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COTE D'IVOIRE: November poll officially canceled, new date to be announced

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 11:28:22 GMT

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

A high-level group overseeing Côte d’Ivoire’s peace process has called on the electoral commission to meet with political leaders and civil society to decide a new date for presidential elections.

The group, led by Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaoré, said after a meeting on 10 November that the polls could not be held end of November as planned due "technical and financial" complications.

According to the committee to oversee the Ouagadougou peace agreement – the Cadre Permanent de Concertation or CPC – the independent electoral commission must come up with a new election timetable by 31 December 2008.

"The date of the elections mostly depends on the registration and identification process," Compaoré told reporters at the close of the meeting in the Burkina capital Ouagadougou. "But...the process has faced many difficulties and constraints on technical and financial aspects, so it has been delayed."

Voter registration, also after a long delay, began earlier this year but the exercise has been marred by violent attacks at registration sites. A sound voter identification and registration process is seen as indispensable to stability. The 2002 rebellion, which had widespread support at the time in the north, stemmed largely from northerners' complaint that they have been treated as foreigners and excluded from the political process.

Joining Compaoré in the 10 November meeting were Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, rebel-turned-prime minister Guillaume Soro, former President Henri Konan Bédié and former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara.

Gbagbo was elected in 2000 when he ran against the country’s first-ever coup leader, Robert Guei. A rebellion in 2002 split the country in two and threw off the election calendar, under which Gbagbo’s mandate would have ended in 2005. As part of peace efforts that year the UN extended his mandate for one year, but since then several peace deals and election timetables have come and gone.

“Not surprised”

People in Côte d’Ivoire said they were not surprised by the announcement.

“I’m not surprised. The postponement of the election was inevitable, especially since the identification process is not complete,” teacher Marcelline Akaffou told IRIN. "We are used to this...[D]efinitive peace will certainly be a long time in coming."

Others were sceptical of politicians' role. “I think politicians are not yet ready to go to elections," Salimata Traoré, a shopkeeper in Abidjan, told IRIN. "Everyone continues to follow his own interests. And those who know they won’t win are doing all they can to avoid elections from being held."

She continued, “I am disappointed by this announcement…It is becoming harder and harder to tolerate this situation. Times are hard, and families are struggling to put enough food in their mouths.”

But many say it is best to take time to ensure proper elections. Student Kouadio Gervai told IRIN: “The conditions [are] not right for holding elections. If the point is to hold free and transparent elections, we need to take more time…The country is beginning its reunification process. Even if there are still difficulties in some areas, there is hope for peace.”

IRIN

3 ‘fraudsters’ get D250,000 bail bond

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:06:26 GMT

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The Kanifing Magistrates Court presided over by Magistrate Sainabou Wadda-Ceesay yesterday granted bail to Modou Kujabi, Obina Nwafor and Ikeechicwleu Eguelam in the sum of D250,000.

The trio, who had earlier appeared before the court, pleaded not guilty to two counts of conspiracy to defraud and obtaining money by false pretense.

According to the particulars of the offense, the three, on 16 October 2008, Kanifing Municipality conspired to obtain two hundred and thirty-four thousand dalasis (D234,000) from Lagie Marega in exchange for twelve stones which they knew to be fake precious stones.

Magistrate Sainabou Wadda in her ruling, noted that the offense is a bailable one. She then granted them bail in the sum of D250,000 with two Gambian sureties.
A Bojang stood in for IGP

Author: by Salifu M. Touray

COTE D'IVOIRE: Appeal for help to stop violence against women

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:57:21 GMT

Monday, November 10, 2008

As Côte d’Ivoire focuses on restoring stability and holding presidential elections, women’s organisations say stopping violence against women and girls must be an urgent priority. They are appealing to the international community for help in the fight.

“There is a lot of work to be done and it’s urgent,” Nicole Doué, vice-president of the Association for the Defence of Women’s Rights, told IRIN.

