Central African Republic and The Drums of War

[Ab-Titchaz]

'Hundreds dead' in Central African Republic violence

At least 300 people have been killed in two days of violence in the capital of the Central African Republic, says the Red Cross.

The organisation said its staff stopped collecting bodies in Bangui as night fell but would resume over the weekend, and expected the toll to rise.

Violence in the CAR has raised fears of mass killings along sectarian lines.
Hundreds of French troops are arriving in the city as part of a UN effort to restore law and order.

France was hoping to have around 1,000 troops - doubling its current force - in the CAR by Friday evening.

It followed a UN Security Council vote to allow French troops to join an African peacekeeping force in the CAR.

Thursday's violence is thought to have begun when Christian militias, loyal to the CAR's ousted President Francois Bozize, launched multiple attacks from the north - sparking retaliatory attacks from mainly Muslim armed fighters loyal to the new leadership.

Residents spoke of gun battles in their neighbourhoods and hundreds fled to the airport seeking the protection of some of the French troops based there.
Dozens of bodies were reported to have been left lying in the roads, in areas too dangerous for people to collect them.

The Red Cross' president in the CAR, Pastor Antoine Mbao Bogo, said his staff had collected 281 bodies as of Friday night and expected the number to rise significantly when they resume their work.

"Tomorrow is going to be a monster of a day. We're going to work tomorrow and I think we're going to need a fourth day too," he told Reuters news agency.

French soldiers were out on patrol on Friday and warplanes flew over Bangui in an attempt to quell two days of violence.

Christian Mukosa of Amnesty International said the capital was "effectively in shutdown" with doctors unable to get to hospitals to treat the dying and injured because of the insecurity.

Michel Djotodia, who ousted Mr Bozize in March, installed himself as the first Muslim leader in the Christian-majority country.

The mainly Muslim Seleka rebel coalition which brought him to power has been accused of atrocities against Christians. Christian communities have now set up "anti-balaka" self-defence forces, most of them loyal to Mr Bozize.

"Balaka" means machete in the local Sango and Mandja languages.

The Selekas have been officially disbanded and some of them integrated into the army, but correspondents say it is often not clear who is in charge, even in the capital.

BBC News - 'Hundreds dead' in Central African Republic violence

 

[Ab-Titchaz]

Fighters from the former Seleka rebel group, some integrated into the security forces, patrol the streets of the capital, Bangui, after reports of an attack by supporters of ousted President Francois Bozize​

 

[Ab-Titchaz]

President Bozize was toppled by rebels in March, plunging the Central African Republic (CAR) into chaos and lawlessness​

 

[Ab-Titchaz]

Heavy arms fire was heard in Bangui on Thursday

Leaders of the country's Seleka-dominated security forces said Christian militiamen known as anti-balaka had attacked three parts of the city. Many people are reported to have died in the clashes​

 

[Ab-Titchaz]

There are growing concerns that the Christian-majority country, now ruled by Muslim President Michel Djotodia, is sliding into a religious conflict​

 

[Ab-Titchaz]

Hundreds of villagers have fled their homes. Christian families fear reprisal attacks after at least 12 people from a mainly Muslim community north of Bangui were killed reportedly by anti-balaka fighters

The unrest came hours before the UN Security Council was due to vote on the expansion of a French and African Union peacekeeping force aimed at restoring order in the country​

 

[Ab-Titchaz]

Who is Behind the Military Coup in Bangui? Pro French Central African Republic Coup Leaders Scrap Chinese Oil Deals

Over 500 French troops are deployed in Bangui, Central African Republic, supporting the new regime headed by Michel Djotodia, heading the Seleka rebel coalition that recently ousted CAR President François Bozizé.

Djotodia has announced that he is dissolving parliament and suspending the 2004 constitution. “To this effect, we have decided to guide the destiny of the people of the Central African Republic during this transitional period of three years… During this transition period which will lead us to free, credible and transparent elections, I will legislate by decree,” he said.

Djotodia has already announced that he will review the CAR’s mining and oil contracts with China, signed by the Bozizé government, “to see whether things were badly done, to try and sort them out.”

Further, Djotodia declared that he would invite the former colonial power in CAR, France, along with the United States, to retrain the official military, which was defeated by Seleka last weekend.

“We will rely on the European Union to help us develop this country,” Mr. Djotodia said, adding that about 80 per cent of the country’s foreign aid has come from the bloc. “When we have been sick, the European Union was at our bedside. It will not abandon us now.”

Effectively, Djotodia is preparing to hand over the key resources of the CAR’s economy to European imperialism.

The situation facing the CAR population remains disastrous. Most of Bangui lacks running water and electricity, and the single functioning hospital is still taking in 30 wounded per day. The United Nations reports that food shortages affecting tens of thousands are gripping the country, and prices of staple goods such as cassava and rice have tripled.

