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

Ivory Coast's government has announced 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 on Thursday (Oct. 17) came after a government raid on student housing controlled by a student union, known by its French acronym FESCI, that the government says was connected to the deaths.

The National Security Council said that 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 FESCI's leadership, including the general secretary, Sié Kambou, who was arrested in connection with the killings, 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,” the court filing said.

In a statement on Friday (Oct. 18), FESCI called the decision “a flagrant violation of the right to association, assembly and peaceful demonstration conferred by the Constitution” and denied any involvement in the deaths.

The ban was the culmination of a government response to the death last month of FESCI member Agui Deagoué. 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 then President 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.

Former famous FESCI leaders include Charles Blé Goudé and Guillaume Soro.

Charles Blé Goudé, faced trial for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, but was acquitted in 2019.

Soro, a former president of National Assembly was fighter during the 2010's war.

“FESCI was an avant-garde association serving students and pupils in Cote d’Ivoire," Julien-Geoffroy Kouao, an Abidjan-based political scientist, told The Associated Press, 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 shouldn't 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 said.

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.