The Invisible Commandos, one of the rebel factions fighting against Laurent Gbagbo in the 2011 Battle for Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire, controlled the remote suburb PK18 from which they launched guerilla attacks on government forces. Basing themselves in luxury evacuated police residences, the Invisible Commandos (IC) targeted perceived Gbagbo sympathisers and ambushed armoured vehicles which ventured past the government checkpoints on the main roads into the un-tarmaced enclave. The 'Autonomous Republic of PK18' was announced following the battle of 'Black Saturday' – a massive government offensive against the IC which backfired badly.
While PK18 was, like much of northern Abidjan, broadly opposed to Gbagbo, civilians in the area are diverse ethnically, religiously and politically and the threat they faced depended on their identity. Many civilians fled, some due to death threats from the IC but most due the heavy shelling targeted at PK18 by government forces in the week of Black Saturday.
This paper analyses responses to open and closed questions in a November 2012 survey of 715 households across PK18, as well as in-depth interviews with ex-IC fighters and civilians. I seek to understand spatio-temporal variation in civilian-military relationships: from the centre to the periphery of the enclave; and from early days of emerging control in December 2011 to full control during March 2011. I analyse variation in perceived and actual threats, incidence of targeted and indiscriminate violence, looting and property destruction within the context of broader relationships between militia and civilians in PK18, including civilian views of the protective role of the IC and other forces, civilian-militia ties and IC provision of goods and services.
