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IV. The Proliferation of Pro-Government Militias

Since 2000, when President Gbagbo took over in flawed elections, the government has increasingly relied on militias for both law enforcement and, following the 2002 coup attempt, to combat the rebellion. The militias are used by the government and pro-government regional officials to violently suppress opposition demonstrations and political party activity, muzzle the press and attack West African immigrant farm workers in disputes over land rights and agricultural resources.¹⁷

One of the greatest threats to the rule of law and human rights protection in Côte d’Ivoire is the proliferation of militias which are often armed and appear to operate with the knowledge and assistance of government and powerful local officials. ¹⁸ Openly-armed groups supporting President Gbagbo roam villages in parts of Côte d’Ivoire’s so-called “Wild West” along the border with Liberia, witnesses said. In Abidjan and other cities in the south thousands of mainly unemployed and underemployed young men can be brought on to the streets in minutes by militia leaders who enjoy the support of close associates of the president.

The militias are not legally constituted and the government has failed to hold them accountable for their actions. These groups stand accused of political thuggery and intimidation of opposition politicians and journalists.  They operate with impunity, fearing neither law enforcement forces nor the criminal justice system. Some of their members are openly and regularly involved in crime, extorting goods and money from traders and businessmen, sometimes in collusion with the security services.

Groups such as the Young Patriots monopolize political discourse and most public forums for political debate. No opposition group can hold a public meeting without fear of being attacked while the police turned a blind eye, local human rights researchers said.¹⁹

The phenomenon of the militias and their persistent growth is a cause of grave concern to Ivorian human rights groups and international humanitarian agencies. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan reflected this in his March 2005 report to the U.N. Security Council where he noted that the “mobilization of militia-type groups in increasing nationwide.” He expressed that he was “deeply concerned by the arming of these militias, and their increasingly dangerous activities.” He called for the armed militias to be reined in and their leaders held accountable for attacks on civilians and peacekeepers.²⁰

The Militia Groups

At least seven main militia groups operate in the south and west of Côte d’Ivoire.²¹ Most recruits are supporters of President Gbagbo’s FPI party. Many also come from the President’s ethnic Bete group, the related Attie, Abey and Dida groups²² or their allies in the west, the We and Krou tribes.²³

Among the largest are the Young Patriots (Congrès Panafricain des Jeunes Patriotes, COJEP) led by Charles Ble Goude, the Patriotic Group for Peace (Groupe Patriotique pour la Paix, GPP), headed by Moussa “Zeguen” Toure, and Eugene Djue’s Union for the Total Liberation of Côte d’Ivoire (Union pour la Liberation Totale de la Côte d’Ivoire, UPLTCI). The leaders of all three groups cut their political teeth in the Ivorian Students Federation (Federation estudiantine et scolaire de Côte d’Ivoire, FESCI), as did rebel leader Guillaume Soro. FESCI is a registered student association which actively supports President Gbagbo and muzzles anti-government dissent on college and school campuses.²⁴

The Young Patriots claim to have some 25,000 members in the south. Western officials estimate their numbers to be about 13,000.²⁵  The GPP has, according to their leadership, some 60,000 members, 15,000 of them in Abidjan, the remainder in the south.²⁶  Western officials put the figure at about 6,000.²⁷ The group was officially dissolved by the Ivorian cabinet in October 2003 but it never stopped functioning and at this writing, continues to function openly in Abidjan and elsewhere. The UPLTCI claims to have some 70,000 “patriots” but again foreign sources estimate the figure to be much lower. Western diplomats believe the number for all militias across the government-held areas is about 31,000. The National Commission for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration, set up as part of the Linas-Marcoussis accord, estimates total militia membership at 10,000, although U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan acknowledged that this figure was "very likely to be underestimated."²⁸

In the west of Côte d’Ivoire, the militias are more clearly based on ethnic origin. The biggest is the Liberation Forces of the Far West (Forces de Liberation du Grand Ouest, FLGO), founded by Denis Glofiei Maho, a traditional chief of the We ethnic group based in Guiglo. The FLGO are thought to have at least 7,000 members.

