Sucaf (Sucrerie africaine de Centrafrique), a subsidiary of the French group Castel, is accused by a US NGO, The Sentry, of providing financial support to armed groups for several years in exchange for securing its operations.
Sentry, a non-governmental organization specializing in tracing illegal financing in conflict zones, condemns in particular a “silent agreement” reached under theUnit for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC) by Ali Darassa. The overall management of the Castel group announces that an internal investigation is being opened.
The negotiation of this “silent agreement” dates back to the end of 2014, according to The guard post. At that time, the various armed groups in the Central African Republic controlled 60% of the territory. The site Ngakobo, in the prefecture of Ouaka, where Sucaf, a subsidiary of the Castel group, is in the hands of Ali Darassa’s UPC.
The conditions for the arrangement condemned by NGOs are simple: the armed group undertakes to “secure the factory and the sugar cane fields in Sucaf” and to “guarantee the free movement of necessary roads” for its supply. In exchange, Sucaf participates in the “financing” of UPC accuses The Sentry, via a “sophisticated and informal system”: “direct and indirect cash payments”, but also “in kind”, but also “Vehicle maintenance and fuel supply”.
Sucaf would have paid in its monopoly. Secondly, once its production had been secured, it would also have enforced its “monopoly” on the distribution of sugar in several prefectures “in the Central African Republic”, in particular forced seizures of lubricants, in particular from Sudan.
Among the main beneficiaries of this “agreement”, as pointed out in the NGO report, we find the head of the UPC, Ali Darassa, as well as the group’s former political coordinator, Hassan Bouba, the current Minister of Livestock.
The informal nature of the system described by The Sentry limits its traces in the company’s accounts and makes it difficult to estimate the amounts paid out in this way. However, on the basis of testimony, the NGO estimates the CFA 150,000 million (or $ 258,000) the payments made by the sugar company over five years to the two personalities mentioned above.
Financial support for criminal groups for more than six years According to several internal reports on Sucaf that The Sentry says they had heard, the company was informed about the abuses attributed to this armed group, in particularth Alindao Massacre 2018. This would not have prevented the “agreement” from lasting until March 2021 and the deployment in Ouaka of government and Russian forces in these territories, previously under the control of the UPC.
“Despite this knowledge, the investigation reveals that the management of Sucaf RCA continued to provide financial and logistical support to criminal groups (mainly, but not exclusively, UPC) for more than six years, thus helping to drive the armed conflict in the Central African Republic.” , regrets the NGO in its report.
“UPC had set up a military base on the sugar company’s site,” The Sentry also wrote in this document.
An “illustration of the predatory behavior of armed groups” If the latest report focuses on Sucaf’s activities, it “acknowledges” common practice “Nathalia Dukhan, investigator of the American NGO, is an” illustration of the behavior of predators “for armed groups in Central Africa Republic, which “sells its protection and uses weapons to generate cash”, the researcher estimates. she though.
On 19 August, in a brief press release, the Castel group announced that they had “taken note of the serious allegations” made against Sucaf and had referred their ethics committee to it to conduct an internal investigation. The management of the group promises to communicate meritoriously at the end of this survey.
.
