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.

Central African Republic: the forgotten crisis

When it comes to political decisions, the Central African Republic remains outside the main radar screens, notwithstanding all the dramatic news about the civil unrest in the country. France is on it alone, playing a complex role that has more to do with gendarmerie and police tasks than with military assignments. But what is on the ground is a military expeditionary force. That is feeling more and more frustrated by the type of challenges they have to face in Bangui, and also because they are so stuck in the capital city that they can´t respond to the problems elsewhere in the country.

This French force should be rapidly complemented by a comprehensive peacekeeping operation, under the overall leadership of the UN. That is not going to happen any time soon. The African Union is very reluctant when it comes to accepting a UN force. They are still convinced, I want to believe, that they will be able to deploy an AU mission and take care of the security situation. It is unrealistic as an approach. The African Union is no measure to put together the required integrated force. They should be confronted with such truth. And they should also cease to play along the interests of the Chadian President, Idriss Déby, who seems to be the key African opponent to a UN presence.

The US is also against a UN mission in CAR. They base their position on the fact that such mission would carry additional financial costs to Washington. And they do not want to put more money, at this stage, on UN peacekeeping operations. OK, I can understand the costs issue. That could be sorted out by drawing down the missions in Haiti, Cote d´Ivoire and Liberia at a much faster pace. These are missions that have long ago achieved their key goals and should only be continued with a much smaller field presence.

By the way, the approval of additional forces in South Sudan, which has a very high budget tag, was accepted by Washington in a matter of hours…

That´s why I say that CAR is the forgotten crisis. It has always been like that.