Word: goukouni
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...Libyan military occupation already in effect. Since early December Gaddafi has had some 5,000 members of his "Islamic Legions" inside Chad. Backed by artillery, tanks and air cover, the Libyan troops had broken the stalemate in the country's nine-month-old civil war by helping President Goukouni Oueddei to defeat his rival. Defense Minister Hissene Habre. The proposed Libya-Chad merger thus appeared less a union between consenting sovereign nations than an outright Libyan annexation of the impoverished, landlocked country of 4.5 million. Chad is an ideal launching position for his expansionist dream of a Saharan empire...
...nine months, the sputtering civil war in the Central African nation of Chad had been conducted with little enthusiasm. The two brigade-size guerrilla groups-one led by President Goukouni Oueddei, the other by insurgent Defense Minister Hissène Habré-had reached a virtual stalemate in their listless battle for control of the impoverished, landlocked country of 4.5 million. Fighting mainly over the capital of N'Djamena on the Chari River, the two miniarmies regularly exchanged artillery duels, and then, just as regularly, stopped shooting for lunch, tea and dinner breaks...
...ended an uneasy truce between warring guerrilla armies. The principal antagonists are two rival leaders who are members of Chad's own central government: President Goukouni Oueddei and Defense Minister Hissene Habré. The two ex-soldiers once fought as Muslim allies during the country's 14-year civil war. Now they are locked in a personal power struggle, with their respective forces (Oueddei's 6,800; Habré's 5,000) shelling each other's urban strongholds...
Humiliation and Horror. Meanwhile Pierre Claustre, frustrated by the delays, tried to free his wife by arranging an arms delivery to the rebels himself-and wound up as another prisoner. Finally, Habre was overthrown as rebel chief by Goukouni Oueddei last November.lt is thought that Oueddei depends on Libyan financial support and was thus amenable to Gaddafi's suggestion that the Claustres be freed. Presumably, the Libyan ruler felt they were more useful as the beneficiaries of a spectacular humanitarian gesture than as hostages...