IN BANGUI, FEARING YOUR NEIGHBOR In Bangui before the violence between the city’s Muslim and Christian communities reached a crescendo in recent weeks, life was hardly easy in the first place. Unemployment and poverty are sky high in this capital of the Central African Republic, a land-locked nation with a modest tourism trade, some mining interests and little else to offer. There are not many job opportunities outside of civil service even for educated young people. The ones fortunate enough to have secured those coveted positions haven’t been paid for months as the already weak government disintegrated further in the aftermath of the Seleka’s aborted takeover of the Central African Republic last year. Everyone appears to be scrapping to get by, but the city streets are again at least teeming with people and traffic. That’s a positive development since over the last year Bangui residents have been frequently forced to hunker down at home to avoid outbreaks of violence. Now many of this capital city’s Muslim families have left Bangui, a large contingent moved out in a convoy on April 27, protected by French and African Union troops. Their community was spectacularly looted by jubilant neighbors in the immediate wake of their departure. Those Muslims who remain maintain self-defense groups against attacks by anti-balaka gangs, who in their turn had formed in response to previous violence from Seleka-dominated and inspired groups. Last night a young Muslim man was murdered in PK 5, a district where most of the violence that continues in Bangui is focused as hostile neighbors remain pressed together, each deeply suspicious of the other. The Muslim youth’s body was mutilated, decapitated and finally displayed by his one-time neighbors. The rest of the community prepared for the reprisal efforts which came later that night. People struggle to understand how this affliction of communal violence began, but no one seems fully capable of explaining how one-time neighbors could suddenly turn on each other and how the intensity of that violence so quickly accelerated. The outlines of the story are well known; Seleka forces came down from the north and overwhelmed the local police and security forces, deposed the government and then began a vicious campaign against Christians and any Muslims who were lukewarm to their maximalist message. The brutality of the Seleka was unspeakable; escapes were harrowing. READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE: americamagazine.org/content/all-things/bangui-fearing-your-neighbor
Posted on: Fri, 02 May 2014 12:28:43 +0000
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