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AN ARTIFICIAL STATE SUPPORTED BY FRANCE
From the end of 1968 the French forces based in Chad aided the Chadian army in putting down the Tubu rebels. The Tombalbaye regime, shaken by
French intervention in Chad Francois CAZALS Chad is two and a half times bigger than France, for a population of little more than four million. The country has two distinet regions, separated by the 13th parallel which cuts the country at the level of Lake Chad.
In the north is an Islamic nomad and semi-nomad population whose main activity is pastoral. Their commercial contacts (sale of cattle) and their cultural and ethnic loyalties orient them more towards the neighbouring countries, Libya, Sudan and Niger, than towards the South.
In the south, the population is animist or Christian, settled and practising agriculture, nearer to the population groups in neighbouring Central African Republic.
The pre-colonial relations between these two populations were already marked by violence. The peoples of the north, organised in Islamic kingdoms, dominated the south by raids and pillage.
THE DUAL REALITY OF CHAD
However, these two population groups which are numerically more or less equal, do not comprise two perfectly homogenous units.
They, in their turn, are marked by ethnic differentiation. Thus, the population in the north, while 95 per cent Islamic, is divided between the Tubu noin the west, the Ouaddiens in the east, the Sudanese border.
In the south, in addition to the predominant Sara stock, composed of some fifteen ethnic subgroups, the population is divided in different ethnic groupings, subgroups and local groupings.
This mosaic of populations explains why political divisions, which in this country often intersect with former tribal and regional rivalries, are not limited just to the principal north-south opposition.
French colonial rule did not succeed in integrating the activities and the administration of these disparate populations within the arbitrarily defined national framework. The north was only completely occupied in 1913. The numerous experiments in fixing the borders illustrate the difficulties met by the colonising power.
For example, Logone and two other areas south were successively 10 attached to Chad and the Central African Republic until 1930. Tibesti, in the north, was given to Niger.
In 1935 the French president, Pierre Laval, ceded the Aozou strip in the north of Chad to Mussolini's Italy, then the colonial power in Libya. This agreement subsequently served as the basis for the territorial demands of Colonel Moummar Qadhafi whose troops have occupied this zone since 1973.
As Islam constituted a certain brake on Christianising the country and introdueing French as the major language, the policy of colonial assimilation was ap plied mainly in the south. It was also in this 'useful' part of Chad that the agricultural, industrial and commercial activ(cotton, were concentrated.
During the pre-colonial period the Islamic kingdoms in the north dominated the population groups in the south. But with the onset of colonisation and modern education the balance of forces was reversed
At independence in August 1960, it was the French-speaking petty bourgeoisie of the Sara ethnic group, that, around Francois Tombalbaye, president of the country in 1962 and of the single of ficial party, took possession of the new state apparatus.
The Arab-speaking petty bourgeoisie in the north (merchants and intellectuals) thus saw itself ousted from access to an important source of enrichment and power. This layer would be the breeding ground for the opposition elements who would try to organise armed opposition to the new regime. Moreover, this was a largely fictitious state. For example, until 1964 the French directly administered the north of the country.
The administrative power of the neocolonial state never had a real national scope. The first measures aiming to extend its influence to the north of the country and the exactions of an exclusively southern administration were the spark of the Moubi revolt at Mangalme in the central eastern zone of the country in October 1965.
Then behind their traditional chief, the Derdei, who was at the time in refuge in Libya but whose son Goukouni Oueddei had joined the National Liberation Front of Chad (FROLINAT) created in 1966, the Tubus rose up in the department of Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti (BET) in March 1968.
these revolts, asked for a direct intervention by a French expeditionary corps.
About 2,000 men of the Foreign Le gion and Marines landed in April 1969 to 'pacify' the country. General De Gaulle's "pacification" was marked by tortures and massacres that took several thousand victims. When the French expeditionary force was withdrawn in June 1971 some 2,000 French soldiers remained, 600 of whom were military advisors - one for every thirteen Chadian soldiers.
action, the government, scope of the revolt, imposed administracauses of irredentism among the northern power of the neo-colonial state.
This 'mission for administrative reform' (MRA) proposed allotting certain administrative tasks to the north, to Muslim chiefs. The effect would in fact confirm the autonomy of this region. But after a short period in which Tombalbaye agreed to play the French game of 'national reconciliation', he was to sink into tribal fanaticism.
