Chadian President Idriss Déby on Tuesday said he had full control of the country after last week’s failed rebel offensive and vowed presidential elections would go ahead as planned on May 3.
”We have the situation in hand throughout the whole of Chad,” Déby told a press conference in N’djamena, the capital that was rocked by a rebel offensive last Thursday.
”We have no reason not to hold the election on the date, determined under the Constitution, of May 3,” added the president, who is seeking re-election after nearly 16 years in power.
Déby again accused neighbouring Sudan of supporting and arming the United Front for Change (FUC), saying he had information that Khartoum was helping the rebels regroup to launch fresh attacks.
A spokesperson for the FUC, Albissaty Saleh Allazam, in the meanwhile told Agence France-Presse that the rebels would ”do everything in our power to stop the elections”.
Diplomats have warned that the rebellion could yet topple Déby’s embattled regime, which would plunge Chad into chaos and further destabilise a region already reeling from famine and the Darfur conflict.
Déby accused the African Union (AU) of ignoring signs of Sudanese involvement in the uprising, to which he has responded by severing diplomatic ties with Khartoum.
”The African Union should condemn Sudan’s agression in the strongest way. If my colleagues cannot say the truth to [President Omar] al-Beshir, this continent is off to another bad start,” he said.
France, the former colonial power and a traditional ally of Déby, said on Tuesday the rebels and an opposition group have requested an audience with French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy.
France has 1 350 troops stationed in Chad and gave logistical help to the army during the rebel attack, but Paris has insisted its men were not involved in fighting and acted mainly to protect French civilians in Chad.
International observers have become increasingly adamant that Sudan is embroiled in efforts to oust Déby, despite al-Beshir’s firm denials.
”The FUC rebels are Chadians, but they are clearly supported by Sudan,” said Olivier Bercault, regional specialist for the global rights group Human Rights Watch said.
The United States on Monday suggested that Sudan may have had a hand in the the uprising, and warned Khartoum such action was ”unacceptable”.
Déby on Tuesday said that 70 civilians were also killed in the twin offensives on N’djamena and the eastern city of Adre, near the Sudanese border, and that the army had lost 40 men.
But with calm returned to the capital, hundreds have begun to return from a Cameroonian border town to which they had fled.
Kousseri deputy mayor Abba Kebir said ”diplomats and numerous Cameroonians and Chadians who had found refuge here are starting to head back to N’djamena”.
The dispute between Chad and Sudan has seen N’djamena give up its role as a mediator in Sudan’s western Darfur region where ethnic fighting and famine have killed at least 300 000 people in the past three years.
Déby on Tuesday accused Khartoum of recruiting young men from Darfur for the rebels forces fighting to oust him.
”As I am speaking, the regime in Khartoum is rounding up the youths in Darfur to enroll them in the rebel army and point them towards Chad,” he said.
The leader of one of the two chief rebel movements in Darfur, Khalil Ibrahim of the Justice and Equality Movement, was expelled after ”abusing Chadian hospitality” by occupying the Sudanese embassy in N’djamena.
While fighting for political survival, Déby has also threatened to halt Chad’s oil production in a bid to force the World Bank to unblock oil revenue that has been frozen in a British bank account in a lingering dispute with the bank.
Observers and political opponents have accused him of wanting to use the funds to bolster the military in the face of the rebel threat.
Chadian military sources on Tuesday said that the army had recently acquired six Mi-17 combat helicopters from an eastern European country, saying two of the aircraft has just been delivered to N’djamena. – Sapa-AFP