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The Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the continent's foremost political body, says it has asked the UN Security Council to redeploy a peacekeeping force to help consolidate peace in the Central African Republic (CAR).
The request followed a two-day OAU extraordinary meeting that ended on Wednesday in Libya. The OAU said the failed coup of May 2001 vindicated the fears expressed in the previous year, by the chairman of the UN Permanent Consultative Committee on Security Matters in Central Africa, about the withdrawal of the UN Mission in the CAR, MINURCA.
The UN Peace-building Office in CAR, BONUCA, replaced the peacekeeping mission in February 2000. Despite the present calm in the CAR, the OAU added, the situation remained precarious. Successive crises there had resulted in the deepening of divisions, the OAU stated. Therefore, it added, an in-depth dialogue between all the actors was necessary.
The OAU also called on the international community to provide substantial aid to the government, given its current economic crisis. "It is obvious that the situation in the CAR cannot be definitively stabilised unless the economy of the country recovers and the living condition of the people improves," the OAU added.
It was referring to the country's "particularly difficult" sociopolitical situation, further weighed down by years of unpaid salaries of public service employees.
MINURCA deployed in April 1998, following three army mutinies in 1996 and the signing of a peace accord - the Bangui Agreements - the following year. When the mission closed, two-time former head of state General Andre Kolingba mounted an unsuccessful coup in May 2001.
General Francois Bozize, the former chief of staff of the CAR armed forces, was subsequently implicated in the coup attempt and, following a clash with government forces, fled with his supporters to neighbouring Chad. Subsequent clashes occurred along the border. Despite an amnesty offered to Bozize and his supporters, he has not yet returned home.
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