Deaths and 'disappearances'

2004-04-08 13:15

London - Police have carried out summary executions and made arbitrary arrests following an anti-government demonstration in Ivory Coast last month, the human rights group Amnesty International said on Wednesday.

A report spoke of a large number of extra-judicial executions and disappearances in the nights following the March 25 protests.

Amnesty said it had also collected evidence of a mass grave near Yopougon on the outskirts of the commercial capital Abidjan where witnesses claimed to have seen "numerous corpses which had been taken away by security forces to an unknown destination".

"Other witnesses reported seeing suspicious traces of blood at the entrance to a rubbish dump at Akouedo, a district of Abidjan, after the military buried the contents of their vehicles on the night of Thursday, March 25," the report said.

The clashes in Abidjan left 37 people dead, according to police in Ivory Coast.

But the political opposition in the troubled former French colony has said up to 500 people died when the army followed presidential orders and cracked down on the demonstration, called in defiance of a presidential ban on public protests.

Ivory Coast's security minister said last week there was "incontestable evidence" that atrocities were committed after the protest, but blamed them on "parallel forces".

Amnesty said it was unable to confirm the testimony it had assembled because security forces had prevented or hindered access by independent observers, such as UN officials in Ivory Coast, to the areas concerned.

Amnesty said demonstrators belonging to the opposition Ivory Coast Democratic Party had been subject to violence by police, but had themselves also used violence.

Heads hacked off with machetes

"In at least one case, the demonstrators resorted to violence, killing two police officers whose heads were hacked off with machetes," the Amnesty report continued.

Amnesty also welcomed a request submitted by Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and a follow-up committee overseeing implementation of last year's peace accords on Ivory Coast for an international commission of enquiry to be set up on last month's violence.

To end the open crisis begun with an insurrection in 2002, "it is essential to put an end to the impunity enjoyed by armed elements of all the parties to the conflict," Amnesty said.

The international community must also face up to its responsibilities to protect the country's civilian population, the document added.

Last week the United Nations said it was preparing an inquiry into grave human rights abuses in Ivory Coast during an anti-government protest.

- AFP