Towards that end, the FRCI burned down villages and massacred an unknown number of civilians in all but five Guéré communities.<fnref n="157" /> This detail is significant. Given it appears this was an ethnic cleansing campaign targeting the full population and territory of the Guéré ethnic group, there is a strong case to be made that the FRCI committed an act of genocide.

The attack on Duékoué's 'Coca Cola Carrefour' is the best-known episode in what appears to be an ethnic cleansing campaign perpetrated by the FRCI forces. As civilians fled their villages and sought shelter in the Catholic Mission, those fleeing were intercepted by FRCI forces and executed en masse at this now infamous intersection. The Red Cross recorded 816 victims in a single day, most of them men.<fnref n="158" /> An exact death toll from the massacre is unknown as mass grave sites in the area were never exhumed. The figure is likely significantly higher than the Red Cross estimate, however, given testimony from survivors indicates most executions took place in the 'bush' where NGO workers could not go.<fnref n="159" /> In Duékoué, 27 000 people took refuge in the Catholic Mission as their homes were pillaged and burned. Attacks of a similar nature followed in the villages of Moyen Cavally and Dix-Huit Montagnes.<fnref n="160" /> The presence of Michel Gueu, the

<footnote n="157">157 A witness before the ICC described this scene in his Guéré village (Ivoire Justice 2014)</footnote>

<footnote n="158">158 On 12 May 2011, journalist Jean-Paul Mari reported to the 'Nouvel Observateur' that the massacre at the Carrefour and subsequent hunting down of civilian in the 'brousse' resulted in a minimum of 1000 deaths, and more likely 2000 dead in the single instant. The number would quickly drop to the Red Cross count of approximately 800, and remain so in official records to date.</footnote>

<footnote n="159">159 In three separate interviews with former Red Cross volunteers stationed in the area during this period, they confirmed that - based on what they witnessed and learned afterwards - the massacres primarily took place in the surrounding forested areas where it was impossible to search for wounded and dead. In their shared opinion, the majority of deaths were never recorded.</footnote>

<footnote n="160">160 Testimony and evidence collected by Red Cross volunteers prove that the execution of Guéré men and boys at Duékué Carrefour was not a unique event during April and May 2011. The following statement is from a conflict victim in Bangolo, a Yacouba town in the Northwest: "When they attacked Bangolo...the Dozos helped the Malinke take the land... There were 600 people dead in that attack, you see, they would never tell you these kinds of numbers. When we ran, they took over our lands and we can't go back, everything is blocked off. I had three wives over my life and 24 children, I have nothing to leave them. There are at least 7 mass graves in Bangolo - we really</footnote>
commander of FRCI 'Operation Restore Peace and Democracy', is an important detail in the claim that the campaign was one of calculated ethnic cleansing and not simply a group of deranged combatants acting on their own accord.<fnref n="161" /> On the 28th of March, just hours before the massacre began, Gueu was stationed in the outskirts of Duékoué. That presence indicates that a commander, operating under the auspices of an internationally coordinated mission, was in direct proximity of his forces as they massacred hundreds of civilians.

Two hundred ONUCI peacekeepers were also stationed less than one kilometer from the Carrefour. These peacekeepers were within earshot of the massacre, much of it committed by machete and burning victims to death. The peacekeepers likely heard screaming and certainly saw smoke, yet they did not leave their base during the entire day of March 29 while the massacre took place. The following day, the ONUCI again did not leave their base to help civilians hiding in the bush and being hunted by Dozos. Soon after, a further massacre took place at Niably UN refugee camp where the citizens of Duékoué and its surrounding region lived in an overcrowded tent city after their villages and neighbourhoods were destroyed. Survivors of the attack explain that Dozos burned the camp and chased them into the forest. It is unknown how many people died, but the UN estimate is approximately 800. The camp was guarded by UN peacekeepers who, once again, did not intervene.

In the official UN report on the Duékoué massacre, the peacebuilding mission congratulated

<footnote>have no idea how many bodies are inside them, we know it must be somewhere between 1000 and 2000.” Conflict victim association leader in Bangolo, Côte d’Ivoire, August 2015. A key thing to note in this testimony is the fact that massacres in the Bangolo region led to reoccupation of contested lands by the same communities who supplied young fighters to the FRCI army.</footnote>

<footnote n="161">¹⁶¹ Months before, he bragged on international news that the USA had personally assigned him the mission of taking the West (Varenne 2012).</footnote>
itself for its work protecting civilians, stating, “thousands of lives were saved as a result of [the ONUCI] strategy’. The report notably failed to describe who committed the killings or the nature of the deaths at the Carrefour, suggesting that a battle had ensued and the ONUCI honorably intervened (ONUCI 2011). Before releasing this official account, ONUCI also published an initial response to criticism for its failure to protect civilians in Duékoué. The statement read,

> “Recognising that the ONUCI provides protection to civilians against immediate threats of physical violence, within the limits of its capacity, the first responsibility for protecting civilians falls on the national authorities of Côte d’Ivoire” (UN Security Council 2011).

This statement is a confused, if not criminal, retreat from responsibility. In March 2011, the ONUCI declared the FRCI the national army of Côte d’Ivoire and its RDR leaders the official government. In coordination with the French peacekeeping mission, the ONUCI provided military and tactical support to the FRCI throughout the Western mission during which time these and other massacres were committed by those very soldiers (Ivoire Justice 2014).

Declaring civilian protection ‘the first responsibility of the national authorities’ insidiously skirts the fact that ONUCI was, itself, the guarantor and military partner of the authority who committed these war crimes.
## 4.8. The Abidjan Campaign

On April 4th, 2011, the French *Licorne* mission began bombings the Presidential Palace.<fnref n="162" />

Because UN Resolution 1975 did not authorise French military involvement as ground troops, the official record shows that *Licorne* provided air cover while the FRCI entered the palace and arrested Gbagbo (Notin 2013). In fact, the French forces cleared the corridor leading to the palace three times to allow the FRCI to enter and take the residence. After a third failure, the French officers decided to complete the mission themselves. On April 11th *Licorne* officers took the palace, politely parking their tanks in the residence parking lot.<fnref n="163" /> As they handed presidential couple over to the ComZones, the international media captured images of Laurent Gbagbo, dishevelled and wearing a backward bulletproof vest, with his wife, Simone Gbagbo, in a torn sundress.

The week before, under Gbagbo's orders, the FDS retreated to the presidential palace leaving Abidjan's civilian population unguarded against waves of FRCI fighters arriving from the North and West. On April 12th and 13th, the FRCI began pillaging Abidjan of everything that could be carried away. Cars were stolen from their owners, loaded with loot from raided homes and

<footnote n="162">¹⁶² The bombings were supported by UN forces. Former FRCI combatants and UN staff alleged that ONUCI actually fired on the Golf Hotel because an attack on the international community stationed there ensured that their role in the attack on the palace was in line with the terms of their Security Council assigned mandate. This account is confirmed by a ONUCI Sebroko staff member: "In truth, it was ONUCI in camouflage uniforms who fired on the Hotel. And no, the guys in charge of defending the Golf were not informed" (Varenne 2012). The claim is further supported by the fact that Gbagbo's heavy weaponry was Russian made: powerful and not very precise, had it been their weapons firing on the ONUCI station, carnage would have followed rather than the minimal damage actually sustained.</footnote>

<footnote n="163">¹⁶³ Many pro-Gbagbo supporters believe that around 2000 people in the human belt were killed, but Gbagbo had ordered them all to go home by this point meaning the causalities sustained were only those people hiding inside the building (Interview with Charlie Watta, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, May 2015)</footnote>
driven north. Vehicles that could not be moved were dismantled into parts and taken away in pieces. One witness at the CDVR public hearings described his car dealership, once containing 300 cars, completely emptied by FRCI forces (CDVR 2014b). Government ministries were emptied of computers, electronics, table and chairs. Only big businesses able to purchase private security or pay off the FRCI were left untouched.

Beyond looting, the invasion of Abidjan was marked by carnage on both sides. Many of the FRCI were new recruits from villages who were visiting an urban hub for the first time. They were easily lost in the sprawling city and had no experience of urban warfare. As journalist Leslie Varenne described, “the [FDS] slaughtered the kids like rabbits” (Varenne 2012). She recalls seeing a convoy of pickup trucks, loaded with the bodies of young recruits, being sent back north, but notes there is no official record of these trucks arriving at their supposed destination, or of their existence at all (ibid). Her observation is consistent with a pattern of remarkably low or simply absent casualty rates in official documentation of this period produced by the UN and the Ivorian government.

Official estimates are especially puzzling when contrasted with the incredible violence and carnage described in witness testimonies. “The number of dead in Côte d’Ivoire is very, very low,” said UN Special Representative Choi, as he quoted official UN statistics documenting 3000 dead throughout the course of the ten-year war. That figure supposedly also includes military deaths (ONUCI 2011). In contrast, the CDVR identified approximately 12 000 civilians killed or disappeared based on testimony collected over just three months of statement-taking. Even within the ONUCI, every person I discussed casualty rates with recognized that the UN number is a major underestimate. This is because the official tally, I was told, only included bodies a UN operative personally observed and recorded. Without extensive investigations and
exhumations, it is impossible to accurately determine the death toll in Côte d'Ivoire's civil war. It is possible, however, to piece together an estimate from available evidence. On the FDS side, approximately 14,000 soldiers disappeared (Varenne 2012). Many FDS fled into exile when Ouattara took power, however it is unlikely such a high number of ex-combatants made it to the refugee camps in Liberia and Ghana that housed Gbagbo militants.<fnref n="164" /> If one quarter of the combatants who disappeared from Gbagbo's side were in fact killed, the death rate is already significantly higher than the official UN estimate.

That number does not yet include the unknown number of FRCI who never made it home. The death rate within FRCI was likely much higher than amongst the national security forces. That much can be gleaned from the testimony of surviving combatants who describe battles that turned into one-sided slaughter as young recruits faced Gbagbo's professional army and war-weathered Liberian mercenaries.¹⁶⁵ Although there are no official numbers for the FRCI death toll, there is some evidence. The UN funded demobilization program (DDR) for former combatants is widely understood by Ivorians as a form of payment to the FRCI recruits for their service to Ouattara.<fnref n="166" /> At the time Waga was signed, 110 000 fighters were destined to benefit

<footnote n="164">164 UNHCR gave 300,000 as an estimated total number of refugees who fled Côte d'Ivoire during the final months of the conflict. Approximately 30,000 refugees registered in Ghana and 240,000 registered at camps in Liberia. UNHCR facilitated the return of 40,000 refugees from Liberia and an additional 160,000 returned on their own (UNMIL 2015). In 2018, a total of 8,662 people still refused to return from Liberia. UNHCR assisted the return of 28,934 refugees from Ghana, leaving a total of 1,562 refugees and 379 asylum seekers still in the country in 2018 (UNHCR 2018). There are no publicly available numbers listing which asylum seekers or refugees were ex-combatants, however former combatants and their families are likely amongst those who refuse repatriation. Note that ADO's amnesty law applied only to a specific list individuals. Former combatants who fled rather than changing sides at the end of the conflict would likely be arrested – or worst - if they returned to Côte d'Ivoire.</footnote>

<footnote n="166">166 Recall that Gbagbo's FDS forces were a trained military. After Gbagbo's arrest, some willingly changed sides while others were arrested or went into exile, notably to refugee camps in Liberia and Ghana. As pro-Gbagbo street</footnote>
from the UN demobilization program. The number shrank to 74 000 by the end of the post-
electoral crisis, with 69 506 actually participating (ONUCI 2017). State authorities claim the
number dropped so dramatically because most FRCI recruits simply wished to return to their
pervious jobs. Knowing the realities of youth employment in Côte d'Ivoire, especially in rural
areas, it is hard to imagine that two thirds of demilitarized combatants had jobs awaiting them at
home or would turn down employment assistance when it was made freely available. Moreover,
the DDR program was not exclusively a job placement project. Ex-combatants could also
receive a lump sum payment; something very few young Ivorians would reject were they indeed
alive to collect those benefits.

After adding the available evidence of military and civilian deaths, thirty thousand killed is a
conservative estimate. Moreover, this number does not include the unknown thousands who died
during the embargo on Côte d'Ivoire's ports that cut medical supplies to a country at war. It also
excludes non-violent deaths in communities cut from medical and other social services by the
forces nouvelles occupation from September 2002 until April 2011. While acknowledging that
the official number is an underestimate, the ONUCI claims it cannot revise the figure without
forensic evidence and therefore must continue to use the admittedly low tally.<fnref n="167" /> There is another
plausible explanation for the UN refusal to revise its misleading official records. The
international military intervention was justified as support to a virtuous rebellion that brought the

<footnote>gangs from the *galaxie patriotique* and ‘barragists’ were never recognised as commandants, they were not eligible for the DDR program.</footnote>

<footnote n="167">167 Interview with ONUCI staff member, April 2014. Note there are other contexts where the UN does issue estimate numbers based on field reports. For example, the United Nations until recently provided frequent estimates on the death toll in Syria where UN operations have less access to information and battle sites due to the nature and intensity of fighting (Official updates on estimated deaths are available on UN News and the website of OHCHR, see: https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/12/1028511)</footnote>
country from a xenophobic dictatorship to a liberal democracy. That mission would seem much less justifiable, however, were the real human costs of the regime change is taken into account.

## 4.9. The ICC in Côte d'Ivoire

The ICC formally launched investigations in Côte d'Ivoire on November 28, 2010. Laurent Gbagbo and Blé Goudé jointly faced trial at the ICC for crimes against humanity, including the Abobo market attack, the protest at the RTI radio station, the Women's March in Abobo and a case of collective rape committed by the FDS forces (Malu 2016). Initially the ICC judges refused to confirm charges against Gbagbo, citing insufficient evidence. Rather than annulling the trial, however, the judges agree to postpone proceedings and gave the prosecutors additional time to prepare a case (ibid).

Côte d'Ivoire was not an original signatory to the Rome Statute. As the constituting document of the International Criminal Court, a country must join the Statute for the international court to exercise jurisdiction within its borders. In 2003, in what Mike McGovern refers to as an 'act of spectacular brinkmanship', then-President Gbagbo requested a referral from the UN Security Council that would allow the ICC to open a preliminary dossier on crimes against humanity under his own rule (M. McGovern 2011). Presumably Gbagbo expected the investigations to be inconclusive and believed these findings would defuse allegations from human rights organizations and the French executive that he operated death squads in Abidjan. A decade later, this same ordinance opened the door for the ICC to claim jurisdiction in post-war Côte d'Ivoire. Upon taking office, President Ouattara confirmed the earlier declaration and ratified the Rome Statute.
As the founding document of the ICC, the Rome Statute is the source of the international court's
legitimacy and jurisdiction. In the words of legal scholar J. Steffek, the statute gives the court
'the prestige of being considered binding' (2003). The Statute specifies that the court will only
prosecute crimes against humanity, war crimes, the crime of genocide and, at some future point,
also the crime of aggression. These crimes are established in international treaties and related
legal instruments as systemic and gross violations of human rights and, as such, are deemed
universally abhorrent to all members of humanity. Said in other terms, abhorrence of these
crimes is considered a universal principle, making the wrongness of these atrocities a norm that
does not change regardless of historical, cultural or political context (Goodale and Clarke 2010).
This is a positivist argument made by legal theorists like Judith Shklar who consider
international criminal law to be an "annunciation of norms... that are already 'there'" (Moyn
2012). In this positivist school, the ICC is the highest representative body of a "shared moral
community that includes all of humanity" (Koskenniemi 2001).

