decrease. We welcome these human rights improvements and the Ivorian government’s role in them. However, we are deeply concerned about the human rights implications resulting from largescale land dispossession linked to displacement. The inability of many Guérés to access their land has serious consequences on their rights to food and livelihood and is a clear violation of their property rights and their rights as returning refugees. Land conflict, as you are well aware, has been a root cause of violence in Côte d’Ivoire, particularly in the West. We documented how the cross-border attacks in March 2013 in Zilebly and Petit-Guiglo are directly related to these land issues, even if there may have been political motives as well. We also documented several inter-communal clashes in 2013 linked to cases of land dispossession during displacement. The land dispossession threatens to fuel additional violence in the future, both between Guéré communities and between the Guérés and “nonnative” populations. We believe that ensuring restitution for claims of land dispossession is essential to end the cycles of violence in western Côte d’Ivoire. We are encouraged by the government’s plan to work on rural land reform this year, but we believe the problem of land dispossession in western Côte d’Ivoire will require significant, long-term government support for case-by-case resolution. We had the pleasure to speak with representatives on village and sub-prefectural committees dealing with land conflicts in western Côte d’Ivoire and are encouraged by the commitment many of these representatives have to resolve disputes. However, many representatives on these committees said they had received little to no assistance from the national government, constraining their ability to effectively resolve restitution claims. In addition, many people in western Côte d’Ivoire expressed frustration over the lack of progress in demarcating village boundaries. They felt that the government’s establishment of clear boundary lines between villages would greatly reduce the problem of fraudulent sales. The failure to take steps to survey and draw boundary lines long predates the Ouattara government, but there appears to have been little progress in the 2 ½ years since the government took power. People in western Côte d’Ivoire also expressed frustration about the complete impunity for those engaging in fraudulent sales. Many Guérés, for example, demanded that there be penal sanctions for other Guérés who engaged in fraudulent sales. Yet no one interviewed by Human Rights Watch – including victims of land dispossession, customary authorities, and sub-prefects – could identify a single case linked to the crisis in which authorities had imposed a prison sentence or even a fine for a fraudulent sale of land. Indeed, local government officials said they actively tried to avoid implicating the law. 99 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | OCTOBER 2013