French soldiers shooting Côte d'Ivoire civilians?

From Solomonia, via Ghost of a Flea, comes news of a graphic video of French soldiers allegedly firing on civilians in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast). The files take forever to download; they are huge. The source is Côte d'Ivoire's embassy in DC, which has videos from their state-"affiliated" media.   I'm reticent to post much on this until I've had a chance to view all of the available videos, but I at least want to put it out there (and make clear who the source is). The embassy's homepage is reporting that four civilians were "gunned down" by French troops "in front of the Hotel Ivoire resort in the suburb of Cocody...".

Unfortunately, Côte d'Ivoire's PR staff are not the most sophisticated lot, as they are putting up these massive 10 minute, 90+mb .mpeg files on a low-bandwidth website. Also, they have put up some insanely huge .jpeg files to go along with it.

Anyway, the root directory for the photos and videos is here. The video on the other blogs is this second file. Whatever shooting happens takes place in the first minute or so. There are no closeups of any peacekeepers. In fact, a glimpse at about 1:39 -- they look like African soldiers. Afterwards, most views are of injured people receiving first aid. There are indications of some half-assed editing effort. The camera man appears to have a sawed-off shotgun at some point (correction: after a closer look, it actually seems like some sort of bag that keeps flopping around). While graphic, it is not particularly informative. Few of the injured look like they have been shot; some seem to look like cuts or other superficial wounds, and heat exhaustion. At 8:05 it begins to get interesting, as French soldiers on top of an APC start aiming at the crowd. At about 8:32 there is a shot of a man with his head blown off. Keep in mind no one should have any faith in how this video is sequenced or sited. Shots of French soldiers languidly deploying from an APC, editing with shots of a man with a blown-off head don't indicate the two events are related.

Judging by the editing efforts, I think this video is very suspect. Shots of a French convoy leaving, interspersed with some bloody tile, cut to French soldiers (supposedly leaving) getting off their APC, then headless body, then more convoy leaving -- indicates that some really amateurish editing is going on. It makes it impossible to tell what is really happening, most importantly where it's happening, and the big issue of who. My guess is that there are at least two cameras filming all of this, and they are not necessarily filming the same event at the same time.

Judging by this shorter video (about 50 seconds), it looks like some soldiers from another African country were present at the scene as well.

The other big video file--again about 10 minutes--is a bit more interesting. The first few minutes is of the large civilian crowd gathered before the hotel; mainly having a good time. At 3:12, it hard-cuts to a view of the hotel, with shots being fired from the French troops. There are dozens of rounds. It starts from one rifle, then sounds like at least two or three others join in. Nothing heavy caliber, from the sound of it. It looks like the catalyst may have been a couple of locals who approached the French line (you can see two men--one in an orange shirt--backing away slowly). At around 3:45 there's a view of a soldier (and I think it is the one who started firing) aiming directly at the crowd. By 4:12, people are back up, either running away or taunting the soldiers again. (Considering the crowd was about 40 yards from the French line, if even half of those rounds had been aimed at people, we're talking at least a couple of dozen dead). The guy in the orange shirt apparently survived -- I think he is the gendarme the embassy release said was killed, and the one who originally pissed off the soldiers. There are what look like a few minor wounded, but no visible evidence of bullet wounds. At 6:28 starts a man who clearly appears to have taken a bullet to the leg.

The rest of the video is mostly demonstration antics and some guy getting stitches in his arm. All in all, the videos (titled frenchsoldiershootingcivilians) are not overwhelming. I think they have been edited for propaganda purposes as well, which people should be aware of before e-mailing them to everyone they know. Since it is being used propagandistically, one has to think, "Is this the best they could do?" I also think there were at least three different camera men as well.

They are fairly unreliable videos. What I think can be concluded, though, is that at least a few people were hit by bullets fired by French soldiers near a peacefully demonstrating crowd of Ivorian civilians. Some of the wounds look fairly minor; perhaps ricochets. Apparently, one soldier reacted angrily to something, and at least two other soldiers started firing when he did. I also think it is possible that one soldier may have fired directly into the crowd at one point. Captain Ed raises the right issues:

The video is highly subjective. Just like with any home movie, it starts and stops at different times with no particular purpose, and no time sequences are shown. When the firing starts, you can't see who's shooting, where it's aimed, or why. In fact, you never see soldiers shooting, at least in part II -- you just hear the shots and see the aftermath. Just as with the video in Iraq, the entire presentation lacks context. Who starts the shooting? Did anyone in the crowd have weapons and fire back, or fire first? So far, I can't tell.

Essentially: These videos are compelling, but be very careful in watching and interpreting them.

Background

The current crisis between France and former colony Ivory Coast started after the government--believing that the French had sided with rebels seeking to overthrow them--stupidly bombed a French camp, killing nine soldiers. France reciprocated, destroying the country's tiny air force. Incited mobs then took to the streets in a spate of racial violence. More here (HT Urban Empire). The French were the dominant part of a UN peacekeeping force in the country (in effect, they are the UN as far as Ivorians are concerned), as well as being strategically invested in the country's economy. The UN unironically heightened its own ineffectiveness by ex post facto validating France's retaliation with Resolution 1528, although I'm sure the US Ambassador's vote was very toungue in cheek.

For some historical background, this article may be useful.

Notice that, geographically, the country is strategically situated to influence the stability of a number of other countries -- especially if its government collapses to the extent that rebels from other nations begin to use it as a staging ground. Already, Ivorian refugees are beginning to cross into Liberia (hardly a country that can politically or economically deal with a massive influx of refugees).

Update: Just to try and pin a date on this, I think it happened November 9. Anyone?

Comments

[James]

Glad to see you back on the scene!

[Dale]

You should try BlogExplosion, it's a great tool for attracting traffic.
Blogexplosion

[Leda Swan]

Regarding blogexplosion, I joined lately and it has added about 30 dayly hits to my blog (this represents about 20% of my old dayly traffic). It is only a good idea if you're willing to spend some of your blogging time surfing for other blogs on the blogexplosion directory. Even if the traffic has increased notably, I have received just one new message (even if I've left thousands). I have contacted the creators of blogexplosion so they incentivate (good) messages and therefore increase the quality of the traffic they generate.

I have found quite a few blogs, lots of good designs and layouts, and there are a couple of current affairs/political blogs that you might find interesting. If you'd like to join, you could help my out by joining through my webpage. However, I would not recommend it if you're still planning on cutting down your blogging activity.

[Mike]

The "analysis" from people on this site are completely wrong. It seems like they just watch the video and gave their "must be tainted" comments on it. First you must know the version of French and Ivorian to make a idea about the video. READ!

The French themselves (Michèle Alliot-Marie, French minister, see link) admitted that the army had to kill a "certain numbers" of Ivory Coast civilians.

This French minister describes the crown facing the army as "A crowd armed with kalachnikovs and pistols". As you can see from this panoramic view of the crownd, its just a complete "media manipulation" lie.

http://www.grioo.com/info3558.html
http://www.grioo.com/info3561.html

There's other links all over the web about the events.