French Recon Soldier Killed On Chad-Sudan Border

EU Chad force to recover missing soldier's body (By Moumine Ngarmbassa)

N'DJAMENA, March 5 (Reuters) - The European Union's military force in Chad is sending a team to Sudan to recover a body which officials there believe is that of a French soldier killed after he strayed over the border, the EU force said on Wednesday.

If the soldier is confirmed dead, it will be the first fatal casualty suffered by the EU force (EUFOR) since it started deploying in late January on a U.N.-backed mission to protect refugees and civilians in conflict-torn eastern Chad.

• The French special forces soldier went missing on Monday after he and a colleague accidentally crossed the Sudanese border in a vehicle near Tissi in the remote region near the Chad, Sudan and Central African Republic frontiers.
• They were fired on by Sudanese troops.
• The other French soldier was wounded but was able to rejoin EU forces.
• France and the EU have apologised to Sudan for the frontier violation.
• EUFOR spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Poulain said Sudanese authorities had informed EU officials that their forces had found a body in the area where the clash took place.
• The body was being transported to the Sudanese capital Khartoum.
• Ali al-Sadig, a spokesman for Sudan's Foreign Ministry, confirmed the body was in Khartoum and said the French would "confirm whether it is the missing soldier or not".
  

Monday's incident is embarrassing for EUFOR, as its mission in Chad does not include trying to secure the long, porous Chad-Sudan frontier, and much less confronting Sudanese troops.

• The force's mandate is to protect some half a million Sudanese refugees and Chadian civilians who have fled violence spilling over from Sudan's Darfur region.
• "It's unfortunate this happened now, but one of the goals of this reconnaissance is precisely to check out the terrain, especially the frontier, because the maps are rather imprecise," Poulain told Reuters by telephone. He said the EU soldiers' crossing into Sudan had been accidental.
• It had occurred in a rugged bush area with no clear demarcation between the converging frontiers of Chad, Sudan and Central African Republic.

One of the patrol vehicles, which Poulain said carried EUFOR markings, crossed into Sudan without realising it. "It was halted by Sudanese forces and when the others in the patrol came to rescue it, they came under fire," Poulain said.

The French soldier wounded in the clash found his way back to Chadian territory, while the other went missing. His body was thought to be the one recovered by the Sudanese forces.

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Sudan's Final Solution for Darfur is Underway this week in Chad....What will the World do?

In anticipation of the UN Forces deploying in Sudan, the Sudan has launched its final solution against the African's in Darfur.....

1. The Sudan government supported the move of friendly Rebels into Chad which cut off UN aid to 160,000 Darfur refugees -3 Weeks ago
2. The government turned their troops loose on the Remaining Population. aledgein they are JEM Rebles.-2 weeks ago
3. They captured perhaps 800 Darfur children ages 12-18 - of child soldier age- 1 week ago-
4. In Chad, armed gunmen prevented 179 families them from getting on trucks on the Sudan border to get them to a safe Refugee Camp -3 days ago.
5. The Sudan Government is moving in now to West Darfur-this week

The refugees the Sudanese government scattered before are now at the mercy of the Chad-rebels which the Khartoum government supported -In East Chad-the Chad government is in no position to help as they are still defending their Capital in West Chad.

UN troops in Sudan (Central) already have millions to guard. There is no one left to defend the hundreds of thousands of Darfur refugees....

-Shimron

Rebel and Govermnet Forces Fighiting in Chad's Capital N'Djamena

By Nico Colombant Dakar02 February 2008

Chadian rebels have entered Chad's capital N'Djamena and are battling against army units near the presidential palace. This follows a one-week rebel offensive to topple long-term President Idriss Deby. VOA's Nico Colombant reports from our regional bureau in Dakar.

Military officials, rebels and international aid workers confirmed the fighting around the presidential palace.

• Clashes began early Saturday 20 kilometers outside the capital, before engulfing the city center.
• Residents in N'Djamena say they heard increasingly intense heavy arms fire. They say rebels occupied the east and south of the capital, and that there was fighting around the airport as well.
• An exiled rebel spokesman who has been in contact with rebels on the ground, Makaila Nguebla, says Chad's army has offered little resistance.
• He says rebels from several groups who allied themselves for this offensive were able to cross Chad over the course of one week from their bases near Sudan and enter the capital in one day.
• The rebels say that if they take over, they will impose transitional rule for two years before organizing free and fair elections. Chad has had several coups since independence from France in 1960.
• The newly-elected head of the African Union, Gabon's Foreign Minister Jean Ping, said he was very worried by the situation. He also said the African Union would not accept an unconstitutional change of government.
• President Deby has been in power since 1990. Several years ago, he changed the constitution to allow unlimited presidential terms. He went to the scene of fighting Friday, before returning to the capital. Military officials who spoke to media did not immediately disclose his location.
• His rule has been marked by accusations of corruption in the newly-emerging oil sector, and lately by defections from his clan-based inner circle to various rebel movements.
• The French army, which has a permanent military base in Chad, has been giving the Chadian army logistical and surveillance support, but has said it will not enter into direct combat with rebels.
• The fighting has led to the postponement of the deployment of a planned European Union peacekeeping force to secure people displaced from the conflict in Chad, as well as fighting in nearby Central African Republic, and from Sudan's warring Darfur region.
• Border regions at the intersection of these three countries have been wracked by different rebellions, attacks by vigilante groups and inter-ethnic communal fighting in recent years.
  

