years, often with clear links to the main opposition parties of that period, such as the RDR and the FPI.164 For others, membership in the youth wings of political parties was a defining moment. With the onset of the war, these youth groups took a new prominence. Figures like Charles Blé Goudé and Guillaume Soro, both former leaders of the national university student network (FESCI), both charismatic, populist figures to their constituencies, command a vital constituency of young, educated and angry youth. Soro quickly became internationally known as the spokesperson for the MPCI during the conflict, and was later appointed as Minister of Communications in the new government of reconciliation. Blé Goudé played a crucial role in mobilizing the “young patriots” in Abidjan during the war, reportedly with full backing of the Gbagbo administration. The demonstrations against the Linas-Marcoussis accords, which paralyzed Abidjan for four days and resulted in attacks on several French buildings, with little or no response from the government armed forces, was one clear example of the power held by the youth mobilizers and their links with state security forces. As one observer in Abidjan remarked on Blé Goudé, “[Gbagbo] made the demonstrations, he made Blé Goudé. That creature is out of the box, how do you stuff it back in?”165 The role of the FESCI student movement and the student leaders in Abidjan in inciting violence has grown clearer over the past eight months. One of the Abidjanbased leaders of the “young patriots,” Eugene Djué, recently said, “Since the beginning of the war, we have organized, we were trained by our military friends and we have the most fearful weapon of war: the determination to win and the will to defend our country.” In the same interview he claimed to head “some 55,000 young patriots grouped in self-defense committees.”166 The transition from student groups and youth associations into self-defense committees required little effort and probably used the existing FPI political party and youth association network. Certainly hundreds of self-defense committees of “young patriots” quickly became operational throughout the country with the onset of the conflict. They controlled hundreds of checkpoints in and around towns and villages under government control, checking identity cards and taking over other duties traditionally accorded to the forces of law and order. In many cases they equipped themselves with clubs, batons and other types of weapons and subjected civilians traveling along the roads to harassment, extortion and assault. In at least one case reported by the local press, a group of the “young patriots,” who were armed with twelve caliber guns, even killed a police officer in a village near Gagnoa, the home area of President Gbagbo. In that case, the journalist’s description of the vigilante groups was apt: “under the complicit eye of power, these forces, which have sprouted like mushrooms, particularly in the west, reign as the real masters.”167 While there has been some insight into the role of the “young patriots” and their leaders in Abidjan, understanding the role played by these groups in the rural areas, even prior to the war, is critical in the context of the western conflict. Urban and rural violence in the west before the war There was considerable violence before the war in the western towns and villages, particularly in and around Daloa, Duékoué, Vavua and Blolékin, which are the Bété and Gueré heartlands. Much of the violence began in June 2002 or during the October 2000 elections, and it took two forms: in the towns, such as Abidjan and Daloa, it was represented by political violence between mobs of young FPI and RDR supporters. In the villages around Daloa, Duékoué and Blolékin, it took the form of targeting of the immigrant population, mainly the Burkinabé. Each theatre of conflict was intertwined with a specific issue: in the towns, it was the issue of political power. In the villages, it was land. 164 See Yacouba Konate, “Les enfants de la balle: De la FESCI aux mouvements de patriotes,” Politique Africaine: La Côte d’Ivoire en guerre, No. 89, March 2003, pp. 49-70. 165 Human Rights Watch interview, Abidjan, March 26, 2003. 166 “La multiplication des milices patriotiques inquiète le gouvernment ivoirien,” Agence France Presse, April 27, 2003. 167 Jean-Roche Kouamé, “Des ‘patriotes’ battent un agent de police à mort,’ le jour, February 28, 2003. Human Rights Watch 42 August 2003, Vol. 15, No. 14 (A)