Attacks between Séléka-aligned Muslims and Christian vigilante militias in the Central Africa Republic displaced a quarter of the country’s 4.6 million people and plunged the nation into bloody anarchy. Credit: EU/ECHO/Patrick Lambrechts/ CC by 2.0

By Matthew Newsome
ADDIS ABABA, Feb 28 2014 (IPS)

While wrangling over Central African Republic’s (CAR) wealth in natural resources played a role in the country’s crisis, its future peace and stability still partly depends on a solution that factors in how to equitably distribute its national wealth.

“The conflict is multifaceted and does reflect tensions between groups over the control for land and natural resources. Neither side is fighting in the name of god, though paradoxically there is a religious tone that has complicated the crisis,” Comfort Ero, the Africa programme director for the International Crisis Group, told IPS. "Séléka was in the end a consortium of malcontents...It is to a large extent a fight for political power/control and safe guarding communities..." -- Comfort Ero, International Crisis Group

Violence between Séléka-aligned Muslims and and the anti-balaka Christian vigilante militias has killed two thousand people and displaced a quarter of the country’s four million population since Séléka rebels staged a coup last March.

Although the violence has escalated along religious lines between Muslims and Christians, the conflict’s origins in a political feud between ethnic groups for control over CAR’s resources, including the country’s rich diamond reserves, should not be overlooked, said Ero.

“Séléka was in the end a consortium of malcontents…It is to a large extent a fight for political power/control and safe guarding communities, especially those who have historically felt marginalised,” she said.

The Séléka coalition, whose name means “alliance”, launched a rebellion in 2012 that led to its leader Michael Djotodia seizing power from President Francis Bozizé in March 2013.

Djotodia claimed afterwards that his northern tribespeople — the Gula — felt betrayed after Bozizé requested their support for staging a coup in 2003 and then excluded them from his sphere once in power.

Bozizé proceeded to exploit the country’s wealth for the enrichment of his own ethnic group and family members, which created discontent throughout the country about rampant corruption and nepotism.

Since independence from France in 1960, CAR has suffered five coups and multiple rebellions. Although CAR is rich in diamonds, timber, gold, uranium and oil, the country’s per capita income is only 510 dollars, making the troubled country one of the poorest in Africa.

“Bozizé created major grievances throughout all the country’s ethnic groups about a discrimination of wealth from resources such as diamonds only going to his family and to his tribe — the Gbaya. It was this discrimination that fuelled the Séléka rebellion,” a researcher at the Institute of Security Studies told IPS. 

During his presidential reign, 11 members of Bozize’s family held positions in parliament.

A subsequent refusal to distribute the country’s wealth created a climate of marginalisation and disenfranchisement in the north that helped create conditions for an armed rebellion explained Ero.

“His [Bozizé’s] family’s control of the security and finance sector, including state-owned companies, and their stranglehold on the management of public finance, significantly fuelled the crisis in the country,” said Ero.

Neighbouring country, Chad, also played an understated role in triggering the bloody crisis after its ambitions of tapping into CAR’s resource wealth went awry. Chad’s President Idriss Déby Itno backed Bozizé’s seizure of power with the Chad presidential guard in 2003 but soon took affront after Bozizé started cultivating relations with South Africa.

“By 2012, Chad was openly backing the Séléka and the fact that the Chadian fighters among the rebels fought against the South African military contingent was not entirely unrelated to the fact that Bozizé had given uranium and other mineral concessions to South African firms instead of to Chad, which wanted some of the very same resources Déby sought as part of his quest for regional hegemony,” Peter Pham, director of the Africa Centre at the Atlantic Council, a research institute for U.S. and European policy approaches to Africa, told IPS.

As a response to feeling snubbed, Chad released Séléka leaders into northern CAR, a move that helped to rally Séléka forces and foment a rebellion that led to the overthrow of Bozizé.

“These individuals were and continue to be motivated by a more personal grievance, that they themselves weren’t the ones controlling the resources,” Pham said.

Revenge killings between the Séléka militia and the anti-balaka militia has sidelined the issue of ramping up policing of the country’s warlord-controlled diamond mining industry and created a situation where the precious stones could be funding rebel activity.

“We need to be sure that diamonds are not leaking out of the country, allowing revenues to contribute to the ongoing conflict. The high risk that diamonds may have financed armed groups in CAR stresses once again why transparency is vitally needed in the diamond sector both nationally and internationally,” Alexandra Pardal, a campaign leader at anti-corruption watchdog, Global Witness, told IPS.

There are an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 mostly artisan miners working for middle men who sell the stones to smugglers.

“Séléka’s members and supporters include dissatisfied economic actors, the diamond collectors. One of the demands put forward by Séléka and some rebel commanders was for the ‘unconditional return of diamonds, gold, cash and other goods taken by the government in 2008,’” Ero said.

CAR has been suspended from the Kimberley Process, an international body responsible for halting the trade in conflict-tainted diamonds, due to the military clashes in the country.

A plan for reform and stronger governance of CAR’s resource industry would substantially help break the cycle of armed conflict and also help to democratise the benefits of the country’s major sources of wealth.

“Rebuilding the country’s economy, including protecting the diamond sector — the country’s main export is an immediate priority,” Ero said.

Rwandan soldiers wait in line at the Kigali airport Jan. 19. U.S. forces will transport a total number of 850 Rwandan soldiers and more than 1,000 tons of equipment into the Central African Republic to aid French and African Union operations against militants during this three week-long operation. Credit: U.S. Army Africa photo by Air Force Staff Sgt. Ryan Crane.

By Matthew Newsome
ADDIS ABABA, Feb 4 2014 (IPS)

There are growing concerns that the massive funding crisis for peacekeeping operations in the Central African Republic (CAR) will jeopardise any prospect of restoring stability to the country. 

