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Original article: https://theconversation.com/central-african-republic-listening-to-peoples-stories-about-foreign-forces-could-help-bring-peace-247834
Since it became independent in 1960, the Central African Republic has grappled with poverty, instability and governance challenges.
A decade into former president François Bozizé’s corrupt rule, a rebellion broke out and toppled the president in 2013. What followed was a devastatingly violent civil war with thousands of people killed and a fifth of the populace displaced.
To halt violence against civilians, numerous international actors intervened, including the African Union, the United Nations, the European Union and France. From 2014 onward they put thousands of boots on the ground and pushed rebels from most towns, while protecting and supporting the interim administration.
But by 2016 all actors had retreated, save the United Nations (UN). The mission – Minusca – was not able to contain a resurgence in rebellion, and the newly elected president Faustin-Archange Touadéra turned to Russian paramilitaries to stabilise his rule in 2017.
These paramilitaries started out only as “trainers” but took on more prominent and direct combat roles as the years passed, making the country a geopolitical playing field. The Russian paramilitaries and national army again pushed the rebels out of most towns and into the countryside.
I have studied the Central African Republic’s politics for over a decade, conducting research in towns across the country. I wanted to find out why some areas were more affected by violence than others and how people locally lived together. I believed that in such local stories we might find missing links as to why all the actors involved failed to provide the protection from violence and provision of services that people desired.
To study people’s expectations of peacekeepers, I used a method I call the “qualitative” survey. This type of survey asks open questions, for example “what do you expect of international actors?”. This leaves space for people to say things that researchers might not have expected. It also included more typical closed questions like “how safe do you feel, on a scale from 1 to 5?”.
With a team of Central African researchers, I conducted these surveys in four places in 2019 and in two places in 2023 and 2024. At this stage respondents had experienced foreign peacekeeping missions and Russian paramilitary presence.
We found that peacekeeping missions were losing popular support because they were not fulfilling the expectations of people in the Central African Republic.
People wanted peacekeepers to confront armed actors. When peacekeepers failed to do so, they criticised them, even requested them to leave.
Russian paramilitaries offered the forceful response that autocratic regimes and many locals wanted. However, they provided a too simplistic answer to people’s demands, based only on the present. People also had future expectations: they wanted armed actors to be kicked out so that people might be treated fairly and witness the return of a caring state in the near future.
Thus, while peacekeepers frustrated initial expectations and Russian paramilitaries might fulfil them, the Central African state and their Russian paramilitary allies were not building the future people expected.
Expectations
The overall results of the survey showed that people had the most confidence in local institutions, while harbouring high expectations for the state (when it returns), and being broadly disappointed by international peacekeepers.
The results varied strongly according to local experiences with the state and international actors. Most intriguingly, respondents did not necessarily feel safest in those localities that had the fewest violent incidents. I call this the “security paradox” and it has much to do with unmet expectations for which we need to dig into individual responses.
Take the example of a middle-aged woman in the Central African Republic’s north-eastern and long rebel-held town of Ndélé, who made two points in early 2019. First, the United Nations peacekeeping mission, Minusca, was inactive in the face of aggression. Second, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were doing a good job:
Partner organisations such as Minusca who reside among our population do not seem to be there to ensure our protection, as we hear on the radio. A person may well be raped, and they do not even react to rescue the person in danger, even if they know about it. On the other hand, the NGOs are doing a very good job, and it is thanks to them that Ndélé is doing well today.
However, my own analysis showed that, objectively speaking, both peacekeepers and aid organisations were doing a mediocre job. Under the peacekeepers’ watch few violent incidents occurred and the aid organisations were only covering a fraction of local needs, much less than in other studied localities.
The difference in perception, I argue, stems from the fact that local people have certain expectations for security and different expectations for service provision in the Central African Republic.
Security in the Central African Republic is marked by an abundance of armed groups threatening people’s livelihoods. Dozens are currently active, of which a handful have been roaming for more than a decade, controlling trade routes and resources, as well as wielding local political power.
Services like schooling, health and electricity are almost entirely absent in many areas outside the capital; not even the state provides them.
Thus, in the security sector, people expect confrontation of armed actors by either the UN peacekeeping mission or the Russian paramilitary, whereas in services they want NGOs to substitute for government failings. Or in the words of an Ndélé trader:
The international actors can help us during these absences of state authority.
However, Minusca was not ready to forcefully oppose armed actors as they pursued an approach based on negotiating peace agreements and pursuing voluntary integration or disarmament. What my study shows is that doing too little in the eyes of the population can quickly turn the rumour mill, as this woman in Ndélé suggested:
As for Minusca, we do not see its work in favour of our well-being, and we even want it to leave since we have seen that it is the cause of our current division and suffering.
But would confrontation have brought more popular support to Minusca? Well, it did to another actor that stepped in, as a national staffer of an aid organisation stated in early 2022 in Bambari:
Minusca patrols do not have the confidence of the population. Because in front of Minusca forces, the rebels kill the population. For seven years, Minusca was unable to secure the town. Within minutes, the Central African Armed Forces and their Russian allies managed to dislodge them from the town of Bambari, which is now secure.
Reality
I did not judge whether people’s expectations of interventions were realistic.
Given the state’s history in the Central African Republic, it was surprising how many people wanted a state and army to return.
However, people were hoping for a “benevolent” state return. This has not happened.
And as for the Russian “allies”, as they are called in the Central African Republic: their confrontational approach has caused heavy collateral damage and has failed to stabilise former rebel areas. Rebellion is again on the rise.
My study shows how important it is to analyse expectations in-depth, and to take them as a starting point of intervention policy. Not understanding people’s expectations is what caught peacekeepers by surprise when people started demonstrating in front of their bases and even calling for their withdrawal.
While there might be good reasons not to pursue a forceful approach against rebels, interveners must be aware that they thereby deceive public expectations and should thus proactively listen to and engage the population about their demands.
The dilemma is that fulfilling people’s initial expectations does not automatically lead to the future they desire. So there must be difficult and open discussions about what is and what is not feasible in peacekeeping.