Tensions between Chad and Sudan rose further on Saturday following a rebel attack that observers say could yet lead to the fall of Chadian President Idriss Déby and plunge the country into chaos.
In the Chadian capital N’djamena, Déby accused his Sudanese counterpart Omar al-Beshir of ”genocide” in the west Sudanese region of Darfur and branded him a ”traitor”, a day after severing diplomatic ties with Khartoum.
The United Nations voiced concern about threats by Chad to expel Sudanese refugees amid the escalating crisis between the two countries, warning that such action would violate international humanitarian law.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s special representative to Sudan, Jan Pronk, issued the warning after N’djamena threatened to expel about 200 000 Sudanese refugees currently in eastern Chad in retaliation for Khartoum’s alleged support of a Chadian rebel offensive.
”I have asked all the big powers, the African Union, the United Nations, the European Union, all nations who love peace and justice to intervene militarily to save the people of Darfur who are victims of the most terrible genocide carried out by President Beshir,” Déby told supporters in N’djamena.
He urged the international community to make Darfur, wracked by ethnic conflict since 2003, a UN protectorate.
”The international community must face up to all its responsibilities to resolve the crisis in Darfur and place Darfur under UN protection,” he said.
Déby told a crowd of several thousand supporters: ”You have shown the international community and the traitors to the national cause that you are not ready to allow your country to be occupied by mercenaries sent by that traitor Beshir.”
The Chadian leader, who is fighting for his political life after almost 16 years in power, also referred to al-Bashir in Arabic as ”a donkey”.
Sudan said Chad had ordered its top diplomat in N’djamena to leave the country, after breaking off diplomatic ties on Friday.
Chadian Prime Minister Pascal Yoadimnadji on Saturday told representatives of the United Nations in N’djamena refugees from Sudan would have to leave within the next two and half months.
”The Chadian government has given the international community until the end of June 2006 to find another host country,” he said.
Though calm was holding in N’djamena on Saturday, observers warned that the rebellion had not been broken and that, just three weeks before Chad’s presidential election, Déby’s hold on power was shaky.
A French military source said the rebels, who sent some 600 men into the capital on Thursday, could be regrouping and planning fresh attacks.
Déby is fighting for his political life after nearly 16 years in power, first as a military leader, then as elected president.
Opposition parties accuse him of using revenue from Chad’s new-found oil riches to bolster the military and boosting his chances of re-election on May 3, in violation of a deal with the World Bank to channel oil money into alleviating poverty.
Chad’s internal strife is closely linked to the three-year civil war in Darfur and could yet destabilise other neighbouring countries such as Cameroon and the Central African Republic (CAR), which on Friday closed its border with Chad.
Former colonial power France, a traditional ally of Déby’s, came to his aid several times this week — airlifting a small number of armed Chadian troops, firing into the air to disperse rebels in N’djamena and providing military intelligence.
But Paris has insisted it will not join the fighting to save the president’s political future.
Déby is facing a challenge not only from the FUC, whose leader is from the Tama tribe and has links to the Sudanese regime, but also from a group calling itself Scud, which is headed by a dissident faction of his Zaghawa tribe which is opposed to his rule.
A French diplomat warned on Saturday that if the rebels toppled the president, it could create a power vacuum that would destabilise the desperately poor country.
”If Déby goes, there is a risk that Chad will decend into chaos. An anti-Déby coalition does not amount to a real opposition and there is nobody to take over the reins,” he said.
A forced exit for D̩by could trigger a situation similar to that Somalia, which has no government and is run by a multitude of armed groups, one analyst said, on condititon of anonymity. РSapa-AFP