Irish soldiers to leave for Chad tonight

(Pat Nash left, to command EU force in Chad and Central African Republic)
Dublin, Ireland: Feb. 20th. (The Irish Times) - Fifty members of the Irish Army's elite Ranger Wing are due to leave for Chad tonight after weeks of delays. The mission has been delayed twice over a lack of medical and logistical resources, and more recently because the rebel advance on the capital N'djamena closed the main airport. The main contingent of 400 Irish troops is due to be in place in Chad in mid-May as part of the 3,700-strong EUfor peacekeeping force. They will protect refugees in Chad and those displaced by the conflict in Darfur in western Sudan. About 200 EU troops, including eight Irish soldiers, are already on the ground, having arrived prior to the rebel offensive. Representatives of the Chadian rebel alliance warned last week Irish troops will be considered a hostile force if they deploy alongside French forces.

On their arrival, the Rangers face a difficult 900km journey by land across Chad's arid interior to the eastern regions of Abeche and Goz Beida. About 400,000 refugees from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region are crammed into camps along the border. Deployment of the 14-nation EU force began last week with Swedish Special Forces and French logistical units arriving at the reopened N'Djamena airport. Lieut Gen Pat Nash, the Paris-based Irish commander of EUfor said an information campaign aimed at explaining the role of Eufor was already under way in Chad.

The Irish Anti-War Movement will hold a protest outside the Dáil this afternoon over the deployment. It claims the Irish Army is helping support "a French colonial adventure to prop up the corrupt undemocratic regime" of Chad's President Idriss Déby. It also accuses Ireland of taking sides in a proxy war that is raging between Sudan and Chad. "It is utterly wrong and contrary to Ireland's tradition of military neutrality to put Irish troops in harms way by sending them into this situation," said IAWM chairman Richard Boyd Barrett. "The Government is putting the lives of Irish troops at risk to serve the interests of French colonialism and a corrupt and undemocratic regime." © 2008 ireland.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink

UNHCR Evacuates Staff from Chad Border after Air Strikes in Darfur

ABECHE, Chad, Feb. 19 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency on Tuesday morning evacuated staff from a section of eastern Chad's border with Sudan after earlier air strikes against targets just across the frontier in Darfur. The nine staff members were caring for newly arrived Sudanese refugees in the Birak area. "It is extremely frustrating to have to withdraw staff from the border... It is not only sad, but frustrating, because we cannot provide the protection assistance we wish to give to these newly arrived refugees," said Jorge Holly, head of the UNHCR field office in the eastern Chad town of Guereda." I want to send my staff back to the border as soon as the security situation allows; there is so much we have to do for these people," Holly added. The team left hours after a group of seven Sudanese refugees from West Darfur turned up at Birak health centre and asked the UNHCR staff for help. The refugees were carrying a 55 year-old woman whom they said had lost both her legs during an air raid Monday by Sudanese Antonov planes on the Aro Sharow camp for internally displaced people (IDP) in West Darfur. She later died. One of the refugees told UNHCR protection officers in Birka that the planes started bombing the site at about 10 in the morning. "We counted 18 bombs in total, six directly into the IDP camp," the refugee reportedly claimed. UNHCR staff in Birak heard bomb explosions coming from Sudan on Monday.

"This morning's bombing was a terrible experience," said a UNHCR protection assistant, one of the nine evacuated to Guereda. "We could hear them fall and we felt the battle on the ground. It was so close. "There are normally 4,000-5,000 IDPs at Aro Sharow, but there are unverified reports that most had fled after bombings around Abu Suruj, Siliea and Sirba in West Darfur earlier this month. The refugees who carried the injured woman to Birak said more people would now be fleeing to Chad.As of yesterday, refugees from Darfur were still crossing into Chad. Some of those who arrived a week ago told UNHCR protection staff that over the past few days they had tried to go back at night to Sileah and Sirba to collect food they had buried to prevent it from being looted. "We wanted to go back to collect our food, but we were stopped by the Sudanese military," a female refugee alleged. Others claimed that young women were being frocibly prevented from leaving Sirba and Sileah since the recent attacks started on February 8, causing an estimated 10,000 people to flee across the border into eastern Chad. The UN refugee agency on Tuesday reiterated a call for the new arrivals to be relocated away from the border to safer areas deeper inside Chad. "For protection and security the refugees need to be moved urgently away from the border. We are still discussing the transfer to existing camps near Guereda with the Chadian authorities," spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis said in Geneva. "The women and children we talked to want to be moved to safety, they want to be transfered to a camp," added the protection assistant in Guereda.