“The resources being allocated to the crisis are so inadequate to the task. The notion that a few thousand troops – even if they were well-trained and equipped, which is true for the French and some, but certainly not all, of the African contingents – are enough to provide security for an area larger than France itself is risible at best,” Peter Pham, director of the Africa Centre at the Atlantic Council, a research institute for U.S. and European policy approaches to Africa, told IPS. “The notion that a few thousand troops ... are enough to provide security for an area larger than France itself is risible at best.” -- Peter Pham, director of the Africa Centre at the Atlantic Council

As peacekeepers in CAR recaptured the key town of Sibut from rebel fighters on Feb. 2, donor countries made a 315-million-dollar pledge to boost peacekeeping operations in the conflict-ridden country. But this response from the international community has been criticised for being tardy and insufficient to adequately equip the fledgling African Union (AU) mission and fill a security vacuum that has caused 2,000 deaths.

“That’s why the forces have largely limited their activities to Bangui, the country’s capital, and one or two other centres while the countryside has largely been left unsecured,” Pham said.

Last year, inter-religious violence gripped the Central African nation after Michael Djotodia, backed by the Islamist Seleka rebel group, seized power from elected Christian leader Francois Bozizé.

Vicious attacks and counter attacks between Seleka-aligned Muslims and Christian vigilante militias displaced a quarter of the country’s 4.6 million people and plunged the land-locked nation into bloody anarchy.

The new funds offer modest support to the cash-strapped International Support Mission to the Central African Republic (MISCA) – an AU-led operation currently around 5,500-strong supported by 1,600 French troops. But Pham says a poverty of resources for overstretched peacekeeping troops will fail to de-escalate violence spreading throughout the lawless jungle countryside. The impact of the conflict goes beyond CAR as the violence threatens to destabilise the region.

To try and close the funding gap the international community, including Japan, Norway and Luxembourg, pledged 315 million dollars – which is just short of MISCA’s operational budget of 409 million dollars for 2014. The largest single donation came from the Central African Economic Community, which pledged 100 million dollars to the MISCA force.

In addition, the United Nations World Food Programme has requested 95 million dollars from donors to stem a spiralling humanitarian crisis and provide food assistance to the population.

The European Union (EU) donated 61 million dollars, half of which will support MISCA. The other half will be dedicated to the preparation of elections at the earliest date possible to hasten a return to constitutional order. The EU also plans to send 600 troops by March to support the AU force.

“The EU is committed to financially supporting the AU to find military equipment for the troops, MISCA is still establishing its modus operandi and is in urgent need of equipment to support the troops,” Nicholas Westcott, Africa director at the European Union, told IPS.

Although France has requested that the U.N. take over the peacekeeping operation, the AU maintains that MISCA should lead the mission for at least 12 months to allow the regional force to show its military mettle. MISCA comprises soldiers from the Central African countries of Burundi, Rwanda, Chad, Gabon and Congo-Brazzaville.

The appointment of Catherine Samba-Panza, mayor of Bangui, as interim president of the transitional government, has also raised hopes that a return to political process might stem the blood-letting between Christian and Muslim groups. Her election follows the resignation of Djotodia and his prime minister on Jan. 10 due to international pressure.

“The new transitional government does not have more financial capacity than the previous one but, when it comes to the reconstitution of state security forces, it has three advantages. It has more competence within its ranks, it has more legitimacy in the eyes of the Bangui population and it has the backing of the African and French security forces and the Europeans,” Thierry Vircoulon, from the International Crisis Group, told IPS.

The newly-elected interim prime minister, Andre Nzapayeke, attended a donor event at the AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and said his country needed “a real Marshall plan” and that “in a period of international economic crisis these pledges have a special value.”

Pham says that if there is to be a lasting solution to the crisis, a non-military campaign for dialogue and reconciliation between sparring factions must be considered as being just as important in ending the orgy of violence as the need to buttress peacekeeping troops with funds and equipment.

“Uncoordinated, atavistic violence of the sort we are seeing in CAR cannot be stopped by military force alone since both the would-be killers and their victims are largely civilians. Rather, it requires massive police forces to prevent multiple small-scale atrocities over a sustained period and, then, an extended period of dialogue and peace building to restore peace in the community,” Pham said.

Over 900,000 people have so far been uprooted from their homes since the conflict in CAR escalated. Close to half a million are in the outskirts of the capital Bangui with 100,000 taking refuge at the airport. Credit: © EU/ECHO/Pierre-Yves Scotto/cc by 2.0

By Samuel Oakford
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 30 2014 (IPS)

Reports of horrific revenge killing continued to emerge from the Central African Republic Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the Security Council voted to increase the international troop presence there and levy sanctions against those it suspects of war crimes.

Over 2,000 people have been killed and one million – a quarter of the population – displaced since a coalition of northern, predominantly Muslim rebels calling themselves Seleka (“alliance” in the local Sango language) seized power in March 2013.“Today, two men were killed in the street - one had his head cut off. They were cut to bits." -- Joanne Mariner

Following the deployment of peacekeepers and the resignation of president and former Seleka leader Michel Djotodia earlier this month, the group began a hasty but violent retreat from the capital and several contested rural towns.

Violence against the Christian community was highest in early December, when marauding ex-Seleka elements killed hundreds of civilians. But since then, the 1,600 French and 5,000 African Union peacekeepers have proved unable to fill the security vacuum left in the Seleka’s wake and civilians in areas where fighters had based themselves have come under increasingly vicious attacks from Christian anti-balaka militias seeking revenge.

“The Seleka are the worst thing that could have happened to Muslims in the Central African Republic,” said Joanne Mariner, senior crisis response adviser at Amnesty International, who estimates over 100,000 Muslims have already fled.

“I’ve spoken to hundreds of Muslim civilians and almost every single one tells me that at this point they want to get out of the country,” she told IPS.

On Tuesday, interim president Catherine Samba-Panza told French radio she would request that an official U.N. peacekeeping mission take over from the joint French-African Union mission that the 15-member U.N. Security Council authorised in December, something human rights groups have called for since last year.