The Lima Suppletive, a militia group largely made up of Liberians from the Krahn ethnic group, works in association with the FLGO and Armed Forces of Côte d’Ivoire (FANCI). According to interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch in Liberian towns and villages close to the Ivorian border in March 2005, the government of Côte d’Ivoire has since October 2004 recruited hundreds of recently demobilized combatants in Liberia, including scores of children under eighteen. Those interviewed by Human Rights Watch described two periods of intense recruitment: in October 2004, just prior to an Ivorian government offensive against the rebel-held north, and in the beginning of March 2005, in anticipation – according to their reports – of future attacks on rebel-held positions. They described crossing the border into Côte d’Ivoire in small groups, sometimes accompanied by an Ivorian non-commissioned officer, and once in Côte d’Ivoire, being housed in one of several military bases in and around the western towns of Guiglo, Bloléquin and Toulepleu. All of those interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported receiving weapons, ammunition and uniforms from Ivorians dressed in military uniforms and who they believed to be part of the FANCI. ²⁹

Most Liberians fighting with Lima originally fought with the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL). From 2002, the Ivorian government permitted MODEL to actively recruit Liberian refugees in Western Côte d’Ivoire and make use of its territory to launch attacks against Liberia in exchange for MODEL’s help in combating Ivorian rebels. Hundreds of MODEL fighters actively worked alongside the Ivorian government army and smaller militia groups in 2002 and 2003.³⁰

Parallel Forces: The Militia’s Relationship with the Ivorian Military

During his long years in opposition, Laurent Gbagbo, a university professor, built a power base on the street through groups like the FESCI students union, which backed his demands for multi-party politics in Houphouet-Boigny’s one-party democracy. When Gbagbo took office in 2000, the officer corps of the FANCI was largely represented by ethnic Akan and Boaule who were historically loyal to his political rivals the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI). Gbagbo has retained his mistrust of certain sections of the political and military establishment from those days and has allowed alternative power structures such as the militias to flourish, according to Ivorian opposition party members and Western sources.³¹

After Gbagbo became president in 2000, between 3,000 and 4,000 members of FESCI and pro-government youth groups, many of them members of the Young Patriots, were recruited into the regular armed forces. According to a western intelligence source, this has had an adverse impact on army command structure.³²  “Among the armed services and uniformed services in the south there are two lines of command. There is not adhesion to the chain of command in the gendarmerie but there are back channels,” said a senior U.N. official.³³ “There is a fear that these groups on both the government and rebel sides will escape control and become laws unto themselves. The GPP and FLGO are already guilty of this,” the official added.

Western security and diplomatic sources, and Ivorian opposition members say the regular army officer corps, many trained during the rule of the PDCI, resent the influence of the militia groups. “The militias appear to be constituted as parallel forces to the regular army,” a senior official with an international organization said. “Why do they need parallel forces if the state is supposed to be governed by the rule of law?  The government does not seem to be very confident regarding the loyalty of its forces. When Laurent Gbagbo was in opposition all he had was the street. We speculate that he is not confident about the regular army and the militias provide backup,” he added.³⁴

According to militia leaders, the militias are in the vanguard of the forces defending the Côte d’Ivoire, making up for the weaknesses of an army that was split along ethnic, generational and regional lines after the 2002 rebellion.³⁵  During an interview with Human Rights Watch, GPP leader Toure was very clear about the role of his group: “We have to be ready to defend the nation. At the start of the war we noticed the shortfall is our army so we needed to make our members available to the state to defend our country. We don’t have relations with the army but our existence is not negotiable. We don’t need to ask anyone’s permission to defend ourselves. There are a lot of people in the regular army who are afraid of us,” he said.³⁶ Toure would not discuss the command structure that the GPP followed nor would he disclose to whom he reported.

