THE CONTEMPORARY ATTITUDES, institutions, and problems of Chad are
the outgrowth of historical traditions and tendencies that have evolved
over more than 1,000 years. The country is populated by diverse, yet in
many cases, interrelated peoples whose evolution was characterized by
intersecting migrations, splinterings, and regroupings. Most of the
country's population groups originated in areas generally north and east
of Chad's present-day boundaries.
Chad's geographic position along major trans-Saharan trade routes has
also affected its historical development. In early times, trade
consisted of goods and slaves seized in raids on groups in the south.
Consolidations of small chiefdoms led to the evolution of a series of
kingdoms and empires in the central region, of which the most important
were Kanem-Borno, Bagirmi, and Wadai. The kingdoms and empires based
their power on, and were ultimately subjected to, raids or the payment
of tribute. Although there were early communities in both northern and
southern Chad, most of the country's known history is focused on the
Muslim peoples of the central region.
The political fortunes of the various kingdoms and empires were
constantly affected by internal factionalism and external invasion-
-factors that still influenced political affairs in the 1970s and 1980s.
Political disintegration was evident in both Borno and Bagirmi when the
French arrived in the late nineteenth century. The rulers of Wadai
resisted the French advance. The leaders of Borno and Bagirmi, however,
regarded the French less as conquerors than as a counterbalance to the
ascendant Wadai.
The French declared the central portion of the country officially
pacified in 1924 and had begun administering much of the non-Muslim
south before that. In many respects, the nomadic northern groups have
never been subjugated, and turmoil in the north persisted in the 1980s.
After 1905 the central and northern areas were administered as a
territory in the federation of French Equatorial Africa (Afrique
Equatoriale Fran�aise--AEF). French interest, however, focused on other
territories in the federation, and until after World War II, the French
presence had little impact on the life of the average inhabitant. The
French limited implementation of their administrative policy primarily
to urban areas and their compulsory agricultural programs to what
constitutes the south of present-day Chad. Participation by the local
population in the colonial administration was marginal, and until the
mid-1950s the educational opportunities prerequisite for such
participation were practically nonexistent.
After World War II, representative institutions were introduced, and
the growth of party politics began. Political groupings reflected
domestic political developments in France and traditional ethnic
factionalism in Chad. Short-lived political coalitions and party
splinterings were commonplace. When Chad achieved independence in 1960,
southerners--the group most exposed to the French
administrators--dominated political life. These southerners were led by
President Fran�ois Tombalbaye, who made only halfhearted efforts at
regional integration in government and who generally repressed
opposition. Within five years of having taken office, Tombalbaye's
heavy-handed approach had alienated a large segment of the population,
especially northerners and easterners, and had spurred rebellions. The
most prominent of the northern rebel groups was the National Liberation
Front of Chad (Front de Lib�ration Nationale du Tchad--FROLINAT), an
umbrella organization formed in 1966. Over the years, FROLINAT went
through a series of transformations and fragmentations. Nonetheless, by
the mid-1970s rebel activity, in conjunction with Tombalbaye's political
ineptitude, helped bring about the government's downfall. Tombalbaye was
killed in 1975 during a military coup d'�tat led by F�lix Malloum.
The new government, however, had no more success than its predecessor
in halting rebel activity. In 1979 Hissein Habr�, a northern rebel
leader, ousted Malloum. Throughout the 1980s, the quest for political
control changed from a north-south struggle to a primarily northern
intraregional conflict. The turmoil of the late 1970s and 1980s had
international and domestic aspects, as Libya, France, the United States,
and many African nations became involved in the Chadian imbroglio. By
early 1988, stability had been restored, but inter- and intraethnic
differences, as well as regional divisions, continued to threaten Chad's
progress toward national integration.
Chad - PREHISTORY
The Kanem Empire originated in the ninth century A.D. to the
northeast of Lake Chad. It was formed from a confederation of nomadic
peoples who spoke languages of the Teda- Daza (Toubou) group. One
theory, based on early Arabic sources, suggests that the dominance of
the Zaghawa people bound the confederation together. But local oral
traditions omit the Zaghawa and refer instead to a legendary Arab, Sayf
ibn Dhi Yazan--believed by some to have been a Yemeni-- who assumed
leadership of the Magoumi clan and began the Sayfawa dynastic lineage.
Historians agree that the leaders of the new state were ancestors of the
Kanembu people. The leaders adopted the title mai, or king, and
their subjects regarded them as divine.
One factor that influenced the formation of states in Chad was the
penetration of Islam during the tenth century. Arabs migrating from the
north and east brought the new religion. Toward the end of the eleventh
century, the Sayfawa king, Mai Humai, converted to Islam. (Some
historians believe that it was Humai rather than Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan who
established the Sayfawa lineage as the ruling dynasty of Kanem.) Islam
offered the Sayfawa rulers the advantages of new ideas from Arabia and
the Mediterranean world, as well as literacy in administration. But many
people resisted the new religion in favor of traditional beliefs and
practices. When Humai converted, for example, it is believed that the
Zaghawa broke from the empire and moved east. This pattern of conflict
and compromise with Islam occurs repeatedly in Chadian history.
Prior to the twelfth century, the nomadic Sayfawa confederation
expanded southward into Kanem (the word for "south" in the
Teda language). By the thirteenth century, Kanem's rule expanded. At the
same time, the Kanembu people became more sedentary and established a
capital at Njimi, northeast of Lake Chad. Even though the Kanembu were
becoming more sedentary, Kanem's rulers continued to travel frequently
throughout the kingdom to remind the herders and farmers of the
government's power and to allow them to demonstrate their allegiance by
paying tribute.
Kanem's expansion peaked during the long and energetic reign of Mai
Dunama Dabbalemi (ca. 1221-59). Dabbalemi initiated diplomatic exchanges
with sultans in North Africa and apparently arranged for the
establishment of a special hostel in Cairo to facilitate pilgrimages to
Mecca. During Dabbalemi's reign, the Fezzan region (in present-day
Libya) fell under Kanem's authority, and the empire's influence extended
westward to Kano, eastward to Wadai, and southward to the Adamawa
grasslands (in present-day Cameroon). Portraying these boundaries on
maps can be misleading, however, because the degree of control extended
in ever-weakening gradations from the core of the empire around Njimi to
remote peripheries, from which allegiance and tribute were usually only
symbolic. Moreover, cartographic lines are static and misrepresent the
mobility inherent in nomadism and migration, which were common. The
loyalty of peoples and their leaders was more important in governance
than the physical control of territory.
Dabbalemi devised a system to reward military commanders with
authority over the people they conquered. This system, however, tempted
military officers to pass their positions to their sons, thus
transforming the office from one based on achievement and loyalty to the
mai into one based on hereditary nobility. Dabbalemi was able
to suppress this tendency, but after his death, dissension among his
sons weakened the Sayfawa Dynasty. Dynastic feuds degenerated into civil
war, and Kanem's outlying peoples soon ceased paying tribute.
By the end of the fourteenth century, internal struggles and external
attacks had torn Kanem apart. Between 1376 and 1400, six mais
reigned, but Bulala invaders (from the area around Lake Fitri to the
east) killed five of them. This proliferation of mais resulted
in numerous claimants to the throne and led to a series of internecine
wars. Finally, around 1396 the Bulala forced Mai Umar Idrismi to abandon
Njimi and move the Kanembu people to Borno on the western edge of Lake
Chad. Over time, the intermarriage of the Kanembu and Borno peoples
created a new people and language, the Kanuri.
But even in Borno, the Sayfawa Dynasty's troubles persisted. During
the first three-quarters of the fifteenth century, for example, fifteen mais
occupied the throne. Then, around 1472 Mai Ali Dunamami defeated his
rivals and began the consolidation of Borno. He built a fortified
capital at Ngazargamu, to the west of Lake Chad (in present-day Niger),
the first permanent home a Sayfawa mai had enjoyed in a
century. So successful was the Sayfawa rejuvenation that by the early
sixteenth century the Bulala were defeated and Njimi retaken. The
empire's leaders, however, remained at Ngazargamu because its lands were
more productive agriculturally and better suited to the raising of
cattle.
Kanem-Borno peaked during the reign of the outstanding statesman Mai
Idris Aluma (ca. 1571-1603). Aluma (also spelled Alooma) is remembered
for his military skills, administrative reforms, and Islamic piety. His
main adversaries were the Hausa to the west, the Tuareg and Toubou to
the north, and the Bulala to the east. One epic poem extols his
victories in 330 wars and more than 1,000 battles. His innovations
included the employment of fixed military camps (with walls); permanent
sieges and "scorched earth" tactics, where soliders burned
everything in their path; armored horses and riders; and the use of
Berber camelry, Kotoko boatmen, and iron-helmeted musketeers trained by
Turkish military advisers. His active diplomacy featured relations with
Tripoli, Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire, which sent a 200-member
ambassadorial party across the desert to Aluma's court at Ngazargamu.
Aluma also signed what was probably the first written treaty or
cease-fire in Chadian history. (Like many cease-fires negotiated in the
1970s and 1980s, it was promptly broken.)
Aluma introduced a number of legal and administrative reforms based
on his religious beliefs and Islamic law (sharia). He sponsored the
construction of numerous mosques and made a pilgrimage to Mecca, where
he arranged for the establishment of a hostel to be used by pilgrims
from his empire. As with other dynamic politicians, Aluma's reformist
goals led him to seek loyal and competent advisers and allies, and he
frequently relied on slaves who had been educated in noble homes. Aluma
regularly sought advice from a council composed of heads of the most
important clans. He required major political figures to live at the
court, and he reinforced political alliances through appropriate
marriages (Aluma himself was the son of a Kanuri father and a Bulala
mother).
Kanem-Borno under Aluma was strong and wealthy. Government revenue
came from tribute (or booty, if the recalcitrant people had to be
conquered), sales of slaves, and duties on and participation in
trans-Saharan trade. Unlike West Africa, the Chadian region did not have
gold. Still, it was central to one of the most convenient trans-Saharan
routes. Between Lake Chad and Fezzan lay a sequence of well-spaced wells
and oases, and from Fezzan there were easy connections to North Africa
and the Mediterranean Sea. Many products were sent north, including
natron (sodium carbonate), cotton, kola nuts, ivory, ostrich feathers,
perfume, wax, and hides, but the most important of all were slaves.
Imports included salt, horses, silks, glass, muskets, and copper.
Aluma took a keen interest in trade and other economic matters. He is
credited with having the roads cleared, designing better boats for Lake
Chad, introducing standard units of measure for grain, and moving
farmers into new lands. In addition, he improved the ease and security
of transit through the empire with the goal of making it so safe that
"a lone woman clad in gold might walk with none to fear but
God."
