Regional joint commission to investigate tense border area

A joint investigative commission comprising officials of the African Union and the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (or CEMAC) is due in the Central African Republic capital, Bangui, on Thursday and will leave immediately for the town of Kabo, some 65 km south of the Chadian border. "The commission will tell us who lied, who told the truth, who assaulted and who was assaulted," CAR President Ange-Felix Patasse said on Tuesday. He was speaking on arrival in the Libyan coastal town of Sirte, where he briefed the Libyan leader, Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi, on the tension between CAR and Chad, state-owned Television Centrafrique reported on Wednesday. Patasse told Qadhafi that he wanted Libya to be part of the commission. An emergency summit convened in the Republic of Congo capital, Brazzaville, on 14 August set up the commission, chaired by Gabonese President Omar Bongo, to visit the area of the conflict that first flared up on 6 August. The commission will try to identify the people killed and missing in a recent border skirmish, and investigate the actions of the 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, and demanded that he be removed from the border so that, other officials said, 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 11 August.