( intro music )
 This isn't a religious war.
It's a war whose roots are based
 in poverty, corruption.
 Central African Republic
 for a time
 went psychotic.
( applause )
Peter Gwin:
You know here we have a country
that has 4.5 million people.
 It's a little bit smaller
 than the state of Texas.
 It's 85 percent Christian
or traditional animist beliefs.
 And 15 percent identifies
 as Muslim.
But here's how the people in the
Central African Republic
identify themselves.
 I'm going to refer to the
 Central African Republic
 by the shorthand that we
 sort of all default to CAR,
 so if you are confused
that's what I am talking about.
 This is a map from
 a high school geography book.
And it shows the ethnic groups.
 And there are more than 50
 ethnic groups and sub-groups.
 It's also a nation filled with
 treasure literally.
Fairly famous for its diamonds.
 One of the biggest diamonds
 ever found,
 almost 400 carats
 was found in the CAR.
 It also has gold mines.
 Both of these resources are
 mined using artisanal methods,
 that means it's not
 an industrial scale thing.
It's all like open-pit mine,
digging like that.
 In recent years,
 petroleum has been found
 up near the Chad border.
And, there's also
deposits of uranium.
France's first atomic weapon
came from uranium
that was mined in the CAR.
It also has huge reserves of
timber, game animals,
but also the potential
for hydropower.
So what went wrong?
What happened?
Usually this is
the equation for...
for prosperity, right?
You have a fairly
good-sized country,
with a relatively
small population
and all these resources.
So, you know,
why are we where we are today?
 And a lot of the answer has to
 lie at the feet of these men.
 These are the six leaders
of the Central African Republic
 since independence.
 This is a monument in Bangui.
 It was erected in 2008,
 which was the 50th anniversary
 of independence.
 And each person on each
 one of these gold busts
 betrayed one of the
 guys up here.
 The guy that takes
 the cake of the leaders
 in terms of driving
 the country into the ground
 is this guy,
 Jean-Bédel Bokassa.
 He was the president for life
 and then decided that
 wasn't a grand enough title,
 so he decided to
 become the Emperor
 of the Central African Empire.
 He was going to rename
 the whole country.
 He styled himself sort
 of the Napoleon of Africa.
And in an era when we saw
Muammar Gaddafi rise,
Idi Amin was in his day,
Mobutu Sese Seko was there,
Bokassa gives them
all a run for their money.
He actually met his nadir when
he decreed that
all school children
had to buy their school
uniforms from his,
a company that he owned.
And when they had...
a rebellion,
when there was a protest,
he had a hundred of
them arrested,
many were beaten, some killed
and that was sort
of the moment that he...
he met his downfall.
 Another issue
 that's been happening
 over the past 10 years or so,
 more than that but 10 years is
really the area that we focus on
 is poaching the game.
 And specifically
 the forest elephants.
Poachers have been
coming to the CAR
mostly from Sudan
in organized fashion.
Many of these are Janjaweed.
In fact one man described
it to me
as "it's an ivory bank account".
We just come when
we need money.
In the past ten years,
I think they estimate
5,500 elephants have been killed
for their ivory.
And that's about 62 percent
of the population.
So,
only about 30 percent remain.
 The Séléka are a
 group of militias
 predominantly from the north,
 Muslim based.
 And funded by Chad to come and
 fight the Bozizé government.
 They were opposed
 by the anti-balaka,
 begun as a sort of a local
 neighborhood security force.
 When the Séléka rose up,
 these guys organized,
 they realized they needed
 some protection.
 Once the Séléka were gone
 they took out reprisals on
 the Muslim population.
 They committed many
 of the same atrocities
 the Séléka had committed.
So that's not the
whole story though.
That's just what's happening in
 predominantly the East
 and the North of the country.
 There's another conflict
 that's going on-- far away,
 in the far eastern corner
is a little village called Obo.
 It's a village of
 about 6,000 people.
 In Obo,
 we don't have the Séléka,
 we don't have concerns
 about anti-balaka.
 These are both Muslim and
 Christian children playing.
 These children are also under
 threat from another place.
 And that is,
 remember this guy?
 Joseph Kony rose to fame
 a couple of years ago,
 with the Kony 2012 video
 that went viral.
 For those of you
 who don't know the story,
 he is a Ugandan warlord
 who for the better part
 of the last two decades
has been kidnapping children
to fight in his guerilla army
and he sort of moved from
South Sudan to the DRC,
and now he's found his way
into the
Central African Republic.