The administrative reforms and military brilliance of Aluma sustained
the empire until the mid-1600s, when its power began to fade. By the
late 1700s, Borno rule extended only westward, into the land of the
Hausa. Around that time, Fulani people, invading from the west, were
able to make major inroads into Borno. By the early nineteenth century,
Kanem-Borno was clearly an empire in decline, and in 1808 Fulani
warriors conquered Ngazargamu. Usman dan Fodio led the Fulani thrust and
proclaimed a jihad (holy war) on the irreligious Muslims of the area.
His campaign eventually affected Kanem-Borno and inspired a trend toward
Islamic orthodoxy. But Muhammad al Kanem contested the Fulani advance.
Kanem was a Muslim scholar and non-Sayfawa warlord who had put together
an alliance of Shuwa Arabs, Kanembu, and other seminomadic peoples. He
eventually built a capital at Kukawa (in present-day Nigeria). Sayfawa mais
remained titular monarchs until 1846. In that year, the last mai,
in league with Wadai tribesmen, precipitated a civil war. It was at that
point that Kanem's son, Umar, became king, thus ending one of the
longest dynastic reigns in regional history.
Although the dynasty ended, the kingdom of Kanem-Borno survived. But
Umar, who eschewed the title mai for the simpler designation shehu
(from the Arabic "shaykh"), could not match his father's
vitality and gradually allowed the kingdom to be ruled by advisers (wazirs).
Borno began to decline, as a result of administrative disorganization,
regional particularism, and attacks by the militant Wadai Empire to the
east. The decline continued under Umar's sons, and in 1893 Rabih
Fadlallah, leading an invading army from eastern Sudan, conquered Borno.
Chad - Bagirmi and Wadai
In addition to Kanem-Borno, two other states in the region, Bagirmi
and Wadai, achieved historical prominence. The kingdom of Bagirmi
emerged to the southeast of Kanem-Borno in the sixteenth century. Under
the reign of Abdullah IV (1568-98), Islam was adopted, and the state
became a sultanate, using judicial and administrative procedures. Later,
a palace and court were constructed in the capital city of Massenya.
Bagirmi's political history was a function of its strength and unity
in relation to its larger neighbors. Absorbed into KanemBorno during the
reign of Aluma, Bagirmi broke free later in the 1600s, only to be
returned to tributary status in the mid-1700s. During periods of
strength, the sultanate became imperialistic. It established control
over small feudal kingdoms on its peripheries and entered into alliances
with nearby nomadic peoples. Early in the nineteenth century, Bagirmi
fell into decay and was threatened militarily by the nearby kingdom of
Wadai. Although Bagirmi resisted, it accepted tributary status in order
to obtain help from Wadai in putting down internal dissension. When
Rabih Fadlallah's forces burned Massenya in 1893, the twenty-fifth
sultan, Abd ar Rahman Gwaranga, sought and received protectorate status
from the French.
Located northeast of Bagirmi, Wadai was a non-Muslim kingdom that
emerged in the sixteenth century as an offshoot of the state of Darfur
(in present-day Sudan). Early in the seventeenth century, the Maba and
other small groups in the region rallied to the Islamic banner of Abd al
Karim, who led an invasion from the east and overthrew the ruling Tunjur
group. Abd al Karim established a dynasty and sultanate that lasted
until the arrival of the French. During much of the eighteenth century,
Wadai resisted reincorporation into Darfur.
In about 1800, during the reign of Sabun, the sultanate of Wadai
began to expand its power. A new trade route north--via Ennedi, Al
Kufrah, and Benghazi--was discovered, and Sabun outfitted royal caravans
to take advantage of it. He began minting his own coinage and imported
chain mail, firearms, and military advisers from North Africa. Sabun's
successors were less able than he, and Darfur took advantage of a
disputed political succession in 1838 to put its own candidate in power
in Wara, the capital of Wadai. This tactic backfired, however, when
Darfur's choice, Muhammad Sharif, rejected Darfur's meddling and
asserted his own authority. In doing so, he gained acceptance from
Wadai's various factions and went on to become Wadai's ablest ruler.
Sharif conducted military campaigns as far west as Borno and
eventually established Wadai's hegemony over Bagirmi and kingdoms as far
away as the Chari River. In Mecca, Sharif had met the founder of the
Sanusiyya Islamic brotherhood, a movement that was strong among the
inhabitants of Cyrenaica (in present-day Libya) and that was to become a
dominant political force and source of resistance to French
colonization. Indeed, the militaristic Wadai opposed French domination
until well into the twentieth century.
Chad - FRENCH AND COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION
European interest in Africa generally grew during the nineteenth
century. By 1887 France, motivated by the search for wealth, had driven
inland from its settlements on central Africa's west coast to claim the
territory of Ubangi-Chari (present-day Central African Republic). It
claimed this area as a zone of French influence, and within two years it
occupied part of what is now southern Chad. In the early 1890s, French
military expeditions sent to Chad encountered the forces of Rabih
Fadlallah, who had been conducting slave raids (razzias) in
southern Chad throughout the 1890s and had sacked the settlements of
Kanem-Borno, Bagirmi, and Wadai. After years of indecisive engagements,
French forces finally defeated Rabih Fadlallah at the Battle of Kouss�ri
in 1900.
Two fundamental themes dominated Chad's colonial experience with the
French: an absence of policies designed to unify the territory and an
exceptionally slow pace of modernization. In the French scale of
priorities, the colony of Chad ranked near the bottom; it was less
important than non-African territories, North Africa, West Africa, or
even the other French possessions in Central Africa. The French came to
perceive Chad primarily as a source of raw cotton and untrained labor to
be used in the more productive colonies to the south. Within Chad there
was neither the will nor the resources to do much more than maintain a
semblance of law and order. In fact, even this basic function of
governance was often neglected; throughout the colonial period, large
areas of Chad were never governed effectively from N'Djamena (called
FortLamy prior to September 1973).
Chad was linked in 1905 with three French colonies to the
south--Ubangi-Chari, Moyen-Congo (present-day Congo), and Gabon. But
Chad did not receive separate colony status or a unified administrative
policy until 1920. The four colonies were administered together as
French Equatorial Africa under the direction of a governor general
stationed in Brazzaville. The governor general had broad administrative
control over the federation, including external and internal security,
economic and financial affairs, and all communications with the French
minister of the colonies. Lieutenant governors, also appointed by the
French government, were expected to implement in each colony the orders
of the governor general. The central administration in Brazzaville
tightly controlled the lieutenant governors despite reformist efforts
toward decentralization between 1910 and 1946. Chad's lieutenant
governor had greater autonomy because of the distance from Brazzaville
and because of France's much greater interest in the other three
colonies.
The lines of control from Brazzaville, feeble as they may have been,
were still stronger than those from N'Djamena to its hinterland. In the
huge Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Prefecture, the handful of French military
administrators soon reached a tacit agreement with the inhabitants of
the desert; as long as caravan trails remained relatively secure and
minimal levels of law and order were met, the military administration
(headquartered in Faya Largeau) usually left the people alone. In central Chad, French rule was only slightly more substantive.
In Ouadda� and Biltine prefectures, endemic resistance continued
against the French and, in some cases, against any authority that
attempted to suppress banditry and brigandage. The thinly staffed
colonial administration provided only weak supervision over arid Kanem
Prefecture and the sparsely populated areas of Gu�ra and Salamat
prefectures. Old-fashioned razzias continued in the 1920s, and
it was reported in 1923 that a group of Senegalese Muslims on their way
to Mecca had been seized and sold into slavery. Unwilling to expend the
resources required for effective administration, the French government
responded with sporadic coercion and a growing reliance on indirect rule
through the sultanates.
France managed to govern effectively only the south, but until 1946
administrative direction came from Bangui in Ubangi-Chari rather than
N'Djamena. Unlike northern and central Chad, a French colonial system of
direct civilian administration was set up among the Sara, a southern
ethnic group, and their neighbors. Also, unlike the rest of Chad, a
modest level of economic development occurred in the south because of
the introduction in 1929 of largescale cotton production. Remittances and pensions to southerners who served in the
French military also enhanced economic well-being.
But even the advantages of more income, schools, and roads failed to
win popular support for the French in the south. In addition to earlier
grievances, such as forced porterage (which claimed thousands of lives)
and village relocation, southern farmers resented the mandatory quotas
for the production of cotton, which France purchased at artificially low
prices. Governmentprotected chiefs further abused this situation. The
chiefs were resented all the more because they were generally the
artificial creations of the French in a region of previously stateless
societies. This commonality of treatment and the colonial organizational
framework began to create during this period a sense of Sara ethnicity
among persons whose collective identities had previously been limited to
small kinship groups.
Although France had put forth considerable effort during the conquest
of Chad, the ensuing administration of the territory was halfhearted.
Officials in the French colonial service resisted assignments to Chad,
so posts often went to novices or to out-of- favor officials. One
historian of France's empire has concluded that it was almost impossible
to be too demented or depraved to be considered unfit for duty in Chad.
Still, major scandals occurred periodically, and many of the posts
remained vacant. In 1928, for example, 42 percent of the Chadian
subdivisions lacked official administrators.
An event occurred in 1935 that was to have far-reaching consequences
throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In that year, the French colonial
administration negotiated a border adjustment with Italy, Libya's
colonial master. The adjustment would have relocated the Libyan-Chad
boundary about 100 kilometers south across the Aozou Strip. Although the
French legislature never ratified the agreement, the negotiations formed
part of the basis of Libya's claim to the area decades later.
Chad - DECOLONIZATION POLITICS
In 1940 Chad became internationally prominent when its lieutenant
governor, F�lix Ebou�, led the rest of the AEF federation to support
Free France under Charles de Gaulle rather than the government of Vichy
France. Chad became the base for Colonel Jacques Leclerc's conquest of
the Fezzan (1940-43), and the entire episode became the basis of an
enduring sentimental bond between the France of de Gaulle's generation
and Chad. More funds and attention flowed to Chad than ever before, and
Ebou� became the governor general of the entire AEF in November 1941.
Born in French Guiana of mixed African and European parentage, Ebou�
was keenly interested in the problems of cultural dislocation resulting
from unchecked modernization in Africa. He worked to return authority to
authentic traditional leaders while training them in modern
administrative techniques. He recognized a place for African
middle-class professionals in cities, but he opposed the migration of
workers to cities, supporting instead the creation of integrated rural
industries where workers could remain with their families. When Ebou�
died in 1944, the AEF lost a major source of progressive ideas, and Chad
lost a leader with considerable influence in France.
