All rights reserved. Four years ago Muslim rebels and Christian militias rampaged through, fighting for control of Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. Today the neighborhood is filled with squealing children playing soccer and chattering vendors hawking peanuts and eggs, avocados and mangoes, wild honey and peppercorns. But violence still plagues the city, and the people here remain keenly alert to the sounds of gunshots and military helicopters. A slight, balding man, he hunches over a worktable covered in butterfly wingsβa constellation of electric colors, flamboyant shapes, and exotic patterns.
With tweezers, a razor blade, and rubber cement, he painstakingly arranges the tissue-thin wings into radiant scenes of Central African life, each a miniature stained glass window. A man catches a speckled green fish in a swirling turquoise river.
Women in orange dresses with sleeping babies tied to their backs pound cassavas into flour. A boy climbs a tree to harvest coconuts. I learned that vast stretches of its forests remain uninhabited and teem with wildlife. Beneath this bounty lies a wealth of resources, including diamonds, gold, uranium, and possibly oil. But it was failing.
On my first trip to Bangui, I put the question to a French Army officer as we sat on an Air France flight about to take off from Paris. It can be a touchy subject for the French, who colonized the country during the European rush for Africa in the 19th century. The Central African Republic gained independence in , but the French have remained deeply involved in its affairs.
Today Central Africans rely on Total, a French company, for much of their gasoline, and the currency the nation uses is backed by the French treasury. The officer, a broad-shouldered man in his 40s, was embarking on his second peacekeeping tour. At that point we were interrupted by the screaming of a Central African woman who was being deported. She strained against the handcuffs, yelling hysterically. The other passengers were a mixture of Central Africans returning to their country, peacekeepers, aid workers, and diplomats.
