In
CAR,
As France
Arrests &
Imposes
Selective
Disarmament,
Rwanda Echo?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 9 --
After decades
of colonial
misrule and
months
of
post-colonial
inaction,
France's self
congratulation
for sending
its troops to
Central
African
Republic has
been echoed by
others.
But
several
questions have
gone
unanswered. Click
here for
Inner City
Press' story
from last
week.
Since
then, when
French troops
as reported
arrest former
government
officials in
Bangui, under
what authority
are they
proceeding?
When
French troops
are as
reported
disarming the
predominantly
Muslim
Seleka forces
which
overthrew
France's man
Bozize, but
not the
Christian
anti-balaka
militias (who
then target
the disarmed
or
unarmed
Muslims), how
and who is
this helping?
To
some it has
some echo of
Rwanda. There,
it was not
that France
"abandoned"
the country --
rather it was
that the Security
Council
let France run
the response,
and France
took sides (to
put it
mildly).
This
was
foreseeable,
then, in
Central
African
Republic,
given France's
history. But
to even raise
the question
last week gave
rise to
denials.
Groups like
Human Rights
Watch
downplayed
France's
colonial
role, as Inner
City Press pointed
out, and
simply called
for Western
intervention.
And now?
A
separate
question
arises: if
there have
been US forces
/ trainers
inside the
Central
African
Republic for
all this time,
in the
Haut-Mbomou
prefecture,
what have they
been doing?
Why have they
(and
the US at the
UN) not asked
for an
expansion of
their mandate
or
geographic
scope?
France
taking sides,
and the US
inactive or on
the sidelines
-- what really
has been
learned since
1994? Watch
this site.
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