Goukouni Oueddei's Interactions with Chad

Goukouni Oueddei (born 1944) is a Chadian political figure, son of Oueddei Kichidemi, derde of the Teda.

Goukouni, from the northern half of the country, entered politics in the late 1960s as a militant in the National Liberation Front of Chad (FROLINAT) led by Abba Siddick.

FROLINAT resented the political dominance enjoyed by southerners under the presidency of François Tombalbaye and advocated the participation of central and northern peoples. After Tombalbaye's assassination in 1975, tensions between the two geographical halves escalated into a convoluted civil war that involved several Chadian political groups, Libya, the United States, and France.

The conflict was to last through the 1980s. Goukouni viewed the dictatorial Tombalbaye regime as an instrument of continued French hegemony in Chad.

Goukouni was installed as interim Chadian head of state on 23 March 1979. He was acclaimed President of the Transitional Government of National Unity (GUNT), which sought reconciliation between warring factions, on 10 November 1979....

...The GUNT was, however, overthrown by Habré loyalists on 7 June 1982. Goukouni fled into Algerian exile, Acyl died in an unrelated accident, and Kamougué lost much of his base as Habré consolidated his power into a centralized military dictatorship.

By 1983, Goukouni returned to Chad with substantial Libyan assistance to fight the Habré régime through guerrilla warfare. He was the most recognized Chadian oppositionist, whose views carried significant weight, though Habré granted only limited concessions in an attempt to reconcile with Goukouni. The former president reportedly demanded a new constitution and liberalization of political party activity, which Habré did not accede to.

Goukouni met with current Chadian president Idriss Déby on April 17, 2007, in Libreville, Gabon, to discuss ways to end the current civil war. Saying that Chad was in grave danger, Goukouni expressed a hope that he could use his "moral authority" to save it. He said that in turn he wanted to be allowed to return to Chad from exile in the future, and he said that Déby had agreed to that.[1][2] On April 19, the leaders of two rebel groups rejected Goukouni's offer to mediate.[3]

Goukouni returned to Chad on July 30, 2007, along with about twenty other exiled opponents of the regime, for a discussion with Déby regarding the rebellion and how to resolve the situation. Goukouni and the others left Chad and returned to Libreville later on the same day.[4]

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Failed Attack by Sudan-Backed FUC Rebels (April 2006)

Chad's president has claimed a victory over attacking rebels, after intense fighting that authorities say has left 350 people dead. But who are the insurgents, and what do they want? Joe Bavier looks into the question.

In the capital, N'Djamena, around 150 men were paraded before journalists in a public square Friday. Chad's government says they are rebel fighters, who were captured during Thursday's fighting in the capital. Chadian officials said the men were mercenaries, allegedly hired by the country's eastern neighbor, Sudan. Chad's president, Idriss Deby, has repeatedly accused Khartoum of backing the rebels.

And on Friday, Chad announced it was severing diplomatic ties with Sudan. Sudan denies giving any support to the rebel group, United Front for Change, known by the French acronym FUC.

Experts say the group's origins are far from clear, but it is believed to include many former members of Chad's army. Rebels began launching attacks late last year along the Sudanese border. In December, a movement, known as the Rally for Democracy and Liberty, attacked the town of Adre in open fighting with the Chad army. Soon after that, the Rally for Democracy and Liberty announced the formation of the FUC, a grouping of nine armed movements with a shared goal: the overthrow of President Deby. Chad has been wracked by civil war, coup attempts and insurgencies for more than three decades. Mr. Deby, himself, came to power in a 1990 coup.

Many of those involved in the FUC have close ethnic ties with Mr. Deby, with some coming from his own ethnic group, the Zaghawa. But Chad expert Richard Barltrop says the motivators in the latest violence are more complex than ethnic rivalries.

"The explanation probably lies more on political and economic factors than tribal and clan," he said. "Certainly, it's true that the Zaghawa aren't monolithic, and, therefore, you should not expect uniform loyalty among the Zaghawa."

President Deby recently pushed through changes to the constitution that allow him to run for a third term in office. The move was criticized by opposition leaders, who have vowed to boycott the polls, scheduled for early May.

And, the FUC has vowed to topple Mr. Deby before the election. Analyst Barltrop says it could be that the president has simply collected too many enemies during his long stint in power.

"Given that Deby has been in power for coming on 16 years now, he will have generated quite enough opponents for political and economic reasons [that have] to do with the share of power and economic positions," he added.

Chad recently became an oil exporting nation, a fact some experts say has raised the economics and political stakes.

Finally, Barltrop says, President Deby's claims that Sudan is backing the rebels should be taken seriously. The president, himself a former rebel leader, toppled his predecessor, Hissene Habre, in 1990, launching a rebellion from Sudan's western Darfur province that most analysts agree was likely supported by Khartoum.

"What's happening now has happened before in Chad," he explained. "It is quite similar to political reversals in the 1980's. The similarity to 1990 is uncanny."

Beginning Sunday, the rebels led an advance, traveling from strongholds in the east, to arrive to within striking distance of N'Djamena late Wednesday. Fighting in the Chadian capital began before dawn Thursday, and lasted several hours, before President Deby claimed a victory for government forces.

The Rest @ VOA