Former Red Cross chairman arrested

Police in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), have arrested the chairman of the CAR Red Cross Society's dissolved executive board, Francois Farra-Frond, for his alleged involvement in the misappropriation of donor funds, a Red Cross official told IRIN on Tuesday. "All the Red Cross's partners have suspended their support," Red Cross Secretary-General Albert Sangou-Gbaya said. He added that Red Cross personnel had not been paid salaries for eight months. After dissolving the executive board on 9 July, Social Affairs Minister Lea Koyassoum Doumta appointed an interim body, pending the election of a new executive board in January 2004. Responding to the dissolution, Farra-Frond, who was minister of state for finance in the early 1980s, told IRIN on 13 July that the action was illegal and motivated by internal conflicts. He said he would file a complaint with the courts. Operational since 1966 and with a total of 10,000 volunteers in 14 of the CAR's 16 provinces, the Red Cross actively involved itself in the exhumation and reburial of badly buried corpses during the repeated crises of the last six years. The 15 March coup that brought Francois Bozize to power after overthrowing Ange-Felix Patasse left the Red Cross headquarters completely looted and destroyed. The new team of Red Cross administrators is currently headquartered in a Roman Catholic parish in a Bangui suburb. Sangou-Gbaya said the International Committee of Red Cross had agreed to help the local society find a new office.