News bulletin 75 (1 – 8 Sep 2008) | HDPT Central African Republic

News bulletin 75 (1 – 8 Sep 2008)

Sep 8th, 2008 by Nancy Snauwaert, OCHA

Highlights

HDPT CAR News Bulletin 75

Tensions between Government and APRD
Assessment of the Kabo-Batangafo road by Solidarités
Edmund Mulet, Under-Secretary General of the Department of Peace Keeping Operations, in Bangui on 2 September

Background and security

Tensions between Government and APRD
A contingent of about 100 government army and presidential guard soldiers on 3 September clashed with fighters of the Popular Army for the Restoration of Democracy (APRD) on the Bozoum-Paoua road. A reported seven APRD members were killed. The army contingent is currently stationed in Paoua.

Jean-Francis Bozizé, the Deputy Minister of Defence, issued a press statement on the same day accusing the APRD of ‘employing a logic of violence’. The Minister claimed that the APRD summarily executed 16 people over the last three months and that they killed two women in a village close to Bozoum. The statement also said that the APRD on 3 September attacked the village of Banoua, 27 km north of Bozoum, burning houses and killing seven civilians. Human Rights organisations are accused of keeping silent.

Local authorities on 4 September imposed a curfew in Kaga-Bandoro, the provincial capital of Bamingui-Bangoran in the northern central part of the country.

Judges on strike
With a large majority, the country’s Parliament on 5 September adopted a bill on the reform of the Supreme Council of Magistrates, which Central African magistrates were strongly opposing. The magistrates of the country had started a strike on 8 July in opposition to the bill, and they had organized a sit-in in the Court of Appeal on 3 September. The President of the Central African Human Rights League, Goungaye Wanfiyo, supported the magistrates and had urged the National Assembly to reject the bill. The magistrates contested the government’s proposal to change the composition of the Supreme Council of Magistrates and to bestow new prerogatives upon the Minister of Justice, allowing him to oversee the functioning of the judicial system. According to the striking magistrates, these changes risk affecting the independence of the judicial system in CAR.

Current events

Assessment of the Kabo-Batangafo road
Solidarités, a French NGO, conducted a security and humanitarian assessment on the Kabo-Batangafo road, in the central northern part of CAR, at the end of August. This stretch of road had not been used by humanitarians for several months because of the insecurity caused by repeated bandit attacks.

Water well on the Kabo site Solidarités staff noted that the further villages are located from the two towns the less populated they are. At the mid-point between Kabo and Batangafo, they found several villages that were entirely empty. As the region is under APRD control, the rebel group increased its number of men along the road and organized meetings with village chiefs to encourage the return of the displaced. The population complained about having to feed the APRD members while their food supplies are already low.

Many villagers said that they often travel to and from the displaced people site in Kabo, where there are presently about 5,500 people. They go back to their village of origin to work on their fields or to harvest the crops. As a result, the road between the two towns is a food supply route for the people living on the Kabo site.

Fear of renewed attacks prevents the displaced from returning permanently to their villages. In nearly all of them, the population signaled a feeling of permanent insecurity. Moreover, many houses have been damaged, with collapsed roofs and missing doors.

For more information: sol_rca_bangui@yahoo.fr

Visit of Peace-keeping Operations Chief
A delegation lead by Edmond Mulet, Under-Secretary General of the Department of Peace Keeping Operations, visited Bangui on 2 September to meet with the Central African authorities.

Mr. Mulet was accompanied by Victor Angelo, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General in Chad. During the visit, the representatives met with President François Bozizé. They also held working meetings with the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Interior Minister and the Deputy Minister of Defense.

The objective of the mission was to obtain the viewpoint of the Central African government on the role of the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT) on the eve of the renewal of its mandate and on the possibility of the deployment of a United Nations’ military force in the Vakaga, when the mission of the European Force for CAR and Chad (EUFOR) will have ended in March 2009.

For more information: tourea@un.org

Coordination

CAP field workshop in Paoua
The second field workshop on the preparation of the CAR humanitarian strategy for 2009, which will be formulated in the Coordinated Aid Programme (CAP), was held in Paoua on 3 September. During one day 35 field participants from national and international NGOs, UN agencies and government services based in Bouar, Markounda, Bossangoa and Paoua discussed on the current context and identified major challenges and humanitarian needs in the north west of the country for the next year.

The participants emphasized that the presence of multiple regular and other armed forces in the region (government army, Mission for the Consolidation of Peace in Central Africa -MICOPAX, APRD, bandits and self-defense groups) risks having a negative impact on security and limiting access to vulnerable people in certain areas.

The field workers approved of the new approach involving them in the CAP development process and appointed two delegates from Paoua and Bossangoa to report on the outcome of the Paoua workshop during the Bangui meeting of 9 and 10 September.

The workshop was organized and facilitated by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

News

Jean-Pierre Vidon, the new Ambassador of France in CAR, arrived in Bangui on 4 September.
Benoît Sossou is the new Director of the UNESCO sub-regional office for Central Africa, representing Cameroon, CAR and Chad and based in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Contact: b.sossou@unesco.org
Marco Cordero is leaving the position of COOPI Representative and will be replaced by Alessandro Romio. Contact: romio@coopi.org | 75 50 31 99