Declaring crimes against humanity abhorrent to all peoples, in every context, is a declaration of
the universal applicability of the ICC. Yet to actually grant an institution the authority to
universally prosecute is a more complex matter, and one that depends on building and
maintaining multiple sources of legitimacy (Steffek 2003). As stated, the court only has
jurisdiction where sovereign states voluntarily recognize its authority. Its legitimacy is further
dependent on the proper procedural operations of the court. One of the strongest criticisms
facing the ICC today regards its inconsistent commitment to upholding the purportedly universal
principles codified in its mandate. The seemingly political nature of decisions around who is and
who is not put on trial undermines the legitimacy of the international justice system as a whole
and the ICC in particular.
This criticism is particularly strong amongst scholars and political leaders in Africa who note that, with the single exception of Georgia, no other continent is represented amongst indicted war criminals (Kiyani 2015). African legal theorist Edwin Bikundo recharacterizes the noble claim that “the ICC puts humanity in judgment over inhumanity”, writing “it would rather more accurately be put as one segment of humanity sits in judgment over another” (Bikundo 2012). The objection from African legal theorists such as Bikundo is not a question of whether or not accused perpetrators ought to be held accountable. Their concern is with an apparent double standard in international justice. Mahmood Mamdani warns that the ICC has become a Western court that is used to try African crimes against humanity. He describes the ICC as the foundation of a bifurcated global system wherein “sovereignty is sacrosanct in the developed parts of the world but suspended in Africa and the Middle East”.

In Côte d'Ivoire, for example, France ignored a South African investigative team's demands that perpetrators of the Hôtel Ivoire massacre be indicted to a French or international court. Yet, within the same period, French Prime Minister Villipin threatened Gbagbo with ICC indictment if he did not conform to the terms of the French dictated Linas-Marcoussis 2003 peace accord. Globally, the ICC has targeted governments that are adversaries of the US and other key Security Council members, while ignoring the actions of allies such as the former regime in Uganda and the present Rwandan government (Okafor and Ngwaba 2015). A pattern has emerged of Western powers, posing as human rights defenders, using the ICC as a tool to target leaders unpopular in the West while turning a blind eye to allies.

Selective accountability in Côte d'Ivoire undermined the claim that the ICC exists to enforce universal human rights laws and norms. The ICC opened proceedings against former President Gbagbo and his Youth Minister when the crisis was still ongoing yet no member of the rebellion
has faced similar charges. In April 2015, President Ouattara took a clear position on the
prospect of his own supporters going to trial. “I am hearing here and there that this is a victor’s
justice”, he said, “but has there ever been such thing as a justice for the vanquished?” (Ivoire
Justice 2017). The statement sat uncomfortably with his counterparts at the ICC by
unapologetically acknowledging that their judicial process was, clearly, one-sided.<fnref n="168" /> Although
this was a fact anyone could observe, the integrity of the court required the semblance of
impartiality.

Having secured an international trial for his rival, Ouattara unilaterally declared the limits of ICC
jurisdiction in Côte d'Ivoire, announcing “henceforth we will judge everyone here, no one else is
going to the ICC.” In response to this statement, the ICC Prosecutor's Office simply told the
international press, “[they did] not know what Alassane Ouattara meant by those words”. Rather
than confronting him for a clear breech of legal principle, the Court simply feigned ignorance
and suggested critics, “ask him about it” (Ivoire Justice 2017). Despite this vague response from
the ICC, the chief legal team at the world's highest court was undoubtedly aware of the
implications of Ouattara's statement. Even before Ouattara made the statement, he had shown to
the world that the ICC was unwilling to exercise its authority against his wishes. In an
embarrassing public confrontation between the prosecutors' office and President Ouattara, the
court had requested the transfer of former First Lady Simone Gbagbo to the ICC, citing the
questionable legality of her trial process in Abidjan. <fnref n="169" /> Ouattara refused and, after a short-lived

<footnote n="168">¹⁶⁸ Interview with President for Coalition for the ICC in Côte d'Ivoire by author, June 2014</footnote>

<footnote n="169">¹⁶⁹ For instance, the Ivorian court refused to subpoena key witnesses (i.e. General Mangou and Rebel Commander Soro). Without the witnesses, the defense refused to participate in the trial, yet the process continued without the defense or defendant, by order of the Court President.</footnote>
dispute, the ICC retracted its demands.

Allowing Simone Gbagbo to face trial in Côte d'Ivoire set a precedent that blocked any further transfers to the international court, effectively protecting perpetrators in Ouattara's camp from indictment. This is because the ICC concession on the permissibility of Simone Gbagbo being tried domestically was also a tacit concession that Côte d'Ivoire was henceforth considered capable of prosecuting war crimes at home. In accordance with the Rome Statute, that acknowledgement ended the jurisdiction of the ICC in Côte d'Ivoire. With this precedent in place, it is now very difficult to issue an international indictment against Soro or the ComZones responsible for ethnic cleansing in the West and massacres in Bouaké. Relying on the principle of complementarity enshrined in the Rome Statute, President Ouattara claims that the legal system of his nation is now sufficiently reformed to effectively try those most responsible for crimes against humanity committed during the civil war. To add some credence to his words, the Ivorian Chief Justice launched investigations into eight key members of Ouattara's military apparatus. That said, while pro-Gbagbo defendants wait in jail - some for years before even hearing the charges against them - the eight FRCI in question continue to hold high-ranking positions in business, politics and the military years after these investigations purportedly began.

The aim of ICC trial was not primarily a matter of delivering justice to the victims of grave atrocity. Were victims' right the primary consideration of the international court, it would not have overlooked the gravest and most extensive documented civilian massacres. More than addressing victim needs, the ICC process sent a globally resounding message about acceptable and intolerable forms of governance in the international community. The one-sided trial of Gbagbo before the ICC was a denunciation of not only him, but of those who supported him and their vision for the future of Côte d'Ivoire. The trial communicated to Ivorians and to
international onlookers that Gbagbo and what he stands for are abhorrent to universal humanitarian norms. The trial equally gave international sanction to the de facto amnesty President Ouattara and his clan enjoy, leaving their crimes outside the scope of accountability and legitimizing the practical reality that the new regime is simply beyond judicial scrutiny.

Moreover, the message of Gbagbo's criminality and Ouattara's permissibility that the ICC communicated to the world was shaped by the direct intervention of President Ouattara. Of the approximately 500,000 registered victims, only 729 were chosen by the ICC prosecutors office to be represented at the court. Focusing on a small number of individuals as representative of the entire victims' community placed significant power in the hands of the office responsible for making those selections. The ICC victim representative in Abidjan was a senior member of the war-era rebel government in the occupied north, personally appointed to this role by Ouattara.<fnref n="170" /> All other victim associations could only communicate with the ICC by applying through this office, which had the authority to accept or deny applications from victims wishing to give their account to the court. According to members of the victims' community, this office succeeded for four years in carefully curating all communication between victims and the ICC.<fnref n="171" /> The fact that it took years from the ICC to discover the manipulations happening at their victim affairs office, demonstrates the profound disconnect between the court's understanding of post-conflict Côte d'Ivoire and realities on the ground.

<footnote n="170">170 The ICC requested the director's removal once his role in the civil war was discovered, but only years after the investigations and court proceedings were underway (Director of Adjamé victim's association in interview with author March 2015).</footnote>

<footnote n="171">171 Interview by author with victim's association director, Adajmé Côte d'Ivoire, April 2015</footnote>
4.9.1. Navigating Legal Principle and Procedure

When accused of inconsistency and bias in the Ivorian case, the ICC prosecutor's office cites correct legal procedure as the source of its legitimacy in the Gbagbo-Goudé trial. In a telling moment, Chief Prosecutor Bensouda was speaking to a victims' association in Abidjan when an audience member accused the ICC of destabilizing the country and jeopardizing their chance at reconciliation with its one-sided trial. She acknowledged this as true but countered that the ICC "had their procedure and it must be respected."<fnref n="172" /> Similarly, when lawyer for the prosecution, Paolina Massidda, was asked in an interview about justice for the victims of the Duékoué Carrefour massacre, she simply answered "it is the primary responsibility of Côte d'Ivoire to inquire into these incidents" (Ivoire Justice 2016a).<fnref n="173" /> As matters of pure legal procedure, both lawyers made true statements, however their words imply that procedural correctness can supersede all other factors including national stability, fair application of the law and a victim right to be treated equality before the law.

By retreating into a language of legalism, the prosecutor's office shielded itself from responsibility for the political consequences of its operations.<fnref n="174" /> Citing an unwavering

<footnote n="172">¹⁷² President of PK18 victims' association in interview with author, Abobo Côte d'Ivoire May 2015.</footnote>

<footnote n="173">¹⁷³ As legal experts with experience working in Côte d'Ivoire, both Mrs. Massidda and Mrs. Bensouda were aware that the victims of atrocities committed by Ouattara's forces would not find justice at an Ivorian court. Indeed, Massidda's recourse to procedural legitimacy is a strange response, at best, given she started the same interview with a moving statement that her priority is to understand the daily life and realities facing Ivorian conflict victims.</footnote>

<footnote n="174">¹⁷⁴ It is not a new observation that international criminal trials are politicized endeavors. As Odero explains, international criminal justice cannot operate outside the realm of political realities. Likewise, Sarah Nouwen and Wouter Werner have conducted empirical work demonstrating that international criminal trials are an irreducibly political process (Nouwen and Werner 2010). Shklars explains, 'the deliberate isolation of the legal system—the treatment of law as a neutral social entity—is itself a refined political ideology, the expression of a preference.' Indeed, this is a position shared by legal scholars at the foundation of international criminal justice, Kelsen and Hart, both legal positivists, who theorize that the 'age-old conviction' that law does something other than politics is an ideology that is itself a political position.</footnote>
commitment to procedural correctness permits the ICC to distance itself from the real-life
resentment and conflict that one-sided justice is fermenting in postwar Côte d'Ivoire. When
asked to comment on the political impacts of the Gbagbo trial, then ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis
Moreno-Ocampo excused himself from responsibility for the political blowback by stating, "I
have a judicial mandate; I cannot be involved in other aspects of politics, it's not my domain, not
my area" (Sagan 2010). These words insinuate that the court is somehow insulated from
criticism by the sacrosanct nature of its legal procedures, as though its actions and their
consequences exist somewhere beyond the lived reality of victims and their communities. The
problem with this stance is even more pronounced when we consider that that legalistic appeal is
inconsistently applied to the work of the court.

The ICC operates according to contradicting claims about its jurisdiction and admissibility. On
one hand, the court claims borderless jurisdiction by appealing to the universal humanitarian
norms. Judith Shklar's idiom that the moral principles operationalized by the ICC are 'already
out there' in the fabric of humanity captures this point. On the other hand, the court purports that
its operations happen in the technical realm of legal proceedings and cannot be bound by
principles such as fairness and equity, or by ethical demands like preserving peace and stability,
when those concerns interfere with its proper legal procedure. The Ivorian example demonstrates
how these contradicting claims are deployed to justify a one-sided justice process, beholden to
the interests of powerful global and national stakeholders. On one side, Gbagbo and Goudé were
put on trial in an appeal to the universal ethical standard that justice must be done for their
crimes against the people of Côte d'Ivoire. On the other, when the question of criminality in
Ouattara's camp is raised, ICC representatives invoke the sanctity of procedure and the
importance of respecting slow and seemingly unfair legal practices, even when it threatens peace
and undermines victims’ rights.

Without explicitly deeming them innocent, the ICC implicitly agreed to impunity for the Ouattara regime and the ComZones. The court also maintained the effective immunity in place for members of the international peacebuilding mission and the French military, themselves allegedly responsible for bombing civilian locations and other assaults resulting in civilian deaths: acts similar to the crimes for which Gbagbo stood trial.175 The ICC deemed one camp abhorrent to humanity while the actions of the other were perhaps wrong, but were nonetheless permissible enough to be overlooked. Ouattara, his supporters and the internationals forces backing him are outside the reach of justice, and not because they are innocent. When challenged on its selectivity, the ICC never denied potential war crimes committed by Ouattara’s forces.

Instead it references the limits of the international court procedures, essentially saying certain criminality is not justiciable in the international community. In the Côte d’Ivoire example, we see that the moral imperative enshrined in universal humanitarian law that war criminals must face accountability is, in practice, relative to the standing of those criminals in the global order.

The ICC upheld a set of liberal principles fundamental to contemporary global governance that ensure some war criminals are punished while others are tolerated. That said, the line drawn by

<footnote n="175">175 A massive anti-French protest responding to the French bombardment of the Ivorian air forces formed on November 9, 2004 outside the chic Hôtel Ivoire where the French Ambassador was seeking cover. In response to the escalating situation, French troops in helicopters and stationed on the hotel roof fired on the crowd of protesters, killing sixty-three and injuring an unknown number (estimates range from ‘several dozen’ to more than four hundred) (Mas 2004). President Thabo Mbeki sent a team of South African investigators whose report recommended the indictment of French General Henri Poncet for crimes against humanity. No domestic or international court has acted, however. Accounts of the French involvement in attacks on Abidjan University are contested. FHB University was attacked in the chaos at the end of the war and thus was not followed by an official investigation. My knowledge of French involvement in that attack comes from interviews with two eye-witnesses, one with the FESCI National Office who was living in the university at the time and a second with a human rights NGO worker.</footnote>
the ICC between punishable and permissible war crimes does not reflect liberal values as they are classically understood in principles such as the equality of all people and respect for human rights. A one-sided trial in which some victims have an inalienable right to justice while other victims go unacknowledged is untenable in a classical understanding of liberalism. The Ivorian transitional justice process, with the ICC serving as its primary accountability institution, instead aligned justice-seeking with the moral standards of a neoliberal global order. Under neoliberal governance, liberal democratic values are moral imperatives until they interfere with market principles and the sacrosanct status of elite interests. From this perspective, Ouattara's effective exoneration is unrelated to questions of his guilt or innocence. He was committed to rebuilding Côte d'Ivoire according to an aggressive neoliberal reform agenda whereas Gbagbo's continued rule was demonstrably bad for trade and business. The trial demonstrated that the international community was devoted to post-conflict justice, but that justice has certain limits in the contemporary global order. By invoking the legitimacy of universal humanitarian norms and principles to enforce those limits, the ICC helped establish a new moral order in post-conflict Côte d'Ivoire under which the court's distinction between punishable and permissible war criminals as not only functionally enforceable but also morally defensible.

## 4.1. Conclusion

Many Gbagbo supporters argue his indictment, indeed the entire foreign military intervention in Côte d'Ivoire, was a global plot to halt and punish his efforts to bring socialism to West Africa. Although there are reasons to feel some sympathy for this Gbagboist view, this is not my meaning when pointing to the two presidents' respective governing agendas as key to
understanding their different treatment by the international criminal justice system. The possible existence of a global plot against Gbagbo is a separate matter from his culpability for war crimes. Gbagbo was indicted on evidence pointing to his involvement in grave human rights violations. As we saw in the last pages, there are grounds to debate whether that evidence was credible and sufficient enough to justify an ICC indictment. Nevertheless, terrible violence was committed in his name, if not by his direct orders. Given those facts, judicial action against him was consistent with the ICC's mandate.

The more pertinent point is that the ICC overlooked significant evidence implicating Ouattara and his ComZones in war crimes that were much graver than those for which Gbagbo stood trial. The ICC is an international judicial institution built on liberal principles such as the inalienability of human rights and equality before the law. How did this institution determine that one side committed punishable war crimes yet deem the crimes of the other permissible enough to overlook? As an IMF economist committed to neoliberal restructuring, Ouattara had influential allies in powerful countries, and he rebuilt Côte d'Ivoire in the interests of the global trade and finance community. We are now nearing the end of his two terms in office. During this period, the country far exceeded all projections made at the time of his inauguration for economic growth, expanding industry and attracting foreign investments (Diawara 2017). Simply put, the benefits of Ouattara's presidency to a global political and business elite trumped the ostensible universality of humanitarian law. That observation alone is not so enlightening; it is a widely observed reality of the global justice system that the 'universalism' of international humanitarian law slips away when the interests of powerful countries or stakeholders are at risk (Mamdani 2009; Bikundo 2012; Okafor and Ngwaba 2015).

