CAR govt demands rebels quit town, silent on talks
Source: Reuters
By Jean-Magloire Issa BANGUI, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Central African Republic's government demanded on Friday that rebels who seized a northeast town near the Sudan border should withdraw, and declined to respond immediately to their call for political negotiations. The capture of Birao on Monday has highlighted the inability of President Francois Bozize's government to control the remote and lawless north of the former French colony, where attacks by bandits and armed raiders have increased in recent months. An anti-Bozize coalition calling itself the UFDR, which in French stands for Union of Democratic Forces for Unity, has claimed the seizure of the town located more than 800 km (500 miles) northeast of the capital Bangui. The government says the raiders crossed from neighbouring Sudan and has protested to Khartoum. UFDR spokesmen say Birao's occupiers come from inside Central African Republic, not Sudan, and they have told foreign media they want Bozize to agree to national talks on power sharing, incorporating all of the country's political forces. The government has appealed to the international community to send peacekeeping troops to contain what it portrays as a spillover into Central African Republic of the conflict raging in the western Sudanese region of Darfur since 2003. "Our first concern is to re-establish the territorial integrity of our country," Bozize's spokesman Cyriaque Gonda told Reuters. Sudan government forces and militias are pitted against rebels in Darfur in a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and forced more than 2 million from their homes. Raiders riding camels or horses, or driving pick-up trucks, often strike into Chad and Central African Republic. Gonda said the government had had no direct contact with the rebels in Birao, and did not know their exact identity. "It's a melting pot, a mixture: Chadians, Sudanese, Central Africans," Gonda said. "They must withdraw from Birao," he added. Sudan's government, which is resisting pressure to allow the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur, has rejected accusations by Bozize that it armed the rebels and sent them over the border. APPEAL FOR HELP Gonda said the government, which has held emergency meetings about the capture of Birao, could not immediately respond to the rebels' call for talks. "They've committed acts of violence, you can't really demand dialogue after that," he said, although he did not rule out the possibility of negotiations. The government says the attack on Birao is proof of the urgent need for international peacekeepers to secure the porous tri-border area between Chad, Sudan and Central African Republic. Bozize is appealing for military and logistical help from former colonial power France and regional allies like Chad. Security experts say they doubt the Central African Republic's army, thought to be only about 4,500-strong, can recapture Birao, which is located in an isolated and inaccessible area of bush and marshland. Diplomats said they had little reliable information about the situation in Birao, but believed the rebels were unlikely to pose any serious threat to the capital Bangui. The rebels say many of them are former comrades in arms of Bozize, an ex-army chief who took seized power in 2003. He then held and won presidential elections in 2005. UFDR spokesmen accuse the president of "holding the country hostage" and of unfairly favouring his own family and Gbaya ethnic group in his rule. (Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher)
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