But the council again stopped short of sending such a “blue-helmet” mission, authorising only 500 additional European Union troops who will be expected to spell French “Sangari” soldiers guarding 100,000 displaced people camped at Bangui’s airport.

On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch emergency director Peter Bouckaert tweeted a photograph taken at the airport appearing to show a crowd mutilating the corpses of two Muslim men, just 15 yards, he said, from French troops.

Last week, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay warned “the disarmament of ex-Seleka carried out by French forces appears to have left Muslim communities vulnerable to anti-balaka retaliatory attacks.” Other officials have warned of the potential for genocide in the country and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged for a peacekeeping mission with up to 9,000 soldiers. But the Security Council demurred.

Rwandan soldiers wait in line at the Kigali airport Jan. 19. U.S. forces will transport a total number of 850 Rwandan soldiers and more than 1,000 tons of equipment into the Central African Republic to aid French and African Union operations against militants during this three week-long operation. Credit: U.S. Army Africa photo by Air Force Staff Sgt. Ryan Crane.

In recent days, anti-balaka have made regular incursions into Bangui’s two remaining Muslim enclaves, known locally as PK5 and PK12, killing dozens of residents and driving out hundreds. PK12 is a main transit point and Muslims from villages surrounding Bangui have congregated there, awaiting passage to Chad and Cameroon.

Last Friday, 22 civilians were murdered in a convoy on the highway to Cameroon, many hacked to death with machetes.

“In PK5, when people leave that area there are lynchings,” Mariner told IPS from the northwest town of Bozoum. “Today, two men were killed in the street – one had his head cut off. They were cut to bits.”

She added, “Bangui used to be an enormously mixed city. That is completely over.”

In PK13, another traditionally Muslim neighbourhood now emptied of its residents, newcomers have already written their names on abandoned houses and made plans to turn the local mosque into a youth centre.

“You come back in a year and you’ll never know that there were Muslims there,” said Mariner. “Unless there’s real action taken, that’s where the country is going.”

Information is sparse outside of Bangui but the situation is believed to be dire north and northwest the capital, where the peacekeeping presence is light and where anti-balaka have actively pushed Muslims out of their towns.

In the western town of Baoro, the only Muslims left have taken refuge in a local church guarded by peacekeepers. But elsewhere, in towns like Bossembele, Yakole and Boyali, most have fled.

Until the Chadian-backed Seleka began fighting, sporadic violence in the country had never broken so deeply along religious lines.

Disorganised violence

Because the Christian militias are only loosely coordinated at best, negotiations have been impossible in many parts of the country.

“There’s no command and control structure, so even within a single region, they may have five anti-balaka groups vying for power,” said Mariner.

But unlike in the capital, where better organised gangs have access to automatic weapons and grenades, the lightly armed and often young anti-balaka in the countryside travel on foot and are seen fleeing from peacekeepers.

“Obviously you can’t have peacekeepers on every block, but you can have peacekeepers in every town. Even a few peacekeepers make a huge difference,” said Mariner.

“They mostly have hunting rifles, shotguns, you see a lot with bow and arrows, they are no match to real soldiers. And when there are real soldiers they get out of the way. There are attacks that almost certainly could have been avoided had there been peacekeepers in place.”

Mission confusion

The EU contingent will add a third element to an already piecemeal force that has at times appeared overwhelmed.

After the initial Security Council vote in December, observers expressed concern that a streamlined mission – of the kind that had seen moderate successes in Mali against an organised foe – would fail to prevent violence that had devolved into communal, tit-for-tat killings, nor would it address long-term development needs that fostered conflict.

French Ambassador Gerard Araud spoke this week of the need for a full U.N. mission replete with up to 10,000 peacekeepers. But Tuesday’s vote accomplished neither of those goals.

Ainsley Reidy, senior legal advisor at Human Rights Watch, says the international community has a responsibility to bolster the intervention.

“We see protection of the civilian population and accountability for crimes committed by all as the two priority responsibilities of the international community,” said Reidy. “For that reason we continue to remain convinced of the need for the quick deployment of a properly resourced U.N. peacekeeping mission to respond to the scale of the violence.”

Such a mission would augment BINUCA, the small, non-military “peace-building” office already in the country. Groups have for months criticised what they see as a lack of public human rights reporting coming from observers there, a problem they place in the generally disjointed nature of the intervention. Without a unified mandate for all observers and peacekeepers, human rights groups worry accountability and reconciliation will be waylaid.

“We think ultimately there needs to be a fully fledged U.N. mission that addresses both the security needs and can contribute to holding people accountable,” Reidy told IPS.

The December resolution left the door open for the possibility of a larger U.N. peacekeeping mission and would only require an additional vote to initiate a transition. At the time, there was speculation that Security Council members, in particular the United States, were hesitant to budget for another peacekeeping mission at a time when the U.N. has more troops deployed worldwide than ever before. That state of affairs appears unaltered.

In neighbouring South Sudan, where the Security Council voted earlier in December to increase the blue-helmet mission there by 5,000, the transfer of troops has been delayed and thousands have yet to arrive.

“We do know these deployments tend to be slow and can take up to six months,” said Reidy.

“If we take what has happened to civilians between mid-December and mid-January as an indication of how quickly things can happen on the ground in CAR, then six months is too long a time. The U.N. and others can’t afford to drag their feet on this.”

Since the Seleka coalition of rebels took power last March, over 200 000 people have been uprooted from their homes due to conflict. Credit: EU/ECHO/M.Morzaria/cc by 2.0

By Bryant Harris
WASHINGTON, Jan 22 2014 (IPS)

The appointment of a new transitional president, Catherine Samba-Panza, in the Central African Republic (CAR) is generating optimism in some quarters that the country’s first female leader will manage to quell mounting ethnic strife.

