destination for both immigrants and migrant workers from northern and central Côte d’Ivoire—who by 1998 together outnumbered the native populations in the region.4 In the 1980s, cocoa and coffee prices plummeted on international markets which, along with other factors, helped lead to a sharp economic recession. An increasing number of educated youth were unable to find employment in Abidjan and returned to their villages, including in the country’s west.5 They found that during their absence their parents had rented or ceded much of the land to migrants, creating inter-generational conflicts among the native population and inter-communal conflicts between the natives and migrants.6 In the political vacuum left by Houphouët-Boigny’s death in 1993, politicians increasingly looked to build support through ethnic blocs. Several politicians employed the rhetoric of “Ivoirité,” or “Ivorianness”—an ultranationalist discourse focusing on Ivorian identity that marginalized immigrants and northern Ivorians, groups that tended to support then-Prime Minister Ouattara.7 While the discourse was predominantly about politics and nationality— used to bar Ouattara from contesting the 1995 and 2000 elections8—it also related to land issues, challenging non-Ivorians’ ability to have significant property rights.9 On December 23, 1998, the National Assembly unanimously passed Law No. 98-750, the “Law on Rural Land Tenure,” which sought to transition land tenure from customary land claims to private, individual ownership backed by land titles filed with the state cadastral 4 Jean-Pierre Chauveau and Koffi Samuel Bobo, “La crise de la ruralité en Côte d’Ivoire forestière: Ethnicisation des tensions foncières, conflits entre générations et politique de libéralisation,” in Frontières de la citoyenneté et violence politique en Côte d’Ivoire, 2008, pp. 105-123. 5 See Richard Banégas, “Côte d’Ivoire: Patriotism, ethnonationalism and other African modes of self-writing,”African Affairs, 105/421 (2006), p. 539; and Jean-Pierre Chaveau, “Question foncière et construction nationale en Côte d’Ivoire,” Politique africaine, no. 78, June 2000. 6 See Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and the Norwegian Refugee Council (IDMC and NRC), “Whose land is this? Land disputes and forced displacement in the western forest area of Côte d’Ivoire,” October 2009, p. 10, http://www.internaldisplacement.org/countries/cotedivoire/reports/CDI_SCR_Nov09.pdf (accessed August 28, 2013); and Jean-Pierre Chauveau and Paul Richards, “West African Insurgencies in Agrarian Perspective: Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone Compared,” Journal of Agrarian Change, vol. 8(4), October 2008, pp. 525, 531. 7 A succinct review of this period can be found in Thomas Hofnung, La Crise Ivoirienne: Dix clés pour comprendre (Paris: La Découverte, 2005), pp. 29-31. See also International Crisis Group, “Côte d’Ivoire: ‘The War is Not Yet Over,’” Africa Report No. 72, November 28, 2003, http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/africa/west-africa/cote-divoire/072-cote-divoire-the-war-isnot-yet-over.aspx (accessed August 28, 2013), pp. 2-3. 8 Daniel Schwartz, “Alassane Ouattara: Inaugurated as Ivory Coast president after long standoff with former leader,” CBC News, May 21, 2011; and Human Rights Watch, The New Racism: The Political Manipulation of Ethnicity in Côte d’Ivoire, vol. 13, no.6(A), August 2001, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/08/28/new-racism. 9 IDMC and NRC, “Whose land is this?” October 2009, p. 11. 15 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | OCTOBER 2013