CAR army 'liable for massacre'
2006-02-16 09:28
Bangui - Three lawmakers in the Central African Republic on Wednesday accused the army of massacring civilians in the northern town of Paoua and the surrounding district during a crackdown on bandits.
Members of parliament in the opposition Movement for the Liberation of the Centrafrican People (MLPC) said that for about 10 days, troops had been killing ordinary people in the name of a crime-busting operation.
The MPs, whose party stronghold was in the region about 500km north of Bangui, didn't identify their sources, but jointly declared they had similar reports from several "trustworthy sources".
Insecurity
They said that there had been "killings on a large scale in the town of Paoua and in its outlying districts, under the pretext of the struggle against those responsible for insecurity in the north".
Joseph Boykota-Zouketia, Christophe Ndouba and Luc-Apollinaire Dondon Konamabaye said: "Students, teachers, traders, preachers, peasants, mostly young people ... nobody is spared." They estimated that the "number of victims is more than 100".
No independent sources could be obtained to confirm the allegation from the members of the MLPC, whose party was that of former president Ange-Felix Patasse, toppled in a March 2003 by general Francois Bozize.
Ten people killed
According to a source, Red Cross workers in Paoua "buried 27 people, particularly civilians", in the days after the army on January 29 routed an attack by a bandit gang at Paoua, after about 10 people were killed, several wounded and prisoners taken among the outlaws.
The source said that after the offensive, soldiers garrisoned in Bossangoa, about 100km southwest of Paoua, arrived as reinforcements, pursued members of the gang and "confused the local people with the gunmen".
Bozize oversaw a transition back to democracy in the dirt-poor, landlocked nation, where he launched an anti-corruption drive, had been elected head of state and this year sent troops to crackdown on bandit gangs and highway robbers in lawless regions distant from the capital.
Unpaid govt workers protest
The turmoil in the north had driven more than 15 000 people across the border into Chad as refugees for fear of bandits raids that had become more frequent in the past six months.
Part of the trouble was considered ethnic, a problem that worsened under Patasse, who riled the army while in power and faced down a series of mutinies as well as regular strikes and demonstrations by unpaid government workers.
It had been compounded by the proliferation of weapons and militias during years of instability.
Before the raid on Paoua, responsibility for two other attacks in the region was claimed by a hitherto unknown movement, the People's Army for the Restoration of the Republic and Democracy (APRD), whose declared objective was the overthrow of Bozize.