President Samba-Panza was appointed on Monday, in the midst of inter-communal violence between Muslim Seleka and Christian militias.“Right now the country’s on the brink of total anarchy.” -- Philippe Bolopion

“As CAR’s first woman head of state since the country’s independence, and with her special background in human rights work and mediation, [Samba-Panza] has a unique opportunity to advance the political transition process, bring all the parties together to end the violence, and move her country toward elections not later than February 2015,” John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, said Tuesday.

Yet some analysts here have quickly pushed back on the idea that the appointment of the new president offers a renewed chance for peace.

“There’s a predatory elite that has more or less sucked the country dry,” J. Peter Pham, the director of the Africa Centre at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, told IPS. “Unfortunately they’ve just elected a member of that elite to be the interim head of state.”

While Samba-Panza is a Christian, she enjoyed close ties to the previous president, Michel Djotodia.

“She’s one of the Christian politicians who had thrown in their lot with the Seleka,” Pham says. “She has never been elected so much as a dogcatcher.”

Djotodia appointed Samba-Panza mayor of Bangui, the capital, in April, shortly after seizing the presidency. Although Samba-Panza was technically elected transitional president, the election took place within the National Transition Council, which is comprised of members appointed exclusively by Djotodia.

Pham believes that a Samba-Panza presidency raises questions about the international community’s long-term commitment to CAR.

“There’s no appetite in the international community, so there’s no long-term plan for the mission,” he says. “So I’m afraid what we’re actually facing is this so-called election spun in as positive a light as possible and used to cover an ignominious withdrawal.”

For the time being, the United States is still sending financial aid to help alleviate the crisis. On Monday, the government announced an additional 30 million dollars in relief funding for CAR, bringing the total U.S. contribution to humanitarian efforts in the country to approximately 45 million dollars.

That’s in addition to 101 million dollars designated for restoring security and 7.5 million dollars to support reconciliation efforts.

“One fifth of Bangui is now living in a vast, miserable encampment as terrified citizens seek safety from violence and looting,” Nancy Lindborg, an official with USAID, Washington’s main foreign aid arm, said Monday after a two-day trip to CAR.

“The U.S. government has urgently ramped up our assistance to help deliver lifesaving food, water, and medical help to the more than 2.6 million women, children and men in urgent need throughout the country.”

Inter-communal violence

CAR’s current crisis erupted when the Seleka seized control of Bangui, ousting former president Francois Bozize and installing Djotodia in April.

“Since the Seleka took over power in March they have unleashed a wave of killings, burning entire villages, looting and viciously attacking civilians on a pretty large scale,” Philippe Bolopion, the United Nations director for Human Rights Watch (HRW), a watchdog group, tells IPS. “They descend on a village, kill a few people, chase everyone out of their houses, loot everything they can, burn the houses and move on.”

President Djotodia attempted to dissolve the Seleka because of the extremity of their war crimes and attacks on civilians.

“In late September, Djotodia decided he would dismiss [the Seleka] because they were getting out of control, and that’s when things went downhill,” the Atlantic Council’s Pham says. “He dismissed them but they had no place to go, and he never had the loyalty of the people on whom he hoisted himself.”

The Seleka continue to operate outside of government control and target civilians, which has led to clashes with the predominantly Christian militias. While former president Bozize initially created these militias – known as anti-balaka – to combat banditry, they began responding to Seleka abuses on Christians with similar attacks on Muslims, rapidly escalating the violence.

“They have targeted Muslim civilians only because they are Muslim. Their attacks are just as brutal and as vicious as the Seleka attacks were,” says HRW’s Bolopion. “When I was in CAR in November I talked to a Muslim villager who described how anti-balaka came to his house in the morning to take his grandkids, kids, and two wives out and slit every one of their throats.”

Although the conflict in CAR appears to be purely sectarian on the surface, the appointment of a Christian to the presidency by other Djotodia appointees indicates that the conflict is more nuanced. Pham posits that the violence is ethnic, rather than religious.

“The political elite have never had religion as a divisive issue, so religion isn’t really a source of conflict,” he says. “It’s not a religious conflict but religion marks people’s ethnic groups.”

The Seleka themselves have even killed Muslims living in majority Christian areas.

Tensions between the Seleka and anti-balaka reached a boiling point in December, as clashes between the two groups and their attacks on civilians drastically increased. Even though President Djotodia resigned on 10 January in an attempt to alleviate the chaos, the violence continues to raise fears of genocide.

“The situation has not stabilised at all on the ground, and we are very worried about mass retaliations against the Muslim population now that the Seleka are on the run,” says Bolopion. “Right now the country’s on the brink of total anarchy.”

Two-track solution

As the violence continues, analysts have made proposals to help end the conflict.

“We think you need a two-track approach,” explains Bolopion. “One track is to bolster the capacity of civilian power on the ground. But we must also work on many tasks to reconstruct the country such as the longer-term solution of rebuilding the army, justice system and basic function of administration.”

France currently has 1,600 troops on the ground in CAR, while the European Union is expected to offer 500 soldiers to supplement French forces.

“They need all the help they can get because it’s very difficult,” Bolopion says.

Pham notes that the United Nations has authorised a force of up to 10,000, but states that nowhere near that number has materialised. “What we’re seeing in CAR is simply the evaporation of what few institutions there were,” he says.

Residents of Bossangoa, in Central African Republic, shelter from gunfire as Multinational Force of Central Africa (FOMAC) peacekeeping troops move to try to protect the population from anti-balaka attacks in the town. Dec. 5, 2013. Courtesy: Marcus Bleasdale/VII for Human Rights Watch

By Jacey Fortin
ADDIS ABABA , Dec 10 2013 (IPS)

The African Union is preparing to deploy thousands of troops in the Central African Republic as a deadly conflict there spirals further out of control.