When some 2000 GPP militiamen in Abidjan took over a school in the opposition stronghold of Adjame in August 2004,³⁷ GPP leader Toure characterized the role of his group in military terms. He asserted that the move was aimed at protecting the city from a rebel advance from the north. Alarmingly, Toure made no distinction between political supporters of the RDR and members of the rebellion. “We took over this place as part of a strategic plan to defend the city. The rebels in the street are here. We have an opposition RDR mayor here,” he said.³⁸ 

Details of the militias’ links to the government and their finances are sketchy. Opposition politicians, opposition media and Western diplomats and military sources say the militias have close links with President Gbagbo’s associates and receive funding from FPI backers and businessmen.³⁹ Militia leaders say they receive money from donations by the general public. ⁴⁰

The GPP and Young Patriots have a hierarchical command structure although it is difficult to determine the chain of command. The GPP issues membership cards. Militias in the west range from poorly-armed and ill-trained village self-defense groups to units that have clearly received military training and have links to elements of the Ivorian armed forces.⁴¹ For example in March 2004 GPP militiamen were armed and appeared to be working alongside the police in preventing a planned march by opposition groups in Abidjan. At least 105 civilians were killed and 20 “disappeared” during the crackdown. ⁴² Maho’s We-based FLGO militia fought alongside FANCI in the fierce battles to dislodge rebels in November 2002.

Militia Groups and Arms

The militia leaders and their supporters in government deny that the militias are armed. However, numerous Ivorian and foreign witnesses, including journalists and international agency workers, told Human Rights Watch that they have repeatedly observed militiamen with AK-47 assault rifles, Uzi submachine guns and pistols.⁴³

In an interview with Human Rights Watch, Mousa Toure, the head of the powerful GPP militia group in Abidjan, denied having arms: “People say we get supplied with arms but those are fairy tales,” he said.⁴⁴ Toure nonetheless acknowledged that his men were given military and weapons training by the Ivorian security forces: “Our men have received training in arms. They get instructed in how to use weapons. The police and army who are patriots like us give us their weapons for training.”⁴⁵ 

Western intelligence sources said arms were distributed to certain units of the GPP during the March 2004 violent crackdown on an opposition demonstration in Abidjan.⁴⁶ The same sources said the GPP had since 2004 received training at the gendarmerie academy in the Abidjan suburb of Koumassi and at a camp in Abobo on the outskirts of the city. They said there were other training camps throughout the government-held south but they would not disclose details of these or of the arms depots from which weapons were made available to certain militias. “We know they are trained, armed and relocated to the west to fight,” said one senior official working with an international organization who is briefed by Western intelligence sources.⁴⁷

In February 2005, evidence of the GPP armed capability was on show for all to see when GPP members fought a gun battle with police cadets outside the GPP’s Adjame camp. The shooting allegedly erupted after a GPP member picked a fight with a member of a nearby police training academy. ⁴⁸ The clash, which killed a police cadet and a market trader, showed that the GPP was not afraid to take on the police openly. Armed forces chief of staff Colonel Philippe Mangou went to the camp to diffuse the tension but no action was taken against the GPP. ⁴⁹

In the west, militias are clearly armed as the February 28, 2005 attack on Logouale showed. FLGO militia leader Maho denies his men receive government arms, saying they came by their abundant weaponry by taking guns from slain rebel fighters.⁵⁰ However, Colonel Eric Burgaud, head of the French forces in western Côte d’Ivoire contradicted this: "We have proof that the militiamen were supervised by the Ivorian army and they had been armed by the Ivorian army, even though Philippe Mangou, the chief of staff of the Ivorian forces, has always said the opposite," he said. ⁵¹ This was confirmed during Human Rights Watch interviews in March 2005 with five Liberians who participated in the Logouale attack, who said they received arms, ammunition and uniforms from military personnel in preparation for the attack.⁵²

Intimidation, Violence and Extortion of Civilians by the Militias

In the towns of the government-controlled south of the country political opponents of President Gbagbo, journalists, businessmen, street traders, private bus drivers and truckers all complain of intimidation, racketeering, violence and extortion at the hands of militias, sometimes in coordination with security forces. 

The majority of the victims among business people are either from the predominantly Muslim north of Côte d’Ivoire or West African immigrants or descendants, groups viewed by the militias as rebel supporters. 

