Sudan backs Chad, Central Africa rebels to destabilize the region

April 22, 2006 (N’DJAMENA) — A prisoner captured during a failed rebel attack on Chad’s capital said Saturday that he belongs to a 1,000-strong Central African rebel group that he says has joined forces with Chadian rebels and is backed by Sudan.

The African Union sent a fact-finding mission on Friday to look into Chad’s claims that Sudanese-backed mercenaries and a small number of Chadian rebels attacked N’djamena April 13, killing at least 350 people. Sudan has denied any involvement.

President Idriss Deby claimed this week that Sudan has ambitions to destabilize central Africa and eventually control all of sub-Saharan Africa. There have been reports that opponents of Central African Republic President Francois Bozize’s government are gathering in Sudan’s western region of Darfur, which borders the Central African Republic.

Sudan has not responded in recent days to the charge it wants to destabilize the region, but in the past it has denied Chad’s accusations of involvement in the eastern Chad rebellion. Instead, Sudan has accused Chad of harboring Sudanese rebels fighting government-backed militias in its Darfur region.

Chadian officials led by Foreign Affairs Minister Ahmad Allam-mi on Saturday showed the African Union team several of what Chad claims are the rebels’ desert-color pickups, some mounted with rocket launchers or machine guns, that have been parked at the National Assembly building the rebels attacked.

Talking to The Associated Press before the AU team’s visit to police holding cells in N’djamena where some 200 captured rebels are held, Central Africa Republic rebel Adum Rakiss said his group joined forces with the Chadian United Front for Change five months ago.

Rakiss, a 43-year old former trader whose country borders Chad and Sudan, said that he had been to Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, along with Chadian rebel leaders, to get funding for their rebellions from Sudanese officials.

Rakiss said one reason they decided to work together was, “the aid given to the other side and our side was not enough.”

Rakiss, who said he held the rank of colonel, said the arms they used came from China, where a brother of Chadian Mahmoud Nour, one of the United Front for Change leaders, is based. Rakiss could not say whether the Chinese government gave the arms, or they were bought illegally.

Rakiss’ claim, which has not been independently verified, points to a possible alliance of Chadian and Central African rebel groups that have nothing in common except the determination to overthrow their respective leaders, who have supported each other in the past.

Chad, an impoverished arid, landlocked country about three times the size of France where oil was recently discovered, has rarely known peace since independence from France in 1960. Other countries often played a part in the violence. Deby himself seized power in 1990 with help from Libya and Sudan, and Libya has invaded Chad more than once.

Rebels of the Chadian United Front for Change group, which Chadian officials call mercenaries, reportedly made the April 13 attack on N’djamena after a 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) drive to the capital from their base in Chad’s east, where the border is porous.

Both the rebels and Deby say intelligence from France was crucial in helping government troops repulse the rebels.

Paris-based political scientist Roland Marchal said that the 38-month old conflict in Darfur has catalyzed the rebellion in eastern Chad and could also do so in Central Africa Republic, but not beyond those two countries.

The Darfur conflict, which the rebels say is for greater autonomy for the region, has seen tens of thousands of people killed, over 2 million made homeless in Sudan and another 200,000 fleeing to Chad.

Many of the Darfur rebels and Chadian rebels are from the same tribe, the Zaghawa, who found themselves in different countries when colonialists drew borders in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some of Deby’s domestic problems stem from a sense among some in Chad he has done too little to help Sudan’s Zaghawa.

Marchal said that to end the Chadian rebellion will require France, which is a key backer of Deby, to convince the president that he needs to negotiate with his opponents.

“France should convince Deby to respect his own promises and open a national dialogue with the opposition, both civilian and military. That won’t bring a wonderful result but might be one of the last chances to avoid a major crisis in Chad and the Central Africa Republic,” Marchal said in an interview by e-mail.

(ST/AP)