participation in the democratic process, there have been inadequate calls for justice and accountability, except with respect to the massacre at Yopougon. One exception was the decision of the United Nations to establish an international commission of inquiry into the October violence. The commission, which spent two months in Côte d’Ivoire, concluded that serious and systematic human rights violations, which often took on an ethnic dimension, took place during both the October and December election periods. It concluded that members of the security forces, particularly the gendarmes, were responsible for serious violations including the massacre at Yopougon. The commission recommended that those responsible for human rights violations be punished, that further investigations into cases of torture and ill-treatment be carried out, and that the fight against the longstanding culture of impunity within the security forces constitute a top priority for the Ivorian authorities. The future of Côte d’Ivoire is in the balance. The much anticipated 2000 elections which were meant to restore the country to democratic rule served to expose both how firmly military impunity had taken root, and how frail democratic foundations had become. The political and social climate remains volatile and characterized by intolerance, xenophobia, and suspicion. The shocking brutality that permeated the election period was the fruit of a dangerous policy of manipulating ethnicity for political gain. Whether the fault-lines of ethnic and religious mistrust exposed during the elections cut deeper into the fabric of Ivorian society, or begin to heal, depends largely on the restoration of the rule of law. The abuses described in this report must be addressed by both the Ivorian government and international community, not with denial and impunity and symbolic gestures, but instead with concrete action. Human Rights Watch calls on President Gbagbo to direct the justice ministry to promptly investigate, prosecute, and punish those responsible for violations of human rights. He must ensure that the security forces work for the protection of all Ivorians and foreigners; not just those citizens loyal to his ethnic group or political party. He must put an end to military impunity and take concrete actions to create a society based on tolerance, social equality, and the rule of law. The international and donor community must use all means possible to press for respect for human rights. To do otherwise will only serve to bring the feared violence and lawlessness of its troubled neighbors ever closer. Key Findings Killings By Members of the Security Forces In both the October and December waves of violence, members of the security forces gunned down demonstrators, and rounded up opposition supporters and foreigners who they later executed in ditches, fields, in their homes, and within a gendarme base. Members of the paramilitary gendarmes were responsible for the majority of the killings, including those of the fifty-seven men whose bodies were found in the Charnier de Yopougon, and several smaller group killings. Some 170 people died as a result of the October violence, and Human Rights Watch documented forty-two deaths, of which thirty-six were perpetrated by the Security Forces, during the December events. Scores of political protesters from all parties were killed when gendarmes, police, and, before the flight of General Guei, the Presidential Guard, indiscriminately opened fire on them as they gathered in their neighborhoods or marched through the streets. On October 24 and 25, the elite Red Brigade within the Presidential Guard opened fire on thousands of demonstrators primarily from the FPI, who had taken to the streets to protest General Guei’s annulment of the election. The FPI estimated that approximately sixty of its supporters were killed. At least eighteen bodies later found floating in the Ébrié Lagoon were people thought to have been killed when the Presidential Guard opened up on demonstrators attempting to cross a bridge leading into the city center. Much of the killing by the gendarmes in October and December took place in reprisal for the death of one of their members in the clashes. In October, after news spread of a gendarme lieutenant killed while patrolling through the Derrière Rail neighborhood of Abobo, gendarmes from the Gendarme Camp of Abobo went on a killing spree, hunting down and killing some twenty young men they targeted for being RDR supporters, foreigners, or Muslims. In December, a gendarme was killed during clashes with RDR protesters in the Port Human Rights Watch 6 August 2001, Vol. 13, No. 6(A)