New C. African Leader Prepares Government to End Bloody Crisis
The new president of the Central African Republic set to work Friday to choose members of a government capable of ending horrific inter-religious violence and bringing order to the country.
A day after being sworn in before the Constitutional Court, Catherine Samba Panza took up residence in the presidential palace in the capital Bangui, which saw more looting overnight and was being patrolled by foreign troops.
Samba Panza was due formally to take over from the speaker of the transitional parliament, Alexandre-Ferdinand Nguendet, who became acting head of state after coup leader Michel Djotodia was forced to stand down under intense international pressure on January 10, an official source said.
After the short ceremony at the provisional parliament, the country's first woman leader was set to hold a series of meetings "with different strata of society", the source added, before she rapidly names a prime minister and appoints a government.
Samba Panza, who was elected by a strong majority of lawmakers in the transitional parliament on Monday and has a reputation for reconciliation as well as a hatred of corruption, has made her priorities a "return to security" and "putting people to work".
She plans to hold talks with representatives of political parties and civil society before naming a prime minister by the end of the week, according to political and diplomatic sources.
Samba Panza has said she wants her government to be a "trim" team of technocrats capable of immediately taking up the challenge of halting months of unprecedented bloodshed between Muslims and Christians, which has claimed thousands of lives.
On taking the oath of office, Samba Panza appealed to the mainly Muslim former Seleka rebels, who put Djotodia in power 10 months ago, and the Christian vigilante groups known as "anti-balaka" (anti-machete) "to take a patriotic stand and give up their weapons".
Djotodia was forced to step down for his failure to halt the violence, which erupted when attacks by his Seleka fighters led to Christian reprisals, with both sides accused of atrocities. About a million people have been displaced in the population of 4.6 million.
Samba Panza has strong backing from former colonial power France, which has deployed 1,600 troops in the country, and from the African Union, which plans in coming days to boost a peacekeeping force known as MISCA to 5,200 men, and eventually to 6,000.
The European Union has also pledged to send 500 soldiers, but Samba Panza herself has warned that foreign troop numbers are "not sufficient to regain order in Bangui".
Looting goes on unchecked
Appeals for calm by political and religious leaders went unheeded early Friday in the northern PK-12 district of Bangui, where looters moved back in to steal property from empty Muslim homes, Agence France Presse journalists saw.
A body lay in a wheelbarrow. Witnesses said that gangs of looters had clashed, even as young men stripped metal sheeting and woodwork from the property of residents who have fled, like about half of Bangui's population, or 400,000 people.
Soldiers of France's Operation Sangaris were active in the area to prevent the looting from giving way to more bloodshed. Anti-balaka militia forces were also standing close by.
Daily outbreaks of pillage and violence are evidence that Samba Panza will need more than the goodwill of the international community to restore peace and bring order to the largely lawless interior, ruled by warlords.
About half the total population is in dire need of food and of medical assistance, according to United Nations agencies and relief workers. The violence has contributed to a massive humanitarian disaster.
The World Bank on Thursday announced urgent emergency aid of $100 million (73 million euros) to help restore key state services and provide food, healthcare and other crucial supplies.
The pledge came three days after donor nations promised to give $496 million dollars (365 million euros) in aid for 2014, after largely overlooking a country where chronic instability and corruption have prevented the exploitation of its own resources.
