A United Nations investigator has said the Central African Republic has ended 'scorched earth tactics' in the north, where government forces burned villages and killed hundreds of civilians from 2005 to mid-2007.
But Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said it was too soon to say whether President Francois Bozize had definitively reined in security forces.
Mr Alston, in a statement issued after a week-long visit, also called on the government to begin prosecuting soldiers responsible for the killings and to end the torture and executions of suspects in custody.
The number of executions carried out by the armed forces in the north had fallen dramatically in the past six months, but had not ceased, he said.
President Bozize, who seized power in 2003 and won elections two years later, has taken significant steps to end abuses by his troops, visiting burned villages in the northwest and ordering that 'such scorched earth tactics must end,' according to the envoy.
'But while President Bozize has shown that he has the power to prevent the military from committing human rights abuses, it is still too early to conclude that the government has definitively turned a new page, 'Mr Alston said.
There had been a genuine, significant and encouraging improvement, although soldiers continue to use lethal violence for a range of personal and corrupt ends, according to the Australian law professor who has served as independent investigator since 2004.
The New York-based group Human Rights Watch, in a report last September, accused CAR security forces, especially the elite presidential guard, of killing hundreds of civilians and forcing tens of thousands to flee their homes in anti-rebel operations across the north since 2005.
A European Union force of 3,500-plus troops is to be deployed in Chad and CAR in coming weeks.
