Rebel coalition fights neocolonial regime in Chad
By
G. Dunkel
Published Feb 14, 2008 8:27 PM
Chad, in central Africa, was brutally conquered by France over a century ago
and made part of its colonial empire. Today, while nominally independent, it is
the fifth poorest country in the world, according to the U.N. However, it has
become a significant, though not major, exporter of oil in the past three
years.
ExxonMobil, a major U.S. corporation, is currently exploiting this oil, which
has also brought billions of dollars to Chad. Most of that money, however, has
stayed in the pockets of President Idriss Deby Itno—a former helicopter
pilot trained by the French, who seized power in 1990—and his clique,
through one stratagem or another. Redistributing this wealth is one of the
issues pushing forward a rebellion against Deby’s rule.
This struggle broke out into heavy fighting early in February when a rebel
coalition fought for control of Ndjamena, Chad’s capital. An estimated
1,000 people died.
The Deby government claimed that most of the casualties were rebels—it
called them mercenaries paid by Sudan—who didn’t know their way
around the city, which has no street signs.
That’s not how the insurgents explain why they pulled back. Coalition
spokesperson Abderaman Koulamallah said in an interview with Agence France
Presse that direct attacks carried out by the French military had caused
“enormous civilian casualties.”
Mahamat Nouri, the main military commander of the opposition, charged the
French Air Force had “bombarded” its positions for over 13 hours to
protect the Deby government.
During the battle for Ndjamena, which began Feb. 2-3, many of Deby’s
soldiers reportedly deserted or didn’t follow orders because of ties they
have with the rebels. Many of the rebels themselves were formerly in the
government army. For example, Nouri himself used to be Deby’s defense
minister and took a number of troops with him when he went over to the
opposition.
While the French were willing to provide Deby with logistical, intelligence and
air support and to defend the Ndjamena airport, they were not willing to put
the bodies of French soldiers on the ground in harm’s way.
So Deby issued a call for reinforcements to the Justice and Equality Movement,
a rebel group in Sudan fighting the government in the region of Darfur. It is
drawn mainly from Deby’s ethnic group, the Zaghawas. However, Zaghawas
also play a leading role among the rebel forces. (Le Figaro, Feb. 2)
The JEM troops quickly arrived on the battlefield in Chad. (New York Times,
Feb. 8) The only practical way for JEM troops to have gotten from Darfur to
Ndjamena, a distance of more than 600 miles, was for the French Air Force to
fly them from its base in Abeche, a major city in eastern Chad not far from the
border with Sudan.
The Sudanese government has announced that it will allow U.N.-African Union
“peacekeepers” to move about freely in Darfur, but the JEM has just
announced that it will attack them whenever they enter JEM-controlled
areas.
The French press on Feb. 10 reported that the opposition had seized two major
towns in the eastern part of the country. It also reported that
EUFOR—with some 4,700 soldiers drawn from the armies of the 27 countries
in the European Union—had begun setting up an advance base in Ndjamena,
called Camp Europa. Full deployment of EUFOR is set to begin Feb. 12.
EUFOR, which stands for European Union Forces, has been used before in Bosnia
and the Congo. While its commander and a large proportion of its troops are
French, it does have a U.N. mandate to protect Sudanese refugees in Chad and
the Central African Republic, distribute humanitarian aid and train Chadian
police.
Its real aim is to project and protect Europe’s imperialist interests in
the strategic center of Africa, bordering on the hotspot of Darfur.
Dr. Ley-Ngardigal Djimadoum, the leader of Chad’s Action for Unity and
Socialism (ACTUS), at the beginning of February released a statement in French
on a number of African and European anti-imperialist web sites.
Djimadoum said that, “Almost all the Chadian opposition is very hostile
to EUFOR in Chad. The presence of French military bases, under the pretext of
defending the territorial integrity of an ‘independent’ state, from
independence [1960] to now, leaves a bitter taste. In reality, these occupation
troops only defend the economic interests of the multinationals and the
geostrategic interests of the imperialists on the African continent.
“A number of mass revolts and rebellions against the dictators imposed on
our people by French imperialism have been drowned in blood by the support and
the direct participation of French troops besides the army of their puppet
government.
“The humanitarian aid proposed by EUFOR is a tree which hides the forest.
More competent civilian organizations have been in place for years.”
The budget for EUFOR’s operation is nearly $450 million, close to twice
the yearly income of Chad’s 9.3 million people.
The coalition that attacked Ndjamena independently issued a statement
condemning France’s role, while avoiding the sharp language Djimadoum
used.
Chad is an extremely poor but highly strategic country that has been waging an
unrelenting struggle, with many twists and turns, against French neocolonialism
for over 40 years. The intervention of European imperialism through EUFOR is
going to raise the stakes, but is unlikely to end the drive of the people of
Chad for their liberation.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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