O'Bannon.Conflict Analysis in CDI final version

No War – No Peace
The “Post-conflict” Environment in Côte d’Ivoire
Prepared for UNICEF Côte d’Ivoire
Country Representative Hervé Ludovic deLys
Brett R. O’Bannon, Ph.D.
DePauw University
Department of Political Science
and the Conflict Studies Program

1
Table of Contents
Background to the Study ……………………………………………………………………… 2
Summary Description …………………………………………………………………………. 2
Conflict Context ……………………………………………………………………………….. 5
Conflict Parties ………………………………………………………………………………... 6
Conflict and Change in the North ……………………………………………………………. 8
The West: Between Normalization and No-Man’s Land ……………….…………………. 14
An Emerging “Intractable Conflict” ……..…………………………………………………. 17
Persistence of Root Causes …………………..………………………………………………. 18
Consequences …………………………………………………………………………………. 19
Conclusion and Recommendations ………………………………………………………….. 22
Appendix A. Security Events April-October 2012 …………………………………………. 30

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Background to the Study
Between the Christmas coup of 1999 and the end of the post-electoral crisis in April 2011,
Ivoirians witnessed stretches of unsteady, insecure peace punctuated by episodes of acute
violence and atrocity. From April to December 2011, UNICEF was actively involved in
responding to the most recent humanitarian crisis based upon operational commitments
embedded in the Core Commitments for Children (CCC). Though by early October 2011,
widespread armed confrontation was no longer an issue of greatest concern, UNICEF’s
Representative remained concerned by the high level of tensions in the West, reports of
persistent violence in and around Bouaké, and the stalemate of the reconciliation process. As a
result, he determined that it was imperative to engage in formal conflict analysis, the objective of
which was to map this complex conflict for the purpose of better understanding its causes,
dynamics, and consequences and to assess the present state of tensions in the country. Doing so
should aid UNICEF in better implementing its recovery and transition mission so as to improve
its contribution to the larger peacebuilding enterprise pursued by the Government and the
international community.
Professor Brett O’Bannon, Director of Conflict Studies at DePauw University (Indiana), was
selected for a consultancy whose overall purpose was to execute this conflict analysis and to help
clarify how various threats to human security (viz., direct, structural and cultural violence) have
undermined the rights of women and children in Cote d’Ivoire.1
The consultant conducted a literature review prior to undertaking three (3) visits in Côte d’Ivoire
including field missions to the unstable western border with Liberia and to the former rebellion
stronghold in the north. He met with high-level officials from the Government, the United
Nations and the diplomatic community and spent substantive time with youth, women’s
associations and non-governmental actors while working in the field.
Ultimately, this consultancy is intended to help UNICEF refine its support to the Government
(i.e conflict sensitive programs, education and peace building, etc…), the National Commission
for Dialogue, Truth and Reconciliation and development partners involved in child rights
protection and promotion; and, may help shape UNICEF’s future Country Program (2013-2018)
by suggesting further areas of investigation and action – in the short, medium and longer term.
Summary Description
The conflict in Côte d’Ivoire is actually a complex array of nested multiparty conflicts with
multiple origins dating back to the constitution of the colonial political economy. There are local,
national and regional dimensions that will complicate any effort at intervention. On the local
level, resource conflicts (viz., land tenure, herder-farmer, local-‘stranger,’ etc.) have been
intensifying, sometimes escalating to spirals of reciprocal deadly violence. For example, the
1
The findings and views expressed in this report are solely those of the consultant and do not represent the views of
UNICEF. Special thanks to Rachel Goldberg for her advice and welcome input.

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attack in the region of Taï, which occurred during the consultant’s first visit, cost the lives of six
“strangers” (four Burkinabé and two Baulé). In a region where the discourse of autochthony lay
at the heart of the decade-long no war / no peace, these figures are suggestive of a minor act of
ethnic cleansing. Upon further investigation it became apparent that this attack on a campement -
- a proper subject of our inquiry in its own right -- constituted the reprisal for a theft. At least as
important as identity, land and citizenship disputes, therefore, are the permissive causes of
escalation -- the now 10-year absence of state authority and a culture of violence that has
emerged in such a context.
On the national level, there are intense struggles for access to/control of the neopatrimonial state.
They first turned violent in October 2000 when dozens of members of Laurent Gbagbo’s Front
Patriotique Ivoriene (FPI) were killed by forces loyal to then strongman Robert Guéï. Shortly
afterward, violent clashes broke out between FPI supporters and those of Alassane Dramane
Ouatarra’s Rassemblement des Républicains (RDR). Two years later, open armed civil conflict
erupted when the Mouvement patriotique de Côte d’Ivoire (MPCI), headed by Guillaume Soro,
launched its rebellion. The country remained divided between a rebel-held, largely Muslim north
and a government-controlled largely Christian south until 2011, when Soro’s forces, partially
backed by UN forces, secured Abidjan and removed President Gbagbo from office.
The regional dimension is multifaceted and complex. It includes the alleged involvement of the
Burkinabé regime in hosting and supporting the initial MPCI rebellion. The long history of
migration from Burkina Faso sits at the center of local and national level conflicts over land and
other resources and over the place of immigrants in Ivoirian society. The regional dimension
implicates armed militias from Liberia in several recent attacks in the western region of Côte
d’Ivoire.2
The conflict in Mali, including the instability surrounding the transitional government,
constitutes another important factor given the potential for spillover and the recruitment of
former Ivoirian fighters. Supporters of former president Gbagbo have recently been accused by
UN experts of attempting to recruit both the Islamist rebels in northern Mali as well as the
military junta in Bamako in an effort to dislodge Ouattara from power.3
Pro-Gbagbo exiles are
also accused of using their presence in Ghana as a rear base from which to launch attacks, such
as the September assault on the border town of Noe, an event that led the Ouattara government to
close the border.
Of course, these local, national and regional levels of conflict relate to each other in complex
ways. Local violence between indigenous and ‘foreigners’ erupts over land tenure disputes,
which fuels the flames of the national-level discourse of autochthony and xenophobia. For their
part, national-level politicians seem keen to instrumentalize local disputes to help wage their own
battles and in doing so help create a hostile climate in which more local conflict is likely. As a
result, local violence, even that driven by local concerns, often reflects the national cleavage, or
the master conflict narrative.
There were multiple precipitating factors that led to the onset of full-blown violent armed civil
conflict in 2002. The first was an economic crisis in the 1980s, which led to a significant
2
Human Rights Watch, “Liberia: Ivorian Government Foes Wage, Plot Attacks,” June 6, 2012.
3
Lederer, Edith M. and Robbie Corley-Boulet. 2012. “U.N. Report: Gbagbo Allies Reached Out to Islamists,” Time
October 8, 2012. http://world.time.com/2012/10/08/un-report-gbagbo-allies-reached-out-to-islamists/

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contraction of the economy. Second was the 1993 death of the country’s founding father, Félix
Houphouët-Boigny, which sparked a succession crisis initially won by Henri Konan Bedié, but
which continued well into the next decade. Third, during his reign Bedié introduced the divisive
concept of Ivoirité, with which he sought to articulate a more restricted notion of the ‘real’
Ivoirian citizen. This had the effect of preventing northerner Alassane Outtara from running in
the 1995 presidential election. That same year growing pressures around land tenure
arrangements came to a head in a riot near the southern town of Tabou, killing scores of
Burkinabé immigrants (allogenes). Fourth, in 1998, a new law regulating land tenure was
promulgated. This law abrogated customary land tenure arrangements and, consistent with
Ivoirité, restricted ownership to certified Ivorian citizens (autochtones). This stripped hundreds
of thousands of internal and foreign migrants of long standing customary claims to land. Fifth, a
1999 coup d’état ousting President Bedié usurped the democratic order and brought to power
General Robert Guéï, who promised a quick return to democratic government. Fifth, Guéï’s
effort to restrict the field of candidates in the 2000 presidential election further divided the
country and consolidated feelings of exclusion registered in the north. An uprising forced Guéï
from power after he sought to declare himself the victor. The actual winner of the election, long-
time opposition leader Laurent Gbagbo, assumed power. Hopes for new elections with a free
field of candidates were soon dashed, however, when Gbagbo decided against them. Finally, to
make matters worse, Gbagbo’s government further reduced the representation of northerners
adding significantly to their sense of exclusion.
Two years later, while President Gbagbo was out of the country, northern rebels launched
military operations in Abidjan, Bouaké, Korhogo and Man. Quickly the country was divided into
a northern, rebel controlled area and a southern, government controlled area. Between these two
areas would be inserted the UN controlled Zone de confiance. The fighting was intense and
armed forces associated with both sides have been blamed for grave human rights abuses and
violations of international humanitarian law.4
Despite multiple peace agreements, the next
several years was characterized by on-again, off-again violence or what has been described as
the condition of “no war, no peace.” In 2007, things appeared to be improving after a power-
sharing agreement was reached and the zone de confiance was removed, allowing greater
correspondence of people and goods. Nevertheless, spoiling behavior on the part of the Gbagbo
government eventually brought things to a climax with the long-postponed presidential election
in 2010.5
When sitting president Gbagbo sought to reverse the initial announcement of his
opponent’s victory, violence erupted in many parts of Abidjan and multiple towns in the south
and west. Once again armed forces associated with both sides (defense forces, rebel forces,
militias, mercenaries, etc.) were accused of grave violations of human rights and international
humanitarian law.6
With the assistance of the international peacekeeping force, the Forces
Nouvelles successfully removed Gbagbo from power and after weeks of continued fighting
pacified Abidjan and disputed areas in the south and west.
4
See the Rapport de la Commission d’enquête internationale sur les allegations de violations des droits de l’homme
en Côte d’Ivoire, 25 May 2004
5
For a description of the Gbagbo camp’s spoiler behavior, see Langer, Arnim 2010, “Côte d’Ivoire’s Elusive Quest
for Peace,” IBIS Discussion Paper, No. 4.
6
See the Rapport de la Commission d’enquête internationale indépendante sur la Côte d’Ivoire, 1 July 2011 and the
Rapport de l’expert indépendant sur la situation des droits de l’homme en Côte d’Ivoire, Doudou Diène, 9 January
2012.