French voters rejected many of the progressive ideas of Ebou� and
others after the war ended. Nevertheless, the constitution that was
approved in 1946 granted Chad and other African colonies the right to
elect a territorial assembly with limited powers. The Assembly in turn
elected delegates to the French General Council of all the AEF. The position of governor general was redesignated
high commissioner, and each territory gained the right to elect
representatives to French parliamentary bodies, including the National
Assembly, the Council of the Republic, and the Assembly of the French
Union. The African peoples became French citizens, and the colonies were
designated overseas territories of France. But the real locus of
authority remained in Paris, and French personnel continued to dominate
the AEF's administration. No formal attempt was made to train Chadian
Africans for civil service positions before 1955.
Until the early 1950s, political forces originating in France
dominated the development of politics in Chad. Local elections were won
largely by members of the Chadian Democratic Union (Union D�mocratique
Tchadienne--UDT), which was associated with a political party in France,
the Assembly of French People. The UDT represented French commercial
interests and a bloc of traditional leaders composed primarily of Muslim
and Ouadda�an nobility. Chad's European community initiated the
practice of using the civil service for partisan political ends; African
civil servants who were identified with organizations opposed to the UDT
soon found themselves dismissed or transferred to distant posts. For
example, Fran�ois Tombalbaye (later to become president) lost his job
as a teacher and ended up making bricks by hand because of his union
activities and his role in the opposition Chadian Progressive Party
(Parti Progressiste Tchadien--PPT).
Nonetheless, by 1953 politics were becoming less European dominated,
and the PPT was emerging as the major rival of the UDT. The leader of
the PPT was Gabriel Lisette, a black colonial administrator born in
Panama and posted to Chad in 1946. Elected as a deputy to the French
National Assembly, Lisette was later chosen as secretary general of the
African Democratic Assembly (Rassemblement D�mocratique Africain--RDA),
an interterritorial, Marxist-oriented party considered quite radical at
the time. The PPT originated as a territorial branch of the RDA and
rapidly became the political vehicle of the country's non-Muslim
intellectuals. Traditional rulers perceived the PPT to be antithetical
to their interests and recognized that the local territorial assembly
could adversely affect their revenue and power. These factors persuaded
traditional rulers to become more active in the UDT, which, because of
internal divisions, had changed its name in the late 1950s to the
Chadian Social Action (Action Sociale Tchadienne--AST).
Although party names changed frequently and dramatic factional
schisms occurred throughout the 1950s, electoral competition was
essentially between three political blocs: the UDT [AST], the PPT, and
the allies of Ahmed Koulamallah from Chari-Baguirmi and Kanem
prefectures. A clever politician and charismatic leader of the Tijaniyya
Islamic brotherhood in Chad, Koulamallah campaigned in different times
and places as a member of the Bagirmi nobility (he was an estranged son
of the sultan), a radical socialist leader, or a militant Muslim
fundamentalist. As a result, politics in the 1950s was a struggle
between the south, which mostly supported the PPT, and the Muslim sahelian
belt, which favored the UDT [AST]. Koulamallah played a generally
disruptive role in the middle.
In 1956 the French National Assembly passed the loi cadre
(enabling act), which resulted in greater self-rule for Chad and other
African territories. Electoral reforms expanded the pool of eligible
voters, and power began to shift from the sparsely settled northern and
central Chadian regions toward the more densely populated south. The PPT
had become less militant, winning the support of chiefs in the south and
members of the French colonial administration, but not that of private
French commercial interests. The PPT and allied parties won forty-seven
of the sixtyfive seats in the 1957 elections, and Lisette formed the
first African government in Chad. He maintained a majority for only
about a year, however, before factions representing traditional chiefs
withdrew their support from his coalition government.
In September 1958, voters in all of Africa's French territories took
part in a referendum on the Fifth Republic's constitution, drawn up
under de Gaulle. For a variety of political and economic reasons, most
of Chad's political groups supported the new constitution, and all voted
for a resolution calling for Chad to become an autonomous republic
within the French community. The three other AEF territories voted
similarly, and in November 1958 the AEF was officially terminated.
Coordination on such issues as customs and currency continued among the
four territories through written agreements or on an ad hoc basis.
Nonetheless, some Chadians supported the creation of an even stronger
French federation, rather than independence. The leading proponent of
this proposal was Barth�lemy Boganda of Ubangi-Chari, but his death in
1959 and the vigorous opposition of Gabon resulted in political
independence on a separate basis for all four republics.
After Lisette's coalition crumbled in early 1959, two other alliances
governed briefly. Then in March the PPT returned to power, this time
under the leadership of Tombalbaye, a union leader and representative
from Moyen-Chari Prefecture. Lisette, whose power was undermined because
of his non-African origins, became deputy prime minister in charge of
economic coordination and foreign affairs. Tombalbaye soon consolidated
enough political support from the south and north to isolate the
opposition into a collection of conservative Muslim leaders from central
Chad. The latter group formed a political party in January 1960, but its
parliamentary representation steadily dropped as Tombalbaye wooed
individual members to the PPT. By independence in August 1960, the PPT
and the south had clearly achieved dominance, but Tombalbaye's political
skills made it possible for observers to talk optimistically about the
possibility of building a broad-based coalition of political forces.
Chad - TOMBALBAYE ERA, 1960-75
Tombalbaye faced a task of considerable magnitude when Chad became a
sovereign state. His challenge was to build a nation out of a vast and
diverse territory that had poor communications, few known resources, a
tiny market, and a collection of impoverished people with sharply
differing political traditions, ethnic and regional loyalties, and
sociocultural patterns. The colonial powers that had created the
country's boundaries had done little to promote economic
interdependence, political cooperation, or crosscultural understanding.
Chadians who had hoped that the country's first president might turn out
to be a state builder like the thirteenth century's Dabbalemi or the
sixteenth century's Aluma were soon disappointed. During its first
fifteen years, Chad under Tombalbaye experienced worsening economic
conditions, eventual alienation of the most patient of foreign allies,
exacerbation of ethnic and regional conflict, and grave weakening of the
state as an instrument of governance.
Tombalbaye's Governance: Policies and Methods
At the outset, Tombalbaye demonstrated an autocratic style along with
a distrust of the institutions of democracy. One week before the country
gained independence, Tombalbaye purged Lisette from his own party,
declared Lisette a noncitizen while he was traveling abroad, and barred
him from returning to Chad. This "coup by telegram" was the
first in an extensive series of Tombalbaye's increasingly authoritarian
actions to eliminate or neutralize opponents.
To increase his power and freedom of action, Tombalbaye declared a
ban on all political parties except the PPT in January 1962, and in
April he established a presidential form of government. When serious
rioting occurred in 1963 in N'Djamena and Am Timan, the government
declared a state of emergency and dissolved the National Assembly. And,
as part of a major campaign against real and imagined political
opponents, Tombalbaye created a special criminal court. By the end of
the year, the country's prisons contained a virtual "who's
who" of Chadian politicians. In June 1964, a new National Assembly
granted Tombalbaye complete control over all appointments to the
Political Bureau of the PPT, which by then was the sole source of
political authority. With the PPT, government, and upper echelons of the
civil service stocked with loyalists, and with opposition leaders in
prison, exile, or completely co-opted, Tombalbaye was in full command of
the country.
An effort to Africanize the civil service and security forces as
rapidly as possible complemented Tombalbaye's drive for personal power.
Between 1960 and 1963, the number of French officials in the central
government administration declined from ninety-five to thirty (although
the total number of French personnel increased as technical advisers
were hired for development programs), and by the end of 1962 the entire
territorial administrative structure was in Chadian hands. In addition,
units of the Chad's national army replaced French military forces in
Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Prefecture and in Ab�ch�, a process formally
completed on January 23, 1965.
Africanization was not entirely popular among Chad's farmers and
herders, despite their deep resentment of French colonial rule. A
decline in the quality of government service was immediately apparent,
in part because of the usual difficulties of transition, but also
because many of the newly hired and promoted Chadians were less
experienced and less adequately trained than their departing French
counterparts. Increasing the discontent, Tombalbaye imposed an
additional tax in 1964, under the euphemism of a "national
loan." On top of that action, some government administrators were
allegedly forcing citizens in rural areas to make payments at three
times the official taxation rates. Reports of corruption and other
abuses of authority grew as Chad's new officials became aware of both
the increased pressures and the decreased constraints on public
servants.
Because the great majority of the country's Western-educated and
French-speaking citizens were southerners, the policy of Africanization
often represented a "southernization" of the Chadian
government. What appeared to some Western observers to be progress in
African self-government was perceived by those from the northern and
central areas to be an increasingly blatant seizure of power by
southerners. To many in northern and central Chad, the southern Chadians
were simply another set of foreigners, almost as alien and arrogant as
the departing French. Tombalbaye's failure to establish hiring and
training policies geared to achieving greater ethnic and regional
balance in public administration was one of his most serious
shortcomings. Another was his lack of success--or lack of interest--in
reaching power-sharing agreements with key leaders in the Saharan and sahelian
regions.
Dissatisfaction with these failures was expressed violently, and the
government response was just as violent. When Muslims rioted in
N'Djamena in September 1963 following the arbitrary arrests of three
Muslim leaders, the government reacted swiftly and repressively. A
little more than a year later, an altercation at a public dance in the
northern town of Barda� prompted a Sara deputy prefect to order the
inhabitants of an entire village to march to prison, where many were
stripped and all were insulted. Many were arbitrarily fined for such
offenses as wearing beards or turbans. Included among the targets of
abuse was Oueddei Kichidemi, the derde, or spiritual head, of
the Teda people, a Toubou group. Explosive confrontations such as this
occurred repeatedly as the inexperienced southerners, who understood
little and cared less for the customs of the peoples they governed,
replaced experienced French administrators.
By this time, just five years after independence, the possibility of
armed conflict was growing. Politicians throughout Chad increasingly
used traditional loyalties and enmities to decry opposition and solidify
popular support for their positions. In view of Chad's historical legacy
of conflict, some historians have argued that even the most competent
leader with the most enlightened set of policies would have eventually
faced secessionist movements or armed opposition. Tombalbaye, however,
hastened the onset of civil conflict by quickly squandering his
legitimacy through repressive tactics and regional favoritism.