Already, life expectancy in CAR is barely over 40 years, with only 40 percent literacy and skyrocketing HIV rates.

The takeover of Bangui by the Seleka rebels with French and US support represents the most recent stage in the unfolding recolonization of Africa by the imperialist powers that came to the fore with the 2011 NATO war in Libya. It testifies to the reactionary character of the ethnic-based politics of various bourgeois and petty-bourgeois factions in Africa, which are constantly manipulated by the imperialist powers amid the growing impoverishment of the workers and rural masses.

Seleka (meaning “union”) is a coalition of dissident factions that formed initially in September of 2012. Their decision to seize Bangui came in violation of the Libreville Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which they had signed with the government in 2008.

The coup by Seleka forces has placed the CAR at the center of a struggle for influence between the United States, France, South Africa and China.

As they advanced on Bangui, then held by forces loyal to Bozizé, Seleka fighters encountered a South African National Defense Force (SANDF) detachment and attacked the outnumbered South Africans, killing 13 and wounding 28.

The future course of South African military policy in CAR remains unclear. An anonymous senior Ugandan officer said, “The intention of the South Africans is to reorganize themselves and then redeploy massively in CAR and topple these rebels. They were humiliated and they want to avenge.”

South African media are reporting that SANDF troops are staging in Uganda for a “new mission” in CAR. A South African representative, Col. Selby Moto, cautioned against such a view, however, claiming that South African troops are merely waiting in Uganda “until the decision to reinforce or withdraw” is made by the South African government in Pretoria.

“This is complete disaster for South Africa,” Thierry Vircoulon, Central African specialist at the International Crisis Group, told Reuters. “They did not at all understand they were backing the wrong horse.”

The defeat of the South African forces and the theft of Chinese oil purchases were particularly provocative and humiliating, coming in the midst of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) conference in Durban. Chinese president Xi Jinping said China would “intensify, not weaken” its commitment to Africa, including the extension of $20 billion in credit over the next two years.

The imperialist backing for Seleka is merely one component of a grand strategy aiming to contain China’s growing influence throughout the African continent. By 2011, the volume of Sino-African trade reached $166 billion, with African exports to China topping $90 billion. At the time of the Seleka takeover, Xi was touring the African continent, where he signed agreements with many resource-rich African countries.

The United States has reacted by issuing mild criticisms of the Seleka takeover. On Saturday, Washington released a statement asserting that the national unity government led by Prime Minister Nicolas Tiangaye is the “only legitimate government” of CAR. It did not, however, call for Bozizé’s reinstatement or criticize the theft of oil resources purchased by Chinese firms.

Tiangaye is a lawyer and a member of the Human Rights League (HRL), a global network of human rights operatives headquartered in Paris and run with financial support from European governments and Washington. Political operatives from the HRL have played a crucial role in helping organize and promote the imperialist agenda in Libya, Syria and elsewhere.

Tiangaye is apparently a trusted instrument of French imperialism, having participated in sensitive trials of African officials who enjoyed French backing but whom Paris subsequently discarded. Selected by CAR dictator Emperor Jean-Bedél Bokassa to defend him at Bokassa’s trial in 1986, he also defended Rwandan officials accused of perpetrating the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

Who is Behind the Military Coup in Bangui? Pro French Central African Republic Coup Leaders Scrap Chinese Oil Deals | Global Research

 

[Ab-Titchaz]

War in Africa: Countering China’s Influence. French Military oversees Power-sharing Deal with US in Central African Republic

After deploying several hundred troops to the Central African Republic late last month, the French government has overseen the signing of a peace agreement between President François Bozizé and leaders of the rebel militias that had threatened to overrun the capital, Bangui.

As well as agreeing not to nominate for another term as president after 2016, Bozizé has sacked his government and appointed rebel-nominated Nicolas Tiangaye as prime minister. Tiangaye will soon establish a so-called national unity government ahead of fresh legislative elections next year.

The political realignment underway is being driven by the French government, which aims to reassert control over its former resource-rich colony and counter China’s growing economic and diplomatic influence. The operation in the Central African Republic forms part of a wider drive by US and French imperialism to bolster their strategic domination over Africa through direct military interventions. The latest involves a French-led ground offensive in northern Mali and the stationing of US drones and French troops in neighbouring Niger.

Bozizé, a former army general, appointed himself president in 2003 after leading a coup that was backed by the French government. He subsequently depended on French support to maintain power in the impoverished and chronically unstable country. In 2006 and 2007, French military forces stationed in the country launched air strikes and ground attacks on rebel militias, halting their threatened takeover of the capital and overthrow of the government. Last December, the loose coalition of anti-government militias known as Seleka (“alliance” in the Sango national language) launched a renewed offensive, capturing swathes of territory in the country’s north and east.

