Regional commission to investigate border problems

Central African leaders have set up a commission to examine the security situation along the troubled border between the Central African Republic (CAR). Africa Number 1 radio reported that the commission, chaired by Gabonese President Omar Bongo, would identify the people killed and missing in a recent border skirmish, and investigate the actions of thew CAR fugitive general and former chief of staff, Francois Bozize, and those of the Chadian rebel, Abdoulaye Miskine, who has been living in the CAR since 1998. Bozize fled to the southern Chadian town of Sarh in November 2001 with some 300 supporters after army troops tried to apprehend him on the orders of a judicial commission probing a failed coup. He denied involvement in the 28 May 2001 coup attempt. The Chadian military has claimed that Miskine has been making forays into Chad from CAR. Summoned on Monday to the CAR foreign ministry, Chadian Ambassador Maitine Djoumbe demanded that action be taken against Miskine and that he be removed from the border so that the good relations between the two countries could be preserved. CAR Prime Minister Martin Ziguele said Bozize's supporters had attacked the town of Kabo, 65 km south of the Chadian border, on Sunday. Gen Ernest Betibangui, the chief of staff of the CAR armed forces, told IRIN on Wednesday that at least 13 rebels had been killed and eight government soldiers wounded in that action. There were no civilian casualties, he said, neither did residents flee the area. An assessment of the humanitarian situation in the town remains unavailable, but the government has sent team to Kabo to assess it. Foreign aid organisations have been denied access to Kabo for security reasons, because a mission of the Community of Sahelo-Saharan States, a political body of which Chad and the CAR are members, was ambushed on 10 August on its way to the town. The five Central African regional leaders set up their commission during their closed-door meeting on Wednesday in the Republic of Congo capital, Brazzaville. Four of the leaders - Omar Bongo of Gabon, Amadou Toumani Toure of Mali, Idriss Deby of Chad and Ange-Felix Patasse of the CAR had come to Brazzaville for the inauguration of President Dennis Sassou-Nguesso for his new term of office. Ziguele said on Monday that Kabo was under the control of Miskine's men. The CAR military said government troops, most of them from the Presidential Special Battalion, had been sent to secure Kabo.