Author	Jos Havermans
Publication	Searching for Peace in Africa
Year	2000

Summary

The Central African Republic (CAR) gained formal independence from France in 1960, however, analysts agree that French interests continued to determine the course of events in the republic. French economic and political influence is perfectly exemplified by the case of Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the French politician who was elected president of France in may 1974. By the 1930s, the Giscard family had built up a considerable stake in a French company (SOFFO) that was engaged in rubber trade in colonial French Africa, which included the area now known as the Central African Republic. In line with this old connection, Valery Giscard d'Estaing forged a warm personal relationship with Jean-Bedel Bokassa, the dictator who ruled the CAR from 1966 to 1979, and throughout his term of office continued to pursue his family's, as well as France's, economic and political interests in the Republic.
French control of the Central African Republic reached its apotheosis in the coup d'etat which ended the regime of Bokassa in 1979. Observers and historians agree that the coup (Operation Barracuda) was wholly organised and coordinated by French officials from French government offices in Paris. Even the speech in which the new president David Dacko presented himself as the new leader to the Central African people is reported to have been written by French officials.
The Republic remained central to France's African policy as it was the site of its main military base on the continent. France used this base to intervene in former colonies in the region, including the Central African Republic itself.
As one of the poorest countries in the world, the CAR was - and still is - highly dependent on foreign aid. By providing most of this aid itself, France was able to use the Republic's dependency to influence political developments and protect its interests in the country. For their part, CAR leaders could sometimes exploit France's high political and economic stakes in their country to increase financial aid. They did this by threatening to leave the French political camp and seek patronage and assistance from other foreign powers such as Libya.
Dependency on French aid and the presence of French troops in Bangui meant that France was able to exert a great influence on developments in the republic, including the turmoil that broke out in 1996. In April of that year, soldiers of the national army of the Central African Republic took to the streets in Bangui to demand the immediate payment of overdue salaries. The military had not been paid for three months, a recurring negligence on the part of the CAR authorities attributed to a combination of economic collapse and bad governance. The mutiny led president Ange-Félix Patassé, who had been elected in 1993 in free and democratic elections, to mobilise his presidential guard. French troops stationed in the country also took up positions in Bangui with the mandate to protect French nationals and to help defend the presidential palace and other key installations. After president Patassé had promised swift payment of the stalled salaries, the mutineers returned to their barracks. The rebellion lasted for only a few days and some nine people, including civilians, were said to have been killed.
In May 1996, a second mutiny took place. This time, however, signs of political motives were more evident. The mutiny followed shortly after a mass rally, which had been organised by the opposition parties to demand the government's resignation. The mutineers took five hostages, including the army's chief of staff and a cabinet minister. France brought in about 500 reinforcements and after five days of fighting, suppressed the rebellion. Eleven soldiers and 32 civilians were reported to have been killed and at least 200 people were wounded.
Despite French financial support to help pay overdue salaries and the installation of a government of national unity, opposition dissatisfaction continued to smoulder and a third mutiny shook the country in November 1996. Rebels occupied a large area of Bangui and again took hostages. During fierce fighting in late November and early December, more than 100 people were killed. France deployed its 1,450 resident troops in the streets of Bangui once more. This time, regional African leaders intervened and helped broker an agreement, which became known as the Bangui Accords.
The confrontation in the Central African Republic is said to be fuelled by a power struggle between political elites engaged in competition for the country's scarce economic resources. This struggle has an ethnic dimension in that it pits several ethnic groups against each other. These groups are the Sara-Kaba of President Patassé in the north on the one hand, and the Yakoma, the southern ethnic group of former military dictator General André Kolingba on the other. Although the Sara and Yakoma are minorities, their longstanding ties with other ethnic groups puts them at the forefront of the internal conflict.
Both camps are dominated by militants, leaving little ground in the political spectrum for moderate forces. Each camp has its own military component: the presidential guard for President Patassé, and factions within the national army for Kolingba and his allies.
According to the French lawyer and expert on Central Africa, Régis Lafargue (see bibliography), the confrontation between the two groups resulted from the tendency to strive for ethnic exclusivity. Lafargue says that Kolingba, who came to power in a bloodless coup in September 1981, established an 'ethnocracy' by only nominating people of his own or affiliated ethnic groups to important positions. When Patassé came to power in 1993 he took revenge by excluding the Yakoma from all major positions in political, military and judicial institutions. He was able to do this because he had extensive executive powers assigned to him under the new constitution that was adopted as part of the democratisation process. According to the new constitution, the president nominates the premier, his cabinet, and all civil servants, and has the right to overrule and dissolve parliament. In addition, the president has control over powerful institutions such as the presidential guard and the secret service.
These unbridled presidential powers are considered to be at the root of the conflict. The country's heritage of dictatorship, manifesting in the politicians' penchant to exploit their prerogatives to the fullest, adds to the tense situation.

