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V.   Inadequate Civilian Protection

The November 2004 government military offensive against the rebel-held north and the February 28, 2005 militia attack on the rebel-held town of Logouale served as stark reminders of  the potential for massive human rights abuses against the civilian population should there be an all-out return to armed hostilities between pro-government and  rebels forces.

Both military actions included alarming attacks against civilians. Both actions exposed fault lines in Ivorian society and showed the ready potential for armed groups to engage in collective punishment of perceived opponents, and for feuding ethnic groups to use the cover of armed hostilities to attack each other. The actions also illuminated the desperate need for support for the proposed increase in U.N. troops and equipment, so as to more effectively protect vulnerable groups of civilians.

The November 2004 Government Offensive

In early November 2004, the eighteen-month-ceasefire between the government of Côte d’Ivoire and northern-based rebels, and the peace process initiated at the same time were shattered when Ivorian government aircraft launched bombing raids on the main rebel-held cities of Bouaké, Korhogo Vavoua and Seguela.

Two days of government air attacks left at least fifty-five civilians dead and many more injured.⁶⁷ After nine French soldiers were killed during a government air raid on Bouaké, France responded by destroying the country’s air force. When violent anti-French riots broke out in Abidjan, the French forces redeployed to Abidjan to protect French citizens and property, robbing the U.N. of much of its rapid reaction capability.

The shattering of the ceasefire ignited two patterns of violence.⁶⁸ The first was in the countryside between indigenous groups and outsiders – Dioulas and immigrants. The second was in Abidjan against the French in particular and non-African residents in general.⁶⁹

The government offensive rekindled communal violence in the western region of Gagnoa, President Gbagbo’s home. The region – heart of the country’s vital cocoa and coffee industry – is a tinderbox. Disputes between indigenous Bete and immigrant groups such as Burkinabe plantation workers over land ownership and resources are common. These disputes are exacerbated by the country’s economic decline. On the night of November 6, 2004 groups of young men calling themselves “patriots” ransacked shops belonging largely to Dioulas and non-Ivorian Africans in Gagnoa. According to human rights activists who were present in Gagnoa at the time, the Ivorian police failed to intervene to stop the plunderers or arrest those involved.⁷⁰ The Burkinabe and others organized themselves into self-defense groups. In the clashes that followed, local human rights activists reported ten dead, at least eight of whom were immigrants, and thirty-eight wounded. Local officials put the death toll at six.⁷¹

The November 2004 crisis showed how a sustained military offensive on various fronts provides an extreme challenge for the U.N. and French forces to be able to provide protection to their own personnel, citizens and bases, as well as civilians from Cote d’Ivoire who find themselves in imminent danger of attack.⁷² During the crisis, both the U.N. and French forces positioned in the north and west swiftly moved to Abidjan to provide much needed attention to civilians there. However, by doing so, they left civilians living in areas prone to violence by armed groups and during communal clashes in the past, vulnerable to attack.

The French forces concentrated primarily on protecting their own and other foreign civilians who were coming under attack by pro-government militias. This robbed UNOCI of heavy weapons and a rapid reaction force which would have been needed to intervene if fighting broke out in several locations simultaneously and to extract civilians from areas of conflict. “November showed that Unicorn were not our rapid reaction force. They redeployed to protect French and other foreign nationals in Abidjan,” observed UNOCI force commander Major-General Abdoulaye Fall.⁷³ 

Meanwhile, ONUCI forces pulled 600 men out of the buffer zone in November to protect its installations in Abidjan. These installations are spread over six sites in the city, thus rendering them difficult to defend.  Fall noted this deficiency within his own forces and the logistical problems which exacerbated them. “The second lesson is that we too are not strong enough. We had to send troops to protect our sites in the Abidjan area,” Fall said.⁷⁴

While about 2,000 people flooded into UNOCI camps in Abidjan for protection during the riots, and some stayed for weeks, the troops were too busy protecting their installations to be able to do much else. For example, it took several days for UNOCI to be able to conduct regular patrols within areas of Abidjan and the west which are heavily populated by vulnerable groups, namely northerners, Muslims and West African immigrants who have come under frequent attack from pro-government militias, which accuse them of supporting the northern-based rebellion.