Several members of Ivorian human rights groups in Abidjan told Human Rights Watch that victims consistently describe being too afraid to report crimes committed by militia members to the police.⁵³ Adama Toure, the Executive President of the National Bus Operators Federation of Côte d’Ivoire confirmed this: “The GPP come into the bus station here and steal from the drivers with impunity. Later we see the militias out jogging in the morning protected by gendarmes. We cannot complain about the GPP at any police station.” he said.⁵⁴ In frustration, Toure organized bus strikes to protest against extortion by the security services and militias.⁵⁵ However, the protests prompted police to smash forty-two buses in one night in February 2005. Human rights activists, international aid agencies and U.N. agencies say that the militias operate with total impunity, fearing neither the security services nor the judiciary.⁵⁶

The behavior of the GPP in Adjame illustrates the link between common crime and politically motivated offenses. Adjame, a large commercial hub for the entire West African sub-region, balloons from 310,000 residents at night to some 2.5 million people during the day as stallholders, merchants, workers and buyers flood in, providing rich pickings for the corrupt militiamen and security forces. Traders in Adjame say the harassment has political and ethnic overtones.⁵⁷ They accuse GPP militiamen of targeting thousands of shopkeepers and transport operators not only because they had goods and money but also because more than 85 percent of them were northerners or non-Ivorian citizen Africans, groups seen as rebel supporters by the militias.⁵⁸ According to one U.N. official, “Half of the militias could be political bully boys and half freelancers out to make money. It is hard to distinguish between them.”⁵⁹

Militias’ Role in November 2004 Violence

When Ivorian government aircraft launched bombing raids on the main rebel-held cities of Bouaké and Korhogo in November 2004, pro-government forces took over the state radio and television station and militias ransacked the offices of opposition parties and pro-opposition newspapers. The Young Patriots leader, Ble Goude, a firebrand orator, galvanized thousands of mostly young men to take to the streets in support of the government and in defiance of the French. To get his message across, he relied on an informal network of grassroots groups or “street parliaments” known as the Agora, where speakers spread the message of fierce nationalism in meeting halls or on street corners. 

After French forces destroyed the Ivorian air force in retaliation for the killing of nine French soldiers in an air raid on November 6, 2004, anti-foreigner feeling soared. Ble Goude, nicknamed the General, used his unfettered access to state broadcast media to fill the streets of Abidjan with anti-French demonstrators. As news of the French destruction of the Ivorian air force spread, Ble Goude suddenly appeared on evening television to deliver a ringing, “your-country-needs-you” address.

“I was shocked,” recalled one Ivorian journalist who followed the events. “Ble Goude came on national television saying things like, ‘if you’re having dinner, stop eating immediately and go outside’. Within an hour thousands were marching towards the airport.”⁶⁰

The government was able to use the militias to mobilize the street while ostensibly calling for calm. President Gbagbo appeared on television and, in a statesmen-like manner, urged demonstrators to go home. But others including Ble Goude, considered by Western diplomats to be a close associate of President Gbagbo, were on screen exhorting “patriotic” Ivorians to march. They did so in their thousands, including many non-militia members, who headed for the base of the French 43^rd Marine battalion near Abidjan airport. The violent demonstrations, spearheaded by the militias, resulted in widespread destruction of property, numerous rapes and provoked the evacuation of some 8,000 foreigners, mostly French nationals.

Ble Goude insisted that the demonstrators and his Young Patriots were unarmed.⁶¹ However, French officials say they saw armed Patriots on the General De Gaulle bridge from mid-afternoon.⁶² They cite as proof the fact that several French soldiers were wounded by gunfire during the demonstration.⁶³  The Ivorian government accused the French forces of firing on demonstrators in Abidjan with live ammunition and put the toll from the November 2004 violence at 64 dead and some 1,500 injured. Several demonstrators interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they witnessed French forces firing live ammunition into crowds of demonstrators from both buildings and a helicopter.⁶⁴  Some of the dead and injured from the Hotel Ivoire were trampled in the rush to escape the shooting, according to hospital sources.⁶⁵

Diplomats said the speed with which the militias mobilized showed a sophisticated organization and communications structure. The militias commandeered public and private transport, set up roadblocks and identity checks, all with the tacit consent of the regular security forces. “They had effective control of the street, directing the looting of French-owned property and the burning of offices of opposition media,” the journalist said. “Many foreigners were raped in all that mayhem but no French were killed. That shows there was a level of control.”⁶⁶