Humanitarianism_and_Tradegy

110264620
!
!
!
!
!
School of Politics and International Relations, Queen
Mary, University of London
!Title: Humanitarianism and tragedy , misrepresentation, colonial legacy and dependency: France’s
fait accompli in Africa.
!Student Number:110264620
Word count: 11826
!!!A Research Project submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree: B.A (Honours)
in International Relations
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
PAGE ! OF !1 54DISSERTATION

110264620
!
!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have read and understood the College regulations on plagiarism contained in the Student
Handbook. The work contained in this project is solely my own and all the sources used are
cited in the text and contained in my bibliography.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!
!
!
!
!
!!!!!

110264620
!
Abstract: The current debate on imperialism and humanitarian intervention presupposes the
end of neocolonial and imperial dependency, and subsequently draws a comfortable line
between the international and the local. I argue that the legalistic end of formal
colonialisation did not put an end to its spatial imagination and representations of others. In
the case of French interventionism in Africa, the continuation of these misrepresentations
enables the reorganisation of imperial capacity alone humanitarian lines. A closer look at the
complex historical roots of the crisis in CAR renders a much more murky picture that
undermines the very understanding of the world as a core-periphery dualist structure. In the
case of Franco-African relationship, the preconceived understanding of the end of
neocolonial and imperialist relationship conflated a spatial imagination of France’s
understanding of the self and its former African subjects that has yet to be decolonised,
informed by these notions of self and others, France then embarks on the self-fulfilling
prophecy of humanitarian crusade, not only produce disastrous consequence on the society it
sought to help but also reproduces patterns of dependency
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

110264620
Contents
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Introduction: 3
!! Section 1: A word divided
A world to intervene, spatial imagination and intervention 7
The fallacy of local/international 10
The problem with contemporary HI, reframing our debate 14
!!Section 2: French interventionism in Africa
! !The colonial legacy of the French Republic 19
French security policy in Africa since decolonisation 23
The tragedy of mere pretension 28
!!Section 3: Case study: Central African Republic, myth and reality
!!A simplistic analogy of the current crisis 33
French complicity in the formation of a predatory political class 36
C.A.R. a ‘local’ failure 39
!!!Final reflection and conclusion 43
Bibliography 47

110264620
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!
!!!!
Humanitarianism and tragedy , misrepresentation,
colonial legacy and dependency: France’s fait accompli in
Africa.
!
!
!
!
‘..in the colony the truth stood naked, but the citizens of the mother country preferred it with clothes
on.’-Jean-Paul Sartre (1961:1).
!!!
Accusations of neo-colonialism often coincides with humanitarian interventions in sub-
Saharan Africa, often for the wrong reason. Commonplace polemics on contemporary
interventions in sub-Saharan Africa often recourse to a rudimentary form of economic or
resource reductionism. Africa in popular portrayal remains a mythic construct, a shadow of
humanity’s past before the dawn of civilisation and modernity, a textbook example of
Malthusian tragedy despite being sparsely populated for the most part, above all a calamity.
This essay is not a mere polemic against the commonplace misconceptions of conflicts in
sub-Saharan Africa, it intends to trace beyond the facade of those misconceptions as a

110264620
product of ignorance and racism, but rather as something embedded in a precarious
knowledge economy that informs our very own spatial imagination of the world.
!
Comparisons between imperialism and humanitarian interventions are a common theme of IR
reflecting the contemporary anxiety concerning the possibility of fee and equal in the
international (Walker, 2006). After all the notion of ‘intervention’ itself entails a sense of
intrusion in an otherwise enclosed system, whilst the pretext humanitarian justifies it on the
normative basis of a common humanity, after all there are no barbarians in our world today,
only terrorists, insurgents and criminals. What this essay wishes to achieve is to reproduce via
French interventionism in sub-Saharan Africa, a world of binary oppositions and imagined
divisions that remains to be decolonised. As Bayart (2004:458) said, the problem for
Europeans is of a philosophical and cultural nature.
!
The first section of the essay seeks to illustrate a contemporary visualisation of world politics
through misrepresentations and a binary opposition between a structured marginality and a
self-assumed core who acts on behalf of the common humanity. The second section analyses
how colonial spatial imagination and geopolitical ownership has oversaw the transformation
of French interventionism in Africa under the new guise of global liberal governance, where
remnants of neocolonial dependency continues to be reproduced, not necessarily as a result to
metropolitan dominance but an outcome of misrepresentations. The last section is dedicated
to the case study on Central African Republic that seeks to highlight the fallacy of the
artificial separation between local conflicts and external interventions and the persistence of
neocolonial patterns of dependency that is potentially being reproduced by international
efforts to resolve the conflict. In order to illustrate the political consequences of spatial

110264620
misrepresentation which oversaw renewed patterns of dependency being created under the
pretension of humanitarianism: this essay engages with a wide range of academic literatures
on geopolitics, theoretical debates and french security policies in Africa, as well as historical
literatures, reports of NGOs, French official documents and news material to provide some
empirical narratives on an otherwise abstracted argument.
!
Through this essay, I wish to redeliver some justice not only to sub-Saharan agencies who are
depicted above all, as pathological and passive; but also to the France of liberty, equality and
fraternity, for they have long been condemned with a grandiose neocolonial scheme they did
not necessarily pursue, not only out of moral imperative, but also as a result of intellectual
and material deficiency.
!
!
A world divided
a world to intervene, spatial imagination and intervention
The securitisation of humanitarian emergencies in the global south, and the current primacy
of managing perceived security threats from problematised localities, convoys a much more
intricate development than a sudden moral awakening in the ‘international’. The end of the
Cold War has allowed substantive space for the prioritisation of conflicts that are described as
low-intensity (but nonetheless produces staggering human cost) on the global liberal security
agenda. This expansion of traditional security agenda has appropriated the management of
‘local conflicts’ as the responsibility of global liberal governance ( Duffield, 2001:2).
However, the new found primacy of humanitarianism is not a result of the ‘discovery’ of

110264620
subaltern sufferings, but informed by a geopolitical representation of the peripheral localities
as threats to the Global North (Dalby, 1998: 309).
!
The potentiality for anarchy and chaos in distant and improvised parts of the world to diffuse
and transcend its immediate geographical vicinity is an inevitable outcome of the operations
of a globalised political economy and complex power networks, both formal and informal. In
a sense globalised networks of criminals, terrorist organisations, aid agencies and productions
might have have rendered that the organising principle of power in world politics are by no
means entirely spatially confined. This necessitates a global visualisation which sees the
world as unitary as oppose to disassociated localities in modern political imagination
(Agnew, 1998, Tuathail, 1998:21). The asymmetrical distribution of power, both tangible and
in covert forms as knowledge and common sense, are pivotal to understanding interventions
in ‘local’ crisis by someone acting on behalf of the ‘international’. There might be no
‘barbarians’ in today’s world, or a space devoid of history that requires to be ‘civilised’.
Nevertheless, perceived organising principles of societies ( primordial, religious, etc) have
been problematised, conflicts and sufferings, wherever they are, are appropriated by network
of hegemonic global governance. Conflicts amongst agencies of the global south are
depoliticised, delegitimised, and above all criminalised, coined as genocide, senseless
violence informed by backward sectarian framing or criminal desires. To the advocates of
cosmopolitan policing, the type of conflicts which requires to be managed are qualitatively
different, not because violence itself is not permissible or inherently amoral (otherwise, they
would not have authorise to use violence), but owe to the political economy emerged from
those conflicts, that could potentially disrupt permissible economic activities as the
repercussions of conflicts diffuses through various globalised networks. Mary Kaldor's New

110264620
War analogy is an acute reflection of such understanding of conflicts, where she warned
against the emergence of ‘globalised war economy’ of a predatory social condition that would
ultimately threatens the island of civility (Kaldor, 1999: 117).
!
The hierarchical organisations of spaces based on essentialised forms of representations is
what created borders and divisions (Agnew, Corbridge, 1995:22), which in turn produces the
local/international dichotomy within the global visualisation of world politics. Seen in this
light, humanitarian interventions, itself a product of this global visualisation, reflects an
understanding as to what constitutes as a problem and requires containment by the network of
hegemonic global governance. The existence of the structured marginality, in the context of
this work being Sub-Saharan Africa, that requires management and containment is not an
indication that the basis of power is entirely spatial. Quite the contrary, it is an acute
manifestation of the non-territorial and networked nature of global governance (Duffield,
2001). Devoid of localities who are perceived as sources of instability, the ‘international’ of
which networks of global governance seeks to manage would become meaningless. That is to
say, the understanding of what is conceived as a ‘reasonable humanity’ (Ashley, 1989:303)
that delivers international peace and security (Dably, 1998:307) is constructed against its
binary oppositions. This spatial representation alone denotes more than ethnocentrism and
simple bias, it presupposes a capacity to manage that representation.
!
Agnew and Corbridge provocatively proclaimed that “ the singular trait of modern
geopolitical discourse is its representativeness of ‘others’ as backward or permanently
disadvantaged if they remain as they are’ (Angew, Corbridge, 1995:49). This essay is
cautious of polemical response to the politics of representation per se, as an inescapable

110264620
condition of contemporary international relations. However, it is aware of the political
consequences of particular modes of representations, and how they inform and affect
agencies’ behaviour. We should also be cautious of the political nature of knowledge. This is
not to say that the material world itself is trapped in a perpetual state of postcoloniality,
assuming that there was an ‘original’ world consisted entirely of self-determine natives , and
that it could still be materialised through the reversal of historical trajectory. Nevertheless the
problematisation of certain parts of world and its people, in conjunction with supposed
capacity and knowhow to manage, yields a potentially destructive combination. Grovogui
(2002) demonstrated what he called the ‘myth of Westphalian system’ continues to influence
understanding of African agencies and the framing of political crisis on the continent, where a
Westphalia-derived morality of sovereign states in the international is continuously used to
problematise African polities blaming much of continent’s problems on its own
incompetence. Against this zone of danger and sufferings, saw the establishment of an
international, a common humanity of grand narrative, an ultimate source of technological
knowhow, developmental assistance and capacity to manage the numerous complex
humanitarian emergencies amongst many localities. What was conveniently omitted is that
the categorisations and indoctrinations of this ‘international’ (let us not call it an empire yet)
has depoliticised material and discursive divisions as managerial problems that can only be
resolved through the international, rather than as something inherent to the hierarchies
produced by the very international.
The fallacy of the local/international
!
A comprehensive of analysis of the roots of Sub-Saharan conflicts in relations to the various
interpretation of international political economy and the historical development of

