Subject: COTE D IVOIRE: West African immigrants, northerners fear
they may be next target
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:45:58 -0700
COTE D IVOIRE: West African immigrants, northerners fear they may be next
target
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
ABIDJAN, 12 November (IRIN) - As French and other foreigners continue to
bail out of Cote d'Ivoire after days of mob violence, northern ethnic
groups and West African immigrants fear that militants loyal to President
Laurent Gbagbo might soon turn their wrath back on them.
Forty-three-year-old Mamadou, an Ivorian whose parents hail from Mali, was
keeping his head down in Abidjan's predominantly Muslim suburb of
Koumassi. He said he had been staying home by day and occasionally
venturing out at dusk to meet friends.
"Nobody wants to be noticed much these days," he told IRIN. "Everybody
keeps a low profile."
"The Gbagbo people think they've kicked the French out. They say they've
felled a big tree with a small axe. It's possible that sooner or later
they'll come to attack us because they say we are with the rebels," he
added.
The north-south divide is the crux of Cote d'Ivoire's problems. The West
African country has been split into a rebel-held north and a
government-controlled south, with 10,000 French and UN peacekeepers in
between, since September 2002, when an unsuccessful coup attempt against
Gbagbo developed into an insurgency.
Former prime minister Alassane Ouattara, who draws much of his support
from the north, was barred from running in the 2000 presidential election
on the grounds that his father was from Burkina Faso. The rebels demanded
the constitution be changed to allow Ouattara to stand in the 2005 ballot
before they disarmed, but Gbgabo said they had to lay down their weapons
first.
The political deadlock was broken in dramatic fashion last week, when the
Ivorian army launched air and ground assaults on rebel strongholds,
shattering an 18-month-old ceasefire. But two days into the campaign,
former colonial power France became the number one enemy.
Paris retaliated for a deadly bombing on one of its bases by destroying
almost the entire Ivorian airforce. Irate Ivorians rampaged through the
streets of Abidjan looting and burning French interests, beating up
expatriates and, according to French Foreign Ministry sources, raping some
women.
Expatriates have been fleeing the former French colony
by the planeload
But now that more than 3,000 expatriates, mainly French, have fled the
country, analysts fear a fresh backlash against more traditional foes.
"Until they were evacuated, French citizens bore the brunt of the
militias' xenophobic attacks," said Peter Takirambudde, the head of the
Africa division at Human Rights Watch. "Now we are concerned that the
militias will turn their rage on their more familiar targets -- Muslims,
northerners and West African immigrants."
Immigrants from Mali and Burkina Faso, who flocked into Cote d'Ivoire to
work the cocoa and coffee fields, have long been a lightning rod. In the
wake of the 2002 coup attempt, for example, at least 1 million immigrants
living and working in the south fled the country. Some were forced from
their homes and farms, while others were driven out by fear.
Ivorian security forces and pro-government militia have continued to
commit random acts of violence against immigrants from West Africa as well
as people from northern Cote d'Ivoire, accusing them of being in cahoots
with the rebels, according to human rights sources.
Clashes in Gbagbo's home town
Since the latest cycle of instability began, there have already been
isolated cases of ethnic violence in the cocoa-rich west of Cote d'Ivoire,
notably in Gbagbo's home town of Gagnoa, about 250 km northwest of
Abidjan.
Clashes erupted there on Monday and Tuesday, pitching the president's
ethnic group, the Bete, against the Dioula population, who are mainly from
the north, but who settled in the town decades ago.
"We have counted six dead and 29 injured," Marc Gbaka, a town council
official, told IRIN, saying youths had attacked with machetes, kitchen
knives and sticks.
UN peacekeepers are now patrolling the area around Gagnoa, often a
flashpoint for ethnic strife. Before this week's attacks, more than 20
people had been killed in the last year and around 500 immigrant farmers
driven off their cocoa farms.
Residents in the town said the latest trouble began when word arrived from
Abidjan that the French had decimated Cote d'Ivoire's airforce. Militant
government supporters, seeing the move as help for the northern rebels,
attacked clothing shops and rice stores belonging to Dioula merchants who
then retaliated by trashing food shacks and restaurants owned by Betes.
"It's the scenario that we've all been fearing since 2002. The ground is
set for a clash of the communities," explained Francois Ruf, a cocoa
specialist based in Accra, Ghana. "The worst thing that could happen is
that those from northern Cote d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso start using
hardcore weapons and the Bete get out their guns and then there's
carnage."
Further to the west, tensions are also running high in Guiglo, a town
about 200 km from the border with Liberia, near the buffer zone which
separates government territory from that of the rebels.
In 2003, long after the fighting died down in the rest of Cote d'Ivoire,
the area around the town remained plagued by ethnic conflicts, fuelled by
the presence of militia groups, some of which recruited heavily among
Liberian refugees.
On Thursday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
rang the alarm bell once more.
"In Guiglo and certain areas in the west, the restarting of inter-communal
conflicts between the local and non-Ivorian populations poses a direct
threat to social cohesion and means conditions are ripe for the
humanitarian situation to deteriorate," it said in a statement.
Fears already causing people to flee
Almost 5,000 Ivorian refugees have already spilled over into Liberia,
seeking refuge from the fresh bout of fighting in a country which itself
is still recovering from 14 years of civil war.
"Guiglo is the eye of the storm. It's a real ethnic mix. There are already
warning signs," a senior UN diplomat told IRIN this week. "We are sensing
a strong tension in the air, people feel threatened. If there are new
problems in Abidjan, there will problems in the west and vice versa."
Back in Abidjan, northerners have been preparing to defend themselves.
Having seen the hate campaign waged against the French, one man in his
thirties was taking no chances and was readying so-called Self Defence
Committees with his friends.
"These committees are against the advice of our political leaders," he
told IRIN, explaining he was a supporter of the main opposition Democratic
Party of Cote d'Ivoire (PDCI). "But we have pro-government militias in
this neighbourhood that are armed and we want to be prepared."
"They say we are rebels, they say we are pro-French, they threaten us,"
the man, who lives in the poor, mainly Muslim suburb of Abobo, said. "If
somebody in our neighbourhood is attacked, we can come to the rescue."
Across town, French businessman Patrick was packing up his affairs and
preparing to leave. He was born in Abidjan but even that umbilical cord
would not keep him in the city this time around.
"The fuse is alight, but it hasn't quite reached the gunpowder barrel," he
said gloomily. "The worst is yet to happen. We will see an ethnic settling
of scores. There will be a massacre,î he predicted. ìThe battle of Abidjan
is still to come."
[ENDS]
IRIN-WA
Tel:+221 867.27.30
Fax: +221 867.25.85
Email: IRINWA@IRINnews.org
[This Item is Delivered to the "Africa-English" Service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or
to change your keywords, contact e-mail: Irin@ocha.unon.org or Web:
http://www.irinnews.org . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post
this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by
commercial sites requires written IRIN permission.]
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004
To make changes to or cancel your subscription visit:
http://www.irinnews.org/subscriptions/subslogin.asp
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)
No comments:
Post a Comment