8/3/2019 Ivory Coast Conflict Isn t Over

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8 N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 Le Monde diplomatique

A F RI CA A W A S H W I T H C O N F L IC T S A N D W E A P O N S

Ivory Coast conflict isn 't overHalf a million people who fled Ivory Coast during the post-election violence are afraid to return to their homes; many are in Liberia

whe re rival Ivorian m ilitia are hiding and arms are plentiful. This could have consequences for the region

BY ANG ELA ROBS ON

Ear ly in the morning in Solo refugeecamp in eastern Liberia, a teenagegirl stands against a rubber tree, armsclamped around her prot ruding bel ly.

Setiche's voice is calm but her eyes are alwayson the hor izon. "We heard people screamingand could smel l houses burning," she says ,remember ing the day rebels appeared in hervillage of Bilique, in the west of Ivory Coast. "Iwas in school. The rebels were firing guns. Ourteacher told us to run."

Set iche doesn ' t know anyone in the refugeecamp, a sea of white tents just put up for peoplewho have fled Ivory Coast (1). The only clothes

she has are those she was wearing when shefled her village. "I ran into the forest and stayedthere for four days, hiding. I moved by nightso the rebels wouldn't find me." It took her aweek to reach the relative safety of Liberia. Sheis desperate to leave the camp, but has no wayof getting home: "I don't know if my family isalive. I need someo ne to help me find them."

Half a million people displaced by the post-electoral violence in Ivory Coast are stil l afraidto return to their homes for fear of reprisals,and the country remains fragile and unstable(2). United Nations investigators have foundevidence that crimes against humanity - murder,rape, and persecution of individuals and groupson political, ethnic, and national grounds - havebeen committed by forces loyal to the WestAfrican country's ex-president, Laurent Gbagbo,and by forces loyal to his oppone nt and su ccessor,Alassane Ou attara (3). Both sides also committedwar crimes, including intentional attacks againstcivilians and the murder of people not taking an

active part in hostili t ies (4). At least 3,000 havebeen killed and hundreds of thousands displaced- both within Ivory Coast and in neighbouringcountries. More than 170,000 people fled fromwestern Ivory Coast into Liberia.

A 12 October report by Oxfam, Care andthe Danish Refugee Council warns that a"humanitarian crisis of significant proportions"is stil l unfolding in Ivory Coast, threateningefforts to ensure peace, reconciliation and theability of people to return home and rebuild theirlives. Displaced people in Ivory Coast continue toexperience reprisals, violence and intimidation."The situation is stil l highly precarious andpeople a ffected by the conflict, particularly in thewest of the cou ntry, stil l have spec ific assistanceand protection needs," says Philippe Conraud,Oxfam's regional humani tar ian coordinator forWest Africa. "The climate of fear and insecurityis not conducive to sustainable returns. Thearrest of Gbagbo on 11 April 2011 mark ed theend of the post-electoral violence but not of the

ethnic divisions and land disputes that have torncommunities apart in the west. The installationof the new government in Abidjan has not putan end to the insecurity in the region. Waves ofreprisal attacks, arbitrary arrests, kill ings, sexualviolence, verbal harassment and illegal taxationare keeping peop le in fear in a region awash withweapons . "

Land disputes have been exacerbated by theconf l ic t , the resul t ing di splacement , and nowthe return of displaced people. It is feared thatdi sputes wi l l mul t iply as more peo ple re turn totheir place of origin (5).

Despi te the need for l arge-scale hum ani tar iansuppor t , the UN's internat ional emergencyappeal remains jus t 29% fund ed. The shor tageof food i s the overwhelming pr ior i ty and lack ofshelter a major challenge. "Transitional shelteris urgently needed for the displaced, particularly

A n g e la Ro bs o n i s a w r i te r an d B B C b ro ad cas te r

an d w in n e r o f th e E u ro pea n C o m m is s io n ' s L o ren z o

N a ta l i P r i z e fo r J o u rn a l i s m fo r h e r a r t i c l e fo r Le

Monde diplomatique, " S i e r ra L eo n e : re ven g e an d

reco n c i l i a t i o n " (M a rch 2008 )

for those who want to return to their homevi l lages but can ' t because thei r homes weredestroyed," says David Coomber, IOM chief ofmiss ion in Ivory Coast .

