Chad holds CEMAC meeting, says unable to attend AU mini-summit

Dec 31, 2005 (NDJAMENA) — Leaders of a six-member central African grouping are due to meet here on January 4 to discuss the growing tensions between Chad and Sudan, the Chadian government announced Saturday.

Chadian President Idriss Deby called for the extraordinary summit of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) after meeting his counterpart from the Central African Republic (CAR) Francois Bozize on Monday.

Apart from Chad and the CAR, CEMAC also includes Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea Gabon and the Republic of Congo.

Chadian Deputy Foreign Minister Lucienne Dillah told a news conference Saturday that because of the CEMAC meeting, Chad would be unable to attend a separate African Union mini-summit in Libya on Darfur, a region in western Sudan bordering on Chad that has been in the throes of a devastating civil conflict since early 2003.

On Friday, Chad made fresh claims that Khartoum supported Chadian rebels, alleging the insurgents were given air time on Sudanese television and that Sudanese nationals were among prisoners taken after a recent rebel raid on a Chadian border town.

“It seems clear that Sudan is arming, financing and equipping Chadian rebels on its territory to destabilise Chad,” Dillah told parliament in Ndjamena.

Several new rebel groups have sprung up recently in eastern Chad, a region inundated by about 200,000 refugees from the civil war in Darfur, and Khartoum had accused Ndjamena of deploying planes and troops on its territory.

(AFP/ST)