VZCZCXRO0514
PP RUEHMA RUEHROV
DE RUEHGI #0195/01 2511527
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P R 081527Z SEP 09
FM AMEMBASSY BANGUI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1026
INFO RUEHBZ/AMEMBASSY BRAZZAVILLE 0201
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RUCNFUR/DARFUR COLLECTIVE
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEHKH/AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM 0306
RUEHKI/AMEMBASSY KINSHASA 0317
RUEHLC/AMEMBASSY LIBREVILLE 0216
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 0160
RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI 0156
RUEHNJ/AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA 0507
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHINGTON DC
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 0491
RUEPGDA/USEUCOM JIC VAIHINGEN GE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0148
RUEHYD/AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE 0478
RUEHGI/AMEMBASSY BANGUI 1291

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BANGUI 000195 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR AF/C 
INR FOR CNEARY 
DRL FOR SCRAMPTON 
IO FOR TBROWN 
PARIS FOR RKANEDA 
LONDON FOR PLORD 
NAIROBI  FOR AKARAS 
AFRICOM FOR JKUGEL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM PINR PREF CT
SUBJECT: ETHNIC VIOLENCE INCREASINGLY LIKELY IN NORTHEASTERN CAR 
 
REF: A. A  09 BANGUI 190 AND PREVIOUS 
     ¶B. B  09 BANGUI 181 
 
BANGUI 00000195  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: One of our best sources of information on 
events in the provinces of Bamingui-Bangoran and Vakaga has been 
a Burkina Faso-born U.S. citizen who has been the director of a 
medical NGO in the CAR. His organization has clinics spread 
across the area and his reporting and observations have been 
consistently accurate and confirmed by other sources. On 
September 3, 2009, DCM and POLOFF met with him following his 
last visit to the Vakaga. Traveling by motorcycle and by foot, 
he visited a large part of the conflict zone over the last month 
and echoed what Post has been hearing with increasing frequency; 
that the specter of renewed ethnic violence looms ever larger 
between the Kara and Youlu ethnicities on one side, and the 
Goula on the other, when the rains relent in November/December. 
The Ambassador and DCM voiced Post's concerns to Prime Minister 
Touadera during a September 5 meeting, but Toudera remains 
hopeful that a June 3rd peace accord will hold (Ref A). 
Nevertheless, what started as a rivalry over economic resources 
appears to deteriorating into increasingly ethnic discord. END 
SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (U) To give some context to the scale of the issue: 
 
 -- According to the 2003 government census, there were just 
over 52,000 people in the Vakaga. 
 
-- There are thought to be 60,000 today with 40,000 being Goula 
and related tribes. The rest are Kara, Youlu, Sara, Houssa and a 
few smaller groups. 
 
-- Though the Goula far outnumber the Kara and Youlu, the Kara 
can call on support from the Ta'asha tribe in Sudan. 
 
¶3. (SBU) According to the NGO contact, the Kara and Youlu are 
demanding complete control of the road between Birao and Bria to 
the south as a condition for peace.  South of Birao, this road 
is lined with Goula villages and provides access to game parks, 
diamond fields, and trade centers. Although the underlying 
reasons remain economic, the average Kara, Youlu and Goula are 
becoming increasingly polarized along ethnic lines, sparking 
tit-for-tat raids and reprisals. Travelers are questioned at 
militia checkpoints about their names and the names of their 
families to determine ethnic identities. People with the wrong 
name have suffered severe consequences. 
 
¶4. (SBU) The contact said that two weeks ago, a Kara internally 
displaced persons (IDP) camp outside of Delembe was attacked in 
retribution for an attack by the Kara on Seregobo, a Goula 
village. The whole camp was destroyed but there is no word if 
anyone was killed.  The attack was not reported by CAR media, 
but the lack expedient reports from the region are common given 
travel difficulties (roads are currently impassable by vehicle). 
 
¶5. (SBU)  COMMENT: Unfortunately it appears that the June accord 
has not led to a durable peace, and the dry season will enable 
rebel groups to move more freely throughout the region. Most 
observers of the conflict in the provinces of Bamingui-Bangoran 
and Vakaga, especially the CARG and other Bangui based 
observers, are inclined to dismiss the conflict as simple 
``ethnic conflict'' unrelated to the larger political struggles 
in the CAR. AmEmbassy Bangui has long rejected this explanation, 
believing instead that here too, as elsewhere in the Central 
African Republic, conflict was driven primarily by the political 
and economic ambitions of a small number of individuals. The 
simplest hypothesis is that the UFDR is disintegrating and that 
is creating a power vacuum which be being filled by new groups 
with new leaders. While the protagonists in the western CAR have 
 
BANGUI 00000195  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
been identified for some time, it is much harder to get 
information on what is happening in the northeast due to the 
distance, lack of roads, and government opposition to travel in 
the area. This makes us uncomfortably dependent on secondary 
sources. Never the less, we believe our analysis to be correct 
as it is shared by some traditional leaders. We note that as 
MINURCAT expands their own Intel capabilities, their conclusions 
increasingly echo ours.  Some issues to consider: 
 
-- The UN Mission in Chad and the CAR (MINURCAT) has a base 
outside of Birao, Vakaga, but does not currently have the 
mandate or capacity to directly intervene in inter-tribal 
conflict. They are struggling come to grips with the dichotomy 
between their mission - protect refugees and NGO's from cross 
border raids by the Sudanese government and the reality of the 
situation - an internal CAR focused conflict. 
 
-- The World Food Program had placed some two hundred tons of 
food in Birao, to meet the needs of a thousand people until the 
end of the rains in December. Some three thousand people showed 
up for the August feeding and consumed 150 tons of food. The WFP 
forsees a need for USD 2 M to airlift food to Birao in September 
through December. They further warn that this is based on the 
need in the Birao area only. (People who are close enough to 
walk to Birao.) They hear rumors of hunger in Tiringoulu and 
elsewhere, but have no way to assess the real needs or to 
address them if known. The long term prognosis could be terrible 
as even when the rains end, the next planting season is not 
until June 2010 and the next harvest not until November 2010. 
Large scale fighting could disrupt this even more. WFP are 
currently underprepared for this eventuality. 
 
-- Between violence and hunger, the Vakaga region could 
increasingly become an exporter of refugees to the already over 
burdened systems in Chad and Sudan. 
 
-- Continued insurgency and instability will undermine the 
electoral process in the northeastern region of CAR (Ref B). END 
COMMENT. 
COOK