The question then becomes, why did the ICC pursue trials at all? An international criminal trial
at the Hague is highly visible and exceedingly expensive. In the Ivorian case, the court used that platform to undermine its own stated principles of universality of human rights and equality before the law. The ICC risked its already jeopardized reputation, threatened stability in post-conflict Côte d'Ivoire, and invested huge financial and human resources in the ultimately futile pursuit of one-sided justice. Considering those high stakes, influential members of the international community must have deemed it profoundly important to both shield Ouattara and his clan from accountability, and also to see Gbagbo and his supporters denounced on the international stage. But what could make those aims crucial enough to justify the significant cost? International justice mattered greatly to the Ouattara regime and its global partners for reasons that had little to do with accountability. Gbagbo's ICC trial saw the highest body in international justice declare before the world, in the language of universal humanitarian norms and principles, who was right and who was wrong in the Ivorian conflict.

Putting a former head of state on trial at the ICC for crimes against humanity sent a powerful message to Ivorians and to onlookers everywhere about acceptable and criminal leadership. That message declared some leaders can permissibly commit war crimes, but other leaders must be punished for these heinous acts. Drawing this parameter between permissible and punishable war criminals limited the moral obligation to right past wrongs in postwar Côte d'Ivoire, and it did so in the name of universal humanitarian law. That work – limiting the scope of moral obligation – is the means by which transitional justice establishes neoliberal moral order in post-conflict contexts. Under neoliberal moral order, good governance ascribes to liberal democratic values, but it is a vision of liberal democracy that prioritizes market-oriented and business-friendly governance, even at the cost of citizen wellbeing and core liberal principles like equality and rule of law. Establishing that new moral order in the Ivorian context meant the Ouattara regime
would qualify as a good and just government, regardless of the inequalities it sows or the immunity it grants powerful elites, even when those elites are directly implicated in war crimes.

Chandra Sriram writes that, as a central component of peacebuilding, the institutions of transitional justice play an important role instilling liberal governance in the wake of atrocities (Sriram 2007). As predicted by Sriram, the new Ivorian regime and its partners in the international community called upon the ICC to lay the ideological foundations for a new governance era in Côte d'Ivoire. In doing so, the ICC established that justice matters, but that there is a hierarchy amongst victims' rights and that there are other priorities, more important than being rights-respecting and just, in the version of liberal governance that the international community wants for post-conflict states. Selective justice in Côte d'Ivoire reflected a version of liberalism in which human rights and freedoms matter, but only to the extent those principles do not impinge on the interests and privileges of the ruling elite and its international allies.
# 5. The Profits of Pardon

## 5.1. Introduction

Transitional justice offers few solutions when it comes to addressing economic and social injustice. This much is documented in critical works by Mamdani, Mani, McEvoy, Nesiah, and others (Mamdani, 2002; Mani, 2005; McAdams 2011; McEvoy 2008; McGovern and Lundy 2008; Miller 2008; Nesiah 2016). Chandra Leka Sriram takes the argument further, recognising a connection between transitional justice and the central role of neoliberalism in contemporary peacebuilding efforts (2007). She warns that advancing neoliberalisation in post-conflict states undermines transitional justice efforts because free market reforms tend to destabilise a recovering state and thus risk perpetuating further conflict. Her concern is with the timeline of market liberalisation within peacebuilding, noting it coincides with transitional justice and thus may undermine the processes (Sriram 2007). I make a different contention in this dissertation, instead claiming there is a close alignment between the aims and impacts of transitional justice and neoliberal reforms in post-conflict states. Transitional justice institutions do not merely parallel neoliberal reforms, these processes actively advance elite-led and market-oriented governance.
In Côte d'Ivoire, President Ouattara's regime and their partners in the global governance community pursued post-conflict justice and reconciliation as auxiliary outcomes to economic growth and business success. On the surface these aims may seem unrelated, however, in practice, transitional justice supported postwar neoliberalisation by aligning renewed standards of moral and just governance with neoliberal principles. Transitional justice thus gave legitimacy to aggressive post-conflict restructuring as rights-respecting and democratic policies, even as those policies advanced business interests and elite dominance at the cost of neglecting victims' needs and citizen wellbeing. This chapter follows the postwar neoliberalisation of Côte d'Ivoire, illustrating the dynamics that connected neoliberal restructuring to profiteering during the conflict and to peacebuilding efforts in the aftermath.

## 5.2. First Wave Neoliberalism in Côte d'Ivoire

Côte d'Ivoire first adopted a neoliberal development model in the 1990s. Prior to this shift, the first three decades after independence were shaped by a political and economic policy often referred to as *Houphouetisme* after the first Ivorian President, Félix Houphouët-Boigny.

Houphouetisme was a style of governance based on national integration and state-led development schemes seen in many newly independent African countries in the 1960s and 1970s (Boone 2007). FHB's rule was further characterised by a close relationship to France.

Considered a model of *France Afrique*, Côte d'Ivoire actively deepened ties to Paris (Ipinyomi
2012).<fnref n="176" /> European and, particularly, French business dominated the Ivorian cocoa and coffee industry, preserving an economic relationship that offered considerable benefits to elites from the former colonial power as well as the emergent ruling class in Côte d'Ivoire.

Côte d'Ivoire prospered under this model for a period. Just before rapid economic decline began in the 1980s, Côte d'Ivoire had the highest GDP amongst non-oil-producing African countries (Hecht 1983).<fnref n="177" /> As supplier of more than 40% of the world's cocoa, Houphouët-Boigny's Côte d'Ivoire enjoyed a constant influx of wealth. This fortune was collected and managed by a central marketing board known as the *Caisse de stabilisation* or simply, the *Caisse*. The Caisse set a fixed price for purchasing cocoa from local farmers. When global demand favoured profit, the Caisse sold at a higher price on foreign markets but maintained a stable buying price at home. Although this meant farmers lost out in boom times, they received advance pay from the Caisse when global prices lulled or harvests waned, thus ensuring a consistent, if modest, income. When global prices rose, the state retained the surplus gained from cocoa exports. These profits were not insignificant: during one price boom in the late 1970s, market surpluses and export levies flowing into the Caisse amounted to 16% of the country's total GDP (Ibid). Thus, well beyond merely compensating farmers in poor harvest years, the Caisse served Côte d'Ivoire as a national bank account. The Houphouët regime used its revenue for infrastructure and social services, notably making major investments in education (Ibid). Houphouët and his extensive political

<footnote n="176">¹⁷⁶ In Houphouët’s own words, “Côte d’Ivoire would not be seduced by the lure of independence....” Indeed, the independence era President was known for his weekly phone calls to Jacques Foccard of the notorious ‘Bureau d’Afrique’ and for the subterranean tunnel connecting his basement to the French Embassy, a precaution against his population attempting to rise against either pillar of authority.</footnote>

<footnote n="177">¹⁷⁷ Côte d'Ivoire in the 1970s had a GDP of $1,110 USD per capita (Hecht 1983).</footnote>
class also became exceedingly wealthy thanks to vast private fortunes skimmed off the Caisse
during surplus years (Okereke, Racheotes and Linstrum 2012).¹⁷⁸

As lifetime President of a one-party state, FHB tightly controlled all spheres of governance
through a combination of reward and intimidation. He alone held authority over appointments to
government posts and personally controlled the distribution of contracts for any major business
venture (Boone 2007). In addition to distributing direct monetary perks to his allies in the ruling
class, Houphouët also controlled all national industries and exports in an extensive patrimonial
network. *Houphouëtisme* relied on vast syndicates that linked labourers to local leaders, and
those leaders to agribusiness bosses. The industry bosses, in turn, were directly managed by
Houphouët and high-ranking members of his one-party state. Thus, in essence, *Houphouëtisme*
was a vast system of personal ties linking each migrant labourer straight up to President
Houphouët-Boigny himself (ibid).

During the 1970s, cocoa and coffee together accounted for 69% of Côte d'Ivoire's national
revenue, generating a profitable but ultimately precarious national income. When the global price
of cocoa began dropping in 1978, the Ivorian economy fell rapidly into crisis (Hecht 1983).
Houphouët-Boigny attempted to reverse the price decline by blocking Ivorian exports and thus
severing half the world supply of chocolate. Rather than reviving the price, stockpiling Ivorian
cocoa allowed the nascent industry in Asian to thrive. Two years later, Côte d'Ivoire was forced
back into the global market, much weakened in its bargaining power and facing new
competition. Compounding the nation's financial struggles, Côte d'Ivoire lost 75% of its public
investments with the hike in oil prices from 1975 to 1990 (Glossman 1981). By 1990, the Houphouët regime was in desperate need of an international bail-out. As a condition of IMF funding, Alassane Ouattara was appointed to the post of Prime Minister. In this capacity, the US educated economist and IMF Director was tasked with implementing an extensive structural adjustment program (SAP).

Neoliberalism first became pervasive in global governance circles through the deployment of SAPs programs by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). SAPs were policy tools developed to enforce aid conditionality in the decades following the global debt crisis.179 The loans required recipient states to adopt a broad list of reforms based on Washington Consensus principles. Recipients were required to dismantle and sell off state industries, to privatize the public sectors and banks, to strengthen private property laws and attract foreign investment by dismantling trade barriers and setting market-determined exchange rates. Structural Adjustment Programs also demanded tax reforms that would reduce the burden on high-income earners. The IMF and WB blamed corrupt and overreaching governments for the global debt crisis and thus required governments to slash public spending in sectors deemed extraneous to growth: a policy that especially targeted education, healthcare and welfare institutions (Williamson 2002). Under the slogan of protecting developing economies from

<footnote n="179">179 This group of US-based global finance regulation firms gained their immense influence over the national policy of foreign states during a period known as the global debt crisis. In 1971, US President Richard Nixon put an end to the ‘gold standard’ with the announcement that foreign-held US dollars would no longer be convertible into gold. The result was a dramatic increase in the value of US gold reserves while the value of the US dollar, in relation to gold, plummeted. A colossal gap in wealth formed between countries like the United States and Great Britain who keep their reserves in gold, and poorer states whose reserves were kept in US dollars. The effect was a massive net transfer of wealth to the North, mirrored by the collapse of national reserves in the South (Graeber 2012). Much of the world was saddled with debts vastly beyond national income and with interest alone threatening perpetual bankruptcy. Survival of the states shaken by the debt crisis would depend on the availability of foreign financial assistance. That assistance came from the IMF and WB, but with strings attached.</footnote>
crooked politicians and extravagant centralized states, indebted states were required to dismantle
government control, resulting in a transfer across the developing world of state authority into the
hands of foreign institutions and private enterprise (Ayers 2008).

In Côte d'Ivoire, Prime Minister Ouattara implemented an SAP program aimed at promoting export-led growth by eliminating protective trade barriers and forcing privatization of nationally owned industries (Mahieu 1995). In an attempt to increase 'comparative advantage,' he and his partners at the IMF reaffirmed the country's national dependence on cocoa exports. The IMF further demanded extensive cuts to the 'inefficient allocations of resources, primarily in social spending' (Klass 2008). In compliance, Prime Minister Ouattara reduced the state budget by three quarters in his first year in office. Almost overnight the former IMF technocrat dismantled Houphouët's elaborate patrimonial state, resulting in thousands of state or state-subsidized employees losing their jobs and benefits.

Economists critical of structural adjustment programs cite IMF restructuring in Côte d'Ivoire as
an emblematic case of the model's failure (Rodrick 2016; Lambert, Schneider and Suwa 1991).
Agribusiness initially did well in the newly unregulated and export-driven economy, but
overproduction of coffee and cocoa soon led to a further collapse of export prices. The national
debt crisis once again deepened and by the mid-1990s IMF borrowing placed Côte d'Ivoire's
foreign debt at 231% of its GDP. In 1994, France unilaterally devalued the CFA: a common
African currency shared by fourteen former French colonies. Currency devaluation made Ivorian
cocoa again attractive for trade, but it doubled the price of imported commodities and halved the
value of the average Ivorian's personal savings (Ipinyomi 2012). Austerity and market-oriented
growth thus restored wealth to industry tycoons and their foreign investors, but it pushed much
of the emerging middle class back into poverty and rendered the poor unable to afford even basic
necessities (ibid). Structural readjustment did not merely fail to resolve the economic crisis, it ultimately compounded the country's many troubles by launching a new era of political unrest.

Laurent Gbagbo rose to power on a platform of nationalization, socialism and pan-Africanism in the economic and political turmoil unleashed by harsh austerity measures. Starting his career as a young trade unionist, Gbagbo was a Sorbonne educated socialist and well-connected in Parisian leftist circles. Gbagbo criticized the 1990s neoliberal reforms, calling them ‘mystificatory pageantry’ deployed to hide the fact that the vast majority of the country’s wealth still ended up in the hands of a small number of Ivorian elites and their French associates (Ipinyomi 2012). As a demagogue with a knack for manipulating his audience, he glorified his background as a poor farmer from a Krou village, lamenting the disenfranchisement of noble *autochthones* by Boualé elites and Dioula ‘strangers’. At the time of his emergence on the Ivorian political scene, this image gained Gbagbo a fiercely dedicated following among both rural farmers and Abidjan’s left-wing youth.

Once in power, Gbagbo did not prove the community-minded socialist democratic he claimed to be. His economic agenda nevertheless nationalized key sectors and threatened French trade interests. President Gbagbo diversified foreign investment in Côte d'Ivoire and sought new trade partners (Frindéthié 2016). His government also designed and began implementing a universal healthcare system and reversed austerity measures by reinvesting in basic education (Ibid). In the Western agricultural belt, farmers once again felt secure thanks to the promised return of price controls.<fnref n="180" /> At the same time, Gbagbo let infrastructure fall into disrepair and displayed open favouritism to his home region when distributing state funds. Gbagbo also personally

<footnote n="180">¹⁸⁰ Focus group interview of cocoa cooperative members with author, Grand Beriby, Côte d'Ivoire August 2015.</footnote>
accumulated huge private wealth from skimming cocoa industry profits and was known to use public cash to fund the lavish personal indulgences of his family and friends.

While Gbagbo cultivated an image as a ‘man of the people,’ Ouattara, his greatest political rival, presented himself as a cosmopolitan gentleman with fine manners and good taste. Gbagbo’s supporters celebrated their President’s reputation for cracking jokes, dancing at public events, and stopping his motorcade to urinate on the side of the road (“just like any man would do!”)<fnref n="181" /> Gbagbo calls his wife ‘comrade’ and, while in power, both husband and wife openly had affairs. Gbagbo even married one mistress as a second wife, claiming her Muslim faith allowed the bigamous marriage (and ignoring his own professed devotion to Evangelicalism). In contrast, Ouattara lived the majority of his life as a jet-setting technocrat and member of Africa’s top elite. He is married to a high society French woman who, in her own right, is one of the wealthiest business owners in Côte d’Ivoire. It is hard to imagine two more differing political figures than Ouattara and Gbagbo; the latter, a gregarious demagogue and the former, a well-groomed cosmopolitan.

Correspondingly, Ouattara and Gbagbo held vastly different visions of Côte d’Ivoire’s future. Gbagbo was preparing to withdraw from the French controlled common West African currency (CFA), he began nationalizing industry and sought to weaken France’s hold on the Ivorian economy. Ouattara, in contrast, imagined Côte d’Ivoire as regional economic powerhouse: a market-oriented haven for business and investment, closely aligned to French geopolitical

<footnote n="181">¹⁸¹ This anecdote about stopping the presidential motorcade to urinate was so frequency explained to me that it seems important to add. One older woman had tears in her eyes when she recounted seeing one such scene on TV. The story is silly, but it also speaks to an important dynamic of Gbagbo’s popularity. His supporters were attracted to him because he was not the snobby elite, beholden to France, many Ivorians associated with governance: he seemed an average Ivorian and, as such, appeared to represent average Ivorian interests.</footnote>
interests in the region. Beneath the political landscape detailed in previous chapters, these
competing visions for the economic future of Côte d'Ivoire were strong undercurrents of the
conflict, driving the course of the ten-year civil war and shaping its aftermath.

