buy land clandestinely. I have to admit it’s a problem. It tarnishes the image
[of all Burkinabés in the region]. We’ve tried to sensitize, the sub-prefect here
has also tried to sensitize, but people don’t listen—some Guérés still sell
clandestinely, and some Burkinabés still buy clandestinely.99
A Burkinabé leader in Guiglo said similarly:
The new migrants are causing problems. They have come [generally from
elsewhere in Côte d’Ivoire, particularly around Soubré and San Pedro] with
a lot of money in their pockets. They are buying up huge areas of land, and
then they quickly have problems in terms of who is the rightful owner and
where the correct boundaries are.100
The problem of illegal land sales is comparatively less severe in villages around Duékoué,
an older cocoa growing region where there is little remaining virgin forest. Beginning in
Guiglo, the problems grow more and more severe the further west one moves, becoming
the most extreme after the town of Bloléquin, before arriving in the department of
Toulepleu. The sub-prefect in Doké told Human Rights Watch:
Before the crisis, it was almost all virgin forest here. People who live west of
Bloléquin hadn’t ceded their forests [like the Guérés elsewhere]. Since the
crisis, non-natives, [mostly Burkinabés] are coming in from Soubré,
Bangolo, San Pedro that have never been here before. They are buying
massive amounts of land—sometimes as much as by the [square] kilometer
[100 hectares], even two [square] kilometers.101
As discussed in Section IV, the failure of the Ivorian government to prevent land dispossession
while people were displaced or to ensure victims obtain swift and effective redress violates
their rights as set out in the Kampala Convention and the Pinheiro Principles.102 It also deprives
99 Human Rights Watch interview with Burkinabé community leader, Bloléquin, June 8, 2013.
100 Human Rights Watch interview with Burkinabé community leader, Guiglo, June 1, 2013.
101 Human Rights Watch interview with Doké sub-prefect, Doké, February 11, 2013.
102 Kampala Convention, art. 9(2); Pinheiro Principles.
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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | OCTOBER 2013