(New York) - Côte d’Ivoire’s government security forces, allied militias, and the north-based rebels alike routinely harass, intimidate, and even execute civilians as the country’s political stalemate bolsters impunity, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.
Fearful of undermining peace initiatives, African Union negotiators and the U.N. Security Council have been reluctant to impose U.N.-approved economic and travel sanctions on individuals implicated in serious rights abuses, or to push for measures to hold abusers accountable.
“The strategy of putting justice on hold for an elusive peace settlement has emboldened human rights abusers on both sides of the conflict,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division at Human Rights Watch. “This approach has fueled a pervasive culture of impunity that has led to ever-increasing acts of violence against civilians.”
The 40-page report, "Côte d’Ivoire: The Human Rights Cost of the Political Impasse,” documents recent trends in human rights violations committed by both government and rebel forces. The report also describes how the stalemate has wrought an unrelenting deterioration in healthcare, public education, and water and sanitation, especially in the rebel-held north.
Human Rights Watch found that in government-controlled areas, the police and army often prey on the civilians they are entrusted to protect, while the judicial system offers little legal recourse. Security forces in charge of checkpoints regularly abuse their power by extorting and robbing civilians. According to credible accounts, they have committed numerous extrajudicial executions, mostly under the guise of fighting crime.
Government security forces and their associated militias regularly infringe upon freedom of expression, association, and assembly by harassing, intimidating, and often terrorizing those perceived to be “enemies of the state.” Journalists, opposition party members, students, human rights activists, and people from other West African countries are those most frequently targeted.
In the north, members of the New Forces rebels routinely exploit their power to systematically extort and rob civilians at military checkpoints and in the towns and villages under their control. New Forces rebels arbitrarily detain and sometimes execute individuals suspected of working as government infiltrators. The New Forces have not established functioning governance institutions in the territory that they control, and instead rule by threat, intimidation, or outright use of force against civilians.
The Ivorian government has failed to hold perpetrators of recent human rights violations accountable, let alone bring to justice those responsible for atrocities committed since the military coup of 1999. The New Forces leadership has not punished perpetrators of crimes who are within its ranks, nor has it set up any real legal system in the areas under its control.
“The United Nations and the African Union should address the human cost of allowing impunity to flourish in Côte d’Ivoire,” said Takirambudde.
Human Rights Watch called on the U.N. Security Council to make public the U.N. Commission of Inquiry’s report into violations of international human rights and humanitarian law since September 2002. The Council should also discuss recommendations in the report, which it received in December 2004.
The U.N. Sanctions Committee on Côte d’Ivoire should immediately impose economic and travel sanctions, authorized under Security Council resolution 1572 and renewed by resolution 1643 on December 15. These sanctions target individuals determined by the Committee to be responsible for serious human rights violations.
In addition, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court should promptly pursue investigation into serious international crimes committed by all sides since the armed conflict began in 2002, Human Rights Watch said.
Background
The military junta of 1999-2000 and the armed conflict between the government and northern-based rebels in 2002-2003 have been marked by atrocities on both sides, including political killings, massacres, “disappearances,” and torture. The widespread impunity from prosecution enjoyed by all armed forces, but especially by pro-government militias, has fueled ever-increasing incidents of violence against civilians. The political and social climate has become increasingly polarized and characterized by intolerance, xenophobia, and suspicion.
Efforts to resolve the conflict between the government and the New Forces rebels have rested on a string of unfulfilled peace agreements, beginning with Linas-Marcoussis brokered by the French government in January 2003, Accra III brokered by West African countries and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in July 2004, and the Pretoria Agreement brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki on behalf of the African Union in April 2005. Although these agreements have brought about and (thus far) maintained a cessation of civil war, they have not brought peace or unity to the country. Since the outbreak of armed conflict in September 2002, the country remains effectively split in two with the New Forces controlling the north and President Laurent Gbagbo’s government holding the south.
In September, the Ivorian presidential election scheduled for October 30 was cancelled. To avoid a constitutional crisis, the African Union announced—and the U.N. Security Council endorsed—a plan to allow Gbagbo to remain in power for another year until elections could be held no later than October 30, 2006.
