by Ahmed-Rufai

When President Idriss D�by of Chad won the May 22, 2001 presidential elections, Chadians who accused him of electoral fraud challenged him. The allegations included widespread intimidation of voters and the shifting of some polling stations to the homes of the ruling Mouvement Patriotique du Salut party officials. 

French and Francophone observers accepted the results. But the World Bank, a crucial partner in Chad�s petroleum project, was less willing to dismiss electoral irregularities and found itself caught between its oil and political interests.

Since the 1980s, the United States has been critical of Libyan involvement in Chad. When the then French state-owned Elf-Aquitane, now privately owned TotalFina Elf, pulled out of Chad several years ago, the country�s oilfields fell into the hands of U.S.-based ExxonMobil Corporation. American interest was then shifted from Libya to oil investment. The French, meanwhile, concentrated  interest in the Sudan where a greater potential was seen, especially due to Washington�s attitude toward the Sudanese government. Relations with France, which eased Mr. Deby into power and helped him topple his predecessor, Hissene Habre, have been touchy. Franco-Chad relations worsened with the expulsion of the French ambassador in March 2000. France still maintains a military presence in Chad, although its weapons supply to the ailing Chadian military has been scanty.

The question of oil

Chad�s oil is in the Doba Basin, where a consortium of foreign investors, led by ExxonMobil, is engaged in a petroleum project. Following the questionable May electoral results, plus President Deby�s arbitrary ruling style, local and foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) mounted opposition to the Doba Basin project and raised anxiety over the future of the venture.

The World Bank opted to support the project and then worked to steer the project through the opposition from the NGOs. Officially, Exxon decided to go ahead with the project.

However, since the NGO pressure laid emphasis on the project�s environmental impact, and the project had reached the point when significant expenditures must be committed, ExxonMobil was compelled to begin urgent and intensive talks with its consultants.

When southern opposition figure Ngarley Yorongar of the Federation Action pour la Rebulique (FAR) protested his loss in the election, he was arrested and badly beaten. He still maintains an implacable opposition to the Doba oil project, and the situation has strengthened other southern rebel groups.

Another crucial issue is the project�s financial impact. Mr. D�by is determined to control the revenue from the 200,000-barrel-a-day project, as far as he can. However, having put up some of the cash, the World Bank must keep the project looking clean and was displeased when Mr. Deby spent $4.5 million of a $25 million signature bonus at the end of 2000 on arms for a campaign against former defense minister and now rebel leader Youssouf Togo�mi and his Mouvement pour la D�mocratie et la Justice au Tchad (MDJT).

The MDJT mounted its military campaign against the government in 1998, allegedly with the support of Libya.  Mr. Gadhafi made a recent official visit to the Chadian capital Ndjamena in July.

Libya fought a long battle with Chad over the Aouzou strip in the 1970s and was in opposition to leader Goukouni Weddeye, and his Front de Liberation Nationale (Frolinat). Mr. Weddeye was replaced by Hissene Habre under whom Mr. Deby served as chief of staff. Mr. Gadhafi is currently being lobbied by Chad�s Foreign Minister, Mahamat Salah Annadif, and Mr. Deby�s brother Daoussa Deby in the campaign against the MDJT.

The MDJT is for now preoccupied by lobbying for its sympathizers claiming political asylum in Europe. Some of these Chadian asylum seekers were expelled from Britain in late August. In Paris, MDJT spokesman Kailan Ahmed issued certificates for asylum-seekers under the watchful eyes of, but not harassed by, the French Direction de la Securite Territoriale.

President Deby has maximized his gains from supporting Washington after Sept. 11 and has shrewdly positioned himself as anti-Islamist. In spite of his continual attack on Islamic groups in the country, he has, for years, maintained an ambiguous position on that question in an attempt to maintain cordial relations, especially with Sudan.

In mid-September, the Gabonese-based politico-military Coordination des Mouvements Arm�s et Paris Politiques du Tchad (CMAP) kicked out Mr. Goukouni Weddeye and his Front de Liberation Nationale (Frolinat).

Mr. Weddeye is alleged to have contacted President Deby via Chadian exiles in Benin and the U.S.  CMAP�s head of external relations, Djimadoum Ley-Ngardigal, claims that Mr. Deby wants to bring exiled movements into this year�s legislative elections in order to purge them. 

The Doba project opposition and the political opposition groups are perhaps not the worst nightmare for Mr. Deby. Such title goes to human rights issues. Constitutionally, he cannot be re-elected after his term ends. While out of office, he would be open to prosecution on any charges brought against him. He has already been accused in a book by Francois-Xavier Verschave, president of AgirIci/Survie, a French NGO that is considering prosecuting Mr. Deby for charges of crimes against humanity.

Mr. Deby�s predecessor, whom he ousted in 1990, was on Oct. 16 accused by Amnesty International of gross human rights violations. The report titled, �The Habre Legacy,� contained allegations of hundreds of killings in 1984 in the south. As Mr. Habre�s chief of staff, Mr. Deby was at the time the effective ruler of the region.

Mr. Habre has lived in Dakar, Senegal, since his overthrow. In April, President Abdoulaye Wade announced that he had asked Mr. Habre to leave. But Chadian victims of his rule, fearing he would move out of the reach of an extradition request, appealed to the United Nations Committee Against Torture. 

The Committee called on Senegal not to expel the former president, but to keep him in the country unless he was extradited.  Mr. Wade told a Swiss journalist at the end of September that if a country such as Belgium wanted to try the former leader, �I see no problem,� but stressed that he would not keep Mr. Habre in Dakar forever.