In early February, an alliance of rebel groups attacked the Chadian capital of N’Djamena to overthrow President Idriss Déby, a close ally of French imperialism.
The rebels besieged Déby in his presidential palace; then pulled back from the capital after heavy fighting. Aid workers
French special forces troops |
The rebel forces claim they control the center of the landlocked country and will hold on to their position to lure government forces into open battle in the desert.
The assault is the latest development in a two-year struggle to remove Déby from power. Anti-government forces, led by Mahamat Nouri and Timan Ermini, accuse Déby of being corrupt, ruling like a dictator and stealing oil revenues. Chad remains one of the poorest countries in Africa, despite its oil reserves.
Nouri is a former defense minister and leader of the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development, the largest group of Chadian rebel forces opposed to Déby. Ermini is a relative of Déby and his former chief of staff. Ermini heads up the Rally of Forces for Change.
The UFDD and RFD claim the French government is propping up Déby through military intervention. France helped Déby fight off a previous rebel attack in April 2006.
Déby a proxy for French interests
French presence in Chad is still strong today, despite almost fifty years passing since Chad declared formal independence. France has supplied Déby with warplanes and has now added 300 troops to the 1,200 already stationed in Chad, where it keeps a military base. While reaffirming their support for the Déby government, French leaders have also offered to help him leave the country—an offer that Déby has rejected so far.
French troops have played a major role in Chad’s civil wars. Over the years, France has provided the Chadian army with intelligence, logistics and medical units. Under Jacques Chirac, French president from 1995 to 2007, France’s policy toward Chad was one of military assistance to help Déby squash opposition.
Déby knows that the French government’s friendship is tactical, and fears that the French could step aside and allow a rival to seize power as they almost did at the outset of the latest crisis. The French government calculated that its regional interests will be better protected with Déby in power, so it backed him up militarily.
Aware of his predicament, Déby is courting the French government for support in not-so-subtle ways. In late 2007, Chadian courts convicted six French “humanitarian” workers for attempting to kidnap 103 Chadian children and transport them to adopted homes in France. The scandal sparked such public outrage that the possibility of a pardon would have been unthinkable—until now. Déby recently said he would consider pardoning the aid workers at the request of the French government.
The ‘Sudan connection’
French intervention in Chad goes beyond ensuring the continuity and stability of its economic interests in the country. For the past two years, the French government has participated in a U.S.-led demonization campaign against Sudan’s government, joining calls for an international peacekeeping force in the Darfur region. “Peacekeeping” is a euphemism for the imperialist occupation of the oil-rich African country.
Chad is acting as an imperialist proxy against Sudan and a potential launching pad for military action against its neighbor. Chad shares a long border with Darfur and has been supporting anti-government armed groups in the region, namely the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement. It has defended its actions by accusing the Sudanese government of assisting rebels trying to overthrow Déby, which Khartoum has denied.
The N’Djamena battle has successfully stalled a planned deployment of a European Union force in Eastern Chad and the Central African Republic. The force has been promoted primarily by French officials—damning proof of the imperialist character of France’s intervention in the region.
France wishes not only to protect its economic interests in Chad, but also to secure its share of the pie should the U.S. and British imperialists succeed in their campaign to carve up Sudan. If France cannot go in the front door, it figures, it will go in the back
But it is not clear that France will achieve its objectives. Déby faces a stiff challenge; fighting may continue. The UFDD said in a statement that it now “considers itself to be in a state of war against the French army, or against any other foreign forces in the national territory.”
Self-determination without imperialist intervention is a pre-condition for the people of Chad and Sudan to lift themselves from underdevelopment and poverty, the legacy of centuries of colonial plunder.
