Syria's descent into hell, and the West's bewildering complicity.

By Elizabeth Kendal

Long one of the safest, most hospitable places for Christians in the Middle East, Syria is descending into "hell". Surely UN and Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi was right when he said at the 29 Dec 2012 talks in Moscow -- talks the Syrian opposition refused to attend -- "If the only alternative is hell or a political process, then all of us have to work continuously toward the political process". Brahimi warned that, without a political process, the situation in Syria could become similar to that in Somalia.

For prayer points see: SYRIA: descending into 'hell'
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin, 6 Feb 2013

-------------

Syria's descent into hell

Hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis, the "Arab Spring" has morphed into a Sunni Ascendency in which intolerant, totalitarian, fundamentalist Islam is rising to subjugate, if not eliminate, all moderate, secular and pluralist elements. Sunnis rejoicing at the prospect of restored hegemony are naive if they think that the Islamic terrorist elements they are leaning on will either moderate or retire once Sunni hegemony is restored. For these elements are not interested so much in Sunni hegemony as in the establishment of a talibanised Caliphate -- so they will continue fighting, eliminating all resistance, until they either achieve their goal or die trying.

Fides New Agency reports that kidnappings for ransom and intimidation are becoming endemic, especially in the ethnically and religiously mixed Kurdish and Assyrian/Syriac-dominated north-east province of Al-Hasakah [MAP] which is adjacent to Kurdish-dominated eastern Turkey and the Assyrian-homeland of Ninewa/Nineveh, northern Iraq. Fides reports (4 Feb): "In recent weeks, in the city of Hassaké [Al-Hasakah, about 220km due west of Mosul, Iraq (Syria MAP)], there were fifty kidnappings, and almost half against Christians. 'Many of them are doctors, lawyers and professionals', stresses Mgr. Hindo [Archbishop Jacques Behnan Hindo, titular of the Syrian Catholic archeparchy of Hassaké-Nisibis], 'but now the poor are beginning to be kidnapped'."

A Protestant pastor writes from Aleppo: "The people of Aleppo are living without fuel for heating homes, no gas for cooking, no water, no electricity, no medicines, no doctors, no bread, and the prices of the daily necessities are five times more." He tells of people begging for heating fuel, crying for bread and medicines and trying in vain to sell their possessions in order to buy basic necessities. He reports that extreme stress is leaving new mothers unable to produce milk for their babies, while families that have become homeless are literally starving and freezing. No longer moved by bombs and bullets, their only thought is of acquiring food. "Our Shelter and Refuge is our LORD (Psalm 91)," he writes. "HE is keeping us . . . HE is our HOPE."  He says that while most church activities are "frozen", he "thanks God that every Sunday morning, 75 - 85 people are coming to church for Worship Service," risking their lives to walk there, just so they can pray together "for the Prince of Peace to change people's hearts and minds, in order for the human being to live peacefully with God and with each other".

George Shalhoub (63) is the founder and pastor of St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church in Livonia, a western suburb of Detroit, Michigan, USA. He grew up in the Christian quarter of Hama, Syria, and recently told the Detroit Free Press that it was "an idyllic life". He notes that while the Christians were surrounded by Muslims, they were safe. "We played in their mosques, and they played in the courtyard of our church. We were safe. We visited each other, and were part of each other's lives. I never once felt discriminated against by the Muslims. It was the happiest time of my life." Today, however, there is only sectarian strife and bloodshed. 

Rev. Joseph Antypasc (65), pastor at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Troy, about 30 km north of Detroit, told the Detroit Free Press that before the uprising, Syria was "extremely secular. . . You had equal opportunity, rights for women . . . separation of church and state." Today however, Islamic jihadists are destroying churches and driving Christians out through intimidation -- including death threats -- and forced Islamisation. Antypasc's testimony confirms reports from other sources of Islamists setting up Emirs (Muslim rulers) and enacting Sharia law in areas they control. "Our country (the U.S.) is fighting against al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but in Syria, we're supporting them," Antipasc observes. "That's bewildering to me."

