Word: oueddei
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...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 that...
...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...
Outside forces, however, were more aggressively interested in the outcome. Oueddei was actively backed by his neighbor to the north, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who had previously seized a swatch of disputed borderland. Chad seemed to fit neatly into the Libyan leader's ultimate dream of a sub-Saharan republic. Habré, meanwhile, was less directly supported by France, as part of Paris' abiding policy of trying to maintain a forceful role in the affairs of the French-speaking former African colonies...
Armed largely by Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the northern-based Muslim guerrillas had succeeded last March in ousting President Félix Malloum, one of the southern Christians who have monopolized the government since Chad received its independence from France in 1960. Muslim Leaders Oueddei and Habré have since shared power in an eleven-faction alliance marked by mutual suspicion and hostility...
Chad's warring leaders not only are locked in a power struggle, but also are seen as proxies of two foreign nations with rival interests throughout Africa: the sophisticated, Paris-educated Habré is associated with the French, while the ascetic revolutionary Oueddei is presumed to be close to the Libyans...