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Ivory Coast: Mutual Amnesty for Civil War Crimes
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by Jordan Yerman | April 13, 2007 at 02:37 pm
518 views | 15 Recommendations | 4 comments
Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has signed a law giving amnesty for crimes committed during the civil war.The amnesty, part of a recent peace deal, applies to both the New Forces rebels and the armed forces loyal to President Gbagbo.
Last month human rights group Amnesty International condemned Ivory Coast's "climate of impunity" and said both sides were guilty of large-scale rape.
A BBC correspondent says there will be no local prosecutions for such crimes.
Any on-going prosecutions are to be dropped immediately, and prisoners convicted of crimes covered by the amnesty will be released.
Economic crimes are a notable exception, as they are not covered by the amnesty.
Even as I clicked "highlight" I was unsure where to begin. The civil war has turned men into monsters, and, as both sides begin to approach peace, each side seeks reassurance that there will be no comeback for atrocities committed during the fighting, and they want to protect their own legitimacy as they move towards elctions. It's funny how economic crimes are still being prosecuted, whilst the rapes and murders, those crimes whose victims have faces and who bleed, are erased from the books. At what price peace? That is not a rhetorical question.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 15:13 on April 13th, 2007
Question, are you refering to U.S. economic crimes or international economic crimminality? Most Americans thought the South African commission that served as the basis for this one was great and praised it as so. If there is resistance to this new one in the West, the real question should be why.
at 15:14 on April 13th, 2007
It's good stuff.
at 15:17 on April 13th, 2007
South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a series of trials, in which supplicants would lobby for forgiveness. If forgiveness was not granted, then the supplicants would be tried by law. What's happening in Ivory Coast is different: Both sides are being given blanket immunity for their crimes, with no community input.
at 15:45 on April 13th, 2007
I think this is good stuff because you detail precisely an honest reaction to the material. The price of peace can be very high, particularly when a justice system is compeltely overwhelmed. And it is a curious oddity of human rights violations that economic crimes are still prosecuted. The South African model of the Truth and Reconciliation forum deserves to be imitated. To a certain extent, it traded amnesty for truth, but at least the truth surfaced