Rebecca Blackwell / AP

A fighter opposed to Laurent Gbagbo displays the amulets he wears to protect himself from enemy fire, in the Abobo district of Abidjan on March 12. The "Invisible Commandos," allied to internationally recognized president Alassane Ouattara have been steadily gaining ground in Abidjan's northern suburbs.

Dangerous paramilitary forces are thwarted by amulet-wearing self-proclaimed “Invisible Commandos,” innocent women are gunned down in broad daylight by forces loyal to a despot who won’t give up power. Quick, which conflict is it?

While the world has been focused on airstrikes and dramatic developments on the ground in Libya, a string of Middle East uprisings and twin natural disasters and the fear of a nuclear meltdown in Japan, another serious crisis has been quietly brewing: a potential civil war in the Ivory Coast.  

The West African country, a former model of stability in the region and the world’s largest cocoa producer, has been in limbo since a November election intended to reunite the country ended in a stalemate. Incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo has refused to cede power to the internationally recognized winner of the election, Alassane Ouattara. 

The dispute between the two leaders has led to armed conflict, with attacks on civilians, including reports of forced disappearances, rapes and torture; the U.N. estimates at least 462 civilians have been killed. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that at least 500,000 have been internally displaced by violence. And an estimated 90,000 refugees have fled across the border to Liberia, threatening to destabilize a country still recovering from its own civil war. 
 
“Côte d’Ivoire (French for Ivory Coast) is no longer on the brink of civil war; it has already begun,” the Brussels-based International Crisis Group wrote in an open letter to the Economic Community of West African States on Tuesday.   

The letter urged West African leaders and the international community to take “enhanced efforts to stop the country’s slide into full-scale civil war, which would likely involve ethnic cleansing and other mass atrocity crimes ... The future Gbagbo proposes for his country is war, anarchy and violence, with ethnic, religious and xenophobic dimensions.”  

Uneasy peace
Ivory Coast has been divided by civil war since 2002, but has had an uneasy peace since a 2003 cease-fire. The country was cut along north-south lines with Northerners being predominantly Muslim, many with roots in neighboring countries like Mali and Burkina Faso whose ancestors had come to the country in better times to work in cocoa and coffee plantations. The Southerners, mostly Christians, came to resent the so-called “foreigners” when the economy took a turn for the worse in the 1990s. A campaign of xenophobia based around the notion of “Ivoirité,” determining who was considered truly Ivorian based on their ethnic heritage, took hold and was at the root of the civil war.

SIA KAMBOU / AFP - Getty Images

Charles Ble Goude, center, Ivory Coast's Minister of Youth and leader of the "Young Patriots" speaks as commander in chief of the army Phillipe Mangou, right, looks on in front of thousands of young supporters of Ivorian strongman Laurent Gbagbo on March 21 in Abidjan.

Those ethnic issues were never really resolved. Ouattara, a former prime minister, World Bank official, leader of the opposition and the internationally recognized president-elect represents the aspirations of many Muslim Northerners. As a result, not only his supporters, but anyone suspected of supporting him based on their last name or ethnic heritage, is being targeted in the current wave of violence.

The U.N. currently has 9,600 peacekeeping troops in Ivory Coast – they have been there since 2004 to maintain the cease-fire agreement. One of the peacekeepers' main roles since the disputed November election has been to guard Ouattara, who is holed up at an Abidjan hotel.  

Spike in violence
But in recent weeks there has been a dramatic uptick in violence. Perhaps the most public and horrific attack came on March 3. Thousands of women gathered to march in protest against Gbagbo’s refusal to give up power when tanks showed up and soldiers opened fire – killing six. The attack created international outrage and condemnation by the U.S. and U.N.; Outtara called it a “new level of horror and barbarism.”

On March 17 a mortar attack on a market in a pro-Ouattara Abidjan neighborhood killed 30 civilians and injured 40 to 60 others, according to the UN.

But much of the violence and intimidation has not been so public and has been committed by shadowy pro-Gbagbo militia groups, as well as in retaliatory attacks by Ouattara backers.

Human Rights Watch recently issued a lengthy report documenting murders, disappearances, rapes, and torture committed by Gbagbo’s security forces and militias under his control against “real and perceived supporters of Allasane Ouattara.” The report cites tales from residents of Abidjan “of daily attacks by pro-Gbagbo security forces and armed militias, who beat foreign residents to death with bricks, clubs, and sticks, or doused them with gas and burned them alive.”

Gbagbo has used his power as the president to incite violence via state radio, TV and his “youth minister” Charles Blé Goudé called on “real” Ivorians on Feb.25 to barricade their neighborhoods and chase out foreigners. According to Human Rights Watch, more attacks on civilians ensued after Goudé made his plea.

