Libyan troops will leave the Central African Republic (CAR), where they have been protecting President Ange-Felix Patasse since a coup attempt in May 2001, and will be replaced by a Central African peacekeeping force, a CAR official said on Wednesday.
Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister’s Office Martial Beti Marace told a press conference ”the Libyan forces will pull out in line with what was decreed” at a Central African summit on October 2 in the Gabonese capital, Libreville.
The October meeting of heads of state of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (Cemac) was aimed at appeasing long-running tensions between the republic and its northern neighbour, Chad.
Last weekend Patasse cast a shadow over the Libreville accord when he said the Libyan soldiers had ”a permanent place” in the capital Bangui, shaken by a fresh coup bid on October 25, which the CAR government has accused Chad of having a role in.
”A permanent presence is different to a definitive presence,” Marace said in an attempt to explain Patasse’s statement. He said the Libyan withdrawal implied that Tripoli’s soldiers would gradually hand over power to the Cemac troops.
According to Gabon’s Foreign Minister Jean Ping, Marace had brought a message from Patasse to his Gabonese counterpart Omar Bongo, to say that ”in essence … there are no changes to the decisions of October 2” and that the CAR would ”abide by commitments made in Libreville”.
The United Nations’ secretary general’s special envoy to Central Africa, Senegalese General Lamine Cisse, and the head of the Cemac force that will police the CAR, Gabonese General Mohamed Achim Ratanga, also took part in the press conference.
The deployment of the 300 to 350-strong Cemac force has been delayed because of funding problems. Only France and China have so far committed to helping to finance the regional peacekeepers, Ping said.
Meanwhile, Democratic Republic of Congo Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu told Agence France-Presse (AFP) a government delegation from Kinshasa would travel to Bangui this week to visit Congo nationals who had sought refuge in the embassy after the October 25 uprising.
The Congolese citizens were the targets of revenge attacks for the acts of violence committed in Bangui by Congo rebels who had come to the CAR capital to help quash the recent rebellion. About 1 000 rebels from the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) were accused of murder, rape and pillaging while they were in Bangui to fight on Patasse’s side.
Okitundu recently expressed his surprise that ”the government of a country [the CAR] which has official relations with the Democratic Republic of Congo should call on a rebel army in Kinshasa to ensure its security.”
Patasse contradicted one of his minister’s declarations that the MLC rebels were to leave the CAR capital soon, when he told AFP at the weekend that the MLC rebels would remain in Bangui until he has ”consolidated peace, and after that, we’ll see”.
The Congolese delegation to the CAR will include Okitundu and Rights Minister Ntumba Luaba. — Sapa-AFP