The theme chosen for the sixty-eighth
session of the General Assembly is “The post-2015
development agenda: setting the stage”. The attainment
of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the
Central African Republic has been compromised as a
result of the crisis that we are going through. I shall
therefore devote my statement entirely to the situation
that prevails in my country.
As national leaders gather here in New York to share
their concerns in a world where violence, hate, extreme
poverty and armed conflict are ever more present and
a miserable generation lives in indescribable suffering,
I have the onerous duty of taking the floor as Prime
Minister and Head of the Transitional Government
of National Unity of the Central African Republic to
address, from this lofty rostrum at the United Nations,
the human tragedy afflicting the people of my country,
whose suffering seems to have been forgotten by the
international community.
At the outset, I and my delegation would like to
convey to Mr. John W. Ashe our heartfelt congratulations
on his election to serve as President of the General
Assembly at its sixty-eighth session. I also wish to
acknowledge the remarkable work carried out under
the leadership of Mr. Vuk Jeremi., his predecessor.
In addition, I wish to express my utmost gratitude to
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for his energy and
pragmatism and, in particular, for the special attention
that he continually pays to my country and its people.
I must also pay well-deserved tribute to the Heads
of State of the Economic Community of West African
States and of the Central African Economic and
Monetary Community, who unfailingly come to my
country’s aid as it suffers from multiple crises, and to the
United Nations, the European Union, the International
Organization of la Francophonie and France for their
unflagging support to the Central African Republic
in these very trying times. Our thanks go, too, to the
United States Government, which has been fighting
with us side by side against the Lord’s Resistance Army
(LRA) of Joseph Kony.
The terrible news of the terrorist attack in Nairobi
reached us as we gathered here in New York. My
country condemns that and other senseless attacks and
expresses its condolences to the afflicted families and
to the Kenyan people.
The tragedy affecting the Syrian people for more
than two years demands action from the international
community. The use of chemical weapons against the
civilian population must be strongly condemned. That
is why my country supports the actions under way to
dismantle the chemical arsenal in Syria, with emphasis
on a diplomatic resolution of that crisis.
While Africa has the dubious honour of
distinguishing itself by the acts of violence of all sorts
that occur there, the continent still gives us grounds
for hope. Only a few days ago, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita
was elected President of Mali, a country in the throes
of a crisis that has undermined its national unity. We
convey to him our warmest congratulations and our
inexhaustible encouragement in his efforts to restore
peace and sow the seeds of democracy in his country.
In the half-century of its independence, the
Central African Republic has experienced a series
of cyclical political and military crises, which have
led to a succession of political regimes. The decades
of recurrent crisis have created constant instability,
which has led to the disintegration of the State. The
home-grown causes of this situation derive from the
fragility of the State, a lack of political dialogue, a
failure to abide by commitments in the management of
public affairs, a refusal to let go of power, tribalism,
nepotism and the politics of exclusion. In addition,
there are now phenomena previously unheard of in the
Central African Republic — impassioned inter-ethnic
and interreligious tensions that remind us of the
tragedies suffered by other African countries.
The external causes are due to the collateral effects
of the crises in Darfur and Libya, as well as the long
conflict in the Sudan, which led to the independence of
South Sudan; the conflict in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo; the actions of residual groups of former
Chadian rebels; and the terrorist activities of Joseph
Kony’s LRA in the south-east of the country. The
various disturbances have led to the circulation of
a large quantity of military weapons of all calibres
throughout our country. Those weapons have gravely
impaired the security and the humanitarian situation in
the Central African Republic and led to serious human
rights violations; massacres of civilian populations;
kidnappings; summary executions; mass rapes;
large-scale pillaging and arson, including the burning
of private houses, public buildings and grain silos; the
desecration of places of worship; and the degradation of
natural resources and wildlife.
The Central African Republic is thus faced
with multifaceted challenges that require immediate
action to restore the security of people and property
throughout the territory. There must be protection of
and humanitarian assistance to vulnerable sectors of the
population, including internally displaced persons and
refugees. State administration must be re-established
throughout our territory. We also need to restore social
cohesion and national harmony. We must revive our
economy, manage public finances and organize general
elections. In accordance with the commitments made
to the Heads of State and Government of the Economic
Community of Central African States (ECCAS), the
Government plans to establish conditions for a return
to security, peace and constitutional order by 2015.
The goal at the end of the period of peaceful
transition, which every citizen in the Central African
Republic longs for, is a country where peace and security
are guaranteed in all sectors of political, economic and
social life, where disarmament, demobilization and
reintegration are successfully managed and where free,
transparent and credible elections are held, thereby
ensuring the designation of legitimate authorities in the
contry.