In retaliation for the attacks, “Invisible Commandos,” forces allegedly loyal to Ouattara, have begun engaging in street-fighting in Abidjan to assert control over some terrorized neighborhoods, like Abobo.

SIA KAMBOU / AFP - Getty Images

Huge crowds of people wait to board buses at the Adjame bus station in Abidjan on March 22 to flee deadly violence as the country's post-election crisis deepens.

The commandos wear magic amulets they believe protect them from danger. Ouattara’s camp denies any connection to the commandos and says they are just regular citizens who are fed up with the brutality of Gbagbo’s forces.  

Humanitarian disaster
Meantime all the fighting in Abidjan has forced up to 300,000 people to flee the city, according to UNHCR.  International economic sanctions are having a tremendous effect on civilians – leaving banks closed, people unemployed, spikes in food costs and shortages of basic medicines. 

“What we thought at the beginning was going to be a short political stalemate is now developing into a large scale humanitarian crisis in Cote d’Ivoire with far-reaching consequences on basic services like healthcare and education,” Louis Vigneault-Dubois, the head of communication for UNICEF, said by phone from Abidjan recently. “The situation is already very bad, if it’s to get any worse, the consequences are going to be outrageously disastrous for the people.”

The crisis is also spilling into neighboring Liberia. "It's a serious threat to the stability of Liberia, and I might say to the stability of all neighboring countries,” Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf told Reuters earlier this week.

U.S. stance?
So what is the U.S. stance on the conflict? Ivory Coast is a former French colony, so it’s not exactly in the United States sphere of interest. But if the U.S. is engaged in Libya because of an abusive leader who is killing his own people, what about Ivory Coast?

“We are definitely engaged. The United States has recognized Ouattara as the president. Formally we have accepted his ambassador’s credential here,” said a spokesman for the State Department, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “(Gbagbo)  seems intent on holding on to power, destroying his country and killing his people in order to hold onto power.

“We try to put the pressure on where we can – working through the partners in Africa and around the world.”

The spokesman said the U.S. believes that economic sanctions against Gbagbo will eventually take their toll on his ability to maintain power – particularly when he can no longer pay his soldiers and supporters.

In the meantime, the spokesman said, Deputy Assistant for the State Department on African Affairs Bill Fitzgerald is attending a summit of West African states in Abuja, Nigeria, focused on the deteriorating situation in the Ivory Coast and that a “strong statement” was expected at the conclusion of the meeting.

I write “Gaddafi,” you write “Khaddafy,” let’s call the whole regime off! 

Libya’s leader has been on the world stage for more than 40 years, since he seized power in 1969 – yet major news organizations cannot agree on how to spell his name.

What gives? Why the disconnect? Apparently the difficulty of translating Arabic into English (as well as other languages) has stymied any uniform spelling.

Patrick Kovarik / AFP - Getty Images

Click on the photo above to see a slideshow of the life and times of Libya's mercurial and flamboyant leader Moammar Gadhafi.

However, the Business Insider thought that was a lame excuse, so they provided a good explanation of the subtleties of the Arabic translation in a column headlined: “EXPLAINED! Why No One Knows How The Hell To Spell Qaddafi/ Gadhafi/Gaddafi/ Qadhafi.”

Meantime here is a short list of some of the various spellings by major news organizations.

AP style (which msnbc.com follows): Moammar Gadhafi

Reuters/BBC/ Al Jazeera English: Muammar Gaddafi

New York Times:  Muammar el-Qaddafi

Washington Post: Moammar Gaddafi

New York Post: Col. Moamar Khadafy

CBS News: Muammar Qaddafi

AFP: Moamer Kadhafi

And there are apparently dozens of other spellings. So many that when ABC News tackled the question two years ago they discovered 112 different spellings.

What do you think? Which spelling would you go with?

What are mercenaries doing in Libya and what is their connection to Moammar Gadhafi?

Given the near media blackout in cities like Tripoli, reports are hard to confirm, but eyewitnesses say they have seen black, French-speaking mercenaries reportedly from countries as diverse as Chad, Niger, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Suhaib Salem / Reuters

Suspected African mercenaries held by anti-government protesters stand in a room at a courthouse in Benghazi on Friday.

Ali Al-Essawi, the former Libyan ambassador to India who resigned in protest over the reported violence, told Al Jazeera English about reports he heard about the use of mercenaries. “They are black Africans and they don't speak Arabic. They are foreigners, doing terrible things. They are going to houses where there are children and women and killing them.”  Al-Essawi spoke to Al Jazeera in New Delhi and said he could not possibly return to Libya at the moment, out of fears for his safety. 

Jose Luis Gomez del Prado, chairman of the U.N. Working Group on the use of mercenaries, said he has received reports from both journalists and non-governmental organizations in Libya that “mercenaries – foreign private forces – have been recruited by Col. Gadhafi to repress the peaceful demonstrations of the people in Libya.” 

