Chadian News
Chad: Back towards War?
Africa Report N°111
1 June 2006
The full
report is currently only available in
French.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The April 2006 rebel
offensive brought Chad to the brink of all-out civil
war. The victory that President Idriss Déby ultimately
achieved in pushing the United Front for Democracy and
Change (FUCD) back from the gates of the capital,
N’Djamena, to its Darfur sanctuary settled nothing on
the military front and underscored the political
fragility of the regime. The army’s success was
primarily due to French logistical and intelligence
support, while the setback paradoxically may encourage
the armed opposition groups to forge closer links in
order to pursue a war of attrition in the north, the
east and along the border with the Central African
Republic. The crisis is far from resolved, and is likely
to be an enduring one.
Only weeks before the 3
May presidential elections, Déby had to fight off
spectacular defections of senior figures from the army
and the political elite as well as assassination
attempts, all likewise aimed at preventing him from
gaining a third term but he won the controversial
elections with 64.67 per cent of the vote.[1] Though
opposition groups challenged the result, France and the
wider international community hastily accepted it to
avoid further destabilisation, while declaring that they
now expected the president to democratise his regime.
The rapid deterioration
of the internal situation is not due solely to a
spill-over of the Darfur crisis and Khartoum’s
deliberate use of Chadian warlords in its
counter-insurgency strategy, as Déby’s government
claims. It is equally the manifestation of the political
crisis of the semi-authoritarian regime and the absence
of domestic political space that has militarised all
political differences in the country. However, the ever
deeper links between Darfur and the clashes in Chad
underscore the convergence of the two crises and the
difficulty of settling one independently from the other.
A hopeful aura
surrounded Déby’s rise to power in 1990. Libya’s
regional policy was becoming more normal, and the Cold
War’s end encouraged transition to multiparty politics.
But the one-party culture and the drive to control all
political space prevailed at the 1993 national
conference. Although numerous parties exist, the
institutions guaranteeing democracy have largely been
emptied of substance. The 1996 and 1997 elections were
marred by fraud; those of 2001 and 2002 were farcical.
Déby’s sixteen-year
rule has been marked by coup attempts and rebellions
that were either suppressed with extreme violence or
partially settled by expelling dissident elements to
Sudan and the Central African Republic. Chad has known
relative peace but never reconciliation, since
renegotiating the social contract would have weakened
the militarily dominant groups and opened a political
process Déby did not control.
The present crisis has
a triple context: systematic, large-scale embezzlement
of state revenues triggering an unprecedented social
crisis at a time when oil revenues should have allowed
Chadians to live better; radicalisation of opposition
within the inner ruling circles over the succession to
Déby; and the Darfur war, which at one level should be
considered trans-national because of massive involvement
of Zaghawa (the president’s ethnic group), who give the
Darfur rebels the sanctuary and weapons necessary to
sustain their struggle. Chadian armed opposition groups
have aided the Sudanese government in Darfur, while
Darfur rebels helped Chad’s army turn back the April
offensive.
The armed opposition to
Déby is deeply divided by leadership clashes, not over
objectives. While more than twenty others claim to be
militarily active but are mostly present on the
Internet, the three most significant groups are:
-
the FUCD, headed by Mahamat Nour, which receives
strong Sudanese support;
-
the Zaghawa dissident groups, under the Rally of
Democratic Forces (RaFD) umbrella and chaired by
Timan Erdimi, a former director of Déby’s cabinet;
and
-
the Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad
(MDJT), established in 1998 and operating in the
extreme north along the Libyan border under the
command of Mahmat Choua Dazi.
This armed opposition,
however, reflects only the aspirations of marginal or
minority groups in the population. A regime change by
force in such a context would bring neither
stabilisation nor a democratic opening.
There are about 70
political parties, some created by the regime to divide
its opposition. The most significant joined in 2002 to
create the Coordination of Political Parties for the
Defence of Democracy (CPPDD). Civil society has become
increasingly organised due to national and international
mobilisation around the oil and human rights issues.
Unions and the exiled civil opposition also are
important to the internal political dynamics.
The most shared
aspirations among Chadians are for security (in
particular, an end to ubiquitous police and army
harassment) and a national dialogue that permits a
political opening, the return of the armed opposition
and transparent elections.
Nairobi/Brussels, 1 June 2006
[1] This was revised down from provisional
figure of 77.53 per cent announced on 14 May 2006 by the
National Election Commission. See Final Results of the 3
May 2006 Presidential Election, Constitutional Council
of Chad, 28 May 2006.
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