Breaking the cycle of conflict in CAR
Breaking the cycle of conflict in CAR
Cordaid, 22 Dec 2015
URL: https://www.cordaid.org/en/news/breaking-cycle-conflict-car/
Fresh violence and insecurity in the Central African Republic, which forced Cordaid to temporarily suspend its programs in October, is one of many in a recurring cycle of violence since the early ‘90’s. “The country is caught-up in a conflict trap and every crisis but a multiplication of armed groups ”, says Frederick Lamy, Cordaid’s security and justice advisor, who went back to Bangui in early November after his evacuation in October.
“To get out of this trap and recover as a nation, Central Africans must be given a chance to heal from their sufferings, find ways to build peace and put them in practice in daily life. It’s a conditional step towards disarmament and putting an end to the devastating rule of the gun and an economy of predation”, Lamy says.
Putting the crisis into perspective
Frederick Lamy, political scientist and aid worker with more than a decade of experience in several African and Asian war-affected countries, has extensively travelled the CAR in the past turbulent year, identifying opportunities for dialogue and assistance to vulnerable groups including victims of violence, religious minorities and youth. He puts the current crisis between the ex-seleka militias and the local auto-defense anti-balaka movement into perspective.
Lamy estimates that dozens of armed groups are active in the country today, a majority of them with affiliation to either the ex-seleka or anti-balaka, but all of them fighting factional wars for power and resources. Lamy: “Armed groups never disappear. Disarmament Demobilization Reintegration (DDR) processes in the country were never effective. Once you have a weapon, you keep it, that’s the rule here.”
Disarmament Demobilization Reintegration (DDR) processes in the country were never effective. Once you have a weapon, you keep it, that’s the rule here.
Economy of predation
Chaos and conflict have become endemic in CAR, because they are opportunities to accumulate wealth. “You see this kind of self-serving behavior or economy of predation on village, community and national levels”, according to Lamy. “And resources form the international community, like development aid, are sometimes captured to fuel this organized system of predation. This is what happened to some degree to Cordaid and other NGOs when their offices were looted at the end of September. But I want to stress that members of the local population are the first victims. The robbing, looting, extortion and killing is targeting them in the first place.”
Populism
In this chaotic environment, many Central Africans are feeling powerless and look for easy explanations by holding simplistic views and conspiracy theories. The populist sentiment is that foreign countries, especially ex-colonial power France, are behind all troubles and failures. Lamy: “It’s true that French colonial rule was a huge burden and its legacy is enduring, but that view is too simplistic. Populist leaders like to portray the Central Africans as victims of foreign countries, particularly during election period but at the same time they are not helping to find solutions to rebuild the country. While looking for scapegoats they are actually maintaining the gap between politicians and the population who is deprived of all basic services.”
People have less to fall back on than they had in the ‘70’s.
Religious revival
More and more this gap of services is bridged by religious actors. Lamy: “The religious revival, which is a global trend, is very visible in the CAR. At local level religious missions are increasingly doing what the state fails to do: providing social services and spaces to engage and connect with resident population. Religious leaders have kept their legitimacy in the eyes of the population while politicians have lost it. But in a country which has a legacy of bitter divisions between Muslims and Christians this religious revival takes another dimension and can become a source of tension. There is a lot stigmatization, especially against Muslims.”
Summing up today’s situation Lamy sketches a challenging picture: “People have less to fall back on than they had in the '70’s. And ever since December 2013, when the current crisis started, the levels of intolerance, polarization, and criminality are higher than ever before. People are fed up by violence, fear and insecurity.”
Local peacebuilding efforts
To create a stronger basis for local peacebuilding, Cordaid’s social cohesion program actively pursues several areas of community engagement: rehabilitation of victims, peace education, and a civil society-religious actors dialogue initiative These areas complement each other to reduce violence and to increase the resilience of Central African society to conflict.
First of all we are providing assistance to victims of violence to deal with past atrocities.
Lamy: “First of all we are providing assistance to victims of violence to deal with past atrocities. That’s a very comprehensive and long-term process, and we are just at the starting point. There are so many Central Africans who have been injured in the past two years, brutalized, extorted or who have lost a family member or seen dead or mutilated bodies in the streets. Everyone is traumatized.”
Creating safe spaces
Together with victim’s associations Cordaid aims to create safe spaces, where people can share traumatic experiences and receive psychosocial support and trauma healing. Lamy: “We want victims to feel safe and overcome obstacles to talk and share personal stories. This is part of our strategy to build trust with victims and we train local partners to use active listening and storytelling tools. The country is in need of using these new approaches and to increase the gender-based dimension in assisting the victims.”
