The Central African Republic’s (CAR) prime minister has named mostly rebels and opposition figures to his new post-coup government, as reports emerged of child soldiers killed in the fight for the capital.
Central African Republic Prime Minister Nicolas Tiangaye — who has been allowed to keep his post by new strongman Michel Djotodia, whose rebels seized the capital a week ago — named a 34-member Cabinet on Sunday that includes nine ministers from the Seleka rebel coalition.
The new government, named in a decree read on national radio, also includes eight ministers from the former opposition and one close to ousted Central African Republic president Francois Bozize.
Rebel leader Djotodia, who named himself president after ousting Bozize on March 24, added the post of defense minister to his job titles.
The petroleum, security, water and forestry, and communications ministries also went to Seleka members.
Djotodia’s rebels launched a rapid-fire assault on the capital, Bangui, to oust Bozize after the collapse of a peace deal in January.
After days of looting and chaos, rebel soldiers have largely secured the city with the aid of a regional African force.
However, troubling reports of child soldiers being killed in the battle for Bangui were published on Sunday in South Africa, which had sent troops to the Central African Republic in a failed effort to stabilize the country before Bozize’s fall.
“It was only after the firing had stopped that we saw we had killed kids,” a paratrooper who took part in the fighting told the Sunday Times. “We did not come here for this ... to kill kids. It makes you sick. They were crying calling for help ... calling for [their] moms.”
In the City Press newspaper, a soldier was quoted as saying many of the rebels were “only children.”
The South African army declined to comment on the reports.
About 200 South African troops fought against about 3,000 rebels during the battle for Bangui, which lasted several hours.
In what has turned out to be South Africa’s heaviest military loss since apartheid, 13 soldiers were killed in the fighting.
South Africa’s government is facing increasing calls at home for a probe into why South African President Jacob Zuma sent troops to the Central African Republic.
Seleka, a coalition of three rebel groups, launched its insurgency in December last year, accusing Bozize of failing to honor earlier peace deals signed with rebels in the conflict-prone country.
They quickly came within striking distance of Bangui, forcing Bozize into signing the January deal, which created a power-sharing government with Tiangaye as prime minister.
However, the rebels said Bozize was not respecting the deal and renewed their assault.
The coup was welcomed by many in a city tired of Bozize’s unfulfilled promises to rebuild the nation by harnessing its stores of oil, gold and uranium.
However, fear quickly set in as swarms of armed men and gangs of looters roamed the city in the wake of the coup.
Djotodia vowed on Saturday to hand over power at the end of a three-year transition and not contest elections in 2016.
The latest in a long line of coup leaders, he said the rebels had come to power not through “political ambition, but through national duty.”
“I hope to be the last rebel chief president of Central Africa,” he told a crowd of supporters.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not