The West's bewildering complicity

Through its 2003 invasion of and subsequent litany of strategic policy failings in Iraq, the West unintentionally yet totally predicably facilitated the Shi'ite ascendency.
See: Religious Liberty Trend -- Shi'ite Ascendency
Religious Liberty Monitoring, 5 Feb 2007
ALSO
See: Religious Liberty Trends 2007-2008
Religious Liberty Monitoring, 15 Feb 2008
(Under subheading: "A Word on the Middle East")

Today the West is backing the Sunni Ascendency, naively believing it can make an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood and help the "good" jihadists achieve victory before sending the minority "bad" jihadists home.

This is exactly what the Tuareg-nationalists fighting for independence in northern Mali thought when they -- supposedly committed secularists -- allied with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) against the Malian State. The Islamists had their own agenda which did not involve establishing a secular democracy!
See: MALI: Islamists oust Tuareg-nationalist MNLA -- making the reality official.
Religious Liberty Monitoring, 29 June 2012

This is exactly what the US and NATO thought when they backed the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) against Gaddafi, only to find the LIFG taking a key role in the attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi on 11 Sept 2012. (Copley, Strategic Policy, 9/2012)

Gaddafi perceived what the West did not.

Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was a committed anti-Islamist, frequently railing against "the bearded ones" as he called them. After the 11 Sept 2001 terror attacks in New York and Washington, Gaddafi became an ally in the War on Terror, keeping al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) hemmed in and hamstrung for years. In mid-late 2011, as his regime teetered on the brink of collapse, Gaddafi warned that should his regime fall, then jihadists would subjugate northern Africa.

Gaddafi had been waving this red flag for decades!

In May 1989, the West's eyes were firmly fixed on Europe and the USSR as Gorbachev's policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (re-structuring) brought light, energy and hope to peoples long repressed.

Further east, however, Gaddafi, an Arab socialist, was more concerned about the rise of militant fundamentalist Islam, a trend that seemed to be off the radar of most Western intelligence.

In his book, "The High Cost of Peace" (Forum, Prima Publishing, New York, 2002), terrorism analyst Yossef Bodansky reports:
"In late May [1989], twenty-one Arab monarchs and other heads of state, as well as dozens of senior officials and staff, gathered in Baghdad for an all-Arab summit. . .

"Qadhafi delivered an alarming and perceptive speech. Time was running out for the Arab world, he proclaimed. The Arab political system was on the verge of collapse because of the popular groundswell of Islamist radicalism. Furthermore, the new wave of radicalism was all-Islamic and thus undercut the region's Arab identity. 'We must all, virtually today,' Qadhafi warned, 'establish a joint alliance to stand strong and steadfast against the radical-extremist Islamic groups that are seeking to take over the entire Middle East. They multiply with the speed of lightening. We are likely to wake up one morning to face the masses raises slogans to the effect that "Islam is the solution to all our economic and social woes" and demanding that we, the present rulers, vacate the arena'."

As it turned out, the Arab leaders were not interested, believing they could exploit the militant Islamists for their own ends. As Bodansky explains, Islamist "networks were indispensible to launching terrorist operations at the heart of the West". Saddam Hussein recommended promoting an all-Arab, as distinct from Islamist, jihad -- a jihad the Arab dictators would facilitate rather than succumb to (pages 30-31). Pity no-one had listened to Gaddafi.

The motto of this story is: the enemy of my enemy is NOT necessarily my friend! Pandering to Islamic jihadists has never helped anyone -- except Islamists!

