Religious hatred in Central Africa Republic underestimated, France tells UN
Response to violent crisis in African nation undermined because degree of animosity between Muslims and Christians was misunderstood, French envoy tells United Nations
The level of hatred in Central African Republic between Muslims and Christians has been underestimated and is creating a “nearly impossible” situation for African Union and French forces to combat, France’s United Nations envoy said in New York on Wednesday.
Speaking at a UN event about early warning signs for mass atrocities, Gerard Araud suggested the United Nations consider turning to psychologists or ethnologists to help understand and combat the deadly resentment because religious leaders’ calls for calm were being ignored.
Waves of massacres and reprisals by Muslim and Christian militias have killed hundreds, if not thousands, in the Central African Republic since rebels seized power in March 2012, waking the world up to the fact that it might be witnessing the prelude to another Rwanda, where 800,000 were hacked, shot or clubbed to death in 100 days in 1994.
France last year hurriedly deployed roughly 1,600 French troops to help a largely ineffective force of African peacekeepers, but they are too thinly spread to prevent tit-for-tat attacks. Araud suggested the job was proving to be much more difficult than Paris had anticipated.
“We knew that there was some inter-sectarian violence, but we didn’t forecast such deep ingrained hatred.”
“In Central African Republic I think we had maybe underestimated the hatred and the resentment between the communities,” Araud told the event, which was organised to mark the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.