On Wednesday 4 May 2011, after weeks of fighting, Yopougon district -- Abidjan's last pro-Gbagbo stronghold -- fell to Alassane Ouattara's Republican Forces of Ivory Coast (FRCI) .
It appears however, that the FRCI may have perpetrated a massacre in Yopougon at a Baptist Church which has been sheltering more than 2,500 refugees. The UN is investigating.
Background: Ivory Coast's churches filling up -- with refugees
By Elizabeth Kendal, for Religious Liberty Monitoring, 24 April 2011,
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports: "On 3 May, the Baptist Church where 2500 Internally Displaced Persons [IDPs] have sought refuge in Yopougon neighbourhood was attacked by armed men [reportedly FRCI]. 54 persons were said to have been taken away toward the Shell petrol station not far from Institute of the Blind in Yopougon. Thev[church's] offices including emergency medicines supplied to MSF [Doctors without Borders] were looted.
The OCHA was able to report that: "2500 IDPs currently sheltered at the Baptist Church in Yopougon are being assisted by MSF CH and UNICEF with medical treatment, medicines, child delivery kits, antibiotics and water treatment tablets kits, emergency medicines, antibiotics and water treatment tablets."
The OCHA report also notes that the 27,000 refugees still holed up in the Catholic mission in Duékoué have finally received food from the WFP (World Food Program) after a delay of two weeks. However, the 895 refugees currently staying at the UEESO (Fellowship of Evangelical Churches) church in Duékoué have not received WFP food assistance since the end of March. Fortunately the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has been able to distribute 750 kg of rice, 10 cartons of sardines, 68 litres of cooking oil, and 5 kg of salt to the UEESO church.
According to the OCHA report, refugees sheltering in St. Bernard's Church Abidjan face eviction "this week" (i.e. first week of May); but the report does not say who is evicting them or why.
Clearly the humanitarian and security situation for Ivory Coast's Christian remains dire.
VICTOR'S JUSTICE
In Abidjan on Friday 6 May, Alassane Ouattara was sworn in as President of Ivory Coast.
Meanwhile, deposed president Laurent Gbagbo is being held under house arrest in the far-northern town of Korhogo nearly 600 kilometres (370 miles) due north of Abidjan. His wife, Simone, is being detained at a separate location, in Odienné in the far northwest.
Also on Friday 6 May, two prominent Paris-based lawyers -- Jacques Verges and Marcel Ceccaldi -- arrived to represent Laurent Gbagbo at his hearing in the northern city of Korhogo. They did not get far however, as they were forced to return to France after their visas were refused at Abidjan airport. A third lawyer, the Franco-Cameroonian lawyer Lucie Bourthoumieux, was able to pass through passport control as she had rights of residency. However, she elected to return to Paris with her colleagues. According to the statement issued by Paris law firm Bourthoumieux on behalf of the three lawyers, "The three lawyers were turned away in circumstances that resembled a trap."
Jacques Verges regards this as evidence that the authorities in Ivory Coast did not want the former president to receive a proper defence. "I am very pessimistic about the future of a regime which treats lawyers in such a way," he said.
Marcel Ceccaldi added: "If Laurent Gbagbo does not want to be heard without the presence of his lawyers, there cannot be any hearing according to Ivorian law."
See: Gbagbo grilled over Ivory Coast unrest, 6 May 2011
On Saturday 7 May, Ivory Coast's state prosecutor, Simplice Kouadio Koffi, began the formal questioning of Gbagbo, despite the absence of his lawyers.
"Laurent Gbagbo has been questioned in the presence of his personal doctor," Koffi told AFP. "I will travel to Odienné Sunday to begin questioning Simone Gbagbo," he added.
"So this is why they wanted to stop us coming," French lawyer Marcel Ceccaldi said Saturday from Paris. "On the one hand, they announce they are setting up a Truth and Reconciliation Committee and on the other they start proceedings against the president. That is going to accentuate the faultlines inside the country." (AFP)
Ceccaldi plans to take up the matter with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
Meanwhile, Marie-Antoinette Singleton -- Laurent and Simone Gbagbo's US-based lawyer-daughter -- is concerned that her parents have been "kidnapped as war booty, without any legal mandate". She has written a letter to French president Nicolas Sarkozy in which she laments that her family has had no news of her parents and Alassane Ouattara has not responded to her request to be allowed to visit her father.
