guidance to States as to how to deal with the phenomenon of extra-legal, arbitrary or summary executions. Article 1 establishes that all extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions are punishable offences, irrespective of a state of war or political instability. In article 2, states commit in principle to prevent these executions by, in part, ensuring “strict control, including a clear chain of command, over all officials responsible for apprehension, arrest, detention, custody and imprisonment as well as those officials authorized by law to use force and firearms.” When family members or other credible bodies report cases of alleged extrajudicial executions, governments commit to conduct thorough, prompt, and impartial investigations of suspected cases, abiding by the guidelines sent out in articles 9 –17. Article 18 commits governments to ensure those identified by an investigation as having participated in extra-legal, arbitrary or summary executions are brought to justice, and article l9 asserts that under no circumstances, including a state of war, siege or public emergency, shall blanket immunity from prosecution be granted. V. THE OCTOBER PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS After RDR leader Alassane Ouattara and several other candidates were excluded from running in the October 22, 2000, presidential elections, only two serious contenders—the incumbent president, General Robert Guei, and FPI candidate Laurent Gbagbo—were left to stand. In the afternoon of October 23, 2000, after preliminary results showed Gbagbo leading by a significant margin, security forces marched into the National Electoral Commission (Commission Nationale Electorale, CNE) and stopped the count. Journalists were removed at gunpoint. On October 24, an election official announced on national radio and television that the CNE had been dissolved and that General Guei had won the presidential contest with 56 percent of the vote. 11 For weeks prior to the election Gbagbo had warned that if the election were stolen his supporters would take to the streets in protest. On the afternoon of October 24, 2000, shortly after Guei declared himself president, Gbagbo had a press conference in which he condemned the annulment and called on his supporters to take to the streets in protest. “I demand that in every town and in every neighborhood of Cote d'Ivoire, Ivorian patriots take to the streets until their rights are recognized and until Guei backs off. From that moment, I believe that the transition government will be dissolved and will no longer have any reason to exist.”12 As he was speaking, tens of thousands of FPI supporters from throughout greater Abidjan had already started to flood into the streets. While some members of other parties, including the RDR and PDCI also marched, the protesters on October 24, 2000, were overwhelmingly supporters of the FPI. As they arrived at the city center and national television station, military forces loyal to General Guei, particularly the Red Brigade, an elite unit within the Presidential Guard, opened fire directly into the crowds with little or no warning. Thousands of protesters on their way into Abidjan’s central Plateau District were fired on as they attempted to cross over the Houphouët-Boigny Bridge, and in some cases after having jumped into the water of the Ébrié Lagoon to escape the gunfire. Others were shot as they attempted to cross to safety in boats. Many of those who were forced to jump into the lagoon later drowned. At least eighteen bodies, including those of several adolescents, were later found in the lagoon. On October 24, 2000, a thirty-two-year-old FPI leader was on the Houphouët-Boigny Bridge with thousands of other protesters when soldiers from the Red Brigade opened fire, forcing demonstrators to jump into the lagoon. He recounted:13 As we marched the demonstration grew and grew; we were in our hundreds if not thousands. As we entered the bridge I could see about forty military men lined up on the other side. We sat 11 “Ivory Coast,” in U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2000 (Washington, D.C, U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, February 2001). 12 Television footage of Press Conference with Gbagbo,,Reuters, October 24, 2000. 13 Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, November 6, 2000. Human Rights Watch 14 August 2001, Vol. 13, No. 6(A)