conflicts will not disappear simply with the new extension, and it would be imprudent for the government to think that its reforms will “resolve” the problems before the end of 2013. There has been widespread land dispossession in western Côte d’Ivoire, with devastating consequences on people’s lives. If the government is serious about ensuring land restitution, it must take swift, sustained, and comprehensive action at the local level. People involved in customary and administrative efforts to address land restitution claims told Human Rights Watch that they had received no funding, staffing, or other resources from the national government to support their work. Well-meaning local officials are constrained by this lack of support, impeding their ability to resolve land disputes and severely delaying restitution even when local officials pass judgment on a case. Moreover, the government has yet to begin demarcating village boundaries, which has facilitated people’s ability to fraudulently sell land owned by someone from a neighboring village. Finally, authorities have refused to investigate or apply sanctions even in cases where a seller has engaged in fraud; without any consequences, the practice flourishes. Resolution at the Village Level Most people with complaints of land dispossession first bring their case to the village chief, a customary leader and administrative authority recognized by Ivorian law.191 In making decisions on land conflicts, village chiefs act in consultation with other village elders and the village land chief192—an elder with an often encyclopedic knowledge of families’ plots. In some villages, representatives from non-native communities and from the women in the village are included on the land committee; in other villages, these groups are marginalized. Particularly for the sensitive cases related to the post-election crisis, the composition of the village authorities resolving land disputes appears to play a key role in their ability to find lasting solutions. Many village chiefs described being confronted with at least scores of land conflicts related to the crisis. Most work hard to resolve these disputes, though described difficulties on account of the refusal of some illegal sellers and non-native buyers to appear when summoned. 191 See Ordonnance n° 2011-262 du 28 septembre 2011 portant orientation de l’organisation générale de l’Administration Territoriale de l’Etat, http://www.dgddl.interieur.gouv.ci/?page=cadre&cat=ordonnances (accessed September 3, 2013). 192 In some villages, the village chief and the land chief are the same person, but this was rare in the Guéré villages visited by Human Rights Watch. “THAT LAND IS MY FAMILY’S WEALTH” 64