Rapid-response unit sets out to fight crime

Cote d’Ivoire’s military authorities have set up a round-the-clock rapid-response unit to fight crime in the commercial capital, Abidjan. Known as the Poste de Commandement Crise (PC Crise - Crisis Command Post), the unit was established by the military Comite National de Salut Public (CNSP) to “return the situation in Abidjan to normal” after the looting that followed the coup which toppled President Henri Konan Bedie on 24 December, an officer in charge of its operations centre said. “All the decisions are taken here,” he told IRIN on 26 January in the basement of one of the administrative buildings at the Camp Galieni military barracks in the centre of Abidjan. One of the soldiers on duty said that well over 100 calls are received by PC Crise every 24 hours, some of which may just be reports of domestic disturbances. On average about 20 calls are investigated each day, he said. The decision is then taken whether to call the police, gendarmes or send an army patrol, after which the unit nearest to the site of the crime is alerted. Since the coup, the army has started regular patrols in areas of the city in an attempt to “dissuade” individuals from carrying out criminal acts, the officer added. The three areas affected most by crime, armed robbery, carjackings and burglary are Zone 4, a light industrial and residential area, and the heavily populated neighbourhoods of Yopougon and Abobo, while the affluent residential suburbs of Cocody and Deux Plateaux have remained virtually untouched, according to a police report issued on 23 January. The report said that since the advent of regular patrols, the level of crime in Abidjan had dropped but it did not say by how much. During the coup d’etat some 6,500 criminals were released from la Maison d’Arret et de Correction d’Abidjan (MACA) prison and an unspecified number are still at large. The calls received by PC Crise include some from family members no longer wishing to have contact with the escaped criminals and willing to give information which may lead to their rearrest, the officer in charge said. Others who escaped, in some cases with only one or two months left of their prison sentences, have given themselves up voluntarily and returned to prison to finish them, he added. “In the last four or five days some 100 criminals have been picked up by army patrols,” the officer said. On Wednesday an exchange of fire between the military and a group of bandits in Adjame, a densely populated area, resulted in a bus driver being killed by a stray bullet and the death of one of the bandits, he said. Minister for Security Lassana Palenfo said in a communique issued on 10 January in the state daily, ‘Fraternite Matin’, that the CNSP had set the return to law and order as one of its priorities. He urged victims of violent attacks, fraud or bandits posing as members of the military to call the telephone hotline. Meanwhile the police force itself is also undergoing a clean-up, a police officer working alongside PC Crise told IRIN. A mechanism known as “la police de la police” (police policing unit) was set up over a year ago under Bedie to weed out corrupt officers such as traffic police who try to extort money from motorists. The policeman told IRIN that officers suspected of similar crimes would go before a disciplinary council and, if found guilty, would be suspended from duty. Asked how successful this strategy had been he replied: “It is the population who must judge, I cannot say if things have changed.”