The Involvement of Foreign Actors in Ethno - Political Conflict: Case of the Republic of Central Africa

Abstract

The Central African Republic is an extremely impoverished country that has seen little development since its independence from France in 1960. It is ranked 180 out of 186 countries on the U.N. Human Development Index (report 2016) and is in the Fund for Peace's top 10 failed states, next to Haiti and Afghanistan. The latest surge of violence in the country began when the Séléka rebels captured power in March 2013. They were responsible for mass killings, sexual violence, and looting. This paper critically analyses the factors that led to the outbreak of that conflict one of which the role that played by the foreign actors in this conflict. The research found that there are four main elements that caused the conflict in the CAR including exclusion, repression, and competition over resources and foreign involvement. One of the important reasons behind that conflict is an economic factor which is the struggle for power and resources among political elites. The paper also found the repression combined with exclusion policies adopted by the Bozize and the precedent regimes also contributed to the outbreak of violence in CAR finally, the empirical evidence showed that there was a deep economic crisis behind the conflict, with the withdrawal of foreign investors the Commercial crops such as cotton, coffee, also have deteriorated as well as the exploitation of forest income has declined.