Law-body authorises ratification of regional peace treaties

The National Transitional Council (NTC), the law-advisory body in the Central African Republic (CAR) on Saturday approved a bill authorising CAR leader Francois Bozize to ratify two treaties aimed at preventing and managing conflict in central Africa, state-owned Radio Centrafrique reported. A date for the ratification has yet to be announced. "The ratification of the two treaties will put an end to the intervention of non-conventional forces in our country," Beatrice Epaye, a member of the NTC foreign affairs commission, told IRIN after the vote. She said the treaties authorised the armies of the 11 members of La Communaute Economique des Etats d'Afrique Centrale (CEEAC)to intervene to prevent, manage and settle internal conflicts, or conflicts opposing states. On 24 February 2000, heads of states or representatives from Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, the CAR, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Sao Tome and Principe signed in Yaounde, Cameroon, a protocol creating the Conseil de Paix et de Securite de l'Afrique Central, known as COPAX. They also signed a treaty creating the Pact d'Assistance Mutuelle des Etats Membres de la CEEAC. The two treaties were to be implemented after ratification by member states. COPAX allowed for the establishment of an early warning mechanism, and a peace-restoring and peacekeeping force. The peacekeeping force, whose deployment would be decided by heads of states, would also fight the proliferation of illegal arms and cross-border criminality; facilitate mediations during conflicts and secure corridors for humanitarian operations. The mutual assistance pact allowed for member states to assist militarily, financially or otherwise a member state facing attack from outside or from within. For the last seven years, the CAR has been relying on conventional and non-conventional forces from abroad to end internal conflict. Former president Ange-Felix Patasse, whom Bozize ousted on 15 March, formed militias including Chadian mercenaries to overcome three mutinies between 1996 and 1997. He later called in DRC former rebels, Mouvement de Liberation du Congo (MLC), to resist a coup attempt by former leader Andre Kolingba. Later on, 200 soldiers from Libya, Sudan and Djibouti were deployed in the CAR within the framework of the Community of Sahelo-Saharan States (CENSAD) to protect Patasse against Bozize’s rebellion. "The population never complained of the CENSAD troops," Epaye said, noting that conversely, each time non-conventional forces intervened in the CAR, they committed atrocities against the population. The MLC combatants were accused of raping women and looting, while Chadian mercenaries who fought for Bozize are being accused of terrorising the population in the capital, Bangui.