Tombalbaye's Governance: Policies and Methods
At the outset, Tombalbaye demonstrated an autocratic style along with
a distrust of the institutions of democracy. One week before the country
gained independence, Tombalbaye purged Lisette from his own party,
declared Lisette a noncitizen while he was traveling abroad, and barred
him from returning to Chad. This "coup by telegram" was the
first in an extensive series of Tombalbaye's increasingly authoritarian
actions to eliminate or neutralize opponents.
To increase his power and freedom of action, Tombalbaye declared a
ban on all political parties except the PPT in January 1962, and in
April he established a presidential form of government. When serious
rioting occurred in 1963 in N'Djamena and Am Timan, the government
declared a state of emergency and dissolved the National Assembly. And,
as part of a major campaign against real and imagined political
opponents, Tombalbaye created a special criminal court. By the end of
the year, the country's prisons contained a virtual "who's
who" of Chadian politicians. In June 1964, a new National Assembly
granted Tombalbaye complete control over all appointments to the
Political Bureau of the PPT, which by then was the sole source of
political authority. With the PPT, government, and upper echelons of the
civil service stocked with loyalists, and with opposition leaders in
prison, exile, or completely co-opted, Tombalbaye was in full command of
the country.
An effort to Africanize the civil service and security forces as
rapidly as possible complemented Tombalbaye's drive for personal power.
Between 1960 and 1963, the number of French officials in the central
government administration declined from ninety-five to thirty (although
the total number of French personnel increased as technical advisers
were hired for development programs), and by the end of 1962 the entire
territorial administrative structure was in Chadian hands. In addition,
units of the Chad's national army replaced French military forces in
Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Prefecture and in Ab�ch�, a process formally
completed on January 23, 1965.
Africanization was not entirely popular among Chad's farmers and
herders, despite their deep resentment of French colonial rule. A
decline in the quality of government service was immediately apparent,
in part because of the usual difficulties of transition, but also
because many of the newly hired and promoted Chadians were less
experienced and less adequately trained than their departing French
counterparts. Increasing the discontent, Tombalbaye imposed an
additional tax in 1964, under the euphemism of a "national
loan." On top of that action, some government administrators were
allegedly forcing citizens in rural areas to make payments at three
times the official taxation rates. Reports of corruption and other
abuses of authority grew as Chad's new officials became aware of both
the increased pressures and the decreased constraints on public
servants.
Because the great majority of the country's Western-educated and
French-speaking citizens were southerners, the policy of Africanization
often represented a "southernization" of the Chadian
government. What appeared to some Western observers to be progress in
African self-government was perceived by those from the northern and
central areas to be an increasingly blatant seizure of power by
southerners. To many in northern and central Chad, the southern Chadians
were simply another set of foreigners, almost as alien and arrogant as
the departing French. Tombalbaye's failure to establish hiring and
training policies geared to achieving greater ethnic and regional
balance in public administration was one of his most serious
shortcomings. Another was his lack of success--or lack of interest--in
reaching power-sharing agreements with key leaders in the Saharan and sahelian
regions.
Dissatisfaction with these failures was expressed violently, and the
government response was just as violent. When Muslims rioted in
N'Djamena in September 1963 following the arbitrary arrests of three
Muslim leaders, the government reacted swiftly and repressively. A
little more than a year later, an altercation at a public dance in the
northern town of Barda� prompted a Sara deputy prefect to order the
inhabitants of an entire village to march to prison, where many were
stripped and all were insulted. Many were arbitrarily fined for such
offenses as wearing beards or turbans. Included among the targets of
abuse was Oueddei Kichidemi, the derde, or spiritual head, of
the Teda people, a Toubou group. Explosive confrontations such as this
occurred repeatedly as the inexperienced southerners, who understood
little and cared less for the customs of the peoples they governed,
replaced experienced French administrators.
By this time, just five years after independence, the possibility of
armed conflict was growing. Politicians throughout Chad increasingly
used traditional loyalties and enmities to decry opposition and solidify
popular support for their positions. In view of Chad's historical legacy
of conflict, some historians have argued that even the most competent
leader with the most enlightened set of policies would have eventually
faced secessionist movements or armed opposition. Tombalbaye, however,
hastened the onset of civil conflict by quickly squandering his
legitimacy through repressive tactics and regional favoritism.
Fall of the Tombalbaye Government
Tombalbaye's reform efforts ceased abruptly in August 1971. In that
month, he claimed to have quashed a coup involving some recently
amnestied Chadians who allegedly received support from Libyan leader
Muammaral Qadhaafi. Tomabalbaye severed relations with Libya and invited
anti-Qadhaafi elements to establish bases in Chad. In retaliation,
Qadhaafi recognized FROLINAT, offered (for the first time formally) an
operational base in Tripoli to Siddick, and increased the flow of
supplies to the Chadian rebels.
Domestic calm deteriorated further when students conducted a strike
in N'Djamena in November 1971. Although easily contained, the strike
demonstrated the growing politicization and disaffection of young
members of the southern elite and reflected their increased awareness of
the army's political potential. Tombalbaye then replaced the chief of
staff, General Jacques Doumro, who was a favorite of the students, with
Colonel F�lix Malloum.
In June 1972, a band of Libyan-trained saboteurs was captured while
attempting to smuggle guns and explosives into the capital. These
arrests coincided with a serious financial crisis, a worsening drought,
bitter government infighting, and civil unrest in the capital. These
events convinced Tombalbaye to abandon his policy of national
reconciliation. He incarcerated more than 1,000 real or suspected
"enemies of the state." In an indication of his growing
distrust of the previously secure south, Tombalbaye detained hundreds of
southerners and removed two key southern cabinet ministers. He also
effected a dramatic diplomatic aboutface designed to obtain economic
assistance from the Arab world while undermining FROLINAT. To enhance
ties to the Arab world, Tombalbaye broke Chad's relations with Israel in
September 1972. A few months later, Tombalbaye secured an initial pledge
of CFA F23 billion from Libya. In 1973 other Arab capitals promised aid.
In addition, Chad withdrew from the Afro-Malagasy and Mauritian Common
Organization (Organisation Commune Africaine, Malgache, et
Mauricienne--OCAMM), a moderate alliance of French-speaking African
states.
Tombalbaye's strategy to create difficulties for FROLINAT was
successful. When Qadhaafi began restricting deliveries of military
supplies and food to the rebels, fighting for the limited supplies
erupted between FROLINAT's First Liberation Army and FAN (at that time
also called the Second Liberation Army). The Second Liberation Army lost
control of Ennedi and retreated into northern Borkou and Tibesti. In
April 1974, however, it struck back by seizing three European hostages,
including a French archaeologist at Barda�.
By this time, the Tombalbaye presidency was rapidly unraveling, as
greater attention focused on the real and suspected threats from within
the government. In June 1973, Tombalbaye arrested Malloum, the head of
the women's wing of the PPT, and a score of other party officials,
mostly from the south. These individuals were held on charges of
"political sorcery" in what came to be known as the
"Black Sheep Plot" because of their alleged involvement in
animal sacrifices. Moreover, when Outel Bono, a widely admired liberal
politician, was assassinated in Paris while organizing a new political
party in August, many believed that Tombalbaye's government was behind
the murder. Also that month, Tombalbaye decided to replace the PPT with
a new party, the National Movement for the Cultural and Social
Revolution (Mouvement National pour la R�volution Culturelle et
Sociale--MNRCS).
To deflect domestic criticism, Tombalbaye embarked on a campaign to
promote authenticit�, or "Chaditude." This effort
was aimed at expunging foreign practices and influences. To shore up his
support from Chad's expanding urban elite, Tombalbaye Africanized the
names of several places (Fort-Lamy and FortArchambault became N'Djamena
and Sarh, respectively) and ordered civil servants to use indigenous
names in place of their European ones; he changed his first name to
Ngarta. In addition, his policies induced many foreign missionaries to
repatriate. His strident attacks on the French government were also
popular. Tombalbaye lashed out specifically at Jacques Foccart, the
powerful secretary general to the French Presidency for African Affairs,
who was labeled an "evil genius" and formally condemned in a
National Assembly resolution as the source of some "fourteen
plots" against the government of Chad.
To restore his sagging support among Sara traditionalists in the
rural south, Tombalbaye came out in favor of the harsh physical and
psychological yondo initiation rites for all southern males
between sixteen and fifty, making them compulsory for any non-Muslim
seeking admission to the civil service, government, and higher ranks of
the military. From mid-1973 to April 1974, an estimated 3,000 southern
civil servants, including two cabinet ministers and one colonel, went
through the yondo ordeal. Because the rites were perceived as
anti-Christian and essentially borrowed from one Sara subgroup,
resistance to the process exacerbated antagonisms along clan and
religious lines. Therefore, rather than encouraging greater southern
support, Tombalbaye's action created disaffection among civil servants,
army officers, and students.
The worsening drought in the early 1970s also affected Chad's
degenerating political situation. Throughout 1974 international
criticism of Chad's handling of drought-relief efforts reached a new
peak, as government insensitivity and overt profiteering became obvious.
In response to its economic crisis, the government launched Operation
Agriculture, which involved a massive volunteer cottonplanting effort on
virgin lands. The project increased production somewhat, but at the
expense of major economic dislocations and greater southern resentment,
particularly from people in cities and towns who were rounded up by the
military to "volunteer" for agricultural labor.
By early 1975, many observers believed that Tombalbaye had eroded his
two main bases of support--the south and the armed forces. Only
intra-Sara divisions and concern over the possible loss of southern
influence in government had prevented any wellorganized anti-Tombalbaye
movement. In addition, throughout the early 1970s Tombalbaye's criticism
of the army's mediocre performance in the field had angered the officer
corps and dissipated its loyalty. Other military grievances included
frequent purges and reshufflings of the top ranks. In March 1975,
Tombalbaye ordered the arrest of several senior military officers, as
suspects in yet another plot. On April 13, 1975, several units of
N'Djamena's gendarmerie, acting under the initial direction of junior
military officers, killed Tombalbaye during a mutiny.
Chad - CIVIL WAR AND NORTHERN DOMINANCE, 1975-82
Malloum's Military Government, 1975-78
The coup d'�tat that terminated Tombalbaye's government received an
enthusiastic response in N'Djamena. Malloum emerged as the chairman of
the new Supreme Military Council (Conseil Sup�rieur Militaire--CSM).
His government contained more Muslims from northern and eastern Chad,
but ethnic and regional dominance still remained very much in the hands
of southerners. The successor government soon overturned many of
Tombalbaye's more odious policies. For example, the CSM attempted to
distribute external drought relief assistance more equitably and
efficiently and devised plans to develop numerous economic reforms,
including reductions in taxes and government expenditures.