While violence against women has always existed, women advocates told IRIN, it worsened - particularly rape - during the conflict following the 2002 coup attempt that left the north under rebel control.

“Women’s bodies have been used throughout the crisis by all sides,” Doué said.

Women’s groups plan to launch a national campaign in November, including radio spots in local languages and a nationwide tour to talk to communities and provide support to victims.

“We want to go around the country and show our sisters that they are not alone in this fight,” Ladji Wangué Gueye Nicole, campaign coordinator, told IRIN from the commercial capital Abidjan. “This should help them speak up. We must expose those who assault women. But without funds we cannot do what is needed."

In addition to a nationwide awareness campaign, women's advocates want to set up or rehabilitate help centres for victims, train local authorities and establish legal mechanisms for combating violence against women. Heads of women’s organisations met on 4 November with representatives of the UN mission in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) and foreign embassies.

“For now we don’t have the funds, the human resources or the equipment we need,” said Fanta Coulibaly, director of the fight against violence on women in the Ministry of Family, Women’s and Social Affairs. Simple things would go a long way, she said. “A simple microphone would help us." She said microphones or radios in marketplaces and bus stations would be ideal for reaching women, particularly those who are illiterate.

Impunity

Even if women know their rights and choose to exercise them, Coulibaly said, the lack of a functioning judicial system in much of the country is feeding impunity.

Twenty months after the signing of a peace deal that called for restoring government authority in the north, the administration is not yet functioning throughout the country.

“The fact that the justice system is not effective throughout Côte d’Ivoire poses a serious problem in this fight,” she said. “Defence and security forces cannot take the place of magistrates.”

An October report by international and national human rights groups said until magistrates are deployed in the north, “no independent justice is available in the zone controlled by the Force Nouvelles [rebels]”.

The former buffer zone between the north and government-controlled south was for years overseen by international forces, but they have pulled out as part of the 2007 peace deal. Violent crime - including rape - is rampant in the area, and observers say law enforcement is weak and citizens are at the mercy of criminals.

Doué of the women’s rights association said: “They lifted this buffer zone without planning how to ensure women’s security… This is because of the absence of women in the peace process… From Lomé to Ouagadougou [reference to the numerous peace deals signed over the past five years] women have been shut out.”

IRIN

COTE D'IVOIRE: Rights groups warn against "elections at all costs”

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 10:37:16 GMT

Saturday, November 01, 2008

As Ivorians wonder how much longer they will have to wait for a long-overdue presidential election, human rights groups warn that failing to ensure a fair election would plunge the country into chaos.

They say too many pivotal steps – including disarmament and reunifying the country – have yet to be completed and the current climate of uncertainty is not conducive to a proper election.

“Some think that simply holding an election will automatically bring back calm and reconciliation,” Ahui Camille of the Ivorian League of Human Rights (LIDHO), told IRIN. “But going to the polls without improving conditions in the country would be futile – and dangerous.”

The presidential election, while Ivorians are quick to point out it is not a panacea, is seen as indispensable to restoring stability. After several cancellations polls are officially scheduled for 30 November. But it is widely expected they will be pushed back again. While the government has not officially rescheduled the election, Prime Minister Guillaume Soro recently told a local newspaper a new date would likely be announced soon.

In an October 2008 report LIDHO, the International Federation of Human Rights and the Ivorian Human Rights Movement say that while politicians and UN observers in Cote d’Ivoire blame primarily “technical problems” for the delays, many far more worrying conditions in the country are blocking progress and reconciliation: failure to reinstate government authority in the rebel-controlled north, deteriorating security conditions, disruptions in voter registration, absence of a unified military and a disarmament/demobilisation process at a standstill. The groups conducted an evaluation mission in Côte d’Ivoire from 27 September to 6 October.

“Only real political will can overcome all these difficulties,” the report says. “The aim is not elections for elections' sake”. The groups urge the international community not to back “elections at all costs”.

