In the dusty border town of Adre, battered pickup trucks roar around the quiet streets with clumps of rifle- toting men clinging to the roof. Most wear the distinctive brown camouflage issued to the army, but others sport the gowns and turbans favoured by the local population. In this poor, but oil-rich nation, no one raises an eyebrow at unmarked trucks bristling with machine guns and plainclothes fighters hurtling down the street.
Some of the weapons may have been bought with oil profits earmarked for poverty relief, a diversion that caused the World Bank to suspend loans to President Idriss Deby last December. In retaliation, he ordered the closure of Chad’s new $4,2-billion pipeline unless he was paid $100-million by the Exxon- Mobil-led consortium holding his share of the proceeds. After a rebel attack on the capital two weeks ago, the president says he does not see why he should not spend the money on arms. He has given the consortium until the end of the month to cough up.
Years of corruption, nepotism and instability in neighbouring Sudan have produced a bewildering array of enemies for Deby ahead of Wednesday’s elections. His cordial relationship with Sudan, which helped him gain power in a coup 16 years ago, soured after Sudan accused him of providing arms and bases for two rebel groups in the Darfur province. Many of the Sudanese rebels are Zaghawa, the same ethnic group as Deby and his inner circle. Now Deby accuses Sudan of funding the United Front for Change (FUC) rebels in Chad in retaliation.
”They are mercenaries, not rebels,” he told reporters this week, flanked by heavily-armed bodyguards. But another insurgent group — which includes defectors from the president’s elite guard unit and his twin nephews — says it is fighting Deby because he has not done enough to support his kinsmen in Sudan. Last year, the American administration accused Sudan of collaborating with Arabic-speaking militias to commit genocide against ”African” tribes.
Observers also say that Deby’s decision to run for a third term has upset many of his inner circle who had designs on the country’s oil wealth and the presidency.
Chad did not begin producing oil until 2003. Although 2005 production was a modest 250 000 barrels per day, the freshness of the fields and the uncharted areas of desert have attracted great interest from investors, notably American giants ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil and Malaysia’s Petronas.
In 2004, Chad had the fastest- growing economy in the world. However, little money has trickled down to the population. In the heart of the capital, crowds of children hawk bags of peanuts on dusty street corners. Most will not live to see 45; with an average wage of less than a dollar a day, few can afford healthcare. Transparency International rates the country alongside Bangladesh as the most corrupt in the world. Since gaining independence from France 46 years ago, power has yet to change hands through the ballot box.
”This government is not a democracy and these elections will not be fair,” insists Lol Mahmat Choua, a former president, who heads the largest opposition group. ”This is just about covering the eyes of the international community.” Although publicly committed to peaceful dialogue, Choua says corruption and cheating have left rebels little alternative but to resort to violence. Like all Chadian opposition groups, Choua’s party is boycotting the elections.
Observers say that even if Deby is overthrown, the oil wealth means that it is unlikely that the rebels will be able to cooperate in forming a government or hold elections as promised.
”The FUC [rebels] is a very, very loose alliance of Chadian opposition groups that was architected by Khartoum,” said Colin Thomas-Jensen, a Washington-based analyst at think-tank International Crisis Group. ”If Deby falls from power, continued conflict is likely as opposition groups jockey for position … Chad could easily and quickly become a base used by government-backed militias to launch attacks on rebels based in Darfur.”
Neither of the two main rebel groups had a clear majority constituency in Chad, he added. A rebel victory could degenerate into anarchy reminiscent of 1979, when 12 separate factions struggled to control the country. Bullet holes pockmark the older buildings in the capital; the attack two weeks ago added a fresh smattering across the walls of the National Assembly. After so many defections, witnesses said soldiers wore red armbands to overcome the difficulty of distinguishing government forces from rebels.
For now the capital is calm, but there are frequent reports of rebel attacks from the east. The town of Adre is heavily fortified as the gateway from Sudan to the capital. When the defence minister visited this Monday, French troops escorted him, reinforcements waiting under the mango trees just outside of town. But as soldiers and rebels battle for control of towns, Janjaweed bandits are moving into the countryside.
Although the Chadian rebels have largely stuck to their promises not to target civilians, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimates that more than 65 000 Chadians have fled fighting in the east, joining more than 200 000 refugees from neighbouring Sudan. ”We seem to be the victims of the Sudanese government and the Chadian government,” said Seid Brahim Mustapha, the Sultan of Dar Sila, where many villagers have sought refuge. ”There is a political reason for this. It is a provocation to destabilise the country.”
Civilian abductions
Fourteen-year-old Haroun Abdullah was in the middle of an Arabic lesson when the rebels arrived. ”I could not run, they caught me inside the school,” he said quietly, eyes downcast. ”They had knives and sticks. Fifteen students were taken from my class.”
The children were just a handful of thousands of Sudanese who have been abducted from refugee camps in Chad and forced to undergo military training and indoctrination. Although the exact number of abductees is unknown, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees puts the number at about 4 700.
Most were taken over a month ago from the camps of Treguine and Bredjing, when unidentified men spent three days going from tent to tent looking for potential fighters. Women who tried to cling on to their men were beaten back mercilessly.
Hawa Moussa’s husband is among the hundreds whose fate is unknown. After militias killed her parents and sisters, Moussa, her husband and six children fled across the desert by donkey to join over 200 000 refugees seeking sanctuary in Chad. Last month, a group of men came to their house to persuade him to fight. When he refused, they tied him up and carried him off. ”Until now he has not come back,” said his wife desperately, their youngest child wailing on her back. ”When I went to the police to complain, they refused to listen. When I insisted, they chased me away — the police said ‘that is not our responsibility.”’
Moussa does not know who is holding her husband. There are four main rebel groups operating along the chaotic border between Chad and Sudan, two armies and an unknown number of militias.
Among the dusty tents and straw shacks of the refugee camps in Chad, the handfuls of frightened people do not even know who is attacking them any more. Most of the refugees who managed to escape agree that their kidnappers spoke with Sudanese accents, but were unable to say which rebel group they represented. Many of those taken say they saw people tied up and left in the sun for days, or witnessed beatings.
”Four men came to my brother and said: Tell your sister her husband is dead. We buried him ourselves,” said Fatima Abakr, sitting under a plastic tarpaulin. She tells her story in dignified, measured tones, but lines of worry are etched across her forehead. Both her brother and husband were among those taken; her brother later escaped, but the family has held funeral rites for Mohamed Yaya Abakr, the father of her four children.
Like many of the refugees, Abakr’s story points to complicity on the part of local Chadian authorities. Police assigned to guard the camps say they noticed nothing unusual and have received no complaints. ”We do find it very suspicious that thousands of refugees could be forcibly marched off in the span of one weekend and local authorities would be unaware of what was happening,” said Matthew Conway of the UNHCR. ”To what degree there was complicity is not yet clear.”
Humanitarian agencies are concerned that the forced recruitment could be used as a pretext to attack the camps. Some of the refugees were so frightened that they spent several nights sleeping in the bush after they escaped. — Katharine Houreld