France, Chad, Gaddafi and the CAR: years of meddling should not be ignored
now – By Keith Somerville
Posted on
<
http://africanarguments.org/2014/01/16/france-chad-gaddafi-and-the-car-year
s-of-meddling-should-not-be-ignored-now-by-keith-somerville/> January 16,
2014
Speaking at a United Nations event marking 20 years since the Rwandan
genocide, France’s ambassador to the UN, Gerard Araud, said his government
had seriously underestimated the level of hatred between Christian and
Muslim communities in the Central African Republic. He said on 15th January
that African Union and French forces deployed in the CAR were facing a
“nearly impossible” situation. The crux of the problem was that they were
dealing with “two communities who want to kill each other”. He emphasised
that “they desperately want to kill each other…We knew that there was some
inter-sectarian violence, but we didn’t forecast such deep ingrained
hatred.”
Forgive me if I seem cynical about this, but the French have been involved
in CAR for over 120 years – carving out a territory that bore no relation to
ethnic, linguistic or other indigenous factors and did not take into account
existing boundaries of communities. Before colonial occupation, the region
was no different from any other – experiencing trade, inter-marriage and, at
times, raiding and conflict between different communities. It wasn’t some
peaceful Eden, but nor was it riven by endemic warfare or hatred between its
peoples.
France granted independence in 1960 but kept troops in the country until
1997 and backed or even organized coups in 1965, 1979 and 1981 to ensure the
CAR remained friendly to France – they even bankrolled Bokassa’s coronation
as Emperor. During demonstrations by schoolchildren and students in 1979,
French army officers and NCOs commanded forces of Zairean and CAR troops
that brutally suppressed the protests. France has remained a major
political, economic and military player in CAR – intervening for
‘humanitarian’ reasons several times.
With this long and intense involvement, if there were such wells of hatred
and a desperation on the part of Christian and Muslim communities to kill
each other, then why didn’t they spot it before and why is it only surfacing
now?
The CAR has diamonds, gold and uranium which over decades have drawn in the
French, Libyans and Chadians. Libya’s Muammar Gadaffi became close to
Bokassa as his excesses drove away even the French, who plotted to overthrow
and replace him with the CAR’s first president, David Dacko, against whom
the French had supported Bokassa in his 1965 coup. Bokassa was in Libya in
September 1979 arranging for Libyan use of military bases in the CAR near
the border with Chad (in return for Libyan security support for Bokassa),
when the French flew commando units to Bangui to overthrow him. They were
then involved in a number of subsequent coups.
Despite Bokassa’s overthrow, Libyan involvement continued – largely because
of the CAR’s usefulness as a route into Chad, where Libya was backing forces
opposed to President Hissène Habré. Libya saw the CAR as being part of its
southern hinterland and its sphere of interest in central Africa. Successive
Central African leaders would try to bolster their unstable power base by
bargaining between Libya and France – and latterly Idriss Déby’s Chad. Even
after Habré’s demise and the end of the war there, Libya remained closely
involved in the CAR supporting President Patassé against an uprising by
former military leader Andre Kolingba.
Libyan, Chadian and Congolese rebel forces all fought for Patassé against
the rebels and the Chadian government of Idriss Déby became heavily involved
in the CAR and remains a key player. Chad seemed willing to support Bozizé
after he seized power, while still retaining links with rebel groups from
the Muslim communities along the porous borders with Darfur and Chad. It
was the Chadian decision to ditch Bozizé and put its forces (already in the
CAR) behind the Séléka rebel alliance which enabled the movement to quickly
overthrow the government.
At various times over the last 15 years, conflict in the CAR between rebel
groups (grown out of the rivalry between military or political leaders
unable to accept anything other than a ‘winner takes all’ approach to power
and resources), has involved the Chadians fighting on one side or another.
At times substantial numbers of Muslim Central Africans have fled into Chad
or Darfur, where the Ndjamena or Khartoum governments received them and then
trained or armed them for future use in their regional strategies. With the
fall of Gadaffi, Chad’s Idriss Déby has become the regional kingmaker and
shows no sign of leaving CAR alone.
So, for Ambassador Araud to say that France misunderstood how much Central
Africans “desperately want to kill each other” is mendacious and a cover for
the results of their decades of mercenary interference in CAR along with
neighbouring states like Libya and Chad. People do not just harbour
primitive hatreds – an excuse also trotted out by the international
community for non-interference in Rwanda and Bosnia – but they do become
brutalized by years of oppression, of being the victims of the swirling
regional conflicts that criss-cross the borders of the central African
region.
Not only have the people of the CAR suffered the depredations of their own
governments and their foreign backers, but also of the Congolese rebels of
Jean-Pierre Bemba and of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army.
Brutalization begets brutality and killing in desperation, not desperation
for killing. It seems the French have either learned little from their years
of meddling in Africa or think others are stupid enough to swallow their
simplistic stereotyping to hide their own complicity in this humanitarian
crisis
Keith Somerville is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of
Commonwealth Studies, teaches in the School of Politics and International
Relations at the University of Kent, and runs the Africa – News and Analysis
website (www.africajournalismtheworld.com)
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Received on Thu Jan 16 2014 - 15:36:59 EST