Before the latest development, UNHCR successfully conducted an assessment mission at the weekend to the Birak and Korok areas to locate newly arrived refugees from West Darfur. The refugee agency now estimates there have been at least 10,000 new arrivals since February 8. Most of the refugees are in Figuera, with smaller numbers in Birak, Djange and Korok. Several children were reunited with their families in Figuera after earlier being separated from their kin. Refugees in the town took the children into care and put out the word that they were safe and could be collected. UNHCR is registering vulnerable cases such as unaccompanied and separated children, pregnant women, the elderly and sick refugees. Some cases have been transferred to the hospital in Guereda. The agency is also interviewing women who have suffered sexual abuse. Some refugees have brought supplies with them from Sudan, others have nothing. The majority of the new arrivals had already been internally displaced in West Darfur.

On the other side of Chad in neighbouring Cameroon, meanwhile, UNHCR on Saturday began moving Chadian refugees from the Madana transit site in the border town of Kousseri to Maltam 1 camp, located 35 kilometres away.So far, some 1,400 refugees have been transported to the new camp. They were among up to 30,000 Chadians who fled fighting earlier this month in the streets of the Chad capital, N'Djamena, between government troops and rebels.A pre-registration exercise undertaken on Saturday by UNHCR teams and the Cameroon Red Cross showed that 20,000 people want to be relocated to Maltam 1. Refugees said they still did not feel it was safe to return to N'Djamena. Chad declared a state of emergency last week following the unrest.
By Annette Rehrl In Abéché, Chad
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink

Chad - A Regime Saved, for the Moment

For France and the UN, better the devil they know than the rebels they don't
Nairobi, Kenya: Feb. 7th. (Economist) - A FEROCIOUS rebel attack this week on Chad's capital, Ndjamena, seems to have been turned back by the country's president, Idriss Déby. The local Red Cross says hundreds of civilians have been killed. Rotting bodies are being gathered from the deserted streets. The city centre has been looted and thousands of Chadians have fled across the Chari river into neighbouring Cameroon. But it was a close-run thing. Mr Déby was holed up in the presidential palace, rejecting French offers to airlift him out, and was saved only by the determined resistance of his army's elite units. Defiant, the president has dismissed the idea of negotiations with the rebels, who have retreated to positions around the capital. “They don't exist any more,” says a government official. “With whom should we sign a ceasefire?”

Chad is one of Africa's poorest and least stable countries and Mr Déby one of the continent's worst presidents. He has taken advantage of the fighting to arrest the country's peaceful opposition politicians. Human-rights campaigners fear they may be next. Still, Mr Déby is almost certainly right in saying that the rebellion was organised more in neighbouring Sudan than in Chad. The Sudanese government armed the rebels and sent them on their way. There may also be truth in his claims that Sudanese Antonov bombers strafed the town of Adre in eastern Chad. Now he is hopeful that France, the former colonial power, will stand by him. This may seem odd. Though Mr Déby was groomed by France and studied at the École Militaire in Paris, he is exactly the sort of African ruler that France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, wants to distance himself from. Mr Sarkozy says he is opposed to the old French habit of propping up dubious African regimes. “Françafrique”, as the policy was called, was meant to support African development by guaranteeing stability. Instead, it often provided carte blanche for leaders to become dictators and bleed their people dry.

Mr Déby is one such. The World Bank thought it had an agreement with him to spend Chad's new-found oil wealth on education and health. Instead, Mr Déby used a weak parliament to divert money to the military and enrich his narrow tribal elite. He changed the constitution to allow himself a third term in office. Indeed, the last time he was in big trouble, in 2006, the then French president, Jacques Chirac, wasted no time in ordering fighter jets to swoop over a rebel column, deterring an earlier assault on the capital. So why is Mr Sarkozy backing Mr Déby? Simply because the alternative would be worse. Mr Déby's demise would probably mean a freer hand for Sudan in eastern Chad and the ravaged Sudanese region of Darfur. That, in turn, would worsen the already dire humanitarian situation on the border between the two countries.

