it's HOT in Central Africa!!

I came back just in time....for another attempt of a military coup! and with the last of the Air France flight...

Since the 10th of December there has been a series of armed groups of rebels (they named themselves AELEKA, alliance, in sango) that challenged the government and began fighting to conquer the country, In few days they managed to attack important cities, county seats, and even Bambari, that head quarter of a military area.

Few days after Christmas they got to Sibut, that is at 160 km from Bangui....

Who are these people? And what do they want?

it's rather complicated to answer these questions because nobody knows much around here....

Amongst them there are sons of the previous regime, an ex-ambassador, and amongst the troops several people dont even speak French nor Sango. (some are probably from Sudan, others are from Ciad)....

they call themselves the liberators...their goal is to have the current President resign (he was elected quite recently in 2011) and to dissolve the Parliament (thought it was not regularly created)

also they lay claim to the non respect of the treaty between the State and the Rebels and the disappearing of an ex-minister, whom was arrested from Ciadian soldiers and brought in to the Central African militaries....

We hear of plunders, sexual violence, killings....

So far the African Union deployed forces and organized a red line in Damara (70 km from the capital) in order to prevent the attack in Bangui....

the 26th of December there have been some protest in bangui against the French and the American Embassies (perhaps the Government wanted some military help??) - so now the American Embassy has been closed down, all personnel left, with the United Nations personnel too.....

earlier on the president refused any type of dialogue, but now he has proposed a coalition to govern and not to present himself as a candidate for the third mandate (even though the Constitution hinders that, however he was trying to amend that law...)

Situation now is stalling...we hope they'll manage to sit down and solve this with diplomacy and reach an agreement.....

in the meantime we live in fear ....10 years ago, in 2002, things started the same way and the rebels conquered the whole country and reached to the capital city too....

For the moment here all is quiet, but we don't know until when....

In these days we pray for Peace. But it's a gift from God AND man, and we must help Him prepare it for us....the Gospel says that "Mary kept all these things in her heart" -  and yesterday during the homily -  i thought more and more on the pondering: even though the country is in crisis, justice doesn't work, there's no welfare and education is even worse....and this is after 54 years of Independence...we need a change. which needs to happen in the conscience of the people, we need a mind opening that cares for the common good.