Yaounde-Bangui relations: MINAT boss leads Cameroon’s delegation to border demarcation talks in CAR.

The Prime Minister of the Central African Republic, Félix Moloua, opened deliberations at the two-day talks, which wrapped up Thursday June 27. 

Officials of both countries sounded upbeat at the opening of the talks that the common borders between Cameroon and CAR could be transformed to important levers of economic growth and development.

Cameroon’s delegation is led by the Minister of Territorial Administration, MINAT, Paul Atanga Nji.

The MINAT boss is accompanied to the talks by the Minister Delegate to the Minister of External Relations in charge of Cooperation with the Commonwealth, Felix Mbayu.

The Cameroonian delegation also includes the Governor of the East Region, Gregoire Mvongo, the Governor of Adamawa Region, Kildadi Taguieke Boukar, as well as experts from different government ministries. 

The Central African Republic delegation to the talks is led by the country’s Minister of Territorial Administration, Decentralisation and Local Development, Bruno Yapande.

Opening the talks, the Prime Minister of CAR, Félix Moloua, saluted the resolve and goodwill of the two Heads of State, Presidents Faustin Archange Touadera and Paul Biya, to reinforce bilateral border cooperation by continuing talks on the delimitation of their common boundaries. 

The CAR Prime Minister underscored the need to adapt the deliberations with the African Union boarder programme. 

He said CAR has established a National Politics on the management of boarder areas.

Moloua also used the ceremony to hail Cameroon’s multifaceted support to CAR citizens in their moment of political unrest.

For his part, the leader of Cameroon’s delegation, Minister Atanga Nji Paul, said talks are holding in a context marked by repeated acts of insecurity along the common border.

He regretted that transborder crimes such as illegal exploitation of minerals, forest resources and the trafficking of arms and ammunition still persist along the border, since the session last held in Yaounde in 2022. 

Both officials also regretted the misunderstandings in the demarcation and delimitation of certain paths along the 800km-long border of the two neighbouring countries. 

This, both officials pointed out, has led to incursions from both sides of the borders. This aspect, they said, could be a potential source of conflict between both nations. 

The officials, however, sounded upbeat that their common border could be an important vector of economic growth and development.

They called on experts to do their utmost during brainstorming sessions in order to ensure issues relating to border demarcation and delimitation as well as cross-border insecurity are put to permanent rest. 

Experts from the two countries were later given guidelines by the heads of the delegation. 

Talks will focus on questions relating to transborder challenges and how to implement the resolutions and recommendations of the June 2022 session in Yaounde.

At the end of the session, delegations from both countries will propose to their respective governments, measures likely to combat cross-border insecurity with determination to improve the governance of the common border by overhauling the legal and institutional framework of cooperation.

Enter UN scribe envoy 

Speaking to reporters after the opening of talks, the Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations to the Central African Republic and Head of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in the Central African Republic, MINUSCA, Valentine Rugwabiza, underscored the importance of cooperation between states in border demarcation issues. 

“When it comes to border, no single country can solve border issues alone. If there is one area where cooperation is absolutely inevitable, it is border cooperation,” Rugwabiza stated. 

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3151 of Thursday June 27, 2024