Keeping Mr Déby in office, on the other hand, should make it easier for a 3,700-strong European (in essence, French) peacekeeping force to deploy in eastern Chad to prevent the frequent incursion of Sudanese-backed militias, known as the janjaweed, where they have been attacking the Darfuri refugees. And besides, Mr Déby had said he will pardon six French aid workers convicted of trying to fly 103 children out of the country. The Sudanese government may have feared that the EU force would strengthen Darfur's rebels, some of whom are backed by Mr Déby. If so, it may have miscalculated. Mr Sarkozy has hinted that France might use military force against the Chadian rebels, should they attack Ndjamena again. It would not be a Gaullist action of old, for France has already won the approval of the UN Security Council, which worries equally about the humanitarian calamities in Darfur and eastern Chad.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink

A Spreading Conflict In Central Africa

Feb. 5th. (The Economist) - Bodies lay in ditches and on the streets; the injured nursed their gunshot wounds at home, too terrified to venture to hospital. Abandoned cars and burned-out tanks were scatted on the roadways. Phone lines were cut. Hundreds of thousands of refugees were said to be pouring from the city, many seeking sanctuary in camps and across the border in Cameroon. Several hundred expatriates, fleeing as bullets rang out, were whisked away by French soldiers. The chaotic and bloody scenes in Ndjamena, Chad’s capital, in the past few days are sadly familiar. The conflict which brought rebels to the capital, in an effort to overthrow the government of Idriss Déby, is an extension of long-running violence in neighbouring Sudan.

By Tuesday February 5th the rebels and government soldiers had, apparently, called a halt to the fighting, with only scattered gunfire reported in the city. Over 1,000 rebels had arrived on the edge of the capital a few days earlier, and then all but overran it, before being forced back by government troops possibly—though the French deny it—with air-support from the former colonial power. The rebels may threaten another attack, but are said to have withdrawn from the capital for now. It is unclear how many died in the past few days. It is not the first time that rebels in Chad have launched an assault on Mr Déby's government, but it is the closest they have come to toppling it. A similar attack in 2006 petered out when disorganised rebels in the capital fled—this time it appears that the fighters were better prepared and more expertly led. That may be the result of guidance from the rebels' patrons in Khartoum, the capital of neighbouring Sudan. Sudan's government, despite denials, is said to want Chad's government overthrown because of Mr Déby's support for rebel fighters in Darfur, in the west of Sudan. Chad is home to at least 200,000 refugees from Darfur, and to some bases used by Darfuri rebels.

The violence this weekend in Chad's capital on the western edge of the country—and also in smaller towns farther east—is really a symptom of a conflict spreading from Darfur which has already caused instability in neighbouring Central African Republic and in the east of Chad. The timing of this particular outbreak of hostilities may be explained by efforts to install a European Union peacekeeping force in Chad in an effort to contain the conflict in Darfur. The force of 3,700 soldiers EU troops, plus a few hundred UN policemen, was ready to deploy but has been prevented from doing so by the latest fighting. Rebels—and their backers in Sudan—may have decided to act before the Europeans at last got their boots on the ground.

It is possible that the latest violence may actually encourage the active deployment, sooner rather than later, of European soldiers in Chad. France's government now says it is willing to intervene with soldiers to tackle any new rebel attack on the capital. On Monday the UN Security Council agreed that France, which anyway has some 1,100 soldiers in the country (usually kept in barracks) and some aircraft, should be allowed to intervene. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said on Tuesday that “If France must do its duty, it will do so.” It may be that by threatening to intervene forcefully, Mr Sarkozy has made it less necessary to do so. Ideally, however, a diplomatic solution is needed. African diplomats are beginning to shuttle between neighbouring countries in an effort to mediate between rebels and the Chadian forces. The price of conflict is evidently high: a $300m aid programme in Chad risks being disrupted; humanitarian efforts for Darfur are largely conducted through Chad.

The plight of those displaced by fighting in Darfur is likely to worsen as food-aid deliveries are suspended. But the temptations for the rebels, and Sudan, are high too. Chad is oil rich and potentially a serious threat to the dominance of Sudan's government in Darfur. The rebels argue, too, that Mr Déby's government is corrupt and dictatorial, far from a model of benign rule for Africa. Nobody believes that the rebels are fighting for better government, but nor is peace and wise rule on offer from the government of the day.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink

Chad’s Capital Eerily Quiet as Rebellion Falters

The remains of a burned vehicle in Ndjamena, Chad. The city’s streets were virtually empty after recent fighting left at least 1,000 people wounded and thousands had fled to Cameroon. (Pascal Guyot/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)
NDJAMENA, Chad: Feb. 6th. (NY Times) — A rebellion aimed at toppling Chad’s president appeared to falter Tuesday as France declared that it would intervene to protect the Chadian government if called upon, and a Darfur rebel group with close ties to the Chadian government said it had sent troops to help bolster the president, Idriss Déby. French military officials in Chad said the rebels were far from Ndjamena, the capital, and the streets of the city were quiet. For the first time since the weekend, the sound of automatic gunfire disappeared. But the streets were virtually empty — many thousands have fled into neighboring Cameroon, and most people who remained stayed indoors, according to French soldiers who patrolled the city. The bodies that had been putrefying in the streets were removed, but evidence of the previous day’s gun battles remained in the blackened husks of pickup trucks used by government and rebel fighters. Recent fighting in the city has left at least 1,000 people wounded, a spokesman for the International Red Cross said Tuesday, citing reports from a team that visited several hospitals in Ndjamena, but it could give no estimate of the numbers killed by the fighting and cautioned that many of the wounded might not have been able to reach hospitals.

French support, along with help from fighters of a Sudanese rebel group with ties to Mr. Déby’s family, strengthened the government’s position markedly. Responding to questions from journalists in France as to whether French soldiers would intervene to help Mr. Déby’s government, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said: “If France must do its duty, it will do so. Let no one doubt it.” A commander from the Justice and Equality Movement, a Darfur rebel group that has been fighting Sudan’s government and its allied militias in the war-ravaged region for the past five years, said some of the rebel troops had left their base in eastern Chad, along the border with Sudan, to reinforce Chadian government troops. The addition of Darfur rebels to the fray adds new confusion to a tangle of conflict in Chad and Sudan, two of the most violent African countries. They have accused each other of fostering rebellions against them, and events in recent days point to evidence that both are probably right. The Chadian rebels once advancing on Ndjamena have found shelter in Sudan, something that would certainly require Sudanese government approval, analysts and diplomats say. The Darfur rebels operate openly in eastern Chad, though this is the first time they have publicly admitted to helping Mr. Déby militarily.

Despite what was apparently the retreat of the rebels, the situation remained tense. Government television and radio remained off the air, and cellphone networks that were taken down to hamper rebel communication were still off Tuesday. At least four leading opposition figures have been arrested in the past few days, including Ngarlejy Yorongar, a member of Parliament who once lost a presidential election to Mr. Déby. Reed Brody, a lawyer at Human Rights Watch, said government soldiers had burst into Mr. Yorongar’s house, shot and wounded his driver and hauled off Mr. Yorongar, one the government’s most strident critics. Three other opposition leaders were also arrested, and none have been heard from since Sunday, human rights workers said. “These opposition leaders are at grave risk of being tortured or forcibly disappeared,” Tawanda Hondora, director of the Africa program for Amnesty International, said in a statement. “The Chadian government seems to be using the current conflict with the armed opposition as a cover for arresting people peacefully opposed to government policy.”

Up to 20,000 people have fled across the Chari River to the town of Kousseri, in Cameroon, according to staff members of the United Nations refugee agency, who reached it on Monday. The agency was preparing for the arrival of more refugees. Some had found shelter with relatives, others at schools, but 6,000 to 7,000 had reached a former refugee camp near the river and were the most vulnerable, most of them spending the night in the open, the agency said. Despite the lull in the fighting on Tuesday, agency staff members said civilians were still moving toward Cameroon, while others searched for food and other supplies that have become increasingly scarce and expensive. The agency said it was about to airlift 90 tons of supplies to Cameroon from Dubai and was preparing to move people to a site that can hold up to 100,000 people.
By Lydia Polgreen - Cumming-Bruce contributed reporting from Geneva, and Basil Katz from Paris.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink

Thousands Flee Fighting in Chad’s Capital

Chadians escaped into Cameroon fleeing fighting in Ndjamena. (Emmanuel Braun/Reuters)
NDJAMENA, Chad: Feb. 5th. (NY Times) — Shelling and small arms fire erupted here in this capital on Monday, the third day of fighting between government troops and rebel forces, as thousands of residents fled the city in fear, the United Nations said. Government troops struggled Monday to control Ndjamena. The Security Council demanded an immediate end to the violence, urging nations in the region on Monday to help thwart the rebels’ “attempt to seize power by force.” The fighting has raised the specter of deeper chaos in one the most war-scarred and fragile regions of the world. United Nations officials are particularly worried that the instability in Ndjamena could threaten major relief efforts elsewhere in the country.