Rebels still rule

Konin Aka, prefect of the central city of Bouake, told IRIN: “Holding poorly prepared elections would be like giving poison water to a thirsty people.”

Bouake is the stronghold of the rebels who took over northern Côte d’Ivoire after a 2002 coup attempt. In Bouake and other major northern cities the rebel leaders – and not redeployed government officials – still rule, according to residents in the north.

The redeployment of the administration to the north is one of the pillars of the Ouagadougou peace agreement signed by the rebels and President Laurent Gbagbo in March 2007.

In a 13 October report on Côte d’Ivoire UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says the lack of state authority in the north is worrying. Government officials who have been redeployed to the north, including the prefects “are not yet able to exercise real authority as the Force Nouvelles [rebel] zone commanders are reluctant to relinquish their administrative, security and financial authority in the areas under their control.”

Arms abound

The Secretary-General also says disarmament is not progressing. According to the report, as of 1 October 7,598 former rebels had chosen to be demobilised of the 34,678 the group declares. “Only 10 weapons and some ammunition were collected,” the report says.

Regarding the disarmament of militias, Ban says: “The government has not yet determined the arrangements for disarming, dismantling and reintegrating the militia personnel.”

Armed attacks are rampant throughout the country, severely disrupting people’s livelihoods. Market trucks and public buses are attacked by Kalashnikov-wielding men almost daily, residents say.

Corinne Dufka, West Africa senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, told IRIN: “This year we've seen a disturbing increase in violence and crime against ordinary Ivorians, much of it by members of the warring factions who have refused to commit to the disarmament process in earnest.” Human Rights Watch is closely monitoring the pre-election atmosphere in Côte d’Ivoire.

She added: “Elections and guns simply don't mix. If there is any hope for the free, fair and peaceful elections the Ivorian people deserve, the government and rebels must stop the excuses and commence the disarmament process immediately.”

President Gbagbo was elected in 2000 when he ran against the country’s first-ever coup leader, Robert Guei. Gbagbo’s mandate, which should have ended in 2005, was extended for one year under a UN peace plan. Since then several peace deals failed and polls were repeatedly scheduled and cancelled.

“Ivorians have the right to choose their political leadership,” Dufka said. “In Côte d'Ivoire, that very fundamental right is three years overdue. It's time get this process moving in earnest.”

IRIN

COTE D'IVOIRE: “Alarming” malnutrition in north

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 11:10:46 GMT

Sunday, October 26, 2008

In Côte d’Ivoire government health officials and aid agencies are launching emergency feeding and special nutritional training in the north to respond to what nutrition experts call “alarming” malnutrition levels.

Nearly 18 percent of children in the north are acutely malnourished according to a July 2008 nutritional survey by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) conducted in collaboration with the national government nutrition programme.

The survey showed a global acute malnutrition rate of 17.5 percent among children from six months to five years old – up from 11.6 percent two years ago. Global acute malnutrition, or wasting, means children have low weight for their height because they lack required nutrients.

“This situation is really alarming,” Abdelhak Bendib, head of UNICEF’s child survival section in Cote d’Ivoire, told IRIN on 23 October from Odienne, capital of the northwest region of Denguele, 850km from the commercial capital Abidjan. “This level is nearly double what is considered a nutritional emergency.”

Following the July survey, Médecins Sans Frontières-Belgium (MSF-B) did a study of children in eight villages in Denguele, finding that 23.9 percent of children aged six months to five years are acutely malnourished, MSF-B head of mission Nathalie Cartier told IRIN.

Côte d’Ivoire is emerging from years of conflict triggered when a 2002 rebellion split the country in two – the government-controlled south and rebel-held north. While humanitarian assistance has decreased as the conflict wanes, conditions like those in the north indicate that significant needs remain, nutrition experts told IRIN.