On Monday, Dec. 9, African Union (AU) Deputy Chairperson Erastus Mwencha met with diplomats at its headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to work out the details of AU troops’ deployments, logistics and funding. After the meeting, he told IPS that Burundi is the only confirmed troop supplier so far, but several other countries including Rwanda and the Republic of the Congo are discussing sending forces as well.

French troops have already begun deployments in the capital city of Bangui, which was taken over by a rebel coalition called Seleka in March. Since beginning their advance across the country in December 2012, Seleka fighters have caused turmoil across the countryside, further destabilising areas already plagued by rampant poverty and food insecurity.

In Bangui the situation has been especially dire since Thursday, Dec. 5, Amy Martin, head of the Bangui branch of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told IPS. “Heavy arms were being fired, light weapons were being fired, and tensions remain very high in some neighbourhoods,” she said, adding that the problems are just as serious outside of the capital.“The population is fatigued – they have no food left for their families, and they've been looted so many times.” -- Amy Martin, head of the Bangui branch of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

“In the interior, Seleka units have taken control of territories, and whoever was the commander became the law in each town. Those people, having no support from the central government, are basically living off the population, partly through illegal taxation. So you end up with a bunch of warlords and criminal gangs.”

A U.N. resolution last week approved the deployment of up to 1,200 French and 3,500 African troops to help stabilise the country of 4.6 million. But following the recent surge in violence, which has already killed at least 400 people in Bangui since Thursday according to the Red Cross, African and European leaders agreed at a weekend summit in Paris to increase the number of French troops to 1,600, and the number of African troops to as much as 6,000.

Regarding funding, Mwencha noted that “we have been grateful that the U.S. and the European Union have already made some indication to support these operations, and so we are also trying to coordinate to see how their support can be channelled to support this mission.”

The International Support Mission to the Central African Republic, or MISCA, will be fully deployed as soon as possible. They will join the African forces that were already in CAR as part of the Mission for the consolidation of peace in Central African Republic (MICOPAX), a peacekeeping group first stationed there on the initiative of the Economic Community of Central African States.

“MISCA is going to be an African mission, so all troops [will] be under the command of the African forces, but there will of course be a transition,” Mwencha said. “There was MICOPAX and there are the French, but all those will converge with the African forces once we’re on the ground.”

Local Seleka forces exit the Multinational Force of Central Africa (FOMAC) compound after their commander, Colonel Saleh, met with Captain Wilson of the FOMAC peacekeepers at the FOMAC compound during a lull in the fighting between anti-balaka and Seleka forces. Dec. 7, 2013. Courtesy: Marcus Bleasdale/VII for Human Rights Watch

But the CAR crisis has raised some doubts of African troops’ abilities to quell violence on the continent, according to Thierry Vircoulon, the International Crisis Groups’ project director for Central Africa. “Unfortunately, the French are the only ones willing and able to do the job at this stage. The African peacekeeping force demonstrated its ineffectiveness to secure Bangui,” he said to IPS, noting that the French troop deployment was welcomed by CAR and its neighbours during the U.N. summit.

At the Paris summit, leaders discussed the prospects of setting up a permanent African force capable of intervening independently in times of crisis, rather than wading through the logistics of each individual deployment whenever crises occur.

“The African countries must now fulfil the 6,000 troops ceiling for MISCA, and everybody wonders whether they can do this, and how fast,” said Vircoulon. “The CAR crisis has reinforced the scepticism about the peace and security architecture to say the least.”

As African soldiers gear up for deployment, the humanitarian situation in CAR is worsening by the day. Hundreds of thousands of people – about 10 percent of the population – have been displaced and about 25 percent are in need of food aid, according to the U.N. Seleka rebels have been accused of committing severe human rights abuses against men, women and children over the past year.

Seleka first coalesced for political reasons – its leaders sought the ouster of former president Francois Bozize. Former Seleka commander Michel Djotodia has taken over as president of CAR and has promised to hold elections within 18 months. He formally dissolved his already-disintegrating rebel coalition in September but has failed to enforce law and order.

Many one-time Seleka members have turned to looting and banditry, spurring the rise of self-defence groups called “anti-balaka”. The worsening tensions between the mostly-Muslim rebels and the majority-Christian civilian population now threaten to turn the crisis into a religious conflict.

“The population is fatigued – they have no food left for their families, and they’ve been looted so many times,” said Martin. “And out of this evolved more organised armed groups, and that’s what we’ve seen since August: anti-balaka groups have been gaining strength and becoming more organised. But there’s no government; there’s no vision of leadership to put this country back on track. It’s anarchy.”

Now that the troops are rolling in, CAR citizens are waiting to see whether the escalating conflict can finally be subdued. AU Deputy Chair Mwencha gave no specific time frame for MISCA, saying it would be operational until CAR achieved a stable system of governance.

“First of all, there has to be peace and security to get the institutions up and running again, and to start organising elections,” he said. “But the ultimate game is to, as quickly as possible, organise an election so that they can have an a legitimate authority. Once Central Africans are in charge of the situation, there will be no need for us to continue to stay there.”

Rebel in northern Central African Republic. Credit: hdptcar/cc by 2.0

By Samuel Oakford
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 26 2013 (IPS)

France has said it will circulate a Security Council draft resolution Monday night that would create a U.N. peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic, as violence in its former colony threatens to morph into an ethnic conflict.

Earlier in the day, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who last week said conditions in the country “verged on genocide,” announced France would triple its troop presence there to 1200, bolstering 2,500 regional African troops who have been largely helpless to stem increasingly anarchic conditions.“Attacks like these on populated areas are causing massive devastation and fear among the population of the Central African Republic." -- Daniel Bekele

“There are no more state security services in Bangui or the rest of the country,” said Thierry Vircoulon, Central Africa project director at the International Crisis Group. “People are left to themselves – only churches can offer anything.”

Since fighting began nearly two years ago, 400,000 people have been internally displaced.

