8 Chad “in a State of War” with Sudan

This is one of those important stories that don’t get enough coverage:

On Friday, Chad said it was in a “state of war” with Sudan after 100 died in an attack on the border town of Adre…Chad says that Sudan is backing rebel groups which have recently sprung up in the east of the country and which are blamed for the attack on Adre, which borders Sudan’s troubled Darfur region. It also accuses Sudanese militia of making daily incursions into Chad, stealing cattle, killing innocent people and burning villages on the Chadian border. Friday’s statement asked Chadians to form a patriotic front against what it called “the common enemy of the nation”. Sudanese officials say Khartoum has never supported Chadian rebel groups. They accuse N’djamena of deploying planes and troops on Sudanese territory.

Sudanese-sponsored janjaweed have also attacked villages on the Chadian side of the border in Darfur. It wasn’t long ago that Chadian President Idriss Idriss Déby, himself a Zaghawa of the Bideyat clan (one of the groups against which the janjaweed, with the support of the Sudanese government, have conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur) accused Sudanese President Al-Bashar of seeking to “destabilize our country and to export the war in Darfur to Chad” (d?stabiliser notre pays (?) et exporter la guerre du Darfour au Tchad, voil? le dessein que nourrit le pr?sident el-B?chir).

Granted, this is a bit rich coming from Déby, who came to power in 1990 after a Darfur-based, Khartoum-supported insurgency that overthrew ex-president Hiss?ne Habr?. And it is true that Darfur’s two main rebel groups were initially dominated by the Zaghawa and received support from Chadian Zaghawa communities, and, unofficially, Zaghawa officers whom Déby brought into the Chadian military. But this is a dangerous escalation in old tensions. Good for the OIC for taking notice. More people should.

[tags]Sudan, Chad, Darfur[/tags]

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  1. […] I’ve been following this for a while, but had gone to sleep while the rebels poured out of Darfur and made it all the way across Chad to the capital N’Djamena. This is huge: Heavy fighting has subsided in Chad’s capital after breaking out at dawn, between government troops and rebels trying to overthrow the president. […]

    Pingback by The Skeptic ?????? » Enemy at the Gates — April 13, 2006 #

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