French troops out of Chad! The following comment on the Mitterrand government's intervention in the civil war in Chad is from the August 26 issue of Rouge, the paper of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, French section of the Fourth International.
In an interview in Le Monde on August 26, Francois Mitterrand had finally to explain the reasons that led him to send the paras to Chad.
When the story that what was involved was a mere "training mission" fell flat, it was hard for him to try to "stonewall it" any further.
What has been sent in is a full-fledged intervention force, and it has been ployed along the front line dividing the country. More than three thousand soldiers are involved, equipped with Puma helicopters, duzens of trucks, and machineguns, Milan antitank missiles, rocket launchers, mortars, antiaircraft guns, and several Crotale missile batteries. veritable armada is backed up by Jaguar and Mirage planes, escorted by a KC-135 refueling plane.
As these lines are being written, the president's statements have not yet been published. are known through a semi-official interview given to Eric Rouleau and published in Le Monde of August 17.
Every one of the explanations Mitterrand strengthen our conviction that the French expeditionary force must be withdrawn immediately.
"Mitterrand's objective is clear," Rouleau wrote article mentioned above: "He is trying to halt the spread of the conflict, which could lead to an East-West confrontation and keep us out of a pointless war. But at the same time, he is trying to hold to his guiding principles, in particular defense of the territorial integrity and independence of an allied country."
What principles is Rouleau talking about? As the former Gaullist minister
Pierre Mesmer had acknowledged, Chad no means a united country. factions that have held power successively in N'Djamena have never held the slightest legitimacy in the eyes of the people ference, it should be noted that Colonel Qadhafi has not taken any liberties that Washington and Paris have not themselves taken in this region.
In 1968, de Gaulle involved our country in a military conflict to rescue that dictator Tombalbaye, who was threatened by the Tibesti guerrillas. later, Giscard sent Jaguars to protect President Malloum from the Frolinat guerril-
And everyone knows that Hissene Habre - a former agent of the French secret services - only succeeded in overthrowing Goukouni Oueddei in 1982 (who was supported at the time by France) thanks to the help of the U.S.
In reality, our rulers have gotten involved for only one reason. They are determined to maintain, at any cost, the framework of neocolonial accords that tie Chad to France within the franc zone, and to stop any upset in this explosive area from setting off a chain reaction destabilizing the local oligarchies.
With a olear-eyed and cynical outlook, Le Monde's special correspondent on the battle front government's aim was "to show our African allies that France can make an effective contribution to assuring their security. In a nutshell, this means showing that the old mother country still has the means for conducting a policy in the
To believe Eric Rouleau, France will not apply a policy in Africa similar to the one that Ronald Reagan is pursuing in Central America. "These two countries differ on practically everything, on the objective of the operation and the means for carrying it out, as well as on their analyses and motivations."
selves with new means for intervening in the world's hot spots. The U.S. has a Rapid Deployment Force, involving 200,000 soldiers. And our rulers want to create a Force d'Action Rapide (FAR) that would include 80,000 professional soldiers.
The French government's operation in Chad thus fits perfectly into the over. all strategy and deployment of the Western forces. It is no coincidence that, parallel to the landing of our paras, the Pentagon sent 5,500 soldiers to participate in maneuvers with the Egyptian army and 7,000 others to take part in exercises in the Sudan, Oman, and Somalia.
"Convinced that there is no military solution to the complex problems posed in Chad, the president of the republic favors a freely agreed-to conciliation, that is, negotiations," Rouleau wrote
In an attempt to convince the French people that his aim is conciliation, Mitterrand has just sent the left Radical Maurice Faure on a mission to the various parties
The fact remains that the government has involved itself in the infernal logic of a war that may last for years, a war that will cost hundreds of billions of francs and which once again will flout the wishes and aspirations of the peoples of Chad as well as the rest of Africa.
presence of three thousand French soldiers will in no way help to achieve a democratic solution of the question. A solution in the interests of the greatest number in fact requires respecting the right of self-determination of the various peoples who live together in this articial state left over from the colonial period.
In the immediate period ahead the Mitterrand government's action can have only one result - to bolster the Hissene Habre clique's control over half of the country and to consolidate the reactionary African potentates that have begun their appeals for help from
Whether or not the present partition of the country leads to a new confrontation or the situation festers, the result for the civilian populations will be more suffering and more poverty.
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