Fighting with rebels is aggravating communal tensions in the Central African Republic, a country also buffeted by geopolitical rivalries. In this excerpt from the Watch List 2024 - Autumn Update, Crisis Group identifies how the EU can help Bangui address both immediate threats and longer-term problems.
The Central African Republic (CAR) is home to one of the world's overlooked crises, with millions languishing in acute poverty and facing persistent threats of violence. Despite numerous foreign interventions over the years, as well as military and humanitarian aid that an array of international partners have poured into the country, CAR is weighed down by ethnic feuds and deeply flawed governance exercised by an overly centralised administration. Outside the capital, Bangui, state offices and social services remain largely unavailable. Despite the security assistance from abroad, rebel groups continue to fight the government in many rural areas, particularly around gold and diamond mining sites. One plank of Bangui's strategy for dealing with the rebels has been to integrate self-defence militias already fighting them into the security forces. The result, however, has often been to aggravate intercommunal tensions.
As instability and violence continue to fester in CAR, the country has also become the site in recent years of an acrimonious competition between Russia and Western countries, with Moscow seeking to displace the latter by portraying itself as better able to train soldiers and beef up the army to fight rebel groups. But the geopolitical rivalry for influence over CAR, and its security apparatus in particular, should not distract its international partners from what the country needs to make genuine progress toward political stability and economic development. To achieve lasting peace, CAR needs an integrated approach that addresses both immediate security threats and long-term socio-economic weaknesses.
To this end, the European Union and its member states should:
- Continue to avoid approaching CAR's government solely from the perspective of geopolitical competition with Russia;
- Maintain humanitarian assistance while beginning to implement plans to support the country's development;
- Strengthen prospects for young men and women by supporting employment and training projects and encouraging their political participation;
- Reinforce efforts to promote a culture of inclusiveness, respect for human rights and accountability in the security sector.
A sign reads "bel avenir" (bright future) at the Ministry of Youth and Sport in Bangui. November 2019. CRISIS GROUP / Julie David de Lossy
Persistent Tensions and a Geopolitical Contest
CAR is slowly emerging from two decades of conflict. The most recent bout of fighting began in 2013, when the predominantly Muslim rebel coalition Séléka toppled then-President François Bozizé. Faced with brutal rebel attacks, local communities (many of them Christian) hurried to form self-defence militias, known as anti-balaka groups, plunging the country into civil war. An African Union force as well as a 2,000-strong French contingent intervened to curb sectarian violence and disarm militias, paving the way for a UN stabilisation mission that deployed in 2014 to bring greater security to the countryside and help prepare for elections. Two years later, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, Bozizé's former prime minister, was elected president, and the French force left shortly thereafter. The large UN presence and various peace agreements, however, have failed to staunch a spate of subsequent rebellions.
Frustrated by a longstanding UN arms embargo on CAR and wary of his predecessor Bozizé's determination to return to power, Touadéra brought in Russia and Rwanda as security partners. Troops from these two countries repelled a rebel offensive on Bangui in early 2021, winning the government's gratitude and deepening their influence. The Russia-based private military company Wagner Group proceeded to penetrate the state apparatus and step up a malicious disinformation campaign targeting France, the UN and others among CAR's traditional allies. France eventually responded by suspending most bilateral cooperation with the country, while the EU and the World Bank froze budgetary aid accounting for more than half the state's expenditure on suspicion that it was being used to finance Russian military operations. Furthermore, the EU in 2021 suspended its military training mission in the country (but not its civilian mission, which advises Bangui on security-sector reform) after it became clear that Wagner was steering the growth of the country's fledgling army. The August 2023 death of Wagner's boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, spelled the group's demise, but did little to alter Russia's involvement in CAR. Moscow exerts major political influence over the country's institutions and wields control of resource extraction, including at the Ndassima gold mine in the centre of the country and in forests logged for tropical hardwood. Russian operatives also oversee smuggling and trade networks.
Russia's backing has ... spurred Touadéra's authoritarian drift.
Russia's backing has also spurred Touadéra's authoritarian drift. After his re-election in 2020, the president gradually choked off the political opposition. Many of Touadéra's critics and opponents have been arrested, harassed by pro-government militias or subjected to judicial investigation on what often appear to be trumped-up charges. A hastily organised 2023 constitutional referendum further strengthened the executive's control of the country's already weak institutions and removed presidential term limits, paving the way for Touadéra to stay in power indefinitely.
Countering Russia's presence, meanwhile, has shaped much of recent French and U.S. policy toward CAR. In 2023, France offered to ease its criticism of Touadéra's authoritarian, pro-Russia stance if the latter put a halt to anti-French propaganda. Once the government accepted this arrangement, Paris resumed budget aid and supported moves by the UN Security Council to scrap the arms embargo. For its part, Washington negotiated permission for the U.S.-based private security firm Bancroft Global Development to offer an alternative to Russia by training CAR's armed forces and providing security around mines and other natural resource sites. But the news of Bancroft's imminent arrival in the country triggered a hostile media campaign seemingly backed by Russia and targeting the U.S. embassy and U.S.-based NGOs in Bangui. As a result, about a dozen U.S. citizens, including Bancroft's employees and the company's CEO, were forcibly repatriated between October 2023 and February 2024. As the fallout from this episode settles, Washington is mulling over its future role in the country, as are other Western governments and institutions.
