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U.N. Body Set to Appoint a Monitor for Central African Republic Woman Is Chosen to Lead Central African Republic Out of Mayhem
(about 7 hours later)
GENEVA — Alarmed by reports of more sectarian slaughter in the Central African Republic and warnings of the danger of genocide, the United Nations Human Rights Council was set to appoint an independent expert on Monday to monitor and report on the crisis. BANGUI, Central African Republic — Cheers broke out in the National Assembly building here on Monday as representatives chose the mayor of this beleaguered capital to serve as the interim president of the Central African Republic, a country in the grip of a sectarian civil war.
As members of a transition council in the capital, Bangui, prepared to elect an interim president and restore some semblance of government to end weeks of carnage, the country’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Leopold Ismael Samba, warned that the risk of genocide would “spiral if nothing is done to re-establish the foundations of the state.” Catherine Samba-Panza, 58, will be the first woman to lead the nation, and she will probably serve for a little over a year, with the goal of leading it to national elections. Her appointment came from an unusual assortment of unelected rebel sympathizers, politicians, artists and others who have filled in as a substitute parliament for a nation so fractured that it has suffered a total breakdown of the state in recent months.
His warning came as international organizations reported the killing of 22 people, including three children, when a group armed with rifles, machetes and clubs attacked a convoy of Muslims trying to flee the country near the northwestern town of Boar. The groups also reported that the International Committee of the Red Cross had helped to bury 50 people killed in sectarian violence over the weekend in the area around Boyali, Boali and Bossembele. Now, hopes are high here that she can halt this impoverished nation’s precipitous “free fall,” as the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, put it in a statement on Monday.
Mr. Samba said the international community needed to launch a “Marshall Plan” to save the country and prevent the spread of sectarian violence to neighboring countries. There was singing and dancing in the streets of the dilapidated capital on Monday afternoon, and inside the cavernous chamber of the assembly, female spectators broke into joyful shouts, cheers and trilling. The consensus, in the chamber and on the street, was that men had inexorably led the country into a spiral of vicious violence, and that the only hope was for a woman to lead it out.
The council session also coincided with a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels; they are expected to consider the possibility of sending more European troops to support the French troops already deployed there. “Everything we have been through has been the fault of men,” said Marie-Louise Yakemba, who heads a civil-society organization that brings together people of different faiths, and who cheered loudly when the speaker announced Ms. Samba-Panza’s victory. “We think that with a woman, there is at least a ray of hope,” she said.
Mr. Samba’s warning and the European debate came as Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the rights council in Geneva that immediate and concerted international action was needed to check what he called a “crisis of epic proportions.” He noted that the United Nations-led appeal for humanitarian aid for the Central African Republic remained “woefully underfunded.” Ms. Samba-Panza defeated seven other candidates, including the sons of two former presidents and a man whose claim to hold degrees that no other Central Africans possess drew hoots of derision in the assembly chamber on Monday. Her election came after a laborious five-hour process involving two separate hand counts and the double reading-out of all 120-odd members of the assembly.
Mr. Ban’s call was due to be taken up in a resolution the rights council was expected to adopt later on Monday urging the international community “to ensure the protection and assistance of those fleeing the violence” and requesting urgent international financial and technical support. Beyond the mountainous task of reassembling the state and leading it to popular elections next year, she must first try to tamp down the animosity between Muslims and Christians that has resulted in well over 1,000 deaths in the last six weeks alone.
The United Nations is setting up a commission of inquiry to investigate and document human rights abuses, Mr. Ban said, but it has yet to name any members. Ms. Samba-Panza, an insurance broker who led state-sponsored reconciliation efforts after a previous civil war, was said by supporters to be untainted by the nine-month reign of terror unleashed under the man she replaced, Michel Djotodia, whose military-camp headquarters was just up the steep wooded hill from City Hall.
The independent expert to be named by the Human Rights Council was expected to follow preliminary investigations by a United Nations human rights team last month, which confirmed that more than a thousand people had died in Bangui in two days of violence in early December. Mr. Djotodia, who installed himself as president after leading Muslim rebels in a coup last March, was forced to resign 10 days ago by regional and Western powers for allowing the sectarian bloodshed, which some in the United Nations warn could be the early stages of genocide. There are daily revenge attacks between Christian militias, known as anti-Balaka, and the remnants of the Muslim rebels, called Seleka, with most of the violence now coming from the Christians.
The United Nations’ human rights chief, Navi Pillay, told the council that the team had received consistent and credible testimony that mainly Christian “anti-Balaka” armed groups had attacked and mutilated men, women and children. The election came the same day that the European Union in Brussels agreed to send hundreds of troops to the troubled country for peacekeeping, a rare flexing of military muscle by a fractious 28-nation bloc that has no permanent army of its own and often prefers exhortation to robust action.
The team also documented cases of sexual violence and abuse, including rape and sexual slavery, by both sides, but mostly by the Muslim fighters formerly known as Seleka, Ms. Pillay said. European foreign ministers meeting in Brussels endorsed the military deployment amid growing fears that the collapse of government authority and the spiraling violence could escalate into a repeat of the genocide that convulsed Rwanda in 1994. But before sending any troops, the European Union needs approval from the United Nations to give the venture legitimacy.
The deployment of French troops appeared to have deterred large-scale attacks by the Muslim militiamen against Christian militias and civilians, but the disarming of former Seleka members appeared to have left the Muslim community vulnerable to revenge attacks by Christians, Ms. Pillay reported. The European troops will eventually join the 1,600 French troops and 4,400 African Union soldiers trying to keep a jury-rigged peace on the ground. On Monday, troops from Rwanda and Burundi guarded the assembly chamber — another indication of the country’s vanishing sovereignty.
“Our country is at the brink of implosion,” Ms. Samba-Panza acknowledged to the assembly on Monday. “The situation is catastrophic. More than ever, the country needs someone who can bring it together.” She pointed to her “sensibility as a woman,” as the key ingredient that could lead to peace.
Inside the chamber and out, women and men in the beleaguered capital agreed with her.
“As a woman, she can understand the sufferings of the people, and as a mother, she will not tolerate all of this bloodletting,” said Annette Ouango, a member of a Central African women’s group.
A day before the vote, two Muslims were killed in a gruesome lynching that took place in front of hundreds of people in central Bangui, barely a mile from the assembly chamber.
“The men have done nothing but fight,” said Judicaelle Mabongo, an 18-year-old student in downtown Bangui. “The men, they are fighting. But they are only destroying the country. This woman, she might be able to change things.”