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Brothers at war in Chad and Sudan
bbc.co.uk ^ | 19 June 2008 | Mark Doyle

Posted on 06/20/2008 8:45:25 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

The border region between Chad and Sudan has become the focus of numerous wars and is the site of one of the world's most serious humanitarian crises.

Cross-border fighting, as well as internal civil wars in both countries, have caused some 2.4m people to flee their homes in recent years.

The two countries have become "brother enemies" and they are neighbours with many common traits.

Both regimes came to power in military coups; both oppress their civilian opponents and both have recently discovered and exploited significant quantities of oil which have made their elites rich.

About two million people have been displaced by rebel activity and government repression in the Sudanese region of Darfur, and around half a million Chadians and Sudanese refugees are also homeless in eastern Chad.

I recently visited both sides of the frontier, accompanying a fact-finding tour by the United Nations Security Council which touched down in Fasher, one of the main cities in Darfur, and in Chad's eastern capital Abeche.

The diplomats also visited camps for refugees and displaced people in both countries.

Everywhere we went we saw evidence of the heady mixture of military might and dispossessed people which typify war zones.

In Fasher, the white UN plane we travelled on shared a runway with powerful Russian-made Hind helicopter gunships and Antonov transport planes used by the Sudanese Air Force

In Abeche, we saw the new base of a European military refugee protection force, Eufor, as well as meeting a variety of Chadian soldiers, militiamen and armed police.

Fleeing

Everywhere we saw the pathetic shelters of the war-displaced and the refugees who suffer at the hands of the armies and rebels of the region.

Recent fighting in the border area - the latest involved Chadian rebels fighting in areas north and south of Abeche with government soldiers - has exacerbated the already acute humanitarian crisis in the area, with more people fleeing and the movements of aid workers restricted.

Eufor is dominated by French troops but also includes Irish and other European soldiers.

It has been mandated since early this year to protect the homeless Chadians and Sudanese living in camps along the Chad side of the border.

It is an extremely sensitive mission because Chad and Sudan regularly accuse each other of backing the others' rebels.

Independent observers say the mutual accusations are probably true.

Some analysts (including some close to the Sudanese government in Khartoum) have accused Eufor of harbouring a bias towards protecting the Chadian government in N'Djamena.

They say Eufor's French component is allied to the French military contingent which has a separate bilateral defence pact with N'Djamena.

But Eufor says it is neutral, and others say France only dominates the force because no other European nation would supply sufficient troops and equipment necessary to protect the Sudanese refugees and internally displaced Chadians.

Tit for tat

The wars in Chad and Sudan are deeply intertwined.

Chadian rebels almost took N'Djamena in February before they were repulsed by forces loyal to the embattled Chadian President Idriss Deby.

Mr Deby accused Sudan of being behind the attack.

Ironically, President Deby is reported to have received Sudanese support for his original coup d'etat against former Chadian President Hissene Habre in 1990.

Authors Alex de Waal and Julie Flint report in their recently published book Darfur: A New History of a Long War that Khartoum had several motives for backing Mr Deby, including hoping for a friendly and indebted government on its vulnerable western border.

They may have got that in the early 1990s, but as Mr Deby's power base has narrowed over the years, with defections to rebel ranks, he has accused Sudan of backing these rebels and relations between the two capitals have hit a new low.

A few months after the February raid on N'Djamena, a near-mirror image event took place.

Sudanese rebels reached the edge of Khartoum, almost crossing a bridge from the twin city of Omdurman which leads into the city centre itself.

Khartoum subsequently mounted a propaganda display of military items it said had been captured from the rebels.

The captured military vehicles and uniforms, the government said, proved Chadian involvement in the attack.

Contradictions

African and Arab ethnic groups straddle the common border between Chad and Sudan which was drawn up more for the convenience of French and British colonial powers than out of any long term concern for the local populations.

This has contributed to many apparent contradictions.

Ethnic and tribal groupings are still powerful in both Chad and Sudan.

Historically, one of the strongest border tribes, in military terms, is the Zagawa.

