Muslim woman watch FOMAC troops stand guard outside the Nour Islam
mosque where 16 bodies are being loaded in a truck for burial in Bangui,
Central African Republic, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2013. More than 500
people have been killed over the past week in sectarian fighting in
Central African Republic, aid officials said Tuesday, as France reported
that gunmen fatally shot two of its soldiers who were part of the
intervention to disarm thousands of rebels accused of attacking
civilians.
BANGUI, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — In just the
last three years in Africa, French forces pummeled Moammar Gadhafi's
troops, helped topple Ivory Coast's holdout ex-president and ousted
al-Qaida-linked militants from the rocky Malian desert.
Now, in Central African Republic, French troops are
facing a more complex and dangerous mission: Disarming militias awash
in automatic weapons in cities and towns, where would-be fighters are
tough to distinguish from civilians and sectarian tensions are running
high.
Military analysts say the French need to be smart, move quickly, and
hand over the lead to multinational African peacekeepers as soon as
possible. A former colonial power, France has 1,600 troops in Central
African Republic after beefing up its military presence last week in
response to a U.N. resolution authorizing outside force. An immediate
aim of the mission, which is to include some 6,000 troops from
neighboring African countries as well, is disarming fighters involved in
recent interreligious strife between the majority Christians and a
Muslim minority.
Muslim leaders said Wednesday that at least four
men had been killed by French forces during disarmament efforts in the
last several days. They questioned whether the French are also forcing
Christian militiamen — who fled into the bush after attacking the
capital — to hand over their weapons. To give up knives would leave
Muslims defenseless during a future attack, they say, placing little
faith in the French to protect them.
"Are they going to make the (Christian) anti-balaka
disarm too? That is the question," said Abdel Oumar, 27, who lives in
the Miskine neighborhood wracked by violence this week. "We hear that
they have infiltrated neighborhoods of the capital and are hiding with
their weapons there, ready to launch another attack."
The capital, Bangui, remained on edge Wednesday,
but with French troops patrolling, some families ventured out to bury
their dead. The perils of the French mission were starkly exposed this
week when two French soldiers were killed in a nighttime foot patrol in
the capital.
French President Francois Hollande, who initially
said the mission would take six months, said Wednesday in Paris that a
beefed-up French deployment will last "until the African force takes
over." "What's difficult in this country is there's no state, no real
authority," said retired Gen. Jean-Patrick Gaviard, a one-time head of
operations at the French joint chiefs of staff. "When you usually do
disarming, you speak with those who are in charge on the ground, and try
to be reasonable."
Rebel leader-turned-president Michel Djotodia has
tried to rein in former members of the Seleka militia that brought him
to power nine months ago in a coup which ousted the Christian president.
But many defy his order to stay in their barracks, and still roam the
streets with weapons. Military analysts say French forces run the risk
of ambushes in Bangui's dusty and narrow streets, where armored vehicles
aren't always able to enter.
In a weekend TV interview, Hollande admitted his
"worry" that militias could turn into urban guerrilla groups. U.N. and
other peacekeepers know the parlance of the mission well: Disarming,
Demobilization and Reinsertion — the last part of which can include
payouts and aid to fighters who turn in their weapons.
Thibaud Lesueur, a central Africa analyst with
International Crisis Group, said these efforts in Central African
Republic are "still at an embryonic phase" and "should be accelerated to
bring in the militiamen."
In recent years, French forces have had experience
in disarming fighters, in places like Afghanistan, where they repeatedly
dismantled vast weapons caches, or in peacekeeping missions in the
former Yugoslavia.
"In ex-Yugoslavia, when dealing with Serbs and
Albanians, we could speak with authorities who could mostly control
their fighters," said Gaviard — but that's not so in Central African
Republic. "Africans disarming Africans doesn't have the same connotation
as when it's the French. Otherwise, you look like an occupation force,"
Gaviard said. "The Africans (peacekeepers) need to be on the front
lines as soon as possible."
Two U.S. C-17 transport planes were in Uganda
Wednesday preparing for an airlift mission to take troops into Central
African Republic, U.S. Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman,
said. The American crews were planning to fly to Bujumbura, pick up
Burundian forces and their equipment and then take them to Bangui,
Warren said, though he didn't know precisely when the mission would
start.
Warren said the equipment is mostly the personal
gear of the Burundian troops, but also includes a small number of jeeps
and trucks, though no major combat vehicles.
Jamey Keaten reported from Paris. Sylvie Corbet in Paris, and Pauline Jelinek in Washington, contributed to this report.
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