Ivory Coast suspends powerful student union over murder probe

Authorities in Ivory Coast have arrested members of a powerful student federation that is accused of sowing terror on campuses, in a murder investigation after two people including its leader’s main rival were found dead.

Police and prosecutors swooped on six members of the Ivory Coast Student and School Federation (Fesci), one of the country’s student unions, and halted all its activities.

Many in Ivory Coast are hoping this could mean the end of the impunity enjoyed by Fesci, which is accused of reigning unchallenged over campuses in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s biggest city, for years.

The authorities acted following the death in late September of student Zigui Mars Aubin Deagoue, a rival of Fesci’s leader, Sie Kambou.

Deagoue was found dead overnight on September 29 to 30.

A government statement said he had been abducted by individuals identified as members of Fesci.

After a police investigation was opened, officers arrested and detained six members of the union, Kambou included.

The prosecutors said they were being held on charges including murder and criminal conspiracy.

They have also been detained for conspiracy to murder in connection with the death at the end of August of Khalifa Diomande, another student and Fesci member.

– Torture claims –

The federation “reigned as absolute master” on Abidjan campuses for years, said Wonbegue Silue, general secretary of Ivory Coast’s General Association of Pupils and Students.

During meetings, he said, “its members would come and grab the microphone off you or make you suffer”.

In the toilets “they would insist you pay 100 CFA francs (15 US cents) to urinate”, he added.

At Cocody University in Abidjan, a security officer said he had on several occasions intervened to end torture sessions in the basement by Fesci members.

One afternoon a few years ago “the screams were atrocious”, he said, recalling “unbearable images” of people held, stripped naked, with “burn marks, wounds on their buttocks” and being “slashed”.

Often such incidents occur with impunity, he added, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

When he calls the police, “people don’t talk because they are afraid”, he said.

A student, also speaking anonymously, told of repeated rapes and said Fesci members could choose a woman by force to make their girlfriend. AFP has not been able to verify the claims.

Contacted by AFP, several of Fesci’s high-ranking members declined to respond to the allegations of violence.

Set up in the 1990s, Fesci was originally a protest movement against the single ruling party at the time, the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast-Democratic African Rally.

Its early leaders included a future prime minister, Guillaume Soro, and Charles Ble Goude. The latter went on to become the right-hand man of Laurent Gbagbo, who was president from 2000 until an electoral crisis in 2010.

Both former Fesci leaders were implicated at the highest level in the post-election violence in 2010-2011, in which more than 3,000 people were killed.

– ‘Extremely powerful’ –

Over time, the movement became “the state’s preferred interlocutor with students”, political scientist Geoffroy Kouao said.

“You can’t conduct educational policy in Ivory Coast without Fesci,” he added, describing it as “extremely powerful”.

Fesci has even influenced the vote in certain elections, in a country where three quarters of the population is under 35 years of age.

Fesci says its members account for a third of Ivory Coast’s 300,000 students.

It also organises — illegally — the allocation of university rooms, fixing the prices itself, sources said.

The body officially in charge of assigning student lodgings, the Regional Centre for Student Social Services (Crou), has not done so for several years, according to numerous students interviewed by AFP.

They described it as “ineffective”, “corrupt” and overwhelmed.

In early October authorities launched a vast operation to expel illegal residents, promising a fresh allocation of rooms.

But criminology student Franck — whose name AFP has changed due to safety concerns — is among those who had to turn to Fesci to find accommodation because they said they had no response from Crou.

“They asked me to pay rent of 10,000 CFA francs (about $17) a month and a deposit of 200,000 CFA francs (more than $330),” he said — five times more than Crou would charge.

Contacted by AFP, the head of the Crou centre declined to comment.

Political scientist Kouao said Fesci was built on the failures of the university system.

“If, tomorrow, the majority of students are housed, with grants, if there are no longer overcrowded lecture halls and if we have enough teachers, it’s clear that Fesci will no longer have grounds to make demands and it will die a quiet death,” he added.