And, especially given
the security situation
that we have been
facing in CAR
over the past year or so,
his forces have moved,
you know,
more forcefully into this area.
But what's keeping
the people in Obo
safe for the moment--
is your tax dollars.
 This is actually a
 Special Forces,
 US Special Forces base.
 It sits right on the
 corner of the village.
And the US has been there
for three years now, actually.
In part providing security
but in large part
training Ugandan troops
and advising them on
tracking Kony and his...
and his group.
 So these are the Ugandan
 troops that they train.
 What's different
 apparently about this is
 that they are actually getting
 jungle war fighting training
 before they are sent actually
 to track Kony and his men.
And when I talk to people
in the village are they happy
that these guys are here,
they said,
if the United States
and Uganda wasn't here,
Joseph Kony would be
sleeping in Obo tonight.
But I understand human nature,
you want to put some faces,
specific faces on these issues.
So, I want to introduce you to
three people,
so the next time you see
a random CAR news report
or a 500-word AP story perhaps,
you'll think of these
three people. So...
This is Aramis. He is from Obo.
 And he was kidnapped
 when he was 17 years old
 at his grandfather's house.
 And taken by the LRA
 into the jungle.
 He spent five years
 as a guerrilla fighter.
 He had horrible things
 done to him.
 And he did horrible things.
But he escaped about a year ago.
And now he works with
the US and Ugandans
to broadcast radio messages
into the jungle.
And basically they are trying to
encourage the fighthers
to give themselves up,
just like Aramis did.
And that's been a pretty
successful strategy.
But so, once a week Aramis goes
into the radio station
and basically talks to
his former comrades.
And I sat in on
one of the sessions.
And you know,
he calls them by name,
he tells them, you know, your...
you know,
your family wants you home.
There's amnesty for anybody.
The guys that they are really,
basically going after
these days are Kony
and the other leaders.
 Another guy that I'd like you
 to meet is Albert.
 So, Albert I met on a trip
 this summer to Bangui.
 I'd barely gotten, you know,
 into the city and he was
 knocking on my door wanting to
 sell me something, you know.
He kept saying,
"I want you to buy
these pictures.
I've got these great pictures."
And I was looking
at the pictures,
like picture of a chicken,
you know,
 "Man, do I really want
 a chicken picture?
( audience laughing )
And you know, I am sitting there
 looking at this thing
 and then I realized
 it's made out of
 butterfly wings.
 And I was blown away.
 So, he took me
 back to his workshop
 and he showed me
 how he does these.
 He collects these
 butterflies meticulously
 and makes these
 stained glass images of life
in the Central African Republic.
 Boy climbing a tree.
 And this picture has
 special significance
 because it's his sister.
 And she was killed by
 the Séléka early this Spring.
Lastly, I want to
introduce you to the
National Ballet of the
Central African Republic.
They perform ethnic dances,
so there's dancers
from all those
ethnic communities
that I showed you.
They are missing 14 of
their members since the violence
and their rehearsal space
has been completely destroyed.
So, they perform--
They perform in a vacant lot
in downtown Bangui.
And people just come and watch,
it's like free performances.
 And I happened to come
 by one day
 when they were performing
 this piece,
which is actually a pygmy dance.
 And it tells the
 story of two women
 who are rivals for
 the affections of a man.
 And one of the women
 poisons her rival,
 and so an old healer is
 brought in
 to raise this woman
 from the dead.
 And this is the scene
 that you are going to see.
( singing in Sangho )
( ethnic music )
So, now I'm going to
pass it over to Marcus.
( applause )
Marcus Bleasdale:
Thanks, Peter, for that.
I think it's really
important to highlight
very early on in this
evening that
this isn't a religious war.
It's a war
whose roots are based
fundamentally in poverty.
It's based in corruption.
It's based in mismanagement,
bad leadership,
many of which, you know,
the leaders we were introduced
to through Peter tonight.
And... religion has been used by
the perpetrators to draw lines,
to draw allegiances and
to try to create power.
So, I think we should try to
rise above that this evening,
and try to think in
a much more complex way
about what is driving
this conflict.
 What I'd like to do is
 to introduce you
 to the chronology
 of the conflict.
