MISCAg

Imagine that, at the start of last year, a group of armed men ravaged your community, killing your family
and destroying your t
own. And imagine that, once they reached the capital of your country, this group installed their leader with
the support of even more armed men. Now imagine that a year later, after they lost power, you witnessed
some of those same men don the uniform of peacekeepers, as world leaders informed you that these men
would now be responsible for your protection.
It sounds like a nightmare, but according to the draft findings of a United Nations Commission of Inquiry
(COI), it is exactly what has taken place in the Central African Republic (CAR). If the report is right, it
means the one operation that Central Africans should be able to trust in the midst of the horror unfolding
around them has had its neutrality fundamentally compromised.
The COI report, expected to be released on Thursday, finds that Chadian officers who operated as part of
the Slka movement -- a predominantly Muslim coalition of militias responsible for atrocities against
Central Africans before, during, and after its leader, Michel Djotodia, seized the CAR presidency last year -returned to CAR as peacekeepers after Djotodia was forced to step down.
The Chadian officers went back to CAR as part of an African Union-led peacekeeping operation, the
International Mission for Support to the Central African Republic (MISCA). The mission was deployed under
the auspices of the United Nations in December, following more than a year of political and sectarian
violence that began with the Slka's brutal campaign to remove President Franois Boziz from power in
late 2012.
The Slka installed Djotodia as president in March 2013, making him the first Muslim to lead the
predominantly Christian nation. But under pressure from the international community that September,
Djotodia tried to disband the militias. Soon after, Christian self-defense "anti-Balaka" (meaning "antimachete" in the local Sango and Mandja languages) groups, which had formed to defend against Slka
attacks on their communities, began a campaign of revenge attacks against Muslims. At the height of the
sectarian clashes in early December 2013, an estimated 300 people were killed in just two days. By the
end of 2013, nearly one million Central Africans had been displaced.
In an attempt to stanch the violence, the U.N. Security Council tasked MISCA with intervening to contribute
to "the protection of civilians and the restoration of security and public order."
Segments of the Central African population were vocally skeptical of the plan. In late December, less than a
month after the Security Council's authorization, scores of people crowded into the streets of the capital to
protest the deployment, accusing Chadian peacekeepers of siding with the Slka. The Chadians shot into
the crowd, killing one of the protestors.
Then, in late March, Chadian soldiers again fired into a crowd of unarmed civilians, this time killing around
30 people, according to findings by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. After publicity about the
incident, the Chadian foreign ministry decided to withdraw its soldiers from the peacekeeping operation,
stating that "Chad and Chadians have been targeted in a gratuitous and malicious campaign." The
problems with MISCA, however, go deeper than the Chadian peacekeepers that were once part of the
Slka.
In March, Congolese peacekeepers from MISCA took 11 people from a home north of the capital, Bangui,
after a fellow peacekeeper was killed in the area. The group of captives, including four women, has not
been heard from since. "The African Union needs to say what happened to the group that was detained
and taken by the Congolese peacekeepers," says Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights

Watch. "The peacekeepers are there to protect the civilian population, not to abuse them."
Yet as much as allegations against the MISCA peacekeepers are an African Union problem, they are also a
United Nations problem. After all, the buck stops with the U.N.
***
The Security Council authorized MISCA's deployment at the end of last year on the heels of warnings about
the risk of genocide in the CAR. With the "g-word" suddenly in play and the crisis finally gaining front-page
coverage, council members scrambled for a rapid response. Because a full U.N. operation takes so long to
deploy, outsourcing the protection of civilians to an AU-led mission, with additional support from French
troops, was the only time-sensitive option.
In authorizing MISCA, the Security Council stated that the peacekeeping operation "must be in full
compliance with the United Nations Human Rights and Due Diligence Policy on U.N. support to non-U.N.
Security forces." That policy exists to counter a systemic problem, extending beyond the CAR crisis, of
human rights violations perpetrated by actors to whom the U.N. has outsourced its operations.
The U.N. outsources when it cannot do the job itself directly, often because of a lack of political will, or
because the urgency of the situation demands a more rapid deployment than the U.N. can muster.
Organizations based in the region where the crisis is occurring tend to have political incentives to respond,
because if the crisis escalates, it could spill over into neighboring states. And being closer to the scene of
the action, these groups are also likely to be able to respond relatively quickly.
Yet these same factors of proximity and associated vested interests that make regional organizations prime
first responders can also create a greater propensity for human rights violations.
The crises that require the deployment of peacekeepers often occur in regions that are already unstable.
The CAR is a case in point. The landlocked nation has porous borders that butt up against the ongoing
conflicts in Darfur and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as continuing unrest in Chad. Soldiers
deployed to peacekeeping operations from these neighboring states do not come from militaries that are
well-trained in international humanitarian law. Indeed, as with some of the Chadian soldiers in MISCA, they
may have already been involved in the crisis as a party to the conflict.
While the U.N. should be applauded for having a clear policy against sponsoring human rights violators, the
policy is only as good as its implementation. And implementation is a challenge because the heads of
outsourced operations know that, even if they do nothing to investigate and remedy allegations of abuse,
the U.N. has virtually no choice but to continue to support their efforts.
For those needing protection in CAR, however, there is a window of opportunity on the horizon. In April, the
Security Council decided that MISCA would transition to a U.N.-led operation in September of this year.
Such transitions typically involve minimal personnel changes, with existing peacekeepers simply switching
into the U.N.'s blue helmets. But this does not have to be the case: If the U.N. wants to show the people of
CAR that it is serious about their protection, this transition is the time to do the screening of peacekeepers
that clearly has not been done to date. "Properly and very carefully vetting the peacekeepers will be the
highest importance for the mission" said Philippe Bolopion, United Nations Director at Human Rights
Watch.
***
Whether or not the U.N. will take the time and resources needed to properly vet peacekeepers in advance
of the transition to a U.N.-led force remains to be seen. But if the quality of the COI report is any indication
of the U.N.'s commitment to the crisis, then prospects do not look good. Other than the conclusion that
there is enough evidence to find that Chadian soldiers who were previously part of the Slka were
deployed in MISCA, the COI report contains little in the way of information that will be new to anyone who
has been following the situation in CAR closely.
Evan Cinq-Mars, a research analyst with the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, a New Yorkbased advocacy group, says the report was disappointing. "It should have been far more substantive in
thoroughly documenting the abuses perpetrated since the outbreak of the violence and providing concrete
recommendations to hold actors accountable for atrocities."
To be sure, the commission was operating under difficult circumstances. As aid workers and journalists
operating in the CAR know, moving outside of the capital Bangui is can be life-threatening, with the result
being that aside from the reports of a few intrepid souls, we have very little clue about just how bad things
are for civilians in the majority of the country. But even when compared to recent Commissions of Inquiry in

similarly challenging circumstances, the CAR report is decidedly flimsy.

The U.N.'s Commission of Inquiry for Darfur produced a comprehensive 176-page analysis in just three
months, which included detailed first-hand reporting on crimes committed, a dense analysis of the
international laws violated, and a classified annex identifying those most responsible for the atrocities. By
contrast, the three-person CAR Commission and its two investigative teams had six months to complete
their work and produced a 23-page report, containing less than four pages of findings on violations
committed to date, fairly generic summaries of the international law at issue, and a paucity of
recommendations on the way forward.
As is invariably the case, the atrocities in the CAR are occurring at a time when there are competing foreign
policy crises for the U.N. and its member states to deal with. But we know from the world's abysmal record
at responding to mass violence that, in hindsight, we always regret not putting the protection of civilians at
the top of a crowded agenda. The U.N. can and must do a better job in the CAR.