The French government responded by more than doubling its existing 250-troop deployment in the Central African Republic to nearly 600. But unlike in 2006 and 2007, Paris refused to back Bozizé against the rebels. French troops—together with those in the Central African Multi-National Force that was formed between several neighbouring states—instead secured the capital from a further rebel advance while the French government demanded peace negotiations.

The January 11 deal, signed in the west African country of Gabon, involved Bozizé making the first significant political concessions of his 10-year autocratic presidency.

The French government is developing new political mechanisms in the Central African Republic (CAR). US diplomatic cables, published by WikiLeaks, detailed the breach in relations between Paris and the Bozizé regime. Several cables in 2009 revealed French hostility toward various obstacles that were placed before French corporation Areva as it attempted to secure the rights to mine uranium at a site in the country’s south.

On June 17, 2009, US ambassador Frederick Cook dispatched a cable, “French-CAR relations seriously strained,” that concluded: “Bozizé may believe that he has successfully rendered himself the least of the evils in the CAR political landscape. He thus appears to imagine himself indispensable to his neighbours and the French, an assumption that AmEmbassy Bangui believes may be badly mistaken.”

Another cable sent five months later was headed “Growing Chinese influence in the CAR evident.” It detailed the extent to which both American and French interests were losing ground to Beijing, which was “ramping up its military cooperation, public diplomacy and development efforts.” The cable noted that whereas there were only four resident diplomatic agents in the American embassy in Bangui, the Chinese embassy had about 40 employees. It added that approximately 40 CAR military officers were being trained in China every year, compared to the two or three officers who went to the US and 10-15 to France.

Making clear the predatory calculations behind the US and French presence in the Central African Republic, the cable referred to the country’s “rich untapped natural resources” and warned: “With French investments moribund and French influence in general decline, the Chinese are likely positioning themselves as the CAR’s primary benefactor in exchange for access to the CAR’s ample deposits of uranium, gold, iron, diamonds, and possibly oil.”

The US ambassador also cautioned that Bozizé “is welcoming this relationship as an alternative to more restrictive relations with the French and the West” and would likely “increasingly embrace the Chinese as an alternative to the French and other Western benefactors.”

On December 27, Bozizé gave a speech in which he hinted that French opposition to the earlier issuing of oil exploration contracts to Chinese corporations was behind the crisis. “Before giving oil to the Chinese I met with [oil company] Total in Paris and told them to take the oil,” he declared. “Nothing happened. I gave oil to the Chinese and it became a problem.”

According to Voice of America, at the same time that Bozizé signed the power-sharing agreement on January 11, he declared that he would “work to strengthen ties with China, and to promote oil exploration and development.”

Bozizé likely remains in power only due to the absence of any viable alternative for the imperialist powers. The Seleka rebels are a fractious coalition, comprising various militias with different agendas. Some of the militias were formed by supporters of former President Ange-Félix Patassé, some purport to represent the country’s Muslim minority, while others were organised by different tribal communities, defending themselves against Bozizé’s brutal security forces. It is unclear whether all the militias will accept the terms of the January 11 deal, which involves the rebels relinquishing control of the towns they captured to government forces.

Any breakdown of the so-called peace agreement could quickly trigger a wider intervention by France and the US.

War in Africa: Countering China’s Influence. French Military oversees Power-sharing Deal with US in Central African Republic | Global Research

 

[Mundu]

Kwanini watu wanauana kwa misingi ya dini? Hivi mtu akiabudu jiwe lake, ama li ng'ombe lake, wewe inakuhusu nini?

Wanadamu wakumbuke busara ya Mandera RIP, kuwa " imefika mwisho, kwa sasa kwa mwanadamu kumbagua mwenzake kwa misingi ya rangi yake...". Na hii inaendelea hata kwenye dini, kabila, jinsia, jimbo n.k n.k

Please CAR, stop and end this madness....

 

[Ab-Titchaz]

Militarization and Neo-Colonial Intrigue in the Central African Republic | Global Research

 

[Swat]

UN should Give France and its allied forces CHAPTER 7 mandate in CAR like the one given to FIB in DRC and you will see the positive results! Some people understands more the language of guns than diplomacy!.

 

[gfsonwin]

pepo la vita kwa nchi za Afirica linazidi kukua siku hadi siku..........
nilitegemea miaka kadhaa baada ya ukombozi wa bara hili tujikite katika kukuza uchumi a maendeleo ya nchi lkn sasa hali ni tofauti manake tunajikita katika kulea mateka, kusaidia waathirika wa vita na kuongeza idadi ya watoto yatima na vilema.

viongozi wa nchi za mkiafrica wasipokuwa makini watakosa cha kujitetea siku moja

 

[mtu kitu]

Wacha tupiganishwe tu kama kuku..wanalipika halafu hujifanya ni wema