Never-ending conflict

Renewed fighting in the Central African Republic (CAR) has forced more than 20,000 people to flee to a UN base to seek safety and shelter. In northern CAR humanitarian workers have suspended relief efforts in the area, leaving thousands vulnerable. The withdrawal of the World Food Programme because of security concerns will impact about 120,000 people dependent on food supplies, and 35,000 others living precariously in surrounding camps for internally displaced people.

Houses have been razed and three sites for IDPs have been attacked, forcing civilians to seek help at the UN stabilisation mission base (MINUSCA) in the area.

At least 65 people have been killed over the past four weeks in violence across the western, eastern and central parts of the country. Last week, 25 people were killed in two days of violence in and around the town of Bambari. Earlier in the month, 40 people - including three school teachers - were killed when Kaga Bandero town was attacked, allegedly by ex-Seleka rebels. The UN repelled the attack, killing 12 fighters.

ladimir Monteiro, MINUSCA's spokesperson in Bangui, told Al Jazeera the violence over the past month and a half has been perpetuated by "…armed groups who have been manipulated. Some of the actions are being fuelled by politicians who are against the government. Eleven out of the 13 armed groups are in talks with government, but there are others who are looking to create instability in the country," Monteiro said. MINUSCA has been in the spotlight for the past 18 months after scores of allegations of child rape and other sexual abuse by its peacekeepers. French troops have also been accused of committing sexual abuse against civilians, including minors.

Not all the violence was political, with some likely stemming from conflict over cattle.

CAR has struggled with political insecurity ever since the Seleka rebels, a Muslim-led armed group, overthrew the government in a 2003 coup, leading to a series of atrocities and then reprisal attacks by a viglante group called the anti-Balaka, made up of Christian and animist fighters. Both anti-Balaka and Seleka groups have been accused of widespread human rights abuse against civilians, including murder, sexual violence, and mass displacement.  More than 400,000 people have been displaced internally and almost half a million others have fled to neighbouring countries. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is expected to formally end French military intervention, known as Operation Sangaris, that began in December 2013. There are currently 350 French troops in the country. Currently 12,000 peacekeepers operate in CAR.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/central-african-republic-20000-stranded-base-161030144503824.html

Caring about CAR

At least half of the population or 2.5 million people in the Central African Republic are facing a hunger crisis, in a situation that has become dire, the World Food Programme said. 

Bienvenu Djossa, WFP country director in CAR, said on Tuesday that the number of people battling hunger had doubled from 2015 and serious interventions had to be implemented to ensure the crisis did not deteriorate. "It is serious. The situation is worse than last year," Djossa said a statement. "It is crucial that we continue helping the most vulnerable, who need emergency food assistance to survive. This is the time when people need the maximum help possible as it is also the lean season, when people struggle to have enough food to eat before the next harvest." 

Three years of bloodshed and the displacement of nearly one million people from their homes have disrupted harvests and sent food prices soaring. An escalation of violence in September helped exacerbate a massive increase in food prices with the price of beef almost double pre-crisis levels. Families have been forced to sell their possessions, pull their children out of school and even resort to begging. Children receiving school meals under the WFP's emergency programme are putting part of their serving in a plastic bag to take home.

The UN revealed that overall crop production in 2015 remained 54 percent below the pre-crisis average. "Some 75 percent of people in CAR depend on agriculture, and with the planting season starting in less than two months, boosting agriculture now is crucial to revitalising the economy and to stability in the country," FAO Country Representative Jean-Alexandre Scaglia said. Killing and looting had almost halved the number of cattle and reduced the number of sheep and goats by almost 60 percent, the UN said. Damage to infrastructure and insecurity had also hit fishing.

Keeping the Peace?

UN peacekeepers shot dead a 16-year old boy and his father and raped a 12-year-old girl in Central African Republic according to AmnestyInternational.

The next day, after armed clashes with residents had killed a soldier from Cameroon and injured several others, peacekeepers went to the area and “began shooting indiscriminately in the street where the killings had taken place,” Amnesty alleged. Joanne Mariner, its senior crisis response adviser, said: “These allegations of rape and indiscriminate killings committed by UN troops are supported by physical evidence and multiple witness accounts.

UN peacekeepers have been in CAR since September last year. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, was “personally dismayed and disappointed, not just by these latest reports, but by the series of allegations that have surfaced in the Central African Republic mission in recent months”, his spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, said. Earlier this year it emerged that French peacekeeping troops had been accused of abusing children in CAR.

