Les boîtes de nuit à Bangui

I am quite exhausted after a weekend of partying exploring the restaurants and nightlife here in Bangui. It started on Thursday evening when I had dinner with some French and Belgian people. We went to a restaurant that is really close to where I live, it was not bad at all and I had fish, “le Capitaine” which is a white, tasty fish. I didn’t come home that late which was good since I had a rendezvous with the military chaplain the next morning (as I have mentioned already). The meeting was ok but I don’t think it is fruitful for me to have him introducing me to some of the soldiers. Firstly he does not agree to me interviewing them but wants me to give them questionnaires (as I have mentioned). This is quite complicated since I cannot be sure they will fill them in without anyone supervising them. That would obviously affect the reliability of their answers so that won’t do. Secondly I get the feeling he wants to get some money out of it as he said that there is a need for some paperwork to get me into the barracks, which would cost me a certain amount of money. As I already have access to high ranking officers through my contacts here, without paying anything I don’t see how he could help me. Well, it was good to meet him anyhow and talk a bit about his work. 

Friday I had lunch with people from the EU delegation and it was interesting to hear the EU point of view on the SSR process here as the EU has supported the process both financially and technically. To summarise the view of the process and its effects was not that optimistic and I got to hear about several difficulties in implementing the reforms. I’ll get back to that at a later stage but in short the lack of political will makes any progress difficult. 

In the evening I was invited to a birthday party, by one of the French from the dinner on Thursday evening. It was nice and I gave him a rather silly elk wearing a scarf with the Swedish flag and a schnapps glass with a Darlecarlian horse and the Swedish flag on it. The guests were mainly Belgians and French in their 50’s but there was one girl and one guy my age, both French. The latter took me out to explore the nightlife in Bangui when the old ones wanted to go to bed. We went to two different nightclubs, one with a more African ambiance as the clientele and the music was mainly African. At the other club there were quite a few ex-pats although very mixed and the DJ played hip hop and R’n’B from the US. I had a great time and was dancing the night away! It was great and I got back around 6 am, completely exhausted. It was nice to go out and dance, I wouldn’t have been able to do that without being accompanied by someone who knows the city. I really hope I’ll get the occasion to do it again. 

Saturday was quite calm and I had a long siesta in the afternoon. I had planned to just stay home but things don’t always go as planned. One of my really good friends had emailed me a few days before to put me in contact with one of his really good friends who was coming to Bangui for a few days. I emailed my phone number and the guy called me Saturday. I could not refuse that so I went off to see him at the café where I often go to use internet. We chat for a bit and had a nice time and then one of his colleagues turned up. Then it turned out that he also know my very good friend who put me in contact with the first guy but they had no idea that they both knew him. He felt obliged to call our friend and I guess he was more than a little surprised... It is a small world. What are the odds? 

On Sunday I was invited to a pool party and fortunately it had stopped raining. Saturday it was pouring down and I was slipping around in the mud of the streets while people would shout at me “go to the other side” trying to help the lost white girl slipping in the mud. But when Sunday came the sun was shining again. The party was excellent, started around 1 pm and continued until it got dark. I was floating around in the pool the whole day as snacks and drinks were served without interruption. That’s the good life isn’t it! We had some sort of lunch/dinner around 3 pm and I think that was the only time I actually got out of the swimming pool. Most of the people from the birthday party was there. Apparently the owners of the house also use to do jetski on the Oubangui river. That I want to try but I guess that has to wait until next time. Hence I came home completely exhausted Sunday evening and just died in my bed. Yesterday I was still a bit tired but today I was definitely back in business and went to the ministry of defence to meet with some people there who work with the SSR process. I do feel a bit sick today though and my poor throat apparently does not support the local cigarette brands.

This week I have scheduled two interviews on Thursday so tomorrow I’ll spend the day preparing the questions to get the most out of it. That’s all for now, tonight I’ll get to bed early, early. 

A plus!

