By Matthew Russell Lee, News Analysis
www.innercitypress.com/car4alarm081009.html
UNITED NATIONS, August 10 -- The Central African Republic, one of the poorest countries in the world where people fearing both government and rebel forces flee into the bush, "suffers from a surfeit of multilateral interventions," UN Humanitarian deputy Catherine Bragg told Inner City Press on August 10.
Ms. Bragg recently visited the CAR and on Monday she came to brief the UN press corps. Only two media outlets asked questions. Ms. Bragg began by marveling that there were as many reporters present as there were. (In a briefing just before Ms. Bragg began, a scandal occasioned by nepotism by UN Congo Mission chief Alan Doss was the topic of energetic questioning, click here for that.)
The UN's still unsuccessful engagement with CAR ranges from a peacekeeping mission that is directed only at spill over from Darfur in Sudan, to a peacebuilding project repeatedly changes its name. As Ms. Bragg described it, there are sections of the country with no roads at all. Video here, from Minute 28:23.
Still, she said when Inner City Press asked, the biggest problem is fear among the population. Despite local and international peacekeeping missions, there is still no peace. Former colonial power France contributes little.
It is a country so poor, some say, that it cannot even afford a more descriptive name than "Central African Republic."
It is to Ms. Bragg's credit that she went, and that upon her return she sought to brief the press. But Inner City Press' final question remains unanswered: what is being done so that the same sad briefing is not given in two years, or in five years?