In compliance with the commitments made in the
11 January 2013 Libreville Agreement and the 18 April
2013 N’Djamena Declaration, under the auspices of
the Heads of State of ECCAS, we have established
transitional institutions, including the Government
of National Unity, in which due regard is paid to
geographical and political balance; and the National
Transitional Council, a legislative and constituent
transitional body. We have adopted a constitutional
transitional charter and an organization act relating
to the transitional constitutional court. We have also
appointed and sworn in the members of the court, and
the Head of State of the transition has now taken his
oath of office. The last institution, namely, the high
communications council, will soon be established.
The next elections will be organized by our national
authority for elections, which will be established in the
days to come.
We are trying to re-establish our defence forces
with help from the international community, but that
will be possible only if some basic conditions are met.
The Head of State and the Government of National
Unity are tackling that extremely difficult task.
Following the violence, killings and looting in the
Boyrabe and Boeing neighbourhoods in the city of
Bangui, measures have been taken to ban former Séléka
elements from maintaining order. Now the mission rests
solely with the gendarmerie and the police. A ceremony
of reconciliation took place between the officers of
the Central African Armed Forces and those of the
former Séléka rebellion. The Séléka coalition has been
dissolved, and we are trying to create a dynamic fusion
of the latter with the Central African Armed Forces.
With regard to the encampment of the former
Séléka coalition, 15 sites have been established in the
provinces in order to bring together the former Séléka
rebels for identification and disarmament and to select
those who could possibly join the army. While efforts
were under way to do that, new outbreaks of violence
erupted in certain prefectures of the Central African
Republic, at Bossangoa and Bouca, involving armed
clashes between former Séléka elements and organized
self-defence groups, who claimed to be supporters of the
former President and wanted to regain power. Muslim
families were massacred, which led to extremely
cruel reprisals by the former Séléka elements against
Christian populations and innocent civilians.
Accordingly, the Head of State, in agreement with
the Government of National Unity, took 10 measures
to strengthen security: the appointment of a Minister
of Security from civil society to head the Ministry
of Public Security; the arrest and arraignment of
persons suspected of crimes, violence and looting in
the areas of Bangui concerned and the sentencing of
16 former Séléka members to eight years in prison,
by which the Government demonstrated its resolve
to combat impunity; the entrusting of all operations
to the police and the gendarmerie alone; the placing
of the gendarmerie and police under the Ministry
of Public Security so that manpower and material
resources could be shared to ensure effective security
throughout the territory; the dismantling of the former
Séléka coalition and the Convention of Patriots for
Justice and Peace; the removal of Séléka elements
from police stations, private houses and administrative
buildings to restore security throughout the territory;
the resumption of police service in areas long occupied
by former Séléka elements as a corollary to the release
of persons arrested by them; the launch of operations
to disarm former Séléka elements who refused to be
quartered in the barracks assigned to them; the transfer
of approximately 1,200 former Séléka members to two
sites in the provinces of Sibut and Bossembélé, pending
the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration
programme; and the initiation by the Head of State of a
social dialogue through meetings with various sectors
of the population, notably victims of former Séléka
elements.
The 5 August 2013 report of the Secretary-General
(S/2013/470) on the situation in the Central African
Republic paints a very dark and chaotic picture of the
humanitarian and security situation that reveals the
reality of the daily lives of the Central African people.
Moreover, since early August, armed confrontations in
the north-west have led to a considerably deteriorated
humanitarian situation in that region, where clashes
have occurred between former Séléka elements and
self-defence groups and groups that support the
former President. It is important to note that at present
the humanitarian situation is utterly catastrophic.
Approximately 4.6 million Central Africans are
affected by the crisis, that is, every single person in our
country. There are approximately 1.6 million internally
displaced persons who are in dire need of assistance,
and approximately 60,000 children are at risk of
dying of malnutrition.Approximately 62,000 people
sought refuge in neighbouring countries, including
and principally 40,500 in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo. At least 650,000 children are unable
to go to school. More than 484,000, or 10.6 per cent
of our population, are facing a very serious situation
of food insecurity. Around 3,500 children have been
recruited by armed groups. More than 13,700 people
on antiretroviral medications are at risk of not being
able to follow their treatments because of possible
interruption of the supply chain. Less than 20 per cent
of the country’s health-care facilities are working. That
is the humanitarian situation caused by insecurity.
Given that backdrop, the international community
has now undertaken to rush to the assistance of the
Central African Republic. Accordingly, 3,652 military
and civilian personnel will make up the African-led
International Support Mission in the Central African
Republic. It will take over from the Mission for the
Consolidation of Peace in the Central African Republic,
which has been in the country for several years under
different designations.
On behalf of my country, I would like to extend
my appreciation and thanks to Cameroon, the Congo,
Gabon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and
Chad, which, for the time being, are the only countries
contributing troops to the force. It is our hope that
other African countries will follow their example;
I understand that Burundi is getting ready to send a
battalion with 450 troops.