". . . the traitor betrays, and the destroyer destroys". (Isaiah 21:2 ESV)

We watch the news and think that Islam is strong -- but it isn't; Islam is weak! In all its battles, Islam has been and is the weaker force in an asymmetric conflict. Islam holds on to its adherents through threat of death and tolerates no dissent while relying on terrorism and propaganda, the weapons of the weak. Islam advances because the West arms it, funds it, blows in its sails and even fights it battles for it! The legacy of this policy will likely be the decimation, if not genocide, of the indigenous Christian communities in Iraq, Syria and possibly the wider Middle East (as well as Sudan, which is only a slightly different case); as well as the establishment of al-Qaeda bases in northern Mali and possibly Upper Mesopotamia; and maybe even the Islamisation of International human rights -- including the global criminalisation of criticism of Islam.
See: UNHRC: Resolution 16/18
Religious Liberty Monitoring, 21 August 2011

To say this is bewildering is an understatement!

In December 2012, the US recognised the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) while proscribing al-Qaeda in Iraq's al-Nusrah Front as a terrorist organisation. The SNC denounced this, maintaining that al-Nusrah Front is an ally, a label 29 Syrian opposition groups rose to support.

Now Turkey (a US-ally) is using al-Nusrah as a proxy to fight the Kurds (another US ally). A Kurdish resident of Ras al-Ain, a city about 80 km north-east of Al-Hasakah, on the Turkish border, reports that on Thursday 17 January, jihadists entered the city after crossing the Turkish border with three tanks.

The al-Nusrah Front has banded with nine other jihadist groups in the Syrian province of Deir al Zour and formed a Mujahideen Shura Council, the aim of which is to integrate jihadist groups under a central command. On 21 January 2013, Stratfor Intelligence reported that eleven Syrian opposition groups had declared the formation of the "Unified Syrian Islamic Front".  While the al-Nusrah Front has refused to join, the groups will coordinate in the field. Furthermore, "The two sides will establish a joint Sharia court that is called 'Sharia Society Court in the City of Aleppo'."

So the US and NATO assure us that they are only supporting the "good" jihadists, while the "good" jihadists openly and unashamedly confirm that they are allied to the "bad" jihadists. In reality, we are all in bed together! Indeed, everyone should be not just bewildered but totally incensed!

The West supports regime change in Syria in the hope that by taking a massive bite out of the strategic Shi'ite Crescent -- which stretches from Iran through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon via Hezballah to the northern border of Israel -- it might isolate and hurt arch-nemesis Iran.

However, there is no guarantee that Iran would be isolated. Egypt and Iran -- which lauds the Arabs for their "Islamic Awakening" -- are looking to pull off a diplomatic coup in Cairo this week and normalise ties after 34 years of hostility.

It makes you wonder, what could the almost bankrupt Morsi offer Ahmadinejad that would be enough to make him withdraw support for Al-Assad?   What could bring these leaders into alliance? Could it be their common hatreds and their common "revolutionary" goals: including the total Islamisation of a Middle East emptied of Jews and "Crusaders"? If Morsi is not interested in what Ahmadinejad has to offer, maybe other Arabs will be.

--------------------

In 680 AD, the Arab Caliph in Damascus sent forces to Kufa (in southern Iraq), to put an end to the rebellious Shi'ites and their Persian allies. [Shi'ites believe a descendant of Muhammad should be Caliph, not an appointed "strongman".] The Battle of Karbala (in southern Iraq), in which Muhammad's grandson Hussein ibn Ali was killed, was decisive in establishing enmity in perpetuity between the Sunnis and the Shi'ites.

Today the question must surely be: will this regional struggle between the Sunnis and the Shi'ites lead us "back to the future" -- to Karbala, to 680 AD? OR will Sunnis and Shi'ites, Arabs and Persians, find a way to avoid Karbala? And what might the cost of that be? 

For Middle East's remnant Christians, the future looks very bleak indeed.

But the Islamic advance won't end there, for Islam's ambitions are global. The West is feeding a fire that will refuse to be contained.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
"Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah speaks to Christians today"
(Deror Books, Dec 2012)

BURMA: Guy Horton's eye witness report from Kachin State

The following material confirms and expands upon that which was reported in Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 192, Wed 09 Jan 2013.
BURMA (Myanmar): Junta escalates war against Christian Kachin

Below, I have reproduced in full, a letter from Guy Horton of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. The letter was written in northern Kachin State, Burma, on 25 January 2013.