Culture of remembrance
To do this delicate work, Cordaid is partnering with two victim’s associations in Bangui and with the Association des Femmes Juristes de Centrafrique as provider of psychosocial care. “Our job is to provide psychosocial and moral support”, says Lamy, “but the real and long term objective is to empower victims to voice their needs and to strengthen a culture of remembrance in CAR instead of denial. As long as past atrocities are being denied, people will not learn. As long as victims are not heard, perpetrators will not be stopped and justice will never be done. Did you know that not one association of victims has spoken out at the Bangui forum for national reconciliation in May 2015? That shows how much our work in supporting victim’s advocacy is needed.”
As long as victims are not heard, perpetrators will not be stopped and justice will never be done.
Students become peacebuilders
Peace education is another line of engagement in which Cordaid is involved. Continued violence has wrecked the educational system and most of others social services. To a point that today’s younger generation is a lost generation. Lamy: “The level of education of young Central Africans is extremely low compared to people in their 40’s. That’s why together with the Centre Catholic Universitaire (CCU) we have started a peer education project Les Volontaires de la Paix. We trained young students in Bangui to enable them to understand conflict dynamics and reach out to other youth in their own communities. Our objective is to build the capacity of the 30-member group Les Volontaires de la Paix to transform young people into local peacebuilders in schools and in the streets.”
Part of the solution instead of the problem
Cordaid also engaged youth through sport and theatre activities to provide safe spaces to build friendship and put in practice team- and peacebuilding values. Lamy: “We actively promote the interaction of youth from different ages, ethnicities, education levels and faith backgrounds. Young people, who are often seen as part of the problem in the CAR crisis, are thus actively and increasingly becoming part of the solution.”
Young people, who are often seen as part of the problem in the CAR crisis, are thus actively and increasingly becoming part of the solution.
Engaging religious leaders
Another key priority is to engage religious actors and civil society to increase the existing potential of religions to build peace and tolerance in CAR. Lamy: “This month Cordaid, Finn Church Aid and its local partner Le Réseau Foi Culture Education Centrafrique are launching a dialogue initiative, ‘Religions and Peace in CAR’. We organize a series of discussions between religious actors, scholars, and civil society. The aim of these discussions is to generate knowledge on biblical and koranic texts that can inspire peacebuilding actions in the country. Later on we will organize this knowledge larger parts of the population. We want to take religious practice as the starting point to our peacebuilding. By reducing stereotypes of divisions between Christians and Muslims we can prevent the instrumentalization of religious divisions for violence.”
“To get out of this trap and recover as a nation, Central Africans must be given a chance to heal from their sufferings, find ways to build peace and put them in practice in daily life. It’s a conditional step towards disarmament and putting an end to the devastating rule of the gun and an economy of predation”, Lamy says.
Putting the crisis into perspective
Frederick Lamy, political scientist and aid worker with more than a decade of experience in several African and Asian war-affected countries, has extensively travelled the CAR in the past turbulent year, identifying opportunities for dialogue and assistance to vulnerable groups including victims of violence, religious minorities and youth. He puts the current crisis between the ex-seleka militias and the local auto-defense anti-balaka movement into perspective.
Lamy estimates that dozens of armed groups are active in the country today, a majority of them with affiliation to either the ex-seleka or anti-balaka, but all of them fighting factional wars for power and resources. Lamy: “Armed groups never disappear. Disarmament Demobilization Reintegration (DDR) processes in the country were never effective. Once you have a weapon, you keep it, that’s the rule here.”
Disarmament Demobilization Reintegration (DDR) processes in the country were never effective. Once you have a weapon, you keep it, that’s the rule here.
Economy of predation
Chaos and conflict have become endemic in CAR, because they are opportunities to accumulate wealth. “You see this kind of self-serving behavior or economy of predation on village, community and national levels”, according to Lamy. “And resources form the international community, like development aid, are sometimes captured to fuel this organized system of predation. This is what happened to some degree to Cordaid and other NGOs when their offices were looted at the end of September. But I want to stress that members of the local population are the first victims. The robbing, looting, extortion and killing is targeting them in the first place.”
Populism
In this chaotic environment, many Central Africans are feeling powerless and look for easy explanations by holding simplistic views and conspiracy theories. The populist sentiment is that foreign countries, especially ex-colonial power France, are behind all troubles and failures. Lamy: “It’s true that French colonial rule was a huge burden and its legacy is enduring, but that view is too simplistic. Populist leaders like to portray the Central Africans as victims of foreign countries, particularly during election period but at the same time they are not helping to find solutions to rebuild the country. While looking for scapegoats they are actually maintaining the gap between politicians and the population who is deprived of all basic services.”