Several causes

Northern Côte d’Ivoire’s malnutrition level stems from a number of factors, UN and NGO nutrition experts told IRIN – primarily: poor agricultural production, livestock disease, lack of access to a variety of nutritious foods, lack of a fully functioning health system and global food price hikes. Many of the factors are linked to the conflict.

Patrick Berner, emergency and rehabilitation coordinator for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Côte d’Ivoire, told IRIN he is worried about the food security and nutritional situation in the north, which he said has deteriorated in the past year.

A September 2008 food security monitoring study in Côte d’Ivoire found that 27 percent of households in the northern Savanes region were food insecure – 12 percent severely food insecure, Berner said, adding that Savanes is representative of northern Côte d’Ivoire.

Several agricultural factors contribute to food insecurity in the north, Berner said, including a poor 2007 harvest, a doubling of the price of fertiliser and livestock mortality.

Many farmers in the north have turned away from cotton to cashews as a cash crop, but the cashew sector is not well developed and farmers have been unable to make a profit.

“Farmers are getting extremely low prices for cashews and this is yet another factor severely cutting people’s buying power,” Berner said.

Disease is wiping out livestock in the north, which cuts productivity as people use oxen to farm, he said. As with many institutions, the government veterinary service is not yet operating as it was before the break-up of the country.

Response

UNICEF, FAO and WFP along with the government have drawn up a response plan, which will include therapeutic feeding and reinforcing nutritional units in hospitals and health centres across the north.

UNICEF’s Bendib said the agencies are appealing for funds to implement the response. UN officials said they could not yet say how much funding is needed.

Following its survey of Denguele villages, MSF-B in collaboration with government health officials and UNICEF has begun providing nutritional care at the Odienne hospital and at five health centres, MSF-B’s Cartier said.

Emergency

An official with the national nutritional programme, or PNN, said the government this week began an education and awareness campaign targeted at local authorities, health officials, and community and religious leaders in the north.

“We are telling them that we have a public health problem here – that this is an emergency,” Jeanne Assemien, head of the national programme for the fight against malnutrition, told IRIN. “We are telling them we need everyone on board to help us in this fight.”

Assemien said in addition to an emergency response, PNN will take long-term measures such as training health workers in screening for malnutrition “so this does not repeat itself”.

IRIN

COTE D'IVOIRE: Election board suspends voter registration

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:09:25 GMT

Friday, October 24, 2008

COTE D'IVOIRE: Election board suspends voter registration

ABIDJAN

Côte d’Ivoire’s electoral commission on 23 October suspended for two days the long-delayed voter registration operation, throwing into deeper uncertainty the timing of a presidential poll seen as indispensable to restoring stability.

The electoral commission said registration was being suspended for technical reasons, but the operation has been fraught with problems. The order comes as youths continue attacking registration offices and some election workers enter the second week of a strike over alleged lack of pay.

Residents of the commercial capital Abidjan described how last week youths armed with stones and clubs vandalised a registration office and made off with documents. Other registration offices throughout the country have been similarly attacked since the process began on 15 September.

The presidential election is officially set for 30 November after several failed peace deals and poll cancellations, but much pre-election work remains to be done and disarmament of former rebels and pro-government militia is lagging. Local and international media are reporting that a postponement is imminent. Ivorians are wondering not whether the poll will be put off again but for how long this time.

“For at least a week now, all Ivorians say the elections will be postponed,” teacher Marcellin Atta in Abidjan told IRIN. “Let’s hope it won’t be for more than six months.”

President Laurent Gbagbo took power in a 2000 election in which he ran against military ruler Robert Guei. A 2002 rebellion split the country into a rebel-held north and government-controlled south. A peace deal signed by Gbagbo and the rebels in March 2007 is still holding but is laden with setbacks.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and a UN group of experts monitoring progress in Côte d’Ivoire earlier this month expressed concern that conditions in the country threaten stability.