A Country at Peace?
Government officials tell Crisis Group that the country is no longer in crisis. Instead, they call for support for state building outside the capital region, referring mainly to reconstruction of government facilities buildings and redeployment and training of civil servants. But regular flare-ups of violence in rural areas suggest that matters are not so clear-cut. Although weakened and internally divided, non-state armed groups are now using guerrilla tactics, frequently ambushing government forces. At the same time, donors and humanitarian agencies agree that aid remains critically important for CAR's many destitute citizens. Almost half the population is dependent on some kind of humanitarian assistance, while 33 per cent face acute food insecurity. According to the UN, every hour two people - mostly women and girls - experience gender-based violence, with levels of sexual violence reaching alarming levels. NGOs are typically the only organisations capable of providing health services and basic education in rural areas.
Young people are particularly affected. Roughly three quarters of CAR's citizens are under the age of 35, according to government data. They have limited educational and economic opportunities, few prospects of a stable future and little influence in public life, given that the country's politics are dominated by an ageing elite that tends to exclude younger voices. The poverty in which most young people live has also made them highly vulnerable to political manipulation, especially in Bangui. Local and foreign powerbrokers pay as little as 1,500 CFA francs (€2) to stage protests or stoke mob violence. In the countryside, young men and women often see the army as their only viable career path. Since 2021, the government has enlisted thousands of new recruits. These receive just a few weeks of training from Russian military instructors before they are sent to fight rebels, generally on low and irregularly paid salaries. Many of these new troops end up defecting and selling their weapons to the armed groups they had been battling, mainly in border areas. Others resort to banditry.
Unable to quash the highly mobile rebel groups, the army has also taken to absorbing the self-defence militias that have been fighting them. But the militias' haphazard integration into the armed forces poses serious problems. Not only does it erode the military's internal cohesion and threaten its ethnic balance, but it has also sharpened communal tensions in areas where these militias operate. Recent developments in the south east provide a worrying example. Crisis Group interviews with security-sector sources indicate that Russian instructors trained around 300 militiamen in Obo (in the Haut-Mbomou prefecture) in 2024 before the government integrated them into the armed forces. These fighters were part of a self-defence group that had been protecting the local Zandé community from abuses by a powerful ex-Séléka faction, composed mainly of members of the Fulani ethnic group. Since their incorporation into the military, violence by the Zandé militia against non-Zandé groups, particularly Fulani, is on the rise, raising fears of reprisals across the region.
Recalibrating EU Aid to CAR
The EU has historically played a vital role in promoting peace and stability in CAR through various modes of assistance, including support for its security forces. But as it grew wary of Moscow's often malign meddling in the country, Brussels began to question its traditional approach, opting to steer clear of politics and concentrate instead on delivering aid to the population and promoting civil society.
Over recent years, the EU has pursued a careful balance between constant engagement in CAR and measures to avoid getting sucked into geopolitical rivalries playing out in the country. It should continue to do so by focusing on CAR's most critical economic and security problems, as well as drawing on its existing strengths. Even as Brussels suspended budget aid and military training to prevent these from falling under Russian influence, it has managed to stay on good terms with Touadéra. Its ties with the president will be an invaluable asset when it negotiates a future partnership, even if resuming direct financial support remains difficult. Ideally, this partnership should include support for full restoration of state authority throughout the country. It should make this assistance conditional, for instance by requiring that the Central African government guarantee freedom of speech and assembly, particularly for journalists and civil society, and refrain from unduly harassing the political opposition.
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Brussels is in a unique position to bridge the gap between immediate relief and long-term development aid.
Secondly, even though the government has requested that the EU emphasise development aid and private investment in its future support, the EU should as a priority maintain humanitarian assistance, particularly in rural areas. With its long experience in the country, Brussels is in a unique position to bridge the gap between immediate relief and long-term development aid focused on health, education, gender equality, political participation and good governance. The EU should also use its assistance to promote gender equality in CAR's institutions and civil society, starting with the implementation of the 2016 Gender Equality Act, which requires that 35 per cent of public and private sector positions be held by women.
Thirdly, the EU should aim to improve young people's prospects by actively promoting their engagement in public life. Youth groups tell Crisis Group that initiatives could include working with local civil society organisations to create online and offline platforms for debate that can bolster the emergence of new political voices as well as youth participation in decision-making processes.
Finally, the EU should continue to develop plans to renew its support for CAR's security sector. Despite the proliferation of security partners and the overriding importance given by the government to Russian military assistance, Brussels could still help build a more professional, inclusive Central African army, one in which new recruits are not selected solely or primarily on the basis of ethnicity. In addition to strengthening the role of its civilian advisory mission, the EU could work with national authorities to minimise interference from other external partners as it looks into partially resuming the military training mission suspended in 2021. The training mission could continue to play a fundamental role in forming army officers and promoting respect for human rights and accountability throughout the armed forces, helping to lay the foundations for a more responsible, effective security sector. If tensions with CAR's other security partners can be avoided, the EU should seize the opportunities to bolster support for a country that badly needs a lasting peace.
