Day 35: Central African Republic

[Tetro Kornbluth]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_African_Republic



Perhaps the most boringly named country in the world, this is yet another officially Francophone African state I know near to zip about except for some mysterious reason they ditched the colonial but aesthetically superior named of Ubangi-Shari after independence in favour of a series of compass points. What I do know is mostly wrapped around the personality of Jean Bedel Bokassa (1921-1996), the ne plus ultra of stereotypically comic yet horrifying postcolonial African dictators, right down to having taken power in a coup (in 1966) sponsored by a major western state (in this case it was, of course, its former colonial overlord, France). Bokassa declared CAR an empire (and thus making it 'CAE') with him as Bokassa I. In 1977 he spend almost half the country's GDP on a ceremony crowning him as Emperor, including $5million dollar crown encrusted with diamonds as a centrepiece. This ceremony was held at Bangui Cathedral despite Bokassa converting to Islam a few months earlier in order to court support from Muammar Gaddafi and Libya, when support was not forthcoming he became a Catholic again. Eventually he got so repressive, engaging personally in the torture of schoolchildren who refused to buy uniforms with an image of himself on them, that France had enough and backed a countercoup by David Dacko in 1979, he who had been overthrown by Bokassa in the first place. Dacko would then only last two years power before another coup, this time led by General André Kolingba, who in true African style who fill government posts with people from his ethnic group, the Yakoma, despite only making 4% of the population. Eventually Kolingba held elections in the changed post-Cold War world and was defeated. In recent years CAR has flitted with civil war and failed state status. First war broke out when General Francois Bozizé seized power in a coup in 2003. This led to large civil unrest and killings in the countryside. It eventually led to a settlement in 2007. This, however, was a rather minor affair compared to the war which broke out in 2012, when some of the initial rebel group accused Bozizé (still President, although now elected) of not keeping by the agreement. This grew in such intensity that rebels eventually captured Bangui and Bozizé fled the country. What happened next was that the country collapsed into sectarian website between the mostly Muslim rebel groups and the Christian supporters of Bozizé and other Christians. Muslims only make up between 10-15% of the population with the bulk of the rest Christian, but made up the strongest elements in the rebellion against Bozizé. The conflict thus has continued with fanatical Christian militia making most of the violence. It has led to thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands displaced.

Below is a map of Africa's two major currency zones: The West African (Red) and Central African (Blue) Francs, both tied to, predictably, the Euro. Equally predictably is that this is a map of former French colonies although Guinea Bissau and Equatorial Guinea have adopted the currencies of their particular areas. CAR is one of six countries in the Central African Franc zone. The Central Bank for the Central African Franc is in Yaoundé, Cameroon and not in CAR. However, much decisions are really made there is questionable.

[Storebought]

I was about to comment about this nation's hopelessly bland and generic name (and also on the fact that reputation of countries like CAR and Uganda have been tainted for over a generation for the excesses of their post-independence dictators, who didn't even last as long in office as Mobutu) ... until I saw that flag. Gawddammit that this is ugly.

[All Along The Watchtower]

One of the poorest countries in the world (GDP is less than $2 billion, according to this), and also suffering from a higher level of hunger than any other country in the world.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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[DavidB.]

I just wanted to thank Gully Foyle for this series of extremely interesting threads on countries of which I often literally only knew the geographic location, the capital city, and the former colonizer.

[ingemann]

CAR is one of the more well known of the inland former French African colonies, and that fact alone tell you that it's a f**ked up state even by African standards, not DR Congo rampant cannibalism bad, but really really bad i its own way. Beside Bokassa who was only second to Amin to being the worst horrible parody leading a African country (no matter how hard you try it's really hard to beat Amin, and Bokassa still tried his best). The other great episode was the coup against François Bozizé. Bozizé in his incredible wisdom had decided to suck up to the Chinese at the cost of French interests, so when the Muslims rebels reach the capital and he tried to call on French help, and the French suggested that he talked with Beijing about his problem. So he fleed the country. Michel Djotodia tried took "power" with approval of Paris. Sadly he lacked control over his tribal Muslim militia, which started month of massacres, pillaging and slaughter, which focused on the Christian majority. After 9 moneth of this France intervened and removed Djotodia and the Muslim militias broke complete down (France rarely need to kill many Africans when they intervene, their reputation is usual enough that opposition collapse). Of course when a new problem started the Christians had organised themselves in their own self defence forces, and suddenly their enemy was gone, and there wasn't enough French troop to enforce control, so first the slaughter of disarmed tribal (Muslim) militias started, then they began to go after the Muslim mercantile minority in the capital (these had been unconnected to militias, but had been favoured by them) and in the Christian parts of CAR. The results have been described as a genocide. Of coursed as Muslim dominated trade and transport, the trade and transport sector have broken down and there's widespread food scarity as result. The slaughter seem mostly to have stopped, likely because there's few Muslims left in Christian areas.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Optimismically, the UN called for elections this month, but they have been suspended indefinitely for obvious reasons.

[ingemann]

Optimismically, the UN called for elections this month, but they have been suspended indefinitely for obvious reasons.

Well I hope that CAR have a lightewr future, and there's hope, the African Unions for all it fault, have made it harder to get away with coups, especially against democratic elected leaders. So there's hope for CAR especially because it have much more potential than the Sahel states.