50,000 illegal guns still in circulation

Some 50,000 firearms are still circulating illegally in the Central African Republic (CAR), constituting a threat to the nation's stability and to general elections scheduled for January 2005, army General Xavier Yangongo told IRIN on Saturday. "We need external support to recover all these arms," Yangongo, who heads the Peace and Security Commission at the ongoing national reconciliation talks, said. He said a request for aid had already been made to the World Bank and to the European Community. In its report to a visiting UN delegation in June, the government said it needed some 650 million francs CFA (US $1.08 million) for disarmament and the recovery of firearms. Yangongo said that those arms started going missing from barracks during the mutinies of 1996-1997. However, he said, the situation was worsened by the infusion of guns from what was then the rebel-controlled northern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; from southern Chad, where armed groups conducted cross border incursions into the CAR; and from rebel-held southern Sudan. In addition, Yangongo said, the activity of highwaymen robbers had intensified. He added that Karaco, Balawa and Saraoui militiamen who fought alongside President Ange-Felix Patasse during the mutinies were still armed and active in Bangui. Yangongo said the Ministry of Defence was working with the Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reinsertion programme of the UN Development Programme and the regional force of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central African States to disarm illegal holders of weapons. In its report to the national reconciliation conference, the Defence and Security Commission recommended that the electoral calendar be pushed back to 2006 to allow the military to recover the guns before the elections.