“Many of the uncompleted tasks [in the electoral process] could pose serious risks to the elections, and indeed the entire peace process as well as the long-term stability of Cote d’Ivoire, if they are not carefully managed,” Secretary-General Ban said in a 13 October report.

Ivorians say the continued stalemate is agonising.

“Elections must take place so we can finish once and for all with this stressful situation of neither war nor peace,” Mariam Touré, a financial assistant in Abidjan, told IRIN. “This has gone on far too long and conditions have become utterly unbearable for the people.”

IRIN http://www.irinnews.org

COTE D'IVOIRE: Malnutrition concerns in country’s prisons

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:53:13 GMT

Friday, October 24, 2008

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has launched a nutritional feeding programme at the main prison in Abidjan after the incidence of beriberi, a sickness linked to vitamin deficiency, reached epidemic levels.

The ICRC says it first detected the illness in Abidjan’s Maison d’arrêt et de correction d’Abidjan (MACA), the largest prison in the city housing 5,400 prisoners in a space intended for 1,500, in 2002. An emergency programme stopped the spread of the illness in 2003, but in 2008 181 new cases of berberi were detected.

Beriberi is an ailment that occurs in people with vitamin B1 (also known as thiamin) deficiency. Thiamin is commonly found in meat, vegetable and dairy products.

A March 2007 human rights report from the US State Department noted that the government of Cote d’Ivoire spends just 120 CFA francs (US$0.25) on food per prisoner every day. The UN Mission in Cote d’Ivoire (ONUCI) has reported that malnutrition is the leading cause of deaths in prisons.

The ICRC said in a statement that it will be handing out a food supplement containing vitamins and minerals, which the 5,000 inmates will take with their normal rations twice weekly for a month.

“The programme… should have short-term effects,” said Claude-Alain Zappella, head of the ICRC’s regional delegation in Abidjan. “To prevent relapses, it will be necessary to make prison food more varied.”

A survey conducted by the non-governmental organisation Médecins Sans Frontières in 2007 concluded that beriberi was being consistently underreported among prisoners and recommended “further attention” be given to the illness. The NGO concluded that a previous outbreak of beriberi at the MACA prison between October 2002 and April 2003 affected 14 percent of prisoners and killed seven people.

“Systematic food supplementation with vitamins and micronutrients should be discussed when the penal ration does not provide the necessary nutrient intake recommended according to international standards,” the report concluded, noting that during the period of the 2002-2003 outbreak, the prison rations provided just a fifth of the quantity of thiamin recommended by international standards.

Civil society members blame rudimentary living conditions, overpopulation and lack of state funding for penitentiary institutions for the extreme hardship of prison life in a country that stigmatises and neglects prisoners to the point that even the authorities in charge seem to prefer to forget about them.

Abdoulaye Keita of Save the Prisoners, a local non-governmental organisation that tries to bring attention to the fate of prisoners, says that as the rich often can bribe their way out of a sentence, or at least make sure their stay will be short and relatively comfortable, it is usually the poor and destitute who end up behind bars - often serving years in custody before being tried.

IRIN

COTE D'IVOIRE: “Rapes are encouraged”

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:43:17 GMT

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Rapes of women and girls are common in western Côte d’Ivoire and generally go unpunished, said residents of the region.

“These days nearly every time we hear of armed robberies in homes, on the roads or on plantations, we hear of rape,” said a resident of the western town of Duékoué some 500km from the commercial capital Abidjan, who wanted to remain anonymous.

“We hear of two, three, four rapes every day.”

With the proliferation of arms since conflict broke in 2002, unprecedented violent crime continues to plague many areas of Côte d’Ivoire where a March 2007 peace deal marked a formal end to fighting.

In some parts of the north, attacks by Kalashnikov-wielding men – nearly unheard of before the conflict – are frequent, residents say.

