By Kylie M Tsudama
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa
BANGUI, Central African Republic – The leader of the only rebel group still fighting in Central African Republic (CAR) has been captured.
Charles Massi formerly served under Centrafrican President Ange-Felix Patasse as Minister of Mines, according to current president Francois Bozize. Massi is now the leader of the rebel Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP).
According to his wife, Denise Massi, he had been captured and beaten by soldiers of the presidential guard. He was captured in the border area of Chad, Cameroon, and CAR, although she did not specify which country.
“He was beaten up and he’s in a lamentable…condition,” she said.
Massi is being detained at a prison in the capital Bangui after being turned over to Central African authorities. He was arrested between January 1 and 2, said a military source.
“Charles Massi is not dead like some people are saying,” said the military source. “When he was transferred across the border between Chad and Central Africa, one person with him was shot for refusing to comply with the instructions of those transferring him to Bangui.”
He was previously arrested in southern Chad in May 2009. He was charged with “fraudulent entry and attempted destabilization of a neighboring country” and imprisoned, according to Chad’s Interior Minister Ahmat Mahamat Bachir. He was released in July.
Massi’s arrest came just days after CPJP rebels and the Centrafrican army clashed in CAR near the Chadian border. CPJP rebels had several clashes with government forces in 2009 in the Ndele region.
The army ordered the operation after learning of a fresh assault on the Ndele region was being prepared by the CPJP.
A CPJP statement has accused Bangui of ignoring an offer of negotiations and “mistakenly pursuing a logic of war.”
“The launch of hostilities against us will only needlessly weaken the country,” it said.
The fighting has led to the creation of a refugee camp in Daha, on Chad’s side of the border, because of the number of displaced people.
For more information, please see:
AFP – C.Africa Imprisons Rebel Leader – 10 January 2010
AFP – C.Africa Rebel Chief Captured:Wife – 09 January 2010
News 24 – CAR Rebel Chief Captured – 09 January 2010
