CAR, rebels sign ceasefire accord
2011-06-12 23:06
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Bangui - The Central African government and CPJP rebels on Sunday signed a ceasefire agreement at the disarmament ministry.
"The Central African government and the CPJP agreed to sign an eight-point ceasefire agreement," said the document signed by junior Disarmament Minister General Xavier-Sylvestre Yangongo and the rebels' political advisor Mahamat Zakaria on behalf of CPJP leader Abdoulaye Hissene.
The ministry had said on Thursday the government and the rebel Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP) would sign a peace accord within a week.
The negotiations took place in the northern town of Ndele, where the minister said the CPJP agreed to enter the disarmament, demobilisation and social reintegration (DDR) campaign organised by the government and already signed by several other rebel groups.
The deal called for "the cessation of all hostilities, the abstention from any military acts and other forms of violence" and the barracking of CPJP forces until the DDR is under way.
The CPJP is the last of the substantial rebel groups that fought the Bangui government of President Francois Bozize, who took power in a military coup in 2003 and has since been re-elected.
The rebels were led by former government minister Charles Massi, who has disappeared and is considered dead by his family, probably killed.
Until the latest talks, the rebels had made clarifications from Bangui on Massi's fate a precondition for any peace negotiations.
