EU must halt army abuses: HRW
2007-09-14 08:31
Dakar - A European Union peacekeeping force to be deployed in Central African Republic must act to halt the killing of hundreds of civilians by government troops there since mid-2005, says Human Rights Watch.
The New York-based group said the EU force, which would mostly operate in neighbouring Chad, should focus on protecting civilians in both Chad and CAR and not just act as a buffer to prevent the spillover of violence from the Darfur crisis.
In a 108-page report, HRW accused the CAR security forces, especially the elite presidential guard, of killing hundreds of civilians and forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes in continuing anti-rebel operations across the north since 2005.
HRW's Africa director, Peter Takirambudde, said: "The widespread burning of homes by government security forces is the signature abuse of the conflict."
Troops 'burned villages'
While not reacting officially, senior CAR officials admitted privately that some government troops had burned villages and committed abuses against civilians.
The report entitled "State of Anarchy: Rebellion and Abuses Against Civilians" was released as the EU moved ahead with plans to deploy next month a protection force of up to 4 000 troops in Chad and Central African Republic. Only a small portion, perhaps only a few hundred, would be stationed in northeastern CAR.
This EU force was intended to complement a much bigger United Nations peacekeeping operation for Sudan's Darfur region, whose four-year-old conflict was blamed for spilling political and ethnic violence over the border into the neighbouring states.
Peter Bouckaert, one of the authors of the HRW CAR report, said the EU deployment plan, while a positive development, looked inadequate in its current form to deal with the widespread killings and abuses documented.
Cause of violence 'domestic grievances'
Bouckaert said: "The EU protection force should address the reality on the ground in CAR and should not just be a political response to the failure (of the international community) to deploy in Darfur - otherwise it's just window-dressing."
He said the main causes of the violence in CAR were domestic grievances and not problems linked to Darfur.
Bouckaert, HRW's emergency director, expressed concern about proposals that the EU's Chad and CAR force would be French-led, based in Paris and had mostly of French troops.
He recalled France had a military force stationed in Central African Republic, which had sent planes and troops to help President Francois Bozize's troops push back an offensive by rebels late last year in the northeast Vakaga prefecture.
He said: "France already has a military force on the ground, which has repeatedly intervened to prop up the Bozize regime, but has turned a blind eye to the rights abuses, mostly committed by government troops."