Conflict Dynamics

The mutinies and subsequent clashes in Bangui caused the death of about 500 people. About 70,000 people were forced to flee Bangui. Material damage was severe. In a report published in 1998, the Central African Chamber of Commerce estimated that the mutinies had caused damage to the private sector of about CFA 41 billion, a huge amount, considering that total state revenues amounted to CFA 55 billion in 1995. About one third of trading companies had gone bankrupt. The insecurity related to the rebellions reduced national transport by some 20 per cent. The mutinies had a devastating effect on public finance and foreign investments and caused a sharp increase in unemployment.
The crisis ended in January 1997 with the signing of a political agreement, the Bangui Accords, brokered by Burkina Faso, Mali, Gabon and Chad. The Franco-African summit in Ouagadougou had called for these regional mediation efforts. The Bangui Accords were sustained by the deployment of an African peacekeeping force, MISAB. The African force, which leaned heavily on French logistical support, was replaced by UN peacekeepers (MINURCA) in April 1998. The Bangui Accords resulted in parliamentary elections in November and December 1998. Presidential elections were held in September 1999, leading to the re-election of incumbent president Patassé with 51.6 percent of the vote. His rival André Kolingba gathered 19.3 of ballots cast. In February 2000, MINURCA's mandate was officially declared ended by the UN Security Council. The UN's mission was succeeded by what was called the UN Peace Building Support Office (BONUCA), a unit that was to support the government's efforts to consolidate peace and reconciliation. Meanwhile, UNDP was working on one of the peace process' major goals, the demobilisation of forces and restructuring of the armed forces, through the Programme National de Démobilisation et Réconversation des Militaires (PNDR).
Parliamentary elections held in late 1998 ended with a narrow victory for the opposition. The Union of Forces for Peace (UFAP), a coalition of opposition parties, won 55 seats in the 109-seat National Assembly. With Patassé's Movement for the Liberation of the Central African Republic (MLPC) winning 47 seats, independent legislators held the balance of power. Horse-trading over their loyalties revived deep-seated bitterness and rivalry. President Patassé persuaded at least one independent legislator to join the government camp in January 1999, thereby regaining a majority in the National Assembly. In the fall of 2000, Patassé reshuffled his coalition government, and again included several ministers from several parties other than his own MLPC. The opposition coalition UFAP chose not to participate in the government.
Current developments suggest that the government and opposition camps have taken irreconcilable positions in a setting that is formally democratic but lacks the necessary internalisation of democratic values and practices. In the fall of 2000, foreign diplomats in Bangui expressed concern about the potentially destabilising effect of civil unrest, which was co-ordinated by a new oppositional youth movement, the Flambeau Centrafricain (Central African Torch), which issued statements saying the government 'is rotten, contemptuous and detested by all'. Tension was heightened by a civil servants' strike over pay arrears. Patassé reacted to the social unrest by announcing he was willing to hold a national dialogue with representatives of all sectors of society, including his political opponents.