Inspired by the 'authenticity' doctrine of Mobutu in Zaire, Tombalbaye renamed towns and people, reinforced the ethnic base of the state apparatus, dissolved his own party, and instituted the practice of yondo (initiation rites of the Sara ethnic group) for all state employees.
More isolated than ever by this 'cultural revolution', the dictator was overthrown in April 1975 by a military coup d'etat supported by France. This coup installed a Supreme Military Council (CSM) led by General Felix Malloum.
For Paris it then became a problem of avoiding a complete collapse of the Chad-
This is a state that devoted more than a third of its budget - financed mainly by French aid and exports, more than 80 percent of which went to the former colonial mother country - to military spending.
But French imperialism, traditionally having several centres of interest in Chad, was torn between different options. The sectors of the colonial bourgeoisie linked directly to the exploitation of 'useful' Chad (cotton and import-export) and their lobby in Paris would look favourably on a partition of the country that would leave the desert north to Libyan and Islamic influence.
But the French government, also feeling itself linked by the strategic interest of Chad to the heart of the African continent wanted to be able to create the conditions for imperialist exploitation of the mineral and energy wealth recently discovered in the north (oil, uranium). Above all, it feared the harmful consequences of the partition on its other neo-colonies in Africa.
Thus, French diplomacy continued to look for a team capable of stemming the decomposition of the regime installed in contradictons were to give rise to fluctuations in the French options indeed even to and thus a continual changing of local allies. These schemes also helped to accelerate the fragmentation of the local the French government beconsider more and more the perspective of getting the armed struggle ended through negotiawould still be necessary before this policy began to take shape in practice, in conditions such that it could not succeed in
Chadian state nor in putting an end to the war.
On the contrary, this policy could only increase the greed of the different military and political factions. same time as the governmental regime was collapsing, the FROLINAT was breaking up through a process of formation of different blocs within it.
The armed opposition of FROLINAT could have become the crucible in which an authentic national consciousness of the Chadian masses was forged would, therefore, have offered an alternative to the collapsing neo-colonial state, to the regionalist pressures of the traditionalist society, to the different imperialist proposals, and the many pressures of the African states in the region.
But the initial nationalist and democratic objective of FROLINAT was not
What is more, its programme rapidly became a mere ideological facade. The reality was quite different. It copied the practices of the regionalists; it maintained authoritarian relationships with the rural masses, as well as a strictly miliconception of the struggle. Finally it made all sorts of compromises in all directions (notably concerning the French military presence).
With a base restricted to the North of the country, movement defending the interests and democratic of the Islamic masses in the North.
After the installation of a one-party system by Tombalbaye, and the repression of a rare urban popular mobilisation in the capital in September 1963, causing 300 deaths, the axis of the struggle shifted to the rural regions in the North and spontaneous revolts of these populations against the central administration strongly resembled peasant revolts. Elements in the Arab-speaking petty bourgeoisie, kept out of the state apparatus, tried to take the leadership of these rebellions.
All tendencies together - from milinationalists Islamic bortherhoods - founded FROLINAT in 1966 in Nyala in the Sudan.
LIBYE TCHAD
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Most of the initial nucleus were formChad (UNT, an urban movement which had participated in the political life of the country since 1958).
Ibrahim Abatcha, their aim was, on the basis of a national and democratic programme, to combine the rebellions underway to form a real armedstruggle front against the regime.
However, the initial project was to very quickly degenerate. Firstly the Chad Liberation Front (FLT), an organisation exclusively composed of people of Ouaddai origin, kept aloof from the unitary
Later, after the death in combat of the leadership of FROLINAT fell into the hands of a petty bourgeois intellectual, Dr Abba Siddick, a former minister of Chad in the regime that had prepared the decolonisation in 1958.
Under Abatcha's leadership it diplomatic activity from Algiers or Tripoli that predominated. At the same time, on the ground the Front was divided between the First Army of the East and
Second Army of the North,
Goukouni and Hissene Tombalbaye armed struggle at the end of 1971. The links between these two guerrilla armies did not go beyond the co-ordination in the central organs of the Front which met
Beset by internal conflicts that tended to take the shape of ethnic or regional form of fratricidal clashes, FROLINAT began to degenerate. Little by little, it became a conglomeration of militarist cliques, without a real national political project.
