Ivory Coast dissolves a powerful student union after deaths and a police raid

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The government of Ivory Coast announced on Thursday a ban on all student unions following the deaths of two students and the arrest of 17 suspects in a confrontation between police and a student association with connections to some of the most powerful people in the country.

The ban comes on the heels of a government raid on student housing controlled by the Fédération Estudiantine et Scolaire de Côte d’Ivoire (FESCI), a student union that the government claimed was connected to the deaths.

In its announcement of the arrests, the National Security Council said officers discovered large caches of weapons as well as several “illegal businesses” within the student housing complex on the main campus of the University of Abidjan. The arrests targeted the leadership of FESCI, including the current general secretary, Sié Kambou, who was arrested in connection with the murders, according to a filing by chief prosecutor Koné Oumar.

“No crime can be committed in the FESCI environment without the named Sié Kambou being informed of it,” said the court filing.

The ban was the culmination of a government response to the death last month of Agui Deagoué, a member of FESCI. According to the statement from the public prosecutor’s office, Deagoué was Kambou’s main rival within the union and was kidnapped off the street on his way to a meeting with him.

FESCI was created in 1990 as a student association, but the group soon found itself at odds with the president of Ivory Coast, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, who had its leaders arrested for what he deemed illegal meetings and demonstrations.

After Houphouët-Boigny’s rival, Laurent Gbagbo, came to power in 2000, FESCI enjoyed a privileged status, and authorities looked the other way as members attacked opposition supporters on and off campus.

In 2011, Gbagbo lost a presidential election but refused to concede defeat, triggering an outbreak of violence in which FESCI and its former leaders allegedly attacked the outgoing government’s opponents. One of FESCI’s former leaders, Charles Blé Goudé, faced trial for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, but was acquitted in 2019.

“FESCI was an avant-garde association serving students and pupils in Côte d’Ivoire,” Julien-Geoffroy Kouao, an Abidjan-based political scientist, told the AP, using the French name for the country. “Unfortunately, today it has deviated to become an association whose instruments of action are violence.”

FESCI took control of much of the student housing across the country from the mid-2010s, and according to students, has been charging exorbitantly high rates for rooms that were often crowded or poorly maintained.

But the union, whose 100,000 members make up a third of the Ivory Coast’s student body, has been defended by some. FESCI as an organization should not be blamed for the actions of some of its members, Désiré N’Guessan Kouamé, a local politician, told the AP.

“Today, some people call it a criminal (organization). Fine, but we must recognize that in any organization or society, there are black sheep,” Kouamé added.

Following the decision by the National Security Council, government workers began to demolish the group’s headquarters, but given FESCI’s role in administering student housing, some students expressed doubt it would be enough to force the organization to close or even to dent its power significantly.

Wilson Mcmakin, The Associated Press