Torture and mutilation of gendarmes and other government officials The rebels attacked Danané, a strategic town less than thirty kilometers from the Liberian border, between 8 and 9 a.m. on November 28, 2002. There was shooting for several hours until the rebels had captured the town. According to civilian accounts, civilian deaths in Danané appear to have been generally the result of stray bullets and shrapnel from the government’s helicopter attacks in mid-afternoon.83 In the following days, the rebels continued to search for gendarmes and other members of the government forces, as well as members of the FPI party, who were suspected of supporting the government. Not all of these gendarmes were killed in combat. It is clear that some were killed after being wounded and tortured. An Ivorian Yacouba man who fled Danané was horrified by what he witnessed: When I was leaving Danané, there were bodies thrown in the water. [The rebels] had killed four gendarmes, we are not used to seeing bodies on the side of the road. One man, they had cut his tendons at the back of his foot and thrown him in the water. One gendarme they killed, they put his eyes out with a knife and broke his head….I also saw two thieves being beaten in front of the [bank]. It’s horrible when you see these things. The rebels were mixed—Liberian Yacouba and Gio and native Ivorians. Even some of the Liberian refugees joined the rebels. The Liberians had their cocaine in white bottles, when they do that, they can do anything. The rebels said they had come to avenge Guei and that they would kill Gbagbo and eat him. They used to sing, ‘We will kill Gbagbo and drink water from his brain.’84 Government officials in the region were of mixed ethnicity, including from the indigenous Yacouba ethnicity. Still, fears of reprisals led even some Yacouba officials to leave. A young Ivorian woman described her family’s flight from a village in the west shortly after the rebels arrived in early December. We saw the rebels arrive in a jeep and a four-by-four. They had soldiers and youths who did not seem to be there by choice. They asked where to find the customs office and the gendarmerie. They were after the forces of law and order. The youth…supported and helped the rebels triumphantly. They showed them where the corps-habillees were, their houses, the town hall. After ransacking the town hall, they organized a meeting with the population. ‘Don’t panic, we’re here to help you. We’re not after the people, only the administration and the corps-habillées.’ That night there was a curfew at 8 p.m. All the government officials had fled the days before. [The rebels] were looking for people who hid the weapons and ammunition of the escaped gendarmes. Some people were taken hostage and tortured. They shot them in the hand. They went to the house of the head of the military brigade, who lived near us. They turned on the lights, turned on the taps, broke the doors and totally ransacked the inside of the house. We were afraid and went to hide. [My father] didn’t feel too threatened because he’s Yacouba, but my mother couldn’t bear the tension. The next day, December 2, we took everything we could and fled….85 Summary executions in and around Man: December 2002 Man was captured by a mixed force of largely MPCI and MJP rebels on November 28, 2002, but they did not hold it for long. A government offensive attacked Man on the heels of a French operation to evacuate foreign Western nationals. Government forces proceeded to hold Man for more than two weeks, until the rebels re-took the town on December 19, 2002. Following the government occupation of Man, the rebels’ attitudes towards any suspected government sympathizers hardened considerably and many of the reports of abuses in the town date from this period. 83 According to Human Rights Watch research, this air attack appears to have focused on military objectives such as Danané’s military camp on the western side of the town, which was occupied by the rebel forces by midday. There were civilian casualties, but these were probably unintentional victims who happened to be in or around military objectives during the attacks. 84 Human Rights Watch interview, Guinea, March 1, 2003. 85 Interviewed in Guinea, January 29, 2003, on file with Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch 27 August 2003, Vol. 15, No. 14 (A)