political fervor stoked by politicians has turned popular sentiment in some constituencies against foreigners and, more recently, against northern Ivorians coming from areas bordering Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Mali. A January 7, 2001 coup attempt against President Gbagbo’s government once again set off a frenzy of attacks against foreigners, when the president implicated foreign nationals from Burkina Faso in the attempt. Following harassment, attacks, and extortion both by vigilante groups and by members of the state security forces, tens of thousands of foreigners, mostly Burkinabés, fled Côte d’Ivoire. The level of seniority of officers within the state security corps involved in the perpetration of human rights abuses is a cause for concern. Victims often described the presence of officers during operations in which serious abuses were committed and in apparent command. There is no doubt that high-ranking officers were in charge of six army, police, and gendarme bases where hundreds of detainees were tortured. Former detainees often described the presence of officers within police and gendarme bases and of their overseeing and directing the abuse or doing nothing to stop it. Paramilitary gendarmes within the National Gendarme Academy raped women within an open area, and witnesses identified, through their insignia, at least seven officers within the National Police Academy who were involved in sexual abuse of several women. Other officers stepped in to halt some abuses or attempted to do so. Witnesses frequently described signs of a breakdown of command, in which officers and soldiers argued over whether certain abuses should be committed, or soldiers committed abuses after officers had ordered them not to. Numerous witnesses described an informal realignment of military authority based on ethnicity, instead of seniority. Soldiers and lower officers from President Gbagbo’s Bete ethnic group were said to have disobeyed orders from or argued with senior officers originating from other ethnic groups. Following a flood of international condemnation, Côte d’Ivoire pledged to conduct three official judicial investigations into the October violence: the first into the massacre of fifty-seven men on October 26 (the Charnier de Yopougon); the second into the killing of eighteen people whose bodies were found floating in the Ébrié Lagoon on October 25 and 26; and the third into the case of at least six men found murdered within Blokosso neighborhood on October 26. After local and international human rights groups denounced sexual violence perpetrated against women by government forces and state-sanctioned vigilantes and the widespread torture of detainees during the December wave of violence, one official inquiry into rape was conducted but no follow-up action was taken. Despite overwhelming evidence against members of his security forces and repeated pledges by President Gbagbo to punish individuals responsible for human rights abuses, not one member of the security forces has been arrested and convicted in relation to the incidents of late 2000. In April 2001, eight paramilitary gendarmes were charged with murder in connection with the massacre of the Charnier de Yopougon. They included then Captain Victor Be Kpan, who commanded the gendarme Camp of Abobo where the initial killings occurred, and who was promoted to major after the October election violence. None of the eight, who all denied any involvement in the killings, were arrested or taken into custody. The trial began on July 24, 2001 before a military tribunal inside the gendarmerie’s Agban Camp, and on August 3, 2001, all eight gendarmes were acquitted. The judge ruled that the prosecutors had failed to produce sufficient evidence directly linking the gendarmes to the killings. The two survivors of the massacre refused to testify in the trial, citing fears for their safety. Two brothers, both civilians, were the only people in detention in connection with the election violence; they were arrested in connection with the October 26, 2000, killing of gendarme Lt. Nyobo N’Guessan and were, at this writing, still awaiting trial. Otherwise, President Gbagbo has responded to calls for accountability by making a series of symbolic gestures such as the establishment of a twenty-six member committee to promote national reconciliation, and the designation of November 9, 2000, as a national day of prayer for those killed in the October violence. While the international community condemned both the violence surrounding the elections and the lack of full Human Rights Watch 5 August 2001, Vol. 13, No. 6(A)