Former Central African Republic army chief Francois Bozize, whose backers seized control of the country at the weekend, on Monday announced tough measures against looters, while reassuring his compatriots that the latest coup was only a temporary break with democracy.
Bozize said in a statement read on national radio on Monday that searches would be carried out in the capital ”to unmask the thieves and other looters, as well as their middlemen” who had laid sack to Bangui after Bozize’s backers carried out a lightning putsch at the weekend, while President Ange-Felix Patasse was abroad.
The prime targets of the looting were the abandoned homes of officials in Patasse’s government, as well as ministries, shops and the residences of foreign nationals.
At least eight people were killed and dozens wounded in the fighting, hospital and military sources said on Sunday. Eighty people including 60 French nationals were evacuated from Bangui to the Gabonese capital Libreville on a French army plane, the French foreign ministry announced late on Sunday.
The evacuees had asked to leave the capital after Bozize took power on Saturday, suspending the constitution and dissolving government and parliament.
In a speech broadcast on radio late Sunday, Bozize reassured Central Africans that the coup was only ”a temporary suspension of the democratic process” in the mineral-rich country, which has been rocked by a series of coups and mutinies since Patasse came to power in 1993.
He stressed that he would meet ”as soon as possible with the nation’s political parties and other active forces” to draw up a ”consensus programme” for the country.
High on his list of priorities was ”the preparation and holding of transparent elections,” Bozize said. He announced a dusk-to-dawn curfew on Sunday night to stop the frenzy of looting in the capital.
”Any person illegally in possession of a vehicle or other objects… is obliged to return them in the public place of their choice, as soon as possible,” his statement said.
Central Africans must look to their ”good consciences in order to avoid forcing us to take repressive measures,” it said. Bozize also ordered all defence and security forces to return to barracks, in order to allow life in Bangui to return to normal.
The acting head of the African Union, Amara Essy, on Monday strongly condemned the coup, and said the pan-African body would discuss a concrete reaction.
Patasse’s plane was shot at when it tried to land on Saturday at Bangui airport. It then diverted to neighbouring Cameroon, where the president has taken refuge in a hotel in the capital Yaounde.
The weekend putsch was at least the second attempt by Bozize to oust Patasse. In October 2001, Patasse ordered his former army chief’s arrest — after sacking him just weeks earlier — saying he was plotting a coup. Bozize’s backers put up fierce resistance to the attempt to detain him, allowing the former army chief to flee to neighbouring Chad.
From Chad he went into exile in France under an accord reached in the Gabonese capital, Libreville. That deal, brokered by the Central African Economic and Monetary
Community, was aimed at defusing long-running tensions between Chad and the CAR said to be founded on rival claims to oil-rich territory near their border and fuelled when Bozize sought refuge in Chad in 2001.
From his home-in-exile in France, the renegade general flew back to Chad after an October 2002 coup attempt, for which he claimed responsibility. But he returned to France days later, when it had become clear his backers had failed.
His whereabouts were unknown for the weeks leading up to the latest coup, but on Friday, the Chadian press speculated that Bozize’s backers were regrouping, and that the renegade general had rejoined his troops in Ndjamena, having passed through Cameroon using a false passport. – Sapa-AFP