IRIN Web Special on Cote d’Ivoire crisis

Parallels with other rebel wars

Another analyst agreed that there were parallels with other wars in Africa. At least one neighbouring country has massed troops near the border and, he said, should exactions be committed on a large scale against their nationals, that country and others could invoke the need to protect them, as Rwanda did in 1998.

In October, reports that Malians, Burkinabe and northern Ivorians were hunted down and killed after the recapture of Daloa drew strong protests from the authorities of the two countries.

The parallels do not stop there. As in Sierra Leone’s war (1991-2002), the original belligerents - loyalists troops and insurgents - have been joined by traditional hunters, called Kamajors in Sierra Leone and Dozos in Cote d’Ivoire and neighbouring Sahelian countries. However, while Sierra Leone’s Kamajors fought with the government forces, the Dozos have joined up with the Ivorian rebels. Like the Kamajors, the Dozos are believed to have supernatural powers, thus providing a psychological boost to their allies.

In a new development reminiscent of Liberia’s first rebel war (1989-1997), characterised by a multiplicity of armed groups, the number of insurgent factions in Cote d’Ivoire has started to increase. Since the end of November, the MPCI has been joined by two groups, the Mouvement populaire ivoirien du Grand Ouest (MPIGO - Ivorian Popular Movement of the Greater West) and the Mouvement pour la Justice et la Paix (MJP- Movement for Justice and Peace).

Any increase in the number of actors could complicate the peace negotiations. Moreover, the advent of these new groups has added a new element to the Ivorian crisis. While the MPCI is generally considered to draw the bulk of its members from among northern Ivorians, its leaders are from various ethnic groups and it has not portrayed itself as a northern force. On the other hand, MPIGO identifies itself with a given region. The Greater West is the area from which Guei and his ethnic group, the Yacouba (also called Dan) come. The new rebel groups have vowed to avenge Guei’s death. At least one of them reportedly includes young people from the Liberian side of the border.

Cote d’Ivoire’s crisis has also led to an increase in the number of civilians bearing arms. In government-held areas, armed youths have constituted self-defence groups which protect their areas and man checkpoints on major roads. In the north, youths have been enrolled in rebel ranks. This has added to the proliferation of weapons in Cote d’Ivoire, which worries small-arms watchers such as Napoleon Abdulai of the Program for Coordination and Assistance on Security and Development" (PCASED), based in Bamako, Mali.

Small arms should be included in the Lome negotiations, Abdulai says. “We need to know how many there are, what types, who is importing what,” he told IRIN. “We need to be able to estimate the quantity when the time comes for DDR [disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration]. In that way we can avoid the pitfalls of Liberia, when weapons were hidden. We need to make sure that the excess weapons in Cote d’Ivoire are taken away and destroyed.”

This is especially true against the background of the ethnic and religious animosity that has developed in Cote d’Ivoire around political issues, especially that of Ouattara’s eligibility for top state posts in Cote d’Ivoire.

Eligibility and identity

Ouattara was barred from contesting presidential and legislative elections in October and December 2000 on the basis of constitutional clauses limiting eligibility to Ivorians of Ivorian parentage who have never held another nationality. Ouattara’s detractors claim he is Burkinabe. His disqualification led the RDR to boycott both elections.

On 25-26 October 2000, protest demonstrations by RDR supporters calling for a rerun of the presidential polls led to clashes with supporters of Gbagbo’s Front populaire ivoirien (FPI - Ivorian Popular Front) supported by gendarmes, according to reports by a UN team and international human rights groups. The protests had come on the heels of demonstrations on 24-25 October 2000 that forced Guei to vacate power after proclaiming himself winner of the 22 October 2000 elections. Protests by the RDR against the exclusion of Ouattara from the parliamentary elections were also repressed.

Some 300 persons were killed in the October-December 2000 upheavals, many of them by security forces. Eight gendarmes accused of involvement in the 25-26 October killings were acquitted. No one else has been convicted.

During the 2000 upheavals, many northerners and Muslims people were targeted by security forces because they were automatically assumed to be RDR supporters, according to human rights groups.

While the leadership of Cote d’Ivoire’s main political parties is multi-ethnic, each tends to be viewed on the ground as linked to a given region. Many see the FPI as a party supported mainly by people from western and southwestern Cote d’Ivoire and the former ruling Parti democratique de Cote d’Ivoire (PDCI - Democratic Party of Cote d’Ivoire) by people from the centre and east. The bulk of the population in these areas are Christians.

The RDR is seen as drawing most of its support from the north, whose populations are predominantly Muslim and often speak the same languages as their neighbours on the other side of the border in Burkina Faso and Mali.

Part IV