This, after the expulsion of Baghlani, leader of an Arab religious current, which was to form FROLINAT 'Volcano' in the east, bloody battles took place between the two camps. A definitive split took place in 1971 between the Army of the North, and the original' FROLINAT of Abba Siddick, supported by the First Army of the East or People's Liberation Forces (FPL).
The leadership of the Northern army transformed itself into the Command Council of the Armed Forces of the North (CCFAN). Later, a crisis within the CCFAN around what attitude to adopt towards Libya, which gave aid to FROLINAT but occupied the Aouzou strip, led to the departure of Hissene Habre and his tribe, the Foranes Annawhich installed its fighters
However, despite their divisions, the different rebel forces occupied a large portion of the country in the north and where the guerrillas raised taxes, controlled the local authorities, received the customs rights on transactions with neighbouring countries, etc. But this implantation remained localised.
None of the tendencies in FROLINAT had defined a policy towards the peasant masses of southern Chad. 600,000 peasants cultivated cotton for Cotontchad, a company with participation. The great majority of them kept aloof from the struggle waged by FROLINAT
The military action of FROLINAT being limited to the desert or semi-desert regions, it was very dependent on external aid and backup. Thus, in accordance with their own concerns, Sudan, Libya and even Nigeria influenced FROLINAT's
Libya, for example, successively supported Abba Siddick against Habre and Goukouni (imprisoned in Libya 197172), then Goukouni against Habre, then pro-Libyan Arab faction of Acyl Ahmat (a split from FROLINAT 'Volcano') against Goukouni, then all the tendencies at once against Habre and the Kamougue who favored the partition of 'useful' Chad in 1979, and now Goukouni's Transitional Government of National Union (GUNT) as a whole.
Nigeria encouraged the formation of the People's Liberation Movement of Chad (MPLT) in the Lake Chad region
Sudan supported FROLINAT, and then Hissene Habre in the last years. Finally, French imperialism did not hesitate to play several different cards. This process went so far that in 1979, during the Kano negotiations in Kenya, besides bordering African countries, and France, no less than eleven Chadian tendencies were representthem coming FROLINAT. (1)
THE CHADIAN IMBROGLIO
Once it became clear that the French government had firmly adopted the per-
See Inprecor (IV's French-language sister publication), No. 75, April 17, 1980.
----- photo credits and running heads -----
Zouar GE
spective of negotiations between N'Djamena and the rebels, there was a strong pressure on FROLINAT to produce a legitimate spokesperson. Therefore there was an ephemeral unity of FROLINAT
When Abba Siddick was renounced by his followers in 1977, all the tendencies, save that of Hissene Habre, unified under the leadership of Goukouni in mid-
By concerted pressure on their local allies, France and Libya succeeded a week later in getting generals Malloum and Goukouni to sign a ceasefire agreement. However, this had no follow up.
1978 Goukouni's FROLINAT launched a military offensive, and gained control of half the coun try, taking 2,000 governmental prisoners. Giscard d'Estaing wanted negotiation but and military material, and halted the advance of the FROLINAT
Paradoxically Libya and France were then favourable to negoti-
'Several times during the last few
, noted a specialist on Chad, 'the Libyan government seems to have tried to hold back the FROLINAT offensive to some extent. casion was on April 23, 1978, when it sent a telegram to Goukouni asking him
"cease the present hostilities". Chadian chief was displeased'. (2)
While protecting pushed General Malloum and Hissene Habre, in discussion since 1977, to govern together. On the basis of a fundamental charter adopted in August 1978 Hissene Habre was named prime minister, and Malloum president.
Habre-Malloum tandem, the imperialists thought that they had the beginnings of a solution to the Chadian within their grasp. forces were armed by France, and their officers were sent to the mother country
Paris exulted, hailing Habre's rise to power as "an important stage in the process of unifying Chad and a milestone on the road to peace (3) But what actually happened proved to be place in February 1979. On the basis of pro-Muslim propaganda, Habre mobilised and the president. Thanks to the benevolent neutrality of the French troops and aid from Goukouni's forces, Habre seized
Government employees and population groups originating in the South (70 to 80,000 people) went back to their ment of National Union. That, however, did not end the civil war. In March 1980, differences between the president of the GUNT, Goukouni, and his defence minister, Hissene Habre, led to new clashes in the capital. At this point Hissene Habre sensing defeat, thought that 'the most certain bulwark for the defence of our national sovereignty is France'. (4) The French troops withdrew however in April and the 'legitimate' government of the GUNT called on Libya, whose forces entered N'Djamena in December 1980.
