Chad (merged thread)

[Jedburgh]

ISN Security Watch, 4 Feb 08: Chad, Sudan, and a Risky Western Game

....At stake is Chad's oil, which came on stream in 2003, granting Deby lavish revenues to fund his counterinsurgency. Deby has manipulated Chad's constitution to allow him a third term as president, and his government is notably corrupt, abrogating a World Bank-led scheme to have oil revenues spent on health, education and invested for the future.

Two of the main rebel factions are headed by former Deby apparatchiks and family members, who doubtless have designs on the oil largesse. As does the NCPs patron in Beijing, which has largely stood by Khartoum throughout the Darfur catastrophe, despite the bad publicity in the run-up to this years' Olympic Games.

With south Sudan likely to secede in 2011 and take with it much of Sudan's oil - though north-south borders have not been decided, as the NCP seeks the best line possible - new oil sources via a client regime in Chad would be welcomed in Beijing, as a sanction-covered Sudan is out of bounds for western petroleum investment. South Sudan would not be out of bounds, however, and Beijing would have to contend with western oil company rivals in Juba.

Chad provides an alternative, and Deby himself has sought to curry Chinese favor by switching diplomatic allegiance from Taipei, which in hindsight looks like a pre-emptive move to show the Chinese that they did not need to depose him to access Chad's oil.....

[JJackson]

Jedburg thanks for that link. This the best analysis of the current situation I have seen. It seems (well to me anyway) balanced in that it shows none of the players are really in a position to adopt the moral high ground and covers the major factors governing the murky sets of allegiances. Obviously things have moved on a bit, both on the ground and politically, as the security council have effectively given the nod to France to give more support to Deby - if they want to. Although this may have the short term effect of getting EUFOR in country I dread to think what effect it may have for their security in the longer term.


France faces tough choices over Chad
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7227290.stm

[tequila]

Alex de Waal's blog: Making Sense of Chad

Last weekend’s battle in the Chadian capital N’djamena came as no surprise. For the last two years, the Sudan government has been trying to overthrow the Chadian president, Idriss Deby, using Chadian rebels as proxy forces. The three armed groups involved in the latest attack were all extensively armed by Sudanese Security, which has the clear intent of cutting off the support that Deby is giving to Darfurian rebels, especially the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), which has recently been on the offensive in Darfur. The timing is no surprise either. In the next few weeks, a European Union protection force (EUFOR) was due to deploy to eastern Chad and north-eastern Central African Republic. While EUFOR’s mandate (given by the UN Security Council) is for impartial civilian protection, it is a substantially French initiative, and seen by all in the region as a military protection for Deby. Khartoum and the rebels wanted to strike first.

The Chadian civil war is often described as a “spillover” from Darfur. That is a simplification. Darfur’s war actually began as a spillover from Chad more than twenty years ago and the two conflicts have been entangled ever since. Many of the Arab militia fighting in Darfur are of Chadian origin, and many of the rebels similarly served in the Chadian army or militia ...

Excellent post worth reading in full, as is anything de Waal writes about Darfur and the Horn.