Furthermore, I recommend this interview the Democratic Voice of Burma TV conducted with Guy Horton upon his return.

The situation in Kachin State is truly catastrophic. Just as in Sudan, Kachin Christians are the victims of a war of ethnic cleansing -- a war being fought by a junta motivated by greed and driven by intense racial and religious hatred -- hense the extreme brutality.

Elizabeth Kendal

-----------------------------------------

Dear People,

I am writing to you from northern Kachin State on the border of Burma and China. For days I have listened to sustained heavy mortar and artillery fire from the Burma army as it slowly closes in. The civilians are preparing for the worst.

The churches are open on a 24 hour basis.The people pray for deliverance from a conflict where Kachin soldiers, with the support of tens of thousands of civilians, are fighting for survival against an army several times their number.  In such a conflict, article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, protecting civilians from intentional violence, applies.The Kachin authorities, it should be noted, are not a terrorist group, as for example the former Tamil Tigers were; nor are they a gang of war lords involved in narcotics: rather they have been carrying out the duties of self government responsibly for many years, and are supported by most of the Kachin people who are bonded by their Christian faith. They are targeted, however, by the Burma army on the basis of what constitutes their identity: their religion and their ethnicity.The law of genocide thus applies.

The first point that should be made is that there has been no ceasefire and there is no ceasefire. On the morning of Saturday the 19 of January at 6.00 a.m., the time the ceasefire was due to commence according to President Thein Sein's order, I stepped outside my house to be soon greeted with the sound of mortar and artillery fire.This was not sporadic small arms fire, but systematic heavy shelling from the Burma army.It was replicated elsewhere in Kachin State, but only a small fraction of it has been captured and transmitted by the media.I would therefore like to express grave concern at much of the international community's gullible acceptance of the "ceasefire" which was either a deliberate grotesque hoax, or the result of a systemic failure in the Burma army chain of command to implement President Thein Sein's order.

The second point is that Kachin fixed defensive positions protecting civilians are probably unsustainable.Confronted with jet bombers, artillery, heavy mortars and overwhelming numbers of ground troops, Kachin soldiers may be unable to protect their civilians in the long, or even medium term.

The third point is that in such an eventuality there may be not just a humanitarian disaster, but the infliction of widespread crimes against humanity. This is for two reasons. Firstly the civilians are likely to resist because they have nowhere to flee.Gentle people I know are preparing to fight. Women are reportedly leaving their babies on the China side of the border and returning to resist. A probable humanitarian disaster is thus likely to be exacerbated by appalling human rights violations. Part of my time here has been spent listening to testimonies of violently displaced Kachin people.They are some of the worst I have heard in all my time in Burma. One young mother of a seventeen day old baby was reported by her father to have been bayoneted to death: another  gang raped to death; another woman was shot in her village while her young son hid watching in a sugar cane field. I have to live with the boy's eyes forever. A woman described her husband being shot in the stomach, then facially grotesquely mutilated. The point of telling you this is to alert you to the very serious possibility that such acts may be repeated on a large scale in the event of a Burma army victory, especially where civilians try to resist and there is no foreign observer force.

The fourth point is that as this massive assault on Kachin areas continues, the more likely it is that other non Burman groups will resort to active resistance in solidarity. Burma may disintegrate further into civil war.

Effective action must therefore be taken very quickly to avoid repetition of previous disasters. The UN has carried out studies of its failures in Rwanda, Yugoslavia and Sri Lanka and described at least one of them as amounting to  "Complicity with evil".The same fatal passive complicity may result in a disaster in northern Kachin State. This letter is thus the gravest appeal to the outside world to stop it from happening.This is not a "communal riot" : this is a massive military attack on the Kachin ethnic religious group which is trying to resist in the limited territory it controls.

