Chadian rebel leader threatens attack on oil zone

March 16, 2008 (DAKARR) — A Chadian rebel leader threatened on Sunday to attack Chad’s southern oil-producing Doba region unless France and the United States put pressure on President Idriss Deby to start a dialogue with his foes.

Timane Erdimi, head of the Rally of Forces for Change (RFC) which raided the capital N’Djamena early in February with other rebels groups, said his forces could halt oil output from installations in the south pumping up to 160,000 barrels per day.

“We can carry the war to the south … if the Americans and the French don’t put pressure on Deby to open an all-inclusive dialogue,” Erdimi told Reuters in a telephone interview.

He said the Doba basin, where U.S. major Exxon Mobil Corp heads a consortium pumping 140,000-160,000 bpd via a pipeline to Cameroon’s Atlantic coast, could become a target unless Paris and Washington did more to achieve a political settlement.

“We could quite easily halt the flow of oil,” he said.

He was speaking from the Sudanese capital Khartoum three days after Chad’s Deby and his Sudanese counterpart Omar Hassan al-Bashir signed a non-aggression pact in Dakar, Senegal in which they agreed to stop backing rebels hostile to each other.

The Chadian rebels, both Erdimi’s RFC and another group, the National Alliance led by Mahamat Nouri, say the Dakar accord does not concern them and have vowed to go on fighting Deby.

“Our military forces are inside Chad, so the Sudanese and Chadian governments can’t do anything,” he said.

The rebels besieged Deby, a French-trained ex-pilot whose forces had intelligence and logistical support from France’s military, in his palace on February 2-3 before pulling back.

The rebel coalition has since split politically, but Erdimi said they were still cooperating militarily and could strike at the oil-producing south, which has been spared attacks so far.

“The government only controls N’Djamena and the town of Abeche (in the east). That’s it,” Erdimi said.

“If we have to move, we’ll move together,” he said.

Chad’s southern oil region borders to the east with Central African Republic (CAR), whose lawless northern territory Chadian rebels have crossed through in the past to strike at N’Djamena.

“HIDDEN INTERESTS”

The European Union is deploying a 3,700-strong military force in east Chad and northeast CAR to protect thousands of refugees from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur. The rebels object to the dominant French component of this EU force, known as EUFOR, saying it will not be neutral and will help prop up Deby.

“Under these circumstances, in which EUFOR comes to the aid of Deby, we have no alternative but to fight EUFOR,” he said.

RFC leader Erdimi is a nephew of Deby and a former presidential adviser who defected to the rebels three years ago.

Erdimi said he was disappointed in the failure of France, the United States and the European Union to put real pressure on Deby to seek a negotiated settlement with his opponents.

“There are hidden interests,” he added.

He said French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government, despite protestations to the contrary, was still applying its traditional “Francafrique” policy in which France supported African leaders as it chose in its former colonies like Chad, regardless of their democratic and human rights credentials.

“The Americans say that … as long as the oil is flowing, then everything else is not their affair,” Erdimi said.

Exxon Mobil’s other partners in the World Bank-backed $3.7 billion Doba pipeline, which started pumping in 2003, are Chevron Corp, and Malaysia’s state run Petronas.

Deby’s critics accuse him of corrupt, dictatorial rule since he took power himself in an eastern revolt in 1990.

(Reuters)