5.3. ComZone Inc.

Just months into the rebellion, the rebel commander Ibrahim Coulibaly (IB) was sent urgently to Paris by Burkina President Blaise Compoaré. He was arrested immediately upon arrival under charges of attempting to overthrow the Ivorian state. It was a strange charge given high levels of the French Ministry of Defense met regularly with both IB and Compaoré during the months before. Later that day Guillaume Soro was declared the new head of the rebellion.<fnref n="182" /> Following the change in leadership, ComZones who refused to switch allegiances were massacred with their men. Most notably, Fofié and his *éléments* arrested the IB-aligned ComZone of Korhogo and sixty of his men, locking them in a shipping container under the desert sun. All but one suffocated to death, prompting the first – and only – UN sanctions against a rebel leader for war crimes (Varenne 2012).<fnref n="183" />

The rebellion was no longer simply a military operation once Soro assumed full leadership. It soon became a complex political and financial machine ready to dig in for a long fight. On

<footnote n="182">182 The announcement was made by ADO himself, even though Ouattara officially had no connection with the rebellion until after the 2010 elections. The replacement bewildered the ComZones, all trained military men who had always considered Soro a bookish student leader. Moreover, it was IB himself who had introduced Soro to Compoaré years before. It was also IB who convinced the ComZones to accept Soro's leadership as the political head of the rebellion despite the misgivings of the military men he commanded (Pigeaud 2015).</footnote>

<footnote n="183">¹⁸³ During the transition to Soro’s leadership, IBs closest allies were also assassinated: Félix Doh, Zaga Zaga and the notorious Liberian warlord, Sam Bockarie. Today, Fofana leads the Ivorian national army’s Western Battalion of the restructured military.</footnote>
September 24th, 2003, the rebels broke into the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) in Bouake and stole approximately 30 million euros. This money was used to create the 'Central': the financial engine of the rebellion that allowed them to purchase weaponry in the short term and – in preparation for a long struggle – to begin exploiting the natural resources of more than 60% of the national territory. With that capital, Soro secured the long-term financial viability of the rebellion by establishing an industry network that channeled the North's resource wealth directly to his rebel commanders.<fnref n="184" />

The occupied north was divided into operational areas and placed under the command of eight
rebel leaders, called *Commandents du Zone* or simply ComZones. Each ComZone controlled
resource extraction in their territory, sending 30% of revenues to the central and keeping the rest
for operations and personal profits.<fnref n="185" /> The rebellion contracted buyers for cotton, cocoa,
minerals, lumber, mines and land. Burkina Faso, an arid Sahel country, became a world leader in
cocoa export, with 500 tons of cocoa processed each day at the border facilities in Bobo-
Dioullaso.<fnref n="186" /> The rebels also granted vast expanses of land to Burkinabe migrants to clear and
cultivate. The scheme had the advantage of winning supporters while further profiting the rebels
thanks to a booming forestry industry (Varenne 2012). Despite large revenues and a functioning
administration, the rebellion did not provide public services to the population in the occupied
North. Under Soro's authority, the Central funded the war and lined the pockets of ComZones,
leaving the region with no schools, infrastructure maintenance or medical facilities. Throughout

<footnote n="184">¹⁸⁴ Interview with ComZone, Abidjan May 2014.</footnote>

<footnote n="185">¹⁸⁵ Soro Alphonse, President of RDR Youth League in interview with the author, May 2015.</footnote>

<footnote n="186">¹⁸⁶ Mr. Adama Bitogo, a close ally of Alassane Ouattara, was in charge of transporting Ivorian cocoa through the rebel zone and out of Côte d'Ivoire through the Burkina Faso border to a facility in the town of Bobo-Dioulasso where 500 tons of cocoa were processed a day. The cocoa was then sold to SOEXIMEX, a Luxembourg holding, with banking coordinated by Credit Lyonnais in Paris (Onana 2011).</footnote>
the ten-years of partition, Gbagbo's government paid for electricity, water and state salaries in
the northern region.<fnref n="187" />

Once the rebellion's military power was consolidated in the northern half of country, the rebel
leaders turned their attention to accruing personal profits. The rebellion fostered good relations
with the French by respecting expatriates and their businesses in the occupied North. Small acts
of restraint early in the war, such as compensating damages and electing not to loot French
businesses in Bouaké, won over the French and international media. Sparing French businesses
seems less generous, however, in light of the fortunes amassed by the ComZones and their men
from pillaging towns and racketeering long stretches of highway. Pillaged war bounty was
further subsidized by millions accrued smuggling cocoa, cotton, lumber, diamonds, gold and
other minerals out of the country.<fnref n="188" /> The rebels used the chaos of partition to circumvent
standard regulations and establish a plethora of ComZone owned and operated industries. In the
post-conflict period, businesses launched or seized during the partition are some of country's
most successful. As war victors seemingly impervious to calls for accountability, these warlords

<footnote n="187">¹⁸⁷ Even Christopher Notin, a staunch Gbagbo critique and French military historian, admits this. In his account, he declares one of Gbagbo's greatest crimes against the North was to shut off the electricity during Ramadan. In a moment foreshadowing the years to come, when ADO finally assumed power, his government sent Northern citizens their bills for unpaid water and electricity used in the region during the 'crisis' months after Ouattara was declared President but before Gbagbo stepped down.</footnote>

<footnote n="188">¹⁸⁸ The UN estimated that Wattao alone earned 640 million CFA (975,000 euros) annually from illegal cocoa exports passing through his comzone (Malo 2010). A separate UN report estimated he made a total of 1,45 million euros annually once the additional money earned from smuggled lumber, coffee, diamonds and luxury cars was included (BBC 2020). Wattao's Bouaké base was strategically central on trade routes and he enjoyed high standing in the forces nouvelles, meaning he likely profited more than most other Comzone. Even still, these estimates give a sense of the war bounty extracted by the FN leadership. Overall, the UN estimated that 10% of all cocoa produced during the war years was expropriated and smuggled by the ComZones (Ibid). In a 2014 UN expert report on the Ivorian diamond trade, the researchers found that Wattao – at that time still a high-ranking member of the military – and his former soldiers were still collecting payments from diamond smugglers in exchange for allowing illegal exports of rough diamonds (A. S. Konan 2020).</footnote>
are now business tycoons, running industries in the North and using the profits to buy up newly privatized sectors in the South (Jeune Afrique 2016).

Since the conflict ended, the rewards of war-era profiteering and expropriation were transformed by the postwar national development strategy into core sectors of the Ivorian economy.

ComZones have since accrued massive personal fortunes by refashioning themselves as successful business leaders and rebranding their war bounty as productive sectors of a fast-growing economy. The former rebel leadership has transformed into a new class of industry chiefs, growing massive fortunes from resource wealth in the North while doing little for the selfsame population they ostensibly fought a ten-year civil war to rescue from the oppression of the South.

### 5.3.1. Developing the North

Today's profits are a direct inheritance from yesterday's war economy. The most lucrative example of this are so-called 'artisanal' mines. First opened by the ComZones during the war, and today a major source of foreign investment and a cornerstone of the restructured national economy.<fnref n="189" /> ComZone Wattao, for example, built an 'artisanal' gold mine during the war that he

<footnote n="189">¹⁸⁹ Artisanal mines refer to ad hoc mining operations done by hand on a small, local scale. Although they perhaps started this way during the civil war, these mines are now sophisticated operations, owned by the ComZones and other high-ranking members of the Ouattara regime, and run with significant foreign investment from European, US and Canadian mining companies. The operations and in some cases even the whereabouts are highly classified information. Some limited details of war era mining operations were described to me during an interview with ComZone Vechto, June 2014. Further details were described in an interview with a group of sex workers who were trafficked in 2014 as part of a larger operation run by the former ComZones to bring young Dioula sex workers from urban areas as detained 'wives' for mine workers.</footnote>
still owns and operates, generating upwards of 80 million euros in revenue each year (Duhem
2016).

Côte d'Ivoire is home to a geological feature believed to hold the world's largest untapped gold and diamond reserves (Jeune Afrique 2014). The mineral rich band is the same geological reserve that made Ghana the continent's top gold exporter and plunged Sierra Leone into a civil war fueled by conflict diamonds. An estimated 30% of the Ivorian territory is covered by this mineral-rich geological band. If prospector estimates are correct, its size dwarfs the sections in bordering countries (Cote d'Ivoire Economie 2014). A new Mining Code written in 2014 created hundreds of exploration and exploitation permits, and opened massive new mining projects by Canadian, Australian and French investors (Jeune Afrique 2016).¹⁹⁰ At that time, mining precious metals comprised less than 1% of GDP, however the sector expanded by 25% the following year, to generate 730 million euros in 2015. The expedited sale of exploitation contracts to foreign companies and significant investment in infrastructure for the northern Sahel region are part of a long-term strategy to grow the mining sector into one of the country's largest industries (ibid).

The international development community and foreign businesses are working closely with the Ouattara government to increase investment in the fast-growing Sahel mining industry (Jeune Afrique 2014). The operations are celebrated in IFI and government reports for bringing new wealth to a historically disenfranchised region (World Bank 2015). Hundreds of kilometres of new power lines now provide electricity to remote towns that never before had such a luxury.
Communities once isolated by crumbling dirt roads, impassable during downpours, are now connected by vast stretches of fresh asphalt. Villages once completely outside the national economy are buzzing with rumors of new job possibilities in a nearby industrial project. That said, while there is undeniably massive public and private investment funding infrastructure in the North, new paved roads, hotels and power stations primarily service barely inhabited mining areas. More than anything, the development boom is oriented towards resource extraction and creating a good business environment for foreign enterprise.

The mining sector returns significant profits to investors, but has had little impact on the more immediate local problems of unemployment and rural poverty (Jeune Afrique 2014). At the time of writing, the total national mining industry directly employed 6,000 Ivorians as fulltime workers (Jeune Afrique 2016).<fnref n="191" /> This is because the mines create few job opportunities appropriate for a region with little access to basic education, let alone the technical skill needed for employment in a modern mine. As a traditionally marginalized region, the North suffers from food shortages, has few schools and little access to health services. The public monies spent on infrastructure with the aim of attracting foreign investors and facilitating resource extraction are funds diverted away from the basic needs of the population. In the end, the individuals who most benefit from development schemes in the North are those who did well out of the conflict and now find themselves in a privileged position to make use of new infrastructure and job opportunities. This was clearly the case for the ComZones, as previously mentioned. It is also true on a smaller scale for the soldiers who operated under their command. This dynamic was revealed to me when visiting the remote northern village of Kafolo.

<footnote n="191">¹⁹¹ According to the same Jeune Afrique article (2016), an estimated 18,000 indirect employees are also working in the sector.</footnote>
Tucked in the country's Northeast corner, Kafolo is a community of a few dozen families. It borders the Comoé nature reserve and is located five hours drive on dirt tracks from the nearest main road. The only locally owned business in the village is a small cement restaurant with a mural of Che Guevara on the outside wall and a hand painted sign reading 'The Returned Commandant'. The restaurant is owned by the wife of a former rebel solider and named in honor of her husband. Her husband and six other FRCI fighters returned to their village after the war with UN funded disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation (DDR) packages. The restaurateur's husband financed her small business with a portion of his DDR funds, an investment that would otherwise be an impossible dream for a villager in the area.

DDR programs are a standard part of any peacebuilding mission however in Côte d'Ivoire the packages are widely understood as bonus payments from the Ouattara government and international allies to the former rebel fighters. This impression is reinforced by the fact that virtually no Gbagbo aligned forces met the program criteria, meaning the demobilisation funds were, in practice, reserved for former FRCI fighters.192 The returned FRCI fighters in Kafolo used their DDR packages to build solid brick homes, invest in small businesses for family members and send their children to town for education. As per the terms of the DDR program, the six former combatants were also eligible for work as police, park rangers and gendarmes in nearby towns. Thanks to their new official posts, the men sent salary money home. Though modest in absolute terms, these six families amassed significant wealth relative to their neighbours.

<footnote n="192">192 Many of Gbagbo's forces were foreign mercenaries or members of unofficial youth militias and were therefore not allegeable for DDR. Amongst his trained soldiers from the official FDS forces, most changed allegiances after the war in order keep their jobs. Those who refused to change sides, or who risked arrest if they tried, went into exile or hiding (Interview with GIZ consultant on DDR in Côte d'Ivoire, May 2015).</footnote>
During my visit to Kafolo I met a young man who had refused to join when warlords came to recruit in the village. He felt deep anger at the irony that those who took arms against fellow Ivorians were, today, the region's sole beneficiaries of the economic *émergence* Ouattara had promised would bring peace and prosperity to all.<fnref n="193" /> As we walked through the village, he showed me how the relatives of those who joined the rebellion now lived in solid houses that hooked up to the new electricity lines while the rest of the residents lived in small smoke-filled huts. Their children went to schools in town where they had daily access to computers and the internet. With an education, they might one day find well-paid jobs in the nascent mining industry. He then explained how those privileges contrasted to his own circumstances. With the small income he made from fishing in the river, it took him a full month's savings just to pay transport to the nearest town with an internet café where he could send a job application.

Although he saved what he could for these trips, with no schooling and only basic literacy, he had little hope anything would ever come from the effort. His account illustrates how little the new regime has done for the citizens of the North when contrasted with the relative privileges granted to former rebel combatants and their families. The account also puts into perspective the enormous wealth extracted from the region by the ComZones and their associates in the Ouattara government.

## 5.4. Building Neoliberal Peace in Côte d'Ivoire

<footnote n="193">¹⁹³ Anonymous unemployed youth in interview with author, Kafolo, Côte d'Ivoire, August 2015.</footnote>
Peace returned to Côte d'Ivoire in April, 2012 with the arrest of Gbagbo and the consolidation of Ouattara's presidency. To celebrate his victory, Ouattara held an inauguration ceremony of impressive grandeur in Yamoussoukro, the birthplace of Félix Houphouët-Boigny and Côte d'Ivoire's official capital. Ouattara's militant support base were surprised to discover few of their ranks were invited yet wealthy elites who until recently had supported Gbagbo, turned out in numbers. Suddenly, the 'long march towards reconciliation' was the top priority of the new regime and the old guard alike (Fofana 2009). In a conspicuously easy show of reconciliation, the attendees formed a new alliance of wealthy businessmen and landowners from across party lines. The celebration sent a widely resounding message of bi-partisan camaraderie, telling the world that the political and business elite of Côte d'Ivoire agree they have more interests in common than dividing them. When asked about this scene, an Ivorian human rights activist candidly explained his thoughts to me: 'never doubt that these are all friends from the same club...we bleed in the streets, and they just pass power back and forth.'<fnref n="194" />

Also present at the inauguration celebration were Alassane Ouattara's friends and colleagues from a lifetime of service in international financial institutions.<fnref n="195" /> Thousands of VIP guests were flown into Côte d'Ivoire, with the bill sent to Ivorian taxpayers. In a show of confidence only seen once before by a UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon personally attended the inauguration. At the table of honour sat President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. ADO's inaugural speech addressed the French President personally with the words, "Mr. President Sarkozy, the Ivorian

<footnote n="194">¹⁹⁴ Human rights worker, in interview with author March 2015, Abidjan Côte d'Ivoire.</footnote>

<footnote n="195">¹⁹⁵ The former director of the IMF, Michel Camdessus attended, though his colleague Dominique Strauss Kahn was forced to cancel his travel due to an unsavory incident in New York (Varenne 2012).</footnote>
people say to you a huge thank you!” (Varenne 2012). The crowd celebrated Sarkozy and his
contributions in ‘the battle for Côte d’Ivoire’ with a standing ovation.

