Chad’s President Idriss Déby, heeding international calls to protect refugees from Sudan’s volatile Darfur region, has backed off a threat to expel them, despite blaming Khartoum for last week’s deadly rebel attack on the capital, a United Nations official said.
Déby’s government also said it was extending a deadline for halting oil production to enable the United States government to mediate in a dispute with the World Bank over oil payments.
Déby was under intense international pressure not to carry through on his threat to expel the Sudanese, and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in Geneva that the president had given assurances that his country would abide by international refugee law and not force them out.
”President Déby expressed his understandable concern about the difficulties involved in providing security both to the refugees and to the humanitarian organisations that are helping them,” Guterres said on Monday after a telephone conversation with Déby the previous night.
It was not immediately possible to confirm Guterres’ statement with Chadian officials on Monday, a holiday.
Déby had announced on Friday — the day after a rebel attack on N’djamena — that he was severing relations with Sudan and threatened to expel 200 000 Sudanese refugees if the international community did not do more to stop what he claimed were Sudanese backed-rebels from destabilising his government before the May 3 presidential election.
Sudan has denied any involvement with the Chadian rebels. Chadian forces repelled the attack on Thursday, but the rebel United Front for Change was regrouping in the countryside and the threat of a violent overthrow of the government remained. Rumours circulated through the capital that a rebel force was just 25km outside of the capital.
Déby’s government has tried to attract international attention to Chad’s problems, and its Oil Minister, Mahmat Hassan Nasser, threatened on Saturday to shut down the country’s oil pipeline unless the government received by midday on Tuesday oil revenues that were frozen by the World Bank. Chad exports only 160 000 barrels per day, produced by a US-Malaysia consortium of ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and Petronas.
But Foreign Minister Ahmat Allam-mi said on Monday that Chad has extended a shutdown deadline until the end of April to enable the United States to mediate.
”The American government requested a delay on the deadline and they are leading an effort to mediate the discussions between the World Bank, the consortium and the Chadian government,” Allam-mi told The Associated Press. ”But in the meantime, we have postponed the deadline until the end of April.”
The World Bank froze an escrow account with $125-million in oil royalties in London in January after Chad’s Parliament voted to change a law governing the use of the country’s oil revenues, releasing more revenues to the government’s Budget instead of channeling them to health, education and building Chad’s infrastructure.
The World Bank had helped finance oil industry infrastructure in Chad after the country agreed to observe stringent rules on the use of oil revenues. Many in Chad fear the oil wealth will be misused, failing to lift the masses out of poverty while sharpening rivalries that have erupted into violence in the past.
The World Bank also cut $124-million in financial aid. The government said it needs urgent access to the oil revenues to address priority issues, including security. Most people think the battle for Chad, which Déby has ruled for almost 16 years, is far from over.
Henriette Blaah, a 46-year-old secretary in N’djamena, said she was very afraid of what the future may hold.
”We don’t know if the rebels will come back today or tomorrow,” she said. ”I’ve been listening to the radio, and the rebels said they would come back, and I pray that they do not. We do not want this.”
Rebel commander Colonel Regis Bechir told Radio France International on Saturday that Déby’s regime was a menace that must be removed from power.
”Dialogue is the only way to save the people of Chad,” he said.
”A national reconciliation, with a democratic basis, would be best. And we are determined to continue the armed struggle against the phony elections.”
Déby repeatedly has accused Sudan of hiring mercenaries to overthrow his government. Sudan has denied this and has long accused Chad of supporting fighters in its volatile Darfur region, where Arab militias and African rebels have fought for nearly three years. About 180 000 people have died in Darfur.
Déby — a co-mediator in African Union efforts to negotiate a peace deal for Darfur — ordered Chadian officials to pull out of the Darfur peace talks after the attack on N’djamena.
Chad, an arid, landlocked country, has been wracked by violence for most of its history, including more than 30 years of civil war since gaining independence from France in 1960 and various small-scale insurgencies since 1998. – Sapa-AP