Monika Bakayoko-Topolska, gender-based violence coordinator with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Côte d’Ivoire, told IRIN: “We certainly are seeing increased reports of rape over the past year and a half or so.” She called rape “one of the biggest problems in the west,” adding that sexual violence is a problem throughout the country.

Bakayoko-Topolska said it is not clear whether rape cases have risen sharply in the west or whether more people are reporting the crime after an expansion of education campaigns in the region.

She and some residents of western Côte d’Ivoire told IRIN perpetrators of rape are rarely prosecuted.

Impunity

“Rapes are encouraged,” the woman in Duékoué said. “Because there is no punishment.” Residents of Duékoué and the nearby city of Man told IRIN that in some cases authorities harassed or ignored women who reported rape, and that even if pursued, alleged attackers are generally released after a brief detention.
Bakayoko-Topolska said pressure from families of both the victim and perpetrator to settle a case outside the formal justice system is one of many factors commonly discouraging women from filing legal complaints.

“It’s still very rare here that someone gets put in jail for rape,” she said. “Community leaders should accept that because rape and physical violence are prohibited by national law, these crimes should be reported to the police rather than informally dealt with in the village.”

The Duékoué woman told IRIN many women are afraid to go after their attackers because they do not feel supported by law enforcement authorities. “It is not safe here [in Duékoué],” she said. “People are constantly victims of violent crime and assailants operate with utter impunity.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his latest report on Côte d’Ivoire, dated 13 October, expressed concern about authorities’ failure to go after criminals. “The low level of prosecution [for violent crimes] has heightened the pervading sense of impunity in the country.”

Residents of Duékoué and Man told IRIN one response has been the creation of neighbourhood vigilante groups. But one resident said a recent rape was perpetrated by a youth who belonged to a self-defence group.

Post-conflict

Many western towns hit by violent crime are in the former buffer zone between the government security forces in the south and rebels in the north, which has been vacated by international forces over the past year after the 2007 peace deal.

UN Secretary-General Ban said in the 13 October report: “The insecurity in the western and northern parts of the country, as well as in parts of the former [buffer] zone of confidence, remains of great concern and has impacted negatively on the full enjoyment of human rights.”

He added: “Increasing indiscriminate attacks by unidentified highway robbers, coupled with violence and rape of women, pose a daily threat to the right to life, to physical integrity and to the safety and security of persons and goods.”

The report said the situation is most serious along the 35-km Duékoué-Bangolo road in the west.

"A sex thing"

The Duékoué woman told IRIN the closest court women there can turn to in rape cases is about 100km away in Daloa and this puts many families off. She said local social workers have told the UN and international NGOs the town needs a local tribunal.

IRC has recommended the Ivorian government establish family support units within national police forces similar to those in Sierra Leone, which is emerging from an 11-year civil war. The units comprise police officers and social workers trained to handle sexual violence cases.

“What is needed most in Côte d’Ivoire is a change in attitudes and practices related to all types of violence against women and girls,” Bakayoko-Topolska told IRIN. “Men and women alike can begin this by condemning violence and by showing solidarity with survivors in demanding justice.”

The Duékoué resident said ramping up the legal means to go after perpetrators might deter some people, but rape will continue. “I think many people here do not see rape as a crime; they see it just as a sex thing.”

IRIN

COTE D'IVOIRE: Shaky peace leading into elections

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:12:19 GMT

Thursday, October 02, 2008

As presidential elections approach at year-end after repeated delays, analysts worry slow progress on meeting the demands of the Ouagadougou peace agreement, combined with what they see as continued hostility among some in power towards foreign-born Ivorians, threaten the elusive stability in the still-divided country.

“Ouagadougou was a breakthrough because the protagonists of the crisis came together to agree on their own timetable and roadmap to peace rather than at the behest of the international community,” said Kissy Agyeman, country analyst for Sub-Saharan Africa for London-based think-tank Global Insight. “The pressure is now on because if there is further stalling, President Laurent Gbagbo’s legitimacy is at stake and people fear it could precipitate violence in the country.”

