Côte d’Ivoire: The Human Rights Cost of the Political Impasse

This report describes trends in human rights abuses in Côte d’Ivoire by state security and militia forces and by rebel forces, and examines the human rights and humanitarian consequences of the “no war no peace” stalemate. It is based on interviews in Côte d’Ivoire in September-October 2005 with officials from the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI), members of other U.N. agencies, the rebel leadership, local government officials and militia leaders, representatives from local and international nongovernmental organizations, journalists, diplomats and military attachés, representatives of the major political parties, and victims and eyewitnesses of human rights violations.