I hope to see the international community step up
its efforts and continue to be supportive of the Central
African Republic as it seeks lasting peace. In that
respect, I would note the urgent appeal issued by many
States for the greater involvement of the United Nations
in resolving the crisis in the Central African Republic.
Keeping in mind that the Central African Republic is
a crumbling State, that appeal is for us a request for
assistance for a people who are at risk and for a gesture
of strong solidarity. It is therefore a matter of urgency
that the International Support Mission should become
operational quickly under the auspices of the African
Union, taking over from the former Multinational
Force of the Central African Economic and Monetary
Community.
Given the degree of the violence and the extent of
devastation, the new multinational force needs a clear
and robust mandate from the Security Council in order
to provide security, bring peace to the country and
protect civilians. It is also the duty of the international
community, however, to provide the financial, material
and logistic resources needed to meet the many
challenges that my country is facing. The challenges
are self-evident and enormous. Apart from providing
security in the country, organizing elections, restoring
the administration, providing judicial, economic and
social reform are all part of the road map that was
drawn up in Libreville.
Those imperatives are especially topical right
now as the rainy season is approaching and our
people are in a state of total destitution. The already
critical humanitarian situation is worsening, as
demonstrated by the vast number of internally displaced
persons — between 1.5 million and 1.6 million. The
proliferation of arms in Bangui and the deterioration of
the humanitarian situation and social atmosphere are
likely to jeopardize the success of the transition. Given
that avalanche of problems, the Government of National
Unity has to set security, humanitarian, budgetary and
policy priorities.
If we are to be successful in stabilizing the
country and bringing peace, we have to reinvent a
new programme of disarmament, demobilization and
reintegration and we have to rethink how to reform
the security sector, for security is the keystone of the
transition and the need for innovative approaches is
greater now than ever before. We will not be able to meet
those challenges unless we get four kinds of assistance:
financial, technical, material and humanitarian.
Our partners need to be supportive of our transition,
provide urgent budgetary support and help us with their
expertise.
The current session of the General Assembly offers
me once again an opportunity to beg the international
institutions to commit to providing strong support and
high-quality expertise in a coordinated, complementary,
coherent and transparent way. A failure to carry out the
transition will make our country impossible to govern,
which would inevitably lead to a gray area at the heart
of the African continent.
There are already several foreign armed groups in
our country. The Lord’s Resistance Army, which has
been present in the south-east of the country since
2008, has killed several hundreds people, raped dozens
of women, abducted thousands of children and burned
entire villages. The Vakaga region has been penetrated
by traffickers and poachers from neighbouring
countries, including the Sudan. If the Central African
State collapses, new criminal and terrorist networks
could settle in the country and destabilize the entire
region. While stability in Central Africa is a major
concern of the international community, that concern
must go beyond the minimal reactions and half-hearted
commitments that are too often features of international
support for political transition.
I recall that Ms. Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-
General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency
Relief Coordinator, and Ms. Kristalina Georgieva,
European Commissioner for International Cooperation,
Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, came to
my country in July 2013 and visited the devastated
population of the city of Kaga Bandoro. When they
returned to Bangui, they told me about the heart-
rending scenes they had witnessed. They had met a
woman who had lost all hope and who asked why the
world had abandoned her country. This survivor cried
out in distress, saying, “Do not abandon us.” And her
voice is that of millions of others in the Central African
Republic who are calling for help.
The crisis in my country may be a national crisis,
but the solution, in its four dimensions — military,
security, humanitarian and financial — has to be
international. There is no short-term alternative to the
full involvement of the international community to
save the Central African Republic. On 19 September in
Bamako, French President François Hollande said that
“when the law is trampled upon, when women
and children are being massacred, it is then that
the international community must rise up and
demonstrate solidarity”.
The time has come for the international community to
rise up and save the Central African Republic. It did so
for Mali; there is no reason why it should not do so for
my country.
The Central African people do not understand this
kind of international solidarity, with one rule for one
country and another rule for another. Now more than
ever, action is needed to help a people in danger. Now
more than ever, every means that has already been
used elsewhere must be mobilized to avert irreparable
harm. The cry of distress from that poor woman from
Kaga Bandoro addressed to Ms. Valerie Amos and
Ms. Kristalina Georgieva is the same cry of 4.6 million
Central Africans to the international community, and it
resonates like a last request to our universal conscience.
A human tragedy that calls for urgent action is playing
out before our eyes. Every day that passes brings its
share of bloodshed, women raped, children kidnapped
and millions displaced or exiled.
Now more than ever, therefore, action is needed
for my country’s civilian population. If nothing is
done now, tomorrow will be too late. And in the face
of history, the international community can no longer
abjure its political and moral responsibilities.