persons to return to their land.42 Known as the Bloléquin Accord, non-native leaders accepted that their communities would renegotiate rental agreements with the native landowners, regardless of their previous terms of individual agreements.43 A Burkinabé leader in Bloléquin told Human Rights Watch: “People didn’t have any money [after being displaced for four years], so they had to accept any condition to get back to their land…. The [native population] took advantage [of our situation].”44 While outside the zone of the Bloléquin Accord, a Malian community leader in Duékoué said similarly: “Between 2002 and 2010, we couldn’t say anything. We had to pay whatever they demanded.”45 Through the November 2010 presidential elections, immigrant populations in western Côte d’Ivoire continued to suffer regular abuses at the hands of pro-Gbagbo security forces and militia groups.46 A Burkinabé leader in Bloléquin believed that the actions taken by native, typically pro-Gbagbo populations after the 2002-2003 armed conflict contributed to the severity of the post-election crisis in western Côte d’Ivoire: Reconciliation was poorly done after the first crisis. It was not easy for Burkinabés [and other immigrant populations] to return to their homes and to their land…. If it had been better done, if the reconciliation had been genuine, the post-election crisis would not have hit here so hard.47 Post-Election Crisis After five years of postponing presidential elections, Ivorians went to the polls on November 28, 2010 to vote in a run-off between incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo and former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara. After the Independent Electoral Commission 42 Interpeace, “Dynamiques et Capacités de Gestion des Conflits à l’Ouest de la Côte d’Ivoire,” January 2013, p. 33. 43 Ibid. The agreement also called on non-natives to live in the village with the Guérés, rather than in surrounding campements; and to do a 2/3-1/3 split with the native population of land that they had held inside protected forests. Given that it is illegal to hold or own land in protected forests, which are government-owned land, this provision was odd in that it formalized and officially recognized what amounted to a crime. It also directly contradicted the Pinheiro Principles in that Guérés seized 1/3 of these holdings of non-natives without any restitution. See IDMC and NRC, “Whose land is this?” October 2009, p. 29. 44 Human Rights Watch interview with Burkinabé community leader, Bloléquin, June 8, 2013. 45 Human Rights Watch interview with Malian community leader, Duékoué, February 6, 2013. 46 Human Rights Watch, Afraid and Forgotten: Lawlessness, Rape, and Impunity in Western Côte d’Ivoire, October 22, 2010, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2010/10/22/afraid-and-forgotten-0; and Human Rights Watch, “They Killed Them Like It Was Nothing”: The Need for Justice for Côte d’Ivoire’s Post-Election Crimes, October 5, 2011, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2011/10/05/they-killed-them-it-was-nothing. 47 Human Rights Watch interview with Burkinabé community leader, Bloléquin, June 8, 2013. “THAT LAND IS MY FAMILY’S WEALTH” 22