Neither reformers nor skilled administrators, the new military
leaders were unable to retain for long the modicum of authority,
legitimacy, and popularity that they had gained through their overthrow
of the unpopular Tombalbaye. The expectations of most urban Chadians far
exceeded the capacity of the new government--or possibly any
government--to satisfy them. It soon became clear, moreover, that the
new leaders (mostly southern military officers) saw themselves as
caretakers rather than innovators, and few of Tombalbaye's close
associates were punished. Throughout its tenure, the CSM was unable to
win the support of the capital's increasingly radicalized unions,
students, and urban dwellers. The government suspended the National
Union of Chadian Workers (Union Nationale de Travailleurs du
Tchad--UNTT) and prohibited strikes, but labor and urban unrest
continued from 1975 through 1978. On the first anniversary of the
formation of the CSM, Malloum was the target of a grenade attack that
injured several top officials and spectators. A year after that, in
March 1977, the CSM executed summarily the leaders of a short-lived
mutiny by several military units in N'Djamena.
The fundamental failures of Malloum's government, however, were most
evident in its interactions with France, Libya, and FROLINAT. In his
first few months in office, Malloum persuaded a few eastern rebel
elements to join the new government. In the north, the derde
(Oueddei Kichidemi) returned from exile in Libya in August 1975. But his
son, Goukouni Oueddei, refused to respond to his entreaties or those of
the government and remained in opposition. When the Command Council of
the Army Armed Forces of the North (Conseil de Commandement des Forces
Arm�es du Nord-- CCFAN), a structure set up in 1972 by Habr� and
Goukouni to represent northern elements in FROLINAT, continued to refuse
negotiations with the CSM over the release of the hostage French
archaeologist, France began dealing directly with the rebels. Malloum's
government reacted to this embarrassment by demanding the departure of
1,500 French troops, at a time in late 1975 when Chad's military
situation was beginning to worsen. Throughout 1976 and 1977, the
military balance of power shifted in favor of FROLINAT as Libya provided
the rebels with substantially more weaponry and logistical support than
ever before. Faya Largeau was placed under siege twice in 1976, and then
in June 1977 Barda� fell to the CCFAN.
The sharp increase in Libyan activity also brought to a head the
power struggle within the CCFAN between Goukouni and Habr�. In 1971
Habr� had left his position as a deputy prefect in the Tombalbaye
government to join Goukouni's rebels. Goukouni and Habr�, ambitious
Toubou leaders from two different and competing clans, became bitter
rivals, first within the CCFAN and later within all of Chad. In the
CCFAN, the key issues dividing the men were relations with Libya and the
handling of the hostage affair. Habr� opposed vigorously all Libyan
designs on the Aozou Strip and favored retaining the French hostage even
after most of the ransom demands had been met. Goukouni felt that
priority should go to the conflict with the CSM, for which Libyan
assistance could be decisive, and that the kidnapping had already
achieved more than enough. Habr� finally split with him in 1976, taking
a few hundred followers to fight in Batha and Biltine prefectures and
retaining for his group the name FAN. Goukouni and his followers
prevailed (the CCFAN released the hostage to French authorities in
January 1977).
As the military position of the CSM continued to decline in 1977,
Malloum's political overtures to the rebel groups and leaders became
increasingly flexible. In September Malloum and Habr� met in Khartoum
to begin negotiations on a formal alliance. Their efforts culminated in
a carefully drafted agreement, the Fundamental Charter, which formed the
basis of the National Union Government of August 1978. Malloum was named
president of the new government, while Habr�, as prime minister, became
the first significant insurgent figure to hold an executive position in
a postcolonial government.
Habr�'s ascension to power in N'Djamena was intended to signal to
Goukouni and other rebel leaders the government's willingness to
negotiate seriously following its reversals on the battlefield in 1978.
In February Faya Largeau fell to FROLINAT, and with it roughly half the
country's territory. Shortly thereafter, Malloum flew to Sabha in
southern Libya to negotiate a cease-fire, but even as it was being
codified in March, FROLINAT's position was hardening. Goukouni claimed
that all three liberation armies were now united under his leadership in
the new People's Armed Forces (Forces Arm�es Populaires--FAP) and that
their objective remained the overthrow of the "dictatorial
neocolonial regime imposed by France on Chad since August 11,
1960." FAP continued to advance toward the capital until it was
halted near Ati in major battles with French military forces and units
of the Chadian Armed Forces (Forces Arm�es Tchadiennes--FAT). It was
Malloum's hope that the FROLINAT leadership would soften its terms, or
possibly undergo renewed fragmentation.
Civil War and Multilateral Mediation, 1979-82
From 1979 to 1982, Chad experienced unprecedented change and
spiraling violence. Southerners finally lost control of what remained of
the Chadian government, while civil conflicts became significantly more
internationalized. In early 1979, the fragile Malloum-Habr� alliance
collapsed after months of aggressive actions by Habr�, including
demands that more northerners be appointed to high government offices
and that Arabic be used in place of French in broadcasting. Appealing
for support among the large communities of Muslims and Arabs in
N'Djamena, Habr� unleashed his FAN on February 12. With the French
garrison remaining uninvolved, FAN sent Malloum into retirement (under
French protection) and drove the remnants of FAT toward the south. On
February 22, Goukouni and FAP entered the capital. By this time, most of
the city's Sara population had fled to the south, where attacks against
Muslims and nonsoutherners erupted, particularly in Sarh, Moundou, and
throughout Moyen-Chari Prefecture. By mid-March more than 10,000 were
said to have died as a result of violence throughout the south.
In early 1979, Chad became an open arena of unrestrained factional
politics. Opportunistic power seekers sought to gather followers (often
using sectarian appeals) and to win support from Chad's African
neighbors. Between March 10 and August 21, four separate conferences
took place in the Nigerian cities of Kano and Lagos, during which Chad's
neighbors attempted to establish a political framework acceptable to the
warring factions. Chad's neighbors, however, also used the meetings to
pursue interests of their own, resulting in numerous externally
generated complications and a growing number of factions brought into
the process. For example, at one point, Qadhaafi became so angry with
Habr� that the Libyan sent arms to Colonel Wadel Abdelkader Kamougu�'s
anti-Habr� faction in the south, even though Kamougu� was also
anti-Libyan. At the second conference in Kano, both Habr� and Goukouni
were placed under what amounted to house arrest so Nigeria could promote
the chances of a Kanembu leader, Mahmat Shawa Lol. In fact, Nigerian
support made Lol the Chadian titular head of state for a few weeks, even
though his Third Liberation Army was only a phantom force, and his
domestic political support was insignificant. Within Chad the warring
parties used the conferences and their associated truces to recover from
one round of fighting and prepare for the next.
The final conference culminated in the Lagos Accord of August 21,
1979, which representatives of eleven Chadian factions signed and the
foreign ministers of nine other African states witnessed. The Lagos
Accord established the procedures for setting up the Transitional
Government of National Unity (Gouvernement d'Union Nationale de
Transition--GUNT), which was sworn into office in November. By mutual
agreement, Goukouni was named president, Kamougu� was appointed
vice-president, and Habr� was named minister of national defense,
veterans, and war victims. The distribution of cabinet positions was
balanced between south (eleven portfolios), north, center, and east
(thirteen), and among prot�g�s of neighboring states. A peacekeeping
mission of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), to be drawn from
troops from Congo, Guinea, and Benin, was to replace the French. This
force never materialized in any effective sense, but the OAU was
committed to GUNT under the presidency of Goukouni.
GUNT, however, failed. Its major participants deeply mistrusted each
other, and they never achieved a sense of coherence. As a result, the
various factional militias remained armed. By January 1980, a unit of
Habr�'s army was attacking the forces of one of the constituent groups
of GUNT in Ouadda� Prefecture. Shortly thereafter, N'Djamena plunged
into another cycle of violence, and by the end of March 1980 Habr� was
openly defying the government, having taken control of a section of the
capital. The 600 Congolese troops of the OAU peacekeeping force remained
out of the fray, as did the French, while units of five separate Chadian
armies prowled the streets of N'Djamena. The battles continued
throughout the summer, punctuated by more OAU mediation efforts and five
formal cease-fires.
It became evident that the profound rivalry between Goukouni and Habr�
was at the core of the conflict. By mid-1980 the south-- cut off from
communication and trade with N'Djamena and defended by a regrouped,
southern army--had become a state within a state. Colonel Kamougu�, the
strongman of the south, remained a prudent distance away from the
capital and waited to negotiate with whichever northerner emerged as the
winner.
In 1980 the beleaguered Goukouni turned to Libya, much as he had done
four years earlier. With the French forces having departed in mid-May
1980, Goukouni signed a military cooperation treaty with Libya in June
(without prior approval of the all-but-defunct GUNT). In October he
requested direct military assistance from Qadhaafi, and by December
Libyan forces had firm control of the capital and most other urban
centers outside the south. Habr� fled to Sudan, vowing to resume the
struggle.
Although Libyan intervention enabled Goukouni to win militarily, the
association with Qadhaafi created diplomatic problems for GUNT. In
January 1981, when Goukouni and Qadhaafi issued a joint communiqu�
stating that Chad and Libya had agreed to "work for the realization
of complete unity between the two countries," an international
uproar ensued. Although both leaders later denied any intention to merge
their states politically, the diplomatic damage had been done.
Throughout 1981 most of the members of the OAU, along with France and
the United States, encouraged Libyan troops to withdraw from Chad. One
week after the "unity communiqu�," the OAU's committee on
Chad met in Togo to assess the situation. In a surprisingly blunt
resolution, the twelve states on the committee denounced the union goal
as a violation of the 1979 Lagos Accord, called for Libya to withdraw
its troops, and promised to provide a peacekeeping unit, the
Inter-African Force (IAF). Goukouni was skeptical of OAU promises, but
in September he received a French pledge of support for his government
and the IAF.
But as Goukouni's relations with the OAU and France improved, his
ties with Libya deteriorated. One reason for this deterioration was that
the economic assistance that Libya had promised never materialized.
Another, and perhaps more significant, factor was that Qadhaafi was
strongly suspected of helping Goukouni's rival within GUNT, Acyl Ahmat,
leader of the Democratic Revolutionary Council (Conseil D�mocratique R�volutionnaire--CDR).
Both Habr� and Goukouni feared Acyl because he and many of the members
of the CDR were Arabs of the Awlad Sulayman tribe. About 150 years
earlier, this group had migrated from Libya to Chad and thus represented
the historical and cultural basis of Libyan claims in Chad.
