Ashton and the hesitant EU states

Today Baroness Ashton, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy has issued a statement on “the extremely grave situation in the Central African Republic”. The title says everything. Or maybe, almost everything.

The statement recognises that the situation has been deteriorating very seriously since the beginning of this week. The French troops and the African military mission are just overwhelmed by the increasing violence, the widespread attacks against Muslims, and the generalised chaos in a country that has been pretty chaotic for a bit of time now.

The main addressees of this declaration are the EU states themselves. They have been very reluctant in fielding a peace mission in support of those already on the ground. The EU governments have invented all kinds of excuses to delay the deployment of the forces. Some of these forces are ready to go but their political masters prefer to say that they need additional training, just as a way of procrastinating.

It is true that CAR is far away. One can even say that Libya is much closer and is still in disarray and the Europeans do very little to help this neighbour. There is a big difference though. Libya is not witnessing a genocide-type of conflict. There the issue is more about strengthening the state authority.

I can understand the reluctance on the European side when it comes to sending troops to address a law and order challenge. Troops are not policemen. They are supposed to deal with military threats. But if you do not have enough gendarmes and special police forces to deploy, you go for the military solution as stop-gap approach. It is either that or more innocent civilians being simply massacred.

For those like me who have spent a few years dealing with the country and the region, the short term response – to stop the violence – does not seem too difficult and certainly it would not require a very large force.

It calls however for a commitment on the EU side that is now clearly absent. And Mrs Ashton cannot state it with the same clarity I can. But she means it.

The hammer and the security challenges in CAR

My column of today in the Portuguese general affairs weekly magazine Visão is about the deployment of foreign troops in the Central African Republic (CAR). My point is basically that the international community is sending soldiers there in very limited numbers and then asking them to play law and order roles in the midst of a widespread civilian chaos. Not only the deployed military are insufficient in numbers for securing such a vast country, they are also called to do tasks that police and gendarmerie are best suited to implement. This is a major source of frustration for the soldiers. And they see no end to it, as there is no plan to bring formed police units from outside the country, no international police advisors, and no trainers to help the CAR authorities to re-establish their own security institutions. Again, the international community is making use of a hammer when the tools required are quite different. 

The Central African Republic: the coming days can change the situation.

I spent a good deal of the day looking at the new developments in the Central Africa Republic. And I came to the conclusion that the departure from power of Michel Djotodia, the Interim President that rode the March rebellion and subsequently lost control of its own allied rebel forces, the Seleka combatants, opens a window of opportunity for security and reconciliation. The sooner the new Interim President is chosen by the assembly of representatives the better.

Then, the partners of the country should provide enough resources for him to be able to rebuild the national security forces and bring law and order back. This is where the priority should lie.