110264620
postcolonial African societies is over-ambitious given the scope of this essay. Nonetheless, it
can be observed that there is nothing organic and spontaneous about the maintenance of the
reasonable humanity. In the past few years, armed ‘international’ intervention has been used
to contain ‘local’ African violence, in Congo, Somalia, Mali and most recently in Central
African Republic, all of which denotes the hegemonic representation of order and what is
permissible in the international, and the need to manage and maintain that vision. There is
certain truth in Dably’s claim that the construction of today’s liberal international order is
linked with the militarisation of global politics (Dably 1998: 301). What is inherently
problematic for many is not the intrusion of sovereign space that remains the most important
organising principle of international politics, since in many cases the state ‘collapses’
according to standards of the reasonable humanity and the international. At the core of the
debate over the legitimacy of humanitarian intervention this work engaged with (Cunliffe,
2012, Paris, 2010, Campbell,1998, Walker, 2006, Cooper, Turner, Pugh, 2011), was whether
these the political consequence of interventions remains convergent with the stated
commitment of humanitarianism. In other words, whether interventions in local conflicts on
humanitarian grounds is qualitatively different and independent of the context of hierarchical
structures of the international, described by many as imperial and exploitative.
!
In order to critically engage with the political consequences of humanitarian intervention on
the localities it claim to have sought to securitise and protect, it must be situated in a context
as to how spaces are represented and problematised by the network of hegemonic global
governance. That is to say, humanitarian intervention is the manifestation of a particular
modes of knowledge, where killings in certain places by certain actors are pathologiesed and
treated as qualitatively different by a higher authority that possesses capacity to manage and

110264620
knowhow to peace and prosperity. We should not be surprised that this self-assumed higher
authority is situated in New York, Paris or Geneva and seek to manages violence and chaos
on the streets of Bangui or Kinshasa. The treatment of the ‘local African’ and the
‘international’ as two distinctive entity not only led to the problemtisation of the former
permitted by material reality in world politics, but also preventing us to appreciate the
‘complex hierarchies of the international itself’ (Grovogui, 2002: 334). What was omitted
through the international/local dualist representation of space, was that the hegemonic
organisation of the global space, might itself serves as both the source of problematisation
and ‘problems’(dependency) of the structured marginality, the local, situated on the
boundaries of the reasonable humanity. Not only is it difficult to distinguish the boundary
between international and the local in the context of many Sub-Saharan African conflicts
where belligerents are facilitated by transitional networks and often operate beyond the
political boundaries of the troubled state, the survival of the regimes involved in those
conflicts also depends on the support of various actors under the murky guise of the
‘international community’, not to mention identity invoked in cases of sectarian violences
sometimes resonates with demographic composition of neighbouring countries. Whilst the
aforementioned point will be addressed in detail, in this essay, I wish to highlight another
problem with the local/international framing.
!
The very disassociation between the ‘outside’ actors acting on behalf of the global security
community and their conflict-torn local host societies created by this dualist division, readily
subscribed by many as an unquestionable imagined divisive line in world politics, leads our
inquiry towards a dangerous theoretical limitation of mainstream International Relation: that
despite numerous challenges to the centrality of the modern states in our understanding of the

110264620
international by transnational power networks of finance, illicit trade, migration, insurgents or
production chains, the state remains at the centre of political imaginary. Whilst this might not
come as a surprise when we decipher the logic behind state actions, it becomes worryingly
problematic when it is employed in our understanding of armed interventions in complex
‘emergencies’ in the Global South. Whereas conventionally, relative ‘anarchy’ is a
characteristic of the international and order is the condition within a sovereign space; the
outburst of intrastate conflicts after the Cold War, as David Campbell argued, disturbed the
international cartography of international order and challenges conventional geopolitical
modes of representation (Campbell, 1998:497). The conflicts in the Global South and their
subsequent problemtisation and the attempts by networks of global governance to manage
those conflicts devoid of direct territorial ownership have challenged the statist understanding
of the international. However, the imagined territories of the state continue to play a central
part in contemporary visualisation of world politics, as the the international/local framing
suggested, it has reversed the source of anarchy from the international to the state that has
‘failed’ to emulate capacities of states in more affluent parts of the world. The comfortable
premise of dividing the world along the imagined political boundaries between
national,regional and international continue to operate and inform conventional
understanding of Sub-Saharan African conflicts. The most important political consequence is
that through pathologising African states as the source of African sufferings informed by
often tendencious historical understanding over the origin of both Western and African
‘sovereignty’ (Grovogui,2002). This ‘local’ framing of the conflict, facilitated by statist
understanding of world politics is a manifestation of various spatial representations used to
construct the structured marginality of humanity.
!

110264620
Needless to say, this core v.s. periphery analogy, presented in a contemporary fashion as
international/local is reminiscent of the history of colonialism and imperial expansions,
which previously saw of colonial subordination of these problematised localities. The
understanding of southern conflicts informed by two seemingly separate but nonetheless
convergent interpretation, first being the barbarism analogy popularised in Kaplan’s (1994)
provocative doomsday prophecy manifests itself in more eloquent academic writings of Mary
Kaldor (1999) where the island of civility must contain the predatory social conditions of
mindless slaughter. The second being the developmentalist position, that conflicts in the
marginality is owe to under developmental malaises where the lack of economic
opportunities in term breeds pathological and criminal social condition (Reno, 1997). Both
analogies embarked from a common premise constructed upon the dualist position of
civilisation against barbarians, where the root cause of conflicts in these societies situates in
the inertia of the traditional society of backward value and practices, all of which castigated
their own downfall. As previously stated, we are concerned with the political consequences of
spatial practices, in terms of both representation of spaces and its materialisation, in this case
being how armed intervention is informed by representation of violence in a particular social
context. Whatever explanation is used, identity politics, sheer criminality, corruption or self-
inflicted environmental degradations, the conflicts are localised, seen as something inherently
autochthonous to the society concerned. It is at this juncture, where the grand narratives of
common humanity is evoked, selective international morality and norms are prioritised, and
some people are framed as barbarians (Walker, 2006:72), others as victims, not only victims
of irrational violence and miseries, but also victims of their own backward, static social
conditions (Wai, 2012:40).
!

110264620
The problem with contemporary humanitarian intervention, reframing our
debate
!
Seen in this light, what then distinguishes contemporary armed interventions by agencies of
the ‘international’ from the history of colonial expansion, aside from the absence of direct
territorial ownership. The similarities between humanitarian interventions and colonial
adventures are all too familiar for those who reads history backwards, to those critics, the
mission civilisatrice is very much alive today. In a sense, such claims do holds some truth
where geographical differences are essentialised as ‘temporal schema of modern and
backwardness’ (Tuathail, Dalby, 1998:20) coupled with an invasive, penetrative power
network with both the will and capacity to intervene in places consisted entirely of victims
and perpetuator. At face level, the spatial representation which continue to portray the non-
west others in subordinating forms of classifications and appropriations (Spurr 1993, quoted
in Salter, 2004:19) and the limit of our political imagination where ‘modernity becomes the
answers to all political questions ‘that are to be accounted for its absence’ (Dably, 1998:307).
It is difficult to ignore the intellectual convergence of contemporary global visualisation and
spatial representation with that of the mission civilistrice where Hegel proclaimed that
!
‘ there is nothing harmonious with humanity to be found in (African character)” (Hegel,1830
in 1956: 93).
!
!
To Cunliffe (2012), the parallel between today’s intervention and historical experiences of
imperial expansion is not a coincidence , the absence of resources/immediate economic
benefits does not mean that peacekeeping operations today has no economic value behind,
the aim is to consolidate regional security and prevent local conflicts from spoiling into areas
where the imperial/interest congregate. This is similar to a Foucaultian analysis in the sense

110264620
that contemporary intervention is a renewed attempt to reintegrate, police and control a
problematised population to smooth out the operation of global capitalism (Duffield,2005,
Dilon, Reid, 2001 ). Paris (2010) is critical of such criticisms where weaker societies are
restructured in accordance with the imposition of the international, and argues that despite the
similarities between contemporary practices and imperialism, today’s (genuinely
humanitarian) interventions differs in the sense that the main driving force behind is the
altruism and moral imperatives. This naturally sparked criticism that once again today’s
intervention practices are primarily informed by the need of global capitalism and focusses
strongly on instrument of state coercions in order to create the necessary condition for
development (Cooper, Turner, Pugh, 2011). This debate over the legitimacy of humanitarian
intervention is highly oriented on the intention behind humanitarian interventions and the
managerial capacity of the ‘international’/imperial is presupposed. For both critics and
proponents, everyone is subject to the misrepresentations of local conflicts, either as a result
of lack of understanding or as the result of an insidious attempt of domination. As Walker
argued, the difference between legitimate/humanitarian interventions, and illegitimate/
imperial interventions are determined by whether the priority is assigned by sovereign space
or by the systems of state (Walker, 2006:73).
!
What statist argument of imperialism (Cunliffe,2012), omitted was the networked nature of
global governance and ignoring the influence of moral imperatives imposed through civil
society and the incongruence of interests amongst powerful states and agencies at the core.
As for post-structuralist and ‘liberal’ arguments as Chandler acutely pointed out that both
advocates of liberal governance and its poststructuralist critics constructed subjects of global
liberal governance through constructing a non-territorial ‘right regime’ (Chandler, 2009:61)