In March, Seleka, a loose-knit coalition of rebel groups from the country’s Muslim north, captured the capital, Bangui, and forced the president, François Bozizé, who rebels accused of failing to abide by previous peace agreements, to flee the country.

The rebel’s leader Michel Djotodia was appointed interim president, becoming the first Muslim to hold the office.

But Djotodia’s announcement in September that Seleka would be disbanded set off prolonged bouts of looting and violence committed by disgruntled rebels.

Amnesty International reports that since Bozizé’s overthrow, the number of militants identifying as Seleka has actually increased from 5,000 to 20,000.

And Human Rights Watch Monday accused a Seleka commander of explicitly killing civilians in a Nov. 10 attack in Camp Bangui.

“Attacks like these on populated areas are causing massive devastation and fear among the population of the Central African Republic,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

Last week, the United States pledged 40 million dollars to prop up the regional force that has been holed up in Bangui for months.

Though the International Support Mission to the Central African Republic (MISCA) has plans to increase its numbers from 2,500 to 3,600, leaders in the region are convinced little can be done without the authorisation of a U.N. peacekeeping operation.

Recent reports of attacks on mosques and churches are stirring echoes of times when the U.N. has been slow to prevent genocide.

Following an internal report highlighting the U.N.’s inaction during the final months of civil war in Sri Lanka, the U.N.’s response in the Central African Republic will be seen as a test of promises to act earlier and more decisively to prevent genocide.

Muslims, who dominate Seleka, make up only 15 percent of the Central African Republic.

The conflict comes after “years of marginalisation and discrimination of Muslims in the northwest” of the country, said U.N. Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson.

Reports claim that elements of Seleka do not speak Sango, indicating they may have come from neighbouring countries such as Sudan or Chad.

In many parts of the country, members of the Christian majority have responded to the violence by creating their own militias, known as “anti-balaka”, or anti-machetes.

“There were several clashes between Seleka and the population this week,” Vircoulon told IPS. “The African peacekeepers retreated, they cannot prevent them.”

Though the country has a long history of coups and rebellions, religion has not reared its head to such a degree – as it has in the rest of the Sahel – until now.

“This did not start as a religious conflict,” said Philippe Bolopion, United Nations director at Human Rights Watch. “Neither party had a religious agenda.”

As fighting picks up, younger and younger Central Africans are being pulled into the ranks on both sides. UNICEF estimates there are currently 6,000 child soldiers fighting in the country.

Speaking to the Security Council, Eliasson called the suffering “beyond imaginable” and said the U.N. had to act in order to “prevent atrocities.”

But very little information makes its way out of the country, where NGOs are thin on the ground.

Thousands of refugees have fled from major cities into the bush where they are susceptible to malaria and are dying from treatable diarrhea.

Until semblance of order is restored, those who have fled are expected to die in increasing numbers.

“Part of the problem is we don’t know anything,” Bolopion told IPS.

Last week, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he supported a U.N. peacekeeping force of 6,000 troops. But French representative Gérard Araud told reporters the secretary-general’s office would require up to three months to compile a plan of action, pushing into March.

That timeframe leaves many wondering what role France will play in the interim, less than a year after it launched a military operation in Mali to dislodge extremists who had created a de-facto state in the north of the country.

The armed group Séléka recently reinforced its position in the northern provinces of the Central African Republic, notably in the northwest city of Paoua. Credit: Simon Davis/UK DFID/CC by 2.0

By Edith Drouin-Rousseau
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 19 2013 (IPS)

As Michel Djotodia took his oath as the new president of the Central African Republic (CAR) on Aug. 18, Séléka, the coalition of rebel groups that he led and that helped him overthrow the government on Mar. 23, were still looting and killing civilians.

Already among the poorest nations in the world, this landlocked Central African country has seen its humanitarian crisis intensify over the last month as attacks by the Séléka multiplied in areas outside Bangui, CAR’s capital.

Order was partially restored in the capital as the international community convinced Djotodia to back down and change his title to interim president as well as establish a transitional council to hold elections in the next 18 months.

Uncontrolled elements of the rebel coalition consequently retreated to provinces to continue “business as usual”. The outcome was an unprecedented peak in violence against civilians, particularly in the north.

Communities have started to take up guns against armed groups, provoking even worse retributions and reprisals. Internal division within the Séléka also contributed to the exacerbation of the crisis, with several clashes taking place."The Central African Republic is not yet a failed state but has the potential to become one if swift action is not taken."
-- Valerie Amos

As the crisis was brought to the attention of the United Nations Security Council on Jul. 14, Valerie Amos, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, warned, “The Central African Republic is not yet a failed state but has the potential to become one if swift action is not taken.”

Non-governmental organisations and U.N. agencies were forced to reduce their staff in the interior of the country when the clashes started and they, along with the civilian population, were targeted by the Séléka.

“Our offices have been looted and pillaged to a point where we have to start from zero, and [it] takes us a long time to mobilise the resources to do that,” Amy Martin, head of office for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told IPS.

A population living in fear

Outside Bangui, rebels are acting with total impunity as the rule of law has disappeared along with the government officials. Courts and offices are being violently pillaged, and police officers hide in civilian clothes for fear of being targeted by the Séléka.

A number of villages have become ghost towns since rebels passed through, with schools, hospitals and houses deserted. The few who remain hide in the bushes, living in unsanitary conditions and vulnerable to diseases such as malaria.

Rising tensions in the north have displaced 4,000 people along the Chadian border, and 206,000 Central Africans have been displaced since the beginning of the conflict.

According to OCHA’s most recent report, 1.6 million out of CAR’s 5.1 million inhabitants are now categorised as “vulnerable”.

At a Security Council session dedicated to CAR on Aug. 14, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Šimonović listed  numerous ongoing abuses, including extrajudicial killings, summary executions, arbitrary detentions, torture, enforced disappearances, gender-based violence and rape, and recruitment of child soldiers.

