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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 11-Apr-2014
11-Apr-14 World View -- France says Central African Republic has totally collapsed

Web Log - April, 2014

11-Apr-14 World View -- France says Central African Republic has totally collapsed

Israel imposes sanctions on the Palestinian Authority

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

Rwandans leave Catholic churches for evangelical churches
UN Security Council approves 11,800 peacekeepers for Central African Republic
France's Ambassador: Central African Republic has totally collapsed
Israel imposes sanctions on the Palestinian Authority

Rwandans leave Catholic churches for evangelical churches

Sunday Evangelical restoration service in Kigali Rwanda on Sunday (AFP)

Sunday Evangelical restoration service in Kigali Rwanda on Sunday (AFP)

This week, Rwanda and the United Nations are commemorating the 20th anniversary of the start of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when majority Hutus tortured, burnt, raped, mutilated and killed over 800,000 of the minority Tutsis over a six month period. The commemoration speeches have been assigning blame, most often to the former colonial powers, France and Belgium. The criticisms of France were so harsh, that France chose not to send a representative to Rwanda for the ceremony.

Rwanda is 50% Catholic and 40% Protestant, but those percentages may be changing because many Rwandans blame the Catholic Church and the Vatican for complicity in the genocide, and are abandoning the Catholic Churches for new evangelical churches that have arisen since the genocide. The new evangelical religions were brought back to Rwanda by refugees returning from Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo, where they were already established.

On Monday, the representative of Rwanda to the commemoration ceremony accused members of the Catholic Church of "covering up their criminal actions" during the genocide. In particular, Rwanda is still dotted with the ruins of Catholic churches where the Tutsi sought shelter, but were massacred by the Hutus within the church, sometimes with members of the clergy acting in complicity with the killers. AFP and 7sur7(Trans)(Belgium)

UN Security Council approves 11,800 peacekeepers for Central African Republic

The United Nations Security Council on Thursday unanimously approved the creation of a peacekeeping force for the Central African Republic. There are already 2,000 French troops and 6,500 African Union troops in CAR. The troops will be deployed on September 15. Violence between Christians and Muslims has been increasing, leading officials to fear a repeat of the bloody Rwanda genocide in 1994. CNN

France's Ambassador: Central African Republic has totally collapsed

Gerard Araud, France's ambassador to U.N. was interviewed on the BBC on Thursday, after the Security Council approval of deploying troops to the Central African Republic. In CAR, the Muslim Seleka militias were committing atrocities last year. The French troops disarmed the Seleka militias, but then the Christian anti-balaka militias "rushed into the vacuum" and began committing atrocities this year, for revenge. Araud was asked why the deployment is being delayed until September 15, in view of all the atrocities that are occurring, and will continue to occur. He responded that the country has collapsed and will to be rebuilt, which will take a long time, possible years (my transcription):

"Unfortunately, you know, we are facing a very challenging situation, which means that I should say, even if we have 12,000 soldiers, I'm not sure that actually the atrocities will cease.
What does it mean? It means that law and order have totally collapsed in this country. There is no police, no gendarmes, no prisons. We are not facing any sort of identifiable enemy. We are facing thugs. We are facing bandits, who are killing, raping and looting. So what we have to do is -- it's long term efforts -- which means to restore, rebuild a state, and an administration in the country.
[[Question: There are some who say that the French strategy at the beginning, when the troops there targeting Seleka, were the wrong ones. They should have been there to try and stabilize both sides in the conflict, instead of targeting one group.]]
In the beginning, when we arrived in the 5th of December, the two nights before our arrival hundreds of people were killed by the Seleka. And on the other side, there was no anti-balaka, you know. So the absolute urgency in December was to disarm the Seleka, which had committed these atrocities.
What happened was when we had disarmed the Selekas, suddenly the anti-balakas which were not there suddenly rushed into the vacuum, so after that, we had to shift our positions to disarm the anti-balaka, and that's what we have been doing.
But there's a difference. The Seleka are armed groups which are organized, which were possible to disarm and contain. While anti-balakas basically are civilians - it's very difficult to disarm them.
[[Question: Do you believe that this peacekeeping force is the solution to stabilizing the CAR. We're looking a country that has no proper administration, a country that has no proper army, so to speak. Is this the solution?]]
You know, there is no army -- it's not "so to speak" -- there is no army, there is no police, there are no gendarmes. The country has totally collapsed. On one side, the peacekeeping operation will restore a modicum of law and order, but again, I'm pretty aware that there will be still crimes after the force is deployed.
We are engaging to a long term endeavor, which is to rebuild CAR, to rebuild prisons, police, gendarmerie, and to rebuild an administration. So frankly it will be long. And CAR will need everybody - the UN agencies, but also the bilateral donors, like France or the U.S. There is no quick peace."

The timeline is interesting to me. The French forces arrived on December 5, and it was just a week later, on December 12, that I wrote Christian revenge attacks on Muslims increase in CAR, and I speculated, based on a Generational Dynamics analysis, that the conflict was spiraling into a full-scale generational crisis war.

Israel imposes sanctions on the Palestinian Authority

As the Mideast "peace talks" have been collapsing, Israel and the Palestinians have been taking tit-for-tat retaliation steps against each other. The Israelis blocked the scheduled release of 26 Palestinian prisoners, and the Palestinians have applied to join 15 international organizations as the state of Palestine.

On Thursday, Israel imposed economic sanctions on the Palestinian Authority. Israel will withhold taxes collected on behalf of the Palestinians, and limit their access to bank deposits in Israel. Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat has condemned the move as "Israeli hijacking" and "theft." BBC

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 11-Apr-14 World View -- France says Central African Republic has totally collapsed thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (11-Apr-2014) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 11-Apr-2014 11-Apr-14 World View -- France says Central African Republic has totally collapsed

Rwandans leave Catholic churches for evangelical churches

UN Security Council approves 11,800 peacekeepers for Central African Republic

France's Ambassador: Central African Republic has totally collapsed

Israel imposes sanctions on the Palestinian Authority

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 11-Apr-2014
11-Apr-14 World View -- France says Central African Republic has totally collapsed