None of this should not surprise anyone, as the stated goal of Ouattara's rebellion was always control of Ivory Coast, not justice. Guillaume Soro, former leader of the northern rebel forces Forces Nouvelles (New Forces), now Prime Minister of Ivory Coast, was quite unambiguous in May 2004 when he declared the rebels' intentions: "Why should we content ourselves with Bouake? We want all of Ivory Coast!"
See: Cote d'Ivoire: "We want all of Ivory Coast" (rebels).
By Elizabeth Kendal for WEA RLC, Friday 11 June 2004
MBEKI SPEAKSIn an article entitled, What the World Got Wrong in Cote D'Ivoire, published in Foreign Policy magazine on 29 April 2011, Thabo Mbeki asks the most important question of all: "Why is the United Nations entrenching former colonial powers on our continent?"
Mbeki's article is an immensely important one for anyone who still needs convincing that only things ignoble -- such as betrayal, megalomania, greed and abuse of power -- lay behind the profound crisis gripping Ivory Coast; a crisis that will not easily be resolved.
Mbeki wonders why the "international community" (i.e. the UN and the West) insisted that Ivory Coast hold presidential elections when the conditions simply did not exist to conduct free and fair polling. According to signed agreements, the country should first have been unified and the rebels disarmed. Neither of these conditions had been met. Despite concerns, Gbagbo was pressured into holding elections that could never have been free and fair (particularly in the rebel-held north) and could only ever have consolidated the crisis.
As Mbeki notes, the very people who were insisting on rule of law as fundamental to democracy, acted illegally to recognise the electoral commission's provisional results, despite the fact that the Constitutional Council, which had been investigation numerous election irregularities (mostly in the rebel-controlled north), is the only body constitutionally empowered to announce results.
Mbeki notes that as both Gbagbo and Ouattara laid claim to the presidency, Gbagbo proposed that in order to resolve the matter, an international commission should be established to verify the election results, with the important pre-condition that both he and Ouattara should accept the determination of the commission.
"This proposal was rejected by the international community," laments Mbeki, "despite the fact that it would have resolved the electoral dispute without resort to war . . .
". . . Clearly the independent international commission proposed by Laurent Gbagbo could have been established and empowered to make a definitive and binding determination about what had happened. Time will tell why this was not done!"
Furthermore, notes Mbeki, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General then chose to "exceed his mandate" and declare Ouattara the winner, making the UN Mission in Ivory Coast (UNOCI) "a partisan in the Ivorian conflict, rather than a neutral peacemaker". From that point, the UN, along with France, militarily intervened to open the way for the northern rebels (the Forces Nouvelles) to defeat the Ivorian Armed Forces and capture Laurent Gbagbo "under the shameless pretence that it was acting to protect civilians".
Mbeki deplores France's Françafrique policies, with which the neo-colonial power advances its own interests at Francophone Africa's expense.
He notes that President Gbagbo had no possibility to act on his own to reunify the country and achieve reconciliation amongst the peoples. (In this regard it is important to remember that when Pres. Gbagbo did attempt to reunify the country in Nov 2004, France intervened to prevent it.) Mbeki asserts that President Ouattara will not be able to realise those objectives either, outside of an honest agreement with the Ivorian population represented by Gbagbo.
Mbeki also quotes US ambassador in Ivory Coast, Wanda L. Nebsit, who, in July 2009, expressed concerns about the role being played by Blaise Compaore, the president of neighbouring Burkina Faso.
Finally, Mbeki concludes that the events in Ivory Coast have "exposed the reality of the balance and abuse of power in the post-Cold War era, and put paid to the fiction that the major powers respect the rule of law in the conduct of international relations, even as defined by the U.N. Charter, and that, as democrats, they respect the views of the peoples of the world.
"We can only hope that Laurent and Simone Gbagbo and the Ivorian people do not continue to suffer as abused and humiliated victims of a global system which, in its interests, while shouting loudly about universal human rights, only seeks to perpetuate the domination of the many by the few who dispose of preponderant political, economic, military and media power."
What the World Got Wrong in Cote D'Ivoire
By Thabo Mbeki,
Foreign Policy, 29 April 2011
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Ivory Coast: churches filling up -- with refugees.
While Ivory Coast seems to have disappeared out of the news, the situation for Christians remains absolutely dire.