“Our ability to protect people is limited. The French are here to look after mainly the French. There are African foreigners, Lebanese and others who would be vulnerable again,” said a senior UN official. “If we had a major outbreak of communal violence in Abidjan and if it involved military or criminal elements we would not have the ability to control it. That is a real worry,” the official added.⁷⁵

The February 2005 Government Attack on Logouale

On the morning of February 28, 2005 an irregular force of self-proclaimed “patriots” attacked a rebel outpost in the volatile far west of the country. From the military point of view, the attack on the village of Logouale will be no more than a footnote in the history of Côte d’Ivoire’s civil conflict. Following the Logouale attack, Bangladeshi peacekeepers captured eighty-seven fighters, including two Liberian children, who were some days later handed over to the government in the western militia stronghold of Guiglo. The French army said between forty and fifty people were killed in the Logouale attack, most of them militiamen. The U.N. put the death toll at twenty-eight.⁷⁶

But Logouale is a chilling warning for the international community that, should large-scale hostilities resume, the potential is great for massive xenophobic or ethnic violence against civilians. During the Logouale attack itself, there was little information about the perpetration of violations of international humanitarian law, however, it sparked a series of ethnically motivated attacks between indigenous groups and immigrant farm workers over land rights which resulted in several deaths, caused over 13,000 to flee and left several villages in flames.

Ivorian and international media and  said at least 16 people had been killed during communal clashes in the four weeks following the Logouale attack, which, according to aid workers had occurred in the villages of Fengolo, Toa, Zeo and Diahouin close to the town of Duekoue.⁷⁷ An international relief agency official said staff had reported seeing injured people along the road from Man to Bongolo the day after the Logouale attack.⁷⁸ Another relief worker expressed concern that the peacekeepers had been unable to prevent an attack by the same militia on a nearby village of immigrant Burkinabe farmers which had been set ablaze.⁷⁹

A March 16, 2005 situation report from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) described the situation in and around Logouale as follows:

“Local authorities have reported that over 13,000 people are displaced. Their displacement is also due to ethnic tension between the local Guere ethnic group and other communities. It is estimated that many villages in this area are empty while others have been burned down. Killings and other violations of human rights, house burning, and other acts of retaliation have been perpetrated by both sides. Checkpoints manned by armed young men have sprung up in between Guigle and Bloequin since the Logouale attack.”⁸⁰

The incident exposed the apparent willingness of local leaders to cynically exploit ethnic differences and economic resentments. The clashes that followed the attack were between indigenous We and West African immigrant groups, mostly from Burkina Faso. Given the level of ethnic tension in the area, these attacks generated concerns about the potential for violence on a massive scale and, in the event of multiple attacks, if UN peacekeepers would be in a position to protect civilians as stipulated by their mandate. 

Indeed, the mid and far west of Côte d’Ivoire, the heart of the country’s vital cocoa and coffee industry, is a region of smoldering instability which, if ignited, could engulf the whole sub-region. Immigrants from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Guinea provided cheap labor for local landowners to carve plantations out of the tropical forest for decades after independence and helped turn Côte d’Ivoire into the world’s biggest cocoa producer. But the civil war and economic decline have sharpened long-standing differences over land rights.

