I. Background

As he took the oath of office on May 21, 2011, President Alassane Ouattara faced considerable challenges, including dealing with the aftermath of a brief but devastating armed conflict in which heinous crimes had been committed against civilians. Following the refusal of incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo to accept electoral results widely considered free and fair, and certified by the United Nations, Ouattara ultimately turned to former rebel forces for support. These rebel forces had controlled the northern part of the country since the end of the 2002-2003 conflict, which was marked by serious international crimes by both Gbagbo’s security forces and the rebels. Under the Gbagbo government (2000 to 2010), there was no accountability for these crimes.

On both sides, political and military leaders implicated in overseeing atrocities retained their positions with complete impunity. By the time pro-Ouattara forces arrested Gbagbo on April 11, 2011, armed forces on both sides had again committed egregious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. Twenty-two months after President Ouattara’s May 2011 inauguration, it remains unclear whether his government will finally break from the country’s dangerous legacy of impunity.

Armed Conflict and Political-Military Stalemate, 2002-2007

On September 19, 2002, a rebel group known as the Patriotic Movement of Côte d’Ivoire(Mouvement Patriotique de Côte d’Ivoire, MPCI) launched attacks against strategic targets in Abidjan and against the northern towns of Bouaké and Korhogo.[1] Joined by two armed groups in the western part of the country,[2] the rebels quickly controlled the northern half of Côte d’Ivoire. The three groups formed a political-military alliance known as the Forces Nouvelles, or New Forces, demanding new elections and the removal of President Laurent Gbagbo, whose presidency they perceived as illegitimate due to flaws in the 2000 elections;[3] and an end to the political exclusion and discrimination against northern Ivorians.[4]

Gbagbo’s security forces responded to the rebel attacks by descending on low-income neighborhoods in Abidjan occupied primarily by immigrants and northern Ivorians. Although they carried out these operations for the stated purpose of searching for weapons and rebels, the security forces often simply ordered out all residents and burned or demolished their homes. In displacing over 12,000 people, the security forces carried out numerous human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests and detentions, summary executions, rape, and enforced disappearances. [5] For their part in the north, the MPCI rebel group summarily executed at least 40 unarmed gendarmes and 30 of their family members in Bouaké between October 6 and 8, 2002; although the number of security forces executed in this event was particularly high, the killing of captured Gbagbo security forces would continue throughout the conflict. [6]

In subsequent months, armed clashes broke out between the two fighting forces. Fighting was particularly intense in the country’s west, where both sides recruited Liberian mercenaries; militia groups, often referred to as community self-defense groups, also fought with Gbagbo’s security forces. [7]

Throughout the conflict, government security forces and the Forces Nouvelles frequently attacked civilian populations perceived to support the other side. Human Rights Watch documented grave crimes committed by all sides, including summary executions, massacres, targeted sexual violence, indiscriminate helicopter attacks, and arbitrary arrests and detention by Gbagbo’s security forces; state-supported violence, including killings, by pro-Gbagbo militia groups; and summary executions, massacres, targeted sexual violence, and torture by the Forces Nouvelles. [8] Both sides recruited Liberian mercenaries who committed large-scale killings of civilians, and both sides used child soldiers. [9]

In May 2003 a ceasefire agreement formally ended active hostilities between the government and the Forces Nouvelles, though occasional breaches of the ceasefire continued through 2005. The country was split in two—as it would remain through 2010—with the Forces Nouvelles controlling the north and the Gbagbo government and security forces controlling the south. Severe human rights violations against civilian populations continued in both parts of the country. On March 25, 2004, Gbagbo’s security forces indiscriminately killed more than 100 civilians in response to a planned march by opposition groups; some 20 more people were victims of enforced disappearances.[10]Violent, pro-Gbagbo militia groups including the Student Federation of Côte d'Ivoire (Fédération Estudiantine et Scolaire de Côte d'Ivoire , FESCI) and the Young Patriots (Jeunes Patriotes) supported security forces in intimidating, extorting, and committing acts of violence against northerners, immigrants, and other people perceived to support the opposition.[11] In the Forces Nouvelles-controlled north, commanders became exceedingly wealthy through extortion and racketeering; with no judicial system there, arbitrary detention, torture, and extrajudicial executions continued against perceived supporters of the Gbagbo government.[12] Sexual violence against women and girls remained widespread in both parts of the country. Armed forces and civilians terrorized women, who found themselves without effective state response due to weak legal and security institutions that failed to prevent violence, prosecute perpetrators, or support victims.[13]

No Truth, No Justice under Gbagbo Government

No one was brought to justice for any of the grave crimes committed during the 2002-2003 armed conflict and its aftermath. Despite clear links between the deep-rooted impunity among the armed groups and the widespread atrocities, the Gbagbo government never prioritized accountability. On April 18, 2003, the Gbagbo government formally accepted the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) “for the purposes of identifying, investigating and trying the perpetrators and accomplices of acts committed on Ivorian territory since the events of 19 September 2002.” [14] Yet in subsequent years, once it became apparent that the ICC would be investigating crimes by pro-Gbagbo forces as well as by the Forces Nouvelles, the government consistently prevented the ICC from visiting Côte d’Ivoire to perform preliminary investigations. [15]