Here are just a few articles that describe something of what Christians are facing in the new Françafrique Côte d'Ivoire.
Abidjan
On 8 April, the BBC reported that some 1,800 people were holed up inside Abidjan's St Paul's Cathedral.
Father Augustin Obrou, spokesman for the archdiocese of Abidjan, described the situation inside:
"There are almost 1,800 people here, among them women and children who live locally, civil servants and employees who have been unable to return home because of the violence and have nowhere else to go.
"We've had no running water for a week now, and we have babies here, as well as people who have been shot and pregnant women. . . But we are not alone in this situation - other local churches have a similar number of refugees.
"People can't leave because there is no transport. Even if you have a car you are afraid of being shot at, and if you go on foot you can also get attacked. Also people can't be sure that their houses haven't been looted, and many neighbourhoods are too dangerous right now. Generally people are traumatised, so they don't speak much . . .
". . . we are coping by digging water out with long pipes, but it's difficult and people come to fill their buckets from the only pipe working. Those who came with food eat, and those who are from this area rush out and look for whatever food they can get and rush back to the cathedral. And as priests we share, but we only eat the bare minimum to survive.
"It's a very difficult humanitarian situation.
"The other problem is that we have no medicines, and many are unwell, but we can only watch them suffer."
Here is how Daniel Howden, in Abidjan for The Independent, reported the situation on 14 April (nearly one week later).
"Abidjan's cathedral rises like a white harp from the hillside above the city's lagoon. While fighting raged all around it for the past fortnight in the Plateau district more than 2,400 people sheltered inside.
"Now the war is supposed to be over but most of the refugees have chosen to remain. There has been no water for two weeks and almost no food either. Wounded people lie untreated and the old and sick are without medicine.
"Father Jean Baptiste Akwadan is surprised that there hasn't been more help: 'There's been nothing from the government or international agencies,' he says. . .
"Agnes Yaba, a young woman from the war-torn neighbourhood of Abobo, gave birth among the Cathedral pews two days ago. She named her new son Paul, and he now faces an uncertain future."
San Pedro
As mentioned in the previous post A Cry from Abidjan, some 5,000 residents of the southern port city of San Pedro -- Bete, Guere and other tribes that support Gbagbo -- having escaped pro-Ouattara militias, had taken refuge in the Cathedral of St Pierre.
Meanwhile in Duékoué
Some 27,000 ethnic Guéré (a western tribe that supports Laurent Gbagbo and is predominantly Christian) remain holed up the Catholic mission in Duékoué. According to Father Cyprien Ahouré, head of the mission, the mission desperately needs assistance, for they are only really capable of caring for about 1,000 people.
These people survived the 28-29 March ethnic-religious cleansing by pro-Ouattara ethnic Malinké and Baoulé Muslim militias -- a pogrom in which an estimate 800 civilians were slaughtered. Now however, their children are dying of diarrhoea and other treatable diseases while a cholera outbreak looms. And as if things could not get worse, it is simply too dangerous to leave the compound to bury the dead. Women with shaved heads are everywhere.
COTE D'IVOIRE: Mourning and fear in Duékoué
IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) a service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Reporting from DUEKOUE, 15 April 2011.
Bah Bonao Sidonie's (41) one-year-old grandson recently died at the mission after a short bout of diarrhoea. IRIN reports: "Bah had already shaved her head when her grandson died. Three of her brothers had also been killed in Duékoué’s Carréfour neighbourhood in March 'when the soldiers [anti-Gbagbo forces] came'. She buried the child herself, alone.
" 'I asked people living here at the mission, as well as the blue helmets, to accompany me to bury my grandson, but I went hours without getting any help,' she told IRIN. 'The youth here at the mission risk being attacked by the Dioula [Malinké] so they can’t go out. I put the child’s body on my back and walked to [the cemetery near] Carréfour; only God accompanied me. I prayed to God to protect me,' she added. 'I dug a hole with a `daba’ [traditional hoe], buried the child, said a prayer and came back.'"
A report from the UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR, tells of the plight of other survivors who, after escaping pro-Ouattara militias, fled towards the Liberian border.
Alarming IDP conditions in western Côte d'Ivoire; reconciliation needed
Briefing Notes, 15 April 2011
"In western Côte d'Ivoire, and with the security situation apparently calming, our staff are reporting large groups of internally displaced people (IDPs) living in alarming humanitarian conditions. . .
