May 29, 2009

Modeste Seri, the courageous Ivory Coast peace campaigner held in prison without charges for 16 months since January 2008 by the Ivorian authorities for purely political reasons, was finally released in early May. His release procedure was as arbitrary as his detention. Modeste Seri is a Board member of the Center for War/Peace Studies, and a strong critic of the current conditions in his country.

Mr. Seri’s case is a good example of the multiple violations of human rights and basic freedoms of which the present Ivorian regime is guilty. It also illustrates the ongoing degradation and arbitrariness of the country’s judiciary system. 

Modeste Seri has been an irritant of the regime, criticizing it for corruption, mismanagement and duplicity. He has openly expressed his doubts, shared by many Ivorians, about the genuineness of the commitment of those in power to the current peace accords.  Faced with the fact that little has been done to address the fundamental grievances that produced the 2002 Ivory Coast rebellion, he has expressed his skepticism that the often-postponed elections (once again rescheduled, now for November 2009) will bring genuine peace. In his view, shared by many, quite the opposite could well be the outcome of a sham exercise.  His doubts about previously scheduled election dates have repeatedly been confirmed.

Considering the failure of the country’s current political class, Mr. Seri sees the road to sustainable peace in Ivory Coast as passing through a period of transitional governance by a team of competent technocrats of good morality. He has frequently expressed this in his past statements (see www.cwps.org ). Once the current process of degradation of state institutions, of the economy, and of civic and moral values has been reversed,  meaningful elections, able to usher in a period of genuine peace, will be possible.  Not before.

Background : Mr. Seri was detained on 17 January 2008, being wrongly implicated in an alleged 27 December 2007 coup attempt. He had voluntarily gone to the security police (DST) to explain that he was not involved in this affair, and why he was seen in a video at a December meeting with the alleged coup mastermind, shown on internet. Mr. Seri wished to clarify to DST that his meeting was in the context of his work for peace for his country which has led him to seek contact with all major actors in the current conflict. After 12 days incommunicado at DST (during which time his home was thoroughly searched without anything being found) he was transferred to MACA prison in Abidjan where he was kept in preventive detention for 16 months until his sudden release on 7 May 2009. MACA is notorious for its poor conditions: overcrowded, dilapidated, and unhealthy.