In Zleh, a rural hamlet 30km from Solo camp,which at the peak of the conflict doubled itspopulation of 1,300, Ivorians have started tocreate normality in their children's l ives. Helpedby the children's humanitarian agency, PlanLiberia, primary education is being provided,taught by Ivorian teachers who also escaped thefighting. Many of the children are traumatised -they have seen thei r homes burnt and membersof their families raped or killed, before makingthe journey through the jungle to Liberia.

Oliver, 13, was shot in the foot when rebelss tormed into hi s house, looking for hi s fa ther :" I don' t know why they wanted my father . Theydidn't ask him anything. They just took out theirguns and f i red them into hi s head."

Mohamed Bah, count ry di rector of PlanLiberia, believes that there are many challengesfor children who have fled, but particularlythose who have wi tnessed violence f i r s t -hand.The chi ldren who have ar r ived unaccompaniedare especially vulnerable, and some could be

exploited, sexually, or by being dragged intofurther conflict as child soldiers. "Many ofthese children are deeply troubled by what

There are many challenges for

children who have fled, but

particularly those who havewitnessed violence first-hand.

Some could be exploited,

sexually or by being dragged into

further conflict as child soldiers.

'Many of these children are

deeply troubled by what they

have gone through'

N Ithey have gone through," he says . "Some havenightmares, others show signs of agitation orext reme emot ion."

Chi ld psychologis t Paul Doykevee, whoworks in the camps along the border , bel ievesthere are many chal lenges for chi ldren who'veexper ienced war t rauma. "They are somet imesunable to concentrate. It is difficult for them.

Some express themselves through violentges tures , or by becoming very f rus t ra ted.Others - who may have lost contact with family

and f r iends - may s imply become w i thdrawnand silent. It all depends on the individual child.We try and offer support in different ways - bykeeping children busy at school and also setting

up recreational activities for children outsideof school hours to keep them as occupied aspossible. Since some of the children have noway of descr ibing what they have gone through,we have been get t ing them to draw thei rexperiences, using art therapy. Counselling isal so helping them to come to terms w i th eventsthey have gone through."

Ivory Coast 's recent descent into violencecould have huge repercussions for a regionwhere roving militia are abundant. The situationis worrying on the border with Liberia, wherethere are hidden caches of arms and members ofthe former pro-Gbagbo militia in hiding, togetherwith Liberian mercenaries. "Not enough isbeing done to protect the very many vulnerablechildren in the border regions," says MohamedBah f rom Plan. "Though pr imary schooleducation has started there is no funding as yetfor secondary schools. This leaves teenagerswith lit t le to do and vulnerable to being suckedback into fighting. Some of these young people

are desperate, without food or livelihoods. Theyare bored and restless. If they are offered $50 totake up arms, it can be very tempting."

Th e village of Janzon has 10,400 refugees, far outnum bering the 1,800

local Liberians who are provid ing food and shelter, despite their o wn

limited means. Condit ions fo r both refugees and villagers are bad, and

only set to worsen as m ore displaced people arr ive every day

Ivorian refugee children have begun attending

school in Nimba C ounty : a regular rout ine

offers a semblance of norma l life, helping to

reduce the trauma of their displacement

8/3/2019 Ivory Coast Conflict Isn t Over

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Le Monde diplomatique N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 1 9

While some Ivor ians have s tar ted re turninghome f rom Liber ia , hundreds , according toMedica Mondiale L iber ia , which suppor t swom en and girls in crisis zones, are stil l arrivingin L iber ia each week.