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Conflict Context
The colonial construction of Côte d’Ivoire helped create the structural conditions for the
contemporary conflict. As it did throughout Africa, colonialism grouped together ethnic
communities not necessarily amenable to the forging of a single national identity. There are
approximately 60 ethnic groups in the country divided into four or five language families. The
northern part of the country is largely, but not entirely, Muslim, the south largely, but not entirely
Christian. Colonial borders also arbitrarily divided ethnic communities, which has had the effect
of cross border involvement in the otherwise internal affairs of states. The involvement of
Liberians in the armed militias of western Côte d’Ivoire and the implication of Burkinabés in
land tenure conflicts between autochthones and allocthones are but two cases in point.
Perhaps more important than the contours of the colonial state was the colonial construction of
the plantation economy, with its attendant social and economic dislocations. In particular, the
emergence of cocoa and coffee plantations in the south spurred labor migrations from poorer
northern parts of the colony resulting in widespread sharecropping. These migrations would,
over time, lead to a situation in which indigenous populations became minorities in their own
homelands. In addition, “the rise of the plantation economy redistributed wealth and property in
ways” that undermined the power of an already relatively weak indigenous authority, producing
“social disorganization and a ‘semi-anarchic state of affairs.’”7
The post-colonial regime that emerged over the first two or three decades of independence also
underwrote the terms of contemporary conflict. The neopatrimonial state organized by president
Houphouet-Boigny was a delicately crafted system of patronage distribution that sought to
incorporate as much of the multinational community as was necessary to placate potential
opposition. Despite the dexterity with which Houphouet-Boigny managed affairs of state,
however, deep structural divisions developed within Ivorian society. Uneven development
among the regions left an increasingly bitter taste in the mouths of marginalized northerners.8
The neopatrimonial state also creates zero-sum politics among competing claimants to state
power.
Though it was an economic powerhouse on the African continent, the economic shock of the
commodities crash of the 1980s revealed a deceptively fragile political economy. Gross domestic
product shrank considerably over the 1980s and 1990s and the subsequent decade’s conflict
drove economic “development in reverse.”9
(Expected growth this year is presently 6-7%.) The
economic contraction seriously undermined the capacity of the government to continue to
distribute patronage, leaving increasing numbers of people feeling marginalized or socially
excluded. Consequently, the legitimacy of the regime lay in tatters. The degree to which regime
legitimacy was dependent on the capacity to distribute patronage helps explain the system’s
evident lack of resilience to the initial economic shock.
7
Boone, Catherine. 2003. Political Topographies of the African State: Territorial Authority and Institutional
Choice, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pg. 187.
8
For an excellent discussion of the impact of regional inequalities on conflict see Langer, Arnim, 2005. “Horizontal
inequalities and violent group mobilization in Côte d’Ivoire,” Oxford Development Studies, 32
9
Collier, Paul. “Development and Conflict,” Centre for the Study of African Economies, Department of Economics,
Oxford University, 1 October 2004.

6
While the economic circumstances turned dire, an increasingly clear environmental crisis in the
Sahel region began to have disruptive effects in northern Côte d’Ivoire and neighboring countries
like Mali and Burkina Faso. These disruptions to agriculture and animal husbandry began
pushing increasing numbers of immigrants into southern and western Côte d’Ivoire. These
dynamics led to greater levels of environmental scarcity, aggravating social tensions surrounding
land tenure, herder-farmer conflicts and conflicts among local and foreign fishermen.
The death of Houphouet-Boigny in December 1993 sparked a succession crisis and a rivalry
among competing claimants to the top position that is, in some respects, yet unresolved. Henri
Konan Bedié presided over an increasingly corrupt government until he was overthrown in 1999
and replaced by General Robert Guéï. Guéï was forced from power after he attempted to declare
himself the winner of the 2000 presidential election. Laurent Gbagbo assumed the presidency in
his stead. Two years later the attempted coup/rebellion by the MPCI effectively divided the
country in two. President Gbagbo ruled until April 2011, when, in the dénouement of the post-
electoral crisis, he was forcibly removed from office by the Forces Armées des Forces
Nouvelles, with support of international peacekeeping forces. Today, supporters of Gbagbo
remain convinced of the illegitimacy of the current government and hope for, and apparently plot
to achieve, some sort of restoration.
Conflict Parties
One of the functions of this map is to help determine who needs to be talking to whom, both in
the context of top-down and bottom-up peacebuilding. Through the principle of complementarity
we can approach the question of parties to the conflict with a view to prescribing ways in which
bottom-up and top-down can be connected. It is at the juncture of top-down and bottom-up that
UNICEF might play a significant role on the national reconciliation landscape.
At the elite level the principle incompatibility is the zero-sum contest for control of executive
power in a presidential system. In addition to the winner-takes-all nature of presidential
elections, the president of Côte d’Ivoire has control of the state’s considerable patronage
resources that come from cocoa, coffee, oil, etc. The central role the state plays in the allocation
of these resources, and the increasingly exclusionary nature of politics at the national level, raises
the stakes of normal political contests to the level of existential threats. And it is in the face of
such perceived threats to group survival that groups make the decision to commit atrocities.10
At present the multiparty field contesting elections is dominated by the following:
• The current governing party RDR, led by president Ouattara;
• The long-time ruling party of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the PDCI, headed by former
president Henri Konan Bedié;
• The party of the late General Robert Guéï, the UDPCI, led by Dr. Albert Toikeusse Mabri
A total of 35 parties and 435 independents fielded candidates in the 2011 legislative election.
10
Valentino, Benjamin. 2004. Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th
Century. Ithaca, Cornell
University Press.

7
The party of former president Laurent Gbagbo, the FPI, constitutes the most significant
opposition to the current government. Its boycott of the last election attests to a lingering
legitimacy deficit for the regime. Outside the present configuration of the FPI are former key
players in the Gbagbo administration presently in exile. These include the likes of former youth
minister (and leader of the Young Patriots) Charles Blé Goudé, and former Gbagbo spokesperson
Justin Koné Katinan. Other supporters of the former president are said to be regrouping across
both the Liberian and Ghanaian borders for the purpose of launching destabilizing attacks on
Côte d’Ivoire.
Most political parties continue to reflect the compounding cleavages of region, ethnicity and to a
lesser extent, religion.11
The RDR constitutes the representative party of the north. The PDCI
heartland is in the Grande-centre. The UDPCI finds its support among the Dan (Yacouba) of the
west. The FPI remains the party of the center and south, with the Bété, Attié and Dida
constituting critical constituencies.
Principal ethnic groups in Côte d’Ivoire
At the mass level the apparent incompatibilities relate principally to questions of resource
scarcity and to the larger conflict about belonging and citizenship. Though the origins of specific
conflicts often lie at the local level, the broader incompatibilities are articulated in terms that
resonate with the master cleavage of Ivoirité. Conflicts about land tenure and the struggle to
share a common space – especially under worsening economic conditions brought on by the
collapse of Côte d’Ivoire’s miracle economy – are expressed increasingly in terms of
autochthony or indigeneity.
11
“Les élections législatives 2011 confirment à nouveau les bastions traditionnels,” @bidj@net, 12 December 2011.

