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CAR (Centrafrique)

Does Djotodia’s resignation matter in Central African Republic?

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CARpower

With the resignation of the Central African Republic’s president Michel Djotodia over the weekend, the country has its best chance to transcend the violence of the past month — though with grave questions about future Christian-Muslim relations and the CAR’s ability to move forward with any truly secure, representative government.centrafrique flag

When French troops arrived in Bangui, the country’s capital, in early December, their mission was immediately more difficult than the French mission earlier in 2013 in Mali to stabilize the interim government and rid northern Mali of foreign forces that controlled much of the northern two-thirds of Mali.  Instead, French troops were inserting themselves into an entirely homegrown fiasco — the country’s post-independence record on rule of law, security and democracy is one of the worst (and most tragic) in all of sub-Saharan Africa.

Djotodia, as the leader of the Séléka coalition, pushed François Bozizé out of office in March 2013 — Bozizé himself came to power in 2003 in a putsch of his own, pushing Ange-Félix Patassé out of the centrafricaine presidency and organizing elections to ratify his position in 2005 and again in 2011.  Djotodia’s Séléka coalition, which attracted Muslims, but also many Patassé loyalists (Djotodia himself was a former civil servant in the Patassé regime) and a healthy majority of the country’s northern population.

Initially, Djotodia’s selection of Nicolas Tiangaye as prime minister was a strong sign that his new government would actually attempt to unite the country — Tiangaye, a human rights attorney with links to both Bozizé and the Séléka coalition, had a strong record as someone who could unite both rebel and government forces.

But Djotodia, the CAR’s first Muslim president, had a difficult time uniting the country that he spent years dividing, even after his formal inauguration as interim president in August 2013 and after officially disbanding the Séléka coalition in September 2013.  Dismantling  the Séléka rebels, in fact, may have cost him his sole substantial platform, and it left Djotodia’s forces staggering to fight off the newly formed ‘anti-balaka,’ largely Christian militia that opposed his rule.  As a Muslim president and a relatively lesser-known figure throughout the CAR, Djotodia didn’t bring with him any natural base to the presidency, except the Muslim population in the northeastern corner of the country, which amounts to just 10% of the population.  Each of the two main centrafricaine ethnic groups, the Banda of the east-central heartland of the country, and the Gbaya in the western third of the country, mistrusted Djotodia from the beginning.

What’s more, Djotodia and Tiangaye soon found themselves at odds over the country’s future, depriving the country of one of its most thoughtful and careful leaders (Tiangaye himself stepped down as prime minister on Friday as well).

CAR

Alexandre-Ferdinand Nguendet, previously a member of the National Council for Transition (NCT), will serve as acting president until the NCT selects a new president.  Nguendet recognized Djotodia’s presidency shortly after Séléka troops overran Bangui.  Nguendet was quick to call an end to the anarchy, imploring an end to fighting between Muslim and Christian groups, and it’s a strategy that just might work — French and African Union troops have worked for the past two months to keep the violence as minimal as possible.  That hasn’t stopped over 1,000 deaths in December alone and the internal displacement of nearly 500,000 people, but it has prevented the kind of genocide or massacre that the international community worries might otherwise have resulted.  The anti-balaka rebels listed Djotodia’s resignation among their chief demands, so there’s a solid chance that the CAR can retreat from the worst of last month’s fighting.

Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the United Nations, and a proponent of liberal interventionism on humanitarian grounds, even made a trip to the Central African Republic on December 19 (pictured above), demonstrating how seriously the US government is taking the crisis.  Though the United States has ruled out sending troops to central Africa, they have pledged to assist the 1,600-strong French military force already there.  Notwithstanding Power’s humanitarian concerns, the United States has cause to worry that a militant Muslim minority could transform an anarchic CAR into a staging ground for terrorism — and to foment unrest throughout central Africa, west Africa and the Sahel.  Continue reading Does Djotodia’s resignation matter in Central African Republic? →

CAR (Centrafrique)

Longtime centrafricaine attorney Tiangaye key to peaceful CAR resolution

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tiangaye

Though the January centrafricaine ceasefire between the administration of François Bozizé and Séléka coalition rebels didn’t last much over two months, its elevation of Nicolas Tiangaye to government may yet provide a solution for governing Central African Republic in a diplomatic impasse that’s become a tricky international issue for African countries from Chad to South Africa.  centrafrique flag

Séléka coalition rebels took control of the capital, Bangui, on March 24, forcing Bozizé into exile, and proclaiming Michel Djotodia as the country’s new interim president.  But the new government just as quickly reappointed Nicolas Tiangaye as the country’s prime minister.  Tiangaye (pictured above), a well-respected constitutional attorney and human rights activist whose role in centrafricaine politics goes back to the 1980s and before, became prime minister pursuant to the January ceasefire agreement.