The following should therefore be implemented::

    1. Appointment of an effective UN envoy, genuinely committed to the principles and articles of The Charter, mandated by the Security Council with the right to unhindered access to all areas of Kachin State and especially to internally displaced people.If the military controlled government refuses access, it could be facilitated by China which is supportive of a ceasefire and does not wish to be flooded with refugees. Some of the most threatened Kachin areas are, it should be noted, adjacent to China;

    2. A ceasefire, preferably mandated by the Security Council, supported by the Chinese and US governments, the EU, and relevant UN organs, monitored by an effective UN observer group, should be declared..

    3. A just and lasting peace, with the objective of  establishing real autonomy within the context of a genuine Federal Union, should be negotiated and implemented, if the so called reform process is to have any validity.

    4. A firm reminder to the military controlled government that sanctions were suspended, not cancelled, and in the event of a refusal to implement a ceasefire they will be reimposed. If a genocidal attack on civilians occurs an appropriate response will be made.


    Guy Horton
    School of Oriental and African Studies
    University of London
    Northern Kachin State
    25 January 2013

------------------------------

Elizabeth Kendal is the author of
Turn Back the Battle: Isaiah Speaks to Christians Today
(Deror Books, Dec 2012)

Ivory Coast: racial and religious hatred empowered and unleashed

The legacy of French and NATO intervention in Ivory Coast -- where the West intervened on behalf of Islamists in order to advance their own economic interests -- is that Ivory Coast 's predominantly Christian southern tribes must now live with serious insecurity in an increasingly militarised yet lawless state where Muslim soldiers may abuse them at will and with impunity.  This is racial and religious hatred empowered and unleashed.

------------------------
Brief background

Ivory Coast held elections in December 2010, despite the fact that pre-conditions had not been met. For starters, northern-Muslim rebel forces loyal to Muslim presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara refused to disarm; a fact that meant the electoral process in the north could hardly be free and fair.  (How ironic that Bafétigué Ouattera (Côte d’Ivoire) has just been elected as a Vice-Chair of the UN's Disarmament Commission.) 

After the Constitutional Council investigated all reported irregularities (as mandated by the constitution) it ruled that the incumbent, Laurent Gbagbo -- a southerner and observant Christian -- was the victor. However, before it could even announce its ruling, pro-Ouattara elements pre-empted the constitutional council's decision and broadcast via French TV from Ouattara's headquarters that Ouattara had won the election. The illegal announcement was met favourably in the West as a Ouattara presidency would serve French and US economic interests.

Confident of Western backing, Ouattara then moved to seize power through military violence. Up against the mighty army of the Ivorian secular State, the pro-Ouattara ethnic and Islamic rebels were the weaker force. The violent coup d'état coup was only successful due to NATO air-strikes and military assistance from France.

Having seized power through violence and with foreign assistance, it is no surprise to learn that Ouattara's hold on power is dependent on violence and terror.

For further background and analysis on Ivory Coast: see Religious Liberty Monitoring.

Death in Abidjan

On Monday 6 August, gunmen -- presumed to be Gbagbo loyalists -- killed six soldiers in a pre-dawn attack on the Akouédo military base in Abidjan. A day earlier, gunmen attacked a police station in Yopougon neighbourhood, on the other side of Abidjan, killing four soldiers. Gbagbo's political party, the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), issued a statement condemning "with the utmost vigour this wave of deadly violence", while also calling on the government to capture the attackers.

Response

In response, President Alassane Ouattara ordered the Republican Forces (FRCI: the new Ivorian Army, incorporating the former Forces Nouvelles rebels) to "fight without mercy" those attempting to create a feeling of insecurity in Ivory Coast. Consequently, there has been a surge in appalling human rights abuses targeting "perceived Gbagbo loyalists": i.e. predominantly Christian southerners, mostly ethnic Bété, Guéré, Ebrié, Oubi and Adioukrou. The abuses involve mass arrests, extortion and extreme violence, including torture.

See: Ivory Coast: Ex-detainees describe torture by military following roundup after attacks
By Robbie Corey-Boulet, The Associated Press, 4 October 2012

Excerpts:

The soldiers lined up the detainees in a row on the grass in the middle of the night and beat them with sticks. Other times, soldiers struck the prisoners with belts and rifles so hard the welts lasted for weeks.