Does the press care in CAR

Some media outlets believe that Muslims are only newsworthy when behind the gun, not in front of it. There has been systematic targeting of Muslims in the Central African Republic (CAR), a nation ravaged by strife since March of 2013, which has now developed into massive scale ethnic cleansing. In the past several weeks, armed militias have roved through the western part of the nation, intimidating and brutalising Muslims. Anti-Balaka, a fundamentalist group comprised of animists and Christians, is forcing Muslims to worship in private, remove religious garb, and convert at gunpoint. In addition to compelling Muslims to convert and decimating mosques, reports about Muslims paying anti-Balaka militants large sums of money to spare their lives are widespread. Anti-Balaka militants intensified their killing and forced-conversion spree during this past Ramadan, which proved dangerous, and even fatal, for CAR Muslims fasting, praying, and openly observing the holy month. Yet few are even minimally aware of the problem. Anti-Balaka's aim is as plain as it is gruesome: rid the nation of its Muslim population. At any cost. While the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) remains in the headlines, the mere mention of anti-Muslim terrorism in CAR - which has claimed at least 6,000 lives, pushed 30,000 Muslims to live in UN protected enclaves, and left scores of mosques destroyed - remains largely unknown. Would this be the case if Muslims were the villains of the human rights atrocities in CAR, instead of victims?

While the description “fundamentalist” seems reserved exclusively for Muslim groups, Christian and animist militias in CAR have brandished religious fervour to terrorise the nation's 750,000 Muslims - who make up 15 percent of the nation's population. The media quickly concentrtes attention towards Muslim villains, but it is consistently slow - or wholly absent - when the victims are Muslim. Mainstream media outlets have long neglected the humanitarian plight of black victims, particularly on the African continent. Unfortunately for the victims in CAR, they are both black and Muslim.

Media outlets may fashion themselves as objective bystanders, but they are functionally key actors in any unfolding crisis. Media coverage, particularly within the most prominent outlets, means far more than simply highlighting and sharing a story. Events like in CAR, coverage means generating global consciousness that would spur political mobilisation, fundraising, and pressure on governments to act, typically energised by the pressure headlines. Robust and active media intervention can check the actions of culprits and prompt humanitarian rescue, while neglect facilitates, and indeed emboldens, the aims of terrorists. The CAR case vividly illustrates the latter. Anti-Balaka forces have benefited immensely from the lack of coverage. Their numbers have grown, and their violence is ever increasing in severity.

Cameras and reporters flocked to Rwanda when it was far too late. When they arrived, the genocide had claimed virtually all of its targets. Since then, scores of scholars, human rights advocates, statesmen and stateswomen have argued that timely media attention could have created the pressure needed to spur more comprehensive humanitarian intervention. Thousands upon thousands of lives, and future generations of Tutsis, could have been saved. As highlighted in CAR, lessons from Rwanda have not been heeded, exposing its diminishing and imperiled Muslim population to unspeakable violence and arming its anti-Muslim militias with the green light to continue the killing spree.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201508190370.html

Protectors?

According to a leaked report French peacekeeping troops in the Central African Republic have been accused of raping and sodomizing the same “starving and homeless young boys” they were supposed to have been protecting. Children described how they were sexually exploited in return for food and money.

Paula Donovan, of the Aids Free World advocacy group, explainedto The Guardian, “The regular sex abuse by peacekeeping personnel uncovered here and the United Nations’ appalling disregard for victims are stomach-turning, but the awful truth is that this isn’t uncommon. The UN’s instinctive response to sexual violence in its ranks – ignore, deny, cover up, dissemble – must be subjected to a truly independent commission of inquiry with total access, top to bottom, and full subpoena power.”

The UN has faced several scandals in the past relating to its failure to act over paedophile rings operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kosovo and Bosnia. It has also faced allegations of sexual misconduct by its troops in Haiti, Burundi and Liberia.

Bea Edwards, of the Government Accountability Project, an international charity that supports whistleblowers, condemned the UN for its witch-hunt against the aid worker, who has been involved in humanitarian work for more than 30 years, Anders Kompass, a whistleblower who had acted to stop the abuse of children. who passed the document to the French authorities because of the UN’s failure to take action to stop the abuse and now suspended from his job.

Statistics Of The Humanitarian Tragedy In CAR

Over the last year, violence has continued across the Central African Republic (CAR) despite multiple cessations of hostilities agreements and attempts to end the conflict. The weeks since mid-December have seen fresh inter-communal violence break out at different locations across the country, prompting thousands of people to flee their homes.

Human Rights monitoring groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called repeatedly for accountability. The International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced in September that the ICC was ready to open its second investigation in the country.

IRIN looks at the impact of the internal conflict in numbers.

2.7 million: Number of people in need of immediate humanitarian assistance (of a total population of 4.6 million).

1.5 million: Number of people who face food insecurity, according to the World Food Programme (32% of the population).

27: Number of international soldiers killed since 5 December 2013 (including 22 soldiers of the former MISCA, 3 French soldiers in the Sangaris operation, and two UN peacekeepers).

18: Number of aid workers have been killed since January 2014.

3: Number of journalists killed in 2014 in CAR (two from CAR and one from France).

300+: Number of mosques destroyed throughout the country in 2013 and 2014, according to the spokesman of the Islamic community (including 26 in the capital).

