Instability continues in central Africa.
N'Djamena, Chad
After a lull of more than six months, Chad’s army is fighting rebels in the eastern part of the country. Government and rebel accounts of the events differ, though both sides describe a combined air and land campaign by the government:
Government forces in Chad have been fighting rebel forces in the east of the country for the past two days, both sides reported Monday.
A statement from the Union of Forces for Resistance (UFR) said Chadian warplanes had tried to bomb their positions Sunday and Monday before launching a ground attack, which the rebels had beaten back.
The government forces had killed four civilians and wounded many others, the statement added.
Contacted by AFP, Information Minister Mahamat Hissene confirmed the air strikes and ground fighting, but denied their forces had killed any civilians.
The rebel statement, signed by UFR spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah, also said the rebels had wounded many government troops, who had been evacuated back to the capital or two towns in the east of the country.
The civilian casualties had been in the villages of Gadar, Route-Route and Djibel, the statement added.
A more recent report from the New York Times implied that airstrikes continued yesterday.
The BBC adds some political context. Already in May, they called a UFR uprising “a last-ditch attempt to prove its relevance before the arrival of June rains makes any movement in the east impossible.” The current clashes are little different, the BBC says:
The BBC’s Celeste Hicks in N’Djamena says the rebels are much weaker now than they were last year.
She says the skirmishes with government troops are likely to be an attempt by the rebels to show the country that they are still a significant force.
Even if the BBC is correct that the rebels’ goals are less military than political, the fighting highlights the turmoil in the region, especially with tensions next door in Sudan and in the Central African Republic, which a top UN official says has reached a “very critical point.” The UN views peaceful elections and successful disarmament of rebels in CAR as keys not just to that country’s stability but to the stability of Central Africa as a whole (more on the UN’s views here). As a reminder of how interconnected the fates of central African countries are, just this week the UN mission in Chad and CAR, MINURCAT, had to intervene to protect Sudanese refugees in CAR. And in November, the Ugandan rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army killed “dozens” in CAR. One country’s problems quickly become another’s.
The governments of Chad and CAR do not, it seems, face imminent threats to their survival. But flare-ups of rebel activity, as occurred in CAR earlier this month, indicate that the process of political reconciliation is not over, and moreover imply that large areas of both countries remain outside of government control – a situation that could well persist for some time. Elections in CAR potentially complicate matters for President Francois Bozize in a way that is not the case for President Idrissa Deby of Chad, but Bozize took 64% of the vote in 2005, meaning that perhaps he will not flinch when facing the voters. Still, spring 2010 could prove pretty hectic with elections happening in quick succession in CAR, Sudan, and Ethiopia.
More on the rebellion in CAR here.
Sahel Blog 
I was listening to an interview on VOA Africa Service last night about recent violence in the far northeast of Centafrique, and since I’ve done some recent reading about this, I thought I’d chime in.
Their report, including a summary of an interview given by several UFDR leaders describes the recent fighting at Sam Ouandja, where a large refugee camp for Sudanese is located. The UFDR has in the past been accused of being supplied by the Sudanese government, and the area has been home to anti Deby Chadian rebels. The far east of the country is very sparsely populated, and communal conflict between the local Gula (around Birao) and pastoralists from Sudan and elsewhere is common, as are growing conflicts with Kara to their south. Some of Patesse’s men were holed up here, as were some Muslim disaffected soldiers of Bozzie’s rebellion. When the Army fought through here in 2007, the human rights abuses were extreme, and ethnic and religious tensions were inflamed, with reports that southern soldiers target Gula communities, reinforcing ethnic grievances and an ethnic coloration to the UFDR.
The report last night describe small scale fighting (three killed) between UFCR or former UFCR men of Gula ethnicity and Sudanese from the Sam Ouandja camp. The UFDR claimed that the camp provides cover for rebel groups as well as many criminal gangs. This whole area is plagued by bandits much more than by rebel soldiers. The UFCR is demanding the camp be closed, and this seems to have taken on a rather ethnic vocabulary. The UFCR also complains that there is no camp security to speak of provided by MINURCAT. Add into this mix the Chadian rebels, Sudanese rebels, Sudanese government, the CAR army (FACA), a recent history of French bombing, and seminomadic pastoralists competing with farmers, and you can see why this is a mess.
Once again, I have to recommend the work of the ICG. I read “Central African Republic: Anatomy of a Phantom State” last week, and it’s the closest thing I can find to an English language history of the last 20 years of the CAR. The two ICG reports and the HRW report make a good briefing.