In the small village of Pouh Town, in easternLiberia, Josephine, 70, points to the forestsur rounding her smal l , bor rowed hut and saysthe dense jungle saved her life when she fledher village of Toulepleu in western Ivory Coast.Josephine arrived in Pouh Town in July afteralmost three months hiding in the jungle . FromApril to July, the population of Pouh Town,around 15km f rom the border wi th Ivory Coast ,doubled from 1,500 people to 3,000 with thehuge exodus of refugees .

"It was the first t ime I 'd heard gunshots," saysJosephine. "The vi l l age was over run wi th rebels .They were wear ing mi l i t ary uni forms. Whenthey started to fire, I started to run. They wereburning down houses , locking people ins idefirst . The rebels grabbed one man and shot himin the head. Then they cut out his intestines."

Josephine believes her village was attackedbecause people in the area have traditionallysuppor ted ex-pres ident Gbagbo. She said themajor i ty of the people a t tacking Toulople weredozos, t radi t ional hunters w ho have given thei rbacking to Alassane Ouat tara . "Wh en I reachedthe border with Liberia, rebels loyal to Ouattaramet us, saying it was safe to return home. So wewent back. There were only two places to go -

the school and the hospital. When we got closer,we realised it was a trick. We heard gunshotsand cries."

Josephine's sister, her brother in law andher nephew were rounded up and ki l l ed. Shebelieves scores of people from her village werekilled that day. "Ivory Coast is not secure. Therehas been all this talk of disarmament but therebels are stil l holding the arms. There has beenno reconci l ia t ion. Our homes have been burnt ,our crops have gone. We are too af ra id to goback."

Anu Pi l lay, head of Medica Mondiale , saysthat in Liberia an estimated two out of threewomen were raped dur ing the c ivi l war f rom1989 to 2003 - around a mi l l ion women. Despi tesevere legislation against sexualised violence,rape is stil l among the most frequent crimes andthe major i ty of offenders are unpunished.

In April 2011, as Ivorian refugees startedpour ing over the border , Medica Mondialebecame aware that many women and gi r l s

had been raped or sexually assaulted. "In onecase, a woman was raped by rebels , who thendecapitated her husband," says Anu Pillay. "Shewas then forced, at gunpoint, to carry his headon her head unt i l she reached the border wi thLiberia. We are also receiving reports of tortureand rape of women and gi r l s, including the gangrape of a two year old girl ."

Medica Mondiale bel ieves that far morewomen an d gi r l s have been raped in Ivory Coastthan has been repor ted. "This sexual violenceis going under the radar because women fearbeing s t igmat i sed and re jected by communi t iesand fami ly members , and so rarely repor t whathas happened to them. Many of those targetedhave been done so because of thei r pol i t i cal orethnic affiliation. This kind of discrim inationmust end, as well as impunity for such crimes."

The International Crisis Group believes thatthe government seems to be focus ing more onpunishing the defeated ra ther than on br ingingcharges agains t suppor ters of the new pres ident

who also committed serious crimes. Distrust andfear have led to "mul t iple rumours and violence,which in turn leads to fur ther di splacement andhinders f reedom of movement" . I t warns that ,without efforts at reconciliation in Ivory Coast,resentment could once again lead to inter-e thnic violence. "The next months are crucial .The new government must avoid the narcot icof power that has caused so many disas t rousdecis ions over recent decade s . . . Reconci l ia t ionand justice are impe rative."

L M D E N G L I S H E D I T I O N E X C L U S I V E

(1) For a good analysis, see Vladimir Cagnolari, "IvoryCoast's struggle for succession", Le Monde dipomatique,

English edition, February 2011.

(2) "A Critical Period for Ensuring Stability in Cote

d'lvoire", International Crisis Group, 1 August 2011; "Theykilled them like it was nothing: the need for justice forCote d'lvoire's post-election crimes", Human Rights Watch,

5 October 2011.

(3) "Towards durable solutions for displaced Ivoirians",Care , Danish Refugee Counci l and Oxfam, 12 O ctober

2011.