Cedric Bao, a 33-year-old who was held for two weeks in August on suspicion of hiding weapons, said soldiers also attached wires to detainees and administered electrical shocks as they writhed on the ground.

"When that happened, the wires would produce a lot of noise, and the lights would flicker, and it would smell like burning. We could hear the people shouting," Bao said. "I was always praying to God not to be brought downstairs."

. . . While torture allegations have been documented at multiple military facilities, the U.N. officials said that some of the worst came from detainees at the San Pedro camp, including credible reports of electrical shocks.

Few detainees in the city had spoken up about their experiences at the camp because of threats they received before being released, said Serges Dagbo, San Pedro representative for the Ivorian Human Rights League.

But in recent interviews with The Associated Press, four former detainees described harsh conditions marked by cramped quarters, minimal food and the frequent use of violence to extract confessions. . .

-------------

On 19 November, Human Rights Watch released a report exposing the gross human rights abuses being committed by the Republican Forces (FRCI), including: arbitrary arrests, illegal detentions, extortion, inhuman treatment and torture.

See: Ivory Coast military accused of torture during 'reprisal' crackdown
Hope of reconciliation after civil war fades amid claims of inhuman treatment of perceived Gbagbo loyalists
By David Smith, Africa correspondent, The Guardian, 19 Nov 2012.

Excerpts:

In August, members of the government's Republican Forces carried out mass arrests of perceived Gbagbo supporters almost daily in the Abidjan neighbourhood of Yopougon, Human Rights Watch said. "Without arrest warrants or individualised evidence, soldiers arbitrarily arrested young men in their homes, at neighbourhood restaurants, at bars, in taxis and buses, as they walked home from church, and at traditional community celebrations.

"Soldiers often arrived in neighbourhoods in military cargo trucks and forced 20 or more perceived pro-Gbagbo youth to board. Hundreds of young men appear to have been rounded up and detained, largely on the basis of their ethnicity and place of residence. Those arrested were often brought to military camps, which are not lawful detention sites for civilians under Ivorian law."

. . . In August and September, the commander in charge of one detainment camp was Ousmane Coulibaly, better known as "Bin Laden", Human Rights Watch said. In a previous report on the post-election violence, it had named him as one of the Republican Forces commanders whose soldiers committed acts of torture and dozens of summary executions during the final [France and NATO-backed] battle for Abidjan in April and May 2011.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH REPORT
A Long Way from Reconciliation
Abusive Military Crackdown in Response to Security Threats in Côte d’Ivoire
19 November 2012  (79 pages)

Excerpts:

Human Rights Watch interviewed eight former detainees at the [Adjamé] military police camp, five of whom provided detailed evidence suggesting that they had been victims of torture. . . with the purpose of demanding answers to questions about the location of guns or alleged suspects, or in order to pressure the detainee to sign a confession of involvement in an attack against state security. (p25)

They also described seeing other detainees come back to the cell with bruised faces, severe swelling, and open wounds. Detainees at the military police camp also described suffering grossly inadequate detention conditions, including severe overcrowding, near complete denial of food and water, and humiliating practices like being placed in a room filled with excrement. (p26)

The former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch were all young men from ethnic groups perceived to support Laurent Gbagbo. They described their detention rooms as being full with people from the same ethnic groups, including the Bété, Guéré, Ebrié, Oubi, and Adioukrou. . .  many young men were picked up during mass arrests in areas with a concentration of perceived Gbagbo supporters. (p26)

In the cases documented by Human Rights Watch, severe physical pain appeared to be inflicted by state agents, namely military personnel, in order to pressure people into a confession or to divulge information about the location of weapons. Torture did not appear to be systematic, as other detainees described only minimal physical abuse. However, the cases documented by Human Rights Watch raise concerns about the total number of potential victims. (p29)

