disputes, or obliging them to charge exorbitant sums to accept cases from people who have lost everything and are unable to access their land. In addition, successive Ivorian governments have promised to demarcate boundaries between villages. No Ivorian government yet has. The lack of village boundaries has helped create the free-for-all in which people can easily cross into another village and sell land they have no claim to. Officials in the Ouattara government have promised that demarcating village boundaries is a priority, but little concrete action has been taken. Donor help could be crucial both financially and technically. Finally, there is total impunity for those involved in fraudulent land sales. Customary and administrative officials could not point to a single case in which sanctions had been imposed—even when an illegal land seller’s acts amounted to theft and fraud. Indeed, many of the customary and administrative officials interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they actively avoided implicating the gendarmerie and judicial authorities, saying it would harm reconciliation. Residents around western Côte d’Ivoire repeatedly expressed otherwise, saying that penal sanctions—whether fines or imprisonment—were crucial to stop fraudulent sales, the root of so many land conflicts. In August 2013, the Ivorian government undertook modest reforms to the country’s nationality law and the 1998 law on rural land tenure. However, the land law still has provisions that the government needs to clarify in a way that conforms to international human rights law and the rights of returning refugees. Moreover, national land reform will not be a panacea for the conflicts that plague western Côte d’Ivoire. There, claims for restitution related to land dispossession during displacement must be addressed individually—and urgently. Every day, people are permanently changing land that they acquired illegally. Trees from previously virgin forests are being cut down, cocoa plants and rubber trees planted instead. Each day that happens, the anger and hatred mounts among those who have been dispossessed. Land has been one of the root causes of Côte d’Ivoire’s decade lost to violence and grave human rights abuses. The Ivorian government’s efforts to ensure land restitution in western Côte d’Ivoire will help determine whether land will remain a potential spark for conflict or become a source of local development that alleviates inter-communal tensions. “THAT LAND IS MY FAMILY’S WEALTH” 6