Time to Pay Attention to the Central African Republic
This extract is from UN Dispatch, by Carol Gallo. Views expressed are the author’s own.
In the infrequent event that mainstream news coverage deals with the Central African Republic (CAR), it is almost always in the context of another country’s troubles. The Lord’s Resistance Army of Uganda, which has wreaked havoc in northern Uganda and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, began making incursions into southeastern CAR in 2008. The conflicts in Sudan and Chad have also spilled into CAR, with Chadian rebels establishing a base in northeastern CAR toward the end of 2006 and allegations around the same time that Khartoum was supporting CAR’s rebels. And by 2010, in pursuit of the LRA, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army was patrolling the Sudan-CAR border.
Yet CAR faces its own internal challenges and conflicts. The political history of CAR is described in detail in the US Department of State’s Background Note. This political background is important because the country’s colonial origins, long line of coups (some bloodless, some not so bloodless) and periodic transformations of government structure represent significant underlying influences on the nature of instability in the country.
There are a number of opposition movements and rebel groups in CAR, with disparate grievances. Most of these grievances concern ethnopolitical representation and human security, access to services, and economic stability. Peace agreements and ceasefires between most of the rebel groups and the government were signed in 2007 and 2008. According to Global Voices blogger Lova Rakotomalala, a dissident branch of one of the opposition groups has also recently decided to join the peacebuilding process.
Elections were held in January and March 2011, but were invalidated by the Constitutional Court in 14 constituencies due to irregularities. Journal des Elections reports that opposition parties began boycotting the elections after the president, François Bozizé, in power since overthrowing Ange-Félix Patassé in 2003, claimed 64.34% of the vote in the first round. The political opposition was outraged at the conduct of the elections, and international observers reported “massive fraud” and “terrorization of voters and certain candidates by the state officials and security forces.”
On September 4, voters in those 14 constituencies where election results were invalidated had the chance to vote again for their parliamentary representatives.