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Table 1. Principal Parties in the South and West
The Ivoirian “nation” is comprised of some 60 ethnic groups, grouped into four or five language
families: the Mandé (north and south sub groups) and Gour in the north, the Krou in the south
and west, and the Kwa in the east. As McGovern has argued, however, trying to place ethnic
groups into a rigid cartography of homelands is to imagine a mythical time zero at which all
groups properly resided in their own discrete spaces. Given the history of migration in the
region, no such condition has ever existed.13
Instead, the map is better seen as consisting of
populations that have, in a given location, the status of either local or stranger. In Ivorian
parlance this is the distinction between autochthones (those indigenous to a given space enjoying
the rights associated with indigeneity), allochthones (strangers who have migrated from within
Côte d’Ivoire) and allogenes (strangers who hail from outside Côte d’Ivoire).
Conflict and Change in the North
As the functional capital of the Forces Nouvelles the town of Bouaké was the most integrated
locale in the rebellion’s governance structure. As a senior ONUCI official describes it, the FN
functioned rather effectively in the region. “The zone commanders were ministers and
administered everything from economy, to finances, health and to a certain degree education.”
Most importantly, “they managed all the inter-communal conflicts. When there were small inter-
communal conflicts they directed and supervised the negotiations and managed to regulate the
problem… During the whole time the Forces Nouvelles governed the north zone, inter-
communal conflicts were dormant.”
As mediators, however, they were far from impartial for it was said that in many instances “they
protected Peuls over Baoulés.” Perhaps predictably, latent inter-communal conflicts erupted as
the Forces Nouvelles left the area for the final assault on Abidjan in early April 2011. “When
they left, hostilities commenced.” And we still see today a high level of these kinds of conflicts.
Numerous interviewees made express mention of the problem of herder-farmer conflict as well
as conflict among authochthonous and allocthonous fishermen.
What is the impact of these conditions? Lederach holds that there are four levels or dimensions
to conflict’s impact: Personal, relational, structural and cultural.14
In this section I seek to map
out these four levels of conflict’s impact.
12
“Dioula” is a moniker used to refer to northerners in general, not only the actual ethnic group Dioula.
13
McGovern, Mike. 2011. Making War in Côte d’Ivoire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
14
Lederach, John Paul. 2003. The Little Book of Conflict Transformation. The Little Books of Justice and
Peacebuilding Series. Intercourse, PA: Good Books.
Autochthones Allochthones Allogenes
Attié Baulé Burkinabés
Bété Senufo/Dioula12
Malians
Dan
We/Guéré
Dida

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1. At the personal level, Lederach says, “conflict affects our physical well-being, self-
esteem, emotional stability, capacity to perceive accurately and spiritual integrity” (Ibid.
24). Direct violence is experienced as an increasingly normalized part of life in Bouaké
and it is having predictable and discernable effects on its victims.15
Two young girls we
encountered, both victims of sexual violence, manifested classic symptoms of post-
traumatic stress disorder. Both girls were still visibly distressed many months after their
attacks. Both were sullen and withdrawn. Obviously suffering from shame and
humiliation, they assiduously avoided eye contact. One girl has essentially given up on
her schooling and has failed her year-end exams. Both girls have been denied any
semblance of justice. Each knows her assailant but neither has been brought to book. On
the contrary, one girl was re-victimized by the attacker when he returned to her house and
threatened her and the entire family with a charged weapon.
Indeed, the level of sexual violence in the area remains disturbingly high, especially for a
“post-conflict” environment. Though statistics for 2012 were unavailable,16
Human
Rights Watch documents the problem in stark terms. Consistent with HRW’s report, one
interviewee engaged with this problem stated, “we have many cases of rape of children
by men in arms.” Among the many problems associated with sexual violence is the
pervasive fear suffered by victims and families. “Everyone,” it was said, “is afraid to file
charges. Who knows what will happen in the night? When night comes maybe they will
break down the doors and kill everyone.”
Other interviewees discussed the problem of imbedded trauma, as well.17
In words that
speak for many in the area, one interviewee lamented, “I can never forget,” and asked,
“How are we to make peace with these kinds of memories?” Another participant in the
same interview suggested that people live in a “state of permanent anxiety.” This is
perhaps to be expected for those living under conditions of manifest and structural
violence such as one finds in Bouaké.
With respect to the prospects for reconciliation, a matter that many interviewees brought
to the fore, there appear to be critical obstacles at the personal level, including a
persistent sense of victimization. One said frankly that such talk was simply premature:
“we have yet to mourn for our dead. On the contrary, ‘it is the torturers who mock us.’”
Another, in referring to this person’s claim, pressed us to see how deeply felt are the
injuries of war: “they are in the blood.” She notes, “The poor have been badly treated,
and then asked to pardon those responsible.” But, she added, without a “minimum of
justice” we cannot expect anyone to pardon anyone. The justice she refers to might come
in many forms. As an example of one injustice borne by the victims of war, the 7000
15
Human Rights Watch. 2012. “Côte d’Ivoire: Lethal Crime Wave, Security Vacuum.” March 5, 2012.
16
Statistics for the three previous years were made available. These data revealed a clear post-election crisis spike in
sexual violence.
17
The specifics of the events or circumstances leading to the trauma were often left unstated. Some references were
made, however, to events such as the massacre of the danseuses d'adjanou of Sakassou or of unarmed gendarmes
and their children at the outset of the rebellion in 2002. Still others referenced the general displacement of many
who fled Bouaké for parts south, namely Baoulés.

10
CFA franc fee for issuance of a birth certificate was subjected to particularly harsh
criticism.18
Young people we interviewed were keen to argue – and many adults agreed – that they
often bore the heaviest burdens of conflict. To be sure, being young has certainly been no
protection against the worst violations of human rights. In October 2002, dozens of
young people were murdered along with their the fathers at the prison of the 3rd
Infantry
Battalion. In June 2004 in the northern town of Korhogo a gruesome death of some sixty
people described as young civilians came as the result of asphyxiation after being left to
die in metal containers baking in the hot sun.
In addition to suffering violations of their political and civil
rights, Ivoirian youth have suffered from violations of their
economic and social rights as well. Their rights to education
have been undermined by the closing of schools, from
primary institutions to the Université de Bouaké. Their rights to health care have been
undermined by similar closings of health centers. The trafficking of children for
exploitative work has violated prohibitions on the age-inappropriate employment of
children. The problem of child prostitution has also grown.
To the degree that a culture of violence has emerged from a decade of armed conflict – a
matter discussed more fully below – children are particularly susceptible to its pull. As a
particularly compelling example, a recent incident was recounted in which a young child
brought a gun to school in order to get back at those who had teased him about his
‘strange’ accent. That such a response was so wildly disproportionate was said to be the
result of a more general phenomenon – the young have, as a result of a decade of conflict
in which very little schooling has been sustained, lost their way. One spoke of the evident
“destruction of their personality.” They have developed no standards or benchmarks
(repères) for appropriate behavior. Potentially worse still, the standards they may have
adopted are deeply militarized. They have been inculcated with a war-time mentality.
Some noted, for example, how many children now seek to emulate the lifestyle of
warlords rather than putting work into schooling.
2. Lederach notes “conflict changes relationships.” It forces people to rethink, in a general
way, how they will “structure their relationships interpersonally, as well as inter-group
and intra-group.”19
18
There is a certain irony to this fee, which many find cost prohibitive. In no small measure, the Forces Nouvelles
fought the war over rights of citizenship. That the state now, or still, demands more than many can pay for a
document understood to be absolutely essential to enjoy the rights of citizenship is seen as adding insult to injury.
19
Lederach, 2003. Little Book of Conflict Transformation, 25.
We often hear children
say, “I want to be like
that warlord.”

11
The family
It was suggested in numerous ways that parents have become
less engaged with their children, in particular, but not
exclusively, with respect to education. Indeed, such a claim is
consistent with other observations about generational conflict
imbedded within the overall Ivoirian conflict.20
The causal
connection between the Ivoirian conflict and the problem of parental disengagement is no
doubt complex. One might argue, however, that one important causal mechanism is the
condition of worsening poverty. That is, it has been well established that the conflict has,
independently of other factors, worsened poverty in Côte d’Ivoire.21
Greater poverty puts
strains on all manner of relationships, including familial ones. One tragic story was
recounted. A mother desperately searching for food to feed the family was forced to leave
her children unattended. A freak accident ensued in which an unattended child was
electrocuted by the stoplight at a Bouaké intersection. This poverty-induced death is
quintessentially what Galtung had in mind when he articulated the concept of structural
violence.22
In truth, multiple forms of violence are being perpetrated against children. Because of
worsening economic conditions, increasing numbers of children are being exposed to
exploitative labor conditions. One UNICEF staff member discussed a growing problem
of trafficking of children for their labor. Because parents are unable to provide
adequately for their families, children are increasingly being used to take up the slack.
Age inappropriate work has included participation in military forces on both sides of the
armed conflict.
Society
Initial indications are that social cohesion remains tenuous at best, and under constant
threat of unraveling. In fact, the DDR concept of reintegration might well be broadened
to conceive of the larger task of societal reintegration, particularly of the many thousands
displaced by the war. Those who left Bouaké when the war broke out have been returning
since the end of the post-electoral crisis. One interviewee recounted how divided Malinké
and Akan women are today. Since the return of many Baoulé, deep fissures have
developed in the markets. As a result, a separate market for each group has now replaced
their formerly common market.
One interviewee noted that the prefecture “put in place a committee to manage this
difficult return,” but it has apparently not functioned effectively. Those who are returning
are “labeled” and held out for scorn by many who stayed in place. This includes doctors,
20
McGovern, Mike. 2011. Making War in Côte d’Ivoire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Chelpi-den Hamer,
Magali. 2011. Militarized youths in Western Côte d’Ivoire: Local processes of mobilization, demobilization, and
related humanitarian interventions (2002-2007). African Studies Centre: University of Leiden.
21
World Bank. 2010. “Côte d’Ivoire. Inequality, Conflict and Poverty: A Poverty Assessment.” Poverty Reduction
and Economic Management, Africa Region.
22
Galtung, Johan. 1969. “Violence, Peace and Peace Research,” Journal of Peace Research vol 6, no. 3, pp. 167-
191.
Yesterday we saw a
child electrocuted…

