RIGHTS-COTE D’IVOIRE: Land Conflict Leaves a Trail of Blood

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Melvis Dzisah

ABIDJAN, May 25 1998 (IPS) - A decades-long landownership dispute between two major ethnic groups — the Baoule and Bete — has erupted once again into a violent conflict that has left a trail of death and destruction in its wake.

At least three persons have died, about 10 villages have been burnt and hundreds of people have fled their homes in Zoukougbeu, western Cote d’Ivoire, as a result of the clashes.

According to reports reaching here, the disturbances started after members of the Niaboua clan, part of the Bete ethnic group, discouvered the corpse of one of their number on his cocoa plantation.

Allegations that the man had been killed in late April by an unidentified Baoule led to attacks on Baoule villages, resulting thus far in at least three deaths, the local media reported at the weekend. More than 10 Baoule villages were looted and burnt, according to the reports.

The security forces have confirmed that hundreds of Baoules have fled the area, located more than 500 kilometers from Abidjan. Some have sought refuge in nearby towns under police protection while others have gone back to their home area in eastern Cote d’Ivoire.

The Betes — the largest of Cote d’Ivoire’s 63 ethnic groups, followed by the Baoule — inhabit the rich tropical forest in the west of the country. Relations between the two communities have been uneasy ever since Baoule farmers began arriving in the West in the 1960s to cultivate cocoa and coffee, the country’s main cash crops.

Their Betes hosts still regard them as invaders and, at a crisis meeting held in Zoukougbeu in early May, Niaboua elders declared that all they wanted was for the Baoules to return to their region of origin.

They refused to change their minds when Regional Commissioner Al Moustapha later visited the area and urged the two groups to forget their differences and learn to co-exist. “Cote d’Ivoire belong to all of you. I cannot judge you,” he said. “Learn to live together and do not reject each other.”

Despite his urgings, the hostilities resumed after his departure.

“An atmosphere of uncertainty prevails in the area,” Joseph Konan, a local journalist who visited the area recently, told IPS. “Villages which were lively yesterday have now become ghosts towns, as the former inhabitants deserted them for fear of their lives and they are not willing to return despite assurances by the local authorities that they will be given protection.”

Tension between the two ethnic groups had been fuelled by a controversial statement made in the 1960s by then president Felix Houphouet-Boigny, himself a Baoule. “The real owner of land in the country is the person who puts value to it,” the late Houphouet-Boigny had declared.

That declaration contradicted cultural norms in the country, which recognised individuals or families as owners of the land whether they had developed it or not. Up until Houphouet-Boigny made his declaration, people could not own land outside their areas of origin. They could only rent it.

Observers have pointed out that Houphouet-Boigny’s real intention, in the absence of any modern legislation on landownership, was to give Baoules access to the rich lands of the West for growing cocoa and coffee without any obligations to the host community.

“Houphouet knew exactly why he made that declaration,” comments politician Kouame Affouet. “He knew his people had exhausted all their forest lands and the only way to ensure that they got more land was to encourage them to go West.

“You see, those days, everyone was afraid of Houphouet,” he adds. “Most thought he was God and above reproach. It was after his death that they realised he was human after all.”

Backed by his stance, Baoule farmers flocked to Beteland where they carved cocoa and coffee farms out of the forest. Some became relatively wealthy, to the envy of their hosts. Quarrels erupted between the two communities and Houphouet-Boigny, who died in 1993, was often accused of using the security forces to clamp down on protesting Betes.

The government of his successor, Henri Konan Bedie, has since drawn up a land reform bill, which it hopes will clarify land ownership issues in the country. The bill has been submitted to parliament.

However, parliamentarians, other politicians, traditional chiefs and representatives of civil society agreed at a seminar held two weeks ago at the National Assembly (parliament) that the legislators needed to gather more information on land ownership in the country before they could approve the bill.