Chad orders gun clampdown, peace force calls mount
Nov 14, 2006 (N’DJAMENA) — Chad imposed a crackdown on illegal firearms on Tuesday as a state of emergency took effect to curb ethnic violence that has killed hundreds of people and fuelled calls to send U.N. peacekeepers to the region.
African Union chairman Denis Sassou Nguesso, president of nearby Congo Republic, joined a chorus of demands for a U.N. force to protect civilians in Chad and Central African Republic from violence spilling over from Sudan’s Darfur region.
Sudan has resolutely refused a U.N. force for Darfur.
“We agree with the idea of sending U.N. troops to ensure security on the borders of Chad and Central African Republic,” Sassou told reporters in Paris after meeting French President Jacques Chirac.
The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said the inter-communal clashes in eastern Chad risked spiralling out of control.
“UNHCR urges the international community to quickly mobilise a multi-dimensional presence in Chad to help protect hundreds of thousands of Chadian civilians and Sudanese refugees, as well as aid workers trying to help them,” it said.
Chad’s government imposed a state of emergency from midnight on Monday across large swathes of the central African country, including eastern zones where attacks on villages by armed raiders on horseback this month have killed hundreds.
The measures gave regional governors wide-ranging powers to ensure security, including a ban on unauthorised firearms. Chad shares with Sudan a warrior tradition and a history of violent clan warfare where the bearing of arms is common.
“Those illegally holding weapons of war, whoever they are, must immediately hand them over to the competent authorities. Those refusing will risk exemplary punishment,” Prime Minister Pascal Yoadimnadji said in an address to the nation.
But new media restrictions, including the advance censorship of private newspapers, drew the ire of press freedom watchdogs.
“Turning the entire private media into a scapegoat for ethnic violence is outrageous,” said Julia Crawford of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
“SPIRALLING OUT OF CONTROL”
President Idriss Deby’s government, already facing an armed insurgency he accuses neighbouring Sudan of backing, says repeated cross-border raids by Sudanese Arab militias known as Janjaweed are turning Chad’s Arab and non-Arab communities against each other. Khartoum denies promoting the violence.
“These inter-communal clashes, whose victims run into the hundreds, exceed all proportions and throw into peril national cohesion … Entire towns have been burnt and livestock decimated,” Yoadimnadji said.
The attacks follow the pattern of violence in Darfur where since 2003 Arab militia allied to government troops have targeted non-Arab tribes in their campaign against armed rebels.
“We fear the inter-communal hostilities are spiralling out of control and could threaten the entire southeastern region of Chad,” UNHCR said.
It said at least 20 villages south of the eastern town of Goz Beida had been attacked since Nov. 4 by raiders — almost always identified by victims as Arabs and often long-standing neighbours.
“They are often well-armed, particularly with Kalashnikovs; on horseback, camelback or in trucks; sometimes in military attire, sometimes in civilian attire,” UNHCR said.
Since Nov. 7, some 5,000 newly displaced Chadians had converged on a site for internally displaced people in Habile, 45 km (28 miles) southeast of Goz Beida.
That brought to around 68,000 the number of Chadians displaced by violence in the east over the year. More than 200,000 Sudanese refugees from Darfur also shelter in Chad.
(Reuters)