Defence Commission wants troops on the borders

The Defence and Security Commission of the ongoing national reconciliation conference in the Central African Republic urged the government on Tuesday to deploy troops along all the nation’s borders in a bid to stem attacks. In its report to the 350 delegates at the plenary meeting, the commission also recommended that the military, gendarmerie and police force be increased, retrained and given more equipment. The commission said the country only had 4,657 soldiers, 1,312 gendarmes and 1,648 policemen to secure 623,000 sq km of national territory. Army, gendarmerie and police bases were looted and barracks destroyed during the October 2002-March 2003 rebellion that brought Francois Bozize, former army chief of staff, to power. Consequently, the head of the Defence Commission, Gen Xavier Yangongo, has recommended that new barracks be built as most security personnel live at home with their weapons. The commission said this situation had contributed to increased armed robbery, as defence and security forces lent or rented their guns to robbers or engaged in the activity themselves. The commission examined issues like threats from abroad, non-conventional forces, poaching, and the proliferation of firearms, highwaymen and army reform. In its report, the commission said fighters of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, loyal to John Garang, were responsible for poaching in eastern CAR, while past wars in southern Chad accounted for the proliferation of firearms among highwaymen and cattle raiders now terrorising northern CAR. The commission said that the River Oubangui and Mbomou rivers, which form the country's entire border with Democratic Republic of the Congo, had become unsafe; because former rebels of Jean Pierre Bemba's Mouvement de Liberation du Congo were attacking boats plying the waterway. The 44-member commission said that to avoid conflicts with neighbouring countries, the government should revive all joint commissions and joint border patrols with the forces of these countries.