Beer at the President's sister's house

Wednesday I had a beer at the president’s sisters house. It was all very odd I actually wasn’t meant to be there. It all happened thanks to my abilities to communicate with Norwegians... One of my Central African contacts here called me Wednesday and asked if I wanted to have a drink. Of course I did. We went to a bar, had some beer and then he needed to go as he had a meeting with some foreign investors working in the energy sector. As they were next door at a hotel he said we would pick them up and then he would drive me home. Great. It turned out that one of those men was Norwegian. As I am Swedish and on top of that married to a Norwegian I greeted the Norwegian in Swedish. My contact thought this was fascinating and asked me if I wanted to go with them, I could translate if there were any language difficulties. Sure I said but it wasn’t really necessary as one of the investors was a Cameroonian man speaking both French and English. Anyway, I thought we would go for dinner but in the car my contact said we were going to the president’s sister’s house. That’s how I ended up watching three men interacting with the president’s sister while drinking beer. It was very interesting indeed. I was particularly fascinated by the South African guy who was not only very direct and explained that first of all he didn’t deem it necessary to meet with the president, second that they were interested in investing in the energy sector and NOT to build schools, hospitals or other things that the president’s sister was asking for, thirdly he asked her for a picture of the president but as she didn’t have one that she could give away he got one of her instead. He was really happy and said he would put the picture on the wall in his office. We were all laughing at his funny behaviour except for the Norwegian who just sat there quietly. It was all very odd. Then we were off and I went home.

Other than drinking beer at the president’s sister’s house I have met with some government officials who are in charge of the reforms of the different subsectors of SSR. Tuesday I met with those in charge of: intelligence, city and town planning and democratic oversight. I was introduced to them by my contact from the international community and I got the opportunity to listen to him talking with them about the process. I plan to schedule some interviews with those people next week but just by listening to their conversation I got a really good understanding of the process which facilitates conducting the interviews. In the afternoon I went to the office of the deputy national coordinator for SSR who showed me all the important documents and explained where the process is at. I came at a very good time it turned out. The process has been stalling for over a year due to the electoral process, however most short-term goals have been accomplished and now it is time to re-launch the process and develop strategies for the mid-term. There is only one sector that has a mid-term strategy: democratic oversight. It is great that he gives me access to all the documents but even better I can work at his office if I want which gives me the opportunity to consult the documents and use internet. That is really very kind of him. 

Yesterday he picked me up at home and we went to the office together in the morning. It is not that far away, I could walk but the Central Africans have a hard time understanding that white people can walk to places. I was working for a while and then we went to the Minister of Defence (MoD) where I met a really interesting person. It is a young Lieutenant who works as a military advisor to the chief of staff at the MoD. He also wrote his master thesis at the University of Yaoundé while doing an internship together with the national coordinator. The thesis deals with the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) process here in CAR. Very interesting as DDR is closely linked to SSR and a necessity for any type of reforms to actually be fruitful in consolidating peace. He also explained that the conflict(s) in CAR are extremely complex as there are several dimensions to it. 

There is the politico-military dimension, the elite level of the conflict, then there is an ethnical dimension to it and on top of that there are tensions between pastoralists and farmers which occasionally lead to outbreaks of violence. Furthermore the Lord’s Resistance army (LRA), Chadian rebels and criminal elements are operating on the territory which shows the regional dimension of the conflict.

Now the army chaplain just arrived to the café we will talk about the questionnaires to the soldiers.

New update next week.

Kwa Na Kwa

So many interesting things have happened since I wrote last time.  Kwa Na Kwa means Work, only work in Sangho, the national language but is also the name of the political party that supports incumbent president Bozizé.

During the last few days I have been walking around Bangui to get a feeling of the city, its people and what it has to offer. I really like this place, it is small and you can reach most places by foot. I have not yet been bothered by the military or the police which is good as the security forces are the ones most likely to bother you when you walk around. Other than that it seems like a relatively safe city, at least during the day. There are no bad neighbourhoods Nairobi or Johannesburg style. I like that I do not have to worry about taking the wrong turn and end up in a bad area especially since I have no sense of orientation what so ever.  