However, there again, there was to be a surprising turnaround in the situation. On one side the newly elected Mitterrand got the Libyan troops to withdraw in November 1981. (5) Moreover, since the beginning of 1981 Hissene Habre, reorganising his forces near the Sudanese border, obtained financial support from the United States, and its local allies, Egypt and Sudan.
A year later, June 7, 1982, Habre's forces entered N'Djamena in triumph. And on June 9, 1983, the organisation of African Unity (OAU) recognised the 'legitimacy' of the new occupant of the officially recognised than this legitimacy was thrown into question by those excluded from power - that is the other tendencies comprising the GUNT.
1983, they launched an offensive
In July-August the Mitterrand government responded to the desperate appeal of Hissene Habre by sending hundreds of tons of military material, and around 3,000 French soldiers, at the risk of finding themselves caught up in a colon-
NO TO FRENCH INTERVENTION
The salient features of the Chad conflict are, then, as follows - a state that since its inception has been largely a fiction; a national liberation movement that has never taken on really national dimensions and which over the years has broken down into a conglomeration of military cliques living off the masses;
economic and administrative
None of the tendencies on the political scene today can claim to offer a perspective that corresponds even minimally to the historic aspirations of the Chad-
They also put their specific military interests above their relationship
The fact that the imperialists have opted in favour of Hissene Habre does not change this state of things. It means only that this figure and the cohesion and military effectiveness of its troops seem to offer better promise for reconsolidating the Chadian state than the assets of
It should be remembered that in the Goukouni-GUNT camp supported by Libya there are such figures as Kamougue or Djogo, Southern military chiefs trained in France who participated in the repression against FROLINAT for years.
Furthermore, Goukouni September 1979 called for slowing down the departure of French troops and later declared himself favourable to bringing in the inter-African force envisaged by France and the United States. (6)
The sole immediate aspiration of the Chadian masses is to be able to go about their lives with some security. This requires an end to the fighting. the departure of French troops, and the demilitarization of the society. today these masses are under the control of opposing military factions or in exile, and in any case without any voice in the
In this situation, talking about defending the national integrity of a state that has never really been one, involves defending the faction that for the moment has been able to get control of this mori-
To presume to propose the building of a central state, or a federation, or a partition to decide the future of Chad involves trying to achieve and maintain combinations among the chiefs of the mote national unity. National unity in fact can come only by the masses themselves overcoming the present regional and ethnic lines of division, which the conflicting military cliques both reflect
A government that claims to have the mandate of the French workers must recognize the right of the Chadian peoples to self-determination. And that means first of all withdrawing French troops, stopping the flow of arms to feed the conflict, and not getting caught up in the logic of a colonial was
Robert Buitenhuijs, Le FRONTLINAT et le Monde of April 25, 1978.
Le Monde, September 1, 1978. Le Monde, February 7, 1980.
See Inprecor, No. . 114, December 7, 1981.
Le Monde, May 10-11, 1981.
SUBSCRIBE TO home areas. In April 1979, on the basis elements, a general committee was set up for administering the South.
Paradoxically it got support from Libya.
INTERNATIONAL VIEWPOINT
Following the ethnic clashes at Moudou in the South, Paris revived its diplomatic initiative in the attempt to avoid a partition of the country.
In November 1979, all the tendencies together formed a Transitional Govern-
Embarkation of French parachutists (DR)
The conflict in Chad has provoked arguments between Paris and Washington. This reflects the stiff competition that French imperialism is facing in its traditional preserve. For some months, the U.S. has been seeking systematically to undermine French influence in the French-speaking sub-Saharan countries and in North Africa.
However, this tension between Paris and Washington should not cover up the essential facts. In intervening in Chad, France is fully assuming the role that falls on it in the bloe of imperialist states.
The present crisis in Chad is forcing the imperialist countries once again to face the growing instability of sections of the third world on which it depends for raw materials.
In order to deal with this challenge, the major powers have equipped them-