Official Conflict Management

A regional peace initiative helped to end the crisis in the Central African Republic. In December 1996 the presidents of Burkina Faso, Chad, Gabon and Mali brokered a fifteen-day truce, which was extended by a month until January 1997. The truce was supervised by the former transitional president of Mali, Amadou Toumani Touré. The mediation of Touré and the other regional leaders eventually led to the signing of the Bangui Accords, or National Reconciliation Pact, in January 1997. The accords set the stage for a reconciliation process, which was still continuing in 2000.
The accords provided for amnesty for the mutineers, the formation of a new government of national unity, which was installed in January 1997, and the replacement of the French military force by an African peacekeeping force. The UN force, MINURCA, was dissolved in February 2000. Most French troops had left the country by July 2000, as the former French military base of Bouar was taken over by CAR government forces.
In February 1997, the regional peacekeeping force, Mission Inter-Africaine de Surveillance de l'Application des Accords de Bangui (MISAB) was deployed in Bangui, consisting of 800 troops from Gabon, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Senegal and Togo. MISAB was logistically and financially supported by France and the Organization of African Unity (OAU). MISAB was mandated to maintain peace and security in Bangui, supervise the process of disarmament of mutinous soldiers and militias and monitor the implementation of the accords, including national elections. In June 1997, MISAB troops were attacked by army factions, leading to clashes in which several hundreds of people died, but renewed all out civil strife was prevented. Amadou Toumani Touré travelled to Bangui again, this time in his position of chairman of MISAB, to successfully negotiate a cease-fire and broker an agreement on the disarmament and reintegration in the army of the former mutineers. A pattern seemed to develop of recurring troubles, followed by recurring - successful - mediation efforts.
The United Nations became deeply involved in the peace process in April 1998, when MISAB was replaced by a 1,350 strong UN-peacekeeping force named MINURCA (Mission des Nations Unies en République Centrafricaine). The replacement was prompted by signs that France was planning to reduce its military presence in Africa and wanted to cut most of its financial and logistical support for the African peacekeeping force. MINURCA has contingents from Canada, France, Senegal, Togo, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Chad, Mali and Ivory Coast. The Security Council initially determined that MINURCA's deployment should end after the parliamentary elections scheduled for 1998 but later extended its mandate to last until after the presidential elections of 1999. MINURCA was dissolved in February 2000, when it was succeeded by the UN Peace-building Support Office (BONUCA).
MINURCA was charged with keeping order and monitoring the preparation of elections. It also supervises programmes aimed at reducing the risk of recurring violence, such as a short-term police training programme and providing advice on building a multi-ethnic Central African army. Under the protection of MINURCA, an electoral commission representing several ethnic and political groups was established Commission Électorale Mixte et Indépendante (CEMI) in June 1998. The commission represented more than thirty political parties, the government and civil society. France, Japan, Canada and the EU provided funding for organising the elections.
MINURCA had its own radio station in Bangui, Radio Minurca, broadcasting 24 hours a day to inform the population about MINURCA's mission and the electoral process. The station was run by six professional radio producers, and was modelled on a similar station working to reduce tension in Vukovar, former Yugoslavia.
MINURCA's, and later BONUCA's, activities are sustained by UNDP, which runs the so called Programme Nationale de Démobilisation et de Réinsertion (PNDR), aimed at the reintegration of rebellious soldiers in the army. This programme is closely connected to efforts of UN special envoy Oluyemi Adenidji to reform the armed forces by including all major ethnic groups.
President Patassé was known to be very keen on prolonging the presence of the peace-keeping force in his country. In order to win US approval in the Security Council for prolonging MINURCA's deployment, Patassé showed himself sensitive to western demands, including the call for forging peace and stability. Patassé organised a national reconciliation conference in March 1998, which resulted in an accord. In this agreement, Patassé and various political groups, including the army, parliament and the Association of Mayors, agreed to accept elections as the sole means of determining access to government power. All sides also agreed to ban the use of weapons and to practise good governance, excluding nepotism, clanship, tribalism, political patronage and misappropriation of funds. The accord may have helped create an atmosphere in which the national elections were possible.

Multi Track Diplomacy

Few NGO activities aimed at sustaining peace and reconciliation are known to have been undertaken. This is largely because the crisis in the Central African Republic is dominated by a conflict within the higher echelons of society, a conflict which has been addressed, with some level of success, by regional mediators and the international community. The relative calm in the country and the fact that a programme of democratisation and reconciliation is already under way may have kept (international) non-governmental organisations specialised in conflict management from becoming deeply involved in the country.
In 1994 the International Assembly of French Speaking Parliamentarians (AIPLF) organised a seminar in Bangui intended to contribute to the democratisation process in the CAR and other African countries. The seminar focused on the role of parliament and civil society in a democracy. It was attended by parliamentarians from the Central African Republic and other African countries. A follow up seminar took place in Togo.
Professor Zokoue, a scholar and leader of the protestant churches in the Central African Republic (Alliance des Évangélique de Centrafrique) staged a reconciliation campaign after the mutinies of 1996. In a well-organised action, the churches urged all protestant communities in the country to address the conflict and discuss ways to boost reconciliation between opposing groups at community level.
In the diocese of Bangassou the Roman Catholic Church has been very active in creating a climate of reconciliation. The diocese, under the charismatic leadership of bishop Manikus, organised local meetings and Bible-reading sessions aimed at increasing awareness of potential upsurges of ethnic tension and the need to meet that challenge in a way that would prevent regional ethnic groups allowing themselves to be lured into violent confrontations. The diocese actively tried to bring about a change in mentality with regard to ethnic identity. In prayer and study meetings, the inhabitants of the region were also prepared for a possible refugee crisis, which, the local Catholic Church believed, could result from both domestic strife as well as from the war in neighbouring Congo.
Other non-governmental initiatives were scarce, if not absent, due to the active role played by the OAU, and subsequently the UN and its agencies, in the peace process.
There are some western-based organisations which concentrate on French foreign policy towards Central Africa in general. The most important are SURVIE, Group Urgence de Rehabilitation et Développement (URD) and the European Institute for Research and Information on Peace and Security (GRIP). These groups provide analyses of the domestic situation and try to monitor France's Africa policy with regard to the Central African Republic.

Prospects

Journalists and analysts characterised the situation in 1999 as 'armed peace'. The Central African Republic has embarked on a peace process, but this process has, to a great extent, been imposed on the country by the UN and its peacekeeping force.

