CHAD

In just under 30 months, Chad has become a typical oil-producing, African country, with allegations of rampant corruption, an ongoing fight with the World Bank and a burgeoning rebellion along the eastern border while the population remains dirt poor. Chad was praised by many as having a model oil programme when the Central African country began exporting oil in October 2003.

Soldiers and police in Chad have thwarted an overnight bid to overthrow President Idriss Deby Itno’s regime and kill him by shooting down his aircraft, the government spokesperson said on Wednesday. Communications Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor told a press briefing that ”a coup attempt was foiled”.

Chad’s government on Friday accused pro-government Sudanese militia of carrying out new cross-border raids into the east in ”flagrant violation” of a peace agreement. At the end of 2005, Chad’s government accused Sudan of trying to ”destabilise” it with cross-border raids, and declared itself to be in a ”state of belligerence” with Khartoum.

Chad’s parliamentarians have voted to extend their own terms in office by over a year, saying the cash-strapped country cannot hold legislative elections along with the presidential poll later this year as scheduled. But opposition politicians say the law — introduced by President Idriss Deby’s Cabinet — is a deliberate move by Deby to keep close allies in the government in troubled times.

The government of Chad said on Saturday it has taken note of the decision by the World Bank to suspend loan payments, but called for reconsideration and said it is ready to continue talks. The bank has suspended payments to Chad in response to the African country’s modification of a bank-mandated law governing the use of its oil wealth.

Chad’s President Idriss Deby late on Monday accused neighbouring Sudan of preparing a new ”aggression” by Chadian rebel groups operating out of Sudanese territory, after an attack on the eastern border town of Adre on December 18. Such an attack is being planned at El Geinena in western Sudan, Deby declared.

Chadian President Idriss Deby on Thursday accused his Sudanese counterpart of plotting to destabilise his country, blaming Khartoum for a rebel attack on the frontier town of Adre. ”The attack against the locality of Adre was not the doing of presumed rebels, but was direct aggression by [the] Sudanese defence minister,” Deby said.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, who heads the world body’s refugee agency, arrived in Chad’s capital on Friday from Sudan’s conflict-wracked Darfur region across the border. He is scheduled to hold talks with President Idriss Deby as part of a 10-day assessment devoted to the conflict in Darfur.

Famine is a threat in almost half of Chad because of destructively heavy rains after a long period of drought, a food security official at the health ministry, Tao Bouhouraye, said on Wednesday. ”We can’t speak of famine in Chad, but we can talk of a risk of famine in the Sahel zone and in the centre of the country, as well as … in the west,” he said.

Chad’s security forces have arrested 15 people and recovered assault rifles, knives and machetes they suspect were used in fighting in which 12 people were killed and 15 others wounded. A dispute between a local resident and a trader from a neighbouring community sparked off widespread fighting on Saturday.

The line of electricity pylons stops abruptly the minute you step foot outside Chad’s brand new oilfield. Beyond its gates, 99% of Chadians have no access to electricity and get by using gas lamps and firelight. The Chadian government has promised to change all that with its new-found oil revenues. But can this central African country, ranked the third-most corrupt nation on the planet by the World Economic Forum, pull it off?

The world must move quickly to avoid a repeat of the Rwandan genocide in Sudan’s western Darfur region, Chadian President Idriss Deby said on Wednesday. As Deby spoke, United States Secretary of State Colin Powell and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan kicked off separate visits to Sudan, both focused on Darfur.

Troops in an army barracks in Chad’s capital, Ndjamena, mutinied overnight, but their insurrection was swiftly quelled without violence, a source said on Monday. The mutiny was apparently triggered after pay and bonuses were frozen when the Chadian president found the army included ”non-existent troops”.

Talks aimed at ending the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, which the United Nations says is the world’s worst humanitarian and human rights catastrophe, inched forward in the Chadian capital, Ndjamena, on Monday. More than 10 000 people are thought to have died in just more than a year of skirmishes in Darfur.