were made homeless by the demolition policy (UNHCR, 2 October
2002). Residents often received little or no notice of the
demolitions, and lost all their wordly possessions as bulldozers
razed their homes (IRIN, 24 October 2002). Furthermore, thousands
of immigrants in Cote d'Ivoire - especially Burkinabes - returned
to their home countries to escape reprisals (UNHCR, 11 November
2002). ...


Civilians attacked, arrested, killed

Civilians have been attacked by government forces and rebels,
often targeted for their ethnic origin, and in some cases,
arrested or killed arbitrarily. Since the military uprising on 19
September 2002, human rights abuses against civilians have been
committed by both the security forces in Abidjan and rebel forces
controlling parts of north and central Cote d'Ivoire, the latter
subsequently calling themselves the Mouvement Patriotique de la
Cote d'Ivoire (MPCI). Both parties to the conflict targeted
civilians suspected of supporting the opposing side. Often,
targets were identified arbitrarily on the basis of their origin
or their alleged political sympathies.

Amnesty International documented wide-ranging abuses by the
security forces, including extrajudicial executions of mainly
foreigners, arbitrary arrests and secret detentions, the
destruction of homes apparently to flush out dissidents - leading
to the displacement of thousands of residents - and the
harassment and intimidation of those made homeless. Civilians
reported that during the raids on the shantytowns they were
beaten and abused by police, who also tried to extort money from
them. Human Rights Watch also interviewed numerous victims and
witnesses of Government abuses, describing the assaults on
neighbourhoods of Abidjan as degenerating into "a serious pattern
of human rights violations, accompanied by excessive force,
extortion, arbitrary arrests and destruction of property with the
consequent mass dislocation of vast numbers of inhabitants" (HRW,
November 2002).

In the western town of Daloa, briefly held by rebel forces, there
were reports of Government soldiers rounding up residents
suspected of supporting the insurgents and summarily executing
them, dumping their bodies in mass graves (BBC News, 22 October
2002). Several dozen civilians - Ivorian Muslims, Malians and
Burkinab,s - were reportedly killed by people dressed in military
uniform (HRW, November 2002).

Abuses committed by MPCI forces in Bouake included arbitrary
killings of suspected government sympathisers, secret detentions,
recruitment of young people including minors, and the capture of
civilians (AI, 18 October 2002).

Responding, UN agencies seek $16m

In a flash appeal, launched in November 2002, the UN requested
almost US$16 million to address priority humanitarian needs in
Cote d'Ivoire and the West Africa sub-region from November 2002 -
January 2003 (UN, November 2002). Humanitarian organizations in
the country have rapidly expanded their emergency operations to
meet growing needs and prepare for possibly massive population
movements if the anti-immigrant backlash worsened.

In October 2002, UN agencies, NGOs, the ICRC, IOM and donors, as
well as ambassadors from the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS), met in Ghana to discuss and agree on key
elements of a flash appeal to address the pressing humanitarian
needs in Cote d'Ivoire and the sub-region over coming months.
They acknowledged that a total of eleven countries in the
sub-region could be affected by the crisis, most particularly
Burkina Faso, Mali and Ghana, with immigrants seeking to return
to their countries of origin and refugees in Cote d'Ivoire
looking for a safer haven elsewhere in the region. ...

Insecurity and access problems

Protecting civilians and allowing safe access for relief workers
to assess their needs and provide relief has been a main concern
of humanitarian organizations. Such concerns are particularly
acute amid the ongoing demolition of shantytowns in Abidjan, and
with civilians trapped inside government-designated war zones (UN
OCHA, 2 October 2002). ...

