UNITED NATIONS SEEKS MORE
PEACEKEEPERS FOR CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
Bangui - The United Nations
peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic is requesting about 750 more
troops to help fill a "security vacuum" worsened by the withdrawal of
US Special Forces as violence surges again, according to a confidential cable
obtained.
The additional troops are needed
in the southeast after the withdrawal this year of U.S. and Ugandan troops
hunting the Lord's Resistance Army rebels, according to the message from
mission head Parfait Onanga-Anyanga to the UN's head of peacekeeping operations
in New York.
Hundreds of people have been
killed since May and more than half a million people have been displaced as
largely sectarian violence moves into parts of Central African Republic that
were spared the worst of the fighting that began in 2013. International
observers warn that the country is approaching the levels of violence seen at
the height of the conflict in 2014.
The UN Secretary General Antonio
Guterres on Wednesday said he wanted to "shine a spotlight on an
under-reported emergency" in Central African Republic, which has seen a 37
percent increase in refugees and displaced people in the past three months.
INCREASED
ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS
Rebel groups control an estimated
70 percent of the country, according to international human rights
organisations. The UN mission has acknowledged that its authorised force of 10
750 military personnel and 2,080 police is not enough in the country roughly
the size of Texas.
The request for more troops would
increase the total of uniformed peacekeepers to about 13,500.
"It's pretty clear that the
mission, with its current capacity, is overstretched," said Human Rights
Watch researcher Lewis Mudge. "They simply don't have the means to address
the increased attacks on civilians."
The fighting is mostly between
predominantly Muslim ex-Seleka rebels and majority Christian anti-Balaka
fighters over resources and trade routes in the countryside.
The existence of the Lord's
Resistance Army rebel group in the region is also a concern. The US and Ugandan
militaries in pulling out of the hunt for the LRA said the group had largely
been neutralized. However, leader Joseph Kony, who is wanted by the
International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, remains one of Africa's most-wanted
fugitives. The UN has reported kidnappings by the LRA in the region since the
pullout.
In his cable, Onanga-Anyanga
wrote that "new actors are emerging to fill the security vacuum (in the
southeast), creating upheaval in a once relatively calm region." Those
include offshoots of the ex-Seleka and anti-Balaka fighters.
PEACEKEEPING
BUDGETS
The UN peacekeeping mission needs
an "urgent increase in military capabilities given the deteriorating
security situation and escalating violence against civilians, humanitarians and
peacekeepers," said Evan Cinq-Mars?, the UN advocate and policy adviser at
the non-profit Center for Civilians in Conflict.
But any request for more
resources for the UN mission is challenged by pressure from the Trump
administration to cut peacekeeping budgets, even though the US ambassador to
the UN, Nikki Haley, met with Central African Republic President Faustin
Touadera in March and reaffirmed US support for the country.
THE UN
PEACEKEEPING MISSION DID NOT COMMENT.
The additional peacekeepers, if
granted, also may be used to push out the ex-Seleka rebel group Popular Front
for the Renaissance of Central African Republic. Onanga-Anyanga's cable said
the mission's force commander is "confident the armed groups can be ousted
from Bria" town in the southeast. The UN peacekeepers earlier this year
forced the ex-Seleka rebel group Union for the Peace in Central African
Republic out of the central mining town of Bambari. Mudge, who recently visited
Bambari, said the town is doing better now with the peacekeepers and state
security forces back in control.
"Efforts to oust (rebels)
from major towns, as long as there are sufficient blue helmets to maintain
peace, may increase stability in the east," Mudge said, referring to the
peacekeepers.
