Curfew reimposed in west after fresh killings

The government of Cote d'Ivoire has reimposed a curfew on two districts in the west of the country where 68 villagers were killed in fresh outbreaks of violence towards the end of last week. The defence ministry said on Tuesday that it was reimposing a 10.0pm to 6.00am curfew on Duekoue, a town close to the front line with rebel forces that control the north of the country, and a midnight to 6.00am curfew on Guiglo, where pro-government forces have been recruiting and arming Liberians from a nearby refugee camp. The move was widely seen as a setback for the peace process since President Laurent Gbagbo had abolished the curfew throughout Cote d'Ivoire only three days earlier. An army spokesman and a rebel leader meanwhile confirmed reports in Abidjan newspapers that 68 civilians had been killed in a series of incidents near Duekoue, 450 km northwest of Abidjan, towards the end of last week. Army spokesman Lt Col. Aka N'Goran said 68 villagers near Duekoue had been killed in incidents on May 8 and 10 in reprisal attacks by settlers from Burkina Faso, which borders Cote d'Ivoire to the north. Sports Minister Michel Gue, one of nine rebel leaders to join a government of national reconciliation last month following the negotiation of a peace agreement in January, gave a similar version of events. But a spokesman for the French peace-keeping force, which has a strong presence on the ground in Guiglo and Duekoue, said he had received no confirmation of the reported killings. Cote d'Ivoire's eight month-old civil war has created a deep divide between immigrants from Burkina Faso, Mali and other neighbouring countries and their offspring, who account for 30% of the population, and native Ivoirians. Many cocoa and coffee farmers in western Cote d'Ivoire have fled their land as a result of the fighting in the area. Poorly disciplined Liberian fighters employed by both government and rebel forces in the area have meanwhile been widely blamed for killing civilians, burning villages and looting goods. In a further hitch to the peace process, a planned visit to the rebel capital Bouake in central Cote d'Ivoire by several government ministers opposed to the rebels, led by acting defence minister Assoa Adou, has been called off. The visit, scheduled to have taken place on Wednesday, would have been the first by loyalist ministers to rebel territory since the civil war began in September last year. But Gue told IRIN the trip had been postponed indefinitely because of opposition by some hardline elements in his MPCI (Patriotic Movement of Cote d'Ivoire) rebel movement to the ministers' presence in the city. Meanwhile, diplomats and relief agencies have expressed concern over the continued existence of pro-government militia movements in Cote d'Ivoire's commercial capital Abidjan. They fear these could spearhead a fresh wave of attacks against Burkinabe and other West African immigrants should the security situation deteriorate. According to a recent briefing paper from the Interior Ministry made available to IRIN, the militia phenomenon dates back to February 2003 when young men, most of them jobless or school drop-outs from several of Abidjan's neighbourhoods, began forming vigilante groups to "protect Abidjan in case of a rebel attack". It said the vast majority of these men had been rejected by the army after it urged young men and women aged between 20 and 30 to enlist earlier this year. "The intelligence services point out that in the Abidjan area, there are about 10 such groups claiming to have about 12,000 members, although in reality there are about 4,700, while in the western area we counted about 2,000", the document said. One of the most visible militia leaders, Eugene Djue, told IRIN on Wednesday there were between 20 and 22 such groups operating in areas controlled by the government under an umbrella organisation called the the Association of Patriots for Peace. Djue, a former student leader, said these groups were created "to defend the country" using "non-violent means". Some of them have adopted war-like names such as "Mi-24," in apparent reference to the attack helicopters manned by Ukranian pilots which the government has used to strafe suspected rebel positions in the west of the country. But Djue rejected the term "militia" calling them instead "patriotic movements". "We use no weapons. However if we feel threatened we will use whatever means to defend the country", he added. The interior ministry document said the government had given firm instructions that all these groups be dismantled, calling them "without a doubt, a real danger for a return to normalcy".