Ex-Seleka chief Michel Djotodia who has been sworn in as president to oversee a political transition towards elections next year dissolved the alliance on September 13, but did not disarm the fighters.
And the country has not been completely free of religious tensions in the past, notes Central African sociologist Isidor Waka.
Under Bozize’s 10 year rule, the authorities harassed Muslims, extorting money from them, and now “the ex-rebels are in a way enacting vengeance for what Muslims endured,” Waka said.
Ancient tensions also exist between nomadic herders who are Muslims and farmers who are mainly Christian, he added.
However, these divisions “are not fundamentally” based on religion, commented Philippe Hugon, research director for Africa at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (Iris), a French think tank.
The violence in the CAR is mainly “criminal or mafia related and not ideological” on the part of Seleka ex-rebels, Hugon said, but he added that “for one side to turn religion against another, that’s not new.”
“This is very dangerous,” warned Epaye of the transitional council. “The people have always shared everything and the politicians are pitting them against each other.”
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