10,116: Number of international troops deployed in CAR (including 7,509 UN military personnel, 1,107 police officers and 1,500 French soldiers).

14 tons: Amount of ammunition seized and destroyed in 2014, according to the Sangaris operation.

1,500: Number of weapons seized and destroyed in 2014, according to the Sangaris operation.

1,714: Number of ex-Seleka combatants still stationed in three camps in Bangui.

About 12,000: Number of armed ex-Seleka currently making up the three factions of the former coalition.
 

 

 

Photo: IRIN/ACLED

Heatmap of 2014 conflict incidents

75,000: Estimated number of anti-balaka members distributed across the country, according to their leaders. Other sources put the figure at as low as 20,000.

2,000: Number of ex-Seleka combatants transferred from their camps to the interior of the country by the International Organization for Migration in 2014.

105: Number of NGOs (national and international) that have been working in the country since December 2013.

2.3 million: Number of children affected by the conflict in 2014.

28,000: Number of children in CAR suffering from acute malnutrition.

430+: Number of children in CAR killed or maimed in the conflict.

6,000 – 10,000: Number of children enrolled in schools from 2012 to 2014.

108: Number of IDP (Internally Displaced Person) sites open in the country in December 2014 (34 in Bangui and 74 outside Bangui).

438, 538: Number of IDPs in the country as of 7 January 2015 (including 51,058 in Bangui).

423,300: Number of CAR citizens still refugees in neighbouring countries (mostly in Cameroon and Chad).

$613 million: Amount requested for the 2015 Strategic Response Plan, to meet the needs of two million people in CAR.

from here

Who's caring about CAR

Christian militias in Central African Republic have carried out ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population during the country's ongoing civil war a United Nations commission of inquiry has said and added constitutes a crime against humanity".

"Thousands of people died as a result of the conflict. Human rights violations and abuses were committed by all parties. The Seleka coalition and the anti-balaka are also responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity," the inquiry said. 6,000 people had been killed though it "considers that such estimates fail to capture the full magnitude of the killings that occurred"

The mostly Christian or animist "anti-balaka" militia took up arms in 2013 in response to months of looting and killing by mostly Muslim Seleka rebels who had toppled President Francois Bozize and seized power in March the same year. In September 2014, the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into allegations of murder, rape and the recruiting of child soldiers in the Central African Republic.

Some 5,600 African Union peacekeepers plus about 2,000 French troops have been deployed in the impoverished landlocked country of 4.6 million people. The United Nations took over the African Union peacekeeping mission in September and is mandated by the Security Council to double its size to nearly 12,000 troops and police.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2015/01/un-muslims-ethnically-cleansed-car-2015196546788288.html

Still not caring about CAR

 UNICEF, the children's agency, warned on Friday of a "critical funding shortfall" for its programmes in Central African Republic, where more than two million children are in need following a months-long sectarian bloodbath. UNICEF received less than half the funding it required this year, some $42.7 million out of the $81 million requested.

UNICEF said it failed to help 620,000 people with basic healthcare, 250,000 children with access to clean water, 33,000 children with measles vaccines and 5,000 severely malnourished children under five with treatment.

"Two out of five children in urgent need of UNICEF's support are without access to health, water, education or protection due to a critical funding shortfall and insecurity," spokesperson Christophe Boulierac told AFP.

More than 1.5 million people in CAR are suffering from food insecurity, about one third of the population, the World Food Programme said. Due to repeated military raids and the displacement of farming communities, food reserves are now about 40 to 50 percent lower than average levels.

Caring about C.A.R.

The Central African Republic is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, ranked 180th of 187 countries on the 2013 U.N. Development Program human development index. Illiteracy and unemployment is high and perhaps higher in the north after years of neglect.

War in the Central African Republic is usually understood abroad as a grinding religious conflict. Of the 4.5 million people who live in the remote, landlocked country, only 15 percent are Muslim; the rest are either Christian or animist. These communities have lived together peacefully for centuries. The latest explosion of violence, though, has succeeded in pitting them against each other. Victims on both sides have suffered, but the minority Muslim population appears to have borne the brunt of it. Two years ago, there were nearly 700,000 Muslims in the country. Now, according to some counts, fewer than 90,000 remain. Like many wars around the world that are perceived as religious in nature, and where the narrative of communal strife is used by warring sides to fuel hatred, the sectarian aspect of the conflict may be a result of the fertile soil it grew from. A legacy of weak state institutions, the failure of multiple governments to implement promised reforms, competition over natural resources and the unadorned political opportunism of militia leaders gave rise to the fighting and fed it. Religion coils around these dynamics, increasing the pressure. Militia leaders on both sides use the narrative of religious war to mobilize fighters in the pursuit of their narrow political objectives.

“The crisis here is not at all a religious crisis. It’s military, and it’s political. Quite simply, people have their interests in the crisis, and this suits them to use this ideology, this idea that Muslims and Christians can’t get along,” said Beni Youkaté, a Guinean man who works in the country as an informal mediator between Séléka and anti-Balaka groups.