It started as we were
introduced to earlier on that
the Séléka were funded by
Idriss Deby, Chad
to come in and destabilize
the Central African Republic,
maybe take resources,
send those back to Chad
but also destabilize the
Central African Republic,
for the benefit of
its neighbors.
And so this Séléka
group that was--
that came into the country...
attacked the then government,
took power
from the government and...
and then started to
rule over the population
in a very authoritarian way.
And the people who suffered
most under that very
early Séléka rule
were the Christians.
They were the ones that
were forced out of their homes
because they were
persecuted by the rebels,
that were working
in different zones.
And many of these Sélékas
have gone kinda AWOL.
They were funded to an
extent by external powers,
they were funded to
an extent by their leaders,
but they were also
working for themselves.
They were also trying to fund
their own lives and their own,
their own personal
wealth gathering
through looting,
through killing,
through amassing wealth,
through stealing property.
And that insecurity
of these Séléka coming
into the regions
where predominantly Christian
populations were living
led the Christian population
to flee into the bush.
So, I'd like you to try to
kind of put yourself
into that context
when I show you the next
series of images because
essentially these,
the next series of images
I'm going to try and
put you into that
early stages as
the Séléka is ruling
and the Christian population has
been persecuted and are fleeing.
This is an image in a compound,
 in a town called Bossangoa.
 It was taken in December 2013,
 and this is a mother
 trying to protect her child
from the gun fire and the RPG's
 that are flying all around
 this compound as the
 Muslim Séléka
 are coming in to attack
 the town of Bossangoa,
 where there are about
 10,000 Muslim refugees
 staying in the local
 school and about
 30,000 Christians displaced
 staying in the church.
 This is a young girl
 who was injured in a fighting
 as she tried to
 flee to the FOMAC base,
 which is where
 now I am living with
 about 5,000 displaced people.
 The fight is going on outside
 the walls of this compound
And where they are protected by
a small group of
Congolese soldiers.
This image was taken very early
in the morning about 5 o'clock,
 just as the sun
 is starting to rise.
 And normally about the
 time when,
 if a town is going to
 be attacked, it is attacked.
 And this is the time when the
Séléka were coming in Bossangoa
 and the local population had
 amassed around the FOMAC base
 because they could feel it,
 they could hear it,
 they could...
 villages like this,
 small as they are,
 start to feel that there is
 something wrong quite early.
 And so this population is
 kinda waiting at the
 FOMAC base to flee,
so that they can get sanctuary.
 And this is in the
 local hospital
 that was being run
 by Doctors Without Borders,
 Médecins Sans Frontières.
 And ironically,
 here we have on right side
 an anti-balaka fighter and his
 wife and child in the middle,
 and on the left side
 is a Séléka fighter.
Both sitting, lying side-by-side
 receiving the same medical
 care from the same doctor.
And living in perfect harmony as
they had done before the battle.
 As their populations had done
 for many generations before.
 And children have played
 a large part in this conflict
 and this young Séléka fighter
was actually brought from Sudan.
 So he is Sudanese,
 came through Chad and
 is now fighting in
 Central African Republic
 for the Séléka.
 And he is about 14 years old .
Very few people really
know their age
but very clearly he is underage.
 And both sides
 were using children,
 and still are using
 children in the fight.
We talk about Muslim
and we talk about anti-balaka
and the Christian
and the animists population
but also there are
 kind of cultural
 group called the "Peul",
 who are the nomadic herders,
 the people that look after
 the cattle
 and they have enormous wealth
 all embedded in cattle.
And they wander through
this whole region
they wander through Cameroon,
Chad, Central African Republic
and they follow the
rains as the rains move,
they move their cattle
and the cattle graze
and they move through
this whole region.
They don't consider themselves
from Central African Republic
or Chad or Cameroon,
they are from their region.
And they were hugely
persecuted by the anti-balaka
during this time because
they were the source of beef.
They were also
pre-dominantly Muslim
and so they were focused...
the anti-balaka focused
on them for that as well and
 this young woman saw her whole
 family massacred around her,
 her 12 children and
 her husband were killed
 and she was shot
 in the back of the head
 and was left for dead
 and she was only found
 by a group of Peul herders
 about five or six days later.
And they brought her near dead
to the hospital where she was
cared for and survived.
But she still has the bullet
in the back of her skull.
This is the church in Bossangoa,
 the displaced camp for
 the Christian population
 about 30,000 people
 were there...
 and are still there actually.