France’s contributions to Ivorian reconstruction had only just begun at the time of Ouattara’s
inauguration. Côte d’Ivoire signed an IMF Development Plan that included a $6 billion debt
forgiveness accord, offered as a commendation of the country’s “pursuit of an ambitious reform
agenda key to harnessing growth potential” (IMF 2016). More than 75% of the debt bailout
came from France and was negotiated in a bilateral ‘forgiveness’ plan worth over 3,76 billion
euros (Le Point France 2012). Officially titled a “*Contrat de désendettement et de
développement*” (‘The Development and Indebtedness Contract’), this debt forgiveness scheme
requires the Ivorian national reserve to repay its foreign debts to France by purchasing French
technical assistance, granting French enterprises development contracts and seconding
government administrators (Europe 1 2012).<fnref n="196" /> Said otherwise, the agreement promises to
transfer Ivorian state revenue to the former colonial state in exchange for French personnel and
development projects. Although it is titled ‘debt forgiveness,’ the contract functions much like
the former colonial relationship, with administers and industry heads coming South and revenue
and high-skill employment opportunities moving North (Jeune Afrique 2014). That said, the
renewed Franco-Ivorian relationship would be mischaracterized as simply one of neo-imperial
control (Naimi 2017). More accurately, it is an economic alliance that benefits elite interests in
both states, spurring rapid economic growth in Côte d’Ivoire and granting lucrative contracts and
privileged market access to allies in the French business and administrative elite. With Ouattara

<footnote n="196">¹⁹⁶ M. Vincent, NGO Director in interview with author Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire March 2015</footnote>
in office, France soon reclaimed its place as the primary investor and top business partner of
Côte d'Ivoire, securing a 22% share of all foreign investment in 2016.

France had good reason to reclaim this influence over the former colony. As a source of raw materials, Côte d'Ivoire is an attractive trading partner. In a recent ranking of ‘Export Complexity’, Côte d'Ivoire was listed 98th out of 124 countries (International Monetary Fund 2016). This surprisingly low ranking for a country of its economic performance reflects Côte d'Ivoire's continued dependence on exporting raw materials. Keeping the country low on the global value chain allows its more industrialized trading partners to profit by manufacturing high value goods from Ivorian exports (Ipinyomi 2012). What is more, in the country's new economic model, those raw exports are diversifying away from Côte d'Ivoire's iconic image as the world's premier cocoa economy to offer foreign investors new, and much more lucrative opportunities, in high-value low-labour natural resource extraction.

The *Bélier* and *Éspoir* offshore oil deposits, the most lucrative of those natural resource reserves, remain largely untouched.<fnref n="197" /> In 2017, the nascent oil sector prompted a global business report to label Côte d'Ivoire 'Africa's most promising site for investment' (Diawara 2017).<fnref n="198" /> Off-shore oil is only recently being tapped because the technology needed to make drilling economical in the dangerous deep-sea conditions was not available pre-war. Within the first few years of

<footnote n="197">¹⁹⁷ Untapped oil reserves are impressive for a country the size of Côte d'Ivoire. Reserve Belier is estimated to have 25 million tons and Reserve Espoir to have 500 million tons of high-quality oil (Jeune Afrique 2016). By comparison, Canada holds 10% of the world's total oil deposits and produces approximately 250 million tons of crude oil a year.</footnote>

<footnote n="198">¹⁹⁸ US interest in the country has grown with the oil sector. With his first executive order as president, George Bush launched the Cheney report on energy security. The report lists West African oil as a top priority petroleum reserve to secure for possible US exploitation (Al Jazeera 2017).</footnote>
drilling, petroleum already accounted for 12.3% of the country's export economy. When crude petrol is included in the total, oil comprised 19.5% of all exports. That 2017 figure already outpaced cocoa as Côte d'Ivoire's primary source of revenue, and the Ouattara administration plans to double production levels by 2020 (Ibid).

In 1960, agriculture primarily comprising of the cocoa sector accounted for 90% of the state revenue and 70% of the GDP. Compared to the emerging petrol sector, agriculture has dropped to 10% of current revenue and 28% of GDP (Jeune Afrique 2016). For the country's business and political community, oil is a much more efficient and profitable source of wealth compared to labour, land and infrastructure intensive agriculture. On the other hand, cocoa farming provided average Ivorians with a modest but steady living. A booming agricultural sector also required the government to invest, at least minimally, in infrastructure and services for the large labour force needed to farm. In contrast, in an economy driven by lower-labour, higher-profit industries like petrol, gold and diamond mining, business success is largely independent of the health and wellbeing of the majority population (Frynas 2005). This has had foreseeable implications for wealth redistribution, with Côte d'Ivoire becoming richer quicker than ever before, but with the benefits of the wealth increasingly restricted to the small upper class.

### 5.5. Post-Conflict Neoliberalisation

Alassane Ouattara built his career overseeing neoliberal reform programs in SAP recipient countries. As president, building the private sector and increasing foreign investment are the central drivers of his economic agenda. In the first year of his presidency, foreign direct
investment tripled and has continued along this annual growth path each year since (Ananou
2015). In 2015, the American company Nielsen named Côte d'Ivoire the best place in Africa for
prospective foreign investors in its annual Africa Prospect Indicators report. By 2017, the
'economic intelligence' firm Knowdys Consulting Group declared "never before has an African
country been so well sold to international investors as Côte d'Ivoire in the last five years"
(Gweth 2017).

This high praise of Côte d'Ivoire as an attractive site for foreign investment is the result of an
extensive economic restructuring program designed and implemented by the Ouattara
government, in partnership with the IMF and World Bank. The preface to the IMF National
Development Program (PND) was written by President Ouattara himself and promises that the
2016-2020 PND platform will pay "particular heed to ensuring an attractive business
environment and good governance." The IMF praised Ivorian reforms in its 2016 country
assessment, calling the country a testament "to the role of the private sector as a driver of
economic growth" and noting private sector investment had exceeded forecasted levels by nearly
twenty percent (International Monetary Fund African Department 2016).<fnref n="199" /> In recognition of
these reforms, the World Bank moved Côte d'Ivoire up its "Doing Business Index" from 177th
(out of 189) in 2014 to 142th in 2016: a jump that won Côte d'Ivoire a spot on the IMF 'World's
Ten Best Reformers' list (International Monetary Fund 2016).<fnref n="200" />

<footnote n="199">¹⁹⁹ Private sector investment amounted to CFA 4,699 billion, compared with the predicted level of CFA 3,946 billion, translating to 118.3 percent implementation rate.</footnote>

<footnote n="200">200 Côte d'Ivoire has gained 40 positions in the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) since the 2012-13 report. It has also advanced nine positions between 2013 and 2014 in the World Economic Forum's Enabling Trade index.</footnote>
5.5.1. Émergence vingt-mille-vingt !

President Ouattara personally joined forces with the IMF and World Bank to co-create a plan for rapid economic growth and industrialization in Côte d'Ivoire. The ambitious development strategy promised the country would 'emerge' into a First World economy by 2020.<fnref n="201" /> The plan includes an extensive package of reforms and governance programs, to be jointly implemented by the IMF and the Ouattara administration, and spanning the next three decades. As an IMF strategic analysis of the 2016-2020 plan explains,

> "Côte d'Ivoire needs to base its emergence on a structural transformation brought about by expediting its industrialization... that emergence is a dynamic economy driven by rapid industrialization, which will bring about a structural transformation and many more opportunities for decent jobs. It is also a Côte d'Ivoire that will gain from its integration into the global economy and which cooperates with its neighbors to strengthen regional integration."

Emergence, in this account, is the result of rapid industrialization with the goal of securing entry into global value chains. The report dubs this projected endpoint the 'elephant triumphant', in reference to Côte d'Ivoire's regionally extinct mascot (International Monetary Fund African Department 2016).

<footnote n="201">201 Although it was never fully clear what “Emergence 2020” meant in practice, at the time of research (2013-2015), it was an unofficial national slogan in Côte d’Ivoire. It seemed impossible to attend any event whether a beauty pageant, a soccer game, a conference, a political rally or a formal government meeting without mention that all our work was in pursuit of this much sought after ‘Emergence 2020’.</footnote>
Poverty reduction is frequently mentioned in the IMF National Development Strategy (NDS).
For instance, the NDS reads, “...it will be crucial to finance the envisaged significant scaling up
of investment that should help to raise economic growth, fulfill the country’s potential, and
create jobs and thus help reduce poverty” (International Monetary Fund Debt Relief for Africa
2012). As the quote illustrates, the authors view the goal of poverty reduction as a natural
consequence of increasing foreign investments and diversifying international trade. The stated
assumption behind this poverty reduction plan is that a rapidly growing economy will benefit
poorer citizens downstream by creating jobs and expanding markets. In practice, the IMF-
Ouattara development strategy has indeed massively increased revenue and grown the economy,
however the benefits have not stretched beyond a small national and foreign elite. New
investments are primarily in telecommunications, mining, petroleum, and financial services; all
sectors that generate growth, but create few new jobs. New jobs entering the economy are
primarily positions for highly qualified nationals and international experts, and thus do little to
address widespread unemployment amongst the majority population (Faujas 2017).

The most famous symbol of the new Côte d'Ivoire is Abidjan's long anticipated ‘troisième pont’ (the colloquial name of the Henri Konan Bédié Bridge, completed in 2015). The bridge connects the main road from the airport – a facility used by approximately two percent of the population – to an area across the city's picturesque lagoon where the presidential residence, the chicest hotels, the golf course, and the villas of the country's business and political elites are located (Institut national de la Statistique Cote d'Ivoire 2013). Though its construction was publicly funded, the bridge is privately operated, with drivers paying more to cross than the average Ivorian earns in a day (World Bank 2015). This massive construction project saddled the country with a debt that will hang over Ivorians for the next 30 years. Repaying that debt competes in the
national budget with programs needed to meet basic health and food needs for a rising portion of the population.<fnref n="202" /> Disillusioned with neoliberal reforms, “We can’t eat bridges!” has become a common slogan overheard in bars and marketplaces. For the exasperated Abidjanais making this comment, the bridge is a perfect symbol of the Ouattara regime: it was paid for by all Ivorians – now and in future generations – yet it is only accessible to and only meant to serve Abidjan’s small elite and their foreign business partners. It is also a source of hefty private profits for the businessmen who bought the contract for its operation (Jeune Afrique 2016a).

As Côte d'Ivoire Program Leader at the World Bank, Jacques Morisset, acknowledged, “rapid growth posted in recent years has not yet translated into a significant decline in poverty” (World Bank 2015). His words understate the data collected by his office on the subject. Côte d'Ivoire's growth rate topped 9% in 2014, and stayed between 8.5% and 9% through 2017. In 2015, the country boasted the second largest economy in West Africa, only outpaced by the regional powerhouse Nigeria. Yet, that same year, poverty rates topped those at the height of the 1980s economic crash. In 2015, approximately half the Ivorian population were living on less than 450 CFA francs a day, a sum just less than one US dollar (Le Monde Afrique 2017; Ananou 2015).

This translates to a lower mean household income than the continental average, despite Côte d'Ivoire being among Africa's largest and fastest growing economies (World Bank 2015).

Moreover, while half the population lived on less than a dollar a day during the entire year of

<footnote n="202">²⁰² Constructing the bridge cost 308 million euros, and was paid for in a public-private partnership (PPP) (ADB/G 2015). The GDP of Côte d'Ivoire was 32.7 billion euros in 2014, the year the bridge was completed. The bridge cost approximately 1% of the total GDP. Though that percentage seems low, in comparison, in that same year total spending on national education was 4.5% of GDP. That includes funding to education institutions at all levels, all administration costs and all assistance or subsidies given to students or employees (World Bank / Trading Economics 2020).</footnote>
2016, the GDP per person was reported at $2000 USD and was projected to rise to $ 4500 USD by 2020 (ibid). A per capita GDP that is five and a half times higher than the amount half the population see in a year is a sign that inequality is grave and growing.

Côte d'Ivoire's twenty-four million people feel the consequences of that inequality in their daily lives.<fnref n="203" /> During its boom year in 2014, Côte d'Ivoire was ranked 171th out of 187 countries on human development indicators, largely due to its weak health care and education systems (Kambou 2014). Life expectancy for an average Ivorian is 52 years, making it one of the lowest in the ECOWAS group (Faujas 2017). Forty-six percent of the Ivorian population have never attended school, 20% suffer from chronic malnutrition, and only 5% of the population can access social protections such as old age assistance or employment insurance (Clémencot 2016). Forty percent of the population are without drinking water, electricity and toilet facilities, and 80% are without sewage systems (Institut national de la Statistique Cote d'Ivoire 2013). Even Ousmane Diagana, the World Bank Representative in Côte d'Ivoire, agreed poverty is “troublingly high, especially in contrast to the enormous economic potential available to the country” (Kambou

<footnote n="203">²⁰³ Côte d'Ivoire's Gini coefficient rose by about four percentage points (from 39 to 43) between 1998 and 2008, although the trend has since reversed with a Gini coefficient at 41.3 in 2015 (International Monetary Fund 2016). When Ouattara took power in 2001, there were 4 million poor totaling around 23% of the population. In 2015, that number rose to 6.5 million or around 28.2% of the population. In its 2015 Equity Brief on Côte d'Ivoire, the World Bank emphasizes important gains for poverty reduction, noting that although the percentage of population who are poor increased since the end of the civil war, the GINI index stayed approximately the same. That said, the World Bank report is using a timeline that compares the height of active conflict to a stabilized country with one of the fastest growing economies in the world. More than showing an achievement in poverty reduction, the World Bank data illustrates that poverty has not decreased nor is wealth more fairly distributed than it was during the final years of a decade long civil war, despite a vast increase of wealth, investment, donor support and industry. Consider education as a practical example of what these statistics mean for average Ivorians. Nearly 90% of children today attend primary school, but the number drops off to approximately 35% at secondary school, with even lower rates for girls. Approximately 10% of people attend university (World Bank 2017). These rates are indeed an improvement from the wartime era when schooling essentially stopped, but it is 25% lower than education level of countries with a similar economic portfolio and performance potential, for example, Morocco and Tunisia (IMF 2016).</footnote>
2014).

## 5.6. Reconciliation is Good Business

There is a close relationship between Côte d'Ivoire's economic success today and violations committed during the war. Profiting-seeking and expropriating resources for personal gain was a core strategy of the rebellion. At the end of the conflict, warlords used that expropriated wealth to transform into wealthy business owners and launch new industries that form the basis of Côte d'Ivoire's restructured economy. Despite this context, Ivorian transitional justice did not challenge the economic order of the new regime as a necessary part of doing justice for the past. Quite the opposite: the Ivorian peace and reconstruction agenda approached post-conflict justice as an auxiliary outcome of economic growth.

A decade ago, Urenda Baxi warned that the original concept of universal human rights was “steadily, but surely, supplanted by that of a trade-related, market-friendly human rights” (Baxi 2008). This warning rings true in a peacebuilding approach that advances pro-business reforms as necessary components of just and sustainable conflict resolution. For example, the good governance reforms defined by the UN Worldwide Governance Indicators include compliance with free markets amongst the primary tools of statebuilding (Demmers, Fernández Jilberto and Hogenboom 2004).<fnref n="204" /> Relatedly, World Bank polity scores measure a country's relative

<footnote n="204">²⁰⁴ Worldwide Governance Indicators are tools developed by the World Bank and used by international organizations to measure good governance in a given country. The indicators capture six dimensions: voice & accountability, political stability and lack of violence, effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and corruption. They measure nearly all states and draw sources from forty global databases. Compiling the dimensions into one overall measure of good governance links together characteristics like access to justice or rights and civil liberties with ‘regulatory quality’ of growth and trade. The World Bank defines effective regulation as “the ability of the government to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations that permit and promote private sector</footnote>
performance on a spectrum ranging from a 'fully open democracy' to a 'fully closed autocracy'.
The recently revised indicators, known as "polity2" scores, now include economic freedoms as a
core measure of a successful transition to peace and democracy (Center for Systemic Peace
2016).