The country is now divided, de facto partitioned into zones where militias hold total sway. Anti-Balaka militias control the west. The Séléka have fled north and established a new headquarters in Bambari, 300 miles from the capital. International forces, meanwhile, back an interim government in Bangui that has little influence over the rest of the country. A cease-fire signed in July has had little effect on the ground. The Central African Republic remains flush with weapons, a tinderbox ready to reignite.

Experts say the rebellion in Darfur, beginning in 2003, spread seeds of revolt across the region, scattering notions of insurrection into areas that were fertile for revolution.“The rebellions in the north were basically something that came up because of the war in Darfur,” said Roland Marchal, a senior researcher at political science university L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris. “People got ideas, contacts, weapons and ammunition from there. Even the discourse on marginalization came from Darfur.”

“They take up arms because it’s an easy solution,” said Kassara Aziza, the president of the Association of Central African Women.

When they took everything, I had nothing,” Adam said, speaking of the bike and fish confiscated by state police years earlier. But after fighting with the CPJP and the Séléka, he said, “I still have nothing.”

Full article cn be read at Al Jazeera

Who Cares About C.A.R.

The bitter internal crisis which has rocked the Central African Republic (CAR) since December 2012 has moved from the pages of the newspapers but is the displacement of thousands of ordinary citizens is continuing. Those who fled have been forced to abandon their houses and home areas, often moving into rapidly-established camps, living in dismal conditions. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warns of household food and income sources remaining significantly disrupted in CAR, “leaving affected households, particularly IDPs, with food consumption gaps equivalent to Crisis (IPC Phase 3) or higher”. FAO notes that ongoing harvests offer some relief, but “approximately 1 million people may require assistance by the 2015 lean season (May to September).” Very high levels of acute malnutrition and mortality persist at CAR refugee camps in Cameroon. Refugees and IDPs both need urgent assistance to help households meet minimal food requirements and treat acute malnutrition. The conflict is not over. October and November were marked by new waves of violence in the capital, Bangui. Witnesses said political battles were still being fought out on the streets, with the anti-Balaka militia particularly prominent. French military sources warned of growing delinquency, armed gangs taking part in looting sprees and robbing civilians at gunpoint.

There are still 31 refugee camps in the capital. The biggest is still at M’Poko, near the airport. The airport became a critical refuge for thousands of Bangui city-dwellers, mostly from the 3rd, 5th and 6th districts of the city, fleeing renewed outbreaks of violence in which fighters from both the former Séléka coalition and the anti-Balaka militias were implicated. At the peak of the crisis, the airport camp played host to 60,000-70,000 people. According to Dana Mcleod, director of communications for US-based NGO Refugees International, "aid agencies deliberately scaled back their services in order to discourage people from settling here." Numbers at M’poko are now down to around 20,000, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). But despite the collective efforts of NGOs, residents still describe conditions as “catastrophic”.

"I have been here since December 2013", Ndouga told IRIN. "I was attacked by a group of armed men. My house was looted and burned, so I fled here. If I go back home I would not know where to sleep." Ndouga spoke with bitterness about his daily life. "We have been abandoned here. We have been given water and latrines, but to have anything to live on you have to go back to your home area and find a bit of work and ask friends and family to get you something to eat."

"There is no security on this site, no doors for the tents," explained Ruthe, a widow and mother of seven. "Thieves come at night to rob us. The airport landing strip is a 'red zone' where you come across criminals ready to rob people who go there." "We are seriously suffering here," Ruthe told IRIN. "We have had no food aid for the past eight months."

Martin Boua, a teacher, expressed concern about the role of anti-Balaka militias, originally presented as popular self-defence units, but later accused of serious human rights violations.

"When there is some kind of justice to be administered it is often the anti-Balaka who fill the gap," Boua noted. "But some of them engage in extortion, taking money and property, engaging in group rape and armed robbery."

As visitors approach M’Poko, they see what looks like a village, dotted with thousands of tents and other forms of shelter. The site is divided into 11 zones, like city districts, which then divide into 80 sections. Each zone is run by a president backed by a five-strong committee, handling special issues for women and youth, working on conflict resolution and trying to improve water and sanitation conditions. International NGOs, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, Save the Children and Mercy Corps, run individual programmes. IRIN recently witnessed Mercy Corps leading an awareness-raising campaign on hygiene, activists going door to door from Monday to Friday, then holding a mass meeting on the Saturday where messages were relayed on basic health precautions, like using good water, washing with soap, maintaining toilets properly and sleeping under mosquito nets. The NGO Première Urgence takes care of administration and coordination. While the NGOs get a lot of thanks for their efforts, some residents have strong reservations about their role. For Martin Boua, "some NGOs are doing great work, but others lead activities which have no impact, are late and ephemeral." Boua suggested some NGOs disappeared from view, only coming back into the picture when donors came visiting. "It is a whitewash," Boua complained.