Saturday evening I was invited to dinner by a person from the international community here with many years of experience working with SSR in African countries. It was really nice and he updated me on the current situation of the SSR process in CAR. We had local beer and fish with some kind of “specialité africaine” that looked like a mix of sea weed and dill. It was really good but too much food. Never too much beer though! We had a really nice time and he said he’ll introduce me to some of the main stake holders in the process during the coming weeks. I even might be able to come with him when he is meeting with other international actors and Central African counterparts. That would be fantastic as it would permit me to not only do in-depth interviews with people involved in the process but also to observe those actors when they discuss the subject. I cross my fingers and hope for that to happened. He said he would call me this week so I am waiting for that. 

Although it is both interesting and relevant to my research to meet representatives from the international community and the Central African government I also think it is important to hear the opinions from other actors on “lower” levels in the hierarchy like civil society and the low ranking soldiers. As civil society to a large extent has been left out of the process (as I understand it) it is important to get information from those actors as well. I have some contact details to civil society representatives but have not yet been able to get in touch with them. As for meeting with the soldiers I just might be able to do that as I’ll explain further down.

Last week there I wrote that there is this NGO man working to counter corruption who has his office in my neighbours’ building. Today he came by to see me and I actually had an interview with him as he had time. Luckily I had prepared some questions in advance just in case.  What he does is very interesting and relevant to SSR although his organisation is not formally involved in the process. Before he worked as a priest within the police and felt that there was a need to enhance the moral and ethics within the state institutions but also in the central African society at large. Therefore, in 2005, he stared the organisation Centre International pour le Développement de l’Ethique du Leadership (CIDEL). He is a very interesting man with a Ph.D from the US full of optimism and good energy. CIDEL is a non-profit organisation working with leaders on all level of society ranging from communal leaders to ministers to promote values that can consolidate good governance, accountability and a culture of peace. It is a small organisation that, although it has been active since 2005, only slowly has expanded it s activities. Mainly due to lack of resources and funding, currently financial aid largely comes from American churches. The main objective is to counter corruption and nepotism by getting leaders together to discuss ethical and moral issues. In 2010 the organisation helped creating frameworks for preventing corruption together with several ministries (Justice, Public Security, Defence, Administration du Territoire). Before that CIDEL has supported reforms of the Ministry of Finance in 2008. Although the work of the organisation to a large extent overlaps with the objectives of the SSR process there is no cooperation between the international actors supporting SSR and CIDEL. At this early stage I cannot draw any conclusions about the reasons for this but what is sure is that trying to change the mindset of the leadership, be it ministers, officers or religious leaders is definitely necessary to achieve any actual change. To me it seems like it is an important complement to institutional reforms and probably should be a part of the SSR agenda. I am looking forward to meet more representatives for civil society. 

So at this point in time the focus of my research still is on how and why foreign supported SSR contribute to law and order. I have had some trouble to decide whether I should use the term “law and order” or “peace” or something else like “capacity” but at least I have made it clear how I define it. What I am interested in is to understand how and why/why not SSR contributes to the following:

     1. The presence/absence of illegal armed groups on the territory of the state 2.Acts of violence/absence acts of violence directed towards civilians by either illegal armed groups or the state security forces.

The state security forces are at the heart of this, hence the personnel within those forces is of interest. Has the SSR process affected the soldiers and the policemen’s will and capacity to protect civilians? This is one of the crucial questions I believe. I started to think more and more about how important it is that the reforms actually penetrate down to those that are meant to provide security to the population. I mean, no matter how much local ownership, resources and involvement of non-state actors there is, if the state security forces continue to prey upon the population the SSR process has somewhat failed. 

My study is explorative and even though it is theoretically driven and based on previous research I try to keep an open mind to be able to identify other possible explanations to why SSR does/does not contribute to peace than those proposed by the existing literature. Whether the reforms actually penetrate vertically is something I not yet have seen examined in the SSR literature. I am sure there are studies and any suggestions on readings are welcomed! 