(4) "Cote d'lvoire: rebranding the army", IntegratedRegional Informat ion Networks, 5 October 2011.

(5) International Crisis Group, op.cit.

Somalia's uneasy peace

A Trans i t ional Federal Gov ernm ent arm y recru i t dr i ll s wi th a wood en st ick in p lace of a r i fle at the Af r ican Un ion 's al- Jaz ira t rain ing camp

A bdullahi walked slowly past make shiftf \ s ta ll s in a crowded Mogadishu

/ 1 market, dragging his right leg. He's in.X. A Ji i s f i f t i es and unemployed, and re l ieson overseas remittances sent by his daughterto survive. In 2007 he was shot by Somalia'sincreasingly powerful Islamist militia, al-Shabab (Youth). The bullet blew a hole throughhis right leg, just below h is groin.

Like many Somalis, Abdullahi is a casualtyof the conflict between Somalia's Transitional

Federal Government (TFG) and al -Shabab. Hesays he suppor t s the TFG but doesn ' t knowwhether it can succeed. "But it has to," he said."Look at the roads, look at the rubbish: thisis what 20 years of no government does. Wecannot have another 20 years of war."

Withrenew ed violence in October , the uneasypeace that has hung over Mogadishu s ince a l -Shabab wi thdrew in ear ly August may be over .Most analys t s explain the wi thdrawal f ro m thecapital city by pointing to rifts that emergedwithin the organisation when it attempted todefine who it should be fighting. Should it fightthe 'near enemy' or the ' far enemy'? Should i tbe national in its focus, or international? Partof the global j ihad or not? Pressure f ro m othermilitia - notably the Sufi-oriented Ahlu SunnaWal Jamaa - compounded the organisat ion ' sproblems; so did the drying up of remi t tancesf rom the Somal i diaspora .

According to Wi l l iam Reno, of Nor th we s ternUnivers i ty in the US, a l -Shabab placed

emphasis on ideology at the expense ofpol i t i cal pragmat i sm, and fought on too manyfronts a t once. "They've overplayed thei rideological hand and annoyed enough peopleso that, in the end, the communities theycontrol are turning against them and starting tolook to other people." Reno, who has extensiveexper ience throughout Afr ica , thinks that insome ways a l -Shabab has pursued the sens iblealternative when trying to figure out how tounite communities - to use religion. "But," headded, "in trying to articulate a religious ideathey are too ideological. So they are insensitiveto the pol i t i cal calculat ions and compromisesthey have to make." (Al -Shabab's ideologicalpersuasion is Takfiri , an ultra-conservativeinterpretation in which the killing of apostatesforms the core conceptual bas i s . Un-Is lamiccultural practice is banned and a strict versionof shar ia enforced. )

In 2008, for example, a 13-year-old girl ,Asho D uhulow, was raped by three mi l i t i amen.

Glen J o h n s o n i s a N ew Z ea lan d j o u rn a l i s t

B Y G L E N J O H N S O N

She took her case to a Kismayo courtadminis tered by al -Shabab and ident i f ied herassailants. The men were released, but Ashowas charged with adultery (1). She was takento a local sports ground, buried up to her neckand s toned to d eath. According to repor t s , a l -Shabab mi l i t i amen opened f i re on people who

at tempted to intervene, ki l l ing one.Yet, Somalia does not have a history

dominated by Is lamic ext remism and mostanalysts note that al-Shabab's ideology is anodd fit for Somalis. Political Islam emergedin the 1960s as Musl im B rotherhood ideologyspread through the Horn of Afr ica and Egypt ' sa l -Azhar Univers i ty funded re l igious schoolsin Mogadishu.