". . . a UNHCR team recently visited the department of Zouhan-Hounien and one of its sub-prefectures, Bin Houye, near the border with Liberia, They met more than 1,000 displaced people mainly originating from Guiglo, Blolequin and Toulepleu [towns also attacked by pro-Ouattara militias]. Some were staying on the premises of a Catholic church and the Ivorian Red Cross in Zouhan-Hounien. . .
"Meanwhile, nearly 6,000 Ivorians have crossed into neighbouring Liberia's Grand Gedeh county since Monday. As supporters of former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, these ethnic Guéré refugees – who had been waiting on the border for weeks – said they crossed into Liberia by foot following news of Gbagbo's arrest and reports of reprisal [read: ethnic-religious] attacks in Abidjan. Some arrived in Liberia malnourished. . .
"With this week's new influx, there are now more than 150,000 Ivorian refugees in Liberia, in addition to over 13,000 hosted in other West African countries.
Here are just a few articles that describe something of what Christians are facing in the new Françafrique Côte d'Ivoire.
Abidjan
On 8 April, the BBC reported that some 1,800 people were holed up inside Abidjan's St Paul's Cathedral.
Father Augustin Obrou, spokesman for the archdiocese of Abidjan, described the situation inside:
"There are almost 1,800 people here, among them women and children who live locally, civil servants and employees who have been unable to return home because of the violence and have nowhere else to go.
"We've had no running water for a week now, and we have babies here, as well as people who have been shot and pregnant women. . . But we are not alone in this situation - other local churches have a similar number of refugees.
"People can't leave because there is no transport. Even if you have a car you are afraid of being shot at, and if you go on foot you can also get attacked. Also people can't be sure that their houses haven't been looted, and many neighbourhoods are too dangerous right now. Generally people are traumatised, so they don't speak much . . .
". . . we are coping by digging water out with long pipes, but it's difficult and people come to fill their buckets from the only pipe working. Those who came with food eat, and those who are from this area rush out and look for whatever food they can get and rush back to the cathedral. And as priests we share, but we only eat the bare minimum to survive.
"It's a very difficult humanitarian situation.
"The other problem is that we have no medicines, and many are unwell, but we can only watch them suffer."
Here is how Daniel Howden, in Abidjan for The Independent, reported the situation on 14 April (nearly one week later).
"Abidjan's cathedral rises like a white harp from the hillside above the city's lagoon. While fighting raged all around it for the past fortnight in the Plateau district more than 2,400 people sheltered inside.
"Now the war is supposed to be over but most of the refugees have chosen to remain. There has been no water for two weeks and almost no food either. Wounded people lie untreated and the old and sick are without medicine.
"Father Jean Baptiste Akwadan is surprised that there hasn't been more help: 'There's been nothing from the government or international agencies,' he says. . .
"Agnes Yaba, a young woman from the war-torn neighbourhood of Abobo, gave birth among the Cathedral pews two days ago. She named her new son Paul, and he now faces an uncertain future."
San Pedro
As mentioned in the previous post A Cry from Abidjan, some 5,000 residents of the southern port city of San Pedro -- Bete, Guere and other tribes that support Gbagbo -- having escaped pro-Ouattara militias, had taken refuge in the Cathedral of St Pierre.
Meanwhile in Duékoué
Some 27,000 ethnic Guéré (a western tribe that supports Laurent Gbagbo and is predominantly Christian) remain holed up the Catholic mission in Duékoué. According to Father Cyprien Ahouré, head of the mission, the mission desperately needs assistance, for they are only really capable of caring for about 1,000 people.
These people survived the 28-29 March ethnic-religious cleansing by pro-Ouattara ethnic Malinké and Baoulé Muslim militias -- a pogrom in which an estimate 800 civilians were slaughtered. Now however, their children are dying of diarrhoea and other treatable diseases while a cholera outbreak looms. And as if things could not get worse, it is simply too dangerous to leave the compound to bury the dead. Women with shaved heads are everywhere.
COTE D'IVOIRE: Mourning and fear in Duékoué
IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) a service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Reporting from DUEKOUE, 15 April 2011.
Bah Bonao Sidonie's (41) one-year-old grandson recently died at the mission after a short bout of diarrhoea. IRIN reports: "Bah had already shaved her head when her grandson died. Three of her brothers had also been killed in Duékoué’s Carréfour neighbourhood in March 'when the soldiers [anti-Gbagbo forces] came'. She buried the child herself, alone.