12
nurses, teachers, civil administrators and other bureaucrats. Those without the necessary
credentials or qualifications have replaced many qualified personnel. Room assistants, for
example, began to function as nurses and even doctors. Voluntary teachers seek now to
retain the positions they feel they earned during the conflict, regardless of their level of
certification.
The family and society
On multiple, independent occasions, interviewees raised a potentially serious long-term
obstacle to national reconciliation. Market women, for example, in conflict with each
other were said to pass this conflict on to their children, forbidding them to play with “the
other.” In another context, it was suggested that ‘parents are going to pass on their desire
for vengeance to their children.” To the degree that these fears are founded, that is, to the
degree that there is transmission of the conflict across generation, calls for peacebuilding
through education make intuitive sense. There will be need to interrupt this
intergenerational transmission of conflict. What transpires within the family has direct
implications for transitional justice and peacebuilding.
What is surely developing in Côte d’Ivoire is what Vollkan refers to as chosen traumas.23
The transmission of historical memory, particularly of collective tragedy, sustains intense
feelings about even ancient historical events. Groups that have “suffered loss or
experienced helplessness and humiliation in a conflict with a neighboring group” may be
particularly susceptible to manipulation by political elites who would stoke the flames of
conflict by instrumentalizing memories of past group suffering. As a result, such groups
may “feel entitled to do anything, sadistic or masochistic, to protect their large group
identity against a threat.”24
Historical memory of the Ivoirian conflict, of past violence –
structural as well as direct – might well be the basis upon which future atrocities are
committed.
3. According to Lederach, “The structural dimension highlights the underlying causes of
conflict and the patterns and changes it brings about in social, political and economic
structures.”25
There are at least two ways in which the conflict has had structural implications: at the
level of social organization and in the struggle for natural resources.
All agree that Côte d’Ivoire is awash in weapons. As a
result, they sell for so little that even some children are in
a position to purchase them. Côte d’Ivoire is also known
to suffer a conflict-associated excess of young people or a
“youth bulge.” This combination, seen in conjunction
with other risk factors present in Côte d’Ivoire, such as
23
Volkan, Vamik D. 1998. “Transgenerational Transmissions and Chosen Traumas,” Opening address XIII
International Congress, International Association of Group Psychotherapy, August, 1998.
24
Volkan, “Transgenerational Transmission.”
25
Lederach, 2003. Little Book of Conflict Transformation, 25.
As for young people, their
status is their
Kalashnikov, and they are
not going to give it up.

13
environmental stresses, corruption, poverty, and ethno-religious tensions, indicates a
singularly volatile mix. Young men sporting weapons have been said to undermine the
authority of the chef de village and other traditional authorities. Young rebels of the
Forces Nouvelles installed in local villages found themselves ascribed with a status far
beyond their years and which directly countered that of the chief. As the FN began to
adjudicate disputes among, inter alia, herders and farmers, the village chief’s central
mandate was eroded.
In the present environment, ambiguity reigns. As the administrative functionaries return
to their posts (prefects, sub-prefects, gendarmes) putatively to take over these functions,
they find themselves without the requisite material resources to execute their mandates.
The police and gendarmes have no weapons. The sub-prefect is even said to lack a
vehicle to travel to conflict sites. This is the local manifestation of the larger problem of
restoring the authority of the state and it has direct conflict management implications.
Who ultimately has the authority to respond effectively to local conflicts is a question
presently being answered by circumstances rather than by design.
And just as this authority vacuum appears, the need for greater local conflict management
capacity is indicated by growing and increasingly violent conflict among herders and
farmers and among other autochthones and allocthones. Multiple interviewees attested
independently to the serious and growing problem of herder-farmer conflict and the
consultant has argued elsewhere that a growth in the number and intensity of herder-
farmer conflicts indicates the presence of other structural risk-factors associated with
conflict.26
If this is so, then our interviewees are tapping into more serious problems than
simply these specific conflicts. Growing social stresses that maximize society’s conflict
carrying capacity may well be indicated.
A related but un-anticipated resource conflict came to light. We might refer to it as timber
poaching. Again weapons are implicated. One interviewee discussed a phenomenon in
which “people come – often accompanied by men in arms – and cut trees” on land being
utilized by others. Often, in fact, there are crops present and they get destroyed in the
process. This is apparently a much more widespread problem than is commonly known
and it is creating enormous anger among victims of this poaching. Failure to regulate this
form of environmental conflict was held to be another obstacle in the way of effective
reconciliation.
4. The final dimension Lederach specifies is cultural. This involves “changes produced by
conflict in the broadest patterns of group life, including identity and the ways that culture
affects patterns of response and conflict.”27
One of the first discussions during the Bouaké mission revealed the interconnections
between culture and conflict. When asked about the ways in which violence against
women and children are expressed, one interviewee raised the issue of excision. This
26
O’Bannon, Brett R. 2012. ‘Monitoring the Frog’ in Africa: Conflict Early Warning with Structural Data,” Global
Responsibility to Protect (Forthcoming).
27
Lederach, 2003. Little Book of Conflict Transformation, 26

14
harmful practice is now apparently in resurgence and is so directly as a result of the
conflict. Prior to the outbreak of the war, a law was passed (1998) banning the practice.
In response, “it was decided among NGOs to put in place mechanisms to promote
adherence to the law. People had begun to understand.” But the following year the
December coup set in motion the events of the last decade. With this coup came “a
vacuum, you see and juridical structures and support programmes have been slowed
down.” It is essentially these structures that are the essence of such a program. There has
been such an absence of state authority that those wishing to practice excision have been
free to do so. In addition, it is worth noting that the region of the country controlled by
the Forces Nouvelles is the part of the country where excision is practiced. Thus a
conjunction of two factors, the cultural repertoire of northern Ivorians and the absence of
state authority help explain the resurgence of this harmful cultural practice. 28
On a broader scale, reference was made to what we might term a culture of violence or
the war mentality that so pervades society. Above we discussed the way in which youth
have bought into this culture with their efforts to emulate warlord lifestyles. Also we
discussed the example of a boy bringing a gun to school to settle a minor dispute. And
again, so awash in guns is Côte d’Ivoire that the selling price of a Kalashnikov is no
longer above what even some children can pay. All this speaks to what we might refer to
as the militarization of Ivoirian society.29
Others spoke during my first mission of an
emergent culture of violence. Interviews in Bouaké only strengthen that argument.
Militarism, or the belief that violence, especially militarized violence, is an effective
solution to social, political and economic problems is increasingly pervasive in Ivoirian
society. This might well be the longest lasting and most deeply imbedded obstacle to
peacebuilding and effective national reconciliation. It may explain why one interviewee
who works in the rural sector said, “the war is over, but it continues in the countryside, in
the villages.”
The West: Between Normalization and No-Man’s Land
Nowhere in Côte d’Ivoire does the “No War, No Peace” label
apply more appropriately than in the western region. It is here
that the specter of resurgent violence has arisen most
forcefully. As can be clearly seen in the incident map in the
Appendix, the Man-Guiglo-Taï axis constitutes the most
violent area in the country, accounting for more than one
third of all security events recorded between April and
October 2012. And though Chelpi-den Hamer cautions against painting the “wild west” with too
broad a brush, it is clear that the kinds of local-stranger violence for which the region is known
are based on the same tensions that have been observed here for decades. They emerged with
colonial era labor migrations, grew more intense under Houphouet’s regime and crested during
28
Other practices identified include infanticide, trafficking for child labor and the exploitation and abuse of talibés,
or students of Koranic schools.
29
See also Chelpi-den Hamer, 2011. Militarized Youths in Côte d’Ivoire: Local Processes of mobilization,
demobilization, and related humanitarian interventions, African Studies Center: University of Leiden.
Someone born in these
conditions, in ten to twenty
years, he’ll dream only of
violence.

15
the civil war. Today, as one local observer puts it, “since the crisis, the west has become a no-
man’s land. You come, you settle, you do what you want, all by force of arms.”
Yet, in other ways, life appears to be returning to normal. The markets in Man and Guiglo appear
to be thriving. The stalls are all occupied and customers fill the area. There are still checkpoints,
however, but one sous-préfet insists these sorts of measures remain necessary to prevent a
relapse into crisis. And in Man and Guiglo, at least, they are no longer sites of larceny and
intimidation.
Women and Gender
Somewhere between this return to normalcy and the persistent no-man’s land, one finds the
quotidian realities of people’s lives. And these realities are still rather stark. In meeting with a
focus group of women survivors of sexual violence, one learns a great deal about what “post-
conflict” Côte d’Ivoire is like. One the one hand, their lives, too, have returned to a degree of
normalcy. Their concerns include those which occupy rural dwellers elsewhere. Tending their
fields is a key priority. Securing adequate food for the family is a daily preoccupation. But then
the conversation turns to the sensitive issue of family planning and it becomes clear that the
sexual violence they have all experienced remains a part of their thinking about how to navigate
this post-conflict terrain – literally. They speak of the need to travel in groups in order to keep
themselves safe from attack. Though they assert the principal roads are now secure, the freedom
of movement of women in post-conflict Côte d’Ivoire is significantly curtailed by the ever-
present fear of sexual violence. One simply does not venture out alone, certainly not at night
alone, if at all.
During the height of the conflict, sexual violence became normalized. In fact, one interviewee
suggested that it was such a regular feature of life in the region,
it was no longer considered violence. It was accepted by the population that a
soldier comes in the night and knocks on the window and tells you to make your
daughter come outside so that he might take ‘his soldier’s rest’ (repos de
guerrier). That was normal. It wasn’t denounced, it was courant.
Some suggest that there are local customs that promote sexual violence, such as the belief among
some men that sex with a virgin will endow the male with special powers. So just how much
sexual violence is there? As is always the case, most sexual violence goes unreported. Shame,
local authorities report, prevents more women from reporting their assaults. Others tell a
different story, suggesting fear of reprisal for making formal claims. One small quasi-NGO in
Guiglo reports receiving around 7 cases per week. If estimates from Bouaké are accurate, then
the number could be as high as 21 cases per week in Guiglo alone.30
Figures for the region would
be staggering.
30
If we extrapolate from official estimates of unreported sexual violence from other countries, then the number
could be even higher. Cross-national estimates of unreported rape run as high as 85% in Australia, for example
(Australian Institute of Family Studies, Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault).

