RIGHTS-COTE D’IVOIRE: Death Squads Out of Control

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Franky Kouakou

ABIDJAN, Mar 10 2003 (IPS) - Death squads are terrorising Cote d’Ivoire, leaving behind a trail of destruction and tears.

Just who is behind the death squads remains a mystery. President Laurent Gbagbo and his wife Simone Ehivet Gbagbo, as well as close family friends, were implicated in the killings by a UN report published in January. But Gbagbo, who is fighting rebel forces seeking to overthrow his government, denied all accusations made against them at a press conference held in Abidjan, the country’s economic capital, on Mar 1.

”I am not a murderer,” Gbagbo exclaimed. ”My political enemies are engaged in promoting sordid propaganda against my regime to discredit my standing as the country’s legitimate leader.”

Survivors vow that the death squads exist. One of them, Francois Guei, the head of Cote d’Ivoire’s prison department, claims a death squad nearly wiped out his family on Feb 1.

”They arrived at 8:35 P.M. and rang the bell at our gate. Over the intercom, my wife asked who it was, and someone answered: ‘Police, we’re doing a routine check’.”

Guei’s wife went to the gate and through the peephole, saw several men in military uniform, wearing hoods. ”They were heavily armed. Naturally, she was frightened and rushed back towards the house,” Guei recalls.

”They tried to force the gate open,” Guei says. The siege lasted for about half an hour. By 9:00 P.M., it seemed that they had given up and went away.

But five minutes later they returned. ”This time, they left their cars, idling, but turned off the headlights,” Guei explains. ”They had blocked the alley with three vehicles, one of which was a four-by-four, and another a sedan. At around 9:35 P.M., the group gave up and left . . .. for good.”

Guei, who lives in Cocody, a posh suburb of Abidjan, which is less than two kilometres from President Gbagbo’s residence, says he called the minister of defence to protect his family. But no soldier arrived until the men had left. Guei vows that the men are part of the death squad terrorising Cote d’Ivoire.

That same day, the body of television star Camara Yerefe, commonly known by his stage name ”Camara H”, was found on an Abidjan street after being taken away by men in military uniform that evening.

Those who have perished under similar circumstances in Abidjan, include Emile Tehe, the leader of a small opposition party, and Dr. Benoit Dakoury-Tabley, the younger brother of Louis Dakoury-Tabley, a top official of the Patriotic Movement of Cote d’Ivoire (MPCI), the country’s main rebel group.

Amnesty International, the London-based human rights watchdog, also claimed that the MPCI rebels massacred 52 police officers in their northern stronghold, Bouake, on Oct 6.

Amnesty International lists the names of the 52 gendarmes and eight of their children who had been reported missing and who were probably buried in mass grave. The gendarmes, who had been confined to their barracks since the occupation of Bouake on Sep 19, had surrendered and were coexisting peacefully with the rebels until they were summarily executed. Before they were murdered, the rebels reminded them of the ”Yopougon massacre”.

At Yopougon, a suburb of Abidjan, gendarmes murdered 50 Dioula, an ethnic group from the north, the day after Gbagbo’s controversial election in Oct 2000. No one was held responsible for the slaughter.

MCPI’s secretary-general, Guillaume Soro, denied his group murdered the police officers.

Amnesty International also condemned the cycle of unrest, which led to the massacres of ethnic Daloas and Monoko-Zohis by government forces and the mass murders of civilians in the western city of Man.

The west is the only region where a cease-fire accord signed by the rebels and government is not being observed. The rebels of the Movement for Justice and Peace (MJP), who control Man, have accused the government forces of committing atrocities against civilians.

”They systematically kill everyone they perceive to be potential rebel. Even the mentally deranged are not spared,” explains Maimouna Dosso, a rebel sympathiser.

Mohamed Ben Souk, spokesperson for the MJP, has accused government forces of recruiting Liberians to fight alongside them. ”It’s the wild Liberian mercenaries, who were mostly recruited from the refugee camps, who are responsible for terrorising the area,” he claims.

President Gbagbo has said he would file a complaint with the International Court of Justice in The Hague, The Netherlands, about the crimes committed in Cote d’Ivoire since Sep 19. He also has asked the United Nations to send a commission of inquiry to Cote d’Ivoire.