People have less to fall back on than they had in the ‘70’s.
Religious revival
More and more this gap of services is bridged by religious actors. Lamy: “The religious revival, which is a global trend, is very visible in the CAR. At local level religious missions are increasingly doing what the state fails to do: providing social services and spaces to engage and connect with resident population. Religious leaders have kept their legitimacy in the eyes of the population while politicians have lost it. But in a country which has a legacy of bitter divisions between Muslims and Christians this religious revival takes another dimension and can become a source of tension. There is a lot stigmatization, especially against Muslims.”
Summing up today’s situation Lamy sketches a challenging picture: “People have less to fall back on than they had in the '70’s. And ever since December 2013, when the current crisis started, the levels of intolerance, polarization, and criminality are higher than ever before. People are fed up by violence, fear and insecurity.”
Local peacebuilding efforts
To create a stronger basis for local peacebuilding, Cordaid’s social cohesion program actively pursues several areas of community engagement: rehabilitation of victims, peace education, and a civil society-religious actors dialogue initiative These areas complement each other to reduce violence and to increase the resilience of Central African society to conflict.
First of all we are providing assistance to victims of violence to deal with past atrocities.
Lamy: “First of all we are providing assistance to victims of violence to deal with past atrocities. That’s a very comprehensive and long-term process, and we are just at the starting point. There are so many Central Africans who have been injured in the past two years, brutalized, extorted or who have lost a family member or seen dead or mutilated bodies in the streets. Everyone is traumatized.”
Creating safe spaces
Together with victim’s associations Cordaid aims to create safe spaces, where people can share traumatic experiences and receive psychosocial support and trauma healing. Lamy: “We want victims to feel safe and overcome obstacles to talk and share personal stories. This is part of our strategy to build trust with victims and we train local partners to use active listening and storytelling tools. The country is in need of using these new approaches and to increase the gender-based dimension in assisting the victims.”
Culture of remembrance
To do this delicate work, Cordaid is partnering with two victim’s associations in Bangui and with the Association des Femmes Juristes de Centrafrique as provider of psychosocial care. “Our job is to provide psychosocial and moral support”, says Lamy, “but the real and long term objective is to empower victims to voice their needs and to strengthen a culture of remembrance in CAR instead of denial. As long as past atrocities are being denied, people will not learn. As long as victims are not heard, perpetrators will not be stopped and justice will never be done. Did you know that not one association of victims has spoken out at the Bangui forum for national reconciliation in May 2015? That shows how much our work in supporting victim’s advocacy is needed.”
As long as victims are not heard, perpetrators will not be stopped and justice will never be done.
Students become peacebuilders
Peace education is another line of engagement in which Cordaid is involved. Continued violence has wrecked the educational system and most of others social services. To a point that today’s younger generation is a lost generation. Lamy: “The level of education of young Central Africans is extremely low compared to people in their 40’s. That’s why together with the Centre Catholic Universitaire (CCU) we have started a peer education project Les Volontaires de la Paix. We trained young students in Bangui to enable them to understand conflict dynamics and reach out to other youth in their own communities. Our objective is to build the capacity of the 30-member group Les Volontaires de la Paix to transform young people into local peacebuilders in schools and in the streets.”
Part of the solution instead of the problem
Cordaid also engaged youth through sport and theatre activities to provide safe spaces to build friendship and put in practice team- and peacebuilding values. Lamy: “We actively promote the interaction of youth from different ages, ethnicities, education levels and faith backgrounds. Young people, who are often seen as part of the problem in the CAR crisis, are thus actively and increasingly becoming part of the solution.”
Young people, who are often seen as part of the problem in the CAR crisis, are thus actively and increasingly becoming part of the solution.
Engaging religious leaders
Another key priority is to engage religious actors and civil society to increase the existing potential of religions to build peace and tolerance in CAR. Lamy: “This month Cordaid, Finn Church Aid and its local partner Le Réseau Foi Culture Education Centrafrique are launching a dialogue initiative, ‘Religions and Peace in CAR’. We organize a series of discussions between religious actors, scholars, and civil society. The aim of these discussions is to generate knowledge on biblical and koranic texts that can inspire peacebuilding actions in the country. Later on we will organize this knowledge larger parts of the population. We want to take religious practice as the starting point to our peacebuilding. By reducing stereotypes of divisions between Christians and Muslims we can prevent the instrumentalization of religious divisions for violence.”