The Central African Republic, which the United Nations High Commissioner has described as undergoing "the most neglected crisis in the world",[1] has an extremely poor human rights record.
In October 2008, a report by the human-rights section of the UN Peacebuilding Support Office in the country, known as BONUCA, described "a serious worsening of the security situation in the north of the country where Government forces, rebels and highway bandits have been active, all of whom committed atrocities" and stated that "[e]xtrajudicial killings, torture and arbitrary arrests, mostly attributed to the defence and security forces and encouraged by a culture of impunity, have contributed to a considerable deterioration in human rights".
According to BONUCA, soldiers in the town of Bouar displayed "severed heads that they claimed belonged to highway bandits they had shot", that bandits "torture travellers, plunder local residents, and kidnap women and children for ransom", that the rebel group called Armée populaire pour la restauration de la democratie (APRD) "prevents some residents from moving around" and that armed men probably belonging to the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) had "kidnapped 150 people, including 55 children and physically abused them".
[5] In February 2010, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said that impunity for human-rights abuses is one of the Central African Republic's major challenges.
Citing "summary executions, enforced disappearances, illegal arrests, and detention", she called for "strenuous efforts... ...to put an end to these extremely serious abuses of power".
[4] An Amnesty International report on developments in the country during 2011 provided an overview of the various rebel groups that represented a challenge to government forces, observing that the northwestern part of the country "was under the effective control of the Popular Army for the Restoration of Democracy (APRD), an armed group which had signed a peace agreement with the government", while "the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) increased the number and severity of its attacks" in the southeast and east.
In January 2013, the European Parliament expressed concern about the situation, calling on the parties to respect the ceasefire and condemning "all attempts to take power by force".
[8] The International Rescue Committee was obliged to close its offices in the country as a result of the December violence, but reopened them in January, pointing out that the situation nonetheless remained "tense... ...as peace talks between the government, the rebel alliance and opposition parties begin in Gabon".
[10] An 11 January 2013 report by the International Red Cross indicated that despite ongoing talks in Libreville, residents of the towns of Sibut and Damara, on the front line of the conflict, had "fled their homes for fear of armed violence" and "set up makeshift shelters in the bush, where they’re at the mercy of malaria-carrying mosquitoes".
[11] On the same date, the UN Refugee Agency issued a statement saying that it feared the possible consequences of a resumption of hostilities, noting that it had "received reports of thousands of people being displaced in the north and east since the start of the Séléka advance about a month ago".
[11] On 18 January 2013, Louisa Lombard of the New York Times described the CAR as a longtime "laboratory for international peace-building initiatives" that have continually failed.
programs – disarmament, demobilization and reintegration – to help armed groups rejoin civilian communities", the DDR approach had "ended up sidelining those it was meant to benefit and creating incentives for the disenchanted to take up arms", because the programs "assume that the governments they assist function like Max Weber’s ideal state – maintaining a monopoly on the use of force, providing services to all citizens".
"[14] The increasing violence is largely from reprisal attacks on civilians from Seleka's mainly Muslim fighters and Christian militias called "anti-balaka", meaning 'anti-machete' or 'anti-sword'.
[16] The Central African Republic won independence from France in 1960, after which there ensued what the International Rescue Committee has called "decades of misrule and lawlessness"[17] and what the Human Rights Center at Berkeley Law has described as "decades of political instability, state fragility, mismanagement, and a series of armed conflicts....Many countries around the world are locked in a cycle of poverty, conflict, and destruction.
David Dacko, who established a one-party state not long after independence, was overthrown in a 1965 coup by Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa, who named himself President for Life in 1972 and Emperor in 1976.
Coups in 1979 and 1981 led to rule by a military junta; free elections were held in 1993, and in 2003 General Francois Bozizé seized power.
[6] Human-rights groups are able to operate in the Central African Republic with few official restrictions, but the government does not tend to be responsive to their concerns.
Some NGOs have questioned the neutrality of the country's only officially recognized NGO umbrella group, the Inter-NGO Council in CAR (CIONGCA), which is run by a kinsman of the president.
Because of the high degree of insecurity in some parts of the Central African Republic, some international human-rights groups have closed their offices in the country.
[4] Under the constitution of the Central African Republic, all human beings are equal without regard to wealth, race, disability, language, or sex.
The High Council for Communications (HCC), which is charged with granting publication and broadcast licenses and protecting freedom of expression, is purportedly independent, but is partly government-appointed and is said to be under government control.
Non-indigenous religious groups must register with authorities and receive government approval to operate must have over 1000 members and must have leaders whose theological training the state accepts as legitimate.
[4] Freedom of movement within the country, foreign travel, emigration, and repatriation are guaranteed by the Constitution, but the first two are restricted in practice, with officials demanding bribes at checkpoints.
In 2010, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Pillay called for urgent action in response to sexual violence against women, which is pervasive.
A 2003 government-sponsored national dialogue proposed that women should hold 35 percent of posts in government ministries and parties, but this goal has not been realized.
"Many experts believed that HIV/AIDS and a belief in sorcery, particularly in rural areas, contributed to the large number of street children," reported the U.S. State Department in 2011.
Although most detainees are informed promptly of the charges against them, many wait for months before being brought before a judge, and some are kept in prison for years without trial because of bureaucratic problems.
With only 38 courthouses and 124 magistrates in the country, many citizens lack easy access to the civil judicial system, as a result of which traditional family and village courts continue to play a major role.
Fair Trials International has referred to the country's "appalling human rights record including harsh and life-threatening conditions in its detention centres.
"[20] According to the U.S. State Department, "Bangui's police detention centers consisted of overcrowded cells with very little light and leaky buckets for toilets."