" 'I asked people living here at the mission, as well as the blue helmets, to accompany me to bury my grandson, but I went hours without getting any help,' she told IRIN. 'The youth here at the mission risk being attacked by the Dioula [Malinké] so they can’t go out. I put the child’s body on my back and walked to [the cemetery near] Carréfour; only God accompanied me. I prayed to God to protect me,' she added. 'I dug a hole with a `daba’ [traditional hoe], buried the child, said a prayer and came back.'"
A report from the UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR, tells of the plight of other survivors who, after escaping pro-Ouattara militias, fled towards the Liberian border.
Alarming IDP conditions in western Côte d'Ivoire; reconciliation needed
Briefing Notes, 15 April 2011
"In western Côte d'Ivoire, and with the security situation apparently calming, our staff are reporting large groups of internally displaced people (IDPs) living in alarming humanitarian conditions. . .
". . . a UNHCR team recently visited the department of Zouhan-Hounien and one of its sub-prefectures, Bin Houye, near the border with Liberia, They met more than 1,000 displaced people mainly originating from Guiglo, Blolequin and Toulepleu [towns also attacked by pro-Ouattara militias]. Some were staying on the premises of a Catholic church and the Ivorian Red Cross in Zouhan-Hounien. . .
"Meanwhile, nearly 6,000 Ivorians have crossed into neighbouring Liberia's Grand Gedeh county since Monday. As supporters of former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, these ethnic Guéré refugees – who had been waiting on the border for weeks – said they crossed into Liberia by foot following news of Gbagbo's arrest and reports of reprisal [read: ethnic-religious] attacks in Abidjan. Some arrived in Liberia malnourished. . .
"With this week's new influx, there are now more than 150,000 Ivorian refugees in Liberia, in addition to over 13,000 hosted in other West African countries.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
A CRY FROM ABIDJAN -- Christians imperilled
A cry emerges from Abidjan. A cry of desperation, it emerges only to be suffocated by the din of Western media celebrating the restoration of "democracy" and the return of "normalcy".
A CRY FROM ABIDJAN
-- from a Christian family trapped in Abidjan
"We living in great penury and fear to be looted or even killed like hundreds or even thousands of families in Abidjan. What is going on is beyond imagination: a pure genocide is currently performed right in the eyes of the French and UN troops and the international humanitarian NGO's, targeting entire ethnic groups, as well as a category of people based on their political affiliation or work. Whosoever is suspected to be from the Dan, Wê, Bété (Gbagbo's tribe), Akyé, Abbey, Ebrié -- basically all the western and southern tribes -- is targeted. Militaries, policemen, customs, all men in arms are tracked and killed, along with their families. In some extreme cases, people are killed only because they are not from the north and not Muslims."
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CHRISTIANS IMPERILLED
Before Laurent Gbagbo was captured -- Amnesty International published this warning:
Côte d’Ivoire: Warning of ‘human rights catastrophe’ as forces reach Abidjan
Amnesty International 31 March 2011
"Côte d’Ivoire civilians are at immediate risk of massive human rights violations Amnesty International warned today, as forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara reach the country’s commercial capital Abidjan. [. . .]
"Local sources have told Amnesty International’s delegation currently in Côte d’Ivoire that dead bodies are still lying in the streets of Duékoué [in western Ivory Coast], and tens of thousands of civilians are still sheltering in the Catholic Mission without adequate food, water, sanitation and medical care."
[NOTE: the massacre in Duékoué of around 1000 civilians by pro-Ouattara forces on 28-29 March, occurred in the presence of some 1000 Moroccan U.N. peacekeepers. In its defence, the U.N. has said the majority of the force was deployed around the Catholic mission, defending some 30,000 civilians who had sought refuge there. See report from Salesian Missions official news service. ]
Amnesty continues: "On 29 March, the Republican Forces killed civilian Jean Louana, election campaign director of one of the current ministers appointed by Laurent Gbagbo. They also shot down a Pastor of an evangelical church along with eight members of his congregation."
Quite rightly, Amnesty's report lists abuses from both sides. However, like virtually all Western media it insists on referring to the ethnic massacres perpetrated by pro-Ouattara forces (Republican Forces) as reprisal attacks. This is incongruous considering the fact that the pro-Ouattara forces are the aggressors, the invading forces.
