Chapter 7 captured and detained Gbagbo on 11 April 2011. By this time more than 1,000 civilians had been killed, and over one million forcibly displaced(Cook, 2011, p. 20). Among the reasons for the standoff were the deep historical undercurrents of geo-political, ethnic and religious sectarianism that divide Côte d'Ivoire. Other reasons can be located in the negative role of the Ivorian media in activating or aggravating these divisions. Historically, the Ivorian media have been no more than political propaganda mouthpieces and have, therefore, been employed in the perpetration of strident, sectarian rhetoric and, generally, in fomenting a climate of mutual suspicion and hostility. Hate messages and the sheer disregard for basic professional ethics and norms have characterized their content and ideological bent. The Linas-Marcoussis Accord(of 2003, which had brought peace after a year of civil war) actually indicted sections of the media for'incitement to hate and 87 xenophobia'. The incipient malaise that festered within the Ivorian media led to the press and journalists being openly labelled as either close to one faction or the other. In the heady days of the disputed run­off, the protagonists each deployed a media mix of broadcast and newspaper articles and blogs, websites and foreign lobbyists for the propagation of hate and mutual recrimination. There were also reports and visual media evidence of atrocities allegedly perpetrated by one side against the other and vice versa. The two cases cited above illustrate that with respect to the fledgling democracies of Africa, the presumptive. 87 MFWA,'The Ivorian media: Victim and Unwitting Pawn', Zongo-Giwa, 2(3), 3. 224