Word: djamena
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When Idriss Deby and his rebel army rolled into the capital city of N'Djamena last week, the reaction of the 1,800-man French force stationed in the country was almost blase. As expected, the guerrilla leader quickly proclaimed himself President and promised to bring parliamentary democracy to his impoverished country...
...there was nothing predictable about the arrival two days later of several Soviet-built Libyan transport planes at N'Djamena's military airport. The planes had come to pick up about 400 Libyan prisoners released by Deby, some of whom had been jailed since 1982, and to unload "humanitarian supplies," including a Renault luxury sedan, apparently a gift to Deby from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Deby defended freeing the Libyans as a move to help maintain good relations with Chad's northern neighbor. However, the prisoner release, along with reports that Libya provided at least 40% of the equipment...
While the full scope of Deby's relationship with Gaddafi remains hazy, it is known that Libya equipped Deby's army with as many as 200 Toyota land cruisers fitted with 23-mm Soviet-made cannons. Deby's army arrived in N'Djamena with other equipment commonly stockpiled by Libya, including Brazilian-made six- wheel armored vehicles with 90-mm guns...
...disaster had the haunting familiarity of a recurring nightmare. On Tuesday afternoon Flight 772, a DC-10 of the French airline UTA bound from Brazzaville to Paris, left the runway after its scheduled stopover in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad. Twenty minutes into the flight, Captain Georges Ravenaud radioed the airport to report that all was normal. Flight 772 was never heard from again. High above the desolate Tenere desert in neighboring Niger, the plane exploded, killing all 157 passengers and its 14- member crew. Among those aboard were seven Americans, including Bonnie Pugh, wife of the U.S. Ambassador...
...last radio contact between the plane and air traffic controllers, 40 to 50 minutes after leaving the airport at N'Djamena, indicated that everything was normal, the airline said...