The thought to focus on the effects of SSR on the will and capacity of the soldiers to provide security to the population came to me Sunday as I was introduced to a an officer of the Forces Armées Centrafricaine (FACA) who is working as aumônier militaire, an army chaplain that is. The neighbour just next to me in the same compound is a missionary just like those next door and  he had met this man in church and invited him for lunch. As my neighbour knows what I am doing here he asked me if I wanted to join them and so I did. It was very interesting to listen to this officer and he wanted to introduce me to some of the soldiers he is working with here in Bangui. This is a fantastic opportunity to actually talk to the soldiers and get a better understanding of the effect that SSR has/does not have on their work. I have been thinking about different methods so that I will get as much as possible out of it and thought a questionnaire would be good, given that they are literate. 

Then yesterday evening he was at my neighbour’s house again and we talked for a while and he said the soldiers do have some basic knowledge of writing and reading in French which actually surprised me. I showed him some suggestions for a questionnaire with around 20 questions that I started to work on Sunday evening, he approved with the questions and helped me to reformulate some of them. First however I have to meet the soldiers to get familiar with them. Hopefully I can arrange to go see them by the end of the week. We’ll see how this all goes but I am quite optimistic. 

Lots of things are happening and I didn’t get that much time to “adapt”. I have heard that field research can sometimes be slow in the beginning but in CAR there is no such thing as research fatigue, this country has been forgotten for such a long time. People are very eager to share their stories and experiences. Although I haven’t had that much time to relax at least I have had the opportunity to go with my neighbours’ to cool down in the swimming pool at the Residence of the US Ambassador, which is open to everyone from the American Community and their guests. I was there on Saturday and then again yesterday afternoon. It is great to get into the water for an hour after lunch when it is too hot to work and then come back home with new energy to work a bit in the evening before it is time to go to bed.   

It looks like I will be able to meet with different actors that are somehow affected by or involved in the SSR process at some level. It is almost a bit too good to be true. I guess I just have to enjoy that it all goes well now in the beginning because I am sure I will run into obstacles and problems along the way. I promise that you will hear all about it then...

Rendez-vous next week

My two main contacts seem to be quite excited about meeting me which is a good sign. I have been in touch with them for more than six months and it is great to eventually be able to meet them! I have arranged to see them both next week.

One is from the international community working with SSR here in Bangui and the other is a  Central African bureaucrat working with SSR. I hope that apart from talking to them they will be able to forward me to other people that might be relevant to meet up with. Furthermore one of the neighbours who came by yesterday said that there is a man from some NGO with an office in their building who works with police reform and corruption. This can definitely be fruitful for my research.

This far everything looks promising! This weekend I am preparing for the interviews a bit although I'll meet those two in a more informal way this first time, to get a grasp of the current state of play in the SSR process. So it will be more like conversations and then I'll interview them at a later stage.

But before that I'll have a drink by the river tomorrow with a friend of a friend. Looking forward to that!

Next post comes after the meetings!

Bon weekend

Settled in Bangui

Yesterday I arrived in Bangui. As we flew in over CAR there was dense rain forest everywhere and for ages this is all there was except for some tiny, tiny villages scattered around the rivers. Then suddenly the Ubangui river, which separates CAR from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), appeared and I could see Bangui spreading out on the left hand side of the river as we flew in from the south-west. Beautiful indeed. Luckily there were so few clouds which allowed me to see a part of this fascinating country from above. After a long, long voyage and three stops in Amsterdam, Nairobi and Douala I was tired and warm but happy to eventually arrive. I got picked up at the airport by my landlady’s staff. Not only did the person who met me take me to the apartment but he also took me through the hustle of immigration, customs and getting the luggage without any problems. I didn’t have to wait in “line”, I just followed this nice man through everything while he spoke to the custom and immigration officials in Sangho (lingua franca in CAR) which I do not understand at all. Hopefully I’ll be able to pick up a few words during nine weeks in the country. Amazingly none of the bags I had checked in at the airport in Stockholm had disappeared along the way. 