Chad has become a temporary home to nearly a quarter of a million refugees from the conflict in the Sudanese region of Darfur, and tens of thousands more refugees from the Central African Republic, according to the United Nations. Beyond that, almost 200,000 Chadians have been displaced by fighting, much of which has spilled into the country from Darfur, making for a vast pool of desperate people who depend heavily on international aid. “They are at the end of a very tenuous aid lifeline that flows through Ndjamena,” said Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. “We are extremely concerned about the impact on that aid pipeline of extended instability.” A rebel army intent on deposing President Idriss Déby entered Ndjamena on Saturday, after days of battle a few dozen miles outside the city. The government has fought back in an all-out attempt to defeat the rebels, a coalition of three groups that have taken shelter in Sudan for the past few years. The government had earlier claimed that it had beaten back the rebels and that they had withdrawn from Ndjamena. The rebels said they had made a strategic retreat to allow civilians to flee. Fighting resumed Monday.

As gun battles have erupted around the presidential palace and across the city, the Chadian military has struggled to regain control of Ndjamena, using tanks and helicopter gunships, officials said. The rebels have fought back with automatic weapons, truck-mounted machine guns and artillery, witnesses said. The United Nations refugee agency evacuated most of its non-local staff from Ndjamena to neighboring Cameroon over the weekend on flights operated by the French military. On Monday, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees said that its staff was reporting that the situation in Ndjamena was now too dangerous for civilians to move about the city. Doctors Without Borders said in a statement Monday that it had treated 70 wounded people in the capital over the weekend, but the group noted that many hundreds of other wounded people were reported to be in other hospitals in the city. The group also said that it had been unable to reach many hospitals since roads were being blocked by the “masses of people” fleeing the city. It estimated the number of refugees in the tens of thousands.

Ndjamena residents fleeing the city were pouring into Cameroon, Mr. Redmond said, adding that United Nations workers were headed to Kousseri, a town in Cameroon linked by bridge across the Chari River to Ndjamena, to prepare for the arrival of more refugees. The Cameroon Red Cross has opened a former transit center to receive refugees in Kousseri, and the United Nations agency will reopen a field office there, Mr. Redmond said. The United Nations agency had sent two truckloads of supplies from Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé, to Kousseri but they will take at least two days to make the journey of more than 600 miles, Mr. Redmond said. Tensions have long been high between Chad and Sudan, which share a porous border along the war-ravaged region of Darfur. Chad accuses Sudan of arming rebels seeking to overthrow Mr. Déby, who has ruled Chad since he took over in a military putsch in 1990.

Sudan, meanwhile, accuses Chad of harboring and helping the Sudanese rebels who have been fighting the government and its allied militias in Darfur, a conflict that has killed at least 200,000 people and displaced more than two million. The latest violence in Chad has forced the postponement of the deployment of a 3,700-member European Union force aimed at stabilizing the tense borders between Chad, Sudan and the Central African Republic. Chad is one of Africa’s most unstable nations, its history a litany of military coups, foreign incursions and brutal dictatorship. Mr. Déby seized power from Hissène Habré, who is believed to have tortured and killed tens of thousands of people during his eight-year rule. Mr. Déby planned his insurgency while living in Darfur, just as Mr. Habré before him seized power from a base in Darfur. Mr. Déby was re-elected president in 2006 after pushing through a constitutional amendment to lift a two-term limit. Opposition politicians boycotted the election. Several rebel movements are seeking to push Mr. Déby from power. One of them is led by Timane Erdimi, a nephew of Mr. Déby.
Lydia Polgreen reported from Ndjamena and Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva. Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York, and Warren Hoge from the United Nations.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink

Fighting Rages for Second Day in Chad’s Capital

The Chadian government fought rebels on Sunday for control of the capital, Ndjamena, where bodies have been left in the streets.
CASABLANCA, Morocco: Feb. 4th. (NY Times) — Fighting raged for a second day in the capital of Chad on Sunday, with the government making an all-out attempt to beat back rebels who had overrun the capital on Saturday, Chadian officials said. The country’s president, Idriss Déby, remained defiant in the presidential palace and directed counterattacks, the officials said. The French military evacuated more than 500 citizens of France, the United States and other foreign countries as rebels fought Sunday for control of Ndjamena, the capital of Chad. The Chadian military struggled to regain control of the capital, Ndjamena, using tanks and helicopter gunships, officials said. Rebels fought back with automatic weapons, truck-mounted machine guns and artillery, witnesses said. French military officials said there was open fighting across the city, and news agency photos showed bodies in the streets. On Sunday evening, the interior minister, Mahamat Bashir, said the capital was “entirely under control. The savage mercenaries are fleeing, and our forces of defense and security are at their heels,” he said on Radio France International. “They tried to attack, but they were pushed back with the last energy, and we put them off-track once again.” Chad’s minister of mines, Gen. Mahamat Ali Abdallah Nassour, said earlier that Chadian rebels and Sudanese forces had attacked the eastern border town of Adré. Speaking on R.F.I., he called the attack a “declaration of war” by Sudan.

