An accused Muslim rebel in the sectarian strife-torn Central African Republic was stabbed and beaten to death by soldiers attending an army ceremony. The corpse was then dragged through the streets, mutilated and burned while spectators cheered and snapped pictures.
French soldiers stopped the gruesome spectacle. But at least one onlooker was able to run off with one of the victim's charred limbs.
France has intervened in its impoverished but resource-rich former colony for supposedly purely humanitarian reasons. But the presence of French-commanded African Union troops under UN sponsorship has failed to end the escalating violence. Chaos and anarchy rule. A catastrophe on the scale of the 1994 Rwanda genocide is not only possible but increasingly likely.
The nightmare began in March 2013 when a Muslim rebel group called Seleka ousted the CAR president in a coup d'état that followed a protracted guerrilla campaign. After taking power, the Seleka--led by Islamists linked to Al Qaeda--committed atrocities against the majority Christian population, triggering reprisals by Christian self-defense militias.
The Seleka have since been dislodged and dispersed into the countryside, where former rebel fighters--the group formally disbanded--have continued a wave of massacres, mass rapes and looting, leading to more reprisals by Christian militiamen.
In an ugly parallel to the situations in Syria and Libya, where Western interventions and intrigue have backfired horribly, France is believed to have secretly supported Seleka's takeover, incorrectly seeing the rebels as mainly "moderate" Islamists more inclined to serve French commercial interests than the then-CAR president, whose ascent to power Paris had also supported.
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Soldiers Lynch Man At Army Ceremony In Central... by wochit