110264620
as either a regime of emancipation or as regimes of domination for the poor and voiceless.
Whilst for the former this regime is pivotal to safeguard individuals from the violence of
sovereignty, for the post-structuralist critiques this allowed individuals everywhere to be
managed and regulated. The contestations are constructed upon a binary division between the
local/individual and an international/imperial. This not only creates a politically charged
analytical tool for one to romanticise one side as either a global force for good or as
resistance against imperial domination. What slipped out of the debate is how
misrepresentations have continued to operate till this day either as a source of justification for
imperial domination, or as the key explanation behind the failures and limitations of
humanitarian interventions. As Charbonneau stated (2013), this is crucial because the
misrepresentation of space and metropole/international peripheral/local binary was
historically employed to justify colonialism and imperial expansion.
!
Naturally, historical sensitivity to the legacy of colonialism and imperial expansions which
gave rise to the present day international marked by highly unequal distribution of both
material capacity is pivotal. Nevertheless, examining the context of which humanitarian
interventions are legitimised and understood through binary construct against that of
colonialism brings us to the very premise of ‘humanitarianism’ itself. However, this does not
signify that this work is a mere polemic that intends to reduce humanitarianism and all of its
altruistic claims is a mere smokescreen for a neo-colonial scheme. It is an attempt to re-
politicise the normative framework of humanitarianism that was erected as an answer to
political questions surrounding the intrusion of sovereign space by the intervener as
Campbell (1998:501) acutely pointed out. Humanitarianism, at times enforced by the security
apparatus of the hegemonic network of global governance, far from being an unchallenged

110264620
force for good on behalf of a common humanity (who is not so common in all
measurements), as the earlier chapters of this work indicated, is found upon highly subversive
representations of societies in the structured marginality. In a sense, the problematic
representations themselves embody the continuation of Western colonial fantasy, that decades
after formal decolonisation, western understanding of the world remains to be decolonised.
Nevertheless, this does not imply that our analytical framework found upon spatial
representations that gave rise to a structured marginality is ambitious enough to underpin the
whole of Sub-Saharan Africa in perpetual postcolonaility, subjugated to its former colonial
maters through neocolonial links. It is rather, equipped to deduce that the international/local
division and all of its associate forms of (mis)representation of ‘local’ societies cannot be
essentialised and depoliticised. Instead, they should be treated as renewed attempts by the
network of hegemonic global governance to dictate the social condition of the marginality,
spatial representations infused in commonplace understanding of world politics, cannot be
separated from the political (Darby,2004:4).
!
To conclude this section, these particular modes of spatial representation which operates to
sustain metropolitan understanding of the self and its presupposed superiority over the others.
This essay does not wish to engage with the ethnical political question regarding
humanitarian intervention, nor does it cast doubt over the genuine desire to alleviate human
sufferings. However, it remains cautious over the normative framing of interventions that as
we’ve demonstrated rests upon problematic spatial imagination, where the representation of
the subjects of intervention have depoliticised subaltern misfortunes that are often results of
historically developed structural inequality and patterns of dependency. These representations
reflect the material practices that seek to both separate the local from the international and the

110264620
desire to manage them. This is what sparked the comparison between imperialism and
humanitarian intervention, where international management of local conflicts entail far more
than a simple moral imperative. However altruistic these interventions might wish to be (let
us not assume that they are mere pretension within the scope of this essay), if informed by
innately problematic understandings of local conflicts, the capacity and political will to
intervene might in term produce disastrous consequences for local societies.
!
!
!
!
!
French interventionism in Africa
The colonial legacy of the French Republic
!
The current Fifth Republic emerged out of the institutional crisis induced by violent process
of decolonisations in Indochina and particularly the Algerian War, nevertheless the
decolonisation of territories did not necessarily equate to the decolonisation of spatial
imagination for generations of french political leaders. The historical role of France on the
continent and its continuing military presence alongside existing trade, cultural and personal
links with African elites and the presence of a large domestic Africa diaspora and the
presence of some 240,000 french nationals living in Africa renders that the continent remains
pivotal to how France situate itself in relations to the ‘others’ (Melly, Darracq, 2013). In a
sense preconceived ‘colourblindness’ and historical separation between metropolitan France
and its colonial possessions are yet to be properly addressed. The increasingly globalised
world order is placed in sharp contrast with a french society that remains racially/culturally
fractured where migrants from its former colonial possessions remains not socioeconomically

110264620
marginalised (Dine, 2008:174) but also problematised. To give a readily available example,
‘Migrants’, who are legal French residents are coined as ‘failure of integration’,
institutionalised through the establishment of Conseil à L’Intégration set up by the the
socialist government of Rocard at 1989. Bovcon in his article (2009) demonstrated that
French expatriates evacuated from Cote d’Ivoire still refer to themselves as ‘repatriates’ (a
term that was applied to the returnees from Algeria after the war) and demanding
compensation from the french state for their financial losses during the Ivorian crisis. This is
not a simple and passive revival of colonial past, but an indication that colonialism has been
reconstituted in the collective memory according to the preoccupations and needs of the
individuals living in France and in its former colonies (Bovcon, 2009:295). This ‘colonial
theatre’ at home (Dine, 2008:179) in covert forms of hegemony as knowledge and self-
identity is detrimental to the spatial imagination of french subjects and how the world is
constructed, interpreted against their own notions and understandings of their own
geographical setting (in metropolitan France or in Abidjan), and it is to a degree, manifested
in Franco-African security policy, a point this essay shall return to.
!
Even in metropolitan France, the Fifth Republic of liberté, égalité and fraternité, culture and
way of life are intricately tied to de jure citizenship, and the understanding of inside and
outside, justified and depoliticised through a moral framework that elevates the individual in
a spatial, cultural and economic vacuum (bears some resemblance to the appropriation of
individuals everywhere by liberal cosmopolitism). This is a trend that is not only confined to
France, in a sense resonate with the the regime of sovereign morality in the international
which saw a ‘global community of increasingly standardised states’ as Reno put forward
(Reno,2009:210). Non-westerners in the socio-economic sense is castigated as examples of

110264620
failed integration domestically and portrayed as victims of incomplete capitalist modernity
and savages who threatens international order and stability internationally. This does not
mean the current international morality and social hegemony in capitalist western society is a
camouflaged racist discourse, for that signifies nothing but intellectual laziness, but the
current themes of IR with its focus on states, governance and international policy economy
do signify a problematic sense of ‘colourblindness’. Historically, racial representations been
infused in the organisation of economic and political life which has led to the asymmetrical
distribution of political and economic power alongside primordial divisions. This work has
emphasised in various places that it does not cast doubt over the the sincereness of
progressive social forces which sought to overcome inequality in all spectrums of human
relations. However, as Chin argued in his thoughtful (and blunt) work, that in our very
attempt to undo present day inequalities with historical roots that are deeply racially
implicated, our understanding of the ‘problems’ of the ‘others’, who are the subject of our
salvation or negligence, entails historically rooted prejudices (Chin, 2009:94-95).
Ethnocentrism is by no means not a phenomena confined to (western)capitalist modernity,
but it does become a problem when misrepresentation materialises into actions. The
implications provided by the two examples given previously suggests the permutation of
spatial and cultural misrepresentations undeniably tied to the history colonial and imperial
expansions continue to inform the contemporary French understanding of citizenship,
benchmarks of civilisation, rights and state responsibility, constituted within an imperial
imagination of space (Cooper, Stoler, 1997:1-37).
!
Without degreasing into a debate revolving the ‘colourblindness’ of IR and the problematique
of cultural imperialism in France, both of which remains well beyond the scope of this paper.

110264620
The purpose of this section is to illustrate the intricate connection between geopolitics,
knowledge and subordinative forms of representation of the ‘others’ which permeates all
spectrums of social relations that involves the ‘others’ (Salter,2004:223). This notion is
important for us to understand the context of which French intervention takes place in, that
state military actions, rather than governed by putatively universal rationality (as realists
would argue) might be a result of particularistic self-understanding (Cooper, 20005:64). This
is important to specifying the ‘Frenchness’ (we shall address the ‘Africaness’ in later
chapters) of France interventionism in Africa instead of diffusing it entirely in analogy of an
ahistorical networked liberal governance, conflating France as one of many identical agents
of the ‘international’ of which the ‘local’ African agencies are subordinated to. Arguably,
France has generated its own sense of Globalness (Lévy, 2000:) inextricably linked to the
universality generated through the concept of Francophonie (Dine,2008:175). Whereas a
linguist link is undeniably a result of imperial expansion and a result of various forms of
colonial and neocolonial social conditions, the separation between metropolitan France and
the DOM-TOM (overseas departments) entails the continuing separation of France from its
colonial possessions. In a sense, there is a myriad of institutions, agency and structures that
oversaw the links between France and its former colonial possessions, territories and its
people that have yet to be decolonised (Charbonneau, 2008: 30). France’s ‘others’, be it
postcolonial African states or domestic ‘migrants’ whom France have clearly distinguished
from the self whilst appropriated as subjects of civilising missions, integration (assimilation)
and in the concern of this work, humanitarian crusades remains a structured marginality
sustained subordinated forms of representations.
!
!

110264620
!
The most striking feature of contemporary Franco-African relationship is that it remains
difficult for French politicians to refer to French African policy without making remarks on
its historical past till this day, Hollande’s earlier statement that ‘ the time of françafrique is
over ‘ in 2012 as he embarked on the ‘traditional African tour’ by all new French presidents
(Le Monde, 2012) remains feeble to as ever to critics of Franco-African relationship as the
socialist president lunched two major operations on the Continent since he assumed office.
Africa has remained high on France’s security agenda, the latest Defence White Paper stated
that French capabilities is contributing to international peace and security, particularly in ‘the
periphery of Europe’ which includes Africa from Sahel to Equatorial Africa (Defence White
Paper: 2013:127).All of which signifies a remnants of mission civilisatrice that cannot be
underpinned entirely in the grand ahistorical narrative of system sovereignty attempting to
regulate and sustain African sovereigns. Africa. As the previous paragraphs sought to
demonstrate, subjects of French hegemony remains vital to the spatial imagination of France
in an era where multiple levels of governance overlap and coexist. Especially in the case of
France whereas it is redefining itself through the European project in the civilisational setting
of Europe and as a key agency in global liberal governance, and has its share in combating
threat of terrorism, transnational illicit activities presented by zone of danger in the South. In
simpler words, the binary position between metropolitan France and its structured
marginality have not been fundamentally altered, and that metropolitan desire and supposed
capacity to intervene have continue to reproduce patterns of dependency, albeit through new
organising logics and source of legitimacy, this is will be addressed in the next section.
!
!
!