As predicted by Baxi, these global governance tools reflect a tendency in the contemporary
peacebuilding model to supplant the concept of just and democratic peace with the goal of
economic growth and recovery. This tendency is well-documented by critical observers (Klein
2008; Mani, 2005; Miller 2008; Bell, 2009). As Stillwell explains,

> "International organizations such as the IMF and World Bank routinely operate in a neo-imperialist framework in crisis situations by providing financial incentives for the wholesale restructuring of economies along neoliberal lines. This form of 'development' seeks to both mirror and benefit the western world, through providing greater access to markets and resources." (Stillwell 271)

Global financial institutions push privatization and market deregulation on post-conflict states, insisting such policies are necessary for conflict recovery. In practice, marketisation in a recent conflict zone means largescale, cheap and often closed sales of state industries to foreign elites and their national allies (Pugh 2005). Moreover, post-conflict markets are fragile and largely

development". The regulatory quality indicator is measured by compiling a list approximately 50 factors that emphasize the removal of discriminatory tariffs and taxes; the ease of setting up a subsidiary of a foreign firm; the price and availability of state subsidies for petrol; and 'the degree of harm protectionism causes businesses.' The list also includes questions like "how problematic are labor regulations for the growth of your business?" (World Bank Group 2019). or an overview of the use of governance indicators by peacebuilding institutions see the DESA 2007 Report "Public Governance Indicators: A Literature Review" (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2007).
unregulated by national government left weak by war. Neoliberalising post-war economies
allows foreign investors to cheaply buy up national resources and industry contracts, and operate
with few constraints from taxes or government regulations (Barbara 2008; Klein 2008).<fnref n="205" />

Transitional justice, as we have seen, fits that contemporary market-friendly peacebuilding
model. It is deployed post-conflict in the name of justice and reconciliation, yet it pursues these
aims without interfering in economic interests and in ways that protect the elite class. The
Revised UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 are a notable example of transitional
justice being deployed as a market-friendly peacebuilding tool in high level global governance
circles. Goal sixteen of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals discusses post-
conflict justice and rule law, determining that transitional justice promotes development by
increasing stability and restoring public trust in institutions (Working Group on Transitional
Justice and SDG+, 2019). In other words, SDG 16 advocates for transitional justice as a measure
that promotes development by helping remove conflict as an obstacle to growth. As a UN
SDG+, transitional justice is deployed to advance a vision of peace and recovery that is
increasingly indistinguishable from market-friendly and business-aligned liberalism.

That same dynamic is also observable on a much smaller scale in a reconciliation initiative
adopted by the Ivorian transitional justice process. Though launched with the stated aim of
fostering reconciliation through resolving land disputes, in practice, the initiative was a

<footnote n="205">205 NGOs Eye on Aceh and Aidwatch report that social inequality worsened. Some in the community seized the business opportunities provided by the presence of foreign aid bodies and the massive infrastructure effort, while others were forced to bear the negative effects of the ensuing inflation (Stilwell 2008).</footnote>
neoliberal restructuring of the agricultural sector that forced privatization of communal land and
nulled customary land ownership.

5.6.1. Land Privatization for Reconciliation: A Case Study

Soon after taking office, the Ouattara regime legislated a nation scale land privatization scheme ostensibly aimed at finding just and permanent solutions to entrenched land disputes in the West. Over a ten-year period, the Rural Land Law aimed to bring a land tenure system that was more than ninety percent governed by customary ownership into the free market. To achieve that aim, the government passed a revision of the 1998 land law, transforming all agricultural land into private property and requiring all customary land occupants to officiate their claim by applying for deeds as private owners. The project was deployed in the name of transitional justice and framed as an effort to promote community reconciliation in the region most divided by war.<fnref n="206" /> As previously established, land disputes and customary land ownership are both concentrated in the Western region, meaning the reforms primarily targeted Gbagbo’s support base and their claim to vast tracts of farmland and the surrounding forests. The Ouattara administration maintained that the new land law would facilitate reconciliation in the region by simplifying and

<footnote n="206">206 Human Rights Watch has reported on the land reform policies. The report notes that in public speeches and policy documents, President Alassane Ouattara lists resolving land conflict is a major priority for his government. He has stated that the issue will determine whether the Western region moves forward in reconciliation or renewed cycles of violence (Human Rights Watch 2015). In a separate report exclusively on land conflict, HRW reported that the regime deemed successful mediation of land conflicts through local level initiatives one of the key improvements implemented in its first term (Human Rights Watch 2015a). Since 2017, land reform is coordinated under the World Bank Land Policy Improvement and Implementation Project. In its work plan, the World Bank highlights land is a state priority as a measure towards securing stability as well as building “increased social cohesion and a business environment more conducive to investment” (The World Bank 2017). The WB and Ivorian government partnership agreement on land reform also notes that regularizing land tenure is a “prerequisite to modernization” in the agriculture sector. The project fits within the wider WB-Côte d’Ivoire partnership framework “Focus Area One: Accelerating Sustainable Private Sector-Led Growth”, as a key step towards the goal of “formalizing and enhancing access to land for business and agriculture” (Ibid).</footnote>
clarifying land tenure. Upon closer inspection, the land reforms are an especially aggressive element of Ouattara's wider push to privatize industries, masked under the slogan of transitional justice.

The new legislation leaves peasant farmers responsible for the nearly impossible logistical task of privatizing landholdings in a region where 98 percent of rural land was managed under customary law at the time the bill was passed (McCallin and Montemurro 2009). The Rural Land Law requires all customary landholders to obtain an individual or collective tenure certificate and register this ownership claim with the state. Certificates must be acquired within ten years of the legislation coming into effect, with the cost of certification paid by the applicant. Any customary lands that are not certified by the ten-year deadline will be deemed unowned and transferred to the state to be sold at market value. Occupants who fail to certify their holdings during the ten-year window or who do not register within three-years of certification will also have their lands transferred to state ownership (Mitchell 2014).

The rigorous written terms of the legislation contrast considerably with the actual implementation of the law. In a field study conducted by Matthew Mitchell, his research team found eighty-three per cent of rural land occupants interviewed had never heard of the land law (ibid). The seventeen per cent who did know about the law only had basic information, and showed no knowledge of the requirements or costs of securing and registering a deed. Most importantly, they did not know the consequences for their current standing as customary owners should they fail to obtain a deed before the ten-year cut-off date. This lack of information also extended to the local administrators responsible for implementing the land certification and registration process, some of whom complained they received no training on this complicated
new task.<fnref n="207" /> Rather than a resolution to entrenched land conflict, the land privatization scheme threatens to expropriate more than ninety percent of rural farmlands without even informing the current occupants of that eventuality.

Even amongst better-informed rural farmers, the certification process is prohibitively costly and nearly impossible to navigate. Certification requires extensive knowledge of the law itself and of local bureaucracy, as well as privileged access to state administrators. The process is also bureaucraticly complex and unclear even to the administrators responsible for implementing it. Moreover, local officials are rarely neutral in land disputes and thus have an interest in advancing some claims while slowing other. During an interview with a state prosecutor responsible for the mid-western region, the prosecutor openly admitted to using his office to interfere in land claims. As an appointee of the Ouattara regime, he felt it was his duty to ensure land disputes stemming from the *tutorat* system were henceforth resolved in favour of Dioula and Burkinabes claimants given, he argued, these groups were wronged for so many decades by the traditional Krou occupants.<fnref n="208" />

Registering a holding also requires a significant amount of money to secure required documentation, for various application fees and to cover the cost of travel from rural areas to municipal government offices at each step of the process. Most rural families have few savings and minimal income, making these extra expenses simply beyond their means. The cost and complexity of certification and registration, combined with illiteracy and a lack of required

<footnote n="207">²⁰⁷ When Mitchell conducted his research in 2014, the Government of Côte d'Ivoire needed to register over 20 million hectares of rural land before 2019 having only approved 300 certificates and 1 title between 1998 and 2013.</footnote>

<footnote n="208">²⁰⁸ Interview by author, Gagnoa July 2015</footnote>
identity documents amongst many rural farmers, make for insurmountable obstacles to officiating land ownership, regardless of the individual's legal right to the land.

Agribusiness owners, in contrast, share none of the troubles experienced by local farmers when certifying their claims to landownership. The industry leaders can afford professional legal services and enjoy privileged access to state officials should any setbacks arise. Agribusiness heads and largescale landowners are also in a good position to acquire vast new holdings thanks to the land reform bill. When the ten-year registration deadline approaches, many communities will likely feel pressure to sell traditional lands to big business. Without funds, access to officials or legal know-how needed for certification, local farmers may feel their only choice is to secure some capital through a sale rather than risk simply losing the land under a state pronouncement that it remained 'unclaimed' despite a generous decade long certification window.

Under the banner of reconciliation for the country's most volatile region, the regime is forcing land privatization on low income rural communities. Moreover, these are communities that depend on communal lands for basic sustenance and as a cornerstone of cultural life. As such, the Land Law exemplifies neoliberal transitional justice. First, because it transfers the state's responsibility to find a just resolution to conflict onto people least able bear that burden. Second, because it invokes the honourable aim of 'reconciliation' as a justification for transferring vast amounts of public wealth – the land currently benefiting the country's poorest citizens – into the hands of private industry.

## 5.7. Conclusion
The authors of the IMF's Economic Development Report on Côte d'Ivoire (2016) classified reconciliation as a function of economic performance, explaining that consolidating peace would largely depend on economic improvements. Challenging that claim, we have seen that structural injustice and an exploitative ruling elite were root causes of the civil war, and that post-conflict neoliberal reforms have only exacerbated those tensions. The country's much-celebrated economic success has translated into increased poverty rates and worsened inequality, with most Ivorians still excluded from employment, affordable housing, education and medical services.

That said, in one regard, the IMF delegation collaborating with Ouattara on economic restructuring were correct in predicting growth would facilitate reconciliation. Political and industry leaders from both sides of the civil war rapidly reconciled after Gbagbo's arrest and Ouattara's ascendency to the presidency. This uniting of elite interests was first demonstrated by bi-partisan attendance at Ouattara's inauguration banquet and has since become a cornerstone of the profitable peace that characterizes the country today.

A logical jump remains, however, in the IMF prescription of market liberalisation as a means of consolidating peace and fostering reconciliation. Neoliberal governance depends on the legitimacy of liberal values, such as human rights and democracy, in order to claim rightful authority for the elites championing this governance model. Yet, at the same time, neoliberal reforms secure elite privileges and hurt public interests, which, in turn, undermine the very same liberal values invoked to justify their leadership. In a post-conflict regime, this logical gap needs to be bridged for neoliberal peace to appear coherent and acceptable to both citizens and international onlookers. Said otherwise, in order to build a neoliberal state in a post-conflict setting, the new regime must find a way to advance elite and business interests while also demonstrating that citizen needs and demands matter, and that justice is being done for the past.
That moral legitimacy is particularly necessary given the population will find it much harder to
recover from conflict in the face of growing inequality and dismantled public services.

Launching a transitional justice process sends a strong message that liberal values are guiding
reconstruction, while simultaneously excluding economic inequality and social injustice from the
post-conflict reform agenda. In this way, transitional justice gave the Ivorian elite both the means
and the moral legitimacy to shape the liberal democratic era in ways that protected the standing
of elites and justified a post-conflict reform agenda aligned with Ouattara and the IMF's
neoliberal restructuring.
6. Conclusion

Transitional justice is neoliberalising in that it narrows justice to exclude structural violence and economic oppression as forms of wrongdoing that demand accountability and reform during a political transition. It does this by establishing a moral order for governance and social relations that delineates between tolerable and intolerable forms of suffering, laying out which abuses must be addressed by a law-abiding society and which are beyond moral scrutiny. On one hand, deploying transitional justice institutions sets a moral standard that include strong protections for political rights and abhor the most heinous forms of violation. On the other hand, it establishes a moral order that discredits a more substantive vision of justice – one that addresses the very real threat to survival and dignity a large portion of citizens face when neoliberal governance encroaches on post-conflict contexts. Transitional justice provides a new regime with the means to communicate to its citizens and to foreign onlookers that a postwar country is becoming just and democratic. Yet, in the same moment these institutions promise a more just future, transitional justice also narrows what justice means by re-establishing a moral order aligned to elite interests and free market principles. Consequently, the new moral order defines a good and
just government as one that protects the economic sphere and elite authority, and ignores
demands for wealth redistribution or other more radical social justice reforms.

6.1. New Kind of Impunity for a New Governance Era

Transitional justice offers a way forward in situations of entrenched conflict or dictatorships: contexts where resolution seems otherwise impossible. In most cases, however, that opportunity to renew and rebuild comes with the painful cost of letting many of the worst perpetrators go free. This exchange of impunity for a new beginning is a cornerstone of the transitional justice model. The field grew in the wake of dictatorships where impunity for the former regime's crimes was the price of it leaving power. Transitional justice institutions developed as an innovative way to fill the accountability deficit left by these terrible yet often inescapable trade-offs. Today amnesty is no longer common in transitional justice processes and, in the rare instances when amnesties are still applied, the deals can be overruled if brought before a regional or international court. Criminal accountability is nevertheless still relatively uncommon in transitional justice contexts. This is a consequence of the sheer number of victims needing redress, particularly when combined with weak or insufficient institutional capacity and given justice competes with other urgent priorities during political transitions. Thus, though the field has moved beyond a crude trade-off of peace for justice, the exchange of impunity for a new beginning remains a core part of the transitional justice approach.

A new version of the trade-off between elite impunity and a national rebirth has emerged in
transitional justice, even as amnesty deals disappear from the field. This is because today the
actors most responsible in creating and benefiting from war or repression are rarely directly
involved in human rights violations. Furthermore, the human rights lens is poorly suited to
assessing the full picture of victim experiences during contemporary conflict. The victims that
appear before transitional justice institutions today endure suffering that is indivisible from wider
forms of structural and economic injustice. Relying on a human rights framework to understand
that suffering hides as much as it reveals about those experiences. By failing to recognize the
nature of harms suffered and by failing to identify those most responsible for causing that harm,
transitional justice shields culpable elites and depoliticizes their abuses of power.

In its original form, transitional justice exposed and shamed a ruling elite for their role in human
rights violations, even while shielding them from accountability through amnesty deals.

Exposing elite wrongdoing allowed transitional justice institutions to achieve some meaningful
steps towards justice, even if impunity remained the order of the day. This is because public
acknowledgment of wrongdoing comes with the moral obligation to ensure such harms can never
happen again. Though injustice remained, the cost of sacrificing accountability was, at least in
part, balanced by the possibility of overthrowing repressive governing institutions and renewing
social values. In contrast, today's neoliberal elites are distant from the frontlines of human rights
violations. As such, they can leverage the benefits of transitional justice without accepting the
consequences that once befell authorities seeking impunity within these institutions. This new,
consequence free, elite impunity is illustrative of the neoliberalising effects contemporary
transitional justice has on post-conflict contexts. Though a certain acceptance of impunity is
inbuilt to the field, elite protection was formerly accompanied by a public process that exposed
their crimes and promised to correct harms inflicted. The dynamics of contemporary conflict no
longer fit that model. We are left with a top-down and sanitized version of transitional justice,
where elites legitimatize their return to authority by demonstrating a commitment to do justice
but are not held responsible for their role in harms inflicted on the population.

