The emergency session is also to consider the way forward for the peace process.

As a follow up to last month’s reconciliation and peace conference of Central African Republic, CAR stakeholders in Brazzaville, Congo, the country’s Transitional Parliament or Transitional National Council, CNT, began sitting in the capital, Bangui, on August 1, 2014, in an emergency one-week session.

The APA news agency reported that the session is also to present the conclusions of the parley, consider the implementation of the transition roadmap and the enlargement of the CNT in the light of the Constitutional Transitional Charter. Addressing the opening, CNT Speaker, Alexandre Ferdinand Nguendet, appealed to all warring parties to seek consensus in order to restore peace in the beleaguered country. He announced that discussions were underway for the possible increase in the number CNT members; still as a sequel to the Brazzaville peace talks.

The transitional arrangement provides that the government should submit activity reports after every six months. Members of Parliament are therefore discussing government’s recent measures to improve security, agricultural production, the financial system, health and education, the country’s return to the Kimberly Process, and efforts to enable refugees return home.

Meanwhile, as efforts continue to ensure the implementation of the July 23, 2014 Brazzaville ceasefire agreement between the Séléka and anti-Balaka militias, the high command of the former ruling militia over the weekend rejected the accord. According to Gen. Joseph Zoundéko, the Chief of Staff of the Séléka faction based in Bambari, those who signed the deal for his militia were not mandated to do so. He however pledged Séléka’s readiness to continue to dialogue.   

Reports say after his appointment last May as Séléka Chief of Staff, Gen. Joseph Zoundéko, some officers and a few hundred men, have taken up residence in Bambari in the north. The town has since witnessed several communal clashes that have left hundreds of people dead and thousands displaced. Since losing power last January when Transitional President Michel Djotodia was obliged to resign by sub-regional leaders for failing to move the transition programme forward, Séléka has become increasingly fragmented. The two main factions are Séléka Bambari and Séléka Birao.