Where Tiangaye was once the figure that the rebels looked to as ‘their man’ in Bozizé’s government, Tiangaye has now become the man who pro-Bozizé forces now look to as ‘their man’ in the rebel-led government — indeed, both sides continue to praise Tiangaye, who founded the Central African Human Rights League in the 1990s:

“A man of integrity in a sea of corruption,” says one diplomat. “He has integrity. His record is impeccable. He doesn’t compromise,” adds top opposition figure Martin Ziguele. “A good person,” says Eric Massi, spokesman for the Seleka rebels. “We respect him,” adds a member of government.

To the extent that the international community can force a political settlement, all paths go through Tiangaye.

That hasn’t been enough to win the international stamp of approval — Chadian president Idriss Derby, speaking on behalf of the Economic Community of Central African States today, has refused to recognize the self-appointed Djotodia government, and other countries, including the United States, those from the African Union and those from the European Union, have been hesitant to recognize Djotodia, a former civil servant in the administration of Ange-Félix Patassé (Bozizé’s predecessor) and leader of the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR), only gained power of the broad Séléka rebel group in recent years.

As it stands now, the CAR has been suspended from the African Union, which also froze the Séléka rebels’ assets and imposed a travel ban on Séléka leaders.

That’s in part because Djotodia, days after taking power, dissolved the country’s parliament and suspended the country’s constitution for a three-year period, claiming that he would hold power through 2016, when new elections would be called — a timeline that much of the international community thinks is too slow.  Djotodia was appointed in February 2013 as a deputy prime minister for national defense under the auspices of the ill-fated ceasefire agreement.

It’s also because, in taking power, rebels killed 13 South Africans troops, out of a contingent of around 200 that came to Bangui ostensibly to protect South African mining, oil and other contracts.

Continue reading Longtime centrafricaine attorney Tiangaye key to peaceful CAR resolution →

CAR (Centrafrique)

Taking a closer look at the centrafricaine ceasefire and prospects for CAR elections

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CAR rebels

It’s not every day that the Central African Republic makes world headlines, but it has become a global hotspot in the last two months, with Séléka coalition rebels increasingly taking control of the landlocked nation of 4.5 million and threatening to advance on the CAR’s capital, Bangui, on the Congolese border. centrafrique flag

Over the weekend, the rebels signed a ceasefire with the current president, François Bozizé, and today, opposition lawyer Nicolas Tiangaye has been named the new centrafricaine prime minister.

Under the ceasefire, the parties have agreed that Bozizé should continue to serve as president until 2016, when new elections will be called.  The centrafricaine national assembly will be dissolved, and Tiangaye will head a coalition government designed to stabilize the country, re-integrate the Séléka rebels into the national military, release Séléka political prisoners, and reform the country’s judicial system, with an eye to further economic and social reforms, especially in the crisis-weary north of the country where the government’s presence — military or otherwise — is nearly non-existent.

The new government, which cannot be dissolved or removed by Bozizé, is expected to run for at least the next 12 months, when new parliamentary elections will thereupon be held, though it remains possible for the government to continue for a longer period.

The Séléka coalition is comprised of several groups in the northern part of the country, and their gripes with the government follow from a previous ceasefire that ended the three-year Central African Republic Bush War in 2007 — that war, in turn, began as a response to the 2003 coup that brought Bozizé to power initially.

The ceasefire also seems to have ended the immediate threat that the Séléka rebels, who already control much of the northern half of the country, will invade Bangui and oust the Bozizé government, an increasingly likely threat until the weekend’s ceasefire.  The instability caused by the latest tumult also threatened to destabilize neighboring Sudan, Uganda and Chad — Chadian forces have assisted Bozizé from the time of the 2003 coup and throughout the tenure of his government.

The chances for building a stable centrafricaine democracy, while not hopeless, certainly have long odds in a country where there have been many more military coups than democratic elections:

Larger than France, the Central African Republic is a paragon of the ‘fragile state’. Some political scientists, such as the former ambassador of the CAR in Brussels, go further than that and even call it a “hollow state”. Continue reading Taking a closer look at the centrafricaine ceasefire and prospects for CAR elections →