Although I have informed my contacts here in Bangui that I have arrived I won’t start to work until next week. I’ll take a few days to adapt and get familiar with the town which is more like a large village. People are extremely friendly and helpful. I really feel welcome and like what I have seen this far. The town is small, small and dusty with red earth everywhere. Most of the houses are only one storey buildings. This and the lack of paved roads adds to the impression of being in a village (rather large though with around 700 000 inhabitants). I am now writing from a café with WIFI, I walked here from the house and it was a sweaty walk I can tell. This is where I’ll go to post on the blog and the connection works perfectly fine so I think I will manage to post at least twice a week as planned. Given that I have something interesting to say that is...

I am really happy to be here and excited to start to work next week. Until then I have hopefully finished all the seven (!) baguettes I mistakenly bought this morning. I asked one in my landlady’s staff to buy me a baguette and an avocado, he came back with seven baguettes and three avocados. Well, that means I won’t be hungry for a while...

The conflict and ongoing SSR process

I'll try to give a short introduction to the conflict(s) in CAR as well as a brief background to the ongoing SSR process. 

CAR gained independence from France in 1960 and until the early 1990’s political instability, military coups and dictatorial rule characterised the political landscape in the country. For a detailed description of the modern history of the CAR have at look at International Crisis Groups Report Central African Republic: Anatomy of a Phantom State

The first multi-party democratic elections were held in 1993 and brought Ange Félix Patassé to power. He failed however to accommodate the interests of the people and in 1996-197 followed several mutinies as the military was unhappy with salary arrears and general conditions for the soldiers. In 1997 the Bangui Accords were signed by the mutineers and the government. The military has been (and still is) heavily involved and closely connected to politics. The attempts to professionalise the armed forces and put them under civilian rule failed and in 2001 the chief of staff Francois Bozizé left the capital and brought with him hundreds of troops from his own ethnic group to launch a rebellion against the regime of the democratically elected president Patassé. In 2003 Bozizé ousted Patassé with the help of deserted soldiers from the the Force Armées Centrafricaines (FACA). After the military coup Bozizé embarked upon a democratisation project which resulted in his victory in the 2005 presidential elections. However the exclusion of former president Patassé from the elections provoked a rebellion in the north. In 2005-2006 the three different rebel groups I mentioned last week, APRD, FDPD and UFDR challenged the government. All rebel leaders had some kind of connection to the former president Patassé and accused Bozizé for exclusionary politics. 

In 2008 the the government finally reached a Comprehensive Peace Agreement with all three rebel groups. As a part of the agreement former rebels was to be merged into the FACA. According to the International Crisis Group this has to a large extent been done by giving the former rebels legitimate control over territories they already held instead of actually restructuring the FACA which has provoked the resurgence of new armed groups. 

The conflict in CAR is to a large extent elite driven. The former elite (sometimes in exile) have used the legitimate grievances of the population for their own personal means and have transformed self-defence groups (created by people to protect themselves from bandits or the government security forces) into rebel movements. Often the incentives as well as the objectives of the rebel leaders and the low ranking fighters diverge. To understand the complex politics in CAR check out Louisa Lombard's paper Central African Republic: Peacebuilding Without Peace and for more details on the conflict have a look at the UCDP Conflict Encyclopedia

As I wrote last week the government has signed a cease fire June this year with the “last” rebel group. As long as there will be no real change in CAR politics there is a large risk that new groups will emerge. Below I’ll try to give a brief background to the ongoing SSR process based on what I know at this point in time. I am sure I will be able to give a more accurate picture once I have settled in Bangui.

France has since independence provided military assistance to CAR although it can hardly be labelled SSR. As early as 1996 SSR was discussed in the CAR: during the National Conversation on Defence it was stated that the current status of the security forces was deeply unsatisfactory and needed to be addressed. For a detailed description of the SSR process in CAR have a look at the chapter written by N’Diaye in this DCAF Yearbook.