But how does one go about employing a small army of mercenaries? 

Given Gadhafi’s 40-year rule of Libya and his history of pan-Africanism, he has longstanding relationships with the continent’s leaders, rebels, and would likely have ready access to a deep pool of would-be mercenaries.

Pan-Africanism
Listening to his recent ramblings on state radio about how al-Qaida was spiking teenagers’ Nescafe, it’s hard to remember that at one time Gadhafi won acclaim in the region for his efforts toward closer co-operation between the Arab world and sub-Saharan Africa. For several years, he proposed a “United States of Africa” (which would have conveniently shared the U.S.A. abbreviation with the United States).

His idea was for a continent-wide government with a single currency, a single passport for Africans that would allow them to move around more freely, and even a single military, an African Legion, based on the idea of the French Foreign Legion. The idea never took off, but given his nation’s oil wealth, he remained highly influential.

“You have to understand something: Gadhafi is the only Arabic leader who had an African policy. So he spent over 30 years getting involved in African affairs, being in touch with all the African governments and all the Africa rebels,” said Thierry Vircoulon, Central African project director for the International Crisis Group based in Nairobi.   

Vircoulon explained Gadhafi long history of supporting of foreign militaries. “The Libyan regime used to be a training area for a lot of rebel groups in the Sahel region,” referring to the geographic region in North Africa.

“He has got a huge network of contacts across the continent…so that’s the reason why you have all these people who were actually very used to flying to Libya to get a bit of money and [go] back to their country. Even Nelson Mandela flew to Libya to get money in 1994.”

Vircoulon said that the idea of mercenaries from Chad, Mali, Niger would seem, “geographically and politically normal and explainable.” But he called the idea of Congolese mercenaries in Libya “far-fetched.”

Patrick Kovarik / AFP - Getty Images

Click on the photo above to see a slideshow of the life and times of Libya's mercurial and flamboyant leader Moammar Gadhafi.

“Congolese are not known to be very efficient soldiers or fighters.  I’m not even sure there is such a thing as Congolese mercenaries on the market.”

Big market for mercenaries
Del Prado, from the U.N. committee on mercenaries, explained that the world market for “guns for hire” is robust – particularly given the privatization of warfare.

“You have plenty of ex-combatants…former military, former paramilitaries, former employees of private military and security companies that are unemployed, and ready to go anywhere,” del Prado explained. “You have a lot of people who are ready to go and fight for money.”

Del Prado noted that mercenaries are easy to come by via shady, fictitious companies on the Internet. But Vircoulon did not think that Gadhafi would have to rely on outside companies to hire the foreign fighters.

“I think it’s all the contacts that he had and that his security services had with those African rebel groups. That’s enough actually,” said Vircoulon, adding, “it shows clearly the very deep link between the Libyan government and indeed the rest of Africa.”

Del Prado noted that South Africans are a big contingent of the mercenary market. “After the apartheid regime finished, they dumped to the market many foreign military and policemen – and they are still there. They are still fighting in different private security companies in Iraq, or everywhere.”

While South Africans mercenaries had not been mentioned among the litany of foreign fighters in Libya, Vircoulon doubted they would be there given Gadhafi’s past support of the anti-apartheid movement. 

“It would be very weird that a Muslim leader like him would link up with some white Christian South African mercenaries,” said Vircoulon. “It doesn’t seem very natural. The other African people seem very natural. But some white, former South African Special Forces in Libya? Well it seems unlikely.” 

‘It’s creepy’
Of course, the fear of foreign mercenaries in any conflict situation is that they would be extremely harsh and show no mercy toward civilians. They would also be less likely to hesitate shooting on people with whom they share no cultural or tribal affiliation.

“It’s creepy,” said John Campbell, the Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies. “If you talk about using mercenaries, at least I tend to assume, that they are going to show less restraint firing on people than say the Egyptian forces did with respect to Egyptians.”  

Del Prado said that one of main problems with mercenaries is the fact that there is “no accountability,” their only goal is profit. He speculated that Gadhafi is probably down to a core group of foreign fighters defending him.

“There are some army forces who have just abandoned Gadhafi because it is very hard to kill your brothers,” said del Prado. “Whereas if you are a foreigner and you have been recruited as a private soldier, you don’t have anything to lose. Except if Gadhafi doesn’t win, you will lose your job and your money.”

Muhammed Muheisen / AP

Yemeni anti-government demonstrators demand the resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa, Yemen on Friday.

With protesters across the Middle East and North Africa calling for “Days of Rage,” it raises the question: Where does the term come from? What is the etymology of the phrase and when was it adopted by Arab protesters?