From here 

Desperate For School

DOYABA/SIDDHO/N’DJAMENA, 26 May 2014 (IRIN) -

 Some 40,900 children and thousands more youths displaced by the violence in the Central African Republic (CAR) are stuck in transit camps in southern Chad with no formal school to attend, few to no training opportunities, and no jobs, leaving them with no sense of what the future will bring.

“There is nothing to do here - we do nothing all day,” said Ibrahim Oumar, 25, in Doyaba transit camp near Sarh, which houses mainly Chadian returnees from CAR, many of them born in CAR. Oumar studied finance at college. “I’d do anything I could work-wise. One day I’ll return [to Bangui] to finish.”

Abdou Aziz Tarik, 17, from the CAR capital Bangui, told IRIN: “With school you can do something. Without it you’ll achieve nothing.”

Displaced teachers have set up informal schools in some sites. For instance, in Doyaba transit camp, they set up a school in which 3,200 primary and pre-school children have enrolled. But none cater for the needs of secondary school students. Some 4,000 of the displaced children have been relocated to pre-existing schools but as yet no children are being formally educated in camps, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Some 97,000 refugees and returnees have fled CAR over 2013 and 2014 seeking safety in Chad, according to the UN Refugee Agency.


Read more about this here

CAR - What Price Peace

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 “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.

 On Feb. 2, donor countries made a $315million 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.

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. The European Union 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.

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.

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.

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.

CAR Catastrophe

Violence in Central African Republic has uprooted nearly a million people, a fifth of the population, and is hampering aid efforts, particularly in the capital Bangui, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said. In the capital alone, more than 510,000 people are displaced - equivalent to more than half the city's population, UNHCR said. Just over half of them are children. The number of people sheltering at a makeshift camp at the international airport has doubled in the past week to 100,000. 

A flare-up in violence between Muslim fighters and Christian militias has displaced more than 200,000 people in the past few weeks alone, leaving a total of 935,000 homeless. Some 240,000 refugees have fled to neighboring countries.

The deployment of 1,600 French and nearly 4,000 African Union peacekeepers has done little to contain the tit-for-tat violence between religious communities.

In Bossangoa, some 300 km (190 miles) north of Bangui, most of the town's Christian population have long since left their homes to move into a camp by the town church, housing some 40,000 people.

Who cares about CAR

The French planned operation in the Central African Republic is a part of the ongoing inner-imperialist rivalry between France and the United States for control of post-colonial Africa, Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of Pan-African News Wire, told RT.

France doesn’t want to be left out of this new scramble for Africa. People have to keep in mind that the Central African Republic has very important strategic resources such as gold, diamonds and uranium, which are essential to the overall international economic system. So this is a part of the ongoing inner-imperialist rivalry between France and the United States for control of post-colonial Africa.

They are not interested in helping the former colonies out, they are interested in pursuing their own economic, political and strategic interests, and interests of the opposition in the Central African Republic, which has requested French intervention. But the Seleka government, which is there in power now, has a very small margin of support inside the country, and Seleka itself is not a uniform coalition. It is composed of four different former rebel organizations.

Another African tragedy neglected

Thousands of people are dying at the hands of soldiers and militia gangs or from untreated diseases such as malaria. Boys and girls as young as eight are pressganged into fighting between Christians and Muslims. The number of children recruited as soldiers in the Central African Republic (CAR) has risen up to 6,000, says an official with the United Nations Children's Fund.
There are reports of beheadings and public execution-style killings. Villages are razed to the ground. The average male life expectancy is 48, The CAR has sucked in thousands of mercenaries from neighbouring countries and, France warned, now stands "on the verge of genocide". Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, noted recently that the situation in the CAR has been referred to as "the worst crisis most people have never heard of". The European Union expressed "very deep concern at the alarming situation" in the strife-torn country. "We are alarmed by the widespread violations of human rights which go unpunished and affect the whole population," said a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in the Belgian capital Brussels. 

The US estimates that nearly 400,000 people have been displaced – many hiding in the jungle without access to malaria or HIV treatment.  In Bossangoa 34,000 people have sought refuge at the St Antoine de Padoue Cathedral.In  Bouca, to the east, haround 3,000 people – more than half of them children  are seeking sanctuary at the Catholic mission there. 68,000 have gone to neighbouring countries.

It is a country that stands as one of the most profound indictments of European colonialism, a contrivance that since independence in 1960 has endured five coups, infrastructure run on a shoestring and a self-declared emperor whose lavish coronation was inspired by Napoleon. Rich in gold, diamonds, timber and uranium, the CAR has proved irresistible to warlords such as Joseph Kony.