16
The conflict has destabilized their lives in other ways, as well. Of great concern to many women
we encountered is the increasingly unstable nature of relationships between autochthonous
women and allocthonous men. Local women married to “strangers” decry the fact that since the
conflict “they are not recognized as wives but rather as girlfriends.” In a meeting the day prior to
our focus group, six of fifteen women had this problem. “These men,” it is said, “have their
femme a la maison. It’s a sort of polygamy.”
And, of course, in the context of so much conflict over land and land tenure, women enjoy only
the most tenuous claims to these resources. By local custom women cannot be property owners,
regardless of what the official land tenure law stipulates. Thus even when they inherit property,
often a village council, or even women’s family members, might expropriate their land. Absent a
clearer presence of state authority, women have few avenues to more secure land tenure
arrangements.
A security dilemma?
If governance is conflict management, then the West remains an area very difficult to govern. In
some respects it suffers from the problem Jeffrey Herbst identified – how does the state extend
its authority over distance and sparsely populated territory? One visit to the region and the
landscape seems to articulate Herbst’s concern – establishing the state’s authority and control is a
very demanding and costly proposition. As one very well placed observer put it, “you simply
can’t control this (the Taï) area – they will always be able to stir up trouble – there’s always the
possibility of stirring up the pot.” And this is precisely what recent attacks in the region – in Taï,
Duékoué, Guiglo, and Toulépleu – have done. They have spread tensions and fueled the fears of
new spirals of violence.
It is in this region that social cohesion has taken the biggest hit. There is a pervasive climate of
mistrust and mutual suspicion among autochthones and strangers. Even today, says one
interviewee, “one still sees the other as an enemy.” So deeply felt is this enmity that some clearly
speak as if the conflict is ongoing. Locals say the Burkinabe are arming themselves in fear of
autochthonous revenge. And indeed, one NGO representative speaking with autochthones,
recounts that “they are unanimous, that one day or another they will have their revenge. Yes,
they will reverse the situation, that is what they say.” He asserts, “Ivoirians are going to surprise
us again,” meaning a relapse into conflict.
As we saw in Bouaké, the horror of war has permeated the psyche of those who have lived
through it. One survivor says, speaking of the horror of war, “it’s in people’s hearts, the way of
managing situations with brutality.” He, too, speaks of autochthonous desires for revenge.
“There are people who had to flee,” he says, “they’ve lost everything, everything they worked
for their whole lives. They desire revenge.” One interviewee who does psychosocial counseling,
fears for the long term. Speaking of intergenerational transmission of conflict, he fears that
“someone born in these conditions, in 10-20 years, he’ll dream only of violence.”

17
Thus it seems reasonable to speak of something of an ethnic security dilemma taking shape in the
region.31
In the absence of a stronger state presence, local populations feel abandoned and adrift.
They speak of the paucity of meaningful authority at their level. In the past, they argue, local
authorities helped manage local conflicts but since the extended crisis, as it is referred to here,
armed militants usurped the power of village chiefs and other local authorities. This leaves
autochthones and strangers in a somewhat anarchical condition, relying on themselves rather
than state authorities for their security. This puts the effort of Burkinabes to arm themselves in
stark relief, for it only fuels the fear of autochthones of their hostile intentions. And the attack in
Taï, which presaged the spate of attacks across the south, confirmed in the eyes of migrants that
indeed autochthones seek revenge. It is an unsteady, negative peace that has settled on the land.
Of course, it wasn’t always thus. And this is the real cost of war. Typical of the sentiments I
encountered, one subject said,
for 60 years, since independence, autochthones and allogenes lived together.
There were no problems. There were still traditional mechanisms for managing
their exchanges. But politics came and created new problems. For example, the
land problem never escalated until now.
Of course, this somewhat romanticizes their past, for land-centered conflicts among
locals and strangers have been well documented throughout the southern Côte d’Ivoire
since the colonial period. But the levels of violence and atrocity that these conflicts
reached during and after the war/post-electoral crisis far surpass anything seen before.
And this speaks to the importance of the national context in which local conflicts take
place. It is clear to many that national politics has poisoned ethnic relations in the region.
One observer astutely put it, “national politics articulates with local conflict and it
explodes.”
There is little talk of reconciliation in the region. One sous-préfet simply states that
obtaining better security is the task at hand. He argues that the CDVR has a role to play
but only after security is established. “Now,” he states, “we have to stabilize the
situation.” And therein lies another dilemma. For if national politics creates an
environment in which local conflicts tend to escalate and create conditions of insecurity,
then national level reconciliation is critical to local security. But if local conflicts
continue to stoke the flames of national discourses of conflict and xenophobia, then little
national reconciliation can be expected in the absence of local security. This is the crux of
the problem in the region. There is a pressing need for both top-down and bottom-up
peacebuilding.
An Emerging “Intractable Conflict”
The most general conclusion at which the analysis arrived is that there are indications, some
quite clear, others more subtle, that the Ivoirian conflict is reaching a point of intractability, or is
moving toward the unfavorable end of the tractable – intractable continuum. Intractable conflicts
31
Posen, Barry. 1993. “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict,” Survival 35(1): 27-47.

18
arise from long-standing historical grievances. They take place over long periods of time and
involve both tangible and intangible issues. That is to say, intractable conflicts involve high-
stakes distributional issues but also more intangible ones such as identity, values and beliefs.
Intractable conflicts prove particularly resistant to efforts at conflict resolution or
transformation.32
A few of the indicators of this condition are as follows.
There is a climate of deep mistrust in and among Ivoirian communities. As a result of the
protracted nature of the conflict, atrocities committed by multiple sides or actors, and the
untreated traumas suffered by individuals and communities throughout the country, we are
seeing a deepening polarization among various parties to the conflict (e.g., autochthones,
allochthones and allogenes; pro-Gbagbo and pro-Ouattara forces, etc.).
A culture of violence has emerged as a result of an entire generation having been born and raised
in a context of violent conflict. There is a fundamental lack of state authority in many parts of
the country, which allows local conflicts to go unmanaged and opportunistic violence such as
banditry and gender based violence to continue in a climate of impunity. In addition, in many
parts of the country, indigenous institutions of conflict management (alliance éthnique,
traditional chiefs, etc.) have been seriously degraded.33
There is a clear intergenerational
transmission or perpetuation of the conflict as parents send their children messages of hate and
revenge. Finally, the Ivoirian conflict is highly complex, involving multiple actors, multiple
causes, and dynamics (interpersonal, inter-communal, and increasingly international) that are
difficult to understand.
Intractable conflicts persist for long periods of time and come at great cost. There are many
indications that Côte d’Ivoire is devolving into just such a conflict. As a result, we can clearly
state that the conflict is far from resolved; we are not in a post conflict environment. This is of
considerable importance because the international peace-building community operates according
to assumptions concerning the status of a given conflict. Peace-builders fail when they
prematurely determine that conflict is over, especially at the more hidden local level, which is
precisely where most of the violence in Côte d’Ivoire occurs.34
The repetitive attacks against security forces over the last six months, the killing of blue helmets
in the West, the arrest of opposition leaders, the selective prosecution of civilians or combatants
loyal to the former regime and, the protracted violence against women and children are clear
indications of an intractable conflict in the making.
Persistence of Root Causes
32
Burgess, Heidi and Guy M. Burgess. 2003. "What Are Intractable Conflicts?." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy
Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: November
2003 <http://www.beyondintractability.org/bi-essay/meaning-intractability>.
33
See, for example, Kouyate, Ibrahim. 2009. “Alliances interethniques et onomastique chez les Malinké,” Synergies
Afrique Centrale et de l’Ouest, No.3: 101-107.
34
See Autessere, Séverine. 2010. The Trouble with Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International
Peacebuilding. New York, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