HRW State of Anarchy
Rebellion and Abuses against Civilians
September 14, 2007
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2007/09/13/state-anarchy
Human Rights Watch (HRW), “State of anarchy: rebellion and abuses
against civilians”, Human Rights Watch, Vol. 19, No. 13(A) (September
2007).
International Crisis Group (ICG), Central African Republic: Untangling
the Political Dialogue, Africa Briefing N°55, 9 December 2008
International Crisis Group (ICG), Central African Republic: Anatomy of
a Phantom State, Africa Report N°136, 13 December 2007
Both available at:
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=5256
*The Humanitarian and Development Partnership Team (HDPT) for the CAR has a comprehensive Website. Here’s a site map for the Sam Ouandja area.
http://hdptcar.net/blog/2007/08/21/focus-map-for-sam-ouandja-central-african-republic/
Their resident photographers maintain an amazing photo pool at Flickr. Here’s a shot of a UFDR soldier protecting airstrip in Sam Ouandja (May 2008)
*Sam Ouandja, where the camp at the center of this recent bloodshed happened, is in Ouadda (Haute-Kotto prefecture). UFDR activity has extended from Bamingui-Bangoran Prefecture (where N’Délé is to the west), through Ouadda Sub Prefecture of Haute-Kotto (south) and all of Vakanga (the northeast of the country). Most of the UFDR activity is in Vakaga (Ouanda Djallé and Birao), while the largest concentration of Gula communities in is Birao (the northern 2/3ds of Vakaga.
Languages of Central African Republic Map
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_map.asp?name=CF&seq=10
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-Prefectures_of_the_Central_African_Republic
Thanks Tommy. Apparently I’ve got some reading ahead of me! Would you say that ethnic tensions have played a large role in the conflict since the beginning, or have they increased recently?
Alex, the HRW piece certainly makes the case that the 2007 attacks by the FACA / French dramatically escalated the ethnic nature of what was primarily a regionalist conflict. They claim that the brutal targeting of Gula by the government gave the UFDR an almost entirely ethnic character as Gula civilians rushed to join. In general the HRW report explicitly stresses the domestic nature of all the CAR conflicts of the 2003-2007 period. I’m not entirely convinced. This holds true for the western insurgency, in which village defense groups with home-made weapons rallied after government attacks on elements of Patesse’s former Presidential Guard in the area. A similar thing happened here, but there is a huge element of cross border criminal gangs, former and current rebels form three (now 4, with the LRA) countries, and meddling by Sudan and Chad. It’s a little like a Mini Kivu, except that the area is smaller and much more sparsely populated.
As far as ethnic conflict historically: from what I have read (as a non expert) whatever ethnic tensions prior to French imperial intervention have dramatically increased with each passing government. The pre-colonial slave raids from modern Sudan and Chad into the northeast is the primary reason the area is still underpopulated, so those conflicts must bear on modern relations.
But the French made the tiny southwestern M’Baka group a client people, and both Dacko and Bokassa were M’baka. Kolingba (1986-1993) packed the army with members of the even tinier Yakoma minority from the far southeast. Patasse, as all the previous rulers packed the elite Presidential guard with their own ethnic group, and the remnants of his Sara GP formed the nucleus of one of the 2003-2007 rebel groups.
Bozize is Gbaya, the largest ethnic group in the country. But dissident members of his GP went to fight as rebels in the northeast. Bozize rose to power serving the M’Baka dominated Bokassa & Dacko governments, and through a coup attempt aiding the northerner Patasse against Kolingba. Bokassa actually made Bozize a general (from a captain) after hearing he had beaten up a Frenchman who insulted the Emperor. As a General he led the bloody suppression of demonstrations that precipitated Bokassa’s fall, then served alongside the French backed Dacko, and was a Minister under Kolingba.
So these are not inherently ethnic politics, but they’ve been repeated given ethnic coloring through the politically motivated persecution or support of specific ethnic minorities at different times, for reasons of either expediency or the creation of neo-patrimonial by the whomever is currently in charge. The larger concern is that the state has almost no reach outside the south, and at times no reach outside the capitol. For many years the French were able to keep governments in power by stationing only a few hundred troops in the south. So when there is a little development money, places in the north never see it, and have literally no modern infrastructure or services. This makes regionalist rebellion almost inevitable. It also means losers in the all or nothing Bangui political culture can easily take to the hills and hold out for long periods.
Note: it was actually the BBC that had the more detailed description:
[audio src="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/africa/africa_20091216-1920a.mp3" /]
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