The day after regime change was effected, Amnesty International released this plea:
Reprisal attacks against Gbagbo supporters in Côte d'Ivoire must stop
Amnesty International 12 April 2011
"Perceived supporters of former Côte d'Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo are at risk of violent reprisals, despite President Alassane Outtara’s call for Ivorians to 'abstain from all forms of reprisals and violence', Amnesty International warned today.
"Today in Abidjan, armed men, some wearing military uniforms, have been conducting house-to-house searches in neighbourhoods where real or perceived supporters of Laurent Gbagbo are living, including Yopougon and Koumassi.
"One eyewitness told Amnesty International how a policeman belonging to Laurent Gbagbo’s ethnic group was taken from his house this morning and shot dead at point blank range in front of him.
"'Dozens of young people are going into hiding in Abidjan out of fear for their lives. In the western part of the country people suspected of being pro-Gbagbo are also terrified. Many are hiding in the bush after their villages were burned down and they need to be protected,' said Véronique Aubert, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Africa.
"Amnesty International has learned that the village of Zikisso, 300 km west of Abidjan, has been attacked several times, including last Sunday, by armed forces allegedly loyal to President Alassane Ouattara. The village chief, Gnagbo Matthias, was abducted by these forces on Monday and is reportedly being held in the town of Lakota.
"Humanitarian conditions are rapidly deteriorating in a Catholic mission in Duékoué, 600 km west of Abidjan, where 27,500 people took refuge after hundreds of people were killed on the basis of their ethnic origin or presumed political affiliation. . . "
An independent report from the Associated Press (AP) also confirms that ethnic-religious-political killings are taking place in the south and western regions.
Reprisals rock Ivory Coast after strongman deposed
AP 13 April 2011
"GUIGLO, Ivory Coast (AP) — The young man in civilian clothes didn't have the right answers for troops loyal to Alassane Ouattara and they suspected he was a fighter backing his rival for the presidency. So one of the soldiers kicked the man in the teeth.
"Fifteen minutes later, an Associated Press reporter saw his body, the chest torn open by bullets, dumped outside this western town.
"Reprisal killings erupted as Ouattara's fighters made a lightning assault to force his rival Laurent Gbagbo from power. And although Gbagbo was captured Monday in Abidjan, Ivory Coast's commercial capital, suspected Gbagbo supporters are still being rounded up in cities and villages, especially in western Ivory Coast.
"Parishioners are reporting the kidnappings of dozens of young men in San Pedro, said a Catholic priest in the cocoa-exporting port city in southwestern Ivory Coast. He asked not to be named, explaining: 'We are all in danger'. . ."
AP reports that some 5,000 ethnic Bété and Guere refugees (predominantly Christian tribes loyal to Gbagbo) are holed up in San Pedro's Cathedral of St. Pierre, surrounded by pro-Ouattara forces who recently shot open the gate and fired into the crowd, killing one and wounding several.
"A woman at the cathedral who was too scared to give her name said her neighbor, the headmaster of the Catholic primary school, was killed Monday night at his home because he belonged the wrong tribe.
"'We have a very toxic and explosive mix here of political, ethnic, religious and land rivalry,' the priest said. 'The recent tumultuous events have brought long-simmering conflicts to a head. Who knows where this will end'."
See also:
COTE D'IVOIRE: Accounting for atrocities
IRIN 14 April 2011
A quote concerning Abidjan: "Kouamassi, south of the lagoon, and Yopougon, one of the most densely populated parts of the city, with strong pockets of support for Gbagbo, have remained tense. Residents in these areas have talked of man hunts and executions, of incoming troops targeting Gbagbo supporters, with the young particularly vulnerable. They paint a damning picture of the operations and general behaviour of the Forces Républicaines de Côte d’Ivoire (FRCI), troops loyal to President Alassane Ouattara. . ."
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NOT ALL AFRICA CELEBRATING
----------------------------------------
GHANA's former President, Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings, has described the arrest of Cote d’Ivoire’s President Laurent Gbagbo as a repetition of the tragedy of DR Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, who was popularly elected in 1960 on a platform of independence and resistance to neo-colonialism only to be assassinated in 1961 in the service of Western interests.
