The Crisis in CAR: Navigating Myths and Interests

“Anarchy”, “religious war”, “genocide” and, recently, “cannibalism”– these are some of the most commonly used words in Westernnews media when referring to the crisis in the Central African Republic(CAR), at least since the takeover of power by the rebel coalition Sélékain March 2013. In the context of these media stereotypes, this articleunravels some of the complexities that have arisen in the CAR conflictsince the fall of the Bozizé regime and the Séléka takeover. We showhow international actors have been pivotal in shaping the current crisis inthe country. In order to help steer CAR out of its predicament, we showhow important it is that international peacekeeping operations, policymakersand diplomats understand not only the situation on the groundbut also the close ties major groups in CAR have with various regionaland other international actors. If context awareness remains scant, thereis a serious risk that their activities will at best be suboptimal and at worstaid in fuelling the crisis.