Rebels in eastern Chad (Photo: Reuters)
Is there an end coming to the Sudan/Chad proxy war? Perhaps, and that may be a good thing in the long run, but in the short run the people of North Darfur are bearing the brunt of changing calculations by the ruling regimes in Khartoum and N’djamena. The African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) last week issued an urgent warning about attacks on civilians by the Chadian opposition forces operating in North Darfur. These troubling developments may be in response to the much rumored rapprochement between Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and Chadian President Idris Deby.
A Sudanese delegation last week traveled to N’djamena, Chad, to continue bilateral discussions on ending the proxy war between the two countries. These talks—which began in October—allegedly aim to create a “framework for joint patrols on their shared borders” and to normalize diplomatic relations. The United States has welcomed the dialogue as “a key element in advancing the Darfur Peace Process.” This reading is dead-on. Just as important though, the international community and the United States must offer support for the implementation of commitments made by both Chad and Sudan, while at the same time speaking out about any human rights abuses committed by all armed forces in the region.
The Small Arms Survey provides a helpful background to the tensions and hostilities between Sudan and Chad:
Throughout the 1990s Déby was a loyal ally of the regime in Sudan. He consistently refused to supply aid to Sudanese rebels—whether from Darfur or South Sudan—despite requests to do so since the early 1990s. But from 2003 he was unable to stop the two rebel movements in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), from using Chad as a rear base, recruiting combatants even among the Chadian Republican Guard (a pillar of his regime) and garnering support among the Chadian Beri, including those close to the government.
…Déby’s inability to prevent those close to him from supporting the Darfur rebels weakened his credibility among power-brokers in Khartoum. In response, starting in 2003, Khartoum incorporated Darfur based Chadian opposition elements into the janjawid…When these groups were not fighting alongside the Sudanese army in Darfur, they launched periodic attacks on Chadian territory.
In 2004 Khartoum started asking the numerous rebel Chadian factions to unite. From 2005, Déby began a rapprochement with Darfur rebel groups (SLA–Minni Minnawi and JEM), in exchange for their commitment to aid in fighting Chadian rebels on Chadian soil. The situation deteriorated rapidly .An attack on the border down of Adré on 18 December 2005 by the Rassemblement pour la démocratie et les libertés (RDL), a Chadian rebel movement made up of Tama led by Captain Mahamat Nour Abdelkarim, marked a turning point. Déby now realised that Sudan was decisively supporting Chadian rebels against him. While the rebels did not manage to take Adré, the raid allowed Mahamat Nour to display his strength and later assume the leadership of the Sudan-supported rebel coalition, the Front Uni pour le Changement (FUC). From this point onwards Déby actively supported the Darfur rebels.
In the last two years, this proxy war has included rebel offensives on both capitals. Two months ago, the UN Panel of Exports Report identified the Sudan/Chad hostilities as a key component of the Darfur ongoing crisis, noting that they serve as a chief “impediment to the political process that also has a negative impact on the settlement of the conflicts between Chad and the Chadian armed opposition groups and between the Sudan and JEM.” In the last month, in fact, Chadian President Idris Deby has both bombed rebel forces and offered to make peace with them.
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