Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent.
Just a month ago, officials in and beyond the Central African Republic were celebrating the signing of a peace deal between the government and 14 armed groups. Though the talks that led to the deal were hardly the first attempt at ending a conflict that dates back to 2012, Marcel Plichta noted in a recent briefing for WPR that the text included “significant concessions made on all sides” and was the first “to emerge from direct dialogue among all the warring parties.”
This week, it became clear that the deal is already in jeopardy. After a new government was announced Sunday, several rebel groups said they were pulling out of the peace process. One of them, the Popular Front for the Renaissance of the Central African Republic, or FPRC, accused the authorities responsible for implementing the deal of “bad faith, amateurism and incompetence.”