Chad’s Deby slams EU force for not halting rebels
June 16, 2008 (N’DJAMENA) — Chadian President Idriss Deby accused a European Union military force in the east of his country on Monday of “closing its eyes” to attacks by rebels who have captured several towns in a fast-moving advance.
Deby’s sharp criticism of the European force (EUFOR), which has a United Nations mandate to protect nearly half a million civilian refugees in Chad, followed a statement from the rebels saying they had seized the eastern town of Biltine.
It was the third town to be attacked in three days by the insurgents, whose columns of armed pick-up trucks have pushed westwards from the border with Sudan into eastern Chad, where EUFOR troops are protecting a string of refugee camps.
Deby has long accused eastern neighbour Sudan of backing his rebel foes. Sudan denies this, but has accused Chad of supporting Sudanese rebels who attacked Khartoum last month.
In a broadcast to the nation, the Chadian leader said his government had requested protection from the international community and had been happy to receive the EU military contingent when it deployed earlier this year.
“But we’ve been surprised to see that, in its first hostile test, this force has rather cooperated with the invaders, allowing humanitarian workers’ vehicles to be stolen and their food and fuel stocks burned and closing its eyes before the systematic massacre of civilians and refugees,” he said.
“We have the right to ask ourselves about the effectiveness of this force, of the usefulness of its presence in Chad”.
A EUFOR spokesman in Paris said he had no comment on Deby’s criticism. There has been only limited confirmation from independent sources of the scale of the rebel attacks or the identity or number of casualties.
EUFOR’s commanders have always said the more than 3,000 European troops would only protect civilians and would not get involved in the conflict between Deby and his armed opponents.
Deby said the rebels were “criss-crossing the eastern bush,” adding that “their motorised columns avoid military camps so as to attack only isolated locations without military garrisons.”
He denounced what he called an “international plot” to plunge his country back into civil war, but did not elaborate.
U.N. AGENCY SUSPENDS ACTIVITIES
In February, former colonial ruler France strongly backed the Chadian president when he survived an earlier rebel assault on the capital N’Djamena in the west. Deby has ruled Chad, a minor oil producer, since seizing power in a 1990 revolt.
During a weekend visit to Ivory Coast, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said France “has not intervened and will not intervene” in the latest fighting in Chad.
France has warplanes and troops in Chad under a cooperation accord and French soldiers make up more than half of EUFOR.
After the rebels’ statement that they had captured Biltine, just over 90 km (55 miles) north of east Chad’s main city of Abeche, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said it was halting all its activities at refugee camps in the east.
Security sources in Abeche, who asked not to be identified, said rebel fighters had been seen in Biltine. They briefly seized two other eastern towns at the weekend but left them quickly, part of a hit-and-run strategy.
“As of Monday afternoon, UNHCR had to suspend all activities in its 12 refugee camps in the east due to the rapidly deteriorating security situation,” Annette Rehrl, UNHCR’s spokeswoman in eastern Chad, told Reuters.
The camps house around 250,000 Sudanese refugees who fled the conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region. UNHCR’s suspension of activities would also limit the help it could give some 180,000 displaced Chadians sheltering at sites in the east.
The 15-nation U.N. Security Council condemned the rebel offensive. In a unanimous policy statement, it demanded armed groups “cease violence immediately,” and called on states in the region to cooperate to end the groups’ activities.
N’Djamena was calm on Monday, but the U.S. embassy sent non-essential staff and family members over the southern border to Cameroon. Government offices, markets and banks stayed open.
(Reuters)