Indigenous groups have attacked the immigrant farmers, often just after the cocoa harvest when they have taken the crop.⁸¹ The farm workers have organized themselves into self-defense groups and have fought back,⁸² resulting in a lethal tit-for-tat dynamic between the two groups. “This is a very worrying development,” one relief worker said of the violence which followed the Logouale attack. “We have seen attacks on immigrants before during fighting. It is difficult to know whether this is a one-off incident or the precursor to a broader military offensive.” ⁸³

The Ivorian armed forces and Abidjan government repeatedly denied involvement in the Logouale attack, which was portrayed in the pro-government media as a spontaneous attempt by frustrated local farmers to recapture their land from the rebels.⁸⁴ A hitherto unknown militia group calling itself the Movement for the Liberation of Western Ivory Coast (Mouvement pour la Liberation de l’Ouest de la Côte d’Ivoire, MILOCI) under the leadership of Pastor Diomande Gammi claimed involvement in the attack.⁸⁵ Gammi said his movement represented members of the Yacouba ethnic group in western Côte d’Ivoire.⁸⁶

However, U.N. and Western officials are in no doubt that the government was behind the attack. French soldiers detained an Ivorian lieutenant and other fighters suspected of being Ivorian soldiers who took part in the attack.⁸⁷ A senior French army officer accused government forces of being behind the Logouale attack: “We have proof that the attack on Logouale was planned, organized and financed by the central powers in Abidjan,” Colonel Eric Burgaud, head of the French forces in western Côte d’Ivoire said. ⁸⁸

General Abdoulaye Fall, commander of the U.N. force, said some of those arrested said they had been sent from Abidjan by the leader of the Young Patriots, Ble Goude. “There was a large representation of different ethnic groups,” Fall said. “And some of them said they were Young Patriots acting for Ble Goude who set out from Abidjan,” he noted.⁸⁹ Ble Goude toured the western region February 10-13, 2005.  In speeches in the area he appeared to be trying to motivate young men from the We ethnic group to fight. He praised them for showing “courage and determination in ridding the region of the rebellion”.⁹⁰

Five Liberians – among them three children – who had participated in the Logouale attack told Human Rights Watch that while a few FANCI personnel and numerous Young Patriots participated in the attack, the majority of fighters were Liberians who were part of the Lima Suppletive militia. They said that the Ivorians served primarily to guide them through the Zone of Confidence buffer area, but that the Liberians had superior knowledge of guerrilla-style tactics and were thus used ‘as the vanguard’. They also said they had been recruited from Liberia to fight with the Lima militiasduring the months of October and November 2004, and had left for Logouale from their bases around the Western towns of Guiglo and Blolequin.

Some of the attackers had new AK-47 assault rifles and other weapons which the French army says were supplied by the Ivorian security services. “We seized AK-47 Kalashnikovs which were relatively new,” Fall confirmed.⁹¹

FLGO leader Maho blamed the Burkinabe for the clashes and vowed to strike back. "We can't stand by and let our relatives be killed by foreigners. That's why we have organized patrols to reassure the villagers…we know it's people from Burkina Faso who are attacking them so we are going to launch operations in these zones to stop the killing," Maho told villagers in Ziglo, 25 km from Guiglo, during the funeral of a FLGO fighter killed in a clash.⁹²

Following the attack, the MILOCI militia also vowed to intensify its campaign to dislodge the rebels.  "Our fight is a fight for freedom. We want our people under rebel control to find their dignity once again. The land belongs to our ancestors and no one can take it away from us," Pastor Gammi said. ⁹³ He has also accused French troops of blocking his fighters' advance at Logouale and threatened to make the French Unicorn force MILOCI's next target.⁹⁴

This threat was repeated by FLGO leader Maho; “The FLGO reserves the right to administer a forceful response to France and its interests and symbols on the entire Ivorian territory commensurate with the enormous wrong done to Côte d’Ivoire by [French President] Jacques Chirac and his murderous soldiers,”he said. ⁹⁵

Need for Reinforced UN Presence

The militia assault on the immigrants viewed as rebel sympathizers illustrates the problems faced by the overstretched peacekeepers in protecting the civilian population. UN officials say the light force of 6,250 blue helmets can handle single incidents such as an incursion into the buffer zone they patrol between government forces in the south and the rebel New Forces in the north.  But, as the Logouale attack aftermath and the November 2004 violence against immigrant groups – including the killing of Dioulas in Gagnoa and widespread anti-French riots in Abidjan – has shown,⁹⁶ the blue helmets are too thinly spread and lightly equipped to deal with multiple attacks accompanied by civil unrest or communal violence.⁹⁷

