Analysis

It is too superficial to name one event or person that started the unrest in the Central African Republic, because the civil war is an effect of years of social development. Since independence in 1958 and a few presidents later you can see a pattern. In most cases the cause of civil unrest is the president. Elections are not held properly and people such as Jean-Bedel Bokassa can call themselves "president for life." Mostly what happens after is that civil uprisings occur and foreign organisations try to intervene in the conflict. This escalates, the president is overthrown and a new one pops up. So you could say that the cause of the unrest is the way the president is chosen and maybe even more important, how he is treated. What you can see in all the recent presidents is that they come from a position where they had to fight for what they thought and when they came to presidency they had a taste of real power. What happened with president Michel Djotodia was that he parted with the Seleka where he was once part of, because he could not uphold an agreement with them. He was now a leading figure and could almost do anything he wanted, or so he thought. Histroy repeated itself and he was forced to resign as president.

 The effect of this is that without interverance of global organisations such as the UN the country ends up in an infinite loop, so that is exactly what the UN did in collaboration with France. They send their troops to disarm both rebel groups, but that did not go quite as planned. The troops ended up more on the Anti-balaka side, only disarming rebels belonging to the Seleka. Right now both sides are holding a ceasefire and several talks are organised, but things may once again escalate into an armed conflict.