110264620
French security policy in Africa since decolonisation
!!!
It is widely recognised that formal decolonisation of French colonial possessions in Sub-
Saharan Africa did not equate to the end of colonial cultural, military, economic and political
links between the mother country and its colonies, limited by the scope of our essay , this
section is dedicated entirely to the historical evolution of French security policy in Africa.
However some general narratives are necessary to critically engage with the historical
development of French military interventionism on the continent. Arguably, the process of
decolonisation was never a simple division between a periphery that oppose colonial rule and
a metropole that tries to sustain it. Some évolués (enlightened african elites) were only too
happy to forge new relationship with the former colonial master, a textbook case being the
Ivorian president Houphouët-Boigny whom famously coined the term françafrique. The
transition from colonial to neo-colonial dependence desired by de Gaulle and his grand vision
for France (Gregory, 2000:435) was mutually constructed as the special relationship profited
both France and postcolonial African elites where individuals involved profited in terms of
personal enrichment and France gained the geopolitical influence and grandeur that
distinguished it from other Western European powers (Bovcon, 2013:7).
!
At the core of the French military commitments to Africa was the defence accords and
military cooperation between France and African armies that are transformed directly from
formations of the colonial armies whose elites have received french training and often served
in the french military, as Tony Chafer (2002b) argued, this was a restricting of imperial
relationship of the colonial era. The material reality (and politicisation of many postcolonial
African armies) quickly rendered the french military a dependable source of support for

110264620
African political elites (Charbonneau, 2013:14) and the foundation of postcolonial African
regimes’ dependency on French military capabilities (which later extended to Zaire and
Rwanda, who were Belgian possessions). In general France was able to exercised a ‘virtual
empire’ (Gregory, 2000:435) largely rationalised and deemed permissible under the context
of the bi-polar geopolitical rivalry during the Cold War. However, this did not mean that
French security policy on the continent remained static during the Cold War, nor did it entail
that support granted to regimes were unconditional and permeant, particularly in the case of
Central African Republic ( Luckham, 1982). Nevertheless, France was able to sustain and
mange the spatial representation of itself as ultimate source of stability for its former colonial
possession. Nor was the African elites on the passive receiving end, as established elites
sought to undermine domestic oppositions through communist framing, and political
opportunists utilising French military presence to seize power, eroding the understanding of
imperial history and experience as a simple case of metropolitan dominance and peripheral
passiveness.
!
However, decades of economic impoverishment worsened above all by predatory state
behaviours, fall in commodity prices and subsequent economic liberalisation have
contributed to political destabilisation and insurgence, above all facilitated by illicit
transitional networks and proliferation of small arms, weakened many postcolonial regimes.
It became increasingly difficult to main stability through limited military operations. By the
end of the cold war, military ties with Africa has became increasingly costly and cumbersome
and interventions are often utilised by regimes whose ties with Paris put France under
unfavourable lights (Utley, 2005:31). Franco-Afircan ties was in need of reorganisation,
continuous attempts were made to normalise Franco-African relationship informed by both

110264620
change in the international and domestic context (Kroslak, 2004:65). Arguably, the
institutional resistance to altering the Franco-African relationship rendered the often cited ‘La
Baule’ speech often marked as a sign of structural changes ( Utley, 2005:25)meaningless,
since president Mitterrand himself admitted that ‘it did not change anything’ (Kroslak,
2004:68). The real momentum for change, arguably was a result of the three disastrous
military adventures in the mid 1990s most notoriously being French complicity in the
Rwanda genocide. France’s inability to disassociate itself from a murderous regime and
providing security for neither the regime nor the people fundamentally challenged the image
of grandeur France tried to maintain (Gregory, 2000:441). Furthermore, its commitment to
Mobutu’s regime in the wake of Zaire’s collapse in 1997 was nothing short of strategic
shortsightedness as it was becoming increasingly apparent during the early 1990s that
Mobutu was in no position to contain the rebellions against him coming from all directions.
Lastly, French military was involved in close urban combats during its operation to contain
army mutinies in the Central African Republic which resulted in heavy civilian casualties
manifested. Not only did all three cases signifies failures of French foreign policy and
military strategies as the African military in all three countries had received assistance from
France; the inability of France to reverse the ultimate downfall of regimes in all three
countries is an indication of France’s misinterpretations of the ‘local’ crisis and its limited
capacity to impose imperial peace. Rather than being seen as a cases of the metropole
intentionally prolonging the chaotic social condition, these three failed attempts to support
local regimes was an acute examples of France failing to adapt to changes on the ground and
its security commitments being appropriated and utilised by postcolonial African regimes. As
Utley argued, the crisis in the Great Lakes region particularly Rwanda has fatally undermined
the legitimacy of French involvement in Africa (Utley,2005), especially when it is difficult

110264620
for to believe that France with its ‘expertise’ in managing African crisis, did not foresee the
calamity (Lemarchand,2009:87)
!
!
A more critical historical reflection on the historical experience of French hegemony on the
continent reflects the commonplace misconception that Africa is simply France’s pré carré
(sphere of influence) entails nothing but intellectual shortsightedness. Particularly as changes
in ‘local’ conditions have prompted France to reorganise and redefine its security
commitments on the continent. However, the reorganisation of French military on the
continent, manifested in the reduction in troops numbers and closure of bases did not entail
France’s strategic retreat. It is important to keep in mind that even after the the disastrous
experience in Rwanda, France lunched another total of 33 operations in Africa prior to its yet
another controversial involvement in Cote d’Ivoire in 2002, of which only 10 had UN
mandates. Despite the official discourse of ‘normalisation’ , which has been repeated in
various French administrations from Mitterrand to Hollande ‘ generally reflects a shifting
paradigm of global norms, of multilateralism, democracy, development and sovereign
responsibilities. The changes in french military strategy did not necessarily reflect a complete
overhaul of spatial representations, Sub-Saharan is again presented as a major ‘zone of
fragility’ as France commits itself to ‘fighting all forms of terrorism from the Sahel to
Equatorial Africa ‘ (Defence White Paper, 2013:39). The continuing involvement has been
presented as France’s contribution to security and development on the continent
(Chafrbonneau, Chafer, 2011:278) legitimised through the new language of cosmopolitanism.
Nevertheless, this shift, itself prompted by the calamities induced by the incompetence of
French imperial interference , cannot escape the historical context of French colonialism and

110264620
imperialism, nor can it escape the historically developed dependency of some African
agencies, as Chafer argued, ‘for normalisation to happen, both sides have to want it (Chafer,
2002:177).
!
!
!
!
!
The tragedy of mere pretension
!“ France intends to be present alongside Africans to help them to integrate themselves into the
modern world, to prevent the crisis which can tear apart the continent, and to overcome the immense
difficulties which countries emerging from conflicts encounter. “
!Chirac, 2002 (Cited in Utely, 2006:31).
!!
Defenders of contemporary humanitarian interventions like Roland Paris rejects the notion
that imperial and colonial legacy have lingered on in (legitimate) contemporary interventions
driven explicitly by (to dispute this point is another matter) liberal moral imperative (Paris,
2010). As much as one wish to reimpose the perennial theme of tragedy in international
relations onto his optimism, his argumentations deserve some serious reflections in the case
of French interest in African affairs. As emphasised in the previous chapter, the continuation
of french hegemony on the continent after formal decolonisation was not a simplistic story of
outright French domination, the rationales behind interventionism became increasingly
unfavourable not only owe to the changing external environment stated previously but also
with the passing of earlier generations of franco-african state apparatus (most famous case
being Jacques Foccart who is known as Monsieur Afrique ). Furthermore, whilst it is true that
French remains dependent on Africa for strategic resources such as uranium,sub-Saharan

110264620
Africa’s economic significance measured both in terms of merchandise import from and
export to Frane has declined sharply from 9% and 8% of early 1960s to 3% and 2%
respectively in 2011 (World Bank, cited in Melly, Darracq, 2013: 19), the economic rationale
behind French military interventionism remains unconvincing at marco-level.
!
Furthermore, the new emphasises on multilateralism and enhancement of African capacity
(often funded and undertaken under EU frameworks ) in a sense signifies an imperialism on
the cheap(Utely, 2002). Almost in all measures, France is by no means a fearful geopolitical
power surrounded by states with equitable capacity. However, as Profant argued, France’s
declining material influence has not had much influence on its projection of itself in relations
to sub-Saharan Africa (Profant, 2012:42). Arguably, sub-Saharan Africa remains a ‘cheap’
place for French interventionism where it could alter ‘local’ events dramatically with a few
fighter jets and APCs roaming down the dusty roads (as how such interventions are often
portrayed in popular media), than say involving in Syria. France has attempted to reorganise
its capacity and play a leadership role through the UN and EU in managing African crisis, not
not because they are better source of legitimacy, but also as an acute reflection of France’s
diminishing material capacity, and its adjustment of interventionism in Africa within new
paradigm of liberal governance. For instance, France actively lobbied for EU involvement in
Congo in 2004 and eventually obtained the materialisation of Opération Artémis. However,
as Utley (2006) observed that the official discourse on the operation itself focused
exclusively on Europe: Chirac was quoted saying that “(Artémis) cemented the significant
advances of European defence which the French military played a significant role (ibid:35).
The fluidity of rationale behind French interventionism in Africa does indicate some
qualitative changes in Franco-African relationship. Nevertheless, if one focus entirely on the