In the mid-1970s "former president SiadBarre introduced a new family law, ostensiblypromoting gender equality as part of hisagenda of "Scientific Socialism"; this grantedwomen equal rights in the area of inheritance.Abdurahman M Abdul lahi wrote in an essayentitled Wom en, Islamists an d the Military

Regime in Somalia, that the law enragedSomalia's religious leaders who saw it as asecular assault on Islam at the level of the family.An Islamist movement began to crystallise.

Saudi Arabian Wahabbism was importedinto Somalia in the 1980s, via Saudi charities.

By 1984 al-Itt ihad al-Islamiya had emergedas a composite of two other radical groups.It morphed into a militant group in 1991, butsuffered a series of stinging defeats in the mid-1990s.

The Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) wasformed in the early 2000s; i ts basis is an ad hoccollection of Islamic courts that had adm inisteredjustice in Somalia following the collapse of SiadBarre's regime. By 2006 the UIC was seriouslychallenging Mogadishu's warlords and tookcontrol of the capital in June, bringing stabilitybut enforcing a strict form of sharia. The UICwas unacceptable to both Ethiopia and the UnitedStates, for geopolitical reasons. In December2006 Ethiopia, acting as a crude proxy fo r the US,formally launched strikes against the movementand quickly overwhelmed it . Al-Shabab, theUIC's youth wing, emerged. Led by SheikhAden Hashi Ayro, who is said to have receivedtraining in insurgency tactics and explosives inAfghan istan in the 1990s, the organisation began

waging war against the TFG and soon controlledmuc h of south and central Somalia (2).

Som e o f t he pe op l e pe r c he dbe h i nd t e m por a rys ta l l s were f rom Bakara market , which wasclosed by the TFG as it sought to secureMogadishu af ter a l -Shabab's wi thdrawal . Onestorekeeper said he felt as if he was on holiday,but did not think the peace would last long."Shabab was making problem s for the people .It was better they leave us. [But] these peopleare f rom Bakara . By day they come here andsell , at night they fight with the government."

Others c la im al -Shabab cannot regroup,

but express concerns about whether the TFGwill act responsibly: the TFG is known to becorrupt and there are doubts over whether awestern-s tyle cent ral i sed sys tem of governanceis relevant or can be effective in a clan-basedSomal ia . But everyone agrees that fur ther USinvolvement in the country would shatter thetemporary peace. As Abdul lahi put i t : "Weneed help now, but then they [the internationalcommuni ty] should leave. "

But recent reports that the US is expandingi t s capabi l it i es throughout the Horn of Afr ica ,while unsurprising, do not bode well, andcould threaten Mogadishu 's shaky peace,whi le s t rengthening al -Shabab's internat ionalfact ions .

It is clear the US is at war in both Yemenand Somal ia . How i t manages those warswi l l determine the damage to the region.Washington ' s Somal ia and Yemen s t ra tegyseems similar to its Pakistan strategy: bytargeting leadership figure s - norm ally with

drone strikes - operational inefficienciesemerge ove r t ime and hinder the abi l i ty of j ihadnetworks to car ry out a t tacks . The networksthen f ragment as di sagreements over how tocounter US tact ics emerge, amid an overal lenvi ronment of rota t ing leadership, probablycharacter i sed by compet i t ion between potent ia lleadership figures. Efficacy is lowered and thethreat becomes local ised, ra ther than global .

But this strategy lacks an end game. As thecivilian casualties mount, the likelihood ofordinary people a l igning themselves wi th theUS's targets increase. And so the US gets stuckin a point less rut . Expanded US engagementin Somal ia gives a l -Shabab's internat ionalfact ions a propaganda boost and could swingthe balance in its favour while healing basicr i f t s wi thin the g roup.

L M D E N G L I S H E D I T I O N E X C L U S I V E

(1) Amnesty International, "Somalia: Amputations andPublic Killings Must Stop", 15 May 2009.

(2) Medhane Tadesse, "Sharia Courts and Military Politics

in Stateless Somalia" Hotspot Horn of Africa Revisited:Approaches to Make Sense of Conflict, LIT, Berlin, 2008.