After the November fighting UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked the Security Council to send an extra 1,200 troops to Côte d’Ivoire but that request is running into opposition from the Untied States on budgetary grounds. ⁹⁸ Annan reiterated the need for reinforcements in his March 2005 report to the Security Council: "The need for these reinforcements has been further underscored by the deteriorating security situation, in particular in the Zone of Confidence, and requires the Council's urgent attention and support.”⁹⁹

In February 2005, France submitted a draft resolution to the Security Council calling for 1,226 additional peacekeepers consisting of an 850-strong infantry battalion, backed by a fleet of eight attack helicopters, 125 police and 270 support staff. “The French are using all kinds of diplomatic wiles to get the resolution through but the chances are not looking good,” said one European diplomat.¹⁰⁰

This is very worrying news for the thousands of West African immigrants, internally displaced persons and refugees from Liberia who would be at risk if Côte d’Ivoire slid back into war. It would also undermine UNOCI’s ability to fulfill its mandate with respect to protecting civilians “under imminent threat of physical violence.” We can react to small incidents pretty well,” said a senior UN official. “But if we had fighting between the government and FN, together with attacks on civilian areas, which is likely to be the case, then we would not have the capacity to contain it.”¹⁰¹

The widening of the ONUCI “rules of engagement,” which were in November 2004 expanded to include the prevention of “any hostile action, in particular within the Zone of Confidence,” emphasized yet another reason for the proposed reinforcements. Fall noted that his men were already fulfilling this mandate and were now in a stronger position to be able to respond to and stop attacks by either the government or rebel forces. ¹⁰² He pointed to the halting of the militia incursion in Logouale as an example of how the new rules had been applied.

However, in his March 2005 report, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said the forces were severely overstretched and warned of the dangers of leaving the UNOCI forces at their present levels.¹⁰³ The commander on the ground in Man, in the west of Côte d’Ivoire agreed. “We, in the west, are deployed across a big area and I think the U.N. should deploy more men because the situation is changing quickly,” Colonel Mohammed Shahidul Haque, the commander of some 750 Bangladeshi troops in Man, said.¹⁰⁴ “The problems that you have one day are not the same you will have the next.”

UNOCI officials point out that their mission is understaffed relative to Côte d’Ivoire’s population of 16 million. “In Sierra Leone, which is one third the size of Ivory Coast in terms of population, we had three times the number of troops,” the U.N. official said.¹⁰⁵

According to one U.N. staff, the objective of the mission has changed drastically. It was deployed to monitor the Zone of Confidence buffer strip, after the 2003 Linas-Marcoussis peace accord. “We were put here as a light force while the peace agreement was to be implemented but none of Marcoussis has happened. The objective of the mission has changed radically.” he said.¹⁰⁶

UNOCI’s performance has been under fire from President Gbagbo, who has said the U.N.’s main task is to disarm the rebels. President Gbagbo has openly questioned the future of the peacekeepers while his supporters have staged demonstrations calling for the French to leave.¹⁰⁷ “I have more than 10,000 soldiers from around the world in my country who I have asked to help me bring an end to the rebellion,” President Gbagbo said. "Those who come here must clearly state the reason for their presence – either they're here to rid us of the rebellion, in which case they disarm the rebels, or they let us disarm them ourselves and they go back to where they came from."¹⁰⁸

The attack on Logouale  alarmed Ivorian human rights activists and international aid agencies who note that UNOCI and Operation Unicorn patrols do not venture frequently enough to the areas where communal violence could flare up during an army or militia offensive. One such area is Gagnoa in the mid west of Côte d’Ivoire, the Bete heartland and home region of President Gbagbo. While the U.N. technically does not need to ask for permission to deploy to that areas, three UN officials told Human Rights Watch that UNOCI has yet to establish a permanent presence in the volatile Gagnoa area because the Ivorian government had refused them permission to do so.¹⁰⁹