110264620
fluidity in French official discourses that emphasises on ‘special relationship’ whilst at the
same time stresses the importance of normalisation and multilateralism, as Kroslak
(2006:80) warned, we would lose sight of the continuity of French African policy, in our case
it is the spatial representations inscribed to the continent.
!
!
Arguments that claims that France interventionism persisted in Africa underlines
determination of various French administration to reproduced Gaullist version of grandeur is
not a novel observation (Dine, 2008:175, Profant,2010, Lévy, 2000). Charbonneau and
Chafer (2011) argues that France interventionism has been been legitimised and reauthorised
in the context of global liberal governance, where it attempt to reproduce its geopolitical
exceptionalism through new paradigms of capacity building, development all of which are
said to be aimed at a peaceful and prosperous Arica, and in doing so saw the persistence of
French imperial capability and new patterns of dominance (Charbonneau, 2008). In a sense
these arguments resonate with those of post-imperialism whereby intervention does not
purely steam from economic rationale but from moral cosmopolitanism, responsive to the
moralisation of global space in the era of mass media, where public opinions can have acute
political and economic consequences on a given country (Dexter,2007:1057). This is
precisely why this essay chose to situate the entirety of the debate within the context of a
hegemonic global liberal governance, and at the beginning of this section, stressed that
Roland Paris’s argument (2010) deserves some serious reflections. However, his argument
that colonial and imperial legacy have given way to new moral imperative, whilst
acknowledging the imperial nature of contemporary interventions, he argued that they were
fundamentally different because they were aimed at benefiting the local societies (ibid:

110264620
349,350). Nevertheless, what ensured the transformation of France’s pursuit for grandeur
(which should not be a problem if it genuinely wishes to help) substantiated by its willingness
and capacity to intervene militarily on the continent is the continuation of submissive forms
of representations that were used to justify and inform contemporary humanitarianism bears
shocking resemblance to those of colonial and imperial era.
!
This is not our attempt to situate societies where these interventions took place in a perennial
postcoloniality, where ‘local’ agencies operate entirely at the whims of the ‘international’.
After all the structured marginality, is structured, imagined and denotes an misinformed
understanding of societies, either as backward uncivilised, or as simply alien. The later form
of understanding is what prompted Chandler (2010) to conclude that external interveners
have given up on restructuring ‘local’ societies and resorted to maintaining the status quo.
The probelmatique of interventions in the scope of this essay is not that it interfere with an
imagined state of indigenousness, but the very assumption of that state of indigenousness. It
is worrisome enough when metropole/international seek to manage local/peripheral conflicts
informed by spatial misrepresentations which presupposes the capacity and knowhow the
interveners simply do not possess. Arguably, had France actually possessed the effective
hegemony it projects itself to have, some long standing regional conflicts in Congo, Chad and
Central African Republic would have been resolved some time ago, and ‘friendly’ African
regimes would have been more stable. What renders the misrepresentation even more
precarious, is the capacity of ‘local’ agencies to profit from misrepresentations they are
subjugated to. Bovcon (2013) used demonstrated the ‘incongruities between France’s actual
power and its behaviour towards its former colonies and the (failed) attempt by then Ivorian
preisdent Gbagbo to consolidate his position both through dependency on françafrique and

110264620
his anti-imperialist stance. Moreover, breaking down the comfortable binary view of the
world and spatial misrepresentations requires us to also repudiate the conventional anti-
imperialist polemic stance commonly associated with Franco-Africa relationship.
Commonplace interpretations that sub-Saharan Africa is simply France’s pré carré, where
France is able to ‘cheery pick’ close links with states (Gregory, 2000:442) needs to be
contested as they are equally subversive. In order to better illustrate the points this essay has
been pursuing thus far, the following sections are dedicated to the case study on Central
African Republic, this is necessary to grant some materiality to an otherwise abstracted
argumentation.
!
!
!!
Case study: Central African Republic, myth and reality
!!
!
Central African Republic, rarely mentioned in the anglophone press apart from occasional
reductionist reference to its political turmoil which bears little difference from sheer
criminality and irrational violence, is a prototype case for Afro-Pessimism. The continuing
communal violence at the time this paper is being written and concurrent attempt by the
‘international’ to scramble efforts makes it a highly relevant case study for this paper. The
misrepresentation of the current crisis and the historical legacy of neocolonialism and
imperialism the country is subjugated to, has continued to operate till this day and hijacked
genuine humanitarian efforts to reproduce a new pattern of dependency on the international/
imperial core. This section of the essay argues that the historically developed dependency on
external support and structural weaknesses of the Central African Republic ( from here
onwards referred to as the CAR) is by no means local, and that historically developed

110264620
prejudice and misrepresentation has omitted the ‘international’ root of local crisis and
materialised in misinformed peacekeeping (making?) operation. The dysfunctional and feeble
Central African State prior to the crisis is not only owe to the ingenious criminal design of
‘indigenous’ politicians, nor is it a simple developmental malaise, but rather a chronic crisis
that combines all too familiar theme of geopolitical contestation,regime survival,
humanitarian concerns and a local political class who is dependent on external support
system.
A simplistic analogy of the current crisis
!“We can not allow the atrocities in Central African Republic. The international community must act
and France intends to take its share of responsibility” - Francois Hollande, 19 November 2013
(Libération, 2013)
!‘ Militias in the C.A.R are slitting children’s throats, razing villages and throwing young men to the
crocodiles, What needs to happen before the world intervenes?’ - Guardian 2013
!!
France has actively advocated for multilateral management of the unfolding violence in CAR,
thus far gaining support from all spectrums of the ‘international community’, from UN
mandate for French military operation Sangaris (Security Council, 2014) to an EU -funded
African led peace operations MISCA (EU, 2014:4) and promised EU support to relieve
French military in the capital (IWPR,2014). Furthermore, France claimed that it has recede d
to a secondary supportive role to the much larger African MISCA contingents under
RECAMP (Ministère de la Défense, 2014), a French initiative to reorientate French security
policy in Africa towards improving the capacity of African states, essentially a
multilateralisation of French military presence on the content (Charbonneau, 2008:114).
!

110264620
However despite the presence of international peacekeeping effort, localised communitarian
violence continue to break out around the countries. As the violence continues to unfold, the
conflict is being fashioned increasingly from a case of state collapse and regime change to
sectarian violence and identity politics (Human Rights Watch, 2013). The implicit message is
clear, that France alongside the international community (System sovereignty) and the EU is
the only salvation to African crisis where neither the Central African state nor the various
African agencies could alleviate people of CAR from irrational slaughtering. The intervention
in CAR is necessitated under the pretext that devoid of EU funding, French/EU security
expertise and knowhow, the conflict could not be resolved by African agencies, let alone
CAR itself.
!
It is difficult to deduce how the conflicts are understood by the French government simply
through official rhetoric, or whether it is understood at all. Commonplace interpretations of
the conflict seem to have creeped into official discourse. Understanding of the conflict has
progressed little since the security council meeting on 5 December 2013, the conflict in CAR
is said to be one of :‘(where) the state which has collapsed, is unable to protect its
population, and the country is now in danger of succumbing to inter religious violence
between the Christans and Musliums.’ - Gérard Araud, Permeanent Representative of France
to the UN (Ministère des affaires Etrangères, 2013). At the time whilst this paper is being
written, President Hollande has stressed the urgency to avoid the partition of CAR (Le
Nouvel Observateur, 2014) and his ‘transitional policy’ entails little more than the general
election scheduled for February 2015 (Le Monde 1, 2014). In Generally speaking, the
conflict in CAR is understood as an spontaneous eruption of local religious sectarian
violence, as a direct result of state failure.

110264620
!
First and foremost, it is doubtful whether France or the EU for that matter do possess the
material capability and even political will required to commit to securitising a sparsely
populated country with a landmass slightly bigger than that of metropolitan Franc given the
current fiscal reality in Europe, not to mention its relative proximity to other conflict torn
regions particularly Congo, Chad and Sudan. Moreover, it is also problematic whether France
do possess the knowhow to peace and stability in CAR given the dangerously simplified
analogy of the conflict used in the official discourse. Nevertheless, the comfortable usage of
spatial representation of Africa as a problemtised locality presupposes the French capacity
acting on behalf of the international. This does not mean this section denies the sectarian
elements of the conflict nor the incompetence of political elites in the CAR, African agencies
limited capacity nor is this a mere polemic against the pejorative representations. However,
we must not forget that discourses and representations, are not mere normative concern, they
have materiality (Mbembe, 2001:5). Historicity must be returned to the subjects of the moral
imperative of the international, to uncover the fallacious separation between the localised
conflicts and the international, to expose a ‘real’ common humanity.
!
!
List of presidents of Central African Republic after Bokassa
!
Years in power Method of accession ‘Sectarian identity’
André Kolingba 1981-1993 Coup Yakoma, Southerner
Angre-Félix Patassé 1993-2003 Election, 1993, 1999 Sara-Kaba, Northerner

110264620
!
!
!
French complicity in the formation of a predatory political class
!
“ CAR has experienced a tragedy…this country has lived under decades of instability, disorder,
corruption..” - President Hollande, in his speech to religious leaders in Bangui, 28th February 2014
(Hollande,2014)
!
!
France’s military intervention in CAR has always been informed by a mixture of
humanitarianism and imperialist geopolitical concern. For instance, CAR’s most notorious
dictator Bokassa, a pioneer in the militarisation of CAR’s political scene (ICG,2007:4), who
soon depleted the tacit backing of France as his brutal crackdown of political opposition was
made publicised by Amnesty International (O’Toole,1986:54) in 1979 which brought
embarrassment to the French government as the brutality of the structured marginality
reached the metropolitan core. If his atrocities alone did not suffice to seal his fate, Bokassa’s
subsequent attempt to seek for Libyan backing ultimately saw him forcibly removed by the
french military present inside the country and in neighbouring Chad. There was always a
humanitarian element to the imperial. However, the picture becomes murkier once we
abandon the all too familiar metropole-periphery binary where African agencies are reduced
to mere executioners of French imperial will. The militarisation of Central African politics
François Bozizé 2003-2013 Coup, Election 2005 Gbaya, Born in Gabon,
Michel Djotodia 2013-2014 Armed Rebellion Muslim/Gula ,
Northerner
Years in power Method of accession ‘Sectarian identity’

110264620
(Mehler, 2011)and the formation of a predatory political class has historically utilised French
interventions to their own end, that is not necessarily desired by Pairs. In fact, by 1978, CAR
was one of the only five African countries that had maintained the defence accord with
France which provided French military the rights to intervene (Lellouche, Moisi, 1979:114).
!
!
In the 1982, the designated successor of Bokassa, David Dacko who was already proven to be
extremely unpopular during his presidential term, ‘voluntarily’ handed over the power to the
military, which soon saw the rise of General Kolingba as the new head of state.Not only was
his regime highly dependent on Paris for financial aid and advisory (Berg, 2008:20, ICG,
2007:10, O’Toole, 1986:70); French support and its commitment towards ‘stability’ in
francophone Africa (Vasset, 1997) provided the precondition for Kolingba’s subsequent
rampage over the Central African state. Under his rule, the military and state apparatus
became increasingly dominated by the Yakoma people, an ethnic group who resides in the
southern part of the country where the capital Bangui is located. Kolingba’s reliance on
primordial ties for political recruitment of both the state institutions and the security
apparatus which in term inscribed the sectarianism into CAR’s political scene was arguably a
risky move given the country’s relative small military. In a sense, the security of his regime is
partially ensured by the presence of 1,500 french soldiers in the country during the early
1980s (O’Toole, 1986:67). Moreover, it is important to bear in mind that this ethnic
favouritism that was employed as a mean to distribute limited resources through the state was
used to consolidate control by the president, it should not be seen as a priori prominence of
primordial identities.
!