A rebel spokesman, Henchi Ordjo, said that Adré had been “liberated” and that rebels had also captured the northern town of Faya Largeau, Reuters reported. Another rebel spokesman, Abderaman Koulamallah, said that Mr. Déby was trapped at his presidential palace, surrounded by tanks and armored vehicles, and that the rebels controlled the rest of the capital after two days of fierce fighting, The Associated Press reported. Neither rebel claim was able to be independently verified.

Diplomats and analysts in the region worried that the escalating violence could lead to a civil war in Chad and a war between Chad and Sudan. Either possibility would be devastating to a region that was already suffering one of the world’s gravest humanitarian crises, with more than 2.5 million Sudanese and Chadians displaced by the conflict in Darfur and its reverberations in Chad. “It is a very tense moment, and nobody knows how this will play out,” said David Buchbinder, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who specializes on Chad. The French military evacuated more than 500 foreigners from Ndjamena, flying them to Libreville, Gabon, and it provided protection to the American ambassador, Louis J. Nigro Jr., and the German ambassador, Helmut Rausch, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman said. The State Department reported Sunday evening that the American Embassy had “sustained indirect fire,” but there were no reports of American casualties. Karl Duckworth, a spokesman, said that all American officials had been accounted for and that 100 had been evacuated. Mr. Nigro and a small staff remained at the airport to help Americans leave, he said.

About 1,000 foreigners remained in Ndjamena, several hundred of them at five French military camps and the rest at their homes, according to French officials. Thousands of Chadians have fled to neighboring Cameroon, crossing the Chari River in cars and on foot, Chadian officials said. The French government said that Mr. Déby planned to remain in the capital, and that there had been no discussion with French officials about evacuating him. With telephone lines down in the capital and state radio off the air, little concrete information was available about the state of battle. Reports trickled out from aid workers and witnesses using satellite phones, French military officials in communication with their forces in the country and government and rebel officials speaking outside of the country. “Small arms continue to fill the air with sounds of battle,” wrote an American aid worker, Gabriel Stauring, who was trapped in Le Méridien Chari hotel, on a blog updated via satellite phone. “Every so often we can hear a helicopter and then their guns firing upon the rebels who have now taken almost the entire city.” A French national who had been evacuated told R.F.I. that “things shook, there were a lot of shots, bullets whizzing by.” French officials said the fighting eased after dark on Sunday, as it had the previous night. They said the number of casualties among Chadian troops, rebels and civilians was unclear.

Fighting has prevented many people from getting to hospitals, and a cellphone blackout has made getting casualty estimates all but impossible. Several civilian targets have come under attack, including Le Méridien in Ndjamena, where about 50 foreigners were extricated by French soldiers and taken to a military base to be evacuated. The aid group Doctors Without Borders said that it had treated 50 wounded people in the past two days, mostly civilians, and that the Chadian Red Cross had sent 150 more victims to other hospitals in the capital. In El Fasher, Sudan, the United Nations Special Representative for Darfur, Rodolphe Adada, said in a statement that aid workers in the region had been attacked and that the attacks had “led to the crippling of humanitarian activities” there. He said that most of the United Nations staff had been evacuated from the town of Guéréda in eastern Chad. Mahamat Assileck, a spokesman in Paris for the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development, one of the three rebel groups, told Agence France-Presse on Sunday that the fighters planned to attack the Ndjamena airport within the next 24 hours. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, which has colonial ties to Chad, said the 1,500 French troops in Chad were not taking part in the fighting, although the Chadian government said French forces protecting the airport allowed it to be used as a base for Chadian helicopters. In Brussels, European Union officials decided Sunday to delay sending a peacekeeping force to Chad. Last month, the union said it would send 3,700 troops to Adré to protect civilians from the violence spreading from Darfur. The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, called for an immediate cessation of hostilities and said in a statement that he was “profoundly alarmed by the dangerous situation in Chad.”
By Lydia Polgreen. Eric Pfanner contributed reporting from London, Basil Katz from Paris, and Ginger Thompson from Washington.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink

Fighting in Chad’s Capital as Rebel Forces Storm In

DAKAR, Senegal. Feb. 3rd. (NY Times) — A rebel army swarmed the capital of Chad on Saturday, and gun battles erupted around the presidential palace, according to Chadian and Western officials, in an attack that raised the specter of deeper chaos in one the most war-scarred and fragile regions of the world. A coalition of three rebel groups that have taken shelter in Sudan for the past few years entered the capital early Saturday, after days of battle dozens of miles outside the city, Chadian officials said. The suddenness and stealth of their arrival appeared to take the military by surprise. A spokesman for the three rebel groups, Abderamane Koullamalah, said in a statement posted on a rebel Web site that they were in the capital and were “ready to facilitate, with the guarantee of the African Union, the negotiated departure of President Idriss Déby and avoid a pointless blood bath.”

But Chad’s ambassador in Washington, Mahamoud Adam Bechir, said in a telephone interview that the rebels who reached the capital were a small group that had split from the main column of rebels headed toward the city. The group had circumvented counterattacks by the Chadian military and stolen into the capital, Mr. Bechir said, but was being chased by Presidential Guard forces. “They were able to infiltrate the capital, panic the population, fire at the presidency and give the impression there is fighting going on at the presidency,” Mr. Bechir said. “But everything is under control. President Idriss Deby is in the palace. The Chadian military forces are chasing the insurgents.” He said that the airport had been closed to civilian flights and that cellphone networks had been shut down to hamper rebel communication lines. As a result, his account of the fighting could not be verified. The timing of the attack appeared to be linked to the planned arrival of a European Union force that was to begin deploying on the border in an effort to protect refugees from Darfur and eastern Chad and to prevent Chad from sliding into bloodshed, said Reed Brody, a lawyer at Human Rights Watch who has studying Chad for many years.

A vast, arid, landlocked nation in the heart of Africa, Chad has suffered through years of civil war, military coups and tyrannical rule. But with the crisis on its eastern border with Darfur and conflict over a booming oil business in the south, the country has become increasingly unstable. Ndjamena was plunged into confusion Saturday, with gunfire echoing through the streets while residents hunkered down in their homes, waiting for news. The United States, France and the United Nations made preparations to evacuate expatriates. Gabriel Stauring, an American antigenocide activist, was among about 50 people pinned down in a luxury hotel in the capital that came under heavy fire. In an e-mail message, Mr. Stauring said that French military personnel had exchanged heavy fire with rebels outside the hotel. “Bullets flew over our heads and parts of the walls and objects around us came raining down on us,” he wrote. The fighting in Ndjamena will surely further destabilize what is already one of the most volatile regions of Africa. Chad and Sudan are locked in a tangle of conflict and have traded accusations and bombs in the past four years as the conflagration in the Sudanese region of Darfur has increasingly consumed Chad as well.

Hundreds of thousands of Sudanese refugees from Darfur are living in Chad, and militia attacks from across the Sudanese border in 2006 forced tens of thousands of Chadians to flee their homes as well. Ethnic violence in Chad between Arab and non-Arab ethnic groups, echoes of the conflagration in Darfur, has forced still more to flee. Chad’s president, Mr. Déby, shares clan links to some of the leaders of the Darfur rebellion, and the rebels operate from bases in Chad with near-total impunity, which has angered the Sudanese government and raised tensions between the countries. Chad meanwhile accuses Sudan of sponsoring rebellions against Mr. Déby. The three groups that are currently attacking the capital all had bases in Sudan, according to analysts and diplomats, something that would be impossible without the tacit approval of the Sudanese government. Many advocates and analysts have worried that if the Chadian rebels take power, they would take a pro-Sudan stance and block a planned European Union peacekeeping force for Chad and Central African Republic. Mr. Brody said that many Chadians feared a violent takeover by a shadowy group of rebels, many of whom have ties to repressive past regimes. “Nobody is going to miss Déby, but these guys aren’t exactly fighting for freedom and democracy,” Mr. Brody said.