Mr Deby is Zagawa, but so are many of his opponents who have defected to Chadian rebel ranks.

The Zagawa are also significant players in the Sudanese rebel groups opposed to the Sudan's government.

And to add to the complications a key Zagawa warlord, Minni Minnawi, was recently co-opted from the Sudanese rebels to become a presidential adviser.

No-one ever said these wars were simple.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: africa; darfur; eufor; france; mohammedanism
Chad leader slams EU force for not halting rebels - 17 Jun 2008 - N'DJAMENA (Reuters) - Chadian President Idriss Deby accused a European Union military force in the east of his country on Monday of "closing its eyes" to attacks by rebels who have captured several towns in a fast-moving advance.

Deby's sharp criticism of the European force (EUFOR), which has a United Nations mandate to protect nearly half a million civilian refugees in Chad, followed a statement from the rebels saying they had seized the eastern town of Biltine.

It was the third town to be attacked in three days by the insurgents, whose columns of armed pick-up trucks have pushed westwards from the border with Sudan into eastern Chad, where EUFOR troops are protecting a string of refugee camps.

Deby has long accused eastern neighbour Sudan of backing his rebel foes. Sudan denies this, but has accused Chad of supporting Sudanese rebels who attacked Khartoum last month.

In a broadcast to the nation, the Chadian leader said his government had requested protection from the international community and had been happy to receive the EU military contingent when it deployed earlier this year.

"But we've been surprised to see that, in its first hostile test, this force has rather cooperated with the invaders, allowing humanitarian workers' vehicles to be stolen and their food and fuel stocks burned and closing its eyes before the systematic massacre of civilians and refugees," he said.

"We have the right to ask ourselves about the effectiveness of this force, of the usefulness of its presence in Chad".

A EUFOR spokesman in Paris said he had no comment on Deby's criticism. There has been only limited confirmation from independent sources of the scale of the rebel attacks or the identity or number of casualties.

EUFOR's commanders have always said the more than 3,000 European troops would only protect civilians and would not get involved in the conflict between Deby and his armed opponents.

Deby said the rebels were "criss-crossing the eastern bush," adding that "their motorised columns avoid military camps so as to attack only isolated locations without military garrisons."

He denounced what he called an "international plot" to plunge his country back into civil war, but did not elaborate.

1 posted on 06/20/2008 8:45:25 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Tailgunner Joe
“African and Arab ethnic groups straddle the common border between Chad and Sudan which was drawn up more for the convenience of French and British colonial powers than out of any long term concern for the local populations.”

Oh will these people ever get over it...!? Like this in any way excuses genocide? When the colonial powers did their bidding they assumed that what was good for the colonial powers was good for the local peoples. QED.

2 posted on 06/20/2008 8:52:39 AM PDT by vimto (To do the right thing you don't have to be intelligent - you have to be brave (Sasz))
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To: vimto

Most enemies at one time or another are/were “brother enemies” that share common culture, language, religion, etc...

Pakistanis-Indians
Serbs-Croats
Shiites-Sunnis
Ethiopian-Eritreans
Chinese-Japanese
Germans-French


3 posted on 06/20/2008 9:10:48 AM PDT by PGR88
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To: vimto
Rent and watch "Darwins Nightmare" for a good insightful look at how the UN feeds and flames these wars in Africa.

European (now Chinese too) companies, arms dealers and the key local African thugs are making out like bandits while they take natural resources from the continent leaving the innocent locals in their squalor.

4 posted on 06/20/2008 9:26:29 AM PDT by stravinskyrules (Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?)
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To: vimto
well, this separation of groups into two nations does cause problems -- remember the German problem (with Germans spread across all of Eastern Europe) before WWII? Or the current Balkan issues? Or the Lowland Scottish.

Similarly, in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Pashtuns were separated across the Durand line.

Then in rwanda and Burundi -- BOTH nations have Tutsis and hutus: I wonder why they were separated into two nations.
5 posted on 06/20/2008 11:22:38 AM PDT by Cronos ("Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant" - Omar Ahmed, CAIR)
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