On December 4, there were no taxis, no buses, so the only way to go to the meeting at the stadium was to walk. At around 9:00 am in Williamsville, we saw that the gendarmes, armed with guns and pistols, had formed a line across the road so as to prevent us from proceeding. As we got closer they opened fire and we all started running. I didn’t see anyone dead but a colleague was hit in the face with a bullet. We weren’t armed with anything. I was captured by the gendarmes as we were running away, and later taken to Agban camp where I was severely beaten, to the point of needing hospitalization. The day after my capture, the gendarmes forced me to walk on my knees to a room where I gave a statement about our participation in the march. The RDR saw the efforts by the security forces as a betrayal by the government who had the previous day granted permission to hold a meeting. Some of the demonstrators were armed with sticks, knives, machetes, and a few with hunting rifles; others had taken to the streets to set up burning barricades. Little effort was made by the security forces to distinguish between or isolate these armed elements from nonviolent demonstrators. On several occasions, most notably in the Abobo, Koumassi, and Yopougon neighborhoods, police and gendarmes indiscriminately opened fire into large crowds of people. Several people were killed as a result. A twenty-six-year-old man marching with hundreds of other RDR supporters from Koumassi to the Houphouët-Boigny Stadium described what happened when police opened fire. At least two people died in the incident:69 My brother T. died in my arms after being shot during the demonstration on Monday December 4. We were participating in the RDR march going to the stadium. We left our place in Koumassi at around 6:30 a.m. and started walking to eventually hook up with our colleagues coming from villages near the airport. As we approached the local gendarme base, they [the gendarmes] started throwing tear gas at us. By this time there were around 400 of us. When the gendarmes ran out of tear gas we continued on until we turned onto Blvd 7 de Septembre, where we hoped to meet the other RDR supporters. Then at around 8:45 a.m., just near the roundabout close to the 6th District Police headquarters, they opened fire on us. I saw several of them shooting through the fence with a pistol. Four demonstrators were wounded at that moment. But many of us wanted to continue so we carried on nearly until we reached the main boulevard. There we ran into another group of policemen but this time we sent a small group to them to explain that we were just on our way for a meeting at the stadium. They gave us permission to continue but as we were walking past them they just began firing at us. I saw about six officers in the vicinity and at least two actually shooting. There were two people killed during this shooting; my brother and one other. My brother didn’t die instantly. He was saying, ‘but we did nothing and you shot on us.’ Then he started to bleed from the mouth and nose, he lived for about an hour. A thirty-one-year-old petty trader, also an RDR activist, described how gendarmes tried to block activists from marching from the populous suburb of Yopougon. One RDR protester was killed in the shooting: On Monday, December 4, at around 8:00 a.m. we, the RDR militants, left Yopougon on our way to the meeting in the stadium. Then a truck of gendarmes tried to block the main road to stop us from participating in the meeting. I saw about fifteen of them taking up position, and then they 68 69 Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, February 3, 2001. Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, February 3, 2001. Human Rights Watch 37 August 2001, Vol. 13, No. 6(A)