GREEN SHOOTS of peace are appearing in the Central African Republic (CAR) as people start to realise that the conflict is political, not religious, an interfaith leader reports.
After a coup led by Muslim rebels in 2013, followed by reprisals, in which a largely Christian militia was accused by the UN of ethnic cleansing, there are signs that the situation is “tenuously improving”, the acting chief of party for the Central African Republic Interfaith Peace Platform (CIPP), Joseph Muyango Nsengayire, said last week. The first 100 days of the new government, elected in February, had passed with “relatively few violent incidents”. In some areas, staff from Catholic Relief Services (CRS), one of the partners in the platform, had witnessed Muslims praying in public, even in majority Christian villages, Mr Nsengayire said. “People are starting to realise this conflict is political, not religious.”
A report by Amnesty International last year said that the Muslim population had “largely disappeared” in the western third of the country. It reported forced conversions, and that, in some areas, Muslims were “effectively barred from practising or manifesting their religion in public”.
Mr Nsengayire said that forced conversions were not “systematic”, and that many Muslims who had been unable to flee violence in 2014 had been hosted by Christians. Some had spontaneously opted to convert.
The CIPP is a partnership between an interreligious platform led by the RC Archbishop of Bangui, the Most Revd Dieudonné Nzapalainga, the President of the Central African Islamic Community, Imam Omar Kobine Layama, and the President of the Evangelical Alliance of CAR, the Revd Nicolas Guerekoyame-Gbangou, and NGOs including CRS, World Vision, and Islamic Relief.
Although “occasional violence” still occurred, including clashes between community self-defence groups and UN peacekeepers, Mr Nsengayire spoke of signs of hope: for example, young Christian men borrowing from Muslim business owners to buy vehicles to become taxi drivers. In Bangui, in July, Christians threatened with death by Muslim militants had been saved after Muslims paid a ransom.
The UN reports that 2.3 million people in CAR are in need of aid.