Last Monday, in a ceremony at Bangui airport, about 1,800 additional peacekeepers and police joined a mission under U.N. control in the battle-torn Central African Republic CAR), along with the previous contingent of 4,800 African troops and 1,000 international police. The new reinforcements have come from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Morocco and Bangladesh, joining others […]
Is the crisis in the Central African Republic a “clash of civilizations”? A recent report entitled “Behind the Headlines: Drivers of Violence in the Central African Republic” from Enough, a Washington-based project of the Center for American Progress whose goal is to end genocide and crimes against humanity, is particularly revealing. Comments by the author […]
As the fighting continues in the Central African Republic, many of those following the crisis are portraying it as primarily a clash between the country’s Muslim minority and Christian militiamen, which to date has resulted in the deaths of over 2,000 people since December and the displacement of nearly a quarter of the country’s population […]
While the world focuses on the calls for partition by pro-Russian citizens in the south and east of Ukraine, similar calls from a small African nation are drawing less attention — despite horrific human rights abuses occurring on its territory. In what the U.N. human rights body and Amnesty International have called “ethnic-religious cleansing” between the […]
This is something rare. Knowledge of a rapidly deteriorating situation in Africa and a somewhat timely, actual action by those in the world with the power to intervene. The situation is in the Central African Republic. And that intervening is the first step to stabilizing the slaughter and – hopefully – stopping another genocide from […]
The people of the Central African Republic (CAR) may be left to fend for themselves. Despite the increasingly dire humanitarian crisis emerging in the country, conflict in other countries may overshadow the situation so much that the country will be left to its fate. Scores of people were killed on September 9 amidst new clashes […]
On Wednesday March 20, Seleka rebels in the Central African Republic (CAR) called off a truce negotiated at the beginning of 2013 and began an invasion of several towns on their way to the capital of Bangui. The rebels claimed that President François Bozizé failed to live up to the original agreement by expelling nearly 2,000 […]
“We must start from the simple premise that Africa’s future is up to Africans.” This simple sentence came from a speech given by U.S. President Barack Obama in Ghana in 2009. Never has this premise rung more true than right now. As Africa faces imminent threats in several regional situations, the trend seems to be […]