Spectre of lynching haunts Central Africa

The father of a slain French soldier has described how disarmed Muslim fighters in the Central African Republic were lynched by a Christian mob in harrowing testimony that raised the spectre of a new wave of sectarian killing in the troubled state. President Francois Hollande said France's intervention in CAR was "essential in the face of abuses and massacres", vowing the mission would continue until African forces could take over. "To not intervene would be to stand idly by and count the dead," Hollande told ministers after returning from a brief stopover in the CAR on Tuesday, his spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said. Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian admitted however that the mission represented a much more difficult task than France's military intervention against Islamist rebels in Mali earlier this year. Those remarks were borne out by Philippe Vokaer's account of his final contact with his 23-year-old son Nicolas, one of two French paratroopers killed in a firefight while on a night patrol in the capital Bangui on Monday. "We had a text exchange the same evening," Vokaer senior told French daily Le Parisien. "He had witnessed some atrocious scenes. As soon as the French soldiers disarmed the Muslim militia, they saw them being lynched by a Christian mob in the middle of the street. There was nothing the army could do to stop it." In Bangui, a humanitarian aid worker who did not want to be identified told AFP he feared mass reprisals against members of the country's Muslim minority, who are associated with the Seleka coalition behind the March coup which plunged the CAR into anarchic terror. "What we are faced with now is the spectre of a vicious spiral of reprisals with the village self-defence militias organising 'return matches' against Seleka and the Seleka themselves going on a killing spree as they retreat to their strongholds in the north," he said. 'If the French stay, it will be genocide' One former Seleka rebel, Adam Ali Mahamat, warned that "if the French stay, it will be genocide". "France is making a big mistake. They say they're here to protect civilians. But a disarmed Seleka member becomes a civilian... Why do they not protect them? It's unfair," he said in Bangui. "The French army has taken the side of the Christians and is leaving the Muslims behind." Despite those fears, the situation in Bangui, where hundreds were slaughtered with clubs and machetes last week, was calm on Wednesday with residents suggesting that fear levels were subsiding following the weekend deployment of 1,600 French troops. "Around me this morning people are going out and about in large numbers," said a resident of the Ben Zvi neighbourhood. Several taxis started plying their trade again, as French combat helicopters flew overhead. Air France announced that it would resume flights from Paris to Bangui on Thursday, after having halted them on Tuesday following the death of the two French soldiers. "Security conditions permit us to resume service to Bangui," a spokesman told AFP, adding that the usual weekly Tuesday flight would be restored. The situation was in sharp contrast to Monday and Tuesday, when rampaging locals pillaged shops owned by Muslims. The scale of any violence outside Bangui remains unclear. French officers say the vast majority of the armed groups who had brought terror to Bangui were disarmed within 24 hours of the intervention force arriving to back up African troops in the 2,500-strong MISCA force that has been in the country for some time, but had proved incapable of preventing the recent violence. Having initially presented operation Sangaris as essentially a humanitarian mission, French officials have in recent days expanded its goals to disarming all armed groups in the country and creating the conditions for free and fair elections. Le Drian acknowledged that the chaotic situation in the CAR made the French operation there more complex than the much bigger intervention in Mali, where France deployed 4,000 troops from January to try and break the backbone of armed Islamist groups who had taken control of much of the north of the country. Hollande on Tuesday met in Bangui with interim authorities including Michel Djotodia, the interim president who led the so-called Seleka rebellion that began 12 months ago. "He reminded them of the importance for France of a quick political transition," Vallaud-Belkacem said. Djotodia's Seleka rebels captured Bangui and ousted president Francois Bozize in March. Djotodia became the country's first Muslim president, but while some Seleka members retained their discipline, others became involved in a spree of killing, raping and looting which sparked the creation of Christian vigilante groups in response.