God's war in Middle Africa
Akong Charles Ndika
2014-10-06, Issue <
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/696> 696
Although the civil war in the Central African Republic now a religious
character, it is not religious in origin. Decades of bad governance and
political instability have accentuated sectarian sensibilities which revolve
around distribution of dwindling resources in a zero-sum proposition.
The staggering accumulation of crises in recent months seems to have
overshadowed the ongoing sectarian bloodbath between the Muslim and
Christian communities in the Central African Republic. Over 2500 peoples
have died since January, and more than one million of the 4.5 million
population displaced internally, by violence whose roots are complex but
have however been simplified and reduced to a religious cleavage by the
international community and most analysts. This is the first time religion
is source of violence in the country, and the worst ever in its history. On
the scale of brutality, the conflict in the CAR is notorious and compares
with few in the continent in terms of catastrophic levels of violence, too.
At the core, the civil war is not a fight about the right way to God as
widely viewed. But the escalating levels of violence so far, is an end of a
long progression which started by a complex interaction of factors, in
particular deteriorating grazing lands and water resources, aggravated by
bad governance as well as porous borders over the years.
A STICKY PAST
The Central African Republic has been marked frequently by its internal
conflicts and unconstitutional take-overs of power since independence from
France in 1960. The immediate cause of the present crisis followed a path in
history. Violence erupted in March 2013, when a rag-tag coalition of rebel
groups-Seleka Alliance-led by a Muslim Michel Djotodjia ousted former
President Francois Bozize . It, however, took a religious turn when the
mostly Muslim rebel group started directing violence against civilians
mostly Christians in Bangui. The reprisal led to the formation of a
Christian self-defense group, Anti-Balaka forces, which have locked both
communities in a vicious cycle of revenge and counter revenge killings.
Political and security strategies to address the immediate causes of the
civil war have not only been ineffective, but more so failed to consider the
root causes. As a consequence, the Central African Republic has de facto
been partitioned along sectarian lines with Muslims and Christians living in
separately protected areas in the capital city and across the country. The
15 percent Muslim population in the country have almost been ejected from
the capital Bangui. The majority Christian populations have concentrated in
the South while the Muslim in the North. At the moment of writing, the
security and humanitarian situation appears relatively calm but volatile
thanks to the intervention of the African-led international peace keeping
force. Sporadic violence between both communities however still continues in
the capital city, but increasingly more in the regions.
A CLIMATE MATTER
The environmental ingredients were in place immediately after independence.
A growing number of environmental stressors have been interacting with a
variable and changing climate to drive conflicts in the country. By
accident, those environment-driven conflicts have overlapped with religion
in particular, the divide between the Christian sedentary farming
livelihoods and the mobile Muslim pastoralist way of life.
While long-term climate change is projected to heighten risks of
environmental change, the water and agriculture sectors are already feeling
the impacts of an increasingly unpredictable climate. The per capita
availability of crop land has fallen by more than 3-fold since independence.
The downward availability of croplands shows a regional dimension. Over the
same period, Chad has even suffered more from the shortage of land for
farming and pasture, a major driver in the growth of transhumance migration
across the border into CAR. With competition over increasingly dwindling
grazing lands come spikes in violent conflicts between pastoralists from the
water-poor north and farmers in the water- rich south.
A water attraction
Together with the falling availability of grazing lands, water, one of CAR's
important comparative advantages over other countries in the region, has
been declining from year to year too. The two river basins: the Ubangi and
Chari, which flows into Lake Chad, have experienced a worrisome decline in
their water potential. Also the quality of surface water is also
deteriorating, especially that of its rivers, springs, ponds, and
traditional wells that provide drinking water to around 70 percent of the
population.
The rich water resources and extensive grazing lands have traditionally
attracted cross-border migration into CAR. In fact, according to FAO
estimates, 20 percent of all cattle in the Central African region are found
in CAR. Historically, conflicts have been intricate part of the experience
of herding pastures from Chad southwards into the CAR. However because of
the negative consequences of environmental stressors, these conflicts have
taken a violent tend, accelerated by the present insecurity in the country,
too. Since 2008, violence has reached records level with significant
percentage of populations living along the grazing lands in CAR, internally
displaced
The mainly Muslim pastoralists from Central Africa Republic including some
from Chad and Sudan are collectively perceived negatively by Central
Africans farmers as ''conquerors''. And due to the worsening security
situations, they have changed their migration routes as well as equipped
themselves with more sophisticated ammunitions including Kalashnikovs making
it difficult to distinguish them from armed groups, bandits or rebellions.
And the disruption of the traditional migration routes has led to further
destructions of crops and fueled conflicts between sedentary farmers and
pastoralists group. Given the increasing inter-communal tensions, it is
likely that pastoralists who are predominantly Muslim will increasingly
armed themselves, against the spiraling religious inspired violence.