In addition, Human Rights Watch received credible information about recent cases of torture against detainees held in a Republican Forces military base in San Pedro, a town in southwestern Côte d’Ivoire about 350 kilometers from Abidjan.  On October 4, the Associated Press reported [see above] that soldiers at the San Pedro military camp had subjected at least four civilian detainees to electric shock, finding that “long wires were attached to their feet, midsections and necks before electrical shocks were administered.” (p34)

Human Rights Watch describes the crackdown as "unlike any since the end of the post-election crisis". (p37)

A diplomat from a key partner to Côte d’Ivoire told Human Rights Watch that there were deep concerns about how Ivorian authorities had framed the issue: “The language they use is very concerning: ‘eradication,’ ‘terrorism,’ ‘clean the country up’. (p 37)

Youths rounded up en masse in Yopougon report being separated according to their ethnic group. On a daily basis, masses of youths belonging to southern (normally pro-Gbagbo) tribes were trucked to the BAE (Brigade anti-émeute, or anti-riot unit) police camp where they were punished mercilessly and extorted. (see page 39)

A Ouattara supporter who lives near the BAE camp told Human Rights Watch, “You wouldn’t believe the things we see there each day. [There are] always youth being trucked in, being beaten. They don’t even hide [the abuses]; it’s often in plain view. [The FRCI there] aren’t afraid of any consequences.” An Ivorian civil society leader agreed: “[The soldiers implicated in abuses] are at ease. They don’t fear anything, and that’s the most dangerous thing: the complete impunity.” (p 40-41)

Human Rights Watch interviewed Yopougon residents who were arrested in their homes, while eating at a maquis, with friends at a bar, when walking home from church, when in a taxi or a bus, and when attending a funeral. (p 41)

Nearly all of those interviewed described the widespread commission of criminal acts by members of the FRCI in Yopougon. These crimes were perpetrated first during the process of neighborhood sweeps and mass arrests, when soldiers stole cash and valuables such as cell phones, computers, and jewelry from people’s homes and off people being arrested; and second, by demanding money in order to secure a detainee’s release. The mass arrests appear to have been a financial boon for members of the Republican Forces based at the BAE camp, and a crippling hardship to those who were swept up because of their age and perceived political affiliation. (p 46)

Since the end of the post-election crisis, the Republican Forces and armed “volunteers” [including dozos: see here and here] loyal to them have unlawfully taken over many functions that the police and gendarmes are legally mandated to do . . . (p 56)

Several victims of arbitrary arrest or detention told Human Rights Watch that police officers or gendarmes tried to intervene on their behalf and stop abuses. . .  A youth arrested while walking home from a church function on August 25 described how police kept him from being detained and upbraided soldiers who had stolen dozens of cell phones from those arrested (p 57) "God thankfully made that there was a police officer nearby," he said (p 58)

The HRW report also notes that after being arbitrarily arrested and beaten senseless for a week, men are then extorted, forced to pay in order to be released rather than killed. Towards the end of the report there are testimonies from women who testify to being arbitrarily arrested and then told that their male relatives will released if they (the women) have sex with the soldiers.

---------------------

In an unrelated article, Associated Press reports on the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center's findings, that continuing conflicts over land have caused at least another 24,000 Ivorians to become displaced so far this year (i.e. by Nov 2012).
[for an example, see Ivory Coast: Thousands displaced in renewed terror
Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB) 172, Wed 15 Aug 2012]

That figure is in addition to the 40,000 to 80,000 who remain displaced from the March-April 2011 hostilities.

According to the report, "armed men have prevented displaced persons from accessing their land, sometimes imposing 'arbitrary taxes on those wishing to return'."

Are these "arbitrary taxes" simple criminal extortion, or jizya (Islamic, sacralised extortion of the dhimmi, as mandated by the Qur'an in Sura 9:29)? And why is it being allowed? The fact is, lawless Ivory Coast is awash with illegal weapons.

On 5 Dec, UN Watch issued a statement entitled, Despite Military Atrocities, Ivory Coast Elected as UN Disarmament Commission Vice-Chair, in which it called for the move to be reversed.