AFRICA - House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats

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Under unclear circumstances, former military junta leader General Robert Guei,
his wife Rose, a son, his aide-de-camp Captain Fabien Coulibaly, several army
guards, and others reportedly were shot to death at Guei’s Abidjan residence. AI
concluded that the deaths of Guei and his family were extrajudicial killings.
On September 20, members of the security forces reportedly kidnaped, shot, and
killed Commander Aboubacar Dosso, aide-de-camp to RDR leader Alassane
Ouattara, when he returned to the site of Ouattara’s house, which had been burned
and looted the previous day. Dosso reportedly was killed because he refused to sign
a declaration implicating Ouattara in the rebellion.
On October 11, gendarmes arrested Adama Cisse, the head of the RDR party in
the eastern town of M’Bahiakro, who died the following day from injuries he received
while in custody. The gendarmes reportedly were searching for Ibrahima
Fanny, the RDR mayor of Bouake, and for weapons.
On October 18, members of the security forces reportedly shot and killed Seydou
Coulibaly and Zanzeni Coulibaly, both related to RDR Secretary General Amadou
Gon Coulibaly, at the Abidjan funeral of another Coulibaly family member.
On November 2, the body of Emile Tehe, president of the independent Popular
Movement Party (MPI), was found in Abidjan; the MPI was allied with the RDR.
On November 8, the body of medical doctor Benoit Dakoury-Tabley was found
after he had been kidnaped the previous day; Dakoury-Tabley was the brother of
Louis Dakoury-Tabley, one of the political leaders of the rebel Patriotic Movement
of Cote d’Ivoire (MPCI). Louis Dakoury-Tabley was a ranking official in the ruling
Ivoirian Popular Front (FPI) party.
In a televised speech on November 8, Human Rights Minister Victorine Wodie
vowed that the Government would investigate the death of Dakoury-Tabley and others.
Wodie called for an international study on human rights violations throughout
the country since September 19 and was pursuing the case at year’s end.
Following the September 19 rebellion, the military and security forces conducted
reprisal killings against presumed rebel sympathizers. In October security forces
killed more than 100 noncombatants in Daloa in evident reprisal against northerners
living in the town, according to numerous credible reports; they also killed
persons suspected of assisting the rebels. Uniformed forces took from their homes
individuals of northern descent or foreign Africans (generally called Dioulas); their
bodies were found in the streets the following day. A Muslim cleric, Gaoussou Sylla,
was arrested at home with five other persons, including the Malian honorary consul,
Malian merchants, and the Burkinabe owner of a transport company. The bodies of
Sylla and the other five subsequently were found along a road out of town; the businesses
of the victims were damaged and looted.
On October 28, uniformed forces also killed a number of Guineans in Daloa. Hundreds
of Daloa residents took shelter in a mosque while government forces ransacked
and burned their homes. The Governments of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea
lodged formal protests with the Government over the deaths in Daloa and the
harassment and abuse of northerners in Abidjan and other cities.
After the Daloa killings, the military command and the state-owned media
warned of men ‘‘wearing fatigues’’ who were extorting, mistreating, and killing persons.
The Government criticized such actions as flagrant violations of human rights
and denied that government forces were responsible. On October 25, the Government
announced an investigation into the killings to discover who was impersonating
the country’s security forces. AI and the international press reported that
security forces were responsible for the killings in Daloa. Multiple eyewitnesses saw
the men who carried out the killings arrive in military vehicles, notably of the BAE.
AI noted that military authorities stopped the killings after 3 days when pressed
by Muslim leaders who underscored the responsibility of government authorities to
ensure that security forces protected civilians and prevented harassment, especially
of foreigners.
Following the coup attempt, there were numerous reports of militias or death
squads with ‘‘hit lists’’ of rebel sympathizers operating within the military or composed
of private citizens. On November 25, the Ivoirian Human Rights Movement
(MIDH) reported that death squads operating under cover of the curfew had arrested,
kidnaped, and killed approximately 50 political party members and citizens.
The same day, the Ivoirian Human Rights League (LIDHO) issued a statement that
‘‘death squads of unknown persons are sowing terror.’’
In response to criticism from national and international NGOs, the Government’s
military spokesman stated that the Government had opened judicial inquiries into
the killings.
In Abidjan police and security forces in search of rebel sympathizers, infiltrators,
and arms caches used lethal force in neighborhood sweeps against citizens with
northern origins and African immigrants. For example, on October 7, gendarmes de-
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