Bozizé describes his escape from Bangui
Bozizé fled in chopper as civilians and rebels gathered outside palace
AT 9.30am on Sunday March 24, the soldiers of François Bozizé’s presidential guard still loyal to him gave him the news he never wanted to hear. Seleka rebels were swarming through the streets outside the palace in Bangui in the Central African Republic.
With them were civilians they had armed and some of his own troops who had mutinied. They were poised for an assault likely to include mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns.
“I remained in the presidential palace until the last moment, when my security people said it was too dangerous,” said Bozizé, portraying himself as the last man to leave a sinking ship.
The military strongman, who instilled fear and hatred during his 10year rule, fled for his life from Bangui and landed up in lonely obscurity in France. The story of his escape was pieced together from an interview with him as well as from sources with first-hand knowledge of the events. These sources include his own military advisers and Seleka rebel leaders who fought him in Bangui.
In December, Seleka rebels had made a lightning advance across the CAR from east to west, taking control of two-thirds of the mineral-rich country in less than three weeks. Bozizé’s traditional allies ( neighbour Chad and former colonial power France) had abandoned him, prompting a flurry of visits to South Africa by Bozizé to plead for military aid.
On Saturday March 23, the day before he fled, fierce fighting had left 13 South African troops dead.
The casualties were the most suffered by the South African military since democracy. Two more later died of their wounds.
On Sunday morning, a ceasefire was negotiated at the main South African base 10km from the city centre and the wounded and dead were evacuated to the airport.
Fighting continued in the streets for control of the presidential palace in the city centre and the nearby army headquarters, Camp de Roux, overlooking the river.
First-hand accounts provided to the Sunday Times said the smaller South African “training” team, which included personal guards for Bozizé, took part in defending him — although this is disputed by both Bozizé and the South African military.
When they realised all was lost, Bozizé’s bodyguards hustled him across the marble floors of the palace, down a sweeping staircase and into a black Mercedes-Benz waiting outside. They raced to a nearby helipad. There he was bundled into the presidential helicopter — a Eurocopter AS 350 Ecureil — accompanied by two bodyguards, a security and political adviser and his nephew, responsible for his financial affairs. According to one unconfirmed account, they took a large amount of cash with them.
“I would have opted for landing in the DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo across the Ubangu River], but my security people said this was too dangerous. So we headed west and landed back in the CAR after flying for about one and a half hours,” said Bozizé. “The priority was to get out and put some distance between ourselves and Bangui.”
The rebels had advanced from the north and east, leaving territory west of Bangui still in the hands of troops loyal to Bozizé. The group spent four or five hours at the landing zone, awaiting permission to cross into neighbouring Cameroon. Later they took off again and flew for an hour and a half to land across the border.
On arrival in Cameroon, Bozizé was escorted to the local governor’s residence, where he spent two nights. On March 26, on orders from Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, he was escorted to Bertoua, the capital of the country’s eastern region.
Bozizé — and hundreds of loyal troops who fled across the border — remained in Cameroon for several months before he travelled through- out the region seeking financial, political and military support for a comeback.
Speaking from a hotel lounge in Paris this week, Bozizé cut a dejected figure as he extracted a press release for his new movement, the Front for the Return of Constitutional Order in the Central African Republic, from a grubby envelope.
The front claims rebel leader Michel Djotodia, who was sworn in as president of the CAR this week, owed his position to “the strength of Kalashnikovs and foreign mercenaries” to “secure a bridgehead in order to impose Islam on central Africa, which the cursed president’s henchmen are already doing”.
It pledges to expel “the illegal occupying forces” and ensure that Bozizé — who describes himself as a “president in exile” — is able to “return to his beautiful country”. He declined to name the front’s backers. “This is sensitive information,” he said. “But anyone can contribute — even you.”
Bozizé became angry when asked about human-rights abuses he is accused of perpetrating. According to independent assessments by the US State Department and Human Rights Watch, units accountable to Bozizé conducted summary executions, burnt huts, tortured and detained people and cracked down on the press and opposition.
“That’s not true,” he said. “These are more malicious lies put out by people who seemed to have achieved
These are killers — you can’t use kid gloves on them
their objectives. I was a victim of a campaign of manipulation. My conscience is clear.”
He claimed inmates were “well fed and there was no torture” — a statement disputed by independent researchers and several alleged torture victims interviewed by the Sunday Times. But he conceded that prisoners could be treated roughly. “These are killers — you can’t use kid gloves on them.”
It is not only opposition leaders and human rights groups who dispute Bozizé’s account. In a cable sent to the US Secretary of State in Washington on June 16 2009, the US ambassador in the CAR, Frederick Cook, referred to Bozizé’s government as “kleptocratic”, adding that it “steals” money from wood, diamond and mineral riches “to buy large properties in Burkina Faso and South Africa”, although this could not be confirmed.
“President François Bozizé appears to concentrate on schemes to enrich himself, his family, and his clan,” said Cook in a cable released by WikiLeaks. “Schemes which not only retard development, but actively destroy commercial enterprises essential to the economy. At worst, we could well see the Bozizé government collapse in the coming year.”