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Another France-Africa Mystery
Following French operation, thousands flee Central African Republic town - into Darfur
A three-day operation by French paratroops in support of Central African Republic (CAR) government forces left a town devastated and most of the population fled to refugee camps in Darfur.
Things must have been pretty awful if Darfur - the world centre for state terror and ethnic cleansing - looks like a safe haven.
ReliefWeb claims that before the operation began, 14,000 people lived in the town of Birao in Northeastern CAR near the Sudanese border. Only 600 remain there now.
As the Independent reports, no-one is accusing French troops of razing the village: CAR government troops are more likely behind the burning of homes, schools and a hospital. However, the government troops alone could not have "secured" the town without support from elite French forces, which included air support from parachute teams, helicopters and bombing raids from Mirage F1 jets.
The situation behind the event, like much French activity in Africa, is shrouded in secrecy. The Independent only found out about the results of the three-day raid when a United Nations humanitarian mission to the town of Birao found it in ruins.
France has a defence agreement with the CAR's government. It claims it is in the country to prevent the spread of the Darfur genocide. According to the newspaper, this means that it practically runs CAR's army, particularly in its struggle with the UFDR rebels (made up of men from the CAR, Chad and Sudan).
The UFDR has been fighting CAR's government under president Francois Bozize since Bozize came to power in a coup in 2003.
The government claims the rebel group has the backing of Sudan's government. This is a claim backed by France and indeed the French press. Le Monde notes that Birao is a centre for a supply route linking UFDR rebels with "their godfathers in Khartoum."
It seems that 18 French soldiers were stationed in Birao last year; the operation, which began on the 4 March, was supposed to evacuate the men. When the operation began, French military sources said that French troops had been deliberately targeted by rebels.
A reported 150 French troops remain in the town. The UFDR's leader in the region accuses French troops of shooting civilians; another spokesman for the rebels called on France to "observe strict neutrality on this problem which concerns no-one but the Central Africans themselves."
A UN coordinator told the newspaper, ""We found a ghost town,"
"It was like Grozny or parts of Mogadishu. Seventy per cent of buildings were burnt and only about 600 civilians were left. They were in a dazed state. They have nothing.
"We urgently need to carry out aerial reconnaissance to find out where the rest of the population has gone. We have traced 2,000 to camps in Darfur. That people should choose to flee into Darfur gives a measure of how terrified they must have been."
Extreme-left sources are already describing the operation as "a nice little war crime in the heart of Africa". While there are plenty of articles on the conflict in the Francophone African press, there are precious few in the French papers. It is unusual that the French seem so incurious as to what their troops are doing in this remote region - though it could be that they are resigned to such shenanigans by now.
UNICEF and other agencies are sending food, support and aid to the region.
