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U.S. Ambassador Visits Central African Republic Amid Bloodshed U.S. Ambassador Visits Central African Republic Amid Bloodshed
(about 9 hours later)
BANGUI, Central African Republic — The American ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, landed in this besieged capital early on Thursday with what she called a blunt and simple message: The United States is watching. BANGUI, Central African Republic — Samantha Power, the American ambassador to the United Nations, came to this tinderbox of a city on Thursday to pledge American support to end the sectarian strife that has engulfed the country, saying that the international efforts to stem the violence have been essential but not sufficient to restore calm.
The trip, one of Ms. Power’s first since assuming her role at the United Nations, brings her to a country engulfed in deadly sectarian strife, with the goal of preventing further atrocities. It has raised expectations, and some tough questions. What, exactly, is the United States willing to do to stop Christians and Muslims here from killing one another, and how much is it willing to spend? The depth of distress here was plain. So too was the depth of the distrust sown almost overnight in a society where Muslims and Christians had lived with each other for years.
The United States has not responded to the crisis in Central African Republic with the same vigor as France, the nation’s former colonial power. While France has sent 1,600 troops to help quell the fighting, the United States has made it clear that it has no plans to put boots on the ground, leaving it in a mostly supporting role. Far less clear was whether the growing but still limited American role would help put an end to the crisis, or whether a full-fledged United Nations peacekeeping force would have to be deployed to quell a conflict that has gripped the nation for months.
But Ms. Power said she had come to Central African Republic because she wanted to see the horror for herself. She is scheduled to meet with government leaders, peacekeepers, aid workers and civilians who survived machete-wielding militias to urge an immediate end to the violence that has alarmed officials around the world. France, the country’s former colonial ruler, has sent 1,600 soldiers to aid thousands of African Union-led forces. The United States has contributed $100 million to transport and equip the African units, but the Obama administration is not considering sending American soldiers, nor has it committed to supporting a large and expensive United Nations peacekeeping operation, as some have called for.
“To take a plane in here at this stage is very important and very much a sign of the priority the president attaches to events on the ground and, ultimately, stabilization in the Central African Republic,” she said aboard an Air Force plane from Washington. Ms. Power said that her visit demonstrated to her that more needed to be done. There have been improvements, she argued: With soldiers patrolling the streets, residents of the capital, Bangui, were buying rice and yams at the market, barbershops were open, and there were no corpses on the roads, as there had been just two weeks ago.
The visit was all the more noteworthy because the United States has no apparent economic or strategic interests here. It does, however, have a stated interest in staving off another Rwanda — a mission that is particularly resonant for Ms. Power, who has built her reputation on alerting the world to mass atrocities. At least 600,000 people have been chased from their homes in this conflict, according to the United Nations. The dead have not been fully counted, but about 500 have been killed in the past month in the capital, Bangui, alone. Even so, those who fled their homes — there are at least 600,000 of them across the country — told her that they were nowhere near ready to return. Gunfire broke out near the airport shortly after her departure on Thursday evening. And she heard stories of unspeakable brutality from priests, imams, widows and wounded civilians, even as they told her of their long tradition of religious harmony.
Diplomats and human rights workers have praised Ms. Power for pushing for greater American involvement in Central African Republic. But it remains to be seen whether she can interest the Obama administration in funding a large, robust and costly United Nations peacekeeping mission here, which the United Nations Security Council has stopped short of authorizing. “I come away from our time in CAR very concerned about the extent of the polarization, the tautness of the society and the temptation that families and communities that have been victimized have to take justice into their own hands,” she said later in the evening, after she had left Bangui.
“She has been the chief advocate for a stronger U.S. role in dealing with the situation in the Central African Republic, which has led Obama to rapidly scale up the amount of money the Americans are providing,” said Peter Bouckaert, a researcher at Human Rights Watch whose chilling report on the recent violence in the country was released on Thursday. “At the same time, going for a United Nations peacekeeping mission is a very expensive venture, and it is a commitment they’re not ready to make at the minute.” In the morning, a young man told her that with Muslim fighters killing so many friends and relatives of Christians, young people like him could well imagine joining a militia in revenge. Minutes later came four women, all Muslims, grieving, because a mob had killed their husbands.
What Ms. Power has done so far is leverage her diplomatic bullhorn creatively. She has called the transitional president, Michel Djotodia, twice, most recently on Sunday, when she expressed her concern about the ouster of three cabinet ministers. Mr. Djotodia was installed this year by the Seleka, a group of mostly Muslim rebel fighters, after they overthrew the government. She heard from Christian clerics about churches that had been looted. At a nearby mosque, a parishioner angrily complained that only Muslim forces were being disarmed by peacekeepers. A woman stood before her and described how her husband was murdered. He was hacked first with a machete, and then a mob poured gasoline on his corpse and watched it burn.
