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ENOUGH Project (Washington, DC)

Chad: Is Anyone Serious about Ending the Political Crisis?

Colin Thomas-Jensen

19 February 2008

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analysis

Chadian rebels’ lightning strike on the capital N’Djamena in late January and early February is the latest and most dramatic consequence of two combustible situations that remain on collision course: Sudan’s destabilizing policies and Chad’s internal political crisis. For the enormous danger that this political crisis poses—to international efforts to halt violence in Darfur, to long-term regional stability, and to civilians ensnared by warfare—the world is remarkably ill-equipped to address it.

Chadian rebels’ lightning strike on the capital N’Djamena in late January and early February is the latest and most dramatic consequence of two combustible situations that remain on collision course.[1 [1]]

The first is the continuing tragedy in neighboring Darfur and the government of Sudan’s support for Chadian rebel groups to topple the Chadian President Idriss Deby. Deby supports the deployment of a European Union peacekeeping force to Chad and the Central African Republic, and his government backs some of the Sudanese rebel groups fighting in Darfur. The regime in Khartoum seeks to undermine the EU Force’s deployment and sever Chadian ties to Darfur rebels. (See ENOUGH reports A Race Against Time in Eastern Chad [2] and How to Protect Civilians in Eastern Chad [3].) As ENOUGH called for in a February 11 joint statement [4] with the Save Darfur Coalition and Genocide Intervention Network, the United Nations Security Council must respond with targeted sanctions against senior Sudanese officials responsible for supporting the overthrow of a neighboring sovereign government. Further, the international community must radically step up efforts to deploy the joint UN/African Union mission to Darfur and the EU mission in Chad.

The second combustible situation is the political crisis inside Chad. Despite the Chadian government’s assertions that all of Chad’s problems emanate from Sudan’s capital Khartoum, Chad’s government is among the world’s most venal and its citizens are among the world’s most destitute and disenfranchised. Chad provides an accommodating theater for regional conflict and proxy war because it is grappling with its own very serious internal crisis. In the wake of the most recent coup attempt, the Chadian government has cracked down hard on unarmed political opposition. Opposition leaders have been arrested, fled to neighboring countries, or been driven underground. To Chadians seeking a peaceful way forward, the international community’s silence has been deafening. Indeed, for the enormous danger that this political crisis poses—to international efforts to halt violence in Darfur, to long-term regional stability, and to civilians ensnared by warfare—the world is remarkably ill-equipped to address it.

Put bluntly, the international community has at present neither the resources nor the inclination to press for a comprehensive approach to Chad’s internal crisis—a necessary component to arrest a slide into chronic regional warfare. Specifically, the EU and AU should lead a process to reconcile the warring factions inside Chad and pressing for internal political reforms that will mitigate future conflict. France, the United States, and China should work together to provide the leverage necessary to achieve genuine reform.

As in Sudan, all three nations would benefit from peace and stability in Chad, yet none individually has enough leverage to accomplish this difficult task. The French have considerable influence, but Paris is not viewed as a neutral broker because of its colonial baggage and unwavering support for President Deby. China’s influence with Chad is expanding rapidly due to its growing commercial ties. The United States is developing a closer counterterrorism alliance with Chad and, like Paris though to a lesser degree, Washington is far from neutral. Absent a dramatic re-alignment of policy priorities and an equally significant injection of diplomatic capital, the United States and its potential partners will remain totally irrelevant to ending Chad’s internal conflict and pressing for political reforms that could mitigate future conflict in Chad and in the region.

The United States in Chad

The United States is pursuing two important foreign policy objectives in Chad: counterterrorism and the delivery of humanitarian assistance. The Bush administration deserves strong praise for helping to sustain a massive humanitarian operation in eastern Chad (and in Darfur), but humanitarian assistance does not resolve conflict or prevent atrocities. While U.S. policymakers might agree with the importance of supporting conflict resolution, political reform, and social and economic development—three critical components of preventing crimes against humanity—the simple fact is that the United States is not putting any meaningful resources behind these goals.

Chad sits in the Sahel, the vast land bridge between the arid Maghreb region of North Africa and tropical West and Central Africa. This is a region of burgeoning interest to U.S. counterterrorism officials. The Bush administration is justifiably concerned that the porous borders and loosely governed northern reaches of Sahelian states offer tempting sanctuary for extremist groups. Accordingly, Chad is one of several countries receiving U.S. assistance through a program called the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership.

U.S. officials describe the program as a mixture of military training, development assistance, and good governance promotion. However, in Chad, as in other states in the Sahel, the United States is channeling most of its resources toward military training while neglecting the equally important task of addressing the social and economic circumstances that fuel internal conflict and extremist ideologies.[2 [5]] “Democracy, good governance, internal political dialogue…of course we support all of those things,” a U.S. Embassy official in N’Djamena told ENOUGH. “But the reality is that we don’t have the resources to make a serious impact.” Last year, the Bush administration requested a paltry $200,000 in development assistance for Chad—and that money was allocated to help train Chad’s military. And while Navy SEAL teams train Chadian army units in basic infantry tactics, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, does not even have an office in N’Djamena. For impoverished, disenfranchised, and conflict-weary Chadians, U.S. priorities are not difficult to discern.

The United States may not devote the diplomatic or economic resources to be a serious player in helping to end the cycle of violence in Chad, but Washington is not without influence. President Deby wants U.S. friendship and is willing to make some sacrifices to get it. By allowing U.S. Special Forces to work in northwestern Chad, Deby almost certainly put himself on sour terms with his unpredictable and powerful neighbor, Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya. Even with the recent rapprochement between Washington and Tripoli, Gaddafi bristles at the notion of international forces roaming around his traditional domain of influence.

At the same time, Deby is well aware of his counterterrorism value. If he were to back out of his relationship with the United States (which is unlikely) it would be a setback in the Pentagon’s plans to more closely monitor the northern Sahel. In 2004 in northeastern Chad, Chadian and Nigerien forces—with on-the-ground support from U.S. Special Forces assisted by satellite intelligence—fought a fierce gun battle with Islamic militants from the Algeria-based Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC.[3 [6]] The eventual capture inside Chad of the group’s number two, Amari Saifi, also known as Al Para, was touted as a major counterterrorism success.[4 [7]]

Warrior Politics

Tension interspersed with bloodletting has been the norm in eastern Chad for the past four years, and policymakers most often view the crisis in eastern Chad through a Darfur lens. Consequently, conflict resolution efforts have thus far focused principally on the tensions between N’Djamena and Khartoum. That is only part of the story. Though fuelled by weapons and support from an external patron, the rebellion in Chad is the latest chapter in a decades-long internal power struggle. Chadian politics for the last 40 years has been a high-stakes game of “King of the Hill” in which politics and armed conflict are synonymous.

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