Darfur In More Trouble

A crisis in Chad may mean little at first to most U.S. residents reading the news this morning. Rebel forces have invaded the capitol, and many reports have them driving the government out, putting state radio off the air, releasing prisoners, being greeted as heroes. Most recent reports are of continuing fighting, including a bombing at the Saudi ambassador's home that has killed members of his staff's family. The incidents this morning have resonance far outside one nation, Chad, as Chad has a major role in the Darfur refugee crisis.

The existing Chadian government has often been at odds with Sudan/Darfur on its eastern border, and fighting has crossed that border many times. Darfur refugees have massed in huge numbers inside Chad, and their refugee camps have been attacked from across that border.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon brought the attention of the world to the role that scarcity of resources plays in the Darfur atrocities. The connection of global warming with the crimes of genocide make me anticipate a real increase of hostilities as our West dries up. For now, it is causing another war in the volatile region.

Former French assistance has become a question under the new leadership of President Sarkozy, who has called for a ``healthier relationship,'' saying it will not be business as usual with France's old corrupt allies on the continent.

Rebels entered the Chadian capital N'Djamena on Saturday, according to a foreign resident in the city. The French and U.S. embassies were preparing to evacuate their citizens.
(snip)
** Eastern Chad's conflict is tied up with the civil war across the border in Sudan's Darfur region, where Sudanese government forces and allied mounted Janjaweed militias have fought a range of Dafuri rebel factions since early 2003.

** Some 240,000 Sudanese refugees have crossed into Chad, where they live in camps along with 180,000 Chadians displaced by violence in the border area, including raids by Sudanese Janjaweed militia and Chadian groups.

EU DEPLOYMENT

** European Union ministers gave the final green light this week to deploy 3,700 EU peacekeepers to eastern Chad with a U.N. mandate to protect the 420,000 refugees and aid operations.

** The deployment has been delayed because of the rebel advance. France, the former colonial power, which will provide the bulk of the force, has flown reinforcements to its garrison in Chad, saying the move was to protect its citizens.

** Rebels have threatened to attack peacekeepers who stand in their way and one group has declared war on foreign troops. France has warplanes, helicopters and ground troops in Chad and has provided reconnaissance and other help to Deby's army.

U.N. peacekeepers have been delayed from deploying for many months by intransigence on the part of Sudan's president Bashir. Now it looks as if the role he has played behind the scenes in supporting the janjaweed (which he denies, while his forces protect and participate in their raids) has grown. Another country's independence may well be at stake. Sudan's press reports on the hostilities on the 8th of January:

Chad’s government declared Tuesday it had a right to pursue Chadian rebels hiding in the Darfur region of neighbouring Sudan, following the bombing of rebel bases across the troubled border.

The Chadian air force carried out the bombing raids over the past two days, targetting the positions of rebels opposed to Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno, in power since 1990.

"If they (the rebels) come from Sudan it is not surprising that that we hit them where they come from," said government spokesman Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor when asked by AFP about the bombings, without elaborating further.
(snip)
The bombing raids mark an escalation in long-standing tensions between the two central African nations and come after Deby warned Saturday that he would purse the rebels in Sudan, whose leaders he accuses of backing the insurgents to destabilise Chad.

"We’re going to destroy them in their nest inside Sudan. We’re going to make them eat dust inside Sudan," he said. (Emphasis added.)

Wonderful how the Sudanese reports show the Chadians as being aggressive and threatening, rather as the occupied White House recently tried to present Iran to the other nations of the Middle East.

The third world has long grown used to being inundated with disinformation intended to direct its emotional responses to one side or the other. The people have had dictatorships foisted on them, their own press reporting things they knew were not news, but propaganda, for much too long for the U.S., or authoritarian governments, to form their opinions any longer.

When a reputable government is in power here - beginning on January 20, 2009, hopefully - the U.S. can start the attempt to work toward a much needed peace in Africa and the Middle East. A beginning to diminish global warming will be very much needed, and we cannot begin too soon to play a new, positive, role in environmental rescue.