Bangui | Saturday
SUMMARY executions are being carried out daily in the Central African Republic following a failed coup bid, sowing terror among members of the Yakoma ethnic group who are being targeted, witnesses claimed.
The authorities condemn the killings and claim not to have a hand in them. They blame renegade security force members they say they are powerless to control.
More than a week after the army said it had ended its operations against army mutineers who tried to overthrow President Ange-Felix Patasse on May 28, claims of summary executions emerge daily from many different sources.
The eyewitness accounts have fuelled rumours that a tribal war is under way in the wake of the abortive coup, which was spearheaded by ex-president Andre Kolingba, a member of the Yakoma minority who has since fled.
Officially, 59 people were killed, including 25 soldiers and 34 civilians, and 87 were wounded in 10 days of fighting in the capital unleashed by the coup. But unconfirmed reports from witnesses indicate a much higher casualty toll, especially among the Yakomas.
Prime Minister Martin Ziguela on Wednesday dismissed reports of reprisal attacks against Yakomas.
“The Central African Republic is facing a major crisis because of an attempt to take power by force. I would like to restate that this is not a tribal war but a coup d’etat by Kolingba,” Ziguela said.
But eyewitness accounts seem to contradict his assurances that Yakomas are not being singled out.
On Wednesday, a mentally ill man was gunned down in the streets by a soldier of the presidential guard when he left a house owned by Yakomas, a number of different witnesses said.
On Tuesday, a Yakoma policewoman and a captain were killed inside a police school when they arrived for duty.
At the beginning of the week, a Yakoma youth was killed by presidential guards while leaving a downtown bank, other witnesses said.
Last week authorities said the putsch was ethnically based and not the result of widespread army unrest.
“This is not a mutiny in the ranks of the army,” Defence Minister Jean-Jacques Demafouth said, describing the revolt as the work of “certain individuals, armed civilians and soldiers, who for ethnic reasons formed themselves into a gang to carry out a coup d’etat.”
Kolingba, a former military ruler, is alleged to have been behind previous mutinies in 1996 and 1997.
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