19
The Ivoirian conflict stems from multiple sources, many of which interact with each other in
complex ways. Economic factors include uneven development across regions and a severe
economic crisis beginning in the mid-1980s that intensified the struggle for resources, in
particular land. Horizontal inequalities lie at the heart of the rebellion and are reflected in the
ethnonationalist rhetoric of all sides.35
Political factors include the always-corrosive patronage
politics of the neopatrimonial state, which is critically important in the distribution of contested
resources (jobs, land, etc.). The neopatrimonial states perpetuates a zero-sum politics of resource
allocation in which contests over who should rule take violent form.
Closely related to this problem, questions surrounding citizenship arise from more fundamental
questions about belonging and community. Though contests over identity and belonging are
found in all countries, in Côte d’Ivoire they tend to get inflamed by the vitriolic ethnonationalist
rhetoric of competing parties. Socio-cultural factors include the compounding cleavages of
region, religion and ethnicity. These compounding cleavages have resulted in clear in-group/out-
group dynamics throughout the country (viz., autochthones / allochthones, southerners /
northerners). Environmental factors include drought and desertification in northern Côte d’Ivoire
and Burkina Faso. These have severely disrupted agriculture and have led to southern migration
patterns that put ever more pressure on resources in southern and western Côte d’Ivoire.
As is often the case with intractable conflicts, new causes of conflict develop over time. In Côte
d’Ivoire we have seen the emergence of a culture of violence or a war culture. In such a context,
the presence of between 1 and 3 million small arms said to be floating about the country permits
the escalation of local conflicts into violent clashes that can spark the movement of refugees and
internally displaced persons in considerable numbers. Atrocities, including widespread sexual
violence, have been committed by multiple parties. Untreated traumas, compounded by the
climate of impunity in which abuses occur, have meant that forgiveness or reconciliation remain
elusive. The climate of impunity surrounding the abuses of armed forces contributes to an overall
sense of injustice, particularly a “victors’ justice.”
Though the Government has pledged to hold all ex-combatants responsible for offenses
committed during the 2010-2011 electoral crisis and to crack down on current abuses committed
by those in the armed forces, very little has been done to hold accountable those associated with
the former Forces Nouvelles.
Consequences
What have been the outcomes of this decade-long condition of no war – no peace?
The principal outcome of this conflict is its emergent intractability. The elements or dimensions
of an intractable conflict listed above (e.g., climate of mistrust, culture of violence,
intergenerational perpetuation) are the consequences of sustained conflict. Apropos this
35
See, for example, Langer, Arnim. 2005. “Horizontal Inequalities and Violent Conflict. Côte d’Ivoire Country
Paper,” Human Development Report 2005, Occasional Paper.

20
condition, the resurgent violence being witnessed over the last several months reminds us that
“once a country has had a conflict it is in far greater danger of further conflict: commonly, the
chief legacy of a civil war is another war.”36
Economic Consequences
Paul Collier has referred to civil war as “development in reverse,’” owing to the extraordinary
costs associated with conflict. Côte d’Ivoire is indeed a case in point. By nearly any measure, the
decade of conflict has cost Ivoirians dearly. For example, growth in Côte d’Ivoire’s human
development index for the decade of conflict was far less than that of the rest of Sub Saharan
Africa (6.95% compared to 15.46%). It is worth remembering that prior to the commodities
crash of the 1980s Côte d’Ivoire was a regional economic powerhouse. Over the course of the
decade, growth in household consumption fell by 74%, while growth in per capita GDP fell by
250%. Inequality has worsened over the
course of the last decade, as evidenced by a
rise in the Gini Index from 36.7 in 1995 to
41.5 in 2008.
Social Consequences
One of the startling facts about Côte d’Ivoire
is that communities that found themselves in
violent conflict with each other had previously
lived and worked together peacefully for
decades. The southern and western migration
of northern Ivoirians and Burkinabé dates
back to the colonial period, in fact. But today
it must be said that this is a deeply divided
society. Social cohesion lies in tatters. Local communities demonstrate so little social capital that
overcoming the simplest of collective action problems (self defense) can sometimes seem
beyond their capabilities. Separate markets in Bouaké have developed for Malinké and Baoulé
women. Talk of reconciliation solicits only explanations for why people are not ready to forgive
the “other.” Indeed, individual and communal traumas remain unaddressed and are the source of
seething resentments.
Political Consequences
Today, Côte d’Ivoire is ranked 11th
on the Failed States Index. It is hard to establish the causal
relationship between its ranking and the conflict as the Index has only been calculated since
2005. That year, however, Côte d’Ivoire held the top, most failed state position. The indicators
that appeared most significant were clearly conflict related: Uneven economic development,
legitimacy of the state, deterioration of public services, rule of law, factionalized elites and
external intervention. In institutional terms, one of the most pressing concerns is the need to re-
36
Collier, Paul, et. al.. 2003. Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy, Washington D.C. and
Oxford: World Bank and Oxford University Press.
In Bouaké, separate markets for Baulé and Malinké women
have developed.

21
establish the authority of the state. At local and national levels there is a clear authority deficit.
Political elites remain deeply divided, as is clearly evidenced in the partisan press, and this
constitutes a significant obstacle in the way of nation building.
Youth
Young people have paid an especially heavy
price for the Ivoirian conflict. More than half of
all school age children were forced to abandon
their studies. More than 85% of teachers located
in the North Central West (NCO) regions left
their positions and returned to government-
controlled territory. Much of the educational
infrastructure was destroyed or utilized for non-
educational purposes, including as military
installations. Those of school leaving age have
been unable to start their young adult lives.
Many who would otherwise not be find
themselves still dependent on their parents.
Marriage and family are put in abeyance for many.
Though loss of schooling will prove costly to future wage earners37
, those looking for work now
face very high unemployment. Equally distressing, many young children who should not be
working at all find themselves in exploitative working conditions as trafficking of young people
for work purposes has grown since the conflict began.
At a psychological level, young people have been deeply affected by the conflict. Many speak of
an entire generation adrift, uneducated and estranged from parents. The culture of violence
spoken of earlier has a particularly profound effect on young people. Children bring weapons to
school to resolve schoolyard disputes. Warlords have become role models. And of course, there
is the violence that many young people have been witness to and victims of. Scars remain well
below the surface. Social workers discuss the problems of untreated trauma and foresee
widespread post-traumatic stress, to say nothing of failed reconciliation.
Women and Girls
Consistent with what we know about the gendered experience of armed conflict, women and
girls have been victimized – and continue to be victimized – by sexual and gender based
violence. This victimization has taken such forms as the resurgent practice of excision and the
rape of infants, children, and both young and elderly women. Most violence against women and
girls goes officially unreported so official statistics surely under-estimate the degree of the
problem. This often leaves victims twice victimized, first by the initial assault and then by the
ways in which perpetrators terrorize victims and their families into silence. These offenses
against women and girls leave them with long-term physical and emotional injuries. Over time
37
See Blattman, Christopher and Jeannie Annan. 2010. “The Consequences of Child Soldering,” The Review of
Economics and Statistics, 92(4): 882-898.
An estimated 4 million young people are unemployed.

22
the climate of insecurity has left women with circumscribed freedom of movement as they are
forced to travel only in groups (e.g., to their fields) and rarely if ever after dark.
Girls have endured the cost of war in other ways as well. At a structural disadvantage in full time
schooling before the conflict, girls were left with even lower rates of full-time attendance after
the onset of the conflict. And some evidence indicates that they return to school in lower
percentages than boys, leaving a larger gender gap than before the conflict.38
All this is consistent with an arguably diminished status for women and girls in Ivoirian society
and political economy.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Côte d’Ivoire is said to be emerging from a decade of violent conflict. Whether the conflict is
behind them was a central question driving this analysis. From the Christmas coup of 1999 to the
post electoral crisis of 2010-2011, Ivoirians have endured a maddening “no war, no peace”
condition in which local scale violence and insecurity have persisted. Our findings thus suggest
that it is too early to say the conflict is behind us. In fact, there are ominous indications of a
deepening condition.
After reviewing the core programs of UNICEF, the consultant underscored that the agency has
indeed a clear role to play in engaging with all three forms of violence in the country: structural
and cultural violence through its development program and direct violence through its
humanitarian and recovery response. In fact, UNICEF’s various programs contribute to ending
direct violence by changing conflict behavior, structural violence by removing structural
contradictions and injustices, and cultural violence by changing attitudes39
.
UNICEF, with its equity approach, has clearly taken up this call by placing further consideration
and resources on reducing marginalization and exclusion
that often generates conflict-producing frustration. It is in
the business of what John Burton (1990) referred to as
conflict provention, or moving proactively to place social
relationships on a more cooperative footing by, inter alia,
focusing on the satisfaction of basic human needs (the
assumption being Burton’s notion that failing to meet
basic human needs is a primordial cause of social
conflict). By eliminating as much as possible “structural
violence and other underlying causes and conditions of
deep rooted conflict” we can better prevent conflicts that
take intractable form40
. This is, again, a call for UNICEF
38
Bih, Emile and Cinthia Acka-Douabelle. 2006. “Impact de la guerre sur l’education des filles en Côte d’Ivoire,”
Colloque Internationale, Éducation, Violences, Conflits et Perspectives de la Paix en Afrique, Yaoundé, 6-10 March,
2006.
39
Ramsbotham et al 2005, p. 10-11
40
Sandole 2003: 53
“Peace: by your words and your actions.”

