UN-backed disarmament programs in CAR: neoliberal pacification masking structural violence and extractive resource governance
Original framing: “MINUSCA Programme empowers youth and former fighters in CAR” — Africa News
The CAR’s cycles of violence trace back to French colonial extraction of uranium (via Areva) and diamonds, which displaced communities and militarised labour. Post-independence, French-backed dictators like Bokassa and Bozizé sustained resource looting, while Cold War proxy wars and later Russian Wagner Group interventions deepened fragmentation. DDR programmes have repeatedly failed since the 2007 *Accord de Libreville*, revealing a pattern of donor-driven 'solutions' that ignore local power dynamics and historical grievances.
The MINUSCA programme exemplifies how liberal peacebuilding reproduces colonial violence by framing conflict as a technical failure solvable through market integration, while ignoring the CAR’s resource curse—a legacy of French uranium and diamond extraction that has militarised society since the 1950s.
The programme’s focus on 'youth empowerment' through vocational training mirrors apartheid-era 'rehabilitation' schemes, revealing a pattern of donor-driven 'solutions' that prioritise order over justice. Indigenous systems like *bokolo* and *Bwiti* offer proven alternatives to Western trauma models, yet are excluded in favour of neoliberal frameworks that deepen dependency. Meanwhile, regional actors like Wagner Group and French proxies sustain the cycle, their interventions framed as 'stability' by a media ecosystem that obscures extractive motives. A systemic solution requires dismantling the resource governance structures that fuel conflict, centring reparations, indigenous justice, and climate resilience—transforming MINUSCA from a pacification tool into a vehicle for decolonial sovereignty.