Chad says it foiled plot to kill President Deby

Mar 15, 2006 (N’DJAMENA) — Chad said on Wednesday it had foiled a coup attempt by a group of soldiers who had been plotting to shoot down President Idriss Deby’s plane.

Information Minister Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor said two high-ranking plotters, a colonel and a commander, had been captured while others were fleeing toward the east of the country with government forces in hot pursuit.

Deby, himself a former army commander who seized power in the arid, landlocked oil producer in a 1990 revolt, has recently faced a spate of military desertions and attacks from the east by groups of anti-government rebels.

He has repeatedly accused neighbor Sudan of backing efforts to overthrow him, a charge denied by Khartoum. Conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region has spilled over into Chad.

Doumgor said the coup plotters had planned to try to shoot down Deby’s plane as he returned from a summit of central African leaders held in Bata, Equatorial Guinea this week.

Diplomats said the president, apparently tipped off about the plot, had left the summit early on Tuesday.

“Our defense and security forces moved first to stop the advance of these elements yesterday … and foil them,” Doumgor said in a statement.

France, Chad’s former colonial ruler, and the African Union condemned the attempted coup.

It occurred weeks before May 3 presidential elections in which the 53-year-old Deby is widely expected to extend his 16 years in power.

“Basically, the calendar is really driving events … the armed groups bent on toppling him don’t want him to get to the elections,” Suliman Baldo, Africa Program Director of the International Crisis Group think-tank, told Reuters.

Doumgor said the masterminds of the coup were former high-ranking civilian and military supporters of Deby who were living in the United States, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Sudan.

These included brothers Tom and Timam Erdimi, former aides of Deby and members of his ruling Zaghawa clan who were sidelined by the president after a failed army mutiny in 2004. They said in December they were joining anti-Deby rebels.

Doumgor also accused Seby Aguid, a former general who deserted with other military officers in February.

Deby’s grip on power has been eroded by desertions by members of his Zaghawa ethnic group, some of whom blame him for not doing enough to help fellow Zaghawa kinsmen in Darfur who have been attacked by Sudanese government-backed Arab militias.

But Baldo said the alliance of rebel groups opposing the Chadian president was split by infighting and power struggles.

“Deby could still hang on,” he said.

Baldo said France, among other foreign governments, was concerned that if Deby was suddenly deposed, this could lead to upheaval in Chad, compounding the existing conflict in Darfur.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said: “We are following the situation with the greatest vigilance, given that Chad is going through a difficult situation because of the Darfur crisis.”

Earlier, a Chadian rebel group fighting to overthrow Deby said it had tried to launch a coup against him from within the armed forces but that the plot had been betrayed.

“We tried to smoke out the president from N’Djamena but our plan was declared by some secret agents and then our people had to cancel the plan and get out of the town,” Yaya Dillo Djerou, leader of the Chadian rebel group SCUD, told Reuters.

Dillo said he was speaking from eastern Chad, where SCUD and other groups of Chadian rebels and army deserters have announced the formation of an anti-Deby coalition.

(Reuters)