The Lord’s Resistance Army of Joseph Kony, on the run from Uganda, is believed to be hiding out in its thick, lawless forests.

Even by its low standards, C.A.R. slid further into chaos this year at the hands of two political contenders who are little more than aspiring warlords set on plundering for personal gain. François Bozizé, the country’s cruel military leader from 2003 until last March, was eventually abandoned by his sponsors in Chad and Sudan because of his nepotism and incompetence.

Michel Djotodia, who took control of Bangui in March with the support of Seleka, an undisciplined coalition of militia from the C.A.R.’s Muslim minorities, had no political agenda beyond seizing power. But this was not a mere change of guard. The African Union warned that if the Muslim rebels overran the capital there was a high risk of intercommunal pogroms. Muslims constitute about 15 percent of C.A.R.’s population and are concentrated in the northeast, at the borders with Chad and Sudan. They are overrepresented among market traders, but members of the Christian majority have long dominated politics. Discrimination is such that Mr. Djotodia, a Muslim, had to take a Christian name to enroll in school.

People from the country’s southern region, which borders Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo, frequently refer to people from the remote and marginalized northeast as foreigners, regardless of their actual citizenship.

Both France and the African Union already had troops in the country as a result of previous peace-maintaining efforts. The African Union urged the French to defend the capital from the Seleka rebels while its own forces would control the northeast, from where Seleka was launching its attacks. But France had no stomach for propping up a discredited dictator who seemed intent on clinging to power solely to enrich his family, and so it let Djotodia take the city.