23
to play a critical role in the consolidation not merely of a negative peace, the mere absence of
direct violence and war, but of what Galtung referred to as a positive peace, or “the integration of
human society” (1964, 3) Thus it is that we see the active role that UNICEF plays in peace
consolidation.
With the return of “peace” to Côte d’Ivoire – surely but a negative peace – there is an urgent
need to increase the use of development resources to remove structural injustices (through the
equity approach) and to accelerate cultural peace-building (i.e., changing state and societal
attitudes that perpetuate women’s and children’s structural inequalities).
The field of Conflict Studies has long been subject to the criticism that interventions seldom
follow from an approach that elicits information from people in the conflict setting. Lederach
and others have suggested, therefore, an ‘elicitive’ approach to conflict transformation. To that
end, the analyst sought to incorporate into these suggestions to the maximum extent possible the
expressed interests and desires of local actors. This allows one to forge an intervention that
recognizes and incorporates existing institutions on the ground.
1. Indigenous institutions of conflict management. A distinctive thread emerged from
discussions in all three locations (Abidjan, Bouaké and Man-Guiglo-Taï). This thread concerned
the role of culture and traditional institutions in conflict management/resolution. On one level,
the national reconciliation process, which is centered on the Commission Dialogue, Vérité et
Réconciliation (CDVR), formally acknowledges the presence of traditional authorities and the
history of certain relevant rites, such as ritual sacrifices. The president of the CDVR has called
on all local communities, for example, to observe the sacrificial rites of cleansing, and he
regularly meets with traditional chiefs as reported in the press and in the proceedings of the
commission. What seems to be lacking, however, is an appreciation of what has happened to
these institutions before and since the conflict. Kouadio has shown that although the pre-colonial
Ivoirian state was characterized by solid political and social structures of power at the local level
organized around the traditional chief, the colonial and post-colonial states subjugated these
structures to central (deconcentrated) administrative authority.41
During the conflict – with some
variation across the local region42
– traditional authorities such as village chiefs continued their
decline vis-à-vis other powers, such as rebels or counter-insurgent militia members stationed in
local villages. This suggests that traditional authorities such as the village chief will have less of
role to play in resolving local disputes unless measures are taken to help restore some of the
legitimacy and authority of these institutions. One role UNICEF might play is to help facilitate
dialogues about the historical significance of the traditional structures of social cohesion. An
interest in doing so was expressed by multiple respondents. There is demand for this approach to
resolving local conflicts. Traditional authorities are by no means unambiguously helpful in a
conflict setting, of course. So community dialogues would be an important venue for local actors
to articulate the scope and strength of local power they envision for the purpose of facilitating
local scale conflict transformation without empowering unaccountable traditional authorities.
41
Kouadio, N’dri. 2001. “Recherche sur l’Exercice du Pouvoir Local en Côte d’Ivoire,” Centre Africain de
Formatoin et de Recherche Administrative pour le Dévekoppement, Tangier, Morocco.
42
The power and prestige of traditional authorities in eastern Côte d’Ivoire compares favorably to that in, say the
western region, where the chef de canton was actually introduced during the colonial period.

24
Throughout Côte d’Ivoire, and indeed the West Africa region more generally, there exists
another important traditional institution that merits our consideration. This institution goes by
multiple names such as alliance éthnique, parenté à plaisanterie, joking relationships or
cousinage. Plaisanteries,or jokes, consist of playful exchanges among putative kin or allies that
range from mere teasing and mockery, to more vulgar swearing and play fighting and even to
ritualized theft and kidnapping. Common to all contexts is the sense that these exchanges
constitute sanctioned violations of rudimentary social norms, often to such a degree that real
hostility would result from almost any of these exchanges were they to take place outside the
sanctioned joking relationship – that is, outside the relations of cousinage. Other dimensions to
the alliance interethnique include mutual assistance and non aggression. The analyst has
examined these traditional institutions of conflict management in other settings and has found
significant potential to regulate conflict behavior but also indications these institutions may be in
relative decline.43
Consistent with both of these findings, respondents in this study made direct
reference to alliances éthnique. Both youthful and elderly respondents seek to better understand
these ancestral institutions and incorporate them into their lives. One focus group directly sought
UNICEF’s assistance in facilitating intergenerational and intercultural dialogue in effort to
reclaim the seemingly lost power of this mechanism of conflict management. The
recommendation is to respond affirmatively to this request. UNICEF, in collaboration with
conflict specialists such as Search for Common Ground, could host workshops that explore
cousinage (and potentially other ancestral institutions such as traditional chiefs) through
dialogue, role play, theatrical presentations, etc. and weave it into its peace and education
programs. In an elegant way the elicitive approach adopted in this analysis generated a very clear
programmatic suggestion.
2. Education and the Ivoirian conflict
Educational access and attainment map onto the country’s horizontal inequalities in fairly clear
fashion, making uneven access across region, class, ethnicity and even gender at least an indirect
cause of conflict. Such a finding is consistent with a large and growing body of literature on the
connections between education, conflict and peacebuilding. In addition to the problems of
equitable access, respondents indicated that sometimes teachers were using the classroom to
wage conflict. Others indicated that the teacher-centered pedagogy that prevails is inconsistent
with any effort to promote a peace/democracy/human rights education program. A much more
participative, student-focused pedagogy would be required to make peace education
programming successful. Though Sany did not find curriculum to be a conflict driver in Côte
d’Ivoire, our analysis affirms his position that much can be done to enrich the curriculum by
adding “content that promotes peace and tolerance and engages students in activities that
recognize and strengthen the multiethnic fabric of Ivoirian society.”44
This properly puts
education in the center of the effort to restore social cohesion.
The following recommendations follow from the analysis.
A. Pedagogical reform toward participative, student-centered learning and a rights-based
methodology.
43
O’Bannon, Brett R. 2008. “Speak no more of cousinage? Neoliberalism, conflict and the decline of joking
relationships,” Africa Peace and Conflict Network, Occasional Paper No. 1, May 28, 2008.
44
Sany, Joseph. 2010. “Education and Conflict in Côte d’Ivoire,” United States Institute for Peace, Special Report
235, April 2010, page 12.

25
B. Addition of peace, democracy and human rights education programming to promote a
culture of peace predicated on the principles and practices of non-violent conflict
transformation.
a. Specific attention to working with the Ministry of Education on the history
curriculum45
C. Improve access to education for conflict-affected children through accelerated and
alternative education programming. This would include formal and non-formal education
for youth, adolescents and young adults who missed the final years of their secondary
education. The equity approach indicates the need to specifically target children and
youth residing in the many campements, which are largely “off the grid” administratively.
In western Côte d’Ivoire a good portion of the violence that has attracted attention in
recent months centers on problems associated with these encampments.
D. A campaign targeting girls’ rights to education and the retention of girls.
This educational programming is a critical entry point in the effort to break the intergenerational
transmission of conflict discussed above. There may be little one can do about intentions of
spoilers such as Liberian militias, but an educational program and pedagogical reform can help
transform the context in which they operate.
3. On the problem of violence and trauma healing
The Ivoirian conflict has been a violent one. Though the numbers of casualties have not risen to
the level of the wars in Liberia or Sierra Leone, Ivoirians have witnessed their share of atrocity
and extreme violence. Women and girls have been raped in the presence of family members.
Fathers, brothers and sons have been murdered in front of their wives, sisters and daughters. The
practice of burning people alive became known as an Article 125, referring to the price of petrol
(100 francs) and a box of matches (25 francs). Spirals of murder and retribution among
authocthones and allogenes in the west have taken particularly brutal form, including
disembowelment, immolation and the very public display of mutilated corpses.
Survivors and witnesses of this kind of violence have acute psychological needs. This is true on
the individual, family and community level. UNICEF has an important role to play in local and
national efforts to heal from this trauma. At the national level the dominant mechanism is the
Commission dialogue, vérité et reconciliation headed by former prime minister Charles Konan
Banny. This is potentially a very important part of the trauma-healing picture. At present,
however, it is not clear that the CDVR will be able to successfully execute its very broad
mandate within the limited time frame it has been given by statute (2 years). There has been a
growing recognition of the limitations and challenges for truth commissions to bring about
healing and justice for victims.46
Participation in truth commissions may well re-victimize those
45
See, for example, Freedman, Sarah et al. 2008. “Teaching History after Identity-Based Conflicts: The Rwanda
Experience,” Comparative Education Review, 52(4): 663-690.
46
Clark, Janine Natalya. 2011. Transitional Justice, Truth and Reconciliation: An Under-explored Relationship,”
International Criminal Law Review, 11: 241-261; Rime, Bernard, Patrick Kanyangara, Vincent Yzerbyt and Dario
Paez, 2011. “The impact of Gacaca tribunals in Rwanda: Psychosocial effects of participation in a truth and
reconciliation process after a genocide,” European Journal of Social Psychology 41: 695-706; Lefranc, Sandrine,
2011. “A Critique of ‘Bottom-up’ Peacebuilding: Do Peaceful Individuals Make Peaceful Societies?” L’Archive

