By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 9 -- Amid reports from Central African Republic of France making arrests, including of former interior minister Nourdine Adam, and of the targeting of Muslims after France disarmed the predominantly Muslim Seleka forces, Inner City Press put both questions to French Ambassador Gerard Araud on Monday.
When Inner City Press asked about the "sequencing" of disarmament, Araud replied that in Bangui there are only the Seleka, the (predominantly Christian) anti-balaka pulled ten or 15 kilometers out of the city.
Then perhaps the reprisals are from mobs not technically part of the informal anti-balaka. Because media ranging from Associated Press to UK Channel 4 are reporting these attacks.
On the arrest of the former interior minister, Araud said he wasn't aware of it, and said that France does not have a mandate to make arrests.
He said that French troops make a request that a person disarm; if they do, they are free to go. If not, France turns them over to the African forces, he said. Is this what happened to Nourdine Adam, referred to by Al Jazeera as a top Seleka commander as well?
At Monday's UN noon briefing Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson Martin Nesirky about France's authority to make arrests. He said, ask the French authorities, and look at the resolution. (Even France says they do not have a mandate to make arrests.)
Again, when French troops are as reported disarming the predominantly Muslim Seleka forces which overthrew France's man Bozize, but not the Christian anti-balaka militias (who then target the disarmed or unarmed Muslims), how and who is this helping?
To some it has some echo of Rwanda. There, it was not that France "abandoned" the country -- rather it was that the Security Council let France run the response, and France took sides (to put it mildly).
This was foreseeable, then, in Central African Republic, given France's history. But to even raise the question last week gave rise to denials. Groups like Human Rights Watch downplayed France's colonial role, as Inner City Presspointed out, and simply called for Western intervention. And now?
A separate question arises: if there have been US forces / trainers inside the Central African Republic for all this time, in the Haut-Mbomou prefecture, what have they been doing? Why have they (and the US at the UN) not asked for an expansion of their mandate or geographic scope?
France taking sides, and the US inactive or on the sidelines -- what really has been learned since 1994? Watch this site.