As a consequence of the Libya-Chad rift, Goukouni asked the Libyan
forces in late October 1981 to leave, and by mid-November they had
complied. Their departure, however, allowed Habr�'s FAN-- reconstituted
in eastern Chad with Egyptian, Sudanese, and, reportedly, significant
United States assistance--to win key positions along the highway from Ab�ch�
to N'Djamena. Habr� was restrained only by the arrival and deployment
in December 1981 of some 4,800 IAF troops from Nigeria, Senegal, and
Zaire.
In February 1982, a special OAU meeting in Nairobi resulted in a plan
that called for a cease-fire, negotiations among all parties, elections,
and the departure of the IAF; all terms were to be carried out within
six months. Habr� accepted the plan, but Goukouni rejected it,
asserting that Habr� had lost any claim to legitimacy when he broke
with GUNT. When Habr� renewed his military advance toward N'Djamena,
the IAF remained essentially neutral, just as the French had done when
FROLINAT marched on Malloum three years earlier. FAN secured control of
the capital on June 7. Goukouni and other members of GUNT fled to
Cameroon and eventually reappeared in Libya. For the remainder of the
year, Habr� consolidated his power in much of war-weary Chad and worked
to secure international recognition for his government.
Chad - The Society and Environment
Although Chadian society is economically, socially, and culturally
fragmented, the country's geography is unified by the Lake Chad Basin.
Once a huge inland sea (the Pale-Chadian Sea) whose only remnant is
shallow Lake Chad, this vast depression extends west into Nigeria and
Niger. The larger, northern portion of the basin is bounded within Chad
by the Tibesti Mountains in the northwest, the Ennedi Plateau in the
northeast, the Ouadda� Highlands in the east along the border with
Sudan, the Gu�ra Massif in central Chad, and the Mandara Mountains
along Chad's southwestern border with Cameroon. The smaller, southern
part of the basin falls almost exclusively in Chad. It is delimited in
the north by the Gu�ra Massif, in the south by highlands 250 kilometers
south of the border with Central African Republic, and in the southwest
by the Mandara Mountains.
Lake Chad, located in the southwestern part of the basin at an
altitude of 282 meters, surprisingly does not mark the basin's lowest
point; instead, this is found in the Bodele and Djourab regions in the
north-central and northeastern parts of the country, respectively. This
oddity arises because the great stationary dunes (ergs) of the
Kanem region create a dam, preventing lake waters from flowing to the
basin's lowest point. At various times in the past, and as late as the
1870s, the Bahr el Ghazal Depression, which extends from the
northeastern part of the lake to the Djourab, acted as an overflow
canal; since independence, climatic conditions have made overflows
impossible.
North and northeast of Lake Chad, the basin extends for more than 800
kilometers, passing through regions characterized by great rolling dunes
separated by very deep depressions. Although vegetation holds the dunes
in place in the Kanem region, farther north they are bare and have a
fluid, rippling character. From its low point in the Djourab, the basin
then rises to the plateaus and peaks of the Tibesti Mountains in the
north. The summit of this formation--as well as the highest point in the
Sahara Desert--is Emi Koussi, a dormant volcano that reaches 3,414
meters above sea level. The basin's northeastern limit is the Ennedi
Plateau, whose limestone bed rises in steps etched by erosion.
East of the lake, the basin rises gradually to the Ouadda�
Highlands, which mark Chad's eastern border and also divide the Chad and
Nile watersheds. Southeast of Lake Chad, the regular contours of the
terrain are broken by the Gu�ra Massif, which divides the basin into
its northern and southern parts.
South of the lake lie the floodplains of the Chari and Logone rivers,
much of which are inundated during the rainy season. Farther south, the
basin floor slopes upward, forming a series of low sand and clay
plateaus, called koros, which eventually climb to 615 meters
above sea level. South of the Chadian border, the koros divide
the Lake Chad Basin from the Ubangi-Zaire river system.
Chad - Rivers
The Lake Chad Basin embraces a great range of tropical climates from
north to south, although most of these climates tend to be dry. Apart
from the far north, most regions are characterized by a cycle of
alternating rainy and dry seasons. In any given year, the duration of
each season is determined largely by the positions of two great air
masses--a maritime mass over the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest and a
much drier continental mass. During the rainy season, winds from the
southwest push the moister maritime system north over the African
continent where it meets and slips under the continental mass along a
front called the "intertropical convergence zone". At the
height of the rainy season, the front may reach as far as Kanem
Prefecture. By the middle of the dry season, the intertropical
convergence zone moves south of Chad, taking the rain with it. This
weather system contributes to the formation of three major regions of
climate and vegetation.
Saharan Region
The Saharan region covers roughly the northern third of the country,
including Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti Prefecture along with the northern parts
of Kanem, Batha, and Biltine prefectures. Much of this area receives
only traces of rain during the entire year; at Faya Largeau, for
example, annual rainfall averages less than three centimeters. Scattered
small oases and occasional wells provide water for a few date palms or
small plots of millet and garden crops. In much of the north, the
average daily maximum temperature is about 32� C during January, the
coolest month of the year, and about 45� C during May, the hottest
month. On occasion, strong winds from the northeast produce violent
sandstorms. In northern Biltine Prefecture, a region called the Mortcha
plays a major role in animal husbandry. Dry for nine months of the year,
it receives 350 millimeters or more of rain, mostly during July and
August. A carpet of green springs from the desert during this brief wet
season, attracting herders from throughout the region who come to
pasture their cattle and camels. Because very few wells and springs have
water throughout the year, the herders leave with the end of the rains,
turning over the land to the antelopes, gazelles, and ostriches that can
survive with little groundwater.
Sahelian Region
The semiarid sahelian zone, or Sahel, forms a belt about 500
kilometers wide that runs from Lac and Chari-Baguirmi prefectures
eastward through Gu�ra, Ouadda�, and northern Salamat prefectures to
the Sudanese frontier. The climate in this transition zone between the
desert and the southern soudanian zone is divided into a rainy
season (from June to early September) and a dry period (from October to
May). In the northern Sahel, thorny shrubs and acacia trees grow wild,
while date palms, cereals, and garden crops are raised in scattered
oases. Outside these settlements, nomads tend their flocks during the
rainy season, moving southward as forage and surface water disappear
with the onset of the dry part of the year. The central Sahel is
characterized by drought-resistant grasses and small woods. Rainfall is
more abundant there than in the Saharan region. For example, N'Djamena
records a maximum annual average rainfall of 580 millimeters, while
Ouadda� Prefecture receives just a bit less. During the hot season, in
April and May, maximum temperatures frequently rise above 40�C. In the
southern part of the Sahel, rainfall is sufficient to permit crop
production on unirrigated land, and millet and sorghum are grown.
Agriculture is also common in the marshlands east of Lake Chad and near
swamps or wells. Many farmers in the region combine subsistence
agriculture with the raising of cattle, sheep, goats, and poultry.
Soudanian Region
The humid soudanian zone includes the southern prefectures
of Mayo-Kebbi, Tandjil�, Logone Occidental, Logone Oriental,
Moyen-Chari, and southern Salamat. Between April and October, the rainy
season brings between 750 and 1,250 millimeters of precipitation.
Temperatures are high throughout the year. Daytime readings in Moundou,
the major city in the southwest, range from 27�C in the middle of the
cool season in January to about 40�C in the hot months of March, April,
and May.
The soudanian region is predominantly savanna, or plains
covered with a mixture of tropical or subtropical grasses and woodlands.
The growth is lush during the rainy season but turns brown and dormant
during the five-month dry season between November and March. Over a
large part of the region, however, natural vegetation has yielded to
agriculture.
Chad - POPULATION
In the late 1980s, demographic data for Chad were very incomplete.
One of the most important demographic techniques is projection from one
set of data to anticipate the evolution of the population, but the lack
of a national census in Chad has made applying such a technique
difficult. In addition, population projections assume that the
population has evolved with regularity since the last collection of
data. In Chad, domestic conflict, foreign military occupation of part of
its territory, and serious famines, from 1968 through 1973 and in the
early 1980s, have disrupted the regular change of the population. As a
result, many population estimates were probably inaccurate. In 1988 most
population estimates continued to be based on projections from partial
studies made in 1964 and 1968 by the National Institute of Economic and
Statistical Studies (Institut National des Etudes Statistiques et
Economiques--INSEE) in France and by the Chadian government. These
survey data, projected forward, were the major reference sources for the
Chadian government and for many international agencies and foreign
governments. Two organizations, the Sahel Institute (Institut du
Sahel--INSAH) and the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), gave different
figures for Chad's population in 1985. The first organization estimated
the population at almost 5 million; the second, at 5.2 million. In the
late 1980s, cognizant of the need for demographic data for planning, the
Ministry of Planning and Reconstruction and the United Nations Economic
Commission for Africa began planning the first national census for 1989.
Estimates of total population acquire greater meaning when the
processes behind them are examined more closely. Population change is
the sum of two sets of additions and two sets of subtractions. First,
there are additions through births. In mid-1987 the PRB estimated Chad's
birthrate at 43 live births per 1,000 inhabitants annually (the world
average was 28 in 1987). The same organization suggested that, on
average, Chadian women gave birth to 5.9 children over their
reproductive years, a slightly lower number than the 6.3 average for
Africa women as a whole.
Second, there are additions through immigration. Although ethnic,
political, and economic ties connect most regions of Chad with
neighboring states, such links probably have not brought a large number
of permanent immigrants. By the late 1980s, Chadians who had fled the
civil strife in the southern and central parts of the country during the
late 1970s and early 1980s apparently had returned in large numbers.
Nonetheless, overall immigration probably has not exceeded emigration.
Subtractions for population decrease also are calculated for two sets
of events. First, there are subtractions through deaths. In the
mid-1980s, the PRB estimated Chad's mortality rate at 23 deaths annually
per 1,000 inhabitants--one of the highest mortality rates in the world
(the global average stood at 10 in 1987). Civilian and military deaths,
resulting from warfare, poor health conditions, and drought undoubtedly
have contributed to this high mortality rate. The yearly infant
mortality rate (the number of children per 1,000 births who die before
age one) was also extremely high in Chad, estimated by INSAH and the PRB
at 155 and 143, respectively. Among children, a second peak in mortality
occurs after weaning (from about one and one-half to two years of age),
when they are deprived of their mothers' natural immunities. High
mortality rates are indicative of short life expectancies. In Chad,
INSAH estimated the life expectancy for a female born in the period
1975-80 at 43.4 years; for a male, it was even lower--38.5 years.
