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 in early November 2004 when Ivorian government aircraft launched bombing raids on the main rebel-held cities of Bouaké and Korhogo. The killing of nine French soldiers in a government air raid on a French base a few days later provoked a deepening of the human rights and diplomatic crisis. The French retaliated by largely destroying Côte d’Ivoire’s air force, which in turn sparked a brutal wave of attacks by pro-government militias against French and other civilians in the commercial capital Abidjan and western cacao-growing region. The use of xenophobic hate speech by Ivorian state media during the November crisis incited the pro-government militias to commit serious crimes against foreigners, including rape. In response to the crisis, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 1572 which imposed a thirteen-month arms embargo on Côte d’Ivoire and threatened economic and travel sanctions if the parties failed to implement their commitments under the preexisting peace accords. At years end, the Ivorian government is politically isolated by the international community. However, neither the embargo nor the threat of further sanctions have deterred it from threatening to pursue a military solution to the conflict. The prospect of a renewed government offensive against the rebels raises serious human rights concerns, particularly given the more prominent use of the ill disciplined militias and the government’s use of hate media to incite violence against perceived opponents. The renewed conflict in Côte d’Ivoire threatens to further draw in roving combatants from neighboring countries and jeopardize the precarious stability within the region.

Most of Burundi enjoyed relative peace for the first time in a decade during 2004, but the province of Rural Bujumbura just outside the national capital remains a battleground between the rebel National Liberation Forces (FNL) on one side and the combined Burundian Armed Forces and the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD) on the other. The FDD is a former rebel movement that joined the government at the end of 2003. The FNL, drawn largely from the majority Hutu population, remains outside the peace process that has brought together other Hutu-dominated groups, including the FDD, with parties of the Tutsi minority who have dominated political and military life for generations. All forces in the country-wide civil war and those involved in the more recent limited combat outside the capital committed grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, killing and raping civilians and pillaging their property.