Those who have worked with Ms. Power say that while she plays the role of the impassioned spokeswoman for human rights — on Twitter, she has repeatedly expressed outrage about the situation in Central African Republic — she is also capable of the bureaucratic calculations required to reach consensus with the rest of the Obama administration. At a news conference at the end of her visit, she warned, “There is a tyranny of the mob that has taken hold here that is horrific in its own right, but also something that can be hard to stop once it’s been unleashed.”
The United States has contributed $100 million to a ground mission led by the African Union, including providing a pair of C-17 military cargo planes to transport troops from Burundi. It is now buying trucks to bring in soldiers from neighboring Cameroon. Britain has also supplied logistical help. She said she hoped religious leaders would be able to tap into the country’s history of communal harmony and push for reconciliation. The United States, she announced, will contribute $7 million to the effort.
The 1,600 French troops in the country have found it a tough go. Two French soldiers were killed in clashes this month. Her message for civilians was to “stand above” the temptation for revenge. Her message for the politicians she met, she said, was to remind them of their promise to relinquish power and hold elections by 2015. She called for human rights inquiries that would hold perpetrators of violence accountable. And she announced an additional $15 million for humanitarian relief.
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has recommended a 6,000- to 9,000-troop peacekeeping mission under a United Nations command. American officials have been noncommittal, saying that it would take many months to mobilize a United Nations force and that a rapid French deployment, aided by African troops, may be a more efficient solution. Her prescriptions come with tough challenges. It is unclear whether the African troops, once they reach their planned strength of 6,000 soldiers, will be able to disarm the many loosely organized militias in a country so vast, and whether donor countries will contribute enough money to keep the African Union force going. Nor is it clear whether her calls for national and international commissions of inquiry to investigate rights abuses will be enough to temper killings.
It remains unclear how American officials can prevail on leaders to stop the violence in this vast, forested country. Mr. Djotodia is said to have some influence over the Seleka, or alliance, fighters, but their rivals — mostly Christian militias — are loosely organized and spread across the country, many parts of which are beyond the current reach of French and African forces. The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has recommended, among other things, deploying an official United Nations peacekeeping force of 6,000 to 9,000 troops. The Security Council has authorized him to start preparing for that option, which is far more expensive than the current arrangement. American officials have been noncommittal about that prospect, insisting that it is more efficient to equip and transport African forces quickly, aided by the deployment of French soldiers.
Ms. Power has said nothing about American interests in Central African Republic, except to hint at the disasters that can occur in nations that Americans know little about. Ms. Power argues that it remains important to assist the Africans and make sure they get there quickly. The secretary general is expected to present his recommendations about a potential peacekeeping force early next year to the Security Council. Ms. Power will have to make a hard call then.
“Somalia taught us what can happen in a failed state, and Rwanda showed us what can occur in a deeply divided one,” she said in a call with reporters on Wednesday before departing for Bangui. “People in the Central African Republic are in profound danger, and we have profound responsibility which we must meet to help them move away from the abyss.” The visit on Thursday was Ms. Power’s first solo trip as the American ambassador to the United Nations; she took office in August. No American official of her rank has visited this country before, officials said, a sign of the limited American economic and strategic interests here. The United States Embassy has been closed intermittently over the last several years.
The Obama administration, though, does have an interest in averting genocide here, particularly Ms. Power, who has built a reputation pushing for global powers to prevent atrocities.
In a small room on Thursday, the young man who alluded to joining a militia told her that he had counted 22 corpses on a small stretch of road after the rebels who overthrew the government and seized power this year — a group known as Seleka that is mostly Muslim — went on a rampage. He said his cousins were among the dead in the countryside, adding that if nothing changed in the next couple of months, he could himself join the Christian militias that have sprung up in defense.
Ms. Power, who had been taking notes, looked up and asked: Does that mean killing people because they are Muslim?
Seleka’s rivals, the loosely organized, mostly Christian Balaka militias, have begun to wreak havoc — and Muslims complained to Ms. Power that they were not being disarmed. Muslims were not the only ones terrified about the Balaka. One Christian pastor, the Rev. Nicolas Guerekoyame-Gbangou, said the Balaka had recently abducted three Christian boys from Bangui; he was negotiating with militia leaders to secure their release.
Fear had cast such a pall over the city that next to the airport, an estimated 40,000 people had chosen to sleep outdoors, on nothing but plastic mats, just so they could be close to the French troops guarding the airport. There was not enough water there, no tarpaulin to protect against rain, and no more than a few trenches to serve as an open, communal toilet. People complained of hunger. Sufficient amounts of food aid had not come, even though the camp is perched on the edge of the heavily guarded airport.
On a walk through the camp, residents told Ms. Power that two babies had died overnight. One tent served as the clinic’s maternity ward. The Doctors Without Borders team here said it had delivered an average of eight babies a day.