Spiegel Online, Dec. 5th. - The war in Sudan's Darfur region has spread to epidemic proportions and is now plunging the neighboring Central African Republic into chaos. This is just adding one more problem to a country that has been torn apart by its own internal divisions for decades.The captain is in good spirits. "Look how beautiful my pistol is and how nicely it sits in my hand," he says. "I made it myself." Laurent Djim-Woei Bebiti swings his right arm around and aims the weapon -- in reality little more than a sawed-off shotgun -- at his men, then into the humid forest and finally into the air. He stands there, one arm stretched to the sky, the other holding up his trousers, a rebel wearing a dirty, green uniform, a knife and satellite telephone slung from his belt. His boyish face is half-covered by a floppy, oversized hat and thin stubble covers his chin. The captain is 35 years old. Suddenly Bebiti's mood changes without any apparent reason. His eyes flash wildly and his men anxiously huddle up, clutching weapons including rusted shotguns, spears, machetes and knives, Kalashnikovs and rifles. Bebiti's group calls itself the "People's Army for the Reestablishment of the Republic and Democracy," or APRD. Behind that grand title hides a bunch of desperados -- 10-year-old kids wielding World War II-era rifles, medicine men with their amulets and magic powders, and adolescents with pirate bandanas on their heads. The forests are home to this motley-looking militia opposed to the government in the capital Bangui. The inhabitants of the Central African Republic call their country "Bê-Afrîka" -- the heart of Africa -- in Sango, their native language. The country is halfway between the Mediterranean and South Africa, and it would take almost as long to drive to the Atlantic Ocean as it would to the Indian Ocean, if of course the roads were navigable.
The place that ship captain and writer Joseph Conrad wrote about in his famous novel "Heart of Darkness" more than 100 years ago couldn't have been far from the disease-ridden central African swamps and their native pygmy populations. The region also holds the dubious distinction of being the birthplace of the AIDS and Ebola viruses. In addition to being the continent's geographic center, the Central African Republic epitomizes Africa's many ills. The country is plagued by a number of interrelated wars. Across the Ubangi River in neighboring Congo, rebels led by ethnic Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda are embroiled in a bitter struggle with government troops dispatched from the capital Kinshasa. The northeastern part of the Central African Republic, which is about the size of Afghanistan, is home to a guerilla organization that calls itself the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR) and is most likely supported by the Sudanese government. Forests in the northwestern part of the country have been the hideout for the APRD's would-be warriors since June 2005. There are also other rebel groups that tend to change sides as frequently as they change names, a number of which receive their weapons from neighboring countries.
The government in Bangui, for its part, receives support from neighboring Chad, from peacekeeping forces from Gabon and the Republic of Congo and from a few hundred French paratroopers. France, once the dominant colonial power in Central Africa, still feels responsible for maintaining stability in the region, though the "Grande Nation" has not been overly particular in its choice of allies in the region. For instance, Paris supports Chadian President Idriss Déby against Sudan-backed rebels. In the Central African Republic, the French are currently allied with President François Bozizé, a man who rode a military coup to power and is notorious for human rights violations. But Paris isn't overly concerned abut Bozizé's reputation because, without him, the country could easily slip into the same kind of civil war over power and natural resources that has plagued Congo for years. More than 200,000 refugees are wandering about in the Central African Republic. Most of them are internal refugees, but some are from neighboring countries that have been plagued by wars for years -- Chad, Congo and Sudan. About 80,000 Central Africans have fled to countries including neighboring Cameroon. A small contingent of European troops will soon be arriving in the northeastern part of the Central African Republic as part of a European Union mission to establish peace in Chad, where heavy fighting recently re-erupted. Whether the force, which will consist mainly of French soldiers, will succeed in establishing control over the murderous chaos there seems doubtful.
The human rights group Amnesty International calls the country "a hunting ground for armed rebel groups, government soldiers and bandits." On the list of the world's poorest nations, the Central African Republic ranks 172 out of 177. Only 30 percent of children attend school. The average life expectancy has been falling since 1970 and now stands at 39, which is even lower than that of war-torn Afghanistan. More than half of the country's four million inhabitants are illiterate. According to United Nations estimates, one in three Central Africans is in need of humanitarian assistance.
By Thilo Thielke
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