{{The Seleka rebels who staged a successful coup in the Central African Republic last month are recruiting troops for a new national army, though nobody has the means to pay them.}}<\/p>\n
“Attention! Twenty men come out of the ranks,” Corporal Valentin William Saba shouts at a group of about 100 men. Less than two weeks after taking power on March 24, the rebels are sifting out volunteers.<\/p>\n
This week queues of several hundred people gathered outside a barracks in the capital Bangui. Youths from all ethnic groups are being selected by the Seleka coalition.<\/p>\n
Officially, the authorities claim that they are grouping soldiers into barracks ahead of a demobilisation, disarmament and social reinsertion (DDR) programme.<\/p>\n
“The idea is disarmament rather than recruitment,” says a source close to the government, while a diplomatic source pointed out that neither Seleka nor the state has the means to pay new troops.<\/p>\n
However, the Seleka is trying not to discourage candidates, inviting supporters and opportunists alike to join its ranks, to mixed political and social ends.<\/p>\n
Colonel Omar Bourdas, one of the top Seleka officers in charge of the general staff’s barracks, explains, “It is not about rebels to be demobilised, but new elements for a new army. <\/p>\n
We know about politics. We are taking on young people to prevent them becoming bandits and thieves. They’re out of work. Street kids who could become bandits.<\/p>\n
“But, unlike the regime of Francois Bozize (the president ousted by the rebels) we are taking in everybody, whatever his ethnic group or religion.”<\/p>\n
About 300 people including many women are registered at Bourdas’s barracks, with around 1,000 more at Camp Beal.<\/p>\n
“We are here because there’s no work. We’re unemployed and do shitty little jobs. We want to be in the army,” says a soldier at Camp Beal, where many new recruits are shaving their heads, hoping to have the “right look”.<\/p>\n
“We suffered too much with Bozize. Now, it’s a new regime,” says Levis Aidouma Olamoko, 22, who drives a moto-taxi. “I didn’t join Seleka because I was in Bangui.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{The Seleka rebels who staged a successful coup in the Central African Republic last month are recruiting troops for a new national army, though nobody has the means to pay them.}} “Attention! Twenty men come out of the ranks,” Corporal Valentin William Saba shouts at a group of about 100 men. Less than two weeks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-7001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7001"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=7001"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=7001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}