Four days before the general elections, President Touadéra may try to reassure the holding of the vote, on the ground, the sources of concern are real. In fact, attacks resumed on Tuesday with the capture of the country’s fourth city by rebels, campaign teams are aimed, candidates attacked, one of the presidential candidates has even withdrawn his candidacy, and Moscow has dispatched 300 “military instructors” to help the government denouncing an attempted coup.
Armed groups keep up the pressure
After a day of calm on Monday, armed groups continued to put pressure on the country, and they do not intend to loosen the grip before the elections. Admittedly, they have not made much progress, but the fourth city of the Central African Republic, Bambari, some 380 km northeast of the capital Bangui, fell on Tuesday into the hands of the Unit for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC), one of the many armed groups that share more than two-thirds of the Central African Republic. In the west of the country, three more of these groups, which have made an alliance and now form a coalition, attacked major roads vital to supplying the capital.
Fighting took place on Tuesday in both areas. Bambari was taken without “violence against the inhabitants but the rebels looted the police station, the gendarmerie and the homes of individuals,” Abel Matchipata, mayor of Bambari told AFP. The attack gave rise to two hours of exchanges of fire with the army and peacekeepers from the UN Mission in the Central African Republic (Minusca), senior NGO and UN officials said.
On the other side of the capital, fighting has resumed on National Road 1, the vital axis that connects Bangui to Cameroon. The town of Boali, located on this road about 60 kilometers from Bangui, was quiet Tuesday morning, according to an AFP journalist. At around 1 p.m., a convoy of commercial trucks from Bangui heading for Cameroon was dissuaded from going any further by elements of the Central African armed forces. Fighting had broken out, a few tens of kilometers away.
The population got scared. Women and children of the city took refuge 6 km from the city, in camps in the bush, men who remained in the city told AFP. A few hours later, several pick-ups arrived at the Bangui community hospital with their rear platforms full of wounded, AFP journalists reported. Some could walk. Others were carried to the doors of the establishment.
It is difficult for the moment to establish the balance sheet of the loss of human life. Between 2013 and 2016, the armed groups planned to make Bambari their regional capital, with a view to partitioning the Central African Republic. In February 2017, the Central African authorities had taken measures to make Bambari a pilot town without an armed group, and the rebels had to leave it under pressure from the army and United Nations forces.
An asserting Russian military presence
It is in this context that Russia announced in the afternoon that it had sent “300 additional military instructors” to the Central African Republic. Officially, to help Bangui to strengthen the defensive capacities of the Central African Republic, Russia quickly responded to the request of the (Central African) government and sent “300 additional instructors for the training of the national army”, indicated the Russian Ministry of Affairs. foreigners, in a press release.
The day before, Moscow had maintained that it had not sent troops there, going against an announcement by the Central African government indicating the dispatch of “several hundred” Russian soldiers and heavy equipment. within the framework of a bilateral cooperation agreement. A senior Russian diplomat, Mikhail Bogdanov, had specified that Russia “naturally had people there, by virtue of our agreements with the Central African government, of our agreements on the training of executives and the work of our instructors”.
In this country of 4.9 million inhabitants classified among the poorest in the world but rich in diamonds, private guards employed by Russian security companies already provide close protection for President Faustin Archange Touadéra and instructors train the armed forces Central African women. On Saturday, the government accused former President François Bozizé, whose presidential candidacy was invalidated, of “attempted coup”.
But the elections continue to be prepared in the country with the incumbent president as the favorite. The latter maintained Monday at a press conference that they would take place on Sunday, as planned. He also ruled out negotiating with the rebels. “Negotiate how, in what form? You can see that there are attacks, we do not have time to negotiate, we do not know with whom to negotiate, ”he said.
And the ICC?
The Central African crisis worries both the country’s direct neighbors and internationally. The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor called for calm on Tuesday, saying that any crime falling within the jurisdiction of the tribunal would be prosecuted. Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s appeal comes as United Nations peacekeeping forces were deployed last week to the troubled Central African country. “I call on, among others, all parties, all armed groups, political actors and their supporters for calm and restraint,” said the ICC prosecutor, based in The Hague (Netherlands). “The holding of elections in a peaceful climate is essential in the Central African Republic to prevent the emergence of a spiral of violence,” Fatou Bensouda added in a statement.
The powerful 3R armed group, the Patriotic Movement for Central Africa (MPC) and anti-balaka militias launched an offensive, leading to the deployment of UN troops in the Central African Republic (Minusca) on Friday. The militias accused Central African President Faustin Archange Touadéra of seeking to rig the elections and warned of a backlash. “Anyone who commits crimes referred to in the Rome Statute, orders their commission, incites them, encourages them and contributes to them, in any way whatsoever, is liable to prosecution before the Central African courts or the International Criminal Court”, warned the prosecutor.
The prosecutor’s office opened two separate investigations concerning the Central African Republic. The latest investigation was launched after the country sank into a sectarian conflict in 2013, following the dismissal of former leader François Bozizé. The conflict had pitted the Seleka, a rebel coalition largely from the Muslim majority, against the counterinsurgency of predominantly Christian and animist anti-balaka militias.
In November 2018, former anti-balaka leader Alfred Yekatom, accused of crimes against humanity, was handed over to the ICC. He was joined in January 2019 by Patrice-Édouard Ngaïssona, considered by the International Criminal Court as one of the highest leaders of the anti-balaka. The two men are currently on trial at the ICC.
But for experts and diplomats, it is especially after the announcement of the results, at the beginning of January, that the tensions could seriously degenerate.
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