New C. Africa PM Says Stopping Atrocities is Priority
The Central African Republic's new prime minister said Sunday his priority will be stopping the massacres and other atrocities that have shaken the country for months.
Speaking the day after he was named premier by interim president Catherine Samba Panza -- herself only in office since Thursday -- former banking official Andre Nzapayeke said ending the violence between Christians and Muslims was the key to restoring security and a functioning state.
"I'm going to be speaking with the different groups so that we immediately stop certain... atrocities being carried out in this country. We have to put a stop to all that quickly," Nzapayeke said in an interview with French radio station RFI.
He said he planned to "put a team in place that's going to deal with the question of national reconciliation".
"We have to tackle that quickly, it will make the security question easier," said Nzapayeke, whose surname means "God is present" in the Sango language.
After that, he said, the next step would be helping the one million people who have fled the violence to return home.
"There's a certain number of very clear actions the government is going to tackle starting this week," he said.
Nzapayeke, a former secretary general of the African Development Bank and vice president of the Development Bank of Central African States, said the country would seek help from its "friends in the international community" to end the crisis.
Violence between the Christian majority and Muslim minority erupted after mostly Muslim rebel group Seleka overthrew the government in March last year and installed its leader, Michel Djotodia, as president.
Djotodia failed to rein in a wave of killing, raping and looting by his former fighters, leading to the emergence of Christian vigilante groups known as "anti-balaka" (anti-machetes) that are accused of committing atrocities of their own against Muslims, including civilian massacres.
Samba Panza, the country's first woman leader, was elected by the interim parliament to replace Djotodia after he resigned under international pressure on January 10.
She and Nzapayeke are tasked with forming a government to end the bloodshed, restoring the operations of a state whose coffers are empty and whose employees have gone months without pay, and organizing general elections by February 2015.
Violence continued Sunday in the capital, Bangui, where gunshots rang out as looters tried to raid the central business district.
Looters and anti-balaka fighters have been regularly pillaging the neighborhood, whose shops are mostly Muslim-owned -- often clashing with young Muslims and ex-Seleka rebels, with the violence spilling over into neighboring areas.
Shots were also heard overnight in the Miskine district, which is patrolled by troops from the 5,200-strong African Union force MISCA and the 1,600-strong French army contingent backing them.
Outside the capital, warlords control large swathes of the country, a land-locked state among the poorest in the world whose history of coups and rebellions since independence from France in 1960 has kept it mired in poverty and instability despite its mining and agricultural potential.
Source: Agence France Presse
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