Emigration is the second form of subtraction. Although the data for
Chad were partial, labor migration and refugee flight were the two major
types of emigration. In recent decades, some of the old labor migration
streams have continued, such as that to Sudan, and newer ones have
joined them, such as those to Nigeria and the oil-rich countries of the
Middle East during the petroleum boom of the 1970s and early 1980s.
Since independence, refugee flight has been a major component of
emigration. In the late 1960s, troubles in eastern and southeastern Chad
provoked emigration to Sudan. Patterns of flight have shifted with
shifts in the theater of conflict. Following the battles of N'Djamena in
1979 and 1980, many residents sought refuge across the Chari River in
neighboring Cameroon. Violence against southerners in N'Djamena brought
further emigration, and the de facto partitioning of the country during
the early 1980s brought retribution against northern merchants living in
the southern cities of Moundou and Sarh. Although some of these people
later returned to their homes within Chad, others sought refuge in
Cameroon, Nigeria, and Central African Republic; some members of the
bourgeoisie and intelligentsia fled to Western Europe. In the 1980s, the
conflict shifted north, where the Chadian and Libyan armies clashed
repeatedly. These campaigns marked a major escalation in violence and
probably provoked flight as well.
As a population, Chadians were quite young. The PRB estimated that 44 percent of the population was younger
than fifteen in 1987. Only 2 percent of the population was older than
sixty-four. These percentages are best appreciated as components of what
is called the dependency ratio--the combined percentage of people less
than fifteen and more than sixty-four, who, because they are considered
only marginally productive, must be supported by the remainder of the
population. Although some social scientists and development analysts
challenge this conventional definition, pointing out that in rural
Africa and urban shantytowns children may indeed add to the household
income, most demographers agree that the measure is nonetheless a good
general indicator of the dependency burden. In Chad, then, the 46
percent of the population less than fifteen and more than sixty-four
essentially had to be supported by the other 54 percent. Although this
ratio was not the highest in Africa, the level of dependency was
difficult for Chadian society to bear, in part because poor health and
inadequate nutrition already took such a high toll among the working
population, and because mechanization had not raised productivity.
In terms of the sex structure of the population, the 1964 INSAH
survey calculated that there were 90 males for every 100 females; in
urban centers, the male percentage of the population rose slightly, to
96 for every 100 women. A small part of this imbalance may be attributed
to higher male mortality rates, but male labor migration is probably a
much more important factor. The absence of a census or more recent
demographic surveys made it impossible to determine if the Chadian Civil
War had affected the sex ratio.
In the late 1980s, Chad had a low population density of about 3.8
people per square kilometer. The population was also very unevenly
distributed because of contrasts in climate and physical environment.
The Saharan zone was the least densely populated. In 1982 it was
estimated to have a population density of 0.15 per square kilometer.
Most inhabitants of the region lived in its southern reaches, south of
16� north latitude.
The sahelian zone had a population density of seven persons
per square kilometer in 1971. Within the region, broad spectrums of
rainfall and environment and the diverse life-styles that accompany them
have resulted in widely varying population densities, from very low
among the nomads in the northern regions to much higher among the
agricultural populations in the south.
The highest population densities--about thirteen people per square
kilometer--occurred in the soudanian zone. In 1971 almost 45
percent of the total Chadian population lived in this region. Chad was
quite rural. The PRB placed the urban population of Africa at 31 percent
in 1985, whereas Chad's urban population was estimated at only 22
percent. Although the urban population remained relatively small,
urbanization accelerated in the 1980s. Whereas in 1971 only seven
centers had more than 10,000 inhabitants, INSAH estimated that by 1978
nine cities had populations of more than 20,000. From a total of 132,502
enumerated in the urban census of 1968, N'Djamena's population grew to
150,000 in 1971, nearly doubling to 280,000 in 1978. Although much of
the population abandoned the city during the battles of 1979 and 1980,
most people returned over the next several years. In 1983 the Chadian
government predicted that urban growth would continue at an annual rate
of 7.8 percent for the capital and 4.6 percent for secondary cities such
as Moundou, Sarh, and Ab�ch�.
Similarities of language do not imply other congruences. Nilo-Saharan
language speakers, for example, display a variety of life-styles. Nomads
in the Sahara, semisedentary and sedentary peoples in the Sahel, and
sedentary populations in the soudanian zone all may speak
Nilo-Saharan languages.
Central Saharan Languages
The distribution and numbers of Central Saharan language speakers
probably have changed dramatically since independence. The Chadian Civil
War and the Chadian-Libyan conflict have disrupted life in the northern
part of the country. Also, the rise to power of two heads of state from
the far north, Goukouni Oueddei and Hissein Habr�, may have inspired
the migration of northerners to the national capital and a greater
integration of the region into the life of the country.
Teda and Daza are related languages in the Central Saharan group.
Teda is spoken by the Toubou people of the Tibesti Mountains and by some
inhabitants of nearby oases in northeastern Niger and southwestern
Libya. Daza speakers live south of the Toubou in Borkou Subprefecture
and Kanem Prefecture, between the Tibesti Mountains and Lake Chad.
Despite their shared linguistic heritage, the Toubou and the Daza do
not think of themselves as belonging to a common group. Moreover, each
is further divided into subgroups identified with particular places.
Among the Toubou, the Teda of Tibesti are the largest subgroup. Daza
speakers separate themselves into more than a dozen groups. The Kreda of
Bahr el Ghazal are the largest. Next in importance are the Daza of
Kanem. Smaller and more scattered subgroups include the Charfarda of
Ouadda�; the Kecherda and Djagada of Kanem; the Doza, Annakaza,
Kokorda, Kamadja, and Noarma of Borkou; and the Ounia, Gaeda, and Erdiha
of Ennedi.
About one-third of the Teda are nomads. The remainder, along with all
of the Daza, are seminomadic, moving from pasture to pasture during
eight or nine months each year but returning to permanent villages
during the rains. In general, the Teda herd camels and live farther
north, where they move from oasis to oasis. The Daza often herd camels,
but they also raise horses, sheep, and goats. Their itineraries take
them farther south, where some have acquired cattle (whose limited
capacity to endure the heat and harsh environment of the northern
regions has altered patterns of transhumance). Some cattle owners leave
their animals with herders in the south when they return north; others
choose to remain in the south and entrust their other animals to
relatives or herders who take them north.
Kanembu is the major language of Lac Prefecture and southern Kanem
Prefecture. Although Kanuri, which derived from Kanembu, was the major
language of the Borno Empire, in Chad it is limited to handfuls of
speakers in urban centers. Kanuri remains a major language in
southeastern Niger, northeastern Nigeria, and northern Cameroon.
In the early 1980s, the Kanembu constituted the greatest part of the
population of Lac Prefecture, but some Kanembu also lived in
Chari-Baguirmi Prefecture. Once the core ethnic group of the Kanem-Borno
Empire, whose territories at one time included northeastern Nigeria and
southern Libya, the Kanembu retain ties beyond the borders of Chad. For
example, close family and commercial ties bind them with the Kanuri of
northeastern Nigeria. Within Chad, many Kanembu of Lac and Kanem
prefectures identify with the Alifa of Mao, the governor of the region
in precolonial times.
Baele (also erroneously called Bideyat) is the language of the
Bideyat of Ennedi Subprefecture and the Zaghawa of Biltine Prefecture.
Despite this similarity, the Zaghawa and the Bideyat exhibit diverse
life-styles. Some Zaghawa live in a centralized sultanate, with a ruling
family of Dadjo origin; these Zaghawa are semisedentary and prominent in
local and regional commerce. Other Zaghawa, however, living primarily in
the south, are nomads. The Bideyat also are nomadic.
Ouadda�an Languages
The origins of Ouadda�an languages remain obscure, although their
distribution implies origins farther east, an interpretation supported
by oral traditions. Speakers of Ouadda�an languages may have moved
westward to avoid Arab immigration from the east. Another theory
suggests that speakers of Ouadda�an languages once were continuously
distributed throughout the region but subsequently lost ground as the
population accepted Arabic.
Although some authorities separate Tama, Dadjo, and Mimi, others
consider them to be part of a larger Ouadda�an group, a linguistic
archipelago stretching from western Sudan to central Chad. In Chad they
are found in Biltine, Ouadda�, and Gu�ra prefectures.
Tama languages are spoken in Biltine and northern Ouadda�
Prefectures, and include Tama, Marari (Abou Charib), Sungor, Kibet,
Mourro, and Dagel. The Tama speakers, who live in eastern Biltine
Prefecture near the Sudanese border, are the largest of these groups.
Although they live in the arid Sahel, crop rotation has allowed them to
settle in permanent villages. The Tama live in cantons of several
thousand people, each administered by a canton chief. For several
centuries, central authority has been vested in sultans believed to be
of Dadjo origin, who are enthroned in ceremonies at the ruins of Nir,
the precolonial capital.
The Marari and Abou Charib, sedentary peoples sharing a Tama
language, live south and west, respectively, of the Tama in Ouadda�
Prefecture. Although they speak a Tama language, their traditions
suggest descent from the Tunjur, migrants from Sudan who once ruled the
sultanate of Wadai. To the west of the Tama and northwest of the Marari
and Abou Charib are the Sungor, another sedentary population. The Sungor
consider themselves to be of Yemeni ancestry, a popular and prestigious
Islamic pedigree among Muslims of the region. Despite speaking a Tama
language, Sungor society and customs most resemble those of the Maba.
The Dadjo language has eastern and western dialects. Once the rulers
of the sultanate of Wadai, the Dadjo people were separated into two
groups during the fifteenth century. At that time, the Tunjur conquered
Wadai, and some Dadjo people fled west. The eastern Dadjo remained in
southern present-day Ouadda� Prefecture and, following defeat by the
Tunjur, founded a new sultanate with its capital at Goz B��da. Their
descendants are primarily farmers. The western Dadjo live among the
Hajerai peoples of northern Gu�ra Prefecture. Cognizant of their common
origin, the eastern and western groups permit intermarriage.
Mimi is the least frequently spoken Ouadda�an language. Mimi
speakers who live in the plains use Arabic to communicate with their
neighbors; Mimi speakers who live in the mountains generally speak
Zaghawa with other highland dwellers.
Mabang Languages
Mabang languages are concentrated in the highlands of Ouadda�
Prefecture, but they are also spoken in Biltine and Salamat prefectures.
Maba is the major language of the group. Maba speakers are semisedentary
farmers who combine millet cultivation during the rainy season with
herding during the drier parts of the year. For the last several
decades, many Maba laborers have migrated to Sudan. The core ethnic
group of the sultanate of Wadai, the Maba played a central role in that
state even after conquest by rulers from the east in the seventeenth
century. Wadai sultans frequently took Maba women as first wives, and
the first dignitary of the court usually was also Maba.