6.1.1. An Elite Exchange

Managing a political transition from conflict or repressive rule requires new leaders to perform a careful balancing act between conflicting priorities: How much can be done for victims without becoming caught forever in the endless demands of the past? What other priorities must be sacrificed in order to devote the time and resources required to found a truly just society? In what moments do stability and reconstruction take precedence over the demands of the past?

Transitional justice holds a central place in global governance circles as a set of ad hoc and flexible institutions that offer a new regime and its citizens the means to negotiate these complex dilemmas. At its most essential, transitional justice is a political process that allows a community to balance the moral responsibility to do justice for the past with the practical imperative to move on and rebuild.

When the field first developed, transitional justice found that balance between the demands of
justice and the need for peace through negotiated trade-offs with perpetrator elites. The truth
commissions established after ousting dictatorships in Argentina and Chile were conceived as a
step towards justice in a moment when criminal accountability for the still powerful junta leaders
was impossible. In these first examples, immunity for grave and systematic human rights
violations was the price of a peaceful transition to democracy. Since criminal accountability was
impossible, public acknowledgement of the crimes of the last regime served as a replacement
form of justice. The approach was reproduced during the South African democratic transition as an addendum to a political agreement that exchanged amnesties for democracy. Although this exchange was more direct than that seen in the Latin American examples, the South African truth commission was, similarly, adopted as a response to a prior amnesty agreement. It did not create impunity, rather, it was a means of reducing injustice already signed onto as the cost of peace. In contrast, Timor Leste, Sierra Leone and Liberia inserted transitional justice directly into peace accords. Here belligerents sat together at the negotiating table, actively exchanging amnesty and continued positions of authority for truth-seeking and an end to the conflict (Snyder and Vinjamuri 2003). These examples show the transitional justice model shifting over the first three decades of the field, yet they all share the common feature of offering protection from prosecution to powerful elites in exchange for a new beginning. Whether we consider it a legitimate practice or not, this mechanism allowed transitional justice to promote peace while still delivering some form of justice in contexts where neither had seemed possible. Without offering elites protection, these institutions do not have the political traction needed to achieve breakthrough peace agreements. The injustice of that exchange is morally unbearable to many onlookers, but it nevertheless meant transitional justice institutions brought an end to dictatorship and civil war in contexts where continued violence was equally unthinkable.

Today a warlord who recruited children or a police chief who tortured activists can no longer depend on a negotiated amnesty after handing over power. International and regional courts removed amnesty from the transitional justice repertoire by establishing a clear precedent that such deals will be overturned if brought before an international court. Amnesties are thus rarely applied today and, when they are, they do not hold weight beyond the borders or lifetime of the regime that issued them. Ending the use of amnesty for grave human rights violations was an
achievement for the field. Having said that, we should also consider whether the very possibility
of denying a perpetrator amnesty is a sign that she or he is no longer amongst the most powerful
actors instigating and directing conflict or repressive rule (P. Clark 2018).

Although, as a field, transitional justice no longer accepts the crude trade-off of justice for peace,
a new version of that exchange has emerged reflecting the rise of a new ruling elite in the
neoliberal era. Whereas junta members and warlords leveraged the threat of violence for their
authority, neoliberal elites control lucrative economic interests, hold key government posts and
are well-connected in global governance institutions and business communities. In the current
global order, economic elites are often synonymous with political leaders (Harvey 2005). In
cases where the business community does not directly overlap with government, heads of
industry and financial institutions are often as influential in public policy as elected officials
(Brown 2015). These dynamics are amplified in conflict zones, where a pattern has emerged in
recent decades of postwar contexts becoming greenfield sites for neoliberal restructuring as
national and foreign elites leverage weakened institutions and social breakdown to push market-
friendly reforms and buy-up industries and reconstruction contracts (Klein 2008; Bell, Campbell
and Aolain 2007; Barbara 2008).

The civil war in Côte d'Ivoire erupted as a consequence of the longstanding and exploitive
governing policies of a small ruling elite and its foreign backers. Over the span of fifty years, the
Ivorian ruling class shaped institutions and policies to ensure a wealthy few enjoyed incredible
luxury while the remaining population endured worsening inequality and social injustice,
eventually pushing the country to violent and total collapse. That same leadership then sent
tens-of-thousands of youth to fight as their proxies and reestablish their authority, while
simultaneously exploiting the chaos they had created for war profits. In the aftermath, the same
ruling class – now remerged as a barely reshuffled new regime – leveraged the transition to push through policies that have worsened socio-economic conditions for most Ivorians while, once again, winning windfall profits for the wealthy elite. Regardless of whether this elite class was directly responsible for human rights violations, they are nonetheless responsible for grave wrongdoing by creating the conditions for social breakdown, fueling civil war with their rhetoric, then profiting from that chaos and its aftermath.

The Ivorian elite are too powerful at home and too influential abroad to be held to account, yet that claim does not fully explain of their apparent untouchability. In the case of Alassane Ouattara, Soro Guillaume and the ComZones, backing from powerful foreign interests did indeed help them seamlessly transition from alleged war criminals into heroes of peace and democracy. Laurent Gbagbo and Blé Goudé, in contrast, were isolated members of the old guard. Yet even in their case, the ICC failed to secure a conviction despite devoting years to investigations and investing massive financial resources. There must, therefore, be a difference more pertinent than their respective international allies that separates the protection transitional justice once offered juntas and warlords through amnesty deals, and the way it now shields powerful ruling elites from accountability. Put simply, transitional justice is not designed to view the elites most responsible for the harms inflicted in contemporary war as perpetrators.

Human rights violations are the basic units from which a transitional justice process is built. That framework is an effective means of exposing the direct perpetrators of political and physical rights violations, but it also limits the scope of justice-seeking. That framework gives a truncated analysis of how and why civilians suffer during conflict, and correspondingly offers a limited vision of what it means to correct the past and prevent similar harms in the future. This much was established in Mamdani's critique of the South African TRC. By focusing on direct
human rights violations perpetrated by the regime's henchmen, the South African truth
commission failed to meaningfully address the larger crime of Apartheid and the daily
deprivation, humiliation and structural violence it caused (Mamdani 2002). In doing so, it
largely overlooked the guilt of those who created and benefited from the regime (Miller 2008).

In the daily lives of conflict victims, the harm caused by structural violence and economic
deprivation is no less painful than overt human rights violations. This was clear when
interviewing an Ivorian victims' leader just returned from the funeral of a young group member
who had committed suicide. The deceased stepped on a landmine during the war and, with no
access to medical care, he eventually lost both feet and an arm to gangrene. I was shown a photo
of the man in the year before he died, laying on a thin mattress on the floor of a windowless one-
room home. With no medical care, no assistance and a family barely able to feed themselves, let
alone care for him, he barely moved from that place for three years. I expressed shock at these
circumstances and this show of surprise made my interviewee so angry, tears formed in his eyes.

'Of course, he committed suicide", he responded "We suicide all the time. What else can victims
do here?' His outrage was justified. The CDVR was ongoing at that time, meaning justice for
the civil war was purportedly being delivered nationwide, yet the primary victims were denied
basic life necessities and human dignities. I recorded accounts across the country of victims
dying from treatable conditions, losing limbs or suffering from debilitating illnesses without
medical care.<fnref n="209" /> For many victims, being unable to care for one's family or becoming a burden
on loved ones was more painful than any violence endured. I also found a pattern of female

<footnote n="209">209 Over the course of two years, I interviewed victims' group leaders and NGO staff in Duekoué, Guiglo, Gagnoa, Daloa, Abobo, Adajme, Man, San-Pédro, Toulépleu, Youpougon, Treichville and Korhogo.</footnote>
victims being forced into sex work in order to stay alive and feed their children.<fnref n="210" /> When victims speak about their experiences, there is no distinction between the pain of a direct human rights violations and that of watching one's children go hungry. That suffering cannot be pulled apart to deal with only the 'most serious acts' such as torture and murder, as though that violence happens independent of its causes and consequences. Moreover, just as the suffering victims endure cannot be separated into categories of more or less tolerable pain, the harms inflicted by direct perpetrators and those committed by a more distant yet culpable ruling elite cannot be separated into more or less permissible wrongs.

Governing elites in a neoliberal state are not the same as agents of a military dictatorship or warlords. Torture, forced disappearance, massacres and pillaging are different acts from systematic discrimination, exploitation and extortion. It is not my intention to equate these things or diminish the gravity of more overt human rights violations. My point is rather that these perpetrators need not be equal or even similar for the abuses inflicted by both groups to be intolerable. The perpetrators identified in the Ivorian transitional justice process were primarily young men, recruited by the political elite and promised small rewards for committing violence in the streets. Punishing direct perpetrators is important to victims and should be pursued when possible. Yet these men were not the primary instigators or beneficiaries of the war.

Apprehending and publicly condemning every young recruit who picked up a machete or burned a village would change little about the root causes of the war and it would not prevent its reoccurrence. Their actions responded to chaos, terror and desperation created and exploited by a ruling class that crosscut the leadership on both sides of the partition line. With minimal

<footnote n="210">²¹⁰ Interview by author with Community Abel NGO Director, Grand Bassam, Côte d'Ivoire July 2014</footnote>
reshuffling, those leaders still occupy the highest offices of government and industry. That same elite and its international partners reestablished economic and political dominance in the aftermath of conflict, and leveraged postwar chaos to push through even more aggressively anti-poor policies than those that led to the country's collapse. We do not know what happened to the people who tortured the widow known as 'Affair 27.' If these men survived the war, they are likely recipients of a demobilisation (DDR) package and thus live comparably well. Yet, even if these men – and every other FRCI recruit or *Jeune Patriot* who attacked civilians – could be brought to trial or forced to stand before the truth commission, it would not change the relationship between the hundreds of thousands of victims and the individuals who created the civil war and benefited from the suffering it caused.

The tendency to look for the perpetrators of another time in contemporary contexts is a key reason why transitional justice fails to respond to victims' lived realities in the neoliberal era. Pinochet's victims also suffered economic consequences of the violations against them, and Chileans struggled with lowered living conditions and social inequities created by his regime's aggressive austerity (Valdés 1995). The Chilean transitional justice process did not correct these structural injustices when Pinochet left power, but that transition process did put an end to his authority and to the legitimacy of his rule. That alone is a significant difference from the way transitional justice operates today. In those early examples, the exchange of peace for justice was very painful, but that trade-off achieved a kind of redress by fundamentally changing the social and, perhaps more importantly, moral order. Today we no longer expect transitional justice to meaningfully change in the relationship between victims and those most responsible for their suffering. This is because the transitional justice approach was designed to address power arrangements that no longer reflect the dynamics of conflict or repressive rule.
The ‘justice’ of transitional justice depends on delegitimizing abusive governance and making a commitment in a national, public forum that such rule will no longer be tolerated. Truth commissions are designed as public performances of pain, meant to convey solemn recognition of harms suffered. As witnesses to that forum, all citizens enter a national dialogue about the tradeoffs being made in their name between the opportunity to build peace and the need for justice. These public acts acknowledging wrongdoing give a political community the means to point to abusive authorities and declare, “though we cannot jail or even unseat you, we recognise you wronged us and will never again accept your rule.” Although a justice deficit invariably remains, public acknowledgement of wrongdoing eases that injustice by serving as a promise that the political community will never allow such things to be repeated.

That interaction falls apart if those most responsible for the harms suffered are an economic and political elite, only indirectly involved in human rights violations. Unlike the juntas and warlords who were publicly confronted with the truth of their crimes, today's perpetrator elites hide in plain sight within the transitional justice model. Seen through a human rights lens, the primary creators and beneficiaries of the Ivorian civil war do not even qualify as perpetrators. This means transitional justice protects elites without exposing their culpability or generating public outrage at their continued authority. Today, as in earlier examples, transitional justice requires victims to endure impunity for the sake of a better future. Although amnesties are now rare, impunity remains the standard response after mass atrocity. There are simply too many perpetrators in contemporary war for judicial institutions to address more than a handful of ‘illustrative’ cases. In contrast to the earlier examples, however, today’s injustice comes without a national dialogue that acknowledges wrongdoing; or, more accurately, that dialogue acknowledges only the most overt aspects of harms suffered and, in doing so, fails to recognise
what those harms mean in lived reality for victims and wider society. The result is a new
transitional justice model that retains the procedural shell of justice-seeking, but has lost the
interaction that once made these institutions an opportunity for meaningful change in a social and
political order.

Furthermore, privileging a ruling elite with the opportunity to lead a transitional justice process,
but without also exposing their role in wrongdoing, legitimizes their authority and allows them to
frame their return to power as a sign of democratic and good governance. As a long-established
feature of transitional justice, these processes empower national elites and foreign experts to
control key decisions about postwar accountability and institutional reforms (Baranyi 2008).
That characteristic renders the institutions able to bring powerful belligerents to the negotiating
table (McAdams 2011). As architects of a national transitional justice process, elites can control
narratives about the past and write the agenda for future governance according to their own
interests (Snyder and Vinjamuri 2003). That privilege was formerly balanced against a national
process that also exposed and shamed abusive leadership. In the absence of that balance,
transitional justice creates a positive feedback loop that empowers culpable elites with the
authority to set the terms of future governance, while legitimatizing that authority as just and
good, which in turn further reaffirms those elites as worthy of power. Thus, rather than
establishing the culpability of elites who benefit from social injustice, contemporary transitional
justice hands them the authority to define what justice and good governance will mean in the
new era.

Through such messaging, the national transitional justice process solved the logical jump in the
postwar peacebuilding agenda advanced by the Ouattara regime and its international backers.
The peacebuilding community promised Ivorians liberal democracy and a rights-respecting new
era, while simultaneously restructuring governance to benefit a wealthy globalized elite and deepen already dire poverty affecting approximately half the population. Transitional justice advanced this self-contradictory reform agenda by realigning moral standards for governance and social order with neoliberal governance principles. That effect was illustrated in this dissertation by a case study of Ivorian transitional justice. The case study showed transitional justice institutions give legitimacy to the regime as liberal and democratic while, at the same time, delineating between citizens' suffering that merits redress and suffering that would be tolerated in the postwar era. That delineation reflects a moral reordering of governance and social norms that transitional justice advances in postwar contexts. In that moral order, structural violence and grave inequality are not signs of wrongdoing or illegitimate rule. Also, economic interests are granted a sanctified place beyond the reach of citizen demands for justice.

In Côte d'Ivoire, this meant dire poverty was kept outside the new regime's obligations to its citizens. Thus, by deploying transitional justice, the Ouattara regime designated itself as democratic and liberal, even as it passed reforms denying a significant portion of the population the basic means to survive.

### 6.1.2. Tolerable and Intolerable Suffering

The popularity of transitional justice as a post-conflict recovery tool is connected to the ideological shift in global governance that happened at end of the Cold War. The salience of structural and economic critiques was supplanted during this time by the more limited promise in liberalism to protect citizens from the worst forms of political and physical human rights violations (Harvey 2005). Correspondingly, specific human rights violations are the primary
unit of analysis in transitional justice, making a collection of the most graphic moments in a
violent past the basis for reform and reconstruction efforts. Mamdani first articulated the
problem with this approach by illustrating that the sum of testimony detailing torture in police
custody or car bombings did not add up to the story of Apartheid (Mamdani 2003). In the same
way, the sum of machete attacks and ‘Article 125’ executions tell a narrow and depoliticized
account of the Ivorian civil war. The context around that violence disappears, leaving a picture
of irrational hatred against an ethnic other and exposing only perpetrators of overt violence. The
CDVR allowed the architects of that violence to hide behind dramatic scenes of radicalized
youths. Although there is mention in the truth commission report that political leaders
manipulated young fighters to advance their electoral campaigns, bands of xenophobic youth
setting the country ablaze, remain the defining image of the conflict presented by the CDVR.

Contrasting from that official narrative, this dissertation describes the civil war in Côte d'Ivoire
as a conflict between elites competing to control national wealth and power, and fought at the
cost of the younger generation. The conflict erupted from a series of political and economic
crises, compounded by the kleptocratic rule of a small elite who maintained control by
preserving colonial era social hierarchies. As such, it was an escalation of violence within a long
history of structural and economic oppression. As the country reached crisis point in the late
1990s, political leaders on both sides blamed ethnic hatred for rising tensions. That discourse
allowed elites to avoid addressing the structural injustices responsible for the pending collapse
and, at the same time, divide a population that was uniting against them on two key fronts: the
land disputes in the western agricultural region and a powerful youth movement mobilizing in
the urban centre. A decade later, in the aftermath of war, attributing the conflict to ethnic hatred
allowed the Ouattara regime to again avoid addressing the social and economic roots of the
conflict. Instead, his government undertook largescale neoliberal restructuring of the economy, securing unprecedented economic growth and profiting the same elites who created the war while deepening poverty for the majority population.

Ethnic conflict narratives tend to silence structural critiques by reframing legitimate grievances as hatred and intolerance. Hatred invariably merits condemnation, making the motivations driving a group to join an ethnic war always illegitimate. In the aftermath, a new regime has no obligation to address their calls for justice and reform, indeed a good democratic leader would stand firmly against the demands of xenophobes. As discussed in the last chapter, the Gagnoa state prosecutor expressed this attitude. He proudly divulged that he interfered in land claim applications from Bêté farmers, referencing their assumed xenophobia as justification enough for using his office to punish enemies of the new regime. On a larger scale, we also saw that each victim giving testimony to the CDVR was reminded by the commissioners of her duty to contribute to 'perfecting the nation' by learning to pardon. Implicit in those speeches, victims were taught that refusing to forgive was choosing to be the enemy of peace and democracy.

Claiming conflict is caused by the irrational hatred of an ethnic other blames a population at large for its own suffering. It also turns peacemaking into a project of correcting moral failing in the political community, and thus renders conflict resolution a project of changing hateful 'hearts and minds.' As an example, the CDVR focused its efforts on teaching tolerance to the nation and encouraging victims to take responsibility for their own recovery by learning forgiveness.

Focusing conflict recovery efforts on measures to defend the citizenry from its own xenophobia allowed the new regime to avoid addressing economic or structural injustice. The new regime also gained an important source of legitimacy by assigning themselves the role of compassionate rulers, quelling the irrational masses. Of course, the commitment to reconciliation amongst the
elite class demonstrated at Ouattara's inauguration was hardly a generous act of peacemaking.

For a ruling class at war with one another just weeks before, a quick postwar reconciliation mutually guaranteed their shared interests would be safe in the aftermath.

It is not a coincidence that the rise of ethnic wars in the 1990s and early 2000s paralleled the global spread of transitional justice. With its focus on individual perpetrators and victims, these processes are well-suited to writing compelling accounts that detail hatred, intolerance and fear.

Truth commissions wrote the postwar rebuilding agenda in Sierra Leone and Liberia – both archetypal case studies of post-Cold War ethnic conflict (Horowitz 2000; Bøås 2001). Post-genocide Rwanda similarly adopted Gacaca courts as a locally adapted version of a truth commission. On one hand, the human rights lens gives transitional justice the ability to focus-in on the specifics of a violent incident, overtime exposing patterns of violence that might otherwise be hidden. During more than three decades of civil war in Guatemala, for example, succeeding right-wing dictatorships justified horrific violence against civilian populations by claiming to defend the country from communist guerrillas. The Commission for Historical Clarification wholly disproved that narrative, exposing a coordinated and sustained genocide targeting Mayan communities and committed by General Montt's forces (CEH 1999). The truth commission exposed the racism driving state violence and, in doing so, exposed a long enduring ethnic cleansing campaign.

On the other hand, transitional justice is poorly suited to writing conflict narratives that expose deep-seated structural violence or inequalities. These motivations disappear into the background behind testimony focused on personalized and emotive experiences of violence. Maoist rebels in Nepal, for example, clearly communicated their motivations for the rebellion were rooted in centuries of state oppression and extreme inequality. After winning the civil war, the Maoist
victors promised radical economic reforms and land redistribution would be at the core of the
national reconstruction agenda. A decade into the country's ongoing transitional justice process,
land and wealth redistribution were replaced on the reform agenda by the politics of minority
representation.<fnref n="211" /> Transitional justice offered a new platform for advancing the rights of Nepal's
one hundred and twenty-six ethnic minorities, but it also contributed to fracturing a united
peasant moment and ending the push for radical reforms.<fnref n="212" />

Transitional justice has not only grown apace with a post-Cold War shift to global neoliberalism, its popularity has contributed to spreading neoliberal governance into countries underdoing major political transitions. In this dissertation, I describe parameters that transitional justice sets around the types of suffering which matter to justice and those that can be overlooked. That parameter defines which harms citizens can expect to be protected against in the post-conflict era, and establishes other harms committed against civilian as implicitly permissible. As we have seen, that delineation promises to protect citizens from the worst forms of human rights violation – killing or maiming due to irrational ethnic hatred, for example - but it leaves structural injustice outside the moral responsibility of the state. Stated in these terms, this may seem a relatively innocuous, if narrow, moral standard for governance. It is true that in a long established and industrialized liberal democracy, most citizens can live relatively well under a government guided by such a moral standard. In the wake of civil war in a low-income country,

<footnote n="211">211 Economic and social justice were at the centre of the peace agreement. Social, economic and cultural rights were also given special attention in the interim constitution. The first Constitutional Assembly failed to draft a new constitution and was dissolved in 2011, resulting in new elections and a change in political climate away from the initial focus on addressing structural injustice. See Pasipanodya for these details on the peace process and interim constitution (Pasipanodya 2008).</footnote>

<footnote n="212">212 Robins makes a similar argument about the role of transitional justice empowering Kathmandu based elites through imposing a human rights framework on the peace process, thus replacing rural and peasant groups and their demands (Robins, Transitional Justice as an Elite Discourse 2012). This point was also stated in interview with ICTJ reparations expert, Ruben Carranza, March 2019.</footnote>
however, this same standard means a denial of the basic right to life and livelihood for many conflict victims.

### 6.1.3. Permissible and Punishable War Criminals

The International Criminal Court trial of Laurent Gbagbo and Blé Goudé illustrates how transitional justice shapes governance to advance neoliberalism in postwar contexts. The one-sided nature of that trial showed the world that some war criminals are acceptable in the global governance community. Moreover, it conveyed this message in the highest body of international justice, using the language of universal humanitarian norms. The one-sided ICC trial demonstrated that some regimes are simply beyond justice – but, notably, not because justice is unimportant in the current global order. Côte d'Ivoire did not suffer from cynical impunity or the disregard of the international community. The Ouattara regime and its foreign partners went to incredible lengths to demonstrate that justice was foundational to Côte d'Ivoire's postwar recovery. The ICC case, itself, is proof enough of that: it monopolized seven years of court proceedings at the Hague and cost hundreds-of-millions of dollars.<fnref n="213" /> Postwar justice was an important means of demonstrating that liberal and democratic governance had returned to Côte d'Ivoire. That said, in the Ouattara regime's version of liberalism, purportedly core values like equality before the law and the equal rights of citizens are superseded by economic interests. Accordingly, the ICC considered Ivorian war crimes punishable or permissible based on the culpable elite's demonstrated commitment to neoliberal governance.

<footnote n="213">²¹³ By 2012, the ICC cost contributing states one billion US dollars in its first decade, and had a $140 million USD annual budget. During that period, the funds covered the cost three trials and led to one verdict (Silverman 2012). In contrast, that same year, the ICC Trust fund covering all reparations and assistance for victims had a reserve of about 3.5 million dollar and received on average $500,000 to 1 million dollars a year from donors. UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture received $10 million dollars per year from donors (McCarthy 2012)</footnote>
As a follow up to the foreign military intervention in Côte d'Ivoire, the ICC offered sanction to internationally backed regime change in a resource rich African state. That foreign intervention secured regime change by removing the enemies of free market capitalism. Following that victory, the international coalition then punished the former regime in an international court while ignoring the war crimes of its successor; a regime that, incidentally, promised to free markets and promote massive foreign investment in one of Africa's largest economies.<fnref n="214" /> Yet this was not, as Gbagboists claim, a story of neocolonial France reclaiming a former colony. Were the rebellion merely a local proxy for renewed colonial power, the French intervention would have easily defeated Gbagbo's military in the early days of the war (Smith 2003). The regime change operation was part of a wider global governance project whose leaders are difficult to pinpoint. These actors cross the political and business sphere, and include alliances between foreign and national elites from industry, international organizations and elected-office. At the ICC trial, the world's highest court declared this global coalition of elites to be in the right in the Ivorian civil war and the isolated Gbagbo regime to be in the wrong.

The implications of that support go beyond determining who should be punished and who could go free: it is a matter of defining legitimate authority and re-establishing moral standards in a post-conflict zone. Invoking the ICC and its groundings in universal humanitarian law legitimatized the new regime as a rights-respecting government, committed to justice for its citizens. This, by extension, communicated to citizens and to foreign onlookers that Ouattara's postwar economic restructuring was a sign that good and democratic leadership had returned to Côte d'Ivoire. As seen, in lived reality, Ouattara's aggressively anti-poor restructuring hurts

<footnote n="214">²¹⁴ Côte d'Ivoire was the 12th largest economy in Africa in 2019, measured by GDP (IMF 2019). See Chapter Four for a detailed discussion of resource reserves in the country.</footnote>
much of the population and is especially damaging to conflict victims – the championed cause of
the ICC.

The selective accountability pursued at the ICC trial reflected a standard of international justice
in which some governments can commit atrocities with impunity while others are subject to the
‘universalism’ of humanitarian law. That delineation between punishable and permissible war
crimes reflects a vision of liberal democracy in which there is a sacrosanct moral imperative to
hold war criminals to account, but only until that principle interferes with important economic
interests. By invoking universal humanitarian norms and the authority of the international court,
the new Ivorian government and its global partners established the delineation between
punishable enemies of capitalism and permissible neoliberal war criminals as not just legally
enforceable but also, and more importantly, as morally defensible.

## 6.2. Where do we go from here?

The dynamics of the war in Côte d'Ivoire were such that a decision to address the past through
the lens of overt human rights violations is a decision to overlook the lived consequences of the
conflict on those affected. The civil war in Côte d'Ivoire erupted after decades of exploitative
rule and vast inequalities, created and maintained by a small ruling elite. Looking at that history
as a collection of specific incidents of human rights violations gives a distorted picture of the
wrongs committed and the suffering it inflicted. Likewise, the justice achieved by putting direct
perpetrators behind bars or hearing testimony about grave violations misaligns with the harm
victims actually endured. To be meaningful, doing justice for the past needs to include a change
in the power relationship between those who created and benefited from the war, and those who
suffer the consequences.

In an ideal world, justice would mean every victim's life is transformed and the social injustices that led to that victimization are corrected. Such recommendations are not based in practical reality, however. This is the inevitable response when critics voice the need for a more substantive vision of post-conflict justice than that currently available in the transitional justice approach. There are five-hundred-thousand registered victims in Côte d'Ivoire, after all. No plausible reform and reparation package could change so many lives, let alone restructure economic realities and transform social inequalities. At best, transitional justice can offer reparations to victims of the gravest human rights violations and contribute to wider structural change by recommending institutional reforms. Even then, reparations are never sufficient to fundamentally change lives, particularly given the sheer number of victims and the degree of economic deprivation many experience. Recent efforts to develop transitional justice beyond a standard political and physical rights framework resulted in overburdened and nonfunctioning institutions, with results even more disappointing than those available in a more limited but realistic process.<fnref n="215" /> Moreover, victims cannot be the sole focus of postwar recovery. Their right to justice and repair must balance against other urgent reconstruction priorities. These are compelling reasons to stick with what we know transitional justice can achieve: at very least, it can identify perpetrators of the most serious human rights violations, while offering victims public acknowledgement and some, albeit largely symbolic, reparatory measures.

<footnote n="215">215 See discussion of Kenyan Truth, Reconciliation and Justice Commission in Chapter One.</footnote>
On the other hand, although transitional justice institutions are not powerful enough to redistribute national wealth or dismantle a ruling elite, declaring those measures impossible does not mean the only other option is a retreat to the standard model of restricting our efforts to addressing the most overt political and physical rights violations. We have seen the effects of that model in contemporary contexts. This standard approach shields those most responsible for civil war and it undermines victim demands for more substantive assistance and reforms. It is indeed impossible to change every victim's life, let alone transform structural injustices that may be rooted in century old struggles. These are, nevertheless, the correct goals for transitional justice and aiming for less means accepting a moral order where desperate suffering is somehow tolerable and terrible wrongdoing is somehow permissible.

It should not be problematic to both acknowledge that a fully transformative justice is unachievable in practical reality, but equally insist that nothing less meets the requirements of a just response to contemporary conflict. After all, transitional justice was invented for moments like these – to offer a meaningful response where justice is impossible, but accepting continued injustice is unthinkable. The field developed as an innovative approach to doing justice in contexts where it seemed immunity would never end. It was impossible to put the junta leaders behind bars in Chile or to punish every combatant who maimed civilians in Sierra Leone.

Adopting transitional justice did not change those realities, but it did provide a means for the political community to solemnly and publicly contest that injustice. At very least, transitional justice offered victims a public forum acknowledging their suffering and shaming those responsible. The challenge for transitional justice in the current era is innovating a response to new kind of impunity granted a neoliberal national and global elite: a response that solemnly and meaningfully acknowledges the hundreds of thousands of lives destroyed and stripped of dignity
in a conflict rooted in exploitative rule and grave inequality. Transitional justice cannot change these realities, but it could be a powerful means of declaring the status quo intolerable and establishing that it is morally unacceptable for such injustice to continue.

This would then put the prerogative on a new regime and the international community backing it to defend why such wrongs go unaddressed and why those who profit from injustice remain in positions of authority. I emphasized above that elite accommodation is necessary in any transitional justice process; without offering elites some protections or preserved authority, transitional justice institutions cannot get off the ground. Does that fact not render it untenable to recommend shaming those same elites? In its original form, transitional justice accommodated elites while balancing that compliance with a national process exposing them and the harms they inflicted. This was never an easy balance and it made transitional justice a contentious, if not dangerous, political activity. With some reimagining of the transitional justice approach and with a renewed willingness to take risks in this field, contemporary efforts could seek a new balance adapted to our current realities.

A bolder, more contentious transitional justice approach would not only expose the culpability of national elites, it would also work against powerful interests within the global governance community. This, perhaps, is the bigger obstacle to adopting that more radical approach. Launching a national transitional justice process resolves the logical jump in contemporary peacebuilding operations between promoting liberal humanitarianism while simultaneously pushing free market capitalism onto post-conflict zone. Transitional justice institutions permit this dual agenda by establishing a new moral order that protects citizens from the worst forms of political and physical human rights violation, but it also grants precedence to elite interests and economic success over demands for social justice. The humanitarian promise to citizens to do
justice for a terrible past has thus become a means of legitimizing reforms that hurt the most
vulnerable sectors of society and orient governance in the interests of national and foreign elites.

Transitional justice betrays victims with that false promise, and not because it is fails to resolve
every economic or social injustice they face in difficult times. It betrays victims because it is no
longer on their side in this struggle. Transitional justice is deployed in moments of major
political upheaval: moments that come at a heavy price and represent rare opportunities to
transform a society and its values. In its current applications, a new regime and its international
partners can use transitional justice to leverage such a moment to advance neoliberal reforms.

Transitional justice is a means for powerful elites to communicate that the new regime is good
and democratic, even while it deepens social injustice for a population struggling in the
aftermath of war. For transitional justice to be on the side of victims and their communities, that
messaging needs to reverse directions: transitional justice needs to once more provide victims
with the means to define justice on their own terms and to amplify their voices when they speak
back to power.
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