7 - CAR: War of Roads

Summary

While often presented as a diamond-infused ethnic conflict, Chapter 7 explores how the conflict in the Central African Republic has settled into a ‘war of roads’, where roadblocks figure as a key source of revenue and therefore of contestation between competing armed groups. For Central African rebels, control over one of these routes constitutes a key prize in the conflict -- exactly the same stakes that underpinned much of pre-colonial state formation in the region. Roadblocks, obligatory escorts, restrictions on who can participate in lucrative trade -- circulation is anything but free in the Central African Republic. Largely sharing the same practical limitations experienced by armed groups, the Central African government bears so many resemblances to armed groups that it vindicates Charles Tilly’s point that states can be likened to well-equipped mafia. While cattle-herders and traders who do business here have developed sophisticated strategies to evade all manner of armed actors, each of the parties to the conflict jealously keeps as tight a leash as possible on profitable long-distance exchange, lest the profits fall into the hands of competing Central African conflict entrepreneurs.