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Central African Republic

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Central African Republic PDF Country Coverage At the time of research very few travellers were heading the countries listed below, so we’re providing historical and cultural information rather than reviews and listings. A good source of information for on-the-ground travel in these countries is Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree on-line Central Africa travel forum www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree. (PDF Chapter) Edition 13th Edition, Nov 2013 Pages 26 Page Range 474-482, 516-419, COVERAGE INCLUDES: 539-542, 567-570, 652-255 • Central African Useful Links Republic Want more guides? • Chad Head to our shop • Equatorial Guinea • São Tomé & Príncipe Trouble with your PDF? Trouble shoot here • Eritrea • South Sudan Need more help? Head to our FAQs Stay in touch Contact us here © Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd. To make it easier for you to use, access to this PDF chapter is not digitally restricted. In return, we think it’s fair to ask you to use it for personal, non-commercial purposes only. In other words, please don’t upload this chapter to a peer-to-peer site, mass email it to everyone you know, or resell it. See the terms and conditions on our site for a longer way of saying the above – ‘Do the right thing with our content’. ©Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd Central Africa CAMILLA / GETTYWATSON IMAGES © Central African Republic Jungle, Elephants & Lowland Understand Central Gorillas African Republic ........ 475 Central African Republic (CAR) is a country with staggering Central African rare natural beauty and some of the world’s most amazing Republic Today .......... 475 wildlife. It’s one of the best places in Africa for encounters History ....................... 475 with forest elephants and lowland gorillas, and the best Culture ....................... 477 place in the world, some say, to see butterflies. It’s also one of the most impoverished and least developed countries on Environment .............. 477 the continent. For centuries CAR has endured rapacity from colonisers and then from its own leaders in collusion with former colo- Fast Facts nisers. Yet the people of this plundered nation are open and friendly; and their conversations are more full of hope than ¨¨ Bangui Capital despair. ¨¨Population 5.05 million CAR is landlocked, its border crossings can be difficult ¨¨Languages French and dangerous, and flights are expensive and infrequent. At (official), Sango (national) the time of writing most of the country was not considered stable or safe enough to travel through. Whatever you do, ¨¨Area 622,984 sq km check the situation with your embassy before attempting to ¨¨Currency Central African visit. franc (CFA) ¨¨Visa ¨requirements Required by most visitors Central African Republic Top Sights and should be obtained ¨¨Dzanga-Sangha¨Reserve Get up close to lowland gorillas in advance. If there is no and elephants in this little-visited pocket of virgin rainforest CAR embassy near you the French embassy will issue ¨¨Bangui Sip beer on the banks of the Oubangi River in the CAR visas. country’s capital and largest city ¨ ¨¨Tourist ¨information www. ¨Bayanga Go out on a hunting trip with the BaAka (a pygmy centrafricaine.info tribe) from this village outside the Dzanga-Sangha Reserve 475 UNDERSTAND CENTRAL Colonial Days AFRICAN REPUBLIC France launched into CAR in 1885, finding a shattered society rich in agricultural po- tential and under the rule of Sudanese-born Central African Republic Sultan Rabah. France killed Rabah in 1900 Today and soon after consolidated its control of the General François Bozizé won some 60% of country, which it divided into 17 parts that the vote in elections held in 2011, which the were offered to European companies in ex- opposition denounced as fraudulent. Today change for a fixed annual payment plus 15% the government still controls less than half of agricultural profits. Vast cotton, coffee and the country. tobacco plantations were established and worked by an often brutally conscripted lo- cal population. They resisted for decades, but opposition was eventually broken through a History combination of French military action, fam- Although stone tools provide evidence of ine and severe smallpox epidemics. human life from 6000 BC, the most nota- Central The first signs of nationalism sprang ble ancients resided around present-day up after WWII via Barthélemy Boganda’s Bouar some 2500 years ago. Little is known Mouvement d’Evolution Sociale de l’Afrique about them, though it must have been a Noire. In 1960, a year after Boganda was highly organised civilisation because it left a killed in a suspicious plane crash, his party f behind about 70 groups of megaliths, some ri forced the French to grant independence. weighing three or four tonnes. The present C cultures most likely arrived in the 15th cen- a n tury, probably fleeing Arab slave traders, but Forty Years of Chaos r by the 18th century they, too, were sending e The