West African immigrants, northerners fear they may be next target

As French and other foreigners continue to bail out of Cote d'Ivoire after days of mob violence, northern ethnic groups and West African immigrants fear that militants loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo might soon turn their wrath back on them. Forty-three-year-old Mamadou, an Ivorian whose parents hail from Mali, was keeping his head down in Abidjan's predominantly Muslim suburb of Koumassi. He said he had been staying home by day and occasionally venturing out at dusk to meet friends. "Nobody wants to be noticed much these days," he told IRIN. "Everybody keeps a low profile." "The Gbagbo people think they've kicked the French out. They say they've felled a big tree with a small axe. It's possible that sooner or later they'll come to attack us because they say we are with the rebels," he added. The north-south divide is the crux of Cote d'Ivoire's problems. The West African country has been split into a rebel-held north and a government-controlled south, with 10,000 French and UN peacekeepers in between, since September 2002, when an unsuccessful coup attempt against Gbagbo developed into an insurgency. Former prime minister Alassane Ouattara, who draws much of his support from the north, was barred from running in the 2000 presidential election on the grounds that his father was from Burkina Faso. The rebels demanded the constitution be changed to allow Ouattara to stand in the 2005 ballot before they disarmed, but Gbgabo said they had to lay down their weapons first. The political deadlock was broken in dramatic fashion last week, when the Ivorian army launched air and ground assaults on rebel strongholds, shattering an 18-month-old ceasefire. But two days into the campaign, former colonial power France became the number one enemy. Paris retaliated for a deadly bombing on one of its bases by destroying almost the entire Ivorian airforce. Irate Ivorians rampaged through the streets of Abidjan looting and burning French interests, beating up expatriates and, according to French Foreign Ministry sources, raping some women.

Expatriates have been fleeing the former French colony by the planeload

But now that more than 3,000 expatriates, mainly French, have fled the country, analysts fear a fresh backlash against more traditional foes. "Until they were evacuated, French citizens bore the brunt of the militias' xenophobic attacks," said Peter Takirambudde, the head of the Africa division at Human Rights Watch. "Now we are concerned that the militias will turn their rage on their more familiar targets -- Muslims, northerners and West African immigrants." Immigrants from Mali and Burkina Faso, who flocked into Cote d'Ivoire to work the cocoa and coffee fields, have long been a lightning rod. In the wake of the 2002 coup attempt, for example, at least 1 million immigrants living and working in the south fled the country. Some were forced from their homes and farms, while others were driven out by fear. Ivorian security forces and pro-government militia have continued to commit random acts of violence against immigrants from West Africa as well as people from northern Cote d'Ivoire, accusing them of being in cahoots with the rebels, according to human rights sources. Clashes in Gbagbo's home town Since the latest cycle of instability began, there have already been isolated cases of ethnic violence in the cocoa-rich west of Cote d'Ivoire, notably in Gbagbo's home town of Gagnoa, about 250 km northwest of Abidjan. Clashes erupted there on Monday and Tuesday, pitching the president's ethnic group, the Bete, against the Dioula population, who are mainly from the north, but who settled in the town decades ago. "We have counted six dead and 29 injured," Marc Gbaka, a town council official, told IRIN, saying youths had attacked with machetes, kitchen knives and sticks. UN peacekeepers are now patrolling the area around Gagnoa, often a flashpoint for ethnic strife. Before this week's attacks, more than 20 people had been killed in the last year and around 500 immigrant farmers driven off their cocoa farms. Residents in the town said the latest trouble began when word arrived from Abidjan that the French had decimated Cote d'Ivoire's airforce. Militant government supporters, seeing the move as help for the northern rebels, attacked clothing shops and rice stores belonging to Dioula merchants who then retaliated by trashing food shacks and restaurants owned by Betes. "It's the scenario that we've all been fearing since 2002. The ground is set for a clash of the communities," explained Francois Ruf, a cocoa specialist based in Accra, Ghana. "The worst thing that could happen is that those from northern Cote d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso start using hardcore weapons and the Bete get out their guns and then there's carnage." Further to the west, tensions are also running high in Guiglo, a town about 200 km from the border with Liberia, near the buffer zone which separates government territory from that of the rebels. In 2003, long after the fighting died down in the rest of Cote d'Ivoire, the area around the town remained plagued by ethnic conflicts, fuelled by the presence of militia groups, some of which recruited heavily among Liberian refugees. On Thursday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs rang the alarm bell once more. "In Guiglo and certain areas in the west, the restarting of inter-communal conflicts between the local and non-Ivorian populations poses a direct threat to social cohesion and means conditions are ripe for the humanitarian situation to deteriorate," it said in a statement. Fears already causing people to flee Almost 5,000 Ivorian refugees have already spilled over into Liberia, seeking refuge from the fresh bout of fighting in a country which itself is still recovering from 14 years of civil war. "Guiglo is the eye of the storm. It's a real ethnic mix. There are already warning signs," a senior UN diplomat told IRIN this week. "We are sensing a strong tension in the air, people feel threatened. If there are new problems in Abidjan, there will problems in the west and vice versa." Back in Abidjan, northerners have been preparing to defend themselves. Having seen the hate campaign waged against the French, one man in his thirties was taking no chances and was readying so-called Self Defence Committees with his friends. "These committees are against the advice of our political leaders," he told IRIN, explaining he was a supporter of the main opposition Democratic Party of Cote d'Ivoire (PDCI). "But we have pro-government militias in this neighbourhood that are armed and we want to be prepared." "They say we are rebels, they say we are pro-French, they threaten us," the man, who lives in the poor, mainly Muslim suburb of Abobo, said. "If somebody in our neighbourhood is attacked, we can come to the rescue." Across town, French businessman Patrick was packing up his affairs and preparing to leave. He was born in Abidjan but even that umbilical cord would not keep him in the city this time around. "The fuse is alight, but it hasn't quite reached the gunpowder barrel," he said gloomily. "The worst is yet to happen. We will see an ethnic settling of scores. There will be a massacre,” he predicted. “The battle of Abidjan is still to come."