The Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Vincent Biruta, on Friday, January 29, represented President Paul Kagame at a regional mini-Summit on the political and security situation in the Central African Republic (CAR). According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) mini Summit on the political and security situation in CAR was convened by the President of Angola in his capacity as Chairperson of the ICGLR. The conflict in the CAR has seen Rwanda and Russia deploy troops - at the request of the government in Bangui - to help prevent a coalition of rebels and mercenaries from neighbouring countries from inflaming tensions in the troubled nation. Kigali deployed force protection troops - trained to conduct special operations - to the country on December 20, 2020, under a bilateral agreement on defence. Reports indicate that CARs neighbours Chad and Sudan, are hideouts of radicals that infiltrate CARs borders and commit numerous acts of violence, adding to the atrocities already committed by the coalition of armed groups led by former President François Bozizé. The CAR government is determined to fight the coalition. Earlier this month, a Minister reiterated the governments call on the youth to stand up and help the national army wipe out elements of the rebel coalition intent on disrupting the path to peace and stability. At the time, UN peacekeepers and government security forces had repulsed a rebel attack on the outskirts of the capital; captured five rebels, and killed 37 others. Most recently, on January 24, the CARs army and its allies launched an offensive about 90 kilometres from the capital, Bangui, killed 44 rebels, and captured mercenaries from Chad and Sudan. Bozizé who faces an international arrest warrant, initiated by the CAR in 2013, accusing him of crimes against humanity and incitement to genocide was, in 2014, placed on a UN sanctions list for undermining the countrys peace and stability. He now leads the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), formed by several armed groups last December as they looked to disrupt the presidential elections that President Faustin-Archange Touadéra won to get a second term. The CAR’s Constitutional Court confirmed Touadera’s re-election, on January 18. The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) maintains that the armed groups and their political allies are responsible for serious violations of human rights. The Mission has lost seven peacekeepers, including one Rwandan, in recent rebel attacks. It holds the Bozizes coalition responsible for the consequences of the violence on the civilian population and it has threatened that attacks against peacekeepers can be considered as war crimes and prosecuted. Last week, the head of the UN mission in CAR, Mankeur Ndiaye, appealed to the Security Council for more peacekeepers amid escalating attacks by Bozizés CPC alliance. Ndiaye told the Security Council that his current force has only reaction forces limited in manpower unable to act on the vast countrys whole territory. Ndiaye requested for a substantial increase - by 3,000 troops - in the strength of the uniformed components of the Mission which would raise the ceiling for authorized peacekeepers to 14,650 soldiers. By quickly agreeing to help and sending troops to help the CARs national army battle rebels, and save lives, Rwanda set a good example that other regional countries should follow, Marie-Noëlle Koyara, the CARs Minister of National Defence and Army Reconstruction, said last December. Rwanda is also one of the top troop contributors to MINUSCA which started in April 2014 to protect civilians in the country under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.