Many aid organisations have retreated to the safety of Bangui, although some NGOs such as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Red Cross, never left the provinces and instead reduced staff when insecurity was peaking. Now they are rehabilitating their installations and sending new workers into the field.

As of Aug. 10, U.N. workers also began to be redeployed in all parts of the country. Full capacity will be reached, however, only when funding is sufficient and the entire state is secure.

A conflict that does not “sell” well

Funding has always been a problem in CAR, even before the Mar. 23 coup. Being a former French colony, the country is still perceived as being a “French problem”, Lewis Mudge, a researcher with Human Rights Watch (HRW), told IPS.

In addition to CAR’s low international profile, several foreign donors have withdrawn aid to the country, fearing that their money would end up in the wrong hands. The losses have been concentrated in the area of development aid, a domain deemed less “urgent” than humanitarian aid.

“At the moment we reach a very high intensity in terms of human rights violations, [but] we have no means to support ourselves,” said Joseph Bindoumi, president of the Central African League for the Defence of Human Rights (LCDH), which was affected by the cuts, in an interview with IPS.

CAR’s traditional humanitarian donors, however, did not remove or reduce their aid, Martin told IPS. Rather, their donations stagnated as demand increased.

Of the 195 million U.S. dollars needed to cope with the crisis, an unevenly distributed 32 percent of funding has been raised. Emergency shelter and early recovery did not receive a single penny, while water, sanitation and hygiene received only eight percent of the amount required.

Security: The first step towards recovery

“The most pressing issue remains security,” Bindoumi stressed to IPS, deploring that insecurity prevents his organisation from providing a sufficient humanitarian response outside Bangui.

Securing the country was a task left to the African Union until Jul. 19, when the international community decided to upgrade the peacekeeping force to the African-Led International Support Mission in CAR (AFISM-CAR). A total of 3,600 units will be dispatched, of which one third will act as civilian police and two thirds as military.

Still, “3,600 is not nearly enough,” Mudge told IPS. With about 20,000 of Séléka’s fighters scattered around the country, the U.N. troops will need to be strategically organised and have a strong mandate to succeed. Otherwise, it will be a never ending “cat and mouse game”.

Yet CAR cannot expect much more, Mudge added, allowing that “a small amount of peacekeepers can still make a difference”. With only 60 peacekeepers from the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, the northern town of Kaga-Bondoro has shown significantly more stability than neighbouring towns.

Former child solider from Democratic Republic of Congo, Mulume* (front left) feels hopeless about his future. Central African Republic rebels now need international credibility and know that the presence of child soldiers in their ranks tarnishes their image.Credit: Einberger/argum/EED/IPS

By Maurice Garbiro
BANGUI, Apr 10 2013 (Infosud)

At 13 years, Youssouf embodies all the ills that have plagued the Central African Republic in recent years. On Mar. 24, he helped capture Bangui, the capital, as he fought in the ranks of the Séléka rebel coalition.

“Only yesterday, I was old enough to fight and kill. Yet today I have to wait until I’m 18 to join the army?” Under the shade of the mango tree in the Bangui army base, where he is being kept secretly with three other child soldiers, Youssouf fumes. He feels betrayed by the Séléka rebels who marched onto the capital to instate their leader, Michel Djotodia.

The rebels now need international credibility and know that the presence of child soldiers in their ranks tarnishes their image. The question came into sharp focus after the South African troops who were defending the presidential palace and its occupant, ousted President Francois Bozizé, reported being traumatised to find that the rebels they had fought and killed were mostly “kids”.

To keep them out of sight, Séléka has placed many child soldiers with families from northern CAR, where most of the rebels, like Youssouf, come from.

But Youssouf stayed at the camp. Djotodia dropped the young boy off in person the day after Bangui was captured when he found Youssouf standing guard at a Séléka checkpoint.

“I want to be a soldier, fighting is the only thing I know how to do,” he says. The army beret glued to his head is almost as red as his eyes. “That’s because of white tobacco,” he confides. It is his “drug” – a mixture of Indian hemp and cassava flour. “With this, you don’t retreat, you’re never scared.”

Kidnapped by the LRA

Youssouf’s life is a convergence of the evils eating away at CAR for several years. His life was turned upside down for the first time in April 2011.

“For several days, Ugandan militia from the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) were looting and kidnapping people around in Birao (in CAR), where I lived. Even though it was dangerous, I went with my mother to the fields. But the LRA men found us. They raped my mother in front of me and then they shot her.”

The armed group forced the young boy to carry their ammunition. Then they turned him into a killing machine. “They taught me to use weapons like Kalashnikovs, RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) launchers… I became a man like them.”

Not long afterwards, Youssouf and other child soldiers, who make up 90 percent of the LRA forces, met Joseph Kony, the militia leader who is wanted by the International Criminal Court.

“The first time was in August 2011, near Zémio (in southeast CAR, on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo). He is very tall, with a beard and always wears a hat.

“He spoke to us very roughly. I saw him again soon after that, during the attack on Djéma, a nearby town. Kony lined up seven villagers and ordered us, the children, to kill them. I shouted out ‘Yes sir!’ and shot two people. That’s how I was able to stay alive.”

Youssouf’s slender body heaves with sobs.

“The LRA kills children who are sick or too slow. One evening, I escaped,” he recounts.

After walking for three days, he was rescued near Rafaï, a southern town that borders DRC, by American troops deployed in a renewed hunt for Kony in 2012. Youssouf was placed in the care of the International Red Cross, who brought him home to Birao as part of a programme to reunite child soldiers with their families. But Youssouf had no family left in the town.

“War is war”

He found a job as an errand boy with close allies of Djotodia, the former diplomat who had returned from exile in Benin to lead the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity, one of the main rebel groups in the Séléka coalition that was formed later on.

“I wanted to enlist with them. But Djotodia said he did not want child soldiers. He offered to let me follow them to help with cooking and cleaning,” Youssouf says.

