The Central African Republic and the Responsibility to Protect

Laura Collins (George Mason University) discusses the multidimensional nature of state and non-state violence in the CAR, and the necessity of utilising an atrocity prevention lens moving forward.

The Central African Republic and R2P Pillar II

Armed violence continues throughout the Central African Republic (CAR), the effects of which are endured by civilians on a daily basis. Despite ongoing trials at the ICC and the creation of a Special Criminal Court embedded in the CAR’s judicial system, many of the actors alleged of perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity operate largely unchecked. This has only heightened the risk of atrocity crimes.

Six of the CAR’s most prominent armed groups formed an ad hoc coalition just days before the December 2020 presidential elections. As these groups clashed with government forces, aided by their international allies, violence and international humanitarian law violations have escalated. So, too, have threats against local communities and the targeting of civilians suspected of supporting the government. Civilians living outside the CAR’s capital, Bangui, experience this violence most acutely, as well as the violent (in)stability of inter-conflict periods. As of May 2021, an estimated 727,000 people were internally displaced due to ongoing violence - the highest number recorded since the armed and sectarian violence of 2013.

The relevant question for international actors and observers of the CAR is not so much how the responsibility to protect (R2P) – and particularly Pillar II, which asserts the responsibility of the international community to assist states in protecting their populations from atrocity crimes – can be fulfilled. It has been seven years since the UNSC first authorised and deployed a multidimensional peacekeeping operation (MINUSCA) in the CAR, acting under Chapter 7 of the UN charter. With its strong civilian protection mandate, MINUSCA’s deployment supplemented earlier non-violent coercive measures aimed at quelling violence. Yet an important question remains: how does the international community achieve its responsibilities under Pillar II in a way that neither sustain nor further exacerbate the CAR’s complex, volatile, and ever-evolving conflict landscape?

Current attempts to address armed violence in the CAR, notably regarding much of MINUSCA’s work, focuses on activities within its mandate to extend the state’s authority and presence. All Central Africans deserve a state that is responsive to their demands, meets their basic needs, and its responsibility to protect. However, international actors must caution against structuring their assistance around the assumption of an absent, largely benign, state to be brought back or extended. There is a need to more fully appreciate how the Central African state (albeit limited) actually operates and, particularly the implications of the “relational” nature of the CAR’s state sovereignty. This is imperative given the number of actors and forms of assistance that have flowed into the country since 2013.

Second, utilising an atrocity prevention lens within the context of the CAR’s existing peacekeeping operation would not only better position MINUSCA to protect civilians from armed violence, including atrocity crimes, but also allow the mission to consider how to engage and assist the existing state more effectively. Doing so would frame efforts to strengthen state institutions and actors around dialogue on the state’s responsibility to protect rather than simply bolstering the state and assuming state actors are willing to work toward fulfilling their R2P commitments.

Violence and the Central African (non)state

The Central African state has never exerted a monopoly on the use of force (whether to engage in violence perceived as legitimate or otherwise). Yet, state actors have proven adept at building alliances to augment their share of the domestic monopoly on force. Indeed, state actors have advanced various self-interested goals by retaining, consolidating, and seizing power as well as self-enrichment. In the past, state actors, including successive sitting and aspiring Central African presidents, have profited from the presence of a range of domestic and regional violence entrepreneurs from non-state armed groups to networks of what Marielle Debos aptly characterises as “freelance military entrepreneurs”. This has had devasting consequences for civilians. The gross human rights violations perpetrated by loyalists of former Presidents Patassé and Bozizé and their foreign collaborators from the DRC and Chad respectively are well-document, as is their impunity.

More recently, the CAR’s ruling Mouvement Coeur Unis (MCU) party worked strategically to ensure President Faustin-Archange Touadéra won re-election in 2020 and the MCU a parliamentary majority by attempting to advance several legislative candidacies under their party’s banner. This included individuals connected to armed groups in the CAR. Members of the government and other state actors have long-established ties and maintain mutually beneficial relations with anti-Balaka and ex-Séléka armed groups. At times, state actors have adopted a supportive posture towards certain members of these factions who control much of the CAR’s territory and continue to target civilians, most notably their rivals’ co-ethnics. This reality exists alongside the peace agreement signed in February 2019 between incumbent President Touadéra and 14 recognised armed groups with the assistance of international actors.

Notwithstanding the state’s evident and long-standing absence in various sectors, state actors are not merely observers of violence in the CAR. Rather, as an actor among many, including armed groups and international forces currently operating under an array of international, regional, national, and also private mission banners, the state is increasingly part of the interconnected spheres of power, influence, and violence. State actors have diverse interests and benefit from relationships with these actors. Some of whom not only oppose each other but also whose priorities diverge significantly regarding their interest in assisting the state to fulfil its responsibility to protect.

Utilising an atrocity prevention lens moving forward

International actors engaged in civilian protection activities and other efforts to stabilise the CAR, and who assume that their interests and those of state actors are fully and consistently aligned, run the risk of reinforcing existing protection gaps. Specifically, MINUSCA must recognise that their efforts to build government legitimacy and promote state accountable do not exist independent of the potential that state actors have in the CAR to aggravate, sustain, and even engage in civilian abuses, both directly and indirectly.

The holding of elections in December 2020 was an essential step to begin possibly bridging the long-standing accountability gap structuring state-society relations in the CAR. However, given the detrimentally low turnout and far from inclusive electoral participation, the elections mostly legitimised the government in the eyes of international actors rather than Central Africans. Further, elections do not guarantee state actors are either willing or committed politically to developing effective and inclusive state institutions within an R2P frame with the assistance of international actors.

Relatedly, applying an atrocity prevention lens within the context of the mission’s efforts to extend the state’s authority would prioritize essential discussions on who state actors actually consider as their populations to protect. This is all the more pressing given the recently reported international humanitarian law violations by Central African Armed Forces (FACA), which mirror abuses by the CAR’s non-state armed elements, against already at-risk groups of atrocities.

International assistance to reform and redeploy the CAR’s state security forces without also encouraging state actors to comprehensively address deep-rooted questions around who is viewed as Central African, particularly concerning attitudes towards the CAR’s Muslim minority, has the potential to facilitate a resurgence of historic state abuses and heightens the risk of certain atrocity crimes. The presence of an abusive (state) actor bolstered by international forces will only serve to reinforce non-state armed groups throughout the CAR and their ongoing claims that they are necessary to protect civilians who are their religious and ethnic kin.

Within a broader R2P approach encompassing all Central Africans, international actors must use their leverage to press state actors to condemn abuses against all segments of the population and hold those responsible to account, irrespective of whether they are state or non-state armed actors. MINUSCA must also continue to strengthen its own capacity to meet its mandated civilian protection responsibilities. Failures by MINUSCA strain and can fracture vital relations with Central African communities and local leaders who are essential partners in any strategy to identify, monitor, and mitigate atrocity risk.

Appealing rhetoric about the imperative for peace from state and non-state actors alike is all too frequent in the CAR. What is needed urgently, instead, is a strategy for peace informed by an atrocity prevention lens supported by MINUSCA that first and more modestly evaluates how existing approaches bare some responsibility for exacerbating the vulnerability of Central African civilians.

Laura Collins is a PhD Candidate at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, George Mason University. Her dissertation, “Guns and Prayers: Religious Organizations and Wartime Violence in the Central African Republic,” leverages data gathered throughout the CAR to examine how religious organizations operate in wartime to shape the production of non-state armed violence against civilians.

Image credit: ‘CAR Map’ from news.yale.edu

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