Massalit, another major Mabang language, is spoken by people who live
east of the Maba along the Sudan border. Complemented by a far larger
Massalit population in Sudan, the Chadian Massalit are farmers who rely
on passing animal herds to fertilize their fields.
Massalat speakers are found farther west and are divided into two
groups, one in eastern Batha near Ouadda� Prefecture, and the other in
northern Gu�ra Prefecture. Once part of the larger Massalit community,
the Massalat have diverged from the main group. The two languages are
sufficiently different that linguists classify Massalat in a separate
subgroup. In addition, the Massalat physically and culturally resemble
the Dadjo more closely than they do their relatives to the east.
Runga is spoken over a large part of Salamat Prefecture and in a
small part of Central African Republic. Many Runga speakers are farmers
who grow millet, sorghum, peanuts, and cotton. In the nineteenth
century, the Runga were ruled by sultans from a capital in the Salamat
region. Herders of Wadai, the Runga also founded Dar al Kuti, the most
important precolonial state in northern Central African Republic.
Extensive slave raiding by the Sudanese warlord Rabih Fadlallah in the
1890s decimated the Runga in Chad; as late as the 1960s, they numbered
only about 12,000.
Other Mabang languages spoken by much smaller populations include
Marfa, Karanga, and Kashm�r�, found in the highlands north of Ab�ch�;
Koni�r�, spoken in a small region just east of Ab�ch�; and Bakhat, a
language of restricted distribution, found west of Ab�ch�.
Sara-Bongo-Baguirmi Languages
Classified in the Chari-Nile subfamily of the Nilo-Saharan languages,
Sara-Bongo-Baguirmi languages are scattered from Lake Chad to the White
Nile in southwestern Sudan. Unlike Central Saharan languages, when
mapped out they form a patchwork quilt rather than a solid band.
Kouka, Bilala, and Medogo, languages spoken around Lake Fitri in
southwestern Batha Prefecture, are the northernmost members of this
subgroup. These languages are mutually comprehensible, and the peoples
who use them are thought to be descendants of the core ethnic groups of
the precolonial sultanate of Yao (a state founded by the Bulala, who
ruled a vast region extending as far west as Kanem in the fifteenth
century). The Kouka, Bilala, and Medogo populations intermarry and share
institutions for the mediation of disputes. The groups farm and raise
animals, which they sometimes entrust to neighboring Arabs. Their
similarities are so striking that they are sometimes classed together as
the Lisi.
Barma is spoken in Chari-Baguirmi Prefecture by the Baguirmi, the
core population of another precolonial state. Today the Baguirmi are
concentrated in and around Massenya, a city southeast of N'Djamena named
for their precolonial capital. The Baguirmi identify themselves as
either river Barmi or land Barmi. The land Barmi farm millet, sorghum,
beans, sesame, peanuts, and cotton. The river Barmi fish along carefully
demarcated stretches of the Chari and Bahr Ergig rivers. Arabic
loanwords are numerous in Barma, a product of the Baguirmi's adoption of
Islam and their interaction with neighboring Arab pastoralists over a
long period of time. Long-standing economic ties with the West have also
prompted the incorporation of a Kanuri commercial vocabulary.
Kenga, found among the Hajerai in Gu�ra Prefecture, is closely
related to Barma. Although its speakers are said to have played a
prominent role in the foundation of the Bagirmi Empire, today they
resemble their highland neighbors more closely than their more distant
linguistic relatives.
Sara languages of southern Chad constitute the quilt's largest patch,
stretching from Logone Occidental Prefecture to eastern Moyen-Chari
Prefecture. Linguists divide Sara languages into five subgroups. Sara
languages seem to have drifted into southern Chad from the northeast.
Eventually, Sara speakers left behind the northern languages of the
group as they made their way to the richer hunting grounds and
agricultural land south of the Chari River. This must have occurred very
long ago, however, because the Sara languages and those of the northern
members of the group are mutually unintelligible. Moreover, Sara oral
traditions record only short-range migrations of Sara speakers in the
south, suggesting that movement from the north happened earlier.
Boua
Boua languages are distributed along the middle Chari River in
Moyen-Chari Prefecture and in central Gu�ra Prefecture. Like the Sara,
they are divided into five subgroups: Boua proper, Neillim, Tounia,
Koke, and Fanian or Mana. Only a few thousand people speak Boua
languages, but it is believed that their ancestors preceded
Sara-speaking settlers in the Chari Valley. Several centuries ago, all
the Boua subgroups may have lived farther north in Gu�ra Prefecture.
Under pressure from slave raiders along the Islamic frontier, some Boua
speakers probably migrated southward. Although speakers of Boua proper
submitted to neighboring slave raiders from the Bagirmi Empire, they in
turn raided their Neillim neighbors to the southeast. Similarly, the
Neillim attacked the Tounia to their southeast. The Tounia sought refuge
among the Kaba (a Sara subgroup) on the site of the present-day city of
Sarh.
Chad - Afro-Asiatic Languages
Two major Afro-Asiatic language are represented in Chad. Chadic
languages stretch from the western borders of Nigeria to Ouadda�
Prefecture, and Arabic-speaking populations are scattered throughout the
Sahel.
Chadic Languages
Most speakers of Chadic languages, including the 20 million speakers
of Hausa, the major Chadic language, live west of Chad. The peculiar
east-west distribution of Chadic along the southern fringe of the Sahara
from western Nigeria to eastern Chad has led some experts to suggest
that ancestral Chadic languages were spoken by peoples living along the
southern shores of the Paleochadian Sea. The first cluster of languages
is closely associated with water--the lake, the delta, the Chari and
Logone rivers, and their adjacent floodplains. Water also is important
to the economies of most of the populations speaking these languages. In
the second cluster, Chadic speakers are descended from refugee
populations who perhaps sought shelter in the highlands when the
contraction of the sea and the increased aridity of the region allowed
the penetration of more aggressive herding populations.
Within Chad, the Chadic languages are distributed in two patterns.
The first extends from Lake Chad south along the Chari and Logone rivers
to Mayo-Kebbi Prefecture. Individual languages fall into five groups,
arrayed from north to southeast.
Buduma-Kouri is spoken by two groups of lake people who intermarry
despite some social differences. The Buduma, who believe that they are
the original inhabitants of Lake Chad, live on its northern islands and
shores. In the past, the Buduma spent much of their time fishing on lake
islands. In recent times, however, their economic activities have
diversified to include farming and herding. Active in commerce between
Chad and Nigeria, the Buduma raise cattle whose very large and hollow
horns serve as flotation devices that permit their owners to
"herd" them in the lake itself. The lake has long protected
the Buduma, allowing them to maintain a separate identity. Despite
centuries of contact with Islamic states around the lake, for example,
they maintained their own religion until the early twentieth century.
The Kouri, who speak the same language, live on the shores and
islands of the southern part of Lake Chad. More devout Muslims, the
Kouri believe that they are descendants of Muslim migrants from Yemen
and that they are related to the Kanembu, whose medieval empire
sponsored the spread of Islam in the region. Kouri economic activities
resemble those of the Buduma; however, the absence of polders along this
part of the lakeshore has led the Kouri to confine farming to small
plots around their villages. Although they confine their herds to the
islands during the dry season, they may entrust them to neighboring
Kanembu for pasturing during the rains.
Kotoko is spoken along the lower Chari and Logone rivers by peoples
thought to be descendants of the legendary Sao. Divided into small
states with fortified cities as their capitals, the Kotoko consider
themselves "owners of the land" by virtue of their long
residence, and other peoples in the region recognize this claim. For
example, neighboring Arabs pay tribute for the right to farm and herd.
The Kotoko also have a monopoly over fishing and water transport. Rights
to the waters of the Logone and Chari rivers are divided among the
cities, each of which has a "chief of the waters," whose
communications with the water spirits determine the opening of the
fishing season. Non-Kotoko must pay for the right to fish. Outnumbered
in their own lands by Bororo and Arab herders, only about 7,000 Kotoko
lived in Chad in the late 1960s; three times as many lived across the
Logone in Cameroon. Strife in Chad -- particularly the troubles in
N'Djamena in 1979 and 1980--probably has accelerated the emigration of
the Kotoko from Chad.
Massa languages, including Massa, Moussey, Marba, and Dari, are
centered in southern Chari-Baguirmi and Mayo-Kebbi prefectures. The
Massa proper farm, herd, and fish in floodplains of the middle Chari.
Repeatedly through their history, the Massa suffered raids from their
Muslim neighbors--the Kanuri of the Borno Empire, the Barma of the
Bagirmi Empire, and the Fulani of Cameroon. The Massa survived these
military onslaughts, in part because their villages, which crown the
hills in the Chari floodplain, afforded protection for much of the year.
Having survived these threats, in recent years the Massa ironically have
adopted Muslim dress and have superimposed some features of Fulani
political structure on their local "chiefs of the lands." The
other speakers of Massa languages resemble the Massa proper. Estimated
to number 120,000 in the late 1970s, the largest group among them is the
Moussey, who live in and around Gounou Gaya in Mayo-Kebbi Prefecture.
The last cluster of Chadic languages in this first distribution
encompasses Nach�r�, L�l�, Gablai, and Guidar spoken primarily in
Tandjil� Prefecture and with outlying languages that include Gabri (in
Tandjil� Prefecture) and Toumak, Somrai, Ndam, Miltou, and Saraoua (in
Moyen-Chari Prefecture). This cluster of languages forms a transition
zone between the Massa and the Sara languages. The numbers of speakers
of these languages are small, probably because their peoples have been
absorbed by more numerous neighbors through intermarriage or emigration.
The second Chadic language distribution comprises two clusters. The
first brings together the languages spoken by the Hajerai, the mountain
peoples of Gu�ra Prefecture. These peoples are descended from refugees
from the surrounding plains who sought shelter in the mountains when
invaded by raiders from neighboring centralized states. Despite the
presence of non-Chadic languages (such as Kenga, which is part of the
Sara-Bongo-Baguirmi group), most Hajerai speak Chadic languages, such as
Djongor, Dangaleat, Bidyo, Mogoum, Sokoro, Barain, and Saba. The Hajerai
groups share important religious institutions, such as the margai
cult of place spirits; at the same time, they maintain separate
identities and refuse to intermarry. All have traditions of fierce
independence. The Hajerai were among the earliest supporters of
rebellion against the