Several attempts followed to restructure the security forces: in 1997 following the signing of the Bangui Accords a committee consisting of the government and the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic (MINURCA) was established to address the restructuring of the Central African Armed Forces (FACA). Andreas Mehler describes how the focus of these efforts only included state security forces and excluded other security providers. The SSR activities did only involve the restructuring of the FACA and did not address activities related to civilian management and democratic oversight. Between 2000-2007 the United Nations Peace-building Office in the Central African Republic (BONUCA) supported the government to carry out military reforms to a certain extent.

By the end of October 2007 the government submitted a paper to the donor roundtable in Brussels in which the whole security and justice sector was described as dysfunctional. In the paper the government also acknowledged non-official security forces as being a part of the security sector. In 2008 the UN established the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in the Central African Republic (BINUCA) replacing BONUCA and in April the same year the government held a national seminar on SSR. A comprehensive SSR process was initiated, for the first time also including the democratic aspect of SSR. With the help from donors like UN, EU, Belgium and France, reforms of the army and gendarmerie; the police; the ministry of finance; the judiciary: and institutions dealing with democratic oversight have been undertaken. 

It is this ongoing SSR process that I am going to have a deeper look at when in CAR. This is my last post before I leave so next time you hear from me I’ll be writing from Bangui! Very excited!!! 

A bientôt!

Narratives from Uganda

For those of you interested, Peter is blogging about his field study in Pader, Uganda. I am sure it will be really interesting to follow.

What exactly am I going to do in Bangui?

The previous posts have been much longer than I planned. From now on I’ll try to write a bit shorter. 

Tuesday I met with my supervisor at the DPCR in Uppsala. As I wrote I hoped that he would be able to help me do formulate something concrete out of my rather abstract thoughts and he did. We spoke for almost 1.5 hours and now I know what to do. My main research question is the following: Why does foreign supported SSR in post-war states contribute to law and order in some cases and not in others? It is a clear and straight forward question. In the thesis I will do a comparison of a number of cases and then the field study will be used to understand the causal mechanisms through process tracing . I will use the existing literature on SSR in post-war states to identify possible explanations and reasons for failure/success i.e. how come SSR contributes to law and order in some cases and not in others. 

Before leaving I’ll try to make a list of possible explanations which then can guide me as I come up with questions for the interviews. In Bangui I hope to be able to meet with EU, UN and other representatives for the international community, with people working for the government, civil society representatives and if I am lucky with personnel serving in the armed forces (police, military and gendarmerie). I already have some contacts so I am optimistic about it. 

I also need to operationalise the term law and order which means that I have to clarify what this concept means in this study. What signifies law and order or the lack thereof? Together with my supervisor I came up with a tentative definition which is the presence or absence of illegal organised armed groups. The presence of such groups means that the state does not have monopoly on violence and use of force, hence is unable to provide law and order. I need to develop the operationalisation of law and order and perhaps also use indicators like violence towards civilians. 

Now I have identified and operationalised my dependent variable as law and order and started to list possible independent variables (explanations) with help from the literature. The purpose of the field study is thus to understand what can explain the lack of law and order in the CAR which serves as a case of foreign supported SSR in post-war states.  The CAR is a case where there is no law and order outside the capital. Although the government agreed to a comprehensive peace accord in 2008 with the three main rebel groups APRD (Armée Populaire pour la Restauration de la République et la Démocratie), UFDR (Union des Forces Démocratiques pour le Rassemblement) and FDPC (Front Démocratique du Peuple Centrafricain) and signed a cease fire with the last rebel group CPJP (Convention des Patriotes pour la Justice et la Paix) in June this year there are still several illegal armed groups operating in this vast country. One of them is the infamous LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army) who are terrorising civilians. Furthermore road bandits, coupeurs de route or so called zaraguinas, harass the population which has resulted in the creation of various self-defence groups on the country side. Although a bit old this report gives a good overview of different actors in the conflict. 

The CAR is obviously an example where the SSR process seems to have had a rather limited impact on law and order, this however is something I’ll come back to once I have arrived in Bangui. Next week before I leave I’ll try to give a background to the conflict and the ongoing SSR process in the CAR.