African Business as Usual
Yet another African country assailed with violent turmoil as their Muslim population begins to exert the authority of terror to realize an ambition to lead these countries into the divine embrace of Islam. In Central Africa Republic Muslims represent a minority, among the greater Christian population. Which didn't stop a disparate group of Islamist militias from combining their strength into one representative group calling itself the Seleka rebel movement.They marched on the capital Bangui, of this impoverished and backward country, to forcefully remove the Christian president back in March. Removing the former president into exile, armed Muslims installed in his stead their own Muslim president, Michel Djotodia. Just as most African countries are forever embroiled in tribal antipathies and religious and sectarian unrest, so too Central Africa Republic, a former French colony.
Christians, as a majority of the population, were restive under the rule of a Muslim president. All the more so since the Seleka did not surrender their arms to a national police force, but felt entirely entitled to prey on their Christian counterparts, to indulge in psychopathic destruction and violent intimidation.
Christian groups formed their own responsive militias and began attacking the Muslim militias, and Muslim citizens and their mosques, in bloody retaliation, thus hauling the country into a fairly accurate facsimile of a civil war divided upon religious lines of resentment and vengeance. The UN Security Council agreed on French intervention in support of an incompetent African League mission.
French soldiers patrol on foot patrol in Bangui, Central African Republic, today. Photograph: Herve Serefio/Reuters
The rebel Seleka and the corresponding Christian militias have embarked on a marauding killing spree, leaving bodies lying to rot in the streets, residents fearful of leaving their homes and themselves exposed to mortal harm, and even aid workers are loathe to confront the potential for meeting their own death in attempting to retrieve corpses for burial.France has installed 1,600 troops to patrol neighbourhoods and attempt the disarming of Seleka militants. President Djotodia has pointed a finger of blame toward former president Francis Bozize for the turmoil, claiming his supporters choreographed the entire crisis.
"The current situation is the logical result of what former president Bozize set in motion by freeing prisoners and bandits, distributing weapons of war and machetes in the neighbourhoods of Bangui and inciting tribalism", charged Mr. Djotodia. Isn't that a classic?
Seleka gunmen opened fire on French troops as they were inspecting an area close by the capital's airport preparing for a disarmament operation. The French patrol returned fire, but two of its company were wounded and later died in hospital.
It's simply business as usual in yet another African country.
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