US concerned at reports Sudan helping Chad rebels
April 19, 2006 (KOU KOU ANGARANA, Chad) — The U.S. is concerned over reports that Sudan was helping rebels who launched an unsuccessful attack on Chad’s capital in an effort to oust President Idriss Deby last week, the American ambassador said Wednesday.
“We condemn all efforts to take power by force,” Ambassador Marc Wall said during a tour of volatile western Chad from where rebels launched their pre-dawn raid on N’Djamena. “These reports that Sudan was indirectly or directly aiding the rebels are very troubling for us.”
Thursday’s rebel attack has shaken Deby’s government and, with the rebel United Front for Change regrouping in the countryside, the threat of a violent overthrow of the government has not diminished.
Deby repeatedly has accused Sudan of hiring mercenaries to overthrow his government. Sudan has denied this and has long accused Chad of supporting insurgents in its volatile Darfur region, where Arab militias and African rebels have fought for nearly three years. Some 180,000 people have died in the region that borders eastern Chad.
The Sudanese government has denied any involvement with the Chadian rebels and Deby, a co-mediator with the African Union in efforts to negotiate a peace deal for Darfur, has withdrawn from that peace process.
“Both Sudan and Chad must refrain from any action that violates the border and we are working hard on putting a stronger United Nations force together to secure the area,” based in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region, Wall said.
“The United States will be a principle supporter of peace and security in the region,” he said.
At a briefing on Tuesday, U.N. diplomats said Security Council ambassadors were told that 125 new vehicles transported well-armed rebel fighters in new uniforms 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the Sudan-Chad border to N’Djamena. Council members want to know who supplied the vehicles, weapons and uniforms, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.