N’Djamena appeared calm on Friday, the day after clashes between government forces and rebels seeking to oust President Idriss Déby, an Agence France-Presse reporter in the Chadian capital said.
Forces loyal to Déby, identifiable by their red ribbons, were deployed in various parts of the city, in particular around the presidential palace, but the number of military vehicles deployed was smaller than the day before.
Businesses were open and taxis running as normal. The French school, which had closed ”provisionally” on Wednesday, was also open.
The authorities said that they had repelled the assault by rebels on the outskirts of the capital and also claimed to be in control of the town of Adre in the east of the country near the border with Sudan where, according to humanitarian sources, fighting had ended on Thursday evening.
Humanitarian sources said the fighting in N’Djamena had left several people dead and at least 250 injured while the clashes in Adre took five lives and resulted in 60 injured.
Chad has accused neighbouring Sudan of engineering the offensive by rebels of the United Front for Change (FUC), though this has been denied by Khartoum.
The United Nations Security Council and UN chief Kofi Annan on Thursday strongly condemned the rebel offensive and urged Khartoum and N’Djamena not to conduct hostile activities against each other.
The situation is completely under control
Guerrilla fighters mounted a dawn raid in the capital after covering more than 960km in three days. Government troops repulsed the attack with helicopters, tanks and artillery and French fighter jets flew overhead in support of the beleaguered regime which is an ally of Paris.
Clashes died down after several hours and Déby declared victory, telling Radio France Internationale that the rebels had been destroyed. ”The situation is completely under control,” he said. Witnesses reported seeing thick black smoke overhead and several bodies in the streets. There was no immediate word on the death toll. About 50 men in uniform described as captured rebels were paraded for the media.
Military analysts said the attack appeared to be more of an attempt to expose the regime’s weakness than a real bid to seize the capital. The rebels claimed they controlled 80% of the country and that Déby’s days were numbered.
Déby seized power in a 1990 coup and was expected to be re-elected next month in a poll which critics said was an attempt to camouflage a corrupt autocracy. The finances of one of the world’s poorest countries have been transformed since an oil pipeline opened in 2003, generating $400-million and raising hopes of a better life for 10-million Chadians.
Accusations that the regime mismanaged and stole much of the wealth has galvanised opposition, which stems from dissent within the army and the president’s tribe as well as from neighbouring Sudan.
The rebellion is partly a result of the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region from which hundreds of thousands have fled to escape what the United States, among others, claims is a genocide by forces loyal to Khartoum.
Sudan’s Islamist regime has accused Déby of backing Sudanese rebels in Darfur, prompting suspicion that it has returned the favour by backing the Chadian rebels who attacked Ndjamena. Both governments deny sponsoring the revolts.
With neither side able to properly police the 1 280km border, there is fear that the cycle of instability, fuelled by ethnic and tribal tensions as well as competition for natural resources, could last decades.
In the past two weeks, more than 14 000 people have crossed from Chad into Darfur to escape fighting, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
Chad’s rebels launched their latest offensive on Tuesday by seizing the eastern town of Mongo, reportedly after little resistance from government forces. Convoys of pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns then raced towards N’djamena. A rebel vanguard entered the capital at 5.30am on Thursday and fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades before retreating. Most residents stayed indoors and western embassies warned their nationals to be prepared to evacuate.
France sent 150 troops on Wednesday to bolster its 1 200-strong force. French jets flew reconnaissance missions and fired a ”warning shot” near rebels.
But Paris denied rebel claims that jets had bombed eastern regions, wounding civilians. French forces were ”not involved in military actions”, a foreign ministry spokesperson, Jean-Francois Bureau, told The Associated Press.
The Chad regime’s waning authority is the latest challenge to attempts by Paris to exert control over its former colonies. Since 2002 its troops have policed an uneasy truce between warring sides in Côte d’Ivoire.
Déby (53) is seen as less thuggish than some predecessors but his style of rule has alienated members of his own tribe and the army, prompting senior officers to defect to the rebels. The gush of oil money, the result of a pipeline partly funded by the World Bank, has sweetened the prize for those tempted to topple him.
History of conflict
- Since independence from France in 1960 Chad has been rocked by coups and rebellions, making it one of the most unstable, impoverished and corrupt countries in Africa
- More than twice the size of its former colonial master but with a population of just 10-million, it is mostly rock and desert. The north is largely Muslim, the south largely Christian and animist
- The regime of Hissene Habre, which ruled between 1982 and 1990, was accused of 40 000 political killings and 200 000 cases of torture. Human rights groups want Habre extradited from exile in Senegal to face criminal charges
- He was ousted by the current president, Idriss Déby, in a coup in 1990 – Guardian Unlimited Â