The latest eruption began in March when the unpopular president, François Bozizé, fled by helicopter with five suitcases after being overthrown by a loose coalition of rebels, bandits and guns for hire known as the Seleka, meaning "alliance" in the local language. One of its leaders, Michel Djotodia, declared himself president — the first Muslim to rule this majority Christian nation of 4.6 million people. What Médecins sans Frontières termed "a crisis on top of a crisis" for the population accelerated considerably in September when Djotodia officially disbanded the Seleka. Many of the rebels refused to disarm and leave the militias as ordered but veered further out of control, killing, looting and burning villages. What started as a political movement against the corrupt and autocratic Bozizé is now taking on an ominously religious character. Nearly all the Seleka are Muslim, including mercenaries from neighbouring Chad and the notorious Janjaweed from Sudan's Darfur region. An "us and them" mentality of mutual distrust and paranoia is taking root, with some Christians taking up arms in vigilante militias known as "anti-balaka" — meaning anti-sword or anti-machete — and committing atrocities of their own, giving the Seleka a pretext for yet more aggression. The spiral of violence has become a recruiting sergeant for thousands of child soldiers.

Father Frédéric Tonfio  is pleading for global intervention before it is too late. "I have only been able to count on my colleagues in the church. The silence of the international community is like they are accomplices allowing this to happen. It's almost as if the Sekela is stronger than the international community. Everyone knows what is going on here. Every day that we delay, more people die."

According to Lewis Mudge, a Human Rights Watch researcher on the ground, the Seleka: "These guys are not Islamic fundamentalists. They are Muslim-lite. They are here for prosperity and power; they are not here to change anyone's confession. The world needs to find the CAR on the map and start paying attention on humanitarian grounds. It's still early enough to avert a crisis in this country. It's not a genocide and it's not a civil war but it's certainly trending in that direction."

There are many mineral resources, including gold and diamond, in the Central African Republic.

The chaos of CAR

Further to our earlier blog, The Central African Republic (CAR) is "close to being a failed state" and threatens to spread chaos in the heart of the continent, UN officials have warned.

The UN security council heard that CAR, plunged into anarchy by a coup five months ago, could become a haven for Islamist extremist groups and Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army.  The security council has described the situation as "a total breakdown of law and order" with reports of killings and widespread looting, rape, kidnapping and torture.

The new UN envoy to the CAR, retired lieutenant-general Babacar Gaye, warned that, with no proper chain of command, "the country runs the risk of descending into anarchy and chaos". All council members agree that the country is "close to being a failed state and we should absolutely take action", Gaye added.

Valerie Amos, the UN's humanitarian chief, called on the security council to take swift action to restore security and end the suffering of millions. "Over the past months, the humanitarian situation has deteriorated dramatically and has shifted from being a long-term crisis of poverty and chronic vulnerability to a complex emergency characterised by violence, acute needs and grave protection issues. The failure to act now could not only prolong and exacerbate the appalling conditions the people of the Central African Republic have had to endure, but could also see the crisis spread beyond its borders and throughout a region already facing enormous challenges."

The turmoil has affected the 4.6 million-strong population in its entirety, Amos added. About 1.6 million people are in dire need of food, protection, healthcare, water, shelter and other assistance. More than 206,000 people are displaced within the country, with many hiding in the bush. Nearly 60,000 have sought refuge in neighbouring states, two-thirds of them in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Aid agency Save the Children warned this week that more than 100,000 children faced sexual abuse and recruitment into armed groups in the former French colony.

“Although the international community continues to hold meetings and talk inanely, nothing concrete is being done to help people here or hold back the extremists, terrorists and Islamists who are inflicting such damage...while security was already weak, it’s now vanished completely.”  said Carmelite Father Aurelio Gazzera, who works in Bozoum, Central African Republic. “Whereas it might have been possible to do something at the beginning, when rebel numbers were limited, the international community has allowed this crisis to develop too long,” he said. “There are now 15,000-20,000 armed men at large, joined by petty delinquents, so it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to rein them in.”

Charles-Armel Doubane, CAR's ambassador to the UN, appealed for international help to build "a modern state: one of peace, security and stability, where simply living is good".

Who Cares about CAR?

The UN has declared the entire 4.6 million population of the Central Africa Republic to be victims and the country among its most dangerous destinations. Its refugee agency has called it the "most neglected crisis in the world". Médecins Sans Frontières warns that the country had been effectively "abandoned to its fate".

The Central African Republic is all but lawless, with just 200 police to guard those 4.6m people from rebel gangs who attack women, kill men and recruit children at will. Despite repeated warnings, the international community has done little, even as arms continue to flood into the country. In Bangui, the capital, convoys of gangs can be seen speeding through its suburbs and are blamed for looting and indiscriminate shootings. The country's infrastructure has been effectively demolished. Human rights groups say the justice system has been dismantled, the prisons destroyed. The army has been disbanded.

Malnutrition rates have skyrocketed and malaria cases have risen by 30% since the Seleka rebels assumed control of the country. Latest assessments reveal 484,000 people at risk of food insecurity, with more than 206,000 people displaced. Armed groups running amok in a state the size of France, free to plunder as they wish.

