before, and now the Burkinabé [buyers] have cut down trees to start planting. I recently filed a complaint, but it hasn’t yet been heard.”96 Human Rights Watch documented cases involving illegal land sales by people as young as 17 years old. Guéré land is often considered owned by families, rather than individuals, which means few youth of that age have the right to sell land without the head of family agreeing.97 In cases like this, many community leaders and victims of land dispossession felt that both the buyer and illegal seller were to blame. A village chief involved in resolving land disputes in a village between Guiglo and Bloléguin said: We have to stop illegal buying and selling, clandestine buying and selling. That’s what causes all of these problems…. The illegal sellers are often less than 25 years old, that’s why I blame the buyers too. A little kid of 18, 19 years old says he’s selling you 5, 10, even 20 hectares of land, and you don’t think about perhaps checking with the head of family, or village authorities, or even the head of your [non-native] community? [The buyer] knows what he is doing [is wrong].98 In examining and resolving land dispossession in western Côte d’Ivoire linked to the postelection crisis, it is therefore appropriate to distinguish between good-faith Guéré sellers, who reasonably believe they have a claim to the land, and bad-faith Guéré sellers, who knowingly engage in theft and fraud. It is likewise appropriate to distinguish between good-faith non-native buyers, who pass through local authorities when making a purchase, and bad-faith non-native buyers, who take advantage of the anarchy to buy land from someone whose ownership claim would be questioned by any reasonable person. Guérés in western Côte d’Ivoire, particularly around Bloléquin, felt that many problems arose when a flood of new Burkinabé migrants arrived after the crisis. A Burkinabé leader in Bloléquin admitted that they had problems controlling some of the new migrants: Some of our brothers who come, they don’t present themselves to the village chief or even the Burkinabé chief in that village. They go into the forest and 96 Human Rights Watch interview with alleged victim of land dispossession by illegal sale, Koadé-Guézon, June 8, 2013. 97 Human Rights Watch interviews with village elders, community leaders, and local government officials, western Côte d’Ivoire, February and June 2013. 98 Human Rights Watch interview with village chief, western Côte d’Ivoire, February 9, 2013. “THAT LAND IS MY FAMILY’S WEALTH” 36