Word: darfur
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...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 his enemies. The tense standoff comes as the European Union is poised to dispatch...
...among the French-trained Chadian warriors who defeated Gaddafi's army in 1987. He then chased Libya's proxy Arab militias - known as Janjaweed - into Darfur, sparking that region's descent into bloodshed. But Déby soon fell out with Habré, who tortured and executed thousands of opponents, real and suspected. Déby is a Zaghawa - part of a tribe of black Saharans equally at home in Darfur, Chad and the oases of the Libyan Sahara. Armed by Sudan and Libya, he stormed across the Chadian savanna from rear bases in Darfur and seized power...
...that the regime has used the rebel attack as a pretext to round up 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...
...Hence the Déby dilemma: Prop up an odious but friendly regime, or allow Sudan, via its proxies, to sabotage efforts to stop the killing in Darfur...
...weekend, French officials are describing the timing of Thursday's rebel push from Sudan as designed to disrupt impending deployment of the European Union's 3,700 EUFOR peacekeeping force along Chad's eastern border. Those troops are charged with establishing safe zones to protect refugees from violence-torn Darfur. That imposition of well-armed foreign soldiers, French officials say, would have complicated Khartoum's plans to destabilizing the Chadian regime...