110264620
A close examination of all of Central African presidents from Boprior to the latest takeover
by Djotodia in 2013 revels their similar path to power, perhaps with the noticeable exception
of Patassé. First of all, in consecutive order, Kolinga, Patassé and Bozizé served key military
and civilian positions in Bokassa administration, with Patassé being the Prime Minister and
the other two being generals of the army. Aside from Patassé, all of the three remaining
presidents sized power through military coup owe to their position as the commander of the
army (Mehler,2010:53) and through armed rebellion as in the case of Bozizé. Arguably in a
country where the military is highly politicised, key military post would not be delegated to
those who is perceived as inherently ‘alien’ by the executive. The motive behind their seizure
to power cannot be sufficiently explained as ideologically driven nor as commitment to
primordial tie, but as the desire for personal gain. This informal tradition of political
succession could only be made possible when their illegitimate seizure to power was partially
assisted or unopposed by the French military stationed in the country and in nearby Chad.
Furthermore, in later years where the military become significantly weakened owe to the
distrust of the administrations, in 1981 the army only had 1,900 soldiers as oppose to 7,500
under Bokassa regime (O’Toole, 1986:67, Mehler, 2010:53), the coercive ability of their
often oppressive regimes relied heavily on the deterrence to oppositions posed by French
military in the country. Similarly, oppositions’ chances of gaining power also varied
significantly on the degree of french support over the regime.
!
Seen in this light, the emergence of a predatory political class is to an extent owe to the
constant possibility of French interventions as local elites exploited imperial and neocolonial
relationship within ‘local’ political context. Noticeably, Bozizé regime collapsed when
anticipated French support was not given (CNN,2012), rebels forces marched into the capital

110264620
after it was clear that French army (Operation Boali) and FOMUC troops did not intend to
intervene (Minstére de la Défense, 2013), unsurprisingly, the security apparatus made no
apparent attempt to protect the regime itself (Reuters,2013).
!
!
!
C.A.R. a ‘local’ failure?
!
Liberalisation and the first ‘free and fair election’ since the country’s independence first held
in 1993 did not lead to the normalisation of the political structure. The first president with no
military background Patassé was said to differ from his predecessors because he was from the
northern part of the country, perhaps a continuation of the identitarian politics of the Kolinga
era where people of the river (Yakoma) dominated his administration. The domination of
security apparatus and state institutions by Yakoma posed as an acute threat to the the
country’s first democratically elected leader, Patassé pursed to weakened the Yakoma
domination through the creation of parallel security apparatus, a practice continued by Bozizé
(Mehler, 2010:54). The attempt to undo the remnants of Kolingba’s former patronages in the
state and military apparatus, again through political recruitment along ethnic lines, and the
marginalisation of the Armed Forces yield precarious consequences.
!
Army mutinies soon erupted in 1996 and 1997, Patassé regime survived the reprisal with the
help of yet another french military intervention (Almandin II) justified thorough its defence
accord with CAR (Ministé de la Défense, 2010). The behaviours of the ‘international’ bears

110264620
shocking resemblance to that of today, as France beefed up its presence in the country and
funded a joint African peacekeeping contingent. However, situations quickly deteriorated as
three consecutive army mutinies broke out despite French presence. The rapid deteriorations
and French involvement in close urban combats in Bangui which resulted in mass civilian
casualties (ICG, 2007:11) forced Paris to pressured Patassé to include oppositions and rebel
leaders in the government. A quick peace was achieved under the facade of inclusive politics,
presidential election was planned for 1999, and France withdrew from the country as part of
its military restructuring and a sign of France’s reluctance to be drawn into urban conflicts
and complex political crisis it cannot resolved militarily (Chafer, 2002:11). This generated
two consequence: first, inclusive politics and culture of privatised yield a dangerous
combinations (Mehler, 2011:124) as armed oppositions were legitimised through
international recognition and undermined the little cohesiveness that was left in the Patassé
regime; Second, the French and international withdrawal from the country arguably placed
significant strain on the survival of Central African state that simply did not have the capacity
to maintain political order on its own. Five months after the presidential election of 1999 of
which Patassé claimed victory, violence returned to Bangui.
!
Moreover, regional dynamics and CAR’s immediate geopolitical position is also pivotal to
CAR’s security environment and the regime’s chances of survival. The historical inability of
the Bangui regime to control the northern parts of the country (Bierschenk, de Sardan, 1997)
has created a safe heaven for cross-border armed movement including the SPLA with links to
key conflicts in the tri-border region of Chad, Sudan and the CAR facilitated by cross border
refugee flows fuelled by conflicts in three different countries, including some 245,000(EU,
2014:1) and trans-border trade (Giroux, Lanz, Sguaitamatti, 2009: 6). Northern Eastern

110264620
CAR’s geographical prolixity to the oil field in southern Chad and Dafur region saw rebel
movements against and supported by both Chad and Sudan operating in this region. Without
diverting into structural accounts of Chadian and Sudanese (and perhaps now a third one in
South Sudan) conflict, it should be understood that the ongoing conflicts in Sudan and
neighbouring Chad have given rise to a regional system of conflict facilitated by movement
of people and goods (Giroux, Lanz, Sguaitamatti, 2009, Marshal,2007). This provided
N’djamena and Khartoum with strong incentive to be involved in CAR’s political scene.
Whilst the Central African state is by no means effective in the classical weberian sense and
its survival depends heavily on external support system. The temporary withdrawal of France
in 1997 and the weakened and unreliable military of CAR does not foreclose the ingenuity
(or desperateness) of a regime trying to survive. Deprived of his French patronage and
threatened by attempts of military coups, Patassé begun to seek for new foreign patronages in
the region, and in a similar attempt as Bokassa, he asked for Libyan assistance and help from
rebel group (MLC) in Northern Congo. Such a dangerous manoeuvre and its geopolitical
repercussions on neighbouring countries including France and Chad both wary of Libya,
ultimately translated into a regional purging against Patassé that involved Kabila’s Congo
(naturally) and Chad (Berg, 2008:20), and eventually saw the successful removal of Patassé
by Bozizé, a career military(coups) man backed by Chadian president Déby with the help of
Chadian mercenaries.
!
Furthermore, what enabled a constant supply of belligerents (and the gross atrocities and
criminalities associated with conflicts in Chad, CAR and Sudan) is a pool of professional
combatants with fluid loyalties (Debos, 2008:227) not only coming from the tri- order region
in Northeastern CAR but also in the Northwestern region where armed groups operate as

110264620
highwayman profiting from key trade route to Cameroon (Berg, 2008:22). Bangui regime’s
inability to control the northern parts of the country, in conjunction with general level of
economic underdevelopment nurtured a group of ‘career rebels, where CAR nationals has
been reported to be involved in the rebel groups in Darfur (Marchal, 2007: 477). The ethnic
make up of Bozizé’s rebel force included various ethnic and religious origins (Debos,
2008:227), not only implying that the nature of the politics struggle in Central African
Republic is not a simple case of confessionalism but also revels the the economic rationales
of many of the fighters themselves which saw the takeover of Bozizé accompanied by
systematic looting of the population (ICG,2007: 19) and subsequent rise in both criminality
and rise of new opposition armed movements. This pool of fighters in conjunction with weak
state coercive capacity yields a perfect combination for the opportunist predatory political
class.
!
At this juncture it should be seen clearly that there is a complex political economy of state
erosion operating in the Central African Republic whereas the incumbents of Bangui
primarily relied on foreign patronage for security.This is not only owe to the institutional
weakness of the army and poverty, but a result of the appropriation of foreign interventions in
‘local’ political context. The roots of conflicts in Central African Republic is identity politics,
but a result of predatory regimes and its logic of political recruitment which saw the
crystallisation of economic and political division alongside otherwise ambitious ethnic line.
Situated in a context of poverty, geopolitical concern of rivalry regional and at times
international power, informed by their own individual economic rationale, the predatory
political class of CAR have maintained control with outside assistance. The futility of army

110264620
reform that was supposedly in place since 1996 (ICG,2013) funded by the EU and France is a
manifestation of the passive resistance towards attempts of altering ‘local’ dependency on the
‘international’. CAR with all of its misery and suffering is not a simple case of the subalterns
willingly subdued to the will of the metropole as polemics might claim. Serious thoughts are
ought to be given to Ayoob’s theory where state collapses and violence is an integral part of
state formation (Ayoob, 2002:46). The dependency created in CAR manifests anything but
the passiveness of the peripheral agencies, nor is the root causes of ‘localised’ crisis entirely
local.
Final reflection and Conclusion
!
The gradual unfolding of the current crisis is the result of all of the aforementioned
historically developed structural malaises: a predatory political class, weakened state
institutions, the complicity of ‘international ‘involvement, a security vacuum fuelled
‘regional’ instabilities and the interference of neighbouring regimes’. Thus far this section has
avoided engaging in debates that sought to construct an universal model to state collapses in
Africa, or attributing the the root cause of current conflict to one factor, as the current French
official discourse seem to have resorted to. It is not difficult to deduce that although France,
irrespective of all accusations of neo-colonialism, did not single handily manufacture regime
changes in CAR. Nevertheless, historical experiences suggests that the presence and absence
of French interventions is intricately linked to the survival ability of Bangui regime. Despite
various CAR leaders’ attempt to find new external support, a more recent example being the
involvement of South Africa in Bozizé’s final attempts for international support. France’s
abandonment of Bozizé was not without reason, a joint French-CAR military campaign
against rebel groups in northern CAR in 2006 again led to a media defeat of the French