Potentially rebellious sections of the armed forces kept in check by MINURCA may take up arms again now that the UN troops have left. This raises doubts about the inner strength of the country's reconciliatory and democratic tendency. It also feeds qualms about the degree to which democracy and peace are sustainable.
Dissolution of the UN peacekeeping force MINURCA, which will come sooner or later, was expected to be the litmus test for the peace process in the Central African Republic.
An external threat to peace is the ongoing unrest in the Central African Republic's neighbouring countries. The DR of Congo, Sudan and Chad are coping with rebellions and its south-western neighbour, Congo Brazzaville, is also experiencing an era of deep instability and violence. The Central African Republic was still harbouring several thousands of refugees from the DRC in 2000.

Recommendations

The French Africa expert Lafargue suggests that, in order to increase the chance of establishing a sustainable democratic system based on power sharing instead of ethnic exclusivity, the executive powers of the president should be curbed. This implies a discussion on whether the state system should be a presidential democracy (modelled, for instance, on France or the United States), or a parliamentary democracy.
Both assessments seem to imply that any reconciliatory interventions should primarily be directed at the senior political and military echelons. Opening up government institutions, especially the army, to people from all ethnic backgrounds, a measure that has already been chosen as an official policy goal but is far from being realised, is recommended as a starting point by most analysts. UN secretary general Kofi Annan in the summer of 2000 stressed that continued international support to the peace process was necessary and called on governments and other donors to provide the funding, a mere 38 million dollars for 2000, needed to continue the programme on demobilisation and reconciliation.

Service Information

NEWSLETTERS AND PERIODICALS:	Le Citoyen (French language magazine covering Central African Developments); L'Autre Afrique (Paris-based African weekly with excellent coverage of sub-Saharan Africa); Jeune Afrique (Paris-based weekly with good coverage of sub-Saharan Africa); Billets D'Afrique et D'Ailleurs (monthly newsletter of SURVIE on developments in the relations between France and Africa);
OTHER PUBLICATIONS:	De l'autocratie impériale à la dictature d'une ethnie: au-delà du discours démocratique, réalités et pouvoirs en Centrafrique, Régis Lafargue. In: Droit et Cultures, 35, 1998/1 (Meticulous and critical analyses of the current democratisation process); La Francafrique - Le plus long scandale de la République, François Xavier Verschave. Paris, Stock, 1998 (critical analysis of French Africa policy); Chronique de la crise Centrafricaine 1996-1997 - Le syndrome Barracuda, Jean-Paul Ngoupandé. L'Harmattan, Paris, 1997 (Ngoupandé - himself deeply engaged in Central African politics - gives an account of the crisis of 1996 and its political aftermath);
SELECTED INTERNETSITES:	http://www.agora.it/politic/central-africa.htm (index of Central African Republic political sites on the internet, with links to parties, organisations, media and the government); http://mbendi.co.za/cycrcy.htm (Country profile including data and map); http://www.sangonet.com/Centrafrique.html (website with extensive information on CAR, including current political developments); http://espacenordsud.free.fr (website of Espace Nord-Sud, an organisation representing three French development NGOs with extensive relations in Africa)
RESOURCE CONTACTS:	François Xavier Verschave - French researcher and president of SURVIE, specialises in arms trade and role of French foreign policy in Central Africa; Régis Lafargue - French scholar and expert on Africa connected to the University of Nanterre, France; Antoinette Delafin - Journalist, excellent and extensive coverage of CAR peace process, via L'Autre Afrique;Andreas Mehler - German scholar and senior researcher for the Conflict Prevention Network (CPN) and Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), email Mhl@swp.extern.lrz-muenchen.de;
ORGANISATIONS:	SURVIE + Observatoire Permanent de la Coopération Française (Monitors aid relations of France with developing countries, especially in Africa), 57 Avenue du Maine, 75014 Paris, France, Tel. +33 1 4327 0325, Fax +33 1 4320 5558; GRIP, Van Hoordestraat 33, B-1030 Brussels, Belgium, Tel. +32 2 241 8420, Fax +32 2 245 1933, Email: grip@infoboard.be, http://www.ib.be/grip; Groupe Urgence de Rehabilitation et Developpement, Le Cypres-Les-Guards, 26110 Nyons, France, Tel. +33 4 7526 2271, Fax +33 4 7526 6427, Email cpirot@aol.com

About the author

Jos Havermans is an historian and freelance journalist covering international developments for several Dutch and international magazines. He has written extensively on Sub-Saharan Africa. In recent years his coverage of Africa has included reports on peace efforts and conflict prevention in Burundi, the decay of the central government in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the democratisation process in Malawi.