Word: chadli
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...only surprise about this month's battle for Chad's capital city N'Djamena is that it was so long in coming. Every Chadian political dispute in the last 40 years has been settled by force of arms, and the latest conflict is running true to form. A coalition of Chadian rebels, backed by Sudan, made a lightning dash westward across the country from Darfur and assaulted the capital city. Hundreds of soldiers and civilians died in two days of bloody street fighting before Chad's President, Idriss Déby, with help from the French, rallied and pushed back...
...would accept a cease-fire if President Idriss Déby , a longtime ally of France (and lately, also of the U.S.), left office and cleared the way for their takeover. "You take power through elections, not otherwise," Sarkozy warned, indicating that the 1,400 French troops stationed in Chad could step off the sidelines if the rebels push their luck. The United Nations Security Council has urged all member states to back President Déby's government in the face of the rebel onslaught. "If Chad has been the victim of an aggression," Sarkozy added, "France would have...
...leaders of the political opposition. But Déby is also an important regional ally in the U.S. "war on terror," and his cooperation is essential to the objective of deploying European peacekeeping forces in Darfur. In fact, the rebels forces seeking to oust Déby entered Chad from Sudan, and are widely seen as a proxy force for the Sudanese government, which has openly supported their attempt to oust Déby. The timing of the rebel assault is also widely seen as an attempt to frustrate international efforts to intervene in Darfur...
...initial hours and days of the rebel push into N'Djamena, Paris remained in close phone contact with Déby - at one point offering him asylum in France. But French public statements about the conflict were confined to assurances that French troops in Chad were involved only in protecting foreign civilians and evacuating expatriates, and that bilateral security accords between the two countries did not require France to intervene to save an embattled regime...
...Still, intervening would undercut Sarkozy's efforts to move France beyond Françafrique, its half-century old policy of intervening in former colonies to prop up friendly dictators. Sarkozy had made it clear he wants to end such arrangements and favor greater democracy, events in Chad have left no good option. "I didn't want direct intervention before a precise legal framework" had been outlined, Sarkozy said Tuesday, insisting that the U.N. vote changed the equation. "We're no longer in what was called Françafrique. There are international rules, and I want to conform to them...