Rawlings laments: “Fifty years down the road, with Africa still groping for freedom and justice, Black Africa repeats the tragedy of Patrice Lumumba, while next door fellow Arabs are fighting and dying for their freedoms. Whither are we bound?”
(see: Patrice Lumumba: the most important assassination of the 20th century
Guardian, 17 Jan 2011 (50th anniversary of assassination))
Mr Rawling was scathing concerning the humiliation and "violent manhandling" that accompanied the arrest of Laurent Gbagbo, his wife, and family.
He also expressed grave concern over the verifiable reports that the rebels were conducting house-to-house "cleansing" operations in Abidjan, wherein men have been executed and women and young girls abducted.
Rawlings told myjoyonline.com that “Reports by the Red Cross and other international organisations of the massacre of 800 in Duekoue by the advancing rebel forces and the failure to lay the blame where it belongs by the international community further exposes biases in the Ivorian crises.”
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FINALLY: All Elizabeth Kendal's work on Ivory Coast dating back to the Sept 2002 coup, have now been uploaded to the blog.
http://elizabethkendal.blogspot.com/search/label/Cote%20d%27Ivoire
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A CRY FROM ABIDJAN
-- from a Christian family trapped in Abidjan
"We living in great penury and fear to be looted or even killed like hundreds or even thousands of families in Abidjan. What is going on is beyond imagination: a pure genocide is currently performed right in the eyes of the French and UN troops and the international humanitarian NGO's, targeting entire ethnic groups, as well as a category of people based on their political affiliation or work. Whosoever is suspected to be from the Dan, Wê, Bété (Gbagbo's tribe), Akyé, Abbey, Ebrié -- basically all the western and southern tribes -- is targeted. Militaries, policemen, customs, all men in arms are tracked and killed, along with their families. In some extreme cases, people are killed only because they are not from the north and not Muslims."
------------------------------------------
CHRISTIANS IMPERILLED
Before Laurent Gbagbo was captured -- Amnesty International published this warning:
Côte d’Ivoire: Warning of ‘human rights catastrophe’ as forces reach Abidjan
Amnesty International 31 March 2011
"Côte d’Ivoire civilians are at immediate risk of massive human rights violations Amnesty International warned today, as forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara reach the country’s commercial capital Abidjan. [. . .]
"Local sources have told Amnesty International’s delegation currently in Côte d’Ivoire that dead bodies are still lying in the streets of Duékoué [in western Ivory Coast], and tens of thousands of civilians are still sheltering in the Catholic Mission without adequate food, water, sanitation and medical care."
[NOTE: the massacre in Duékoué of around 1000 civilians by pro-Ouattara forces on 28-29 March, occurred in the presence of some 1000 Moroccan U.N. peacekeepers. In its defence, the U.N. has said the majority of the force was deployed around the Catholic mission, defending some 30,000 civilians who had sought refuge there. See report from Salesian Missions official news service. ]
Amnesty continues: "On 29 March, the Republican Forces killed civilian Jean Louana, election campaign director of one of the current ministers appointed by Laurent Gbagbo. They also shot down a Pastor of an evangelical church along with eight members of his congregation."
Quite rightly, Amnesty's report lists abuses from both sides. However, like virtually all Western media it insists on referring to the ethnic massacres perpetrated by pro-Ouattara forces (Republican Forces) as reprisal attacks. This is incongruous considering the fact that the pro-Ouattara forces are the aggressors, the invading forces.
The day after regime change was effected, Amnesty International released this plea:
Reprisal attacks against Gbagbo supporters in Côte d'Ivoire must stop
Amnesty International 12 April 2011
"Perceived supporters of former Côte d'Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo are at risk of violent reprisals, despite President Alassane Outtara’s call for Ivorians to 'abstain from all forms of reprisals and violence', Amnesty International warned today.
"Today in Abidjan, armed men, some wearing military uniforms, have been conducting house-to-house searches in neighbourhoods where real or perceived supporters of Laurent Gbagbo are living, including Yopougon and Koumassi.
"One eyewitness told Amnesty International how a policeman belonging to Laurent Gbagbo’s ethnic group was taken from his house this morning and shot dead at point blank range in front of him.
"'Dozens of young people are going into hiding in Abidjan out of fear for their lives. In the western part of the country people suspected of being pro-Gbagbo are also terrified. Many are hiding in the bush after their villages were burned down and they need to be protected,' said Véronique Aubert, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Africa.
