A misleading statement on 'Newsnight'

Newsnight reported from the Central African Republic last night.

The conflict there had a pretty clear trajectory in its early days - a trajectory most news organisations reported at the time. It was summed up by the Telegraph's Mike Pflanz last November: 

Who is fighting whom now, and why?

Armed Muslim units drawn from the Seleka rebel alliance that seized power in March have defied the new president’s demands that they disarm, and have continued the rampage they began before their successful coup. They have targeted mostly Christian civilians, murdering, raping, torturing and kidnapping children, as well as looting property. In retaliation, self-defence militia manned by Christians and loyalist supporters of the ousted leader have formed to fight back. As they have grown in numbers and strength, the violence has worsened.

In the early days of the conflict, it was the Muslim militia which carried out most of the atrocities (and which was on the receiving end of accusations of genocide.) In recent months, however, the conflict's momentum has reverse the trajectory, and now it's Christian militia groups which are carrying out most of the atrocities there (and against whom those claims of genocide are being made.)

As a long-time reader of the Biased-BBC blog, one of the most regular complaints there is that the BBC has a strong tendency to play down Muslim responsibility for interfaith violence, because of its bias against offending Muslim sensibilities.

I wonder what they'd make of this then from Jeremy Paxman's introduction to Tim Whewell's Newsnight report last night:

The country is now ravaged by what some human rights groups have described as 'ethnic cleansing'. It was set off after a coup which unleashed Christian militias upon the Muslim minority.

As a description of what actually happened, that could hardly be more misleading, could it?