In the past, France, the former colonial power in Chad, has used its military forces in Chad to bolster Mr. Déby.But on Saturday, French troops were focused on protecting expatriates, said Capt. Christophe Prazuck, a spokesman for the French military. “At the present time, the French military forces are not involved in the fighting,” he said. France maintains more than 1,200 troops in Chad, and in the past two days added 350 more to help protect its citizens, according to French officials. The United States State Department posted a message on its Web site urging Americans to seek safety at the embassy if they wished to be evacuated. The current fighting has forced the European Union to delay its deployment of a 3,700-troop peacekeeping force to protect refugees living on borders of Chad and Central African Republic. The delay of that force is a blow to France’s ambitions to use European military power more forcefully, and senior French officials worked to keep other contributors on board. “Politically it could be a little blow for our European operation in the eastern part of Chad,” a senior French official said. “The others are totally terrified.”
By LYDIA POLGREEN
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Mozlink

KOUDJIWAI, Chad — The small plane flew in low over a scorched, peppercorn scrubland, following a broad, muddy river that was all elbows on its run to the southeast. A young man selling expensive imported gasoline in Ndjamena, Chad’s capital, where little oil revenue has reached the people. The first hint of humanity came with the appearance of an immense grid for seismic testing, laboriously traced through the brush. Finally, a lonely, hulking steel drilling platform popped into view. Chad is as geographically isolated as places come in Africa. It is also among the continent’s poorest and least stable countries, the scene of recurrent civil wars and foreign invasions since it gained independence from France in 1960. None of that has put off the Chinese, though. In January, they bought the rights to a vast exploration zone that surrounds this rural village, making the baked wilderness here, without roads, electricity or telephones, the latest frontier for their thirsty oil industry and increasingly global ambitions. The same is happening in one African country after another. In large oil-exporting countries like Angola and Nigeria, China is building or fixing railroads, and landing giant exploration contracts in Congo and Guinea.

In mineral-rich countries that had been all but abandoned by foreign investors because of unrest and corruption, Chinese companies are reviving output of cobalt and bauxite. China has even become the new mover and shaker in agricultural countries like Ivory Coast, once the crown jewel in France’s postcolonial African empire, where Chinese companies are building a new capital, in Yamoussoukro, paid for by Chinese loans. Surging Chinese interest in this continent has helped bring about what many Africans believe is the most important moment since the end of the cold war, when democracy was spreading in Africa and Western nations spoke of a “peace dividend” that might ease African poverty. That blush of interest in Africa quickly faded, though, as did several of the new democracies, and Africans and Westerners have regarded each other warily ever since. Westerners complain about chronic corruption and ineffective government, while Africans lament broken promises on aid and a hostile international economic system. The Chinese have stepped into this picture, coming to struggling countries like Chad with deep pockets, fewer demands on how African governments should behave and an avowed faith in everyone’s ability to prosper. As Beijing’s ambassador to this country, Wang Yingwu, said at his residence in Ndjamena, Chad’s capital, where the electricity repeatedly failed, “We are exempting Chadian goods from import duties.” When the interviewer noted that Chad produced almost nothing besides oil, Mr. Wang was undaunted, saying, “If they don’t produce things today, they will tomorrow.”

To help make that happen, China plans to build the country’s first oil refinery, lay new roads, provide irrigation and erect a mobile telephone network, for starters. With such intensive efforts across the continent, China’s trade with Africa topped $55 billion in 2006, up from less than $10 million in the 1980s. To achieve this growth, it has bypassed multinational institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and flouted many of their lending criteria, including minimum standards of transparency, open bidding for contracts, environmental impact studies and assessments of overall debt and fiscal policies. In some ways, the new Chinese model of doing business in Africa is a throwback to an earlier era of Western involvement that is now widely seen as disastrous. In that era, borrowing countries typically had to work with companies from the lending nation, limiting competition and giving priority to business over development. Today, China takes things even further, signing long-term deals for rights to natural resources that allow countries otherwise unworthy of credit to repay their debt in oil or mineral output. “In what manner has Africa progressed, in what sector?” said the Chadian president, Idriss Déby, referring to decades of close ties to the West. “Whatever the good will of Africa’s old friends and the old partners in its development, it has not progressed at all.” Still, major doubts hang heavily in the air. Will China’s hunger for raw materials enable this continent to take off? Or will Beijing’s willingness to spend whatever it needs in Africa, without regard to fiscal prudence, democracy, honest business practices and human rights, produce a replay of booms past, enriching local elites but leaving the continent poorer, its environment despoiled and its natural resources depleted?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Mozlink’ for any or all of the articles/images placed here. The placing of an article does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise. Mozlink