I. SUMMARY The 2000 presidential and parliamentary elections in Côte d’Ivoire in October and December were marred by political violence which left over 200 people dead and hundreds wounded. In the months preceding the October presidential and December parliamentary elections, political leaders exploited ethnic divisions to oust rivals, used the state apparatus to repress opponents, and incited hatred and fear among populations which had for decades lived in relative harmony. Their actions culminated in two unprecedented waves of violence which shocked Ivorians and members of the international community alike, as well as grimly highlighting the danger of manipulating ethnic loyalties and latent prejudice for political gain. The legacy of the heightened suspicion and intolerance generated during the election period will take determined action to overcome; action which has so far been seriously lacking. The violence shattered Côte d’Ivoire’s hopes of rapidly regaining its status as francophone West Africa’s economic powerhouse and a regional beacon of stability. This was lost a year earlier when a coup d’état against the corrupt government of incumbent elected president Henri Konan Bédié installed General Robert Guei as a military head of state in December 1999. General Guei had promised to return Côte d’Ivoire to civilian rule, and scheduled elections to do so, but had manipulated the process to such an extent that the legitimacy of the elections was already in doubt before they were held. A new constitution introduced by General Guei and approved by a July 2000 referendum required both parents of any Ivorian wishing to contest the presidential election to have been born in Côte d’Ivoire. This amendment was transparently designed to exclude Alassane Ouattara, the leader of the Rally of Republicans party (Rassemblement des Republicains, RDR), the largest opposition party, from the contest. On October 6, 2000, a controversial Supreme Court decision disqualified from running fourteen of the nineteen presidential candidates, including Ouattara, on citizenship grounds, and former president Bédié for not submitting a proper medical certificate. The Supreme Court, headed by General Guei’s then legal adviser, was widely believed to have been hand picked by Guei himself. On October 24, 2000, after early results showed Laurent Gbagbo, leader of the Ivorian Popular Front (Front Populaire Ivorien, FPI), leading in the presidential poll, General Guei dissolved the National Electoral Commission and proclaimed himself the winner. Just two days later, he fled the country, in the midst of violence surrounding protests at his attempts to rig the elections. Laurent Gbagbo was left as the leading presidential candidate. Despite the very serious concerns surrounding the legitimacy of the elections—both the widespread violence and the exclusion of Alassane Ouattara from the contest—Gbagbo was installed as president. Gbagbo then used the same methods as his predecessor during the December parliamentary elections, in particular to ensure that Ouattara was once again not allowed to run. Since assuming office, he has failed to acknowledge the flawed manner in which he became head of state, to promise new elections, to seek accountability for the violence, or to take adequate steps to ensure that, under his leadership, Côte d’Ivoire would be characterized by the rule of law, not by ethno-religious tension and military impunity. The October 27, 2000, discovery of the bullet ridden bodies of fifty-seven young men in a forest on the outskirts of Abidjan, which became known as the Charnier de Yopougon (the mass grave of Yopougon, the name of a suburb near the forest) became the icon of the election violence and a test of President Gbagbo’s ability and will to control the security forces implicated in the massacre. The majority of those killed, thirty to forty, had been detained as suspected RDR supporters within the Gendarme Camp of Abobo, located in one of Abidjan’s most densely populated and pro-RDR neighborhoods. They were gunned down on October 26, apparently as an impulsive reaction by at least two gendarmes to the news that a gendarme lieutenant had been killed by RDR supporters. A subsequent operation to dispose of the bodies was premeditated and under more senior command. During this operation, some thirty gendarmes detained several young men as porters to carry the dead and wounded, transported them with the bodies in a convoy of one truck and two jeeps, and later executed them in the forest. Around the time of this massacre, there were scores of other extrajudicial executions, as well as numerous Human Rights Watch 3 August 2001, Vol. 13, No. 6(A)