Focus on the impact of war on herdsmen

Seven years of repeated crises in the Central African Republic (CAR), a nation where 80 percent of its 3.5 million inhabitants are farmers, have adversely affected all the economic sectors, exposing most of the population to the threat of famine in months to come. The livestock sector, which constitutes 35 percent of rural earnings and contributes 11 percent to the gross domestic product, is among the worst affected by the conflicts. Whereas the Livestock Ministry has no complete statistics on the extent of the damage to this sector, the association of livestock farmers - Federation Nationale des Eleveurs Centrafricains - offers an insight. The official in charge of livestock cooperatives at the federation, Ousmane Shehou, said 40 percent to 50 percent of the cattle owned by members had been killed during the fighting between pro and anti government forces from October 2002 to March 2003, which mostly took place in the cattle rearing north. "Fighters of both sides killed animals at will," Shehou said. "They shot at them indiscriminately killing many and causing the surviving animals to flee," Mamadou Mbouladji, a Fulani herdsman now turned cattle salesman at Ngola Market, 13 km from central Bangui, told IRIN. Mbouladji, 60, said the Mouvement pour le liberation du congo (MLC) - then a rebel movement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that had come to aid Patasse - killed all his 40 cows in December 2002 near the town of Damara, 80 km north of Bangui. Ousman Amadou, 54, is the chairman of Kautal Felobe, one of six associations at Ngola Market. He said at least 700 cows were killed at Ngola in November 2002, when MLC fighters and CAR government troops flushed out rebel fighters from the northern suburbs of Bangui. At the time, 120 cattle herders were reported killed and buried in mass graves near the market. Herdsmen become cattle salesmen After fleeing the terror, many herdsmen have become cattle salesmen in markets. Most are from the provinces of Ouham, Ouham Pende, Nana Grebizi, Kemo and Nana Mambere and had fled their homes in October 2002, when former army chief of staff Francois Bozize first launched his attacks against the government of President Ange-Felix Patasse. "All the cattle herders left the north to seek refuge in [southern] Ombella Mpoko Province," Shehou said. He said that 700 families and their cattle were in Boali, 80 km north of Bangui, and surrounding villages and had still not received aid. Efforts by the army and the peacekeeping force of the Economic and Monetary community of Central African States (CEMAC) notwithstanding, insecurity persists in the north, especially in the cattle herders' encampments that are inaccessible due to bad or non-existent roads. After acquiring more modern arms and more ammunition cattle raiders changed their risky business of killing herdsmen to become cattle owners themselves. However, they have also resorted to taking the children of herdsmen hostage and demanding huge ransoms. On 18 November, a group of cattle raiders demanded two million francs CFA ($3,300) before releasing 10 herdsmen’s sons in Boyali, 25 km north of Boali. So far, the army has been ineffective in crushing this menace and herdsmen have little confidence in the national military, preferring that the CEMAC troops take charge of this operation, Sheshou said. This was because herdsmen had complained that government troops had always said they needed food and money before they could intervene; and sometime they had resorted to extortion or outright theft of the rural folk, George Ndamoyen, the communication officer at the Livestock Ministry, told IRIN on 20 November. The combined result of all these factors has been that some herdsmen have formed self defence units of 20 men each armed with bows and arrows, which have proved ineffective against automatic weapons. "If nothing is done urgently, there is a big risk that all cattle farmers might emigrate to neighbouring countries, " Shehou said. Many herdsmen have already gone to Cameroon, Chad and Sudan. Should this continue it could turn the CAR - once an exporter of meat with 3.2 million cattle in 2001 - to a meat importer. If the herdsmen migrate en mass meat prices would increase, meaning fewer people would have access to this protein source and the fear is that malnutrition levels might increase. From herdsmen to farmers Meanwhile, to make up for their loss the livestock federation has appealed for donors to help herdsmen who have lost their cattle. For example, the herdsmen want the same kind of consideration the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) is giving to pig, rabbit and poultry farmers. The FAO is implementing a $322,000 project for these farmers to receive sires and farming implements. Fishermen and fish farmers are also benefiting from the project set to end in November 2004. "We have the feeling that we have been abandoned even though the cattle breeding sector was the most affected," Amadou said. Since donors have not responded to the federation's appeal for help, the body has tried to persuade the herdsmen into becoming sedentary crop farmers, but the idea has met with only lukewarm response. Boubakar Bobo, 24, who lost his 23 cows to banditry in 2002, said he preferred his present occupation as a cattle salesman that earns him about 6,000 francs ($10) per day, to farming crops. Forcing herdsmen to become sedentary farmers could be counterproductive, FAO Programme Officer Etienne Ngounio-Gabia told IRIN on 20 November. "We can never encourage such a change," he said. The preferred action, he said, would be to help the herdsmen resume their activities in their own specialisation, but that help, he said, was not forthcoming from the FAO. "The FAO targets the most vulnerable and the poorest," Ngounio-Gabia said. Somebody who was able to own up to 50 or 100 cattle, he said, could not be considered vulnerable.