"There is nobody to help the population. There are no authorities, no militaries. When you resist, they kill you," Albert Vanbuel, Catholic bishop of Kaga-Bandoro, a town of 26,000.  Even the sprawling UN compound 3km from the town has been looted, its food stores pillaged.

A plan was constructed to pay off fighters who agreed to disarm. UN officials told the security council that a lack of funding to complete the disarmament process could push the country "to the brink of disaster".  Just two countries: Luxembourg offered £67,000 and Australia £134,000, despite £14.2m being required to complete the disarmament and reintegration process.

 A UN request for £129m of aid received £40m. A recent Unicef emergency appeal outlined a need for £21m, but received under £6m.

Britain, along with the CAR's colonial owner France, is among those accused of neglecting the country. A Foreign Office source said he could not recall if a UK minister had ever visited the country. The British ambassador is based in Cameroon, 500 miles away.  The UK cuts its annual aid to the republic from £2.7m to £1.29m two years ago.

Since 2005 the UK has been the fourth largest European exporter of arms to the CAR. Equally alarming is the role of Britain as the key supplier of arms to the increasingly unstable region of central Africa. Britain is Europe's largest arms exporter to Uganda and the third largest to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, both CAR neighbours. Britain is the fourth largest supplier of arms to Chad and the second largest to Sudan, both officially classified as "countries of concern" by the Foreign Office. Almost £670,000 of mainly tanks and vehicles have been sent to Chad, while the UK government last year approved £7.6m of military export licences to Sudan including weapon sight mounts. The UK has emerged as the second largest exporter of arms to the volatile, embryonic state of South Sudan – and its sole supplier of explosive devices.

poverty amid diamonds

Thousands of people dependent on diamond mining in the eastern regions of the Central African Republic earn pitiful wages and are continually harassed by local and foreign armed groups, says a new study by the International Crisis Group. Poverty and crime characterize the diamond business. Costs such as the hiring of equipment and licensing fees make for a hand-to-mouth existence, especially for those struggling to feed large families. According to the UN Children’s Fund, chronic malnutrition in Central African Republic stems from, among other things, loss of income in mining areas.

“Miners are mostly ignorant of a diamond’s real value and, even if they know it, they are obliged to sell at the price offered, sometimes by written contract to the collector who financed the work… A collector might buy a one-carat diamond from a miner at 80,000 CFA francs [US$160] and sell it to a buying office for 200,000-300,000 CFA francs [$400-$600],” said the report.

Armed groups such as the Convention des patriotes pour la justice et la paix (CPJP) and the Union des forces démocratiques pour le rassemblement (UFDR) remain active in the eastern diamond zone, making “the east a dangerous place to live and move around”, said the report, which noted that while diamond profits are not the only reason for rebel activity, they have contributed to making such rebellions harder to end it.
“The inability of artisanal miners to escape poverty holds back development in mining areas and increases the risk of young men and women joining rebel groups in the hope of better alternatives,” it said.

French Wars in Africa

Further to an earlier blog about the continuing presence of French influence and troops in Africa , in the UK Independent an article describes the little known war in the Central African Republic that is being conducted there which has seen an influx of fleeing refugees INTO the war zone of Darfur to seek sanctuary . 212,000 people have been driven out of their homes in this war .

Why are the French bombing in CAR ?

To protect their puppet ruler. President Bozize .

He has done nothing for the people of this ex-French colony . People here were tired of the fact that "there are no schools, no hospitals, and no roads". "We are completely isolated," they explain. "When it rains, we are cut off from the world because the roads turn to mud. We have nothing. All the rebels were asking was for government help."

A free liberal Africa is not what the French government or its commercial interests desire. Barthélemy Boganda was born in a Central African village near here in 1910, and, as a child, he saw his mother beaten to death by the guards in charge of gathering rubber for a French corporation. He rose steadily through the Catholic priesthood, married a French woman, and, quite suddenly, became the leader of the CAR's pro-democracy movement. He would begin his speeches to the French by introducing himself as the son of a polygamous cannibal, and then lecture them on the values of the French Revolution with a fluency that left them stunned and shamed. He crafted a vision of a democratic Africa beyond tribe, beyond race and beyond colonialism. He was passionate about the need for a plurality of political parties, a free press, and human rights. His vision was of a United States of Africa . On 29 March 1959, not long after the French era of direct rule had ended, President Boganda's plane was blasted out of the air. On the orders of the French government, the local investigation was abandoned.

The French installed the dictator David Dacko in his place. He swiftly shut down Boganda's democratic reforms, brought back many French corporations, and reintroduced their old system of forced labour, rebranding it "village work". French rule over the CAR did not end with "independence". It simply mutated into a new form, and it is at the root of the current war.