For all that, starting with the attack on Ndéle, northern CAR, in early December 2012, a few hundred kilometres to the south, the leader’s good intentions disappeared into thin air.

“As soon as the colonel told me to get onto vehicle number six, I knew I was going into combat. The vehicles numbered one to 10 were attack vehicles, the ones after that were for logistics. The sergeant gave me a gun and said to me, ‘Be a man.’”

“I continued the journey all the way to Bangui in that car, using my AK, town after town. How many people did I kill? I don’t know. War is war, that’s all. As far as I am concerned, I stopped being a child a long time ago. My only hope now is to be trained as a real soldier at last,” Youssouf said emphatically.

* With additional reporting from Sandra Titi-Fontaine, Geneva/InfoSud

**Published under an agreement with InfoSud

Central African Republic President François Bozizé (in suit) was ousted by a rebel coup on Mar. 24. Credit: Kayikwamba/CC by 2.0

By Arsène Séverin
BRAZZAVILLE, Mar 27 2013 (IPS)

Despite assurances by the leader of the Séléka rebel alliance, self-proclaimed president of the Central African Republic Michel Djotodia, that a “red brigade” would be established to stop the looting and violence that has ensued since Sunday’s coup, citizens do not feel security has been restored.

“We are not safe, even though the rebels have imposed a curfew in Bangui. There is shooting everywhere, which scares us and the children,” Bibi Menbgi, a mother living in the capital Bangui, where electricity and water cuts have persisted since Sunday Mar. 24, told IPS.

“There are fewer armed youths firing in the air and looting, but tensions are still high. (Former President François) Bozizé had been distributing arms to groups of young men,” John Mourassen, a Bangui-based journalist, told IPS.

Djotodia suspended the country’s constitution, government and parliament on Sunday. The African Union condemned the coup d’état and suspended CAR from the regional organisation, issuing a travel ban and an asset freeze against the seven Séléka leaders, including Djotodia. The United Nations Security Council also condemned the suspension of CAR institutions and called for the reinstatement of constitutional rule.

In his first official statement, on Mar. 25 in the CAR capital Bangui, Djotodia indicated that he would implement the Libreville Agreement, a peace accord signed in January between Séléka and Bozizé’s government.

Séléka, a coalition of rebel groups, had launched an offensive against Bozizé’s rule last December.

Djotodia undertook to retain Nicolas Tiangaye, the prime minister of the government of national unity, to set up a new cabinet. The new president also said that he would organise elections within the next three years.

Contrary to Djodotia’s assurances, the Libreville Agreement provided for parliamentary elections in 2014, and a presidential election in 2016 at the end of Bozizé’s second term. The agreement also stipulates that the current leaders of the transition — the president and the ministers — would not stand for election. There are questions as to whether the rebels will respect this clause.

According to Jean Kinga, a lawyer in Brazzaville, the self-proclaimed CAR president is likely to resort to extrajudicial action. “He has suspended all the legislative and judicial institutions, so he has the freedom to do as he likes. There might be reprisals against members of the old regime,” he told IPS.

To gain people’s confidence Djotodia needs to bring all parties together, “particularly the Bozizé camp and the political opposition,” said Mourassen.

Over the weekend, the situation in Bangui escalated after Séléka rebels decided to seize the capital as the Central African Multinational Force, known by its French acronym FOMAC, stood by.

The Central African Multinational Force, which is under the command of Congolese General Guy Pierre Garcia, did not engage in any fighting during the capture of Bangui. Indeed, FOMAC forces are said to have been shot at by the CAR army, which is loyal to Bozizé, who fled Bangui on Mar. 24 for Cameroon. It is reported that his family members took refuge in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Since May 2012, relations between Bozizé and the sitting chair of the Economic Community of Central African States, Chadian President Idriss Deby, cooled after Bozizé rejected his advice to engage in dialogue with his opponents. The 500 Chadian soldiers who made up Bozizé’s closest forces left CAR in October 2012 after he accused them of committing atrocities.

Bozizé was left high and dry by other heads of state in the Central African region in retaliation for ignoring their advice and seeking military protection from South Africa instead.

South African army forces deployed in CAR to protect Bozizé lost at least 13 men in the fighting. South African President Jacob Zuma confirmed the deaths.

Djotodia accused Bozizé of becoming increasingly authoritarian, and of reneging on the Libreville Agreements sponsored by the President of Congo-Brazzaville Denis Sassou Nguesso, the mediator in the CAR crisis.

At the time of writing, the government of Congo-Brazzaville had not made any comment on the coup d’état. However, sources close to the presidency in Brazzaville declared that Bozizé “had violated the Libreville Agreements and consequently lost the trust of President Sassou Nguesso. He no longer deserved support.”

Jonas Mokpendiali, a Central African resident in Bangui since 2003, said that he is concerned about the future of his country. “Nothing seems to change. (Jean-Bédel) Bokassa was ousted, Andre Koligba was ousted, (Ange-Félix) Patassé was ousted and now it’s the turn of Bozizé, who thought he was the master of Bangui with his brutal dictatorship,” he told IPS.

Gabriel Mialoundama, a sociologist at the University of Brazzaville, considers the events in Bangui to be the latest in a long-standing crisis. “From the time he came to power, Francois Bozizé has failed to unite the people. His approach was to exclude his opponents, particularly President Ange-Félix Patassé who died (in 2011) because of his ineptitude. He wasn’t a strong leader,” he told IPS.

“If Djotodia works hard to bring in a new constitution and put the CAR’s house in order by organising elections where he is not a candidate, he will have done the CAR a great service,” Mialoundama added with optimism.

But the academic doubts that the new leader will have a free hand.

“CAR is in the grip of Congo (Brazzaville) and Chad, who are believed to have supported rebels with the blessing of Sassou Nguesso. As they did with Bozizé, Deby and Sassou will maintain their hold on Bangui; Djotodia will be their puppet,” he said.