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The death of Chad's President Idriss Deby
Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment
- The story: Chad’s President Idriss Deby was killed on the frontline against rebels in the north. He was battling rebels belonging to the group 'FACT' (the Front for Change and Concord in Chad). Instead of handing power to the leader of parliament, as required by the constitution, the army put in place a military council headed by Mr Déby’s 37-year-old son, Mahamat Idriss Déby. The African Union (it has a “no coup” policy) didn't say much. France, Chad’s main Western ally, turned a blind eye, too.
- Points to note: The news of his death came only the day after he was proclaimed the winner of a presidential election that had given him a sixth term in office. He had been ruling Chad for three decades, since 1990, taking power on the back of a coup. His rebel forces overthrew then-President Hissene Habre, who was later convicted of human rights abuses at an international tribunal in Senegal. Deby was a major French ally in the fight against Islamic extremism in Africa.
- Chad hosts a large French army base and is the headquarters of Operation Barkhane, an effort to fight jihadists in the Sahel involving 5,100 French troops.
- Its small army punches well above its weight. During the cold war, Chadian troops driving Toyota pickup trucks repelled the tanks of Muammar Qaddafi, a Soviet-backed Libyan dictator.
- In 2015, after the jihadists of Boko Haram had overrun north-eastern Nigeria, it was Chad’s turbaned warriors who ejected them from the main towns. This year, when France was searching for allies in its fight against Islamic State and other jihadist groups in the Sahel, it was Chad that answered the call, sending 1,200 battle-hardened fighters into the border area between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.
- FACT: The Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT), is a political and military organisation in the north of Chad, with the goal of overthrowing the government of Chad.
- Story of Chad: It is a large, landlocked state in north-central Africa, named after Lake Chad. It is the second-largest lake in Africa (after Lake Victoria) and its basin covers parts of Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. The Sahara Desert roughly covers one third of the country, and the south has large expanses of wooded savannas and woodlands. Chad is also a part of the Sahel region, a semiarid region of western and north-central Africa extending from Senegal eastward to Sudan. It forms a transitional zone between the arid Sahara (desert) to the north and the belt of humid savannas to the south. Chad became an oil-producing nation in 2003, with the completion of a USD 4bn pipeline linking its oilfields to terminals on the Atlantic coast.
- History of Chad: Chad’s previous dictator, Hissène Habré, was especially brutal. He seized power in 1982, after a Western-backed rebellion, and ruled for eight years. He is said to have ordered the deaths of 40,000 of his people. Many died in an underground prison known as La Piscine, a converted underground swimming pool where inmates were tortured, raped and beaten to death.
- Future of Chad: It is the constant deferral of democracy that has brought Chad to its current sorry state. It is fighting rebels, who are now thought to be less than 300km from the capital. Analysts fear the army will splinter, leading to civil war. Some liken Chad to Libya, which collapsed into carnage after the death of Qaddafi. Instead of backing the next dictator, Chad’s friends should be pushing for talks between the government, rebels and, crucially, the civilian opposition and for a quick restoration of the constitution followed by clean elections.
- India-Chad relations: Chad is a member country of International Solar Alliance (ISA), an India-France initiative. It is a member also of the TEAM-9 initiative (Techno Economic Approach for African Movement) comprising eight West and Central African countries seeking to benefit in technical and economic spheres through cooperation with India. The increase in the import of crude from Chad is the main reason for the significant increase in the bilateral trade (USD 513.59 million in 2018-19). India offered a Line of Credit of USD 27.45 million for establishment of Solar PV Module Manufacturing Plant at N’djamena. India also implemented a Technical Assistance Programme (TAP) for cotton in six African countries, namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Malawi, Nigeria and Uganda, from 2012 to 2018. Many civilians and Chad public servants have been offered courses and provided training under ITEC (Indian Technical Economic Cooperation).
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