which were buried in a mass grave.44 Hundreds of panicked northerners fled the quarter, and many sought refuge in the Grand Mosque of Daloa. The following day, young northerners and Muslims in Daloa demonstrated to protest the events. Muslim leaders and neighboring governments whose nationals had been killed also lodged protests with the government in Abidjan. In reaction to press reports and growing accusations against the armed forces on the Daloa killings, the spokesperson of the armed forces admitted that cleaning up operations were still taking place, despite the government re-capture of the town and a cease-fire signed between the government and rebels on October 17. However, armed forces spokesperson Jules Yao Yao denied that civilians had been intentionally targeted by the armed forces. He said, “Every day bodies of people who died in combat are discovered amid the searches. These are not people intentionally killed by the armed forces, but individuals killed in combat. Elsewhere, based on the definition of assailant given by the head of state, the cleaning operations involve individuals who lodged or actively helped the assailants.”45 In a clear and damning statement of policy, the government spokesman continued, “The enemy, for the regular forces….is foremost armed men and then the civilian population who actively support them.”46 The government continued to deny that state security forces were responsible for the killings, but announced an investigation on October 25.47 Notably, the killings in Daloa stopped after the attacks were publicized, condemned locally and internationally, and the BAE forces left Daloa. However, the pattern of reprisal attacks against civilians exhibited by the BAE and other state security forces in Daloa was replicated in other locations. The massacre at Monoko-Zohi: November 28, 2002 On November 27, the day before the rebel groups launched their offensives on Danané and Man, the government forces sent troops northwest from Daloa, across the cease-fire line into rebel-controlled territory, probably in an attempt to attack Vavoua. On November 28 and 29 the government forces attacked Monoko-Zohi, a tiny village about seventy kilometers from Daloa. Monoko-Zohi and other villages in the district, such as Pélézi, Fiekon Borombo and Dania, had a mixed ethnic population of indigenous Ivorians, mainly of Niédéboua ethnicity, and foreign immigrants, largely Burkinabé, who were the main cultivators of the area’s cocoa and coffee plantations. There were pre-existing tensions between these two groups of villagers due to conflicts over land (see below, chapter IX). A Burkinabé farmer interviewed by Human Rights Watch described the collaboration between some of the indigenous Niédéboua villagers and the loyalist forces in the neighboring Pélézi village: Pélézi is mixed, there were lots of foreigners—Burkinabé, Maliens, Guineans, Nigerians, and then the Ivorians--the Niédébouas and Baoulés—living there before the war. After September 19, there was a lot of tension with the Niédéboua villagers. The Niédéboua quarter was on one side of the village and the foreigner’s quarter on the other side. The Niédéboua said, “[w]e are going to chase you out and take our land.’ My Niédéboua friend told me that the Niédéboua had secret meetings after the rebels came in October. They weren’t happy that the rebels had come, they said “[t]he president of Burkina Faso was responsible for sending the rebels to CI.” They said that if the loyalist forces came, they would chase all the foreigners away. They made a list with the names of the foreigners, I was told this by some of the younger Niédéboua. It wasn’t just the Burkinabé, even the Baoulé were seen as foreigners in Pélézi.48 44 Edgar Kouassi, “Daloa vit des jours sombres,” Le Patriote, October 22, 2002, p.2. 45 “Les assailants font mouvement vers Daloa,” 24 heures, October 23, 2003. This article was a transcription of the spokesperson’s comments the previous day. 46 Ibid. 47 United States Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Côte d’Ivoire: 2002, March 2003, p.4. 48 Human Rights Watch interview, Bobo-Dioulasso, February 9, 2003. Human Rights Watch 17 August 2003, Vol. 15, No. 14 (A)