110264620
involvement as reports of war crimes by the CAR army emerged (ICG,2007:27).
Nevertheless, a peace agreement was brokered and rebels (whether they had meaningful
political agendas or not ) were legitimised by the international peace efforts and Bozizé
received another 7 years in power without strengthening the institutional capacity of his
regime despite international assistance.
!
!
!
International (where France plays a lead role) efforts in containing local crisis in CAR cannot
deny its share of responsibility in the historically developed chronic structural weakness of
CAR. Through its direct involvements in ‘local’ conflicts, ‘local’ agencies are legitimised or
delegitimised and ‘local’ violence is depoliticised and rendered as a malaise in itself
embedded in the social conditions of underdevelopment rather than being treated as the result
of inorganic socio-economic divisions created by a predatory class whose rent seeking ability
from its former colonial master is rooted in both moral imperatives and the misrepresentation
they are subjugated to. When the regime is supported by French effort, it not only serves as a
deterrence to the oppositions but also legitimises a often corrupt and predatory regime.
Furthermore, violence is used by armed oppositions to attract international attention and
attempts of mediation which not only saw their legitimisation, but also saw the
marginalisation of non-violent political parties and the weakening of government cohesion as
it enters power-sharing agreement endorsed by its external support system (Mehler, 2010).
!
!

110264620
The perception that international effort and above all french involvement is inherently an
impartial ‘external’ effort to contain ‘local’ violence is in itself problematic. The imagined
enclosed conflict system locally is in fact deeply associated with historical patterns of
external interventions. What France and the ‘international’ cannot escape is the existence of
a highly militarised political scene in CAR that has coexisted with and in some extent it is
nurtured by external interveners. If France truly had the capacity and knowhow to local crisis,
CAR would have had a functional security apparatus after years of military cooperations
(since independence) and internationally funded security sector reform (Bagayoko,2012). The
dependency on external support for internal stability of various Bangui regimes have lingered
on from the context of French neocolonialism to contemporary global liberal governance,
effectively offloading the role of maintaining public order onto the intervener whilst the
predatory political class sought to strengthen their position irrespective of domestic
oppositions. Although, this is not always successful as manifested in Djotodia’s earlier
attempt to offset the inability of his administration to provide security through operation
Sangaris and the disarmament of rebels whom he was unable to control.
!
The brief historicity illustrated in the previous section has shown that the chronic structural
weakness faced the CAR is not a simple case of local failures. It is perhaps true that there are
no explicit economic rationale behind the various French intervention in CAR, however this
in term signifies not only the moral pretension of French efforts aimed at peace and stability,
but also its incompetence and insensitivity to the dynamics of local conflicts. This is not a a
polemical approach rendering that ‘local conflicts’ should be left to its own course, but rather
a rejection of the notion of where the international/France which is deeply implicated in the
dynamics of local conflict is itself depoliticised. In the context of CAR, the role of France is

110264620
deeply embedded not only in CAR’s local politics, but also in its geopolitical setting
(France’s leverage over Chad and African organisations), informed and legitimised by
subordinative forms of representations deep seeded in legacy of colonialism, as I’ve argued at
the very beginning of this work. Nevertheless, the artificial separation between local conflicts
and external intervention not only distort our understanding and produce disastrous
consequences but also further substantiate topological or local inferiority through what are
often the failures of the intervention itself. The tragedy of this sort of ‘humanitarianism’ is not
that it undermines the very possibility of free and equal subject (Walker, 2006), but owe to
the fact contemporary moral imperative in conjunction with misrepresentations presuppose a
fallacious material/intellectual capacity, and when this fallacious capacity materialises, it is
often the very people we try to help who endure the ultimate cost.
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!

110264620
!
Bibliography
!
Agnew, J. A. and Corbridge, S. (1995) Mastering space. London: Routledge.
Allen, C. (1999) 'Warfare, endemic violence & state collapse in Africa' Review of African
Political Economy, 26 (81), pp. 367--384.
Andreas, M. (2014) Reshaping political space? The impact of the insurgency in the Central
African Republic on political parties and representation. GIGA working papers, No.116.
[report] Berlin: GIGA, pp. 1-30.
Articles, P. (2014) 'CENTRAFRIQUE. Pour Hollande, il faut "éviter la partition du pays"'
nouvelobs.com. [online] Available at: http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/centrafrique/
20140228.OBS8068/centrafrique-francois-hollande-attendu-a-bangui.html [Accessed:
23 Mar 2014].
Ayoob, M. (2002) 'Inequality and theorizing in international relations: the case for subaltern
realism' International Studies Review, 4 (3), pp. 27--48.
Bagayoko, N. (2012) 'Multilevel Governance and Security: Security Sector Reform in the
Central African Republic' IDS Bulletin, 43 (4), pp. 20--34.
Bayart, J. (2004) 'Commentary: Towards a new start for Africa and Europe' African Affairs,
103 (412), pp. 453--458.
Bayart, J. F. (2009) The State in Africa: The politics of the belly. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity.
Berg, P. (2014) THE DYNAMICS OF CONFLICT IN THE TRI-BORDER REGION OF THE
SUDAN, CHAD AND THE CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC. Country conflict-analysis
studies. [report] Berlin: Friedrich Ebert Foundation, pp. 7-25.
Bierschenk, T. and De Sardan, J. O. (1997) 'Local powers and a distant state in rural Central
African Republic' The Journal of modern african studies, 35 (3), pp. 441--468.
Bovcon, M. (2009) 'French repatriates from Côte d'Ivoire and the resilience of Franccafrique'
Modern & Contemporary France, 17 (3), pp. 283--299.

110264620
Bovcon, M. (2013) 'Françafrique and the Regime Theory' European Journal of International
Relations, 19 pp. 5-26.
Chafer, T. (2002) 'Franco-African Relations: No Longer So Exceptional?' African Affairs, 101
(404), pp. 343--363.
Chafer, T. (2001) 'French African policy in historical perspective' Journal of Contemporary
African Studies, 19 (2), pp. 165--182.
Chandler, D. (2009) 'Critiquing liberal cosmopolitanism? The limits of the biopolitical
approach' International Political Sociology, 3 (1), pp. 53--70.
Charbonneau, B. (2008) France and the new imperialism. Aldershot, England: Ashgate.
Charbonneau, B. (2008) 'Dreams of Empire: France, Europe, and the New Interventionism in
Africa' Modern & Contemporary France, 16 (3), pp. 279--295.
Charbonneau, B. (2012) 'War and Peace in Côte d'Ivoire: Violence, Agency, and the Local/
International Line' International Peacekeeping, 19 (4), pp. 508--524.
CHARBONNEAU, B. 'The imperial legacy of international peacebuilding: the case of
Francophone Africa' Review of International Studies, pp. 1--24.
Charbonneau, B. and Chafer, T. (2012) 'Introduction: peace operations and francophone
spaces' International Peacekeeping, 19 (3), pp. 274--286.
Chin, C. B. (2009) 'Claiming race and racelessness in international studies' International
Studies Perspectives, 10 (1), pp. 92--98.
Cooper, F. (2005) Colonialism in question. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cooper, F. and Stoler, A. L. (1997) 'Between Metropole and Colony: Rethinking a Research
Agenda' In: Cooper, F. and Stoler, A. L. (eds.) (1997) Tensions of Empire. Berkely:
University of California Press, pp. 1-37.
Cooper, N., Turner, M. and Pugh, M. (2011) 'The end of history and the last liberal
peacebuilder: a reply to Roland Paris' Review of international studies, 37 (4), pp.
1995--2007.

110264620
Cunliffe, P. (2012) 'Still the spectre at the feast: Comparisons between peacekeeping and
imperialism in peacekeeping studies today' International Peacekeeping, 19 (4), pp.
426--442.
Dalby, S. (1998) 'Geopolitics and global security: culture, identity, and the 'pogo syndrome''
In: Tuathail, G. and Dalby, S. (eds.) (1998) Rethinking Geopolitics. London and New
York: Routledge, pp. 295-313.
Darby, P. (2004) 'Pursuing the political: a postcolonial rethinking of relations international'
Millennium-Journal of International Studies, 33 (1), pp. 1--32.
Debos, M. (2008) 'Fluid loyalties in a regional crisis: Chadian ‘ex-liberators’ in the Central
African Republic' African Affairs, 107 (427), pp. 225--241.
Dexter, H. (2007) 'New War, Good War and the War on Terror: Explaining, Excusing and
Creating Western Neo-interventionism' Development and Change, 38 (6), pp.
1055--1071.
Dillon, M. and Reid, J. (2001) 'Global liberal governance: biopolitics, security and war'
Millennium-Journal of International Studies, 30 (1), pp. 41--66.
Dine, P. (2008) 'Decolonizing the Republic' Contemporary French and Francophone Studies,
12 (2), pp. 173--181.
Duffield, M. (2005) 'Getting savages to fight barbarians: development, security and the
colonial present: Analysis' Conflict, Security & Development, 5 (2), pp. 141--159.
EU. (2014) FACT SHEET Central African Republic. [report] Brussels: European Union, pp.
1-5.
Faltas, S. (2000) 'Mutiny and Disarmament in the Central African Republic' In: Faltas, S.
(eds.) (2000) Managing the Remnants of War - Micro-disarmament as an Element of
Peace-building. Nomos: Baden-Baden, pp. 77-96.
Giroux, J., Lanz, D. and Sguaitamatti, D. (2009) 'The tormented triangle: The regionalisation
of conflict in Sudan, Chad, and the Central African Republic' Crisis States Research
Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science.