The rebels and government signed a power-sharing peace accord in Ouagadougou in March 2007 that called for disarming and demobilising rebel troops; identifying voters in preparation for elections; building up the state infrastructure in the north; and helping hundreds of thousands of people displaced during the civil war that broke out in 2002 return to their towns and villages.

Over eighteen months into the peace deal, demobilisation is underway, voter identification started on 15 September, and some state officials have started to be deployed to the former-rebel-held north, according to local officials.

But progress on all of these fronts has been slow, says a July 2008 UN Secretary General report.

Only 60,000 of the estimated 700,000 displaced Ivorians around the country have returned to their homes, according to the UN. After multiple delays, elections scheduled for the first half of 2008 have been pushed back once again until November 2008. Recently, President Gbagbo intimated further delays.

“President Gbagbo needs to respect his own timetable to give him credibility in the eyes of his own people as well as the international community. If he delays the polls again, it won’t look favourable,” Agyeman stressed.

Election delays

The census count, the first step towards identifying voters in preparation for the long-awaited elections, started on 15 September 2008 and is slated to be completed in 45 days, which Daniel Balint-Kurti, associate fellow at London think-tank Chatham House, says is unrealistic.

"The identification process is only just beginning now, so in two months they're expecting to overcome what has been an intractable problem for the country for several years,” he told IRIN.

Some nine million citizens out of the country’s approximate 17.6 million are expected to participate in elections, but only 3,500 were registered one week into the identification process, according to Hamadoun Touré, spokesperson for the UN Operation in Cote d’Ivoire (UNOCI); and only 1,500 out of the required 6,000 registration kits required for the elections have been put in place.

Touré told IRIN it is difficult to deliver kits any more quickly, especially to remote parts of the country.

To complicate the process, many internally displaced persons (IDPs) do not have proof of identity documents required for registration.

Central to the 2002 outbreak of conflict were problems encountered by northerners, most of them descendants of immigrants from neighbouring countries, who said they faced discrimination by the Ivorian authorities and challenges in obtaining citizenship papers.

Disarmament delays

Elections cannot take place until former rebel combatants have been disarmed and demobilised, according to UN’s Touré. Yet, there is not enough money to carry out the process said Augustine Guehoun, head of communications in President Gbagbo’s Ivorian Popular Front party (or FPI).

The government’s failure to pay three months of allowance to each ex-combatant, and the absence of reintegration programmes are adding to demobilisation and reintegration delays, say the UN. Under the Ouagadougou peace deal, rebels were to be reintegrated into the national army.

“If the country goes to the polls and ex-rebels still haven’t disarmed there is always the threat that they could pick up arms again and resort to violence,” said Global Insight’s Agyeman.

Redeployment delays

Under the Ouagadougou agreement, state officials from the south were to be redeployed to the north; and northern localities would start to pay state taxes rather than run an informal parallel economy funded by coercion or extortion, as has been the case according to Agyeman.

The UN says tax collection has begun, and according to an official with the National Steering Committee for the Redeployment of the Administration (CNPRA), who wanted to remain anonymous, some doctors, teachers, and members of the government officials have been redeployed to the north.

But judges, law enforcement, tax and customs officers and treasury officers have not yet been put in place, which Agyeman said adds to the sense of instability and insecurity there. “Redeployment needs to be sped up because it will show a clear acceptance among northerners of state authority, which is important for peace.”

Military unrest

On 26 September forces reportedly fired in the air in the towns of Yamoussoukro and Daoukro demanding their US$205 monthly allowance, which they claim has not been paid since the beginning of 2007.

Military unrest can be contagious, Balint-Kurti pointed out. “Almost every coup or attempted coup [here] has been sparked by an army revolt over pay and it shows things could change one day to the next…any one mutiny could suddenly escalate.”

