Psychological Abuse Many detainees were repeatedly threatened with death and subjected to mock executions. In December these death threats commonly revolved around the theme of the Charnier de Yopougon, as groups of detainees were told they would be taken out and shot in a forest, as had happened in October. An eighteen-year-old RDR activist detained in Agban Gendarme Camp for twelve days and tortured recounted:99 They always threatened to kill us. On the first day [December 4], at around 11:00 p.m. a gendarme armed with a machine gun and strings of bullets wrapped around his shoulders stopped in the front of the hall where we where detained as if to address all of us and said, ‘tonight we’re going to kill you all. At 3:00 in the morning we’re going to load all of you onto trucks and kill you in the Banco Forest.’ Then a few of the other gendarmes standing with him said, ‘Do you remember all those bodies in the Yopougon massacre? Well, that was small compared to what we’re going to show you tonight.’ One of the gendarme doctors who later treated us threatened us, saying, ‘be careful, if the situation turns to war you’ll all be dead.’ A nineteen-year-old taxi driver was arrested in Yopougon with eight other neighbors, including several foreigners, none of whom had participated in the RDR protests. After being forced from their homes they were taken to a local police station. That night they were put in a truck without being told their destination. He recounts how mention of the Charnier de Yopougon was used to terrify them:100 At 10:00 p.m. the policemen told us to get dressed and told us to get into a police vehicle. I had been arrested with eighteen others; including eight from Mali, a Guinean, and a trader from Niger who told me he’d been picked up. On our way going, one of the policeman asked us if we’d seen the pictures of the Charnier de Yopougon. He said we were going to end up like those youth. We were terrified because at that point we didn’t know where they were taking us. I guess we were relieved to arrive at the National Police Academy. Seven women detainees, who for three days had been subjected to physical and sexual abuse within the National Police Academy, were on December 7, 2000, told to their relief they were to be separated from the men. As they were being separated, police cadets then subjected them to a mock execution. One of these women described her terrifying experience:101 By Thursday, after several days of hell and humiliation we were given medical treatment and told we were to be separated from the male prisoners. They said we were going to the amphitheatre. I thought our suffering was over but soon learned our ordeal was yet to finish. After leaving the clinic they told the seven of us to come with them. They took us to an entrance to a stairwell and told us to wait. Then they took us one by one down a long dark corridor that led to a basement. I was the fourth to go. It was dark and as we walked they said they were going to kill me and then I heard a shot. As I entered the amphitheatre I saw the woman who’d preceded me lying there. When I saw this I started crying and screaming and of course thought they were dead and that they were going to kill me too. Then they told me to lie down and fired a shot in the distance. Then the police cadets who’d thought this up just started laughing and told me to lie down with the others. They were doing this just to terrify us. It was just a ‘little game,’ a little fun the cadets were having. There was even a woman cadet among them. 99 Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, February 3, 2001. Human Rights Watch interview, February 7, 2001. 101 Human Rights Watch interview, February 10, 2001. 100 Human Rights Watch 53 August 2001, Vol. 13, No. 6(A)