110264620
Gregory, S. (2000) 'The French military in Africa: past and present' African Affairs, 99 (396),
pp. 435--448.
Hegel, G. W. F. and Sibree, J. (1956) The philosophy of history. New York: Dover
Publications, pp.93.
Hollande, F. (2014) 'Discours en République centrafricaine devant les autorités religieuses du
pays' www.elysee.fr. [online] Available at: http://www.elysee.fr/declarations/article/
discours-en-republique-centrafricaine-devant-les-autorites-religieuses-du-pays/
[Accessed: 28 Feb 2014].
Human Rights Watch. (2013) They Came to Kill: Escalating Atrocities in the Central African
Republic. [report] Human Rights Watch, pp. 1-43.
ICG. (2007) CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC ANATOMY OF A PHANTOM STATE. Africa
Report N°136 – 13. [report] Brussels: ICG, pp. 1-44.
ICG. (2014) Central African Republic: Priorities of the Transition. Africa Report N°203.
[report] Brussels: ICG, pp. 2-11.
IMF. (2014) 'Policy Framework Papers--Central African Republic--EnhancedStructural
Adjustment Facility Policy Framework Paper, 1998-2000 - Text' [online] Available at:
https://www.imf.org/external/np/pfp/car/car01.htm [Accessed: 11 Feb 2014].
Institute for WAR and Peace Reporting. (2014) 'EU Force Gets Green Light for Central
African Republic - Institute for War and Peace Reporting - P213' [online] Available at:
http://iwpr.net/report-news/eu-force-gets-green-light-central-african-republic [Accessed:
22 Mar 2014].
IRINnews. (2014) 'Briefing: Who are the anti-balaka of CAR?' [online] Available at: http://
www.irinnews.org/report/99634/briefing-who-are-the-anti-balaka-of-car [Accessed: 26
Mar 2014].
Jackson, R. H. and Rosberg, C. G. (1982) 'Why Africa's weak states persist: the empirical and
the juridical in statehood' World politics, 35 (01), pp. 1--24.
Kaldor, M. (1999) New and old wars. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.

110264620
Kaplan, R. D. (1994) 'The coming anarchy' Atlantic monthly, 273 (2), pp. 44--76.
Koepf, T. (2012) 'The Problems of French-led Peace Operations in Francophone Sub-Saharan
Africa' International Peacekeeping, 19 (3), pp. 333--347.
Kroslak, D. (2004) 'France's Policy towards Africa: continuity or Change' In: Taylor, I. and
Williams, P. (eds.) (2004) Africa in International Politics. London: Routledge, pp.
61-82.
Lévy, J. (2000) 'Geopolitics after Geopolitics: a French experience' Geopolitics, 5 (3), pp.
99--113.
Le Monde 1. (2014) 'Hollande en Centrafrique : « Il reste beaucoup à faire »' [online]
Available at: http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2014/02/27/francois-hollande-se-
rendra-en-centrafrique-vendredi_4374930_3212.html [Accessed: 23 Mar 2014].
Le Monde 2. (2013) 'La France toujours isolée en Centrafrique' [online] Available at: http://
www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2013/12/20/centrafrique-le-soutien-de-l-ue-a-la-mission-
sangaris-renvoye-a-janvier_4338184_3214.html?xtmc=centrafrique&xtcr=113
[Accessed: 23 Mar 2014].
Lemarchand, R. (2009) The dynamics of violence in central Africa. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press.
Libération. (2013) 'La phrase de François Hollande' [online] Available at: http://
www.liberation.fr/monde/2013/11/20/la-phrase_957065 [Accessed: 29 January 2014].
Marchal, R. (2013) 'Cessons ces interventions de courte vue' Le Monde. [online] Available at:
http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2013/12/04/cessons-ces-interventions-de-courte-
vue_3525406_3232.html [Accessed: 22 Mar 2014].
Marchal, R. (2006) 'Chad/Darfur: how two crises merge' Review of African Political
Economy, 33 (109), pp. 467--482.
Massie, J. and Morin, D. (2013) 'Francophonie and peace operations: Towards geocultural
ownership' International Journal: Canada's Journal of Global Policy Analysis, 68 (3),
pp. 479--500.

110264620
Mbembé, J. (2001) On the postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Mbembé, J. and Rendall, S. (2000) 'At the edge of the world: Boundaries, territoriality, and
sovereignty in Africa' Public culture, 12 (1), pp. 259--284.
Mehler, A. (2012) 'Why Security Forces Do Not Deliver Security Evidence from Liberia and
the Central African Republic' Armed Forces & Society, 38 (1), pp. 49--69.
Melly, P. and Darracq, V. (2014) A New Way to Engage? French Policy in Africa from
Sarkozy to Hollande. Africa 2013/01. [report] London and New York: Chatham House,
pp. 2-24.
Ministé De La Défense. (2010) 'Opération “Almandin 2? à Bangui suite à la mutinerie des
soldats centrafricains et aux émeutes dans la ville. – ECPAD' Ecpad.fr. [online]
Available at: http://www.ecpad.fr/operation-almandin-2-a-bangui-suite-a-la-mutinerie-
des-soldats-centrafricains-et-aux-emeutes-dans-la-ville [Accessed: 23 Mar 2014].
Ministère de la Défense. (2013) 'L'Opération Boali' [online] Available at: http://
www.defense.gouv.fr/operations/centrafrique/operation-boali/l-operation-boali
[Accessed: 1 Feb 2014].
Ministère Des Affaires Etrangères. (2014) '5 December 2013 - CAR / Adoption of resolution
2127 - Explanation of vote by Mr. Gérard Araud, Permanent Representative of France to
the United Nations - FRANCE ONU' Franceonu.org. [online] Available at: http://
www.franceonu.org/france-at-the-united-nations/press-room/statements-at-open-
meetings/security-council/article/5-december-2013-car-adoption-of-7657 [Accessed: 1
Mar 2014].
Ministry of Defence. (2013) FRENCH WHITE PAPER DEFENCE AND NATIONAL
SECURITY. Paris: Ministère de la Défense, pp. 13-117.
Morin, D., Th'Eroux-B'Enoni, L. and Zahar, M. (2012) 'When Peacekeeping Intersects with
La Francophonie: Scope, Significance and Implications' International Peacekeeping, 19
(3), pp. 287--300.

110264620
Nana Karikari-Apau, C. (2012) 'Central African Republic president seeks help against rebels'
CNN. [online] Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/27/world/africa/central-
african-republic-unrest/ [Accessed: 10 Feb 2014].
O'toole, T. (1986) The Central African Republic: The Continent's Hidden Heart. Boudler,
Colorado: Westview Press.
Pieterse, J. N. (1997) 'Sociology of humanitarian intervention: Bosnia, Rwanda and Somalia
compared' International Political Science Review, 18 (1), pp. 71--93.
Profant, T. (2010) 'French geopolitics in Africa: from neocolonialism to identity'
Perspectives. Review of International Affairs, (1), pp. 41--61.
Reno, W. (1997) 'African weak states and commercial alliances' African Affairs, 96 (383), pp.
165--186.
Reuters. (2013) 'Central African Republic army chiefs pledge allegiance to coup leader|
Reuters' [online] Available at: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/03/28/us-centralafrica-
rebels-idUSBRE92R0F420130328 [Accessed: 10 Feb 2014].
Samatar, A. (2014) 'Central Africa crisis: Cherchez La France' Aljazeera.com. [online]
Available at: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/12/central-africa-crisis-
cherchez-la-france-201312217213133232.html [Accessed: 24 Mar 2014].
Sartre, J. (1961) 'Preface' In: Fannon, F. (eds.) (2001) The wretched of the earth. New York:
Penguin Books, pp. 7-31.
Security Council. (2014) 'Resolution 2134 (2014) Adopted by the Security Council at its
7103rd meeting, on 28 January 2014' [online] Available at: http://daccess-dds-
ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N14/218/94/PDF/N1421894.pdf?OpenElement [Accessed:
22 Mar 2014].
Simonen, K. (2012) 'Qui s' excuse s' accuse… An Analysis of French Justifications for
Intervening in C^ote d'Ivoire' International Peacekeeping, 19 (3), pp. 363--376.
Slater, D. (2004) Geopolitics and the post-colonial. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Pub.

110264620
Smith, D. (2013) 'Unspeakable horrors in a country on the verge of genocide' the Guardian.
[online] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/22/central-african-
republic-verge-of-genocide [Accessed: 26 Mar 2014].
Touati, S. (2007) 'French Foreign Policy in Africa: Between Pr'e Carr'e and Multilateralism'
An Africa Programme Briefing Note.
Tuathail, G. (1998) 'Postmodern geopolitics? The modern geopolitical imagination and
beyond' In: Tiathail, G. and Dalby, S. (eds.) (1998) Rethinking Geopolitics. London and
New York: Routledge, pp. 16-38.
Tuathail, G. and Dalby, S. (1998) 'Introduction: Rethinking geopolitics: towards a critical
geopolitics' In: Tuathail, G. and Dalby, S. (eds.) (1998) Rethinking Geopolitics. London
and New York: Routledge, pp. 1-16.
Utley, R. (2005) 'Franco-African Military Relations: Meeting the Challenges of
Globalisation?' Modern & Contemporary France, 13 (1), pp. 25--40.
Utley, R. (2002) '‘Not to do less but to do better...’: French military policy in Africa'
International Affairs, 78 (1), pp. 129--146.
Vasset, P. (1997) 'The myth of military aid: the case of French military cooperation in Africa'
SAIS review, 17 (2), pp. 165--180.
Wai, Z. (2012) 'Neo-patrimonialism and the discourse of state failure in Africa' Review of
African Political Economy, 39 (131), pp. 27--43.
Walker, R. B. (2006) 'Lines of insecurity: International, imperial, exceptional' Security
Dialogue, 37 (1), pp. 65--82.
Young, C. (2009) 'The Heritage of Colonialism' In: Harbeson, J. W. and Rotchild, D. (eds.)
(2009) Africa in World Politics: Reforming Political Order. Philadelphia: Waterview,
pp. 19-38.

Humanitarianism_and_Tradegy

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (11)

Andere mochten auch

Andere mochten auch (15)

Ähnlich wie Humanitarianism_and_Tradegy

Ähnlich wie Humanitarianism_and_Tradegy (20)

Humanitarianism_and_Tradegy