Although the Gbagbo government bore primary responsibility for the failure to ensure accountability, the inconsistent approach of Côte d’Ivoire’s international partners to justice for serious crimes in violation of international law also undermined its pursuit during this period. In 2004 the United Nations created an international commission of inquiry to investigate the crimes committed during the 2002-2003 conflict. However, after six months of field investigations and drafting, the UN Security Council buried the commission’s report; at this writing, the report is still unpublished, although a leaked version is accessible online. The report included an annex with a list of 95 people deemed most responsible for serious crimes, along with specific allegations against them. Radio France Internationale reported that the annex implicated high-level political and military leaders on both sides.[16] The list has never been made public, and the Security Council has not used it to pressure Ivorian authorities to ensure credible domestic investigations and prosecutions. Top UN officials, along with powerful countries on the Security Council, apparently deemed justice at odds with establishing peace in Côte d’Ivoire.

With no justice after the 2002-2003 armed conflict, key political and military leaders on both sides of the politico-military divide, some of whom had overseen serious crimes, remained in command positions as Côte d’Ivoire moved toward the 2010 presidential elections. The aftermath of the elections, which pitted Laurent Gbagbo against his longtime rival, Alassane Ouattara, would again expose the country’s deep political and ethnic fissures and the consequence of longstanding impunity.

Post-Election Violence, November 2010-May 2011

After five years of postponing presidential elections, Ivorians went to the polls on November 28, 2010 to vote in a run-off between incumbent President Gbagbo and former Prime Minister Ouattara. After the Independent Electoral Commission announced Ouattara the winner with 54.1 percent of the vote—a result certified by the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI)—Gbagbo refused to step down. [17] Five months of violence followed, in which at least 3,000 civilians were killed and more than 150 women raped, often in attacks perpetrated along political, ethnic, and religious lines.

During the first three months of the post-election crisis, the vast majority of abuses were carried out by security forces and militia groups under Gbagbo’s command. Elite security force units closely linked to Gbagbo abducted neighborhood political leaders from Ouattara’s coalition, dragging them away from restaurants or out of their homes into waiting vehicles. Family members later found the victims’ bodies in morgues, riddled with bullets. Pro-Gbagbo militias manning informal checkpoints throughout Abidjan murdered scores of real or perceived Ouattara supporters, beating them to death with bricks, executing them by gunshot at point-blank range, or burning them alive. Women active in mobilizing voters—or who merely wore pro-Ouattara t-shirts—were targeted and often gang raped by armed forces and pro-Gbagbo militia groups. [18]

As international pressure increased on Gbagbo to step down, the violence intensified. The Gbagbo government-controlled state television station, Radiodiffusion Télévision Ivoirienne (RTI), incited violence against pro-Ouattara groups and exhorted followers to set up roadblocks and “denounce all foreigners.” [19] Hundreds of northern Ivorians and West African immigrants were killed in Abidjan and western Côte d’Ivoire between February and April, sometimes solely on the basis of their name or dress. Mosques and Muslim religious leaders were likewise targeted. Among the worst incidents, Gbagbo’s security forces opened fire on women carrying out a peaceful march and launched mortars into heavily populated Abidjan neighborhoods, killing dozens. [20]

Pro-Ouattara forces launched a military offensive in March 2011 to take control of the country and, as the crisis shifted to full-scale armed conflict, they were likewise implicated in atrocities. President Ouattara signed a decree on March 17, 2011 creating the Republican Forces of Côte d’Ivoire (Forces Républicaines de Côte d’Ivoire, FRCI), comprised primarily at the time of members of the former Forces Nouvelles rebel group. In village after village in western Côte d’Ivoire, particularly between Toulepleu and Guiglo, members of the Republican Forces killed civilians from pro-Gbagbo ethnic groups, including elderly people who were unable to flee; raped women; and burned villages to the ground. In Duékoué, pro-Ouattara forces massacred several hundred people, pulling unarmed men they alleged to be pro-Gbagbo militia members out of their homes and executing them.[21]

Later, during the military campaign to take over and consolidate control of Abidjan, the Republican Forces again executed scores of men from ethnic groups aligned to Gbagbo—at times in detention sites—and tortured others. [22]

By conflict’s end in May 2011, both sides had committed war crimes and likely crimes against humanity, as documented by a UN-mandated international commission of inquiry and human rights organizations. [23] In August 2012 a National Commission of Inquiry created by President Ouattara published a report likewise documenting hundreds of summary executions and other crimes by both sides’ armed forces. [24]

Although the scale of serious human rights abuses has decreased since the end of the post-election conflict, the Republican Forces have continued to engage in arbitrary arrests and detention, extortion, inhuman treatment, and, in some cases, torture, through at least September 2012. [25]