01/22/2008

Despite progress on the political front, the number of displaced in the northwest remains high, although some villagers have started to return. A comprehensive response from UN agencies and NGOs must be three-pronged: address populations’ humanitarian needs; focus on long-term development; fund and monitor security sector reform activities. The US government needs to shift the bulk of its aid budget from its Food For Peace program to providing NGOs with needed funds for early recovery programs.

• The immediate humanitarian needs of the local population should not trump the development crisis. The lack of development stems from decades of insecurity in the CAR, which has regional as well as political and ethnic dimensions. While the UN estimates that there are 100,000 IDPs in three northwest regions, the current context makes it extremely difficult to assess the accuracy of such numbers. Yet the victims of the insecurity are entire communities, whether they are displaced or not. Insecurity prevents safe transportation of goods and people, regular access to healthcare and education, the expansion of markets, and improvements in living conditions. In such a situation, aid programs should be creative to avoid equating vulnerability with displacement, as well as evolve away from humanitarian response towards development assistance.


• Adding to the confusion, the traditional vulnerability indicators may not be entirely applicable, as often the target of zaraguinas are the richest members of a community. Cattle owners or skilled artisans are choice victims as their families are likely to have the collateral to pay high sums of money for the ransom. Refugees International met with a mechanic who had to flee his village and seek refuge in Paoua after losing all his savings to bandits.


• Displaced villagers suffer from high trauma. Hiding near their fields sometimes kilometers away from the road, villagers flee at the sound of a car engine, which they associate with military convoys. The need for mental health projects is striking, especially for children.


• The situation in the village of Kabo in the Nana-Gribizi region is particularly worrying. Almost all villages in a 50 km radius southwest of Kabo have been abandoned. After initially hiding near their fields, village leaders decided to congregate in Kabo to avoid falling prey to zaraguinas. To date, IDPs in Kabo number just over 3,000 and have de facto constituted the first IDP camp inside CAR. NGOs and the UNHCR tread a careful line so as not to create a “pull factor”. Should such a scenario repeat itself elsewhere it would seriously hamper the process of safe returns, create aid dependence and lock in significant UN and NGO resources.


• Rebels and zaraguinas are distinct for the outside observer – but less so for victims. At present the rebel group Armée Populaire pour la Restauration de la République et de la Démocratie (APRD) controls much of the northwest. However the APRD is weakened by its lack of leadership, its internal division and its waning support amongst the local population. The zaraguinas, a heterogeneous assortment of ex-combatants and criminals mostly from Chad and Niger, kidnap and loot indiscriminately and have increasingly targeted NGO convoys. Although rebels and zaraguinas differ in their objectives, they both live off the local population. Refugees International met with a fifty-year old villager who had been tortured by the APRD after being accused of aiding the FACA. In villages, rebel presence provides some security against zaraguinas, but has also attracted FACA retaliation.