And when it comes to disarmament, he said rather than diminishing the power of ex-rebel leaders, the current process involves no independent agency to monitor arms handovers, creating the risk of ex-rebels hanging onto their weapons.

Justice and security

Since the Ouagadougou accord was signed, the once-rebel movement Forces Nouvelles which still retains control over much of the north and still has an armed faction, has made efforts to improve the human rights situation, according to Patrick N’gouan, president of the Ivorian League for Human Rights.

Despite this, criminality in the east and the north is mounting, according to UNOCI, which reports an increase in roadside robberies in the north over the past few months. Local media report on continued land conflicts and bus hijackings, some of which have turned deadly.

And reports of rape increased across the country from April to July 2008, according to the UN.

Jean-Jacques Digbeu, a professor at Concody University in Abidjan, told IRIN “War cannot resume, but crime has increased throughout the country and people are still living in fear…barricading themselves in,” pointing to the need of a functional justice system.

Election readiness

Balint-Kurti told IRIN that even if elections went ahead that would not rule out instability in the future. “There is not enough indication that people's opinions have changed. The same ways of thinking that created the problems in the past are still there.”

He said radical elements persist among some leaders in the FPI who are still hesitant to identify foreign-born Ivorians as nationals.

But Sebastian Dano Djédjé, national elections secretary at the FPI told IRIN Ivorians are ready. "The FPI has worked hard to reconcile all Ivorians across the country…northerners and our foreign-born brothers have no worries now,” he assured IRIN.

Analyst Agyeman stresses the government needs to honour its peace agreement, “Ivorians have war-fatigue. They are ready to move on. It is the state that has stalled on elections – it has to speed things up now to show a commitment to peace.”

IRIN

COTE D'IVOIRE: Toxic waste criminal investigations may indict higher-ups

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 08:36:37 GMT

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Ivorian government lawyers have said they may pursue criminal investigations against the Netherlands-based oil trader Trafigura, which owned the oil waste dumped in open-air sites in Abidjan in 2006.

Ivorian health officials, an independent investigation panel, and European lawyers have said the poisonous sludge led to more than one dozen deaths and tens of thousands of people to fall ill in Abidjan.

Trafigura settled a civil case with the government in February 2007 for US$214 million, which the multimillion dollar international commodities trader said prevented the government from pursuing it for liability or damages, according to the 13 February 2007 agreement.

But on 1 October 2008, on the sidelines of a criminal investigation underway in Abidjan against local port authorities—which Trafigura blames for the illegal dumping— government lawyer, Christophe Koussougro Sery, said the state can pursue Trafigura on criminal charges of poisoning Ivorians, even with the civil settlement.

Lawyer Joseph Brenham with the Paris-based non-profit human rights law firm, Sherpa Association, told IRIN the February 2007 agreement is illegal, and therefore, non-binding, “According to Cote d’Ivoire’s civil code, a civil settlement cannot prevent prosecutions or trial for criminal acts. If the state has the political will to do it, there is nothing that prevents the state from prosecuting Trafigura and its leaders.”

He added that, anyhow, a state cannot negotiate a criminal settlement on behalf of individual victims.

Lead lawyer for the Netherlands office of environmental campaign group Greenpeace, Jasper Teulings, participated in the 2007 Ivorian government-commissioned independent panel investigating the scandal, and told IRIN he was “astounded” by the 2007 settlement, “We were baffled by the case. The government made the announcement only days before we released our report [19 February 2007] on the responsibility of international actors in the dumping.”

Outlining what went wrong in countries or territories involved in the transfer of the waste, including Panama, Netherlands, Gibraltar, Estonia, Nigeria, and Cote d’Ivoire, the report concluded, “The oversight of the waste [disposal] was always controlled by Trafigura, contrary to its email denial… sent to the commission on 16 January 2007 [stating] ‘Trafigura was never implicated in waste disposal in any country.”

IRIN