"Amnesty International has learned that the village of Zikisso, 300 km west of Abidjan, has been attacked several times, including last Sunday, by armed forces allegedly loyal to President Alassane Ouattara. The village chief, Gnagbo Matthias, was abducted by these forces on Monday and is reportedly being held in the town of Lakota.
"Humanitarian conditions are rapidly deteriorating in a Catholic mission in Duékoué, 600 km west of Abidjan, where 27,500 people took refuge after hundreds of people were killed on the basis of their ethnic origin or presumed political affiliation. . . "
An independent report from the Associated Press (AP) also confirms that ethnic-religious-political killings are taking place in the south and western regions.
Reprisals rock Ivory Coast after strongman deposed
AP 13 April 2011
"GUIGLO, Ivory Coast (AP) — The young man in civilian clothes didn't have the right answers for troops loyal to Alassane Ouattara and they suspected he was a fighter backing his rival for the presidency. So one of the soldiers kicked the man in the teeth.
"Fifteen minutes later, an Associated Press reporter saw his body, the chest torn open by bullets, dumped outside this western town.
"Reprisal killings erupted as Ouattara's fighters made a lightning assault to force his rival Laurent Gbagbo from power. And although Gbagbo was captured Monday in Abidjan, Ivory Coast's commercial capital, suspected Gbagbo supporters are still being rounded up in cities and villages, especially in western Ivory Coast.
"Parishioners are reporting the kidnappings of dozens of young men in San Pedro, said a Catholic priest in the cocoa-exporting port city in southwestern Ivory Coast. He asked not to be named, explaining: 'We are all in danger'. . ."
AP reports that some 5,000 ethnic Bété and Guere refugees (predominantly Christian tribes loyal to Gbagbo) are holed up in San Pedro's Cathedral of St. Pierre, surrounded by pro-Ouattara forces who recently shot open the gate and fired into the crowd, killing one and wounding several.
"A woman at the cathedral who was too scared to give her name said her neighbor, the headmaster of the Catholic primary school, was killed Monday night at his home because he belonged the wrong tribe.
"'We have a very toxic and explosive mix here of political, ethnic, religious and land rivalry,' the priest said. 'The recent tumultuous events have brought long-simmering conflicts to a head. Who knows where this will end'."
See also:
COTE D'IVOIRE: Accounting for atrocities
IRIN 14 April 2011
A quote concerning Abidjan: "Kouamassi, south of the lagoon, and Yopougon, one of the most densely populated parts of the city, with strong pockets of support for Gbagbo, have remained tense. Residents in these areas have talked of man hunts and executions, of incoming troops targeting Gbagbo supporters, with the young particularly vulnerable. They paint a damning picture of the operations and general behaviour of the Forces Républicaines de Côte d’Ivoire (FRCI), troops loyal to President Alassane Ouattara. . ."
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NOT ALL AFRICA CELEBRATING
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GHANA's former President, Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings, has described the arrest of Cote d’Ivoire’s President Laurent Gbagbo as a repetition of the tragedy of DR Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, who was popularly elected in 1960 on a platform of independence and resistance to neo-colonialism only to be assassinated in 1961 in the service of Western interests.
Rawlings laments: “Fifty years down the road, with Africa still groping for freedom and justice, Black Africa repeats the tragedy of Patrice Lumumba, while next door fellow Arabs are fighting and dying for their freedoms. Whither are we bound?”
(see: Patrice Lumumba: the most important assassination of the 20th century
Guardian, 17 Jan 2011 (50th anniversary of assassination))
Mr Rawling was scathing concerning the humiliation and "violent manhandling" that accompanied the arrest of Laurent Gbagbo, his wife, and family.
He also expressed grave concern over the verifiable reports that the rebels were conducting house-to-house "cleansing" operations in Abidjan, wherein men have been executed and women and young girls abducted.
Rawlings told myjoyonline.com that “Reports by the Red Cross and other international organisations of the massacre of 800 in Duekoue by the advancing rebel forces and the failure to lay the blame where it belongs by the international community further exposes biases in the Ivorian crises.”
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FINALLY: All Elizabeth Kendal's work on Ivory Coast dating back to the Sept 2002 coup, have now been uploaded to the blog.
http://elizabethkendal.blogspot.com/search/label/Cote%20d%27Ivoire
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