The Ivory Coast's Bloody Cocoa
18 killed as ethnic clashes continue in ''Wild West''
ABIDJAN, 13 January (IRIN) - The French peacekeeping force in Cote d'Ivoire urged the government
army and police to send reinforcements to help it maintain order in the troubled west of the country on
Tuesday
after reporting that 18 people had been killed there in two weeks of ethnic clashes.
Colonel Georges Peillon, the official spokesman of the 4,000-strong French peacekeeping force, said
tension was rising in villages around the town of Bangolo, 600 km northwest of the capital Abidjan,
where French
soldiers had found the bodies of 18 people killed in ethnic fighting since 29 December.
"With the deployment of contingents of French troops to several towns in the north, we are very thinly
spread on the ground and it will be very difficulty for us to maintain security on our own if more hot spots
of tension like the one around Bangolo start appearing," Peillon told IRIN.
"We are asking the FANCI (government army) to give us a hand," he added.
Peillon said the French forces had also asked the government's paramilitary gendarmerie to send
reinforcements to the West to help patrol the area that lies south of the demilitarized zone separating the
government-held south of the country from the rebel-controlled north.
Bangolo lies inside the demilitarized "Zone of Confidence," just a few kilometres from the rebel frontline
and only French and West African peacekeeping troops are allowed to bear arms there.
Peillon said the French peacekeepers wanted the government security forces to help maintain security in
the towns and villages that lie on or near the road between Duekoue, 45 km south of Bangolo, and
Toulepleu on
the Liberian border.
Although a ceasefire has held firm in the rest of Cote d'Ivoire since 3 May last year, there have been
continued clashes near the Liberian frontier in an area that has become known as the "Wild West." Most
of these have involved informal gangs of gun and machete wielding fighters organised on ethnic lines.
Last year many of these skirmishes and raids involved indisciplined bands of Liberian militiamen armed
by both the government and rebels before the ceasefire. However, in recent months most have been
confrontations between villagers of the local Guere tribe and settlers from Burkina Faso, Guinea and
other parts of Cote d'Ivoire who grow cocoa in the region.
Several thousand of these immigrants have been chased off their land,
where other people are now attempting to harvest their crops.
One humanitarian worker who recently returned to Abidjan from a visit to the West, told IRIN on
Tuesday that with the December-March cocoa harvest currently in full swing, the fight for control of the
cocoa plantations was hotting up.
He reported seeing Lebanese cocoa buyers from Liberia stocking up on cut-price beans in both the
government and rebel-held sectors of western Cote d'Ivoire for smuggling to nearby Guinea.
Meanwhile, Peillon warned of continuing tension in the north of Cote d'Ivoire, where there have recently
been a series of clashes between rival factions of the rebel movement near the borders with Burkina
Faso and
Mali. About 300 French peacekeepers were deployed to the northern towns of Korhogo and
Ferkessedegou in early January to help stabilise the situation.
Peillon told IRIN these troops had discovered that the rebels were holding an unspecified number of
prisoners in several containers in Korhogo. These included Liberians and suspected government
infiltrators, he added.
"We are discovering a lot of things as we extend our patrols in the north," he said.