Continuing insecurity has made UN relief agencies "cautious"
about a permanent presence in the war zone beyond Yamoussoukro
(UN OCHA, 30 October 2002). In November, UN agencies such as WFP
and UNICEF began setting up offices in central Cote d'Ivoire in
order to gain improved access to vulnerable populations in
rebel-held areas, while NGOs also strengthened their presence
(IRIN, 8 November 2002). Assistance to address critical
humanitarian needs was being provided by ICRC, the Ivorian Red
Cross, MSF, WFP, CARE, ACF, WHO and UNICEF, among others (UN
OCHA, 14 November 2002). Humanitarian assessment missions to
rebel-held areas of the country in October 2002 had found a
critical lack of food, water and medicine, but access to much of
northern and central Cote d'Ivoire remained limited.

More people fleeing violence

During last year, thousands of Ivorians were displaced by
political and ethnic violence. President Gbagbo failed to resolve
the growing ethnic and religious divisions across the country,
which in January 2001 led to an attempted coup by opposition
elements within the army and continuing high political tension
(HRW, August 2001; BBC News, 19 September 2002). According to the
US Committee for Refugees, at least 10,000 Ivorians - and
possibly far more - became internally displaced by political and
ethnic violence in 2001, although it was unclear how many
remained displaced at the year's end (USCR, 2002). In addition,
tens of thousands of foreigners, mostly Burkinabes, fled the
country following harassment and attacks by state security forces
and vigilante groups. This was triggered by President Gbagbo's
government accusations against nationals of Burkina Faso for
involvement in the coup attempt (HRW, August 2001).

The disaffected troops who began the insurgency in September
2002, numbering about 750, said they were unhappy with their
imminent demobilisation and about their treatment by the
government (BBC News, 8 October 2002). They subsequently demanded
a new government. These men, recruited by General Guee during his
ten months in power, simultaneously attacked strategic locations
in the economic capital, Abidjan, and in the towns of Bouake and
Korhogo in the north. While they were overpowered in Abidjan,
they succeeded in establishing themselves in the other two areas.
State media reported that at least 270 people were killed and 300
injured in various parts of the country in the days following the
uprising (IRIN, 23 September 2002). General Guee and the Minister
of the Interior, Emile Boga Doudou, were killed in Abidjan.
Alassane Ouattara's Abidjan residence was also attacked. He
managed to escape and took refuge in a nearby embassy, suggesting
to some observers that he had no forewarning of the coup attempt
(BBC News, 27 September 2002).

Ivoirite: root cause

The fighting came on a wave of rising xenophobia and ethnic
discord in Cote d'Ivoire that threatened the country's massive
immigrant population, as well as 70,000 refugees, and ultimately
the stability of the entire sub-region. For more than three
decades after independence from France in 1960, Cote d'Ivoire was
a beacon of peace and stability in West Africa. The autocratic
but tactical rule of the country's first President, Felix
Houphouet-Boigny, ensured religious and ethnic harmony as well as
economic prosperity until after his death in 1993.

Houphouet-Boigny's successor, Henri Konan Bedie, sowed the seeds
of ethnic discord in 1995 when he introduced the concept of
'Ivoirite', or 'Ivorian-ness'. This was used to deny Ivorian
citizenship to his main political rival, Alassane Ouattara, and
thereby exclude him from running in elections held that year.
Bedie insisted that Ouattara, a Muslim from the north of the
country, was actually from Burkina Faso. Since that time there
has been an increasing number of attacks on people of foreign
descent (HRW, August 2001). About one quarter of Cote d'Ivoire's
population of 16 million are immigrants, or descended from
immigrants, many from neighbouring Burkina Faso, Mali, Ghana and
Niger.

The start of protracted political crisis was assured when the
military, under the leadership of General Robert Guee, overthrew
the elected government of Konan Bedie in the country's first ever
coup, staged on Christmas Eve 1999. Although the coup d'etat was
ostensibly prompted by soldiers' unhappiness over pay and
conditions, it soon became apparent that, like Bedie, General
Guee was also ready to incite ethnic and religious rivalries in
order to remove political opposition. Continuing the theme of
'Ivoirite', Guee introduced even stricter eligibility
requirements for the 2000 presidential elections, once again
excluding Alassane Ouattara on the basis of his alleged links
with Burkina Faso.