The term appears to have been first used in the United States by the Weathermen, also known as the Weather Underground, a radical leftist, anti-government organization. The anti-Vietnam war organization planned several “days of rage” as an effort to “bring the war home.”  Beginning on Oct. 8, 1969, a few hundred protesters ran through the well-heeled streets of Chicago’s Gold Coast smashing everything from cars to fancy shop windows.  After four days of protests and repeated clashes with the police, 287 people were arrested. The Weathermen organization eventually petered out after the end of the Vietnam War.

But then, the expression fell into disuse, according to a Google timeline of the terms usage. It only re-emerged in 1989 when a cultural kerfuffle erupted over the broadcasting of a PBS documentary called “Days of Rage: The Young Palestinians.” Produced by Jo Franklin, an award-winning producer for the MacNeil-Lehrer Report, the documentary was met with resistance because it told the story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the Palestinian perspective. it featured Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza denouncing their treatment by their Israeli occupiers and was made in the height of what became known as the First Intifada, or Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories, from 1987-1993.

PBS viewers, particularly those in New York, took issue with the documentary being broadcast on public TV because they said it was “pure propaganda” and did not provide balance by showing the Israeli perspective.  

The documentary became a polarizing topic of debate, with the New York Times widely denouncing the project to the Los Angeles Times championing it as a fresh look at the conflict from voices seldom heard in the American media. Channel Thirteen, the New York PBS station lists the controversy among “Thirteen’s Most Shocking Moments.”

After months of public debate, the documentary eventually aired to a huge audience, with the Israeli perspective edited in and a roundtable discussion held after the broadcast. It also aired across the Middle East – which is why Franklin believes the term became synonymous with protests in the Arab world to this day.

Franklin said that the phrase was not a translation of an Arabic term she had heard on the street, but rather just an idea that came to her as she was editing the film. In Arabic, the term is يوم الغضب , pronounced “youm al ghadab.”

“I was just watching the footage day after day. You know how it is when you are editing a 90-minute film and all of a sudden it came to me – the core of the film was rage. Consequentially I named the film, ‘Days of Rage: The Young Palestinians,’” Franklin said during a recent phone interview.

Reuters

Anti-government protesters shout slogans during a demonstration in the southern Yemeni city of Taiz on Friday.

She said that in the midst of the U.S. controversy, a friend at the Washington Post was traveling to Jordan and asked if he could show the film to the then King Hussein. She said that Hussein not only watched it, but he “put it on the satellite out of Jordan and broadcast it all over the Middle East!”

While she essentially coined the term at the time, she’s still surprised to see it being used now. “It is just absolutely fascinating to me now, years later, to see that literally became ‘the term. ’” 

First intifada? Second intifada?
In fact, the term has become so widespread since then that a number of Middle East experts couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it was first used.

Martin Fletcher, NBC News' longtime Middle East correspondent said that he couldn’t remember exactly when it came into common parlance, but believes it wasn’t until the 1990s.

Lawrence Pintak, now dean of the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University, covered the Middle East as a correspondent for over 30 years beginning in the early 1980s and is the author of "The New Arab Journalist."

Pintak, who started his career as a reporter in Beirut in the early 1980s and then moved on to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said he always assumed the term “day of rage” was an English translation of an Arab saying. 

“I certainly remember it in the Second Intifada [2000-2005], but I don’t specifically remember if it was in the First Intifada or not. But it’s like the chicken and the egg. If Jo [Franklin] says she made it up, not because of what she heard on the ground, that’s very interesting.”

Likewise, Steven Cook, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said he couldn’t remember exactly when he first heard the term. “I have vague recollection of it being used during the First Intifada… I can’t be sure, but I have a vague recollection of that.”  

However, when asked if Franklin’s documentary might have started the trend, he said, “that may actually be it.”

Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian journalist also started reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the early 1980s. “I would say it dates back to the Palestinian intifada. But I could not really answer you specifically when it actually started. Or what was the one occasion that actually got the name kind of tacked on to it,” Kuttab said.

“I think it started in one place and they just picked it up. There is a lot of copy-catting here. As they say, ‘courage is contagious.’”    

Regardless of where the term came from, Cook, from the CFR pointed out that the term is used because it fits the occasion. “I wouldn’t attach too much importance to it being used in one era – like the first intifada or the second intifada…and then it being used in Cairo for the first Friday of protests. It’s just an obvious thing that people who are rising up against their government might use.”

And Kuttab pointed out that whatever  the “rage” implied in the term translates to, the Egyptians deserve credit for what they achieved – but mostly for keeping it non-violent.  He added, “As President Obama said, ‘their moral power was to keep it non-violent.’ You pay a price for that, but it’s so much more powerful.” 

If you have any ideas about the origin of the term, please contribute via the comment section below.