Central African Republic
UN to send envoy to Central African Republic

afrol News, 6 June - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan is sending a special envoy to the Central African Republic after last week's attempted coup. In response to the continuing violence in the country, Annan's new envoy leaves for Bangui to have urgent talks with President Ange-Felix Patassé and other authorities and actors.

The decision to send the Special Envoy, General Amadou Toumani Touré of Mali, to the troubled country is "an additional step to Kofi Annan's continued involvement from UN Headquarters in seeking a solution to the current situation, which follows the attempted coup d'état at the end of May," a UN spokesman said yesterday in New York. 

The Secretary-General condemned the coup attempt in a statement on 29 May. Also the European Union and African countries have condemned the attempted coup and the violence that followed in its footsteps.

UN Spokesman Fred Eckhard said that General Touré, who is expected to begin his mission this week, will hold discussions aimed at ending continuing fighting reported in parts of Bangui between forces loyal to the Government and the rebels, and "restoring peaceful political dialogue within the framework of respect for the country's democratic institutions."

President Patassé declared the uprising over on Sunday but since then, clashes have continued in parts of the capital as government troops continue to encounter pockets of resistance from renegade soldiers. 

According to press reports from Bangui, heavy gunfire has been heard from the south-west of the capital. Fighting continued yesterday as troops loyal to the President, backed by Libyan forces and Congolese rebels, carried on pursuing the mutineers. 

There have been several reports of loyal troops abusing and looting the civilian population in the pursue operation. "They're even pulling the roofs off houses and taking bricks," a resident of the southern Yakoma people told the AFP news agency in Bangui. 

The peoples of the southern parts of the country are believed to be generally in opposition to Patassé's government and sympathetic to the mutineers. Also coup leader and former president General Andre Kolingba belongs to the Yakoma people, and the rebels' strongholds have been in southern Bangui residential areas, predominantly inhabited by Yakoma's.

The Presidency yesterday however strongly denied that its troops were involved in actions against civilian Yakoma, or even ethnic cleansing, as had been suggested. The President's spokesperson Prosper Ndouba stated, "There has never been any question of an ethnic cleansing operation in Bangui. Only the coup leaders and their accomplices are being sought." 

Civilians however remain in fear as the fighting, involving heavy artillery, goes on in their residential areas. Albeit government assurances that the fights are over, most remain indoors.

Even President Patassé has however been forced to condemn action by his armed forces against civilians. "There were some inappropriate actions and mistakes during the operations in certain parts of Bangui. We condemn in the firmest manner what went on," spokesperson Ndouba said before the weekend. 

General Kolingba, who admittedly had organised the mutiny, is still on the run. Kolingba ruled the Central African Republic from 1981 to 1993 before Ange-Felix Patassé defeated him in the country's first multi-party election. Patassé, re-elected democratically in 1999, is the country's first president form the north. Kolingba had stated this had not been an effort at a coup d'état, but rather a "healthy intervention" over which the mutineers had asked him to preside. 

The UN and the European Union strongly condemned Kolingba's acts, urging him to keep to peaceful dialogue and stick to the democratic institutions of the country. UN peacekeepers had only left the Central African Republic in February this year, carefully re-establishing tranquillity after several bloody coup attempts in 1996 and 1997. The April 1996 coup attempt was only defeated after France sent troops to protect Patassé's government. 

Sources: Based on CAR govt, UN, media reports and afrol archives

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