26
traumatized by war and re-open wounds in a way that prevents communities from moving
forward. Much will turn on how well the CDVR engages with local communities and the specific
mechanisms it puts in place for local community members to share their experience. UNICEF
might position itself to help the some 35 local commissions interface with communities and their
organizations.
One of the more vexing problems tackled in this analysis was to come to grips with the nature of
violence in Côte d’Ivoire. For instance there is strong evidence of contined widespread sexual
violence in the main towns and villages of the West and the north as well as in some popular
quarters of Abidjan and other big towns. This is likely perpetrated by former fighters from
various militia groups and local data indicate a significant spike in rape and other forms of sexual
violence in and around the post-election crisis. Conversations with local community members
and NGO representatives confirm that rape and other forms of violent crime remain an all too
common threat to personal security in the region.47
Elsewhere in the area violent conflicts are
beginning to re-emerge among herders and farmers, fisherman and even between timber
poachers and their victims. In the West, the population remains traumatized by the incredible
violence of war and concerned about the prospects of resurgent violence in this weakly governed
region. Also in the west suspected Liberian militias have ramped up their attacks in recent weeks
and months, opening the prospect of renewed war. Most recently violence on the eastern border
with Ghana has led to the border’s closing. What is the connection between these forms of
violence? Is local violence connected to the master cleavage that structured the civil war and the
post-election crisis? Or is it causally and conceptually distinct from the national and regional
conflict? Is it both?
This ontological query strikes at the heart of any effort to comprehend and map the Ivoirian
conflict.48
Interventions targeting violence and its victims must be informed by an appreciation
of the multiple vectors of violence and how they relate to each other. Following Autessere, it is
imperative that we appreciate the degree to which local conflicts are at the center of the larger
conflict.49
Local scale violence is often the product of local causes, local issues, local feuds, etc.
Seeing the February and June attacks in the region of Taï, for example, as merely derivatives of
the national conflict is to miss important and distinct causal factors behind them. It is clear, for
example, that the attack in February, which took the lives of six immigrants to the local region (4
Baoulé and 2 Burkinabé), had an ethnic cleansing quality to it. But seeing this as merely driven
by the larger narratives of locals and strangers (autochthones v. allochthones) and Ivoirité would
lead one to miss the immediate and local historical circumstances surrounding these events. In
this instance the attack was reportedly sparked by an alleged theft of property. It is also the case
that this violence is situated in a context of a greatly weakened state presence. There is growing
yet still little effective sovereign authority in the region that might otherwise control or prevent
the escalation of relatively quotidian conflict into deadly violence. That said, local violence does
not occur in a vacuum. Local violence is seized upon by national actors and politicized. As one
Ouverte, Hyper Article en Ligne - Sciences de l'Homme et de la Société. http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-
00646986
47
Human Rights Watch, 2012. “Côte d’Ivoire: Criminalité en hausse et vide sécuritaire à Bouaké,” 5 March 2012.
48
Kalyvas, Stathis. 2003. “The Ontology of ‘Political Violence’: Action and Identity in Civil Wars,” Perspectives
on Politics 1(3): 475-494.
49
Autessere, The Trouble with Congo.

27
local conflict expert puts it, Ivorians are “imprisoned by politics.”50
There is, in other words,
joint production of violence in Côte d’Ivoire. Or as Kalyvas noted, “Actors seeking power at the
center use resources and symbols to ally with peripheral actors fighting local conflicts….”51
Peacebuiling efforts must confront the problem of the joint production of violence. The interface
of national and local violence is the space where top-down peacebuilding (in the form of the
CDVR, for example) must connect with bottom-up approaches (local dialogues, workshops,
etc.).
What does this imply for intervention? Multiple forms and sources of violence call for a complex
array of actions toward youth including enhanced protection systems for women and children
(monitoring, reporting and assistance). The complexity of this increasingly intractable conflict
has the effect of offering multiple entry points to would be conflict interveners. For UNICEF, in
addition to work at the education/peacebuilding nexus, the equity approach that focuses
programs and resources on the poorest women and children has the effect of reducing the level of
structural violence in the conflict system. An apparent need exists, however, to target
communities located in the undocumented spaces known as campements. These might well be
the most vulnerable populations in the country. The campements are also sites of direct violence
connected to local conflicts among autochthones and strangers. Greater penetration of these off-
the-grid spaces would do much to reduce insecurity.
For victims of sexual violence, the top priority is always physical health. In addition to
delivering critical antibiotics to prevent the spread of STDs, Ivoirian women should have the
right to access safe emergency contraception, commonly known as Plan B. Though this would no
doubt spark some controversy (in the United States and the Vatican, for example), Plan B is
already available in various forms in other African countries, including Kenya, Morocco, South
Africa, Zambia, Egypt, and Madagascar. In addition, such a move would be consistent with the
UN Population Fund’s recent determination that women’s access to contraception is a human
right.52
After physical health, emotional and mental health are the next critical priorities. In short,
the victim needs to do something with the event. Counseling services are essential to help
prevent long-term post-traumatic stress. Finally, pursuing efforts to hold perpetrators accountable
can be a frightening prospect. Evidence gathered in this analysis clearly reveals that the climate
of impunity in which perpetrators commit acts of sexual violence not only protects perpetrators
but positively re-victimizes victims. Though much of the impunity problem lies with the poor
state of the rule of law, UNICEF might well help victims secure justice by collecting information
about the attack and the attacker so that should victims delay their efforts at formally reporting
the attack details otherwise lost to the victim might well be available. Doing so would be
consistent with performing the role of advocate for survivors of sexual violence.
Violence has been a part of the Ivoirian experience for more than a decade. There is great need
for individuals and their communities to heal. Untreated traumas tend to create future “chosen
traumas” that may fuel intercommunal violence. There is critical need to break this
50
Quentin Kanyatsi, Country Director, Search for Common Ground, personal conversation.
51
Kalyvas, “Ontology of ‘Political Violence’
52
Greene, Margaret, Shareen Joshi and Omar Robles, 2012. State of the World Population 2012, United Nations
Population Fund.

28
intergenerational transmission of trauma and conflict. To that end, Côte d’Ivoire seems well
situated to explore the possibility of restorative justice program such as one finds in many post-
conflict situations (Sierra Leone, Rwanda, South Africa, etc.). There are multiple approaches to
restorative justice but this is one of the more important contributions UNICEF can make to the
peacebuilding enterprise. In Sierra Leone, Fambul Tok or “family talk” is a program that
provides the opportunity for community members to jointly explore the causes and dynamics of
the conflict. It includes truth-telling bonfires, offering and receiving forgiveness, and ritual
cleansing. In Rwanda, the gacaca courts are but the best-known efforts to secure restorative
justice. There is great promise in these approaches. Divisions among Baoulé and Malinké market
women, for example, are appropriate to address through RJ. Handled very carefully, with RJ
expert consultants, there is even real promise for healing in the wake of sexual violence.
In fact, a restorative justice program and restorative justice principles constitute a potential
solution to one of the most intractable dimensions to the current conflict, the so-called “victor’s
justice” problem. There is a sense among many supporters of former president Gbagbo that the
current regime is unable or unwilling to prosecute anyone associated with the former Forces
Nouvelles. That former rebels seem to many to be beyond the reach of the law is a significant
element of the climate of impunity that surrounds even today’s problems of banditry and sexual
violence. The sense among many is that the government of President Ouattara is overly indebted
to the Forces Nouvelles for its part in Outarra’s claim to power. Restorative justice offers a
solution to this dilemma. An alternative to the retributive approach of the criminal justice system
might well provide both victims and perpetrators a way forward.
4. Capacity development
Local communities are not to be viewed as merely objects of peacebuilding interventions. They
must be seen as resources critical to the success of the peacebuilding community’s efforts. In this
way, leadership development is an additional intervention UNICEF might explore. Leadership
development seminars and workshops, for young people and women in particular, will help
augment the capacity of local communities to: 1) promote self-sustainable development
strategies, 2) pursue autonomous programs of post-conflict reconstruction and 3) manage today’s
local conflicts before they escalate.
5. Youth and women’s unemployment
The so-called “youth bulge” is believed to be a significant risk factor for violence.53
According
to the National Institute of Statistics, unemployment in Côte d’Ivoire among those between the
ages of 15 – 35 is 60%. It is no surprise that joining an armed group during the post-electoral
crisis was a particularly attractive option for many young Ivorians. Now many of them have
returned home armed and unemployed. UNICEF is in a position to help facilitate the successful
re-entry of these young people into the Ivoirian labor market and thus help defuse the
demographic “ticking time bomb.” In addition to its regular educational work, UNICEF might
consider partnering with local centres d’education specialisé to help teach so-called soft skills, or
workforce readiness skills. UNICEF might also partner with other UN agencies such as UNIDO
in its “Productive and Decent Work for Youth” program. Victims of sexual violence may well
53
Cincotta, Richard P, Robert Engleman, and Danielle Anastasion, 2003. The Security Demographic, Washington:
Population Action Council.

29
have specific employment issues as victims of rape may find themselves ostracized by their
communities. UNICEF might consider this in its overall approach to the problem of sexual
violence in the country.

30
Appendix A. Security Events April-October 2012
Armed Attack
Home Incursion
Murder, other
Armed Robbery

31
Armed Attack
Murder, other
Armed Robbery
Security Events in Abidjan: April-October

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