Action on the part of the peacekeepers is all the more important in light of the partisan nature of the local security forces. For example, according to a local human rights organization, from November 6-7 2004, groups of Bete youth and militia members attacked northerners and “foreigners” in full view of the police and gendarmerie, killing up to fifteen people, and ransacking shops, businesses and homes.¹¹⁰ Some of the Dioulas banded together and fought back.¹¹¹

Aid officials are also concerned about the security of Liberian refugees and Burkinabe displaced in western Côte d’Ivoire where some blame renewed fighting in the region on foreign nationals. According the Fati Kaba, the regional spokesperson for the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, “[t]he tensions in western Côte d’Ivoire have the potential of adversely affecting the protection of refugees, because each time there's fighting in Côte d’Ivoire, the local population tends to be hostile to the refugees, because of past involvement of Liberian nationals in the fighting.”¹¹²

There are around 17,000 Liberian refugees in Ivory Coast who fled their own civil war, which ended in 2003.  Some 5,000 of them are housed in the “Peace Town” camp in the western district of Guiglo. Nearby there are 7,000 displaced Burkinabe at the Centre d’Assistance Temporaire des Deplaces.¹¹³

Abdoulaye Mar Dieye, the U.N. coordinator for humanitarian affairs in Côte d’Ivoire, said tensions made it difficult for aid workers to gain access to the vulnerable populations. “Because of the security situation, some NGOs have reduced their staffing," he said.¹¹⁴

In addition to political violence, one of the biggest concerns for the U.N. police (CIVPOL) is the lack of security in Abidjan where the economy has been hit by the November 2004 riots which prompted more than 8,000 expatriates, many of them businessmen, to flee the country. “The security situation is going to get worse as people get poorer” said a UN security official. “Added to that you have 3,500 inmates who escaped from Abidjan’s MACA prison in November…that means hundreds of killers or violent criminals are roaming around adding to the lack of security.” ¹¹⁵

With this in mind, U.N. officials noted their frustration at the lack of CIVPOL officers deployed to the mission. Although CIVPOL officers are not armed and have no powers of law enforcement, their presence in the troubled Adjame market appears to have led to a reduction in harassment of traders by militias and security services. ¹¹⁶ CIVPOL has 221 people spread across the south of Côte d’Ivoire but cannot find enough qualified French-speaking officers to bring it up to its authorized strength of 350.¹¹⁷

Virulent government criticism of the French presence has also prompted France to question its role in its former colony. France sent in the Unicorn force after war broke out in September 2002, a move that was then seen as having blocked the New Forces from capturing Abidjan. But anti-French sentiment in the south has soared since the government’s aborted November 2004 offensive.

UNOCI officials realize that by increasing their presence in Côte d’Ivoire they could be accused of contributing to the de facto partition of the country. But they contend that without the blue helmets there could be bloodbath. “Some would say that what we are doing by building up forces is creating a two-state solution, a division of the country. That is not our intention. But if you were to pull out these troops it could lead to hundreds if not thousands of people being killed,” one U.N. official observed.¹¹⁸

Arms Embargo

The U.N. also has an arms embargo that it has applied to both sides in the Ivorian conflict. The Security Council voted in February 2005 to strengthen the embargo and authorized a panel of experts to monitor it, which was named on April 1, 2005. The U.N. has authority to conduct inspections without notification but the head of the Ivorian army said he would insist on prior notice of searches.

UN sources estimate UNOCI needs experienced arms inspectors and customs officers, together with a protection unit, to effectively monitor Côte d’Ivoire’s ports and porous borders for arms shipments. They also note that both sides have already acquired enough arms – on the international market in the case of the government or through countries such as Burkina Faso for the rebels – to continue the conflict for a long time.¹¹⁹