" Nothing happens in this country without somebody pulling a lever in Paris,"

"The presidents are selected by France, not elected by the people. The presidents do not serve the interests of this country; they serve the interests of France." He lists the French corporations who use the CAR as a base to grab Central African resources. This French behaviour is, he reasons, at the root of the wars currently ripping apart the north of the country. Whoever becomes president knows his power flows down from Paris, not up from the people – so he has no incentive to build support by developing the country..." Le Citoyen editor Maka Obossokotte

The French government says it is in the CAR because it signed a military agreement back in the 1970s to protect the country from external aggression. The rebellions in the north are, they say, supported by Sudan . But the true motives of French intervention are simpler than that . CAR is a base from which the French can access resources all over Africa. That is why it is so important. They use it to keep the oil flowing to French companies in Chad, the resources flowing from Congo, and so on. And of course, the country itself has valuable resources. CAR has a lot of uranium, which the French badly need because they are so dependent on nuclear power.

Other stories of French imperialism on the African continent can be found here and here ,

La Francafrique

In previous blogs we have highlighted the roles of Chins and The united Staes in the politics and economics of Africa and in case we are criticised for not mentioning the other nations exploiting the continent , we have decided to highlight the French on this occasion

French businesses have longstanding operations in Africa. The continent accounts for 5 percent of France’s exports. Though France has diversified its sources of raw materials, Africa remains an important supplier of oil and metals. There are 240,000 French nationals living in Africa.

About 6000 French troops engaged in peacekeeping operations are deployed in Africa in both military and advisory capacities, according to the French Ministry of Defense. There are three main French bases in Africa. The largest is at Djibouti , with smaller forces at Dakar in Senegal and Libreville in Gabon. Their purpose is to promote regional security, though the base in Djibouti allows France to exercise a measure of military influence in the Middle East. (Also in Djibouti are about 1,500 American personnel stationed at the former French base Le Monier since 2003.)

Chad. France fields some 1,200 troops in Chad to protect French nationals, support the government of President Idriss Deby Itno, and provide logistical and intelligence support to Chadian forces. On a recent visit, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin promised France would “honor its agreements with a friendly and legitimate government.”

Central African Republic . France maintains some 300 troops in the CAR capital Bangui as part of Operation Boali, charged with restructuring the local armed forces and supporting FOMUC, an African force led by the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa, a regional body. François Grignon of the International Crisis Group say it’s likely “French special forces were engaged for limited but decisive operations.” The Economist reported that French fighters, attack helicopters, and special forces quashed a rebel advance on the capital Bangui in late 2006, allowing government forces to retake towns captured by rebels.

Ivory Coast. France deploys approximately 3,000 troops—under a UN mandate—to patrol the buffer zone between the rebel-controlled northern regions and the government-controlled south. Locals tend to view French troops as an occupation force; one French observer, as quoted in the Economist, calls Ivory Coast “France’s little Iraq.”
"First, we send soldiers to protect our nationals," declared diplomatic correspondent Christophe Ayad. "Then, we send more soldiers to protect the soldiers protecting our nationals. In the end, we send soldiers to decide a war."

Togo. French soldiers and transport aircraft are stationed in nearby Togo to support the operations in Ivory Coast.

France conducts joint maneuvers and peacekeeping training through the Reinforcement of African Peacekeeping Capacities (RECAMP) program and its Peacekeeping School (EMP) in Mali, which has trained over 800 African officers. These institutions intended to support the African Standing Force, a 20,000 strong rapid-response peacekeeping force projected to be ready by 2010.

France intervened militarily in Africa 19 times between 1962 and 1995. Most of the operations were ostensibly to protect French nationals or subdue uprisings against legitimate governments. Yet Professor Shaun Gregory of the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford in England points out that the standard for military support was contingent on an African leader’s willingness to support French interests.

French hands had blood on them during the Rwanda genocidal massacres . Despite having been a Belgian colony, by 1990 Rwanda was a fully-fledged member of "La Francafrique".
The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in 1990. The aim of this Tutsi dominated army was a return to their Rwandan homeland. The RPF were vilified by high-ranking French military figures as a "terrorist" bunch of foreigners from Uganda, and likened to the "Khmer noir".
Elite French paratroops were sent into Rwanda to keep the RPF at bay, in one of sixteen non-UN mandated military interventions by Paris in Africa between 1960 and 1994. Officially France sent more than $25 million worth of arms to Rwanda between 1990 and 1993, as well as providing army trainers to motivate and advise Habyarimana's army. Witnesses have recently testified that the French were also involved assisting with the newly formed youth militia, which were later to carry out the bulk of the genocide. In late June 1994 Mitterrand launched Operation Turquoise as a "humanitarian" intervention to protect Tutsis. While it undoubtedly saved around 10,000 lives, it also allowed fully armed genocidaire to escape over the border into Zaire, from where they were to relaunch attacks on the newly installed Kagame government. Such attacks, which independent NGO's said were partly financed and aided by French operatives .Mitterrand went further, to block desperately needed EU aid to the devastated country.