Daily life for many Ivorians became increasingly militarised.
Widespread human rights abuses were committed under the new
regime, principally by groups of military personnel operating a
parallel justice system, including the extrajudicial execution of
alleged criminals (AI, 19 September 2000).

Military rule was, however, short-lived. General Guee was forced
to flee by a popular uprising after he claimed that he had won
the presidential elections in October 2000. This left Laurent
Gbagbo as the winning candidate. But the elections were marred by
violence against civilians by all sides, and by "state-sponsored
human rights violations, with a clear ethnic and religious focus"
(HRW, 20 December 2000). More than 150 people were killed and
hundreds more were injured. As documented by Human Rights Watch,
state security forces summarily executed political protesters and
other civilians in the streets, and detained and tortured
hundreds of political activists and foreigners (and Ivorians
whose nationality was questioned). In one incident alone,
security forces massacred fifty-seven young men, who were then
buried in a mass grave in Yopougon on the outskirts of Abidjan
(HRW, December 2000 & August 2001).

Victims of the violence were, initially, supporters of both
Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) and Ouattara's Rally of the
Republicans (RDR), but once Guee had fled the country the main
victims were suspected members of the RDR, foreigners and Muslims
(HRW, August 2001). Gbagbo, just like his predecessors, made the
issue of nationality central to his political agenda. The thorny
issue of Ouattara's citizenship was indicative of the political
marginalisation of the mainly Muslim north (BBC News, 15 October
2002). ...

Renewed conflict could overwhelm

Tension has continued to rise in Cote d'Ivoire, increasing the
risk of an all-out conflict. Despite a fragile ceasefire between
the two sides that led to peace talks in Togo at the end of
October 2002, and the presence of French troops to monitor the
truce, there were continuing reports of violence and human rights
abuses by both government and rebel forces. As of  December 2002,
the peace talks were stalled, leaving Cote d'Ivoire facing the
possibility of all-out war. The rebels were demanding President
Gbagbo's resignation, a revision of the constitution and new
elections, while the government demanded that the rebels disarm.
And despite the arrival in Abidjan of an advance team of
peacekeepers sent by the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS), tension continued to build, with both sides
reportedly preparing to fight (IRIN, 18 November 2002; BBC News,
14 November 2002). Then, at the end of November 2002, the western
towns of Danane and Man fell to two new rebel groups, who said
they were not linked with the MPCI rebels but were fighting to
avenge the death of former junta leader, General Robert Guei.
These troops included both Liberians and Sierra Leoneans,
providing a chilling 'deja vu' of the brutal civil wars that
wrecked both of those countries (BBC News, 30 November 2002).

New fighting could overwhelm rapidly overwhelm humanitarian
capacities and sink Cote d'Ivoire and neighbours into deeper
crisis. Observers feared that further fighting would not only
destabilise the rest of Cote d'Ivoire, it would also have serious
repercussions in the whole sub-region. As noted by USCR, more
than 500,000 people are already uprooted throughout the region as
a result of conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone (USCR, 7
October 2002). Further population movements, both inside Cote
d'Ivoire and to neighbouring countries, would put further strain
on already overstretched humanitarian organizations and could
ultimately wreck the socio-economic development of the entire
sub-region.

Notes

1. The Global IDP Project, based in Geneva, monitors internal
displacement worldwide, as requested by the United Nations in
1998. It is part of the Norwegian Refugee Council, an
organization that has assisted refugees worldwide since 1953. For
more information about IDPs from conflict in 49 countries, visit
our website www.idpproject.org.

2. Contacts:

Cote d'Ivoire researcher: Claudia McGoldrick

Tel: +41 (0)22 799 0711
Email: claudia.mcgoldrick@nrc.ch
Media contact:
Andrew Lawday Tel: +41 (0)22 799 0703
email: andrew.lawday@nrc.ch.

+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++

Date distributed (ymd): 030109
Region: West Africa
Issue Areas: +security/peace+ +political/rights+

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