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Militia Violence in the Central African Republic, And What You Can Do About It

Washington Post
Washington Post

Amidst the rocky landscape of American domestic affairs, it’s often easy to forget the turbulence occurring in other parts of the world. This, coupled with the white/American centric media we are subject to in the USA, often makes it difficult to be up to date on human rights emergencies in other countries—but this doesn’t make them any less urgent.

Take the Central African Republic, a landlocked country that, since a violent military coup in 2013, has suffered from incredibly bloody sectarian and ethnic violence at the hands of rival militias, with essentially no media coverage in the USA. This is not for lack of stories to report on: as of this week alone, over 85 ethnic Fulani have been killed by the militias, and 11,000 further displaced. That 11,000 is just a sliver of the 385 thousand that are currently displaced because of the conflict. Here’s what you need to know about the history of the situation, its ongoing effects, and, most importantly, how you can help.

Roots of the Conflict

Since gaining independence from imperialist France in 1960, the CAR had been subject to a series of authoritarian rulers and the constant presence of foreign military. In 2003, ten years after its first multiparty elections, the CAR suffered from a military coup at the hands of François Bozizé, a former military general, who ruled peacefully for a decade. Over the course of his reign, however, Bozizé neglected the northern sector of the country, failed to uphold peace agreements made from 2007 to 2011, and showed autocratic leanings–all of which culminated in the Séléka, a Muslim rebel group in the majority-Christian country, seizing power in March of 2013. A Christian group, the anti-Balaka, formed in response, and the two groups have been embroiled in conflict since then.

The violence between the two sects was astonishing. In the first 5 months of the conflict alone, over 200,000 people were displaced from their homes, and a further 5,000 were killed, effectively causing a partitioning of the country into a Muslim north and a Christian south due to the displacement. Muslims, specifically, were targeted with astonishing vitriol, despite the Séléka controlling the government, due to the country’s Christian majority. Religious-based violence claimed the lives of thousands of civilians despite a number of international interventions, including peacekeeping troops from the UN and France, and many more human rights atrocities were committed as well, including the use of child soldiers and systematic rape during both anti-Balaka and Séléka raids.

Peacekeeping negotiations allowed for the instigation of a non-Séléka transitional government in 2014, with Catherine Samba-Panza, the country’s first female president, serving from the instigation of the transitional government until February of 2016. Following her term, the country was able to hold its first peaceful, multiparty elections since the coup, generally seen as an imperative step in ending the violence. Yet violence between Christians and Muslims continues to flare up.

The Situation Today

While the sectarian conflict between the two groups has died down, it continues, and is accompanied further by violent clashes between ethnic factions within the Séléka–such clashes caused the death of 85 ethnic Fulani just yesterday in the town of Bria, prompting urgent warnings from the UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide. The recent withdrawal of French peacekeeping troops from the country has allowed the violence to renew with vigor since only 13,000 UN troops remain in the country, and many factions now refuse to disarm, since they are now faced with less opposition.

In addition to the continuation of militia-based conflict, the legacy of the bloodiest parts of the civil war has left thousands orphaned or displaced, and thousands more in dire need of basic human necessities, such as food and water.  As of its most recent estimates, the UN puts the number of those internally displaced in the CAR at 385 thousand, and the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance at 2.7 million (over half the country’s population). Sexual assault committed by militia groups and peacekeeping troops alike haunts the women in the country. A UN report states that over 269 human rights violations have occurred since this time last year–an incredibly high number in such a short timespan.

On top of all of this, the country–one of the world’s most abundant in natural resources–remains the third poorest country in the world due to the abundance of natural resources causing further conflict between rebel groups, and being used solely to fund fighting between these groups. As a result, the whole country is left in poverty, and the violence continues wholeheartedly.

While the country seems as if it’s on a path to political recovery, the recent declaration by a majority-Muslim sector in the north of the CAR that it is a politically independent state called Dar El Kuti points to the political fragility of the country, and the dire state of need that it exists in.

What Can I Do?

 Now that you know the history and current situation of the CAR, you might be feeling a tad down in the dumps. It’s a shocking human rights situation, and the fact that the USA is only meeting 33% of the quota of humanitarian aid requests from the UN is even more discouraging. Here’s how you can aid the dire situation.

  1. Write to your representative. Despite the fact that our executive government is about to become a lot less focused on foreign aid, that doesn’t have to stop you from contacting your local representatives and insisting they lobby for larger humanitarian foreign aid packages for the CAR.
  2. Donate to humanitarian organizations. Amnesty International, the UN, Human Rights Watch, UNICEF, and Doctors Without Borders are good places to start.
  3. Spread the word. With our white-centric media, we’re unfortunately undereducated on human rights situations in foreign countries, especially in Africa and the Middle East. Alert your friends and family to the situation–awareness is integral in healing.

In conclusion, despite an abhorrent degree of violence occurring in the CAR, the underreporting by the mainstream media is abysmal–make sure you do your part to heal the situation, and spread the word about what’s been called ‘The Forgotten Crisis’.

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