leadership was taken over by David publi their captives across the Sahara to markets Dacko, who became the country’s first presi- in Egypt or down the Congo River to the dent. Dacko’s rule quickly became repressive Atlantic Ocean. This industry, which didn’t C and dictatorial and in 1966 he was over- completely end until 1912, decimated entire thrown by an army commander and close UndR A TOY cultures and largely depopulated the eastern d relative, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, kicking off 13 A E half of the country. years of one of the most brutal regimes Africa s has ever experienced. In one instance Bokassa T n d C C H A D Birao Am Dafog E St Floris S U D A N n Haraz-Mangueigne T National Park André Félix RA National Park Bamingui l Gounda Sarh Bangoran Af 0 200 km Moundou National 0 120 miles Park Ndélé R Sido i Ouadda C Goré Sangba A Békay Batangafo Kabo Banmingui n Mt Ngaoui Paoua Kaga River River R (1420m) Bandoro E Bossangoa Bouca Bria Kotto Yalinga p Bozoum U Dékoa Ouaka Tambura Bouar Chutes b Garoua- li Baoro de Boali Sibut Bambari Obo Boulaï Bakouma C Baboua Bossembélé Zémio Damara Bangassou River Lac des Kongbo Kembé Carnot Crocodiles Mbomou Berbérati Chutes BANGUI Mobaye Ndu Kenzou de Mbeko Zongo Mobayi- Bondo Nola M'Baïki Zinga Mbongo River Gamboula Uele Mongoumba Businga Bayanga Dzanga-Sangha CAMEROON Reserve DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC Lidjombo CONGO OF CONGO Bomassa Lisala 476 reportedly ordered the killing (some claim he ernment with fellow ethnic group members, participated) of schoolchildren who protested which prompted a 1996 army mutiny, led by against expensive mandatory school uniforms officers from a southern ethnic group. The made by a company owned by his wife. capital became a war zone, although a peace France, coveting the uranium deposits at deal signed the next year was backed up by Bakouma and the abundant big-game hunt- an 800-strong African peacekeeping mission, ing grounds near the Sudan border (person- later replaced by UN forces. Patassé’s 1999 ally sponsored by the former French presi- re-election was followed by riots over gov- dent, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing), supported ernment mismanagement and corruption in Bokassa and bailed out his floundering econ- 2000 and attempted coups in 2001 and 2002. omy. Using the country’s mineral resources Former army chief of staff General as carrots, Bokassa also negotiated loans François Bozizé, who led the 2002 coup at- from South Africa and private US banks. He tempt, didn’t stop fighting after Libyan forc- then squandered virtually all this money. His es sent to protect the regime thwarted his final fantasy was to have himself crowned initial bid on Bangui. The next year, when ‘emperor’ of a renamed Central African Em- Patassé made the familiar African mistake of pire in 1977. Despite the worldwide derision, popping out of the shop (for a state visit to Central France helped to fund much of his corona- Niger), Bozizé marched into the capital and tion’s price tag of more than US$20 million. made himself president. Patassé scooted off Such excess, together with the out-of-con- to exile in Togo. The euphoria was short- trol violence, made Bokassa an embarrass- lived, however, as little changed under the a f ment to his backers. In 1979 France abruptly Bozizé regime. He made the usual promise ri cut off aid to the ‘empire’ and, while Bokassa to hold elections, but abandoned the second C a was in Libya seeking still more funds, flew part of the promise, not to stand himself. n in former president David Dacko together Bozizé won the election in 2005, though Pa- r with loads of French paratroopers. Dacko tassé was not allowed to run. e publi did no better this time around and was over- After Bozizé came to power the safety thrown again in 1981 and replaced by André situation in Bangui improved dramatically, as Kolingba, who in 1986 created a one-party did the economy, but not much changed else- C UndR A HisORY state that was also widely seen as corrupt. where. Fighting continued upcountry, and by At this point Bokassa popped up again but the end of 2006 rebel attacks in the northeast T E was promptly convicted of treason, murder and northwest forced some 300,000 people s and, for good measure, cannibalism, and to flee their villages. In June 2008, after most T sentenced to death. This was changed to life rebel groups signed a peace agreement with n imprisonment and he was confined to the the government, fighting slowed down con- d C palace he’d constructed at Berengo. siderably although it didn’t stop. A unity gov- E Kolingba’s 12 years of absolute rule ended ernment, including leaders of the main rebel n T when he was defeated in presidential elec- groups, kicked off 2009; just a few months RA tions in 1993, held at the insistence of the US later rebel attacks were back on the increase, l Af and France, and Ange-Félix Patassé became including by the Lord’s Resistance Army the leader of CAR’s first real civilian govern- (LRA) of neighbouring Uganda, whose insur- R i ment.
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