China offers military materiel for CEMAC peace force

The People's Republic of China has delivered military equipment worth CFA 100 million (US $159,104) to the regional Economic and Monetary Community of Central African States to deploy troops to the troubled Central African Republic, Lamine Cisse, the UN Secretary-General's Representative to the African nation told IRIN on Tuesday. "China has already contributed CFA 100 million worth of equipment which it transported from China to CAR," Cisse said. France, he added, had also contributed equipment while the United States had offered to transport the troops. Their mission will be to protect President Ange-Felix Patasse, reform the CAR army, and monitor the situation on the CAR border with Chad. Cisse said that a committee - comprising Gabon's foreign and defence ministries, the US, French and EU embassies - had been established in Libreville, the Gabonese capital, to manage donor funds allocated to the force. The force - created on 2 October at a regional summit in Libreville - is to comprise 300-350 men from Gabon, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Congo, and Mali, which is not a member of the regional community. The force will replace Libyan troops who have been stationed in Bangui since the failed 28 May 2001 coup led by former President Andre Kolingba. The controversy that resulted from Patasse's declaration that the Libyan troops who assure his security would remain in CAR even after the deployment of the regional force was finally ended after intensive pressure from donor nations. "Some donors who had agreed to support the CEMAC force and the implementation of the IMF programme [in favour of CAR] thought that that declaration went against the 2 October Libreville Accord," said Cisse, who traveled to Libreville early last week to discuss the issue with President Omar Bongo. "President Bongo and I had to find a formula that could appease the donors and that is what was done," Cisse said. Three colleagues from the Republic of Congo joined fourteen Gabonese officers who have been in Bangui since 1 November to prepare the deployment of the regional troops on Tuesday. Cisse told IRIN that the Congolese contingent of soldiers was about to finish training in Libreville.