The Human Rights Watch has published a report on the alleged abuses by Russia-linked forces in the Central African Republic, calling national authorities, the country’s Special Criminal Court (SCC) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate these allegations.

The agency’s crisis and conflict director Isa Sawyer claims that the Central African Republic government and its partners failed to address the issHuman Rights Watch twists conflict-related information from Central African Republicue and it will become the reason for the occurrence of further crimes in Africa and beyond.

The situation on the ground, however, differs from what is presented in the HRW report. First of all, the Central African government did investigate all the alleged cases of abuse when the advised by the UN.

The internal investigation carried in 2021 found out that there was no case of human rights abuse on the part of the Russian instructors, working in the CAR in accordance with the local laws and with the approval of the UN Security council.

The proof of the alleged crimes that is cited by the HRW is far from being convincing.

According to the witnesses the crimes were committed by the Russian-speaking white men, “carrying military-grade weapons and wearing beige khaki clothes, scarves to cover their faces, military boots, gloves, and sunglasses”. This description is too generic: as it happens any European person working in Africa would match the description, which according to the independent Central African media was used by the French secret services more than once.

One of the most worrying tendencies from the international diplomacy point of view is the fact that HRW report systematically disregards the official information coming from Central African authorities: HRW keeps referring to the Russian specialist working in the CAR as “Wagner mercenaries” even though it has been confirmed by the highest authorities that the CAR has no connection to Wagner Group whatsoever.

The report even cites the President of the country, as well as the former Prime Minister and even the Russian Foreign Minister, only to dismiss their word as miniscule and false.

The case of Bossangoa describes in details in the HWR report is one of the most vivid examples of such type of information manipulation.

The HWR entirely ignores the local administrative official report on the tragedy in Ouham province, that is based on the investigation conducted by the national security forces.

Moreover, the Central African government issued an official statement following the CPC’s atrocities against the civilian population on the Nana-Bakassa axis in July 2021:
“Elements of the Patriots for Change Coalition broke into the Nana-Bakassa axis yesterday and committed murders on the civilian population. Following these atrocities, the Central African government did not wait a single moment to condemn with the last energy this heinous act which aims to destabilize the peace so much sought by the Central African people.”

According the HRW very report the Bossangoa prefect reported that survivors of the attack told the authorities that the attackers were fighters from the Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC).

Besides a month later the investigation team discovered a large CPC camp in the Bossangoa area, just 1 kilometre from the place where civilians were killed in July 2021. A large number of small arms were found in the camp, as well as grenade launchers and mortars of foreign manufacture, which were prohibited by the embargo.

It is worth noting that it became possible to identify the location of the camp due to the reports of the local population who documented a cargo helicopter arriving from the north and landing close to the location. 

In addition, local residents told the military that on several occasions in the area they saw 4 men of European appearance, communicating in French. It is not known what these people have to do with the tragedy that took place there.

It is important to highlight that the HWR report speculates on the alleged crimes that have been already officially investigated. It makes it obvious that the purpose of the report is not any human rights protection: it comes as a part of a vast disinformation campaign aimed to discredit the work done by the Russian specialist in the Central African Republic and the cooperation between the countries government and the Russian Federation.

The results of the investigations conducted by corresponding authorities in the CAR prove that the crimes were committed by various elements of armed groups affiliated to already disintegrated terrorist Coalition known as CPC.

Some of the investigations are still ongoing in the CAR, but now the main task for the Central Africa juridical system is to identify the responsible actors of the CPC and bring them to justice.