A BIG BUSINESS
The organization of pastoralism is changing too, increasingly becoming
welded into the capitalist economy. Wealthy Chadian business men in the
cities including military as well as politicians have invested in herding.
Herding as a profitable business is becoming increasingly sophisticated with
strong linkages to the urban elites and political class. The new
entrepreneurs bring not only financial resources but also provide important
networks that may trample and even corrupt local institutions including
security apparatus for managing conflicts between herders and farmers. The
sizes of the herds combine with increased resources and political
connections of pastoral entrepreneurs have changed the balance of power
between herders and farmers, a major source of conflicts between Chad and
CAR. It is unclear what will happen if Chadian troops decide to accompany
the herders across the border into CAR.
In the absence of effective government in the borderlands, local communities
have started taking laws into their own hands even before the present
crisis- forming vigilantes groups to fight against the cattle herders.
Conflicts have increasingly spiraled into violence. For example in 2011, it
was reported that conflicts between pastoralists from chad and local
communities around Batangafo caused the displacement of thousands of people.
In a revenge attack, cattle herders burnt down several villages following
the murder of one of their own (La Croix, 2013)
A BROKEN INSTITUTION
Regional attempts to regulate transhumance movement of cattle have been
suboptimal. While legislation in CAR is obsolete, recent bilateral attempts
to address the problem were aborted with the onset of the current crisis.
There is no adequate legal response to the influx of pastoralists from Chad
and changing migratory routes of pastoralists. Government's efforts have
been mostly internal with institutional attempts to delineate particular
areas for pastures during the rainy season. But most of the top-down
attempts have failed because of lack of sufficient ownership from the
communities and villages as well as lack of resources by the communities to
police the earmarked pastures against pastoralists with increasingly
sophisticated arms.
A WARMING TREND
While strong awareness exists in the country about climate change, there's
no effective adaptation program to mitigate the consequences of
climate-induced conflicts. In a vicious cycle fashion, the ongoing conflicts
limit environmental governance which in turn makes the country even more
vulnerable to climate change.
And it is projected that CAR's climate could warm by 1.5 to 2.5 degrees
Celsius by 2080 (CIFOR, 2013)
ART OF WAR-MAKING
The way to God is not the root of the violence. In fact, many threads unify
the country including a common language Sangho. As well as, there are many
sources of divisions beyond religion including more than 80 ethnic groups.
However, a self-interest driven political class in the country has leveled
off those differences and erased the common threads within the society,
leaving bare sectarian divisions, and identities which revolve around
distribution of resources, in a zero-sum proposition. Each sectarian
community perceives and frames its survival at the expense of the other.
And instead of the country's elites and war entrepreneurs strengthening
institutions to manage or reduce the emerging structural conflicts over
resources; they have opted to build their power-based around the symptoms of
the problem: the manufactured divide between Christian and Muslim
communities. And to sustain war, the two main God's warriors- Ex Seleka and
Anti Balaka forces-, share in common the looting of the country's abundant
natural resources including diamonds and wildlife, too.
Environment matters but operates in a chicken and egg fashion. Rainfall
availability has transformed the conflicts in Middle Africa into large-scale
violence but do so in combination with other proximate factors including
broken security institutions, failed politics and greedy elites (see fig4 )
The perennial insecurity and weak institutions undermines environmental
sustainability efforts. Without addressing the underlying resource-based
causes to conflicts, current peacekeeping interventions would remain
cosmetic at best. A multi-level approach including strengthened
environmental cooperation between the Central African Republic and
neighboring Chad on transhumance migration could boost confidence between
the fractured Chad-CAR relations, crucial for sustainable peacebuilding in
the country.
WORKS CITED
. La Croix. (2013, June 13 ). Retrieved June 1 June, 2014, from
<
http://www.lacroix.com/Actualite/Monde/Centrafrique-le-drame-oublie-2013-06
-24-977820:>
http://www.lacroix.com/Actualite/Monde/Centrafrique-le-drame-oublie-2013-06-
24-977820:
<
http://www.la-croix.com/Actualite/Monde/Centrafrique-le-drame-oublie-2013-0
6-24-977820>
http://www.la-croix.com/Actualite/Monde/Centrafrique-le-drame-oublie-2013-06
-24-977820
. ACCORD. (2011). Drivers of Conflicts in the Central African Republic, Chad
and Sudan. ACCORD.
. CIFOR, C. f. (2013). Institutional Perceptions, Adaptive Capacity and
Climate Change Response in a Post-Conflict Country: a Case Study of Central
Afrrican Republic. CIFOR.
* Akong Charles Ndika is global affairs blogger _at_
<
http://mettaboy.blogspot.com/>
http://mettaboy.blogspot.com/
Received on Mon Oct 06 2014 - 15:51:41 EDT