Ubangi river near Bangui.jpg

Central African Republic shares a border with Sudan, and the warfare at the edge of that country is beginning to spill into Central African Republic. The already fractious government is being pulled deeper into this problem, leaving it even less capable of solving its people's problems.

The former French colony of Ubangi-Shari became the Central African Republic upon independence in 1960. After three tumultuous decades of misrule - mostly by military governments - civilian rule was established in 1993 and lasted for one decade. President Ange-Felix Patasse's civilian government was plagued by unrest, and in March 2003 he was deposed in a military coup led by General Francois Bozize, who established a transitional government. Though the government has the tacit support of civil society groups and the main parties, a wide field of candidates contested the municipal, legislative, and presidential elections held in March and May of 2005 in which General Bozize was affirmed as president.

Recently, the head of a rebel group, the Democratic Front for the Central African People (FDPC. which refused to endorse a 2008 peace deal for the Central African Republic has performed a U-turn. Abdoulaye Miskine, inked a peace agreement on the sidelines of an African Union summit in Libya. But the poor, landlocked Central African Republic is still highly unstable, particularly in the northeast, where another rebel force, the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace, is active, leading to a recent resurgence in clashes.  Unrest in neighboring nations, Chad, Sudan, and the DRC, continues to affect stability in the Central African Republic as well.