In a move to combat rising violence, the Ivorian government has shut down all student unions after the murders of two students linked to the powerful Fesci group. But past and present students say the government is complicit in the lawlessness of the organization.
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00:00Murder, torture and rape.
00:04These are the accusations levelled against Côte d'Ivoire's student and school federation, FESSI.
00:09When we were at the university, there was a classmate, a girl, who was attacked by FESSI.
00:17They beat her up because she used a walkway reserved for FESSI leadership.
00:24Last week, President Watare's government shut down all student unions to rein in their
00:30powerful FESSI.
00:31But for years, it's been an open secret that the group murdered opponents, ran brothels
00:37and tortured students.
00:39So why did this go on for so long?
00:42Welcome to the Flipside.
00:45Security forces in Ivory Coast recently carried out a series of raids on university campuses
00:51where they found several machetes and grenades.
00:54For this story, I interviewed a former student of the Felix Hofe Buanya University.
01:00Although he is no longer a student, he still fears for his life and insists on hiding his
01:06identity.
01:07He continues his account of how one of his colleagues was attacked by FESSI members.
01:14When we got the information that she had been attacked, we tried to protest.
01:18We made a formal complaint and informed women's rights associations.
01:22At first, we felt that the case was progressing, but everything was stopped.
01:27We don't know what happened.
01:28We were informed not to talk about it anymore.
01:33Other crimes go back decades.
01:35On June 23, 2004, Human Rights Watch reported on the murder of Habib Dodo, a leader of a
01:42rival student organization by members of FESSI.
01:47Habib was abducted and hanged on campus.
01:50No one was prosecuted.
01:52That same day, another student leader was abducted.
01:56This time, the incident happened in the full glare of the police.
02:00This student, Richard Kwadwo, barely survived.
02:06During the war and during the reign of Laurent Gbagbo, FESSI was a movement that supported,
02:11that allowed Laurent Gbagbo's regime to hold on to defend itself against attacks.
02:16FESSI Organized Marches was one of the organizations that held support marches that criss-crossed
02:22the country.
02:23For Laurent Gbagbo, it gave him real political power.
02:30After his ouster, subsequent governments used the organization to go after the opponents,
02:36giving the group a license to unleash violence.
02:41Today, the government must find a way or credible interlocutors within the university, in particular
02:47new student associations, student delegates that already exist.
02:54The experts and students I talked with for this story agree that the government must
02:59stop instrumentalizing FESSI for their own goals, allow other student unions to flourish
03:06and bring current and past offenders to justice, because it is a recipe for anarchy when crimes
03:13go unpunished.
03:15And that's the flip side.