Town rocked by massacre uses marriages to make peace

In a town in Ivory Coast torn apart by election violence and mass killings more than a decade ago, peace activists say they have hit on a way to help avoid a repeat of the bloodshed in town – “reconciliation marriages” between rival groups.

Dozens of men and women from different communities in town have tied the knot in recent years. Many had joined youth groups and other activities organised by local nonprofit Limpia, which offered support and counselling to any couples that got together.

As the West African nation prepares for another election on Saturday, Limpia is pressing on with its work and planning for another run of 10 weddings in Duekoue in a mass civil ceremony early next year.

“These marriages will create many grandsons and great-grandsons … who will be forced to share everything in terms of heritage and language,” Limpia director Alexis Kango said as he scrolled through photos on his phone of couples he has worked with.

‘MIXED MARRIAGES BRING PEACE’

Two who have already taken the leap, with Limpia’s support, are Matinez Pode, from the Guere group, and Elisabelle Kouadio Ahou, a Baoule. They told their parents they were getting married in 2012, a year after the massacre in Duekoue.

The killings took place at the height of fighting set off by former President Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to concede defeat to his successor, Alassane Ouattara.

Human Rights Watch said in a report that year that pro-Ouattara forces killed several hundred people, targeting members of the Guere group who are broadly seen as pro-Gbagbo. Ouattara’s government has denied supporting the forces that carried out the massacre.

At the time, both Kouadio and Pode’s parents tried to talk them out of the union. Kouadio’s relatives even repeated false rumours that Gueres practice cannibalism.

The couple went ahead with their plans and got married, decked out in traditional beige boubou robes and gold jewellery.

The families came together for the ceremony. “Over time, the parents understood that we were determined to live together,” Pode said.

It is a pattern Limpia director Kango is hoping to repeat. “Before and after the elections, we will do everything necessary to stop violence in the city, so that these couples who live together can continue to live in peace,” he told Reuters.

The build-up to this year’s elections has been calm so far, though International Crisis Group noted in a report in August that Ivory Coast has not seen a completely peaceful vote since 1995.

Duekoue is 400 km (250 miles) west of the commercial capital Abidjan, in the main cocoa-producing area which for decades has seen explosive disputes over land between groups like the Gueres and those with roots in neighbouring countries and other parts of Ivory Coast.

Those disputes reached a deadly peak during the 2010-11 post-election violence in the world’s biggest cocoa producer.

Gbagbo, of the Bete ethnic group indigenous to southwestern Ivory Coast, had long dismissed Ouattara, an ethnic Dioula, as a candidate for foreigners.

Ouattara, a former international banker who is running on Saturday for a fourth term, has focused on turning Ivory Coast into one of the fastest growing economies in the region.

Human rights groups have faulted what they describe as a mixed record on justice, criticising amnesties in 2018 that covered many alleged crimes committed during the war.

Ouattara described the amnesties as “a measure of clemency from the entire nation towards its daughters and sons” in the interest of avoiding future violence.

Souleymane Taha, an ethnic Guere in Duekoue, said what happens on the ground is more important than what happens in courts.

He married his Dioula wife, Matoma Doumbia, in 2019, and has lived peacefully in a Dioula part of town even during periods of tension. The couple also received support and advice from Limpia.

“Mixed marriages bring peace to communities,” he said.