THE PROTRACTED CONFLICT IN THE CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC AND THE RESPONSE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITIES

Abstract

The Central African Republic has been embroiled in a protracted conflict since 1966 and is still raging with no possible hope yet in sight for its resolution. The violent stage of the conflict is traced to the invasion of the country in 2012 by the Seleka armed militia group from the north of the country. This political instability resulted to the overthrow of President Francois Bozize and installation of a Moslem regime led by Michael Djolodia as President of the country. In retaliation and revenge to the outrageous killings, damage to properties and burning of communities targeted against the Christians/Animists in the south of the country by the Seleka, the anti-Balaka armed group was spontaneously formed to defend southern communities from further attacks. The conflict which was between the Seleka and the government army (FACA), has now spread to include the anti-Balaka, foreign fighters and international peace-keeper, all fighting against each other. It is against this backdrop that the article seek to analyze the conflict in that country and examine the reasons for the protraction of the conflict and interrogate the response strategies by the international community. The article applied the historical/descriptive research design. Secondary data gathered were thoroughly subjected to content analysis. This article discovered that greed, amongst the various conflicting parties and failure of the response strategies by the international community as reasons for the protraction of the conflict. The article concluded that over reliance by analysts on the liberal framework to the exclusion of other tradition like political economy and realist traditions, in the analysis of the country led the wrong implementation of the strategies in Central African Republic. The paper recommended the political economy and realist approaches to the analysis of the conflict with concomitant change of operational strategies to a full military actions to bring the violent conflict into an end like in the Darfur region of Sudan.