 And this is a Peul
 lady who lost her husband,
 she lost five of her children
and the only reason that she sat
 there with her young boy here
 was because she dressed
 him up as a girl
 and was allowed to leave
 the village that she was in
 because the group of
 anti-balaka that she was with,
 were not killing the
 young girls,
 they were just killing boys.
 This is inside the church,
 the displaced camp
 and the young girl in front
 you see here sat on the chair,
 she is 13 years old.
She sat there with her daughter
 and this is another issue
 that we have in
 Central African Republic.
 The concept of child
 marriages is prolific.
 And we came across it in
 every town that we went to,
 every displaced
 camp that we went to.
 For a lot of the time
 the anti-balaka were
 in these bushes
 hiding away like this
 and then things changed.
December came around
and the anti-balakas started
organizing themselves
and they became stronger
to try and come and fight
and engaged the Séléka
in a more active way.
And the Séléka were told
you cannot treat your people
with such disdain,
you cannot treat your
people with such hatred
and expect them not
to rebel against you.
And time and time and time again
organizations,
NGOs, human rights organizations
told them this
and they ignored it.
 And the anti-balaka,
 the Christian population
 came out of the bush.
 The anit-balaka came
 out of the bush, strong,
motivated and very, very angry.
 They started to rise up and
 attack the local population,
 sometimes the local
 Muslim population,
 sometimes they were
 just taking things
to try to enhance their strength
 and have their assets.
 This of course led to
 the local Muslim population
 and the Peul population,
 the nomads
 to flee and to
 try to find sanctuary
and here we have Peul population
 hiding in a Christian church,
 protected by the priest
 in that Christian church.
 And this town is in Boali.
 And many of the priests
 in the churches all around
 Central African Republic were
 really sanctuaries for the
 Muslim population.
They opened their doors in order
to protect the Muslim population
from their own
Christian followers.
 This rise of the anti-balaka
 lead the Muslim population
 deciding to relocate.
 This is a Muslim man,
 what happened when
 these enclaves
 were created is that the
 anti-balaka then started
 picking off the Muslims
 on the edges.
Firing, throwing grenades,
throwing RPGs,
and slowly this Muslim
population started to be killed.
 They were waiting
 there in these enclaves
 where people were trapped,
 they couldn't leave,
 they couldn't go anywhere,
they were completely surrounded
 by anti-balaka and
 there was no way out safely,
 no way out.
And the United Nations,
for much as though
they were there to protect
they were also very fearful
at the beginning to...
to contribute and
assist ethnic cleansing.
And so these people were trapped
in these zones and were
being killed on a daily basis.
 This young man was
demonstrating against the state
that the Muslims were being
held in,
 and was shot by
 a French peacekeepers.
And his wife a few minutes later
 finding out that her
 husband has been killed.
As the Séléka started to leave,
as the rise of the
anti-balaka increased
the Séléka started
to decide to go,
they started to kidnap people
and they started to take them
to help them,
carry the baggage much as the...
we see with the
LRA carrying baggage
to move it out of the country.
Many of the local
population was kidnapped
by the Séléka and to take them
out of country
and this actually is a man
 I met on the street about 50
 kilometers outside of Bangui
 and he'd been kidnapped
 by the Séléka.
 Spent nine days carrying
 baggage with the Séléka
 being beaten everyday
to move quicker, move quicker,
you know,
don't stop because we need
to leave this area very quickly
because we are gonna be killed
and he was being beaten
to carry all the baggage,
he managed to escape
with his father
and we found him on the side of
the road emaciated and hungry
and tired and
we put him in our car
and brought him back to Bangui
and this is the moment,
a very privileged
moment that we have
of taking him home
and introducing him
once more to his mother
who thought he'd been killed.
 The anti-balaka rise up and
 continue to destroy
 the Muslim properties
 and here we see one
 of the main colonels,
 Colonel Dieudonné
 of the anti-balaka
 with his gris-gris
 and his grenades,
 ready for the fight.
And this is essentially
what happened after that.
The Séléka now left Bangui,
there is no one to protect
the Muslim population
and so the...
for a period of time between
the last week in January perhaps
and the middle of March,
the way I describe it is that
the country
for a time went psychotic.
 There was killing
 on a scale I've never seen
 in 16 years covering
 conflict in Africa.
And imagery that I prefer really
 not to have in my mind,
 but it's important that we
recognize that it has happened,
 it's important that we
 understand the severity
 of this conflict
 and also the hatred
 that was for a period
 present in this area.
 This is a young man
 being lynched on the streets
 he's a porter,
 a Christian porter
 who's bringing supplies
 into a Muslim enclave
 so that they could eat.
 They would have flour
 to cook with
and sugar to use for their tea.
 And as he came in and
 he was caught by the
 Muslim population
 he was serving,
 and attacked and then beaten
 and then chased
 through the streets
 with machetes and
 with bows and arrows.
 Thankfully he escaped.
 Many, many more didn't.
 This young man actually is
 Muslim and is disabled
 and couldn't communicate
 that he was Muslim
 and so was beaten up
 to the point of almost death
 by his fellow Muslims.
 These are the reality of what
 happened day after day
 after day for six weeks
 in Bangui.
 I think I witnessed
 maybe 10 to 15 people
 being killed in front
 of my camera every day.
 The peacekeepers tried their
 best to keep the peace but...
simply they couldn't control it,
there weren't enough of them and
 the capital Bangui
 was completely out of control.
 The anti-balaka
 throughout the country,
 took control of whatever
 they could take control of
 and preyed on the
 remaining Muslims.
 They were trapped
 in these enclaves
 and they were picking
 them off one by one.
And so what did that lead to?
Some people called
it ethnic cleansing.
Amnesty international have
called it ethnic cleansing.
What is ethnic cleansing?
Ethnic cleansing is
where a group,
a population are targeted,
very specific
ethnic group are targeted by
an organized group
and it was very difficult
to say at the beginning whether
the anti-balaka were organized?
Whether they were coordinated?
Whether there was
a chain of command?
It's since been proved
and they have admitted that
there is the chain of command
within the anti-balaka.
And so, maybe we can
call it ethnic cleansing.
But really it's irrelevant
what we call it.
Because the effect,
it was really the same.
 This is a Chad Special Forces
 soldier coming into Bangui
 to escort tens of
 thousands of people
 out of the region on
 these trucks.
 I stood there for maybe
 45 minutes
 as truck after truck
 after truck loaded up
 to the extent that
 this one is loaded up,
 left Bangui with
 Muslims on board.
 This is a young
 father with a new born
 waiting for the trucks
 to leave the center of Bangui.
Many of these trucks
were targeted by anti-balaka
on the road and grenades
were thrown into these trucks
from the villages that
they were passing through.
So not everybody
made it through.
And the trip was hours,
days to...
you know,
they were running the gauntlets
of these anti-balaka groups
for days to get
to Cameroon and Chad.
 I recently visited most of the
 Peul population,
 hundreds of thousands
 of the people
 that are seeking
 refuge in Cameroon.
 For the first time in
 18 months they feel safe.
For the first time in 18 months
 they have enough food.
 For the first time
 in a very long time
 they have shelter
 over their heads.
 Their children go to school
 and so it was very
 uplifting after such,
after many,
many months of hatred,
many, many months of pain,
many, many months of killing.
I was starting to see
the population that I'd known
10 years ago in Bangui.
I saw the people that were
making the butterflies.
I saw the laughter again.
I saw the children
playing football again.
 All guarded by
 now the Cameroon military
 so that the anti-balaka
 don't come across and start
attacking the local population.
 The children, some of them go
 to school for the first time.
 And they now live as
 they lived in
 Central African Republic
 in these camps in CAR.
And the UNHCR,
United Nations High Commissions
for Refugees
is doing actually a really
interesting... a really good job
of integrating the
refugee population
with the local
Cameroonian population
so that... there is very little
animosity between the two.
So they go into
a town and they bore
10 or 15 wells,
they create 10 or 15 wells
for the whole population,
not just for the
refugee population
but for the whole population.
They build schools
for the whole population,
not just for the
refugee population.
So in a way they are
learning their lessons,
they're becoming
better in what they do
and this is a great example.
We were very encouraged by
what we saw there.
 There is a lot
 of talk about return,
 like when can these
 people return.
But I asked all of these people
 when did they want to return,
 if they wanted to return and
 no one wanted to return.
 No one needed to return.
And this is a really interesting
 concept for refugees,
 should we force them,
 at some point to return?
 Should we be really
 be working for that end?
 And this is a really
 interesting question
 that we still don't
 know the answer to.
 Thank you very much
 indeed for listening
( applause )
( outro music )
