CAR Central African Republic: Fragile, failed and forlorn

[davidbfpo]

From Amnesty International and the report starts:

The United Nations must carry out a thorough investigation into UN peacekeeping troops’ response to a recent attack that killed as many as 100 civilians in a displaced persons camp in the Central African Republic, Amnesty International said today in a new report.

According to multiple eyewitnesses, UN peacekeepers did not engage an attack by an armed group but instead retreated in an armoured vehicle to their central base, leaving thousands of civilians unprotected at the camp in Alindao on 15 November.

An immediate and impartial inquiry must focus, in particular, on whether the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) failed in its duty to protect the lives of more than 18,000 people residing at the site.

The UN soldiers were from Mauritania.
Link:https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ne...ts-in-alindao/

[davidbfpo]

From The Soufan Group:

• Earlier this month, fourteen armed groups from Central African Republic agreed to a peace agreement following talks in Khartoum, Sudan.

• The Central African Republic has been devastated by instability and widespread ethnic conflict since 2013 following a coup that same year.

• Government control does not extend beyond the capital and the humanitarian situation is dire, with nearly a half million refugees.

• There is a critical need to integrate opposing armed groups into a national army and ensure that each group has political representation.

Link:https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbri...ican-republic/

Sadly this is all too optimistic from this faraway armchair.

Recently I spotted via YouTube a long film clip on Portuguese paratroopers fighting through a CAR village:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knqnPnlflLQ

[AdamG]

Minusca, the U.N. peacekeeping force in the country, sent peacekeepers to the site of the clashes, spokesperson Vladimir Monteiro told AFP. Its troops there had come under fire a day earlier, he added.

On Wednesday, the General Staff of the Portuguese Armed Forces said that paratroopers had deployed to Bambari, using its General Dynamics Pandur II wheeled armored vehicles for the first time in Africa.

On Thursday, the Portuguese “blue helmets spent five hours in direct combat” with UPC militants “with the objective of protecting civilians and restoring peace, interposing itself between the opposition group and the defenseless civilian population,” the General Staff said.

https://thedefensepost.com/2019/01/1...rican-republic

[davidbfpo]

Eleanor Beevor, an IISS analyst, has a commentary which opens with:

The latest attempts by the government of the Central African Republic to reach an accommodation with armed groups are a disheartening repetition of a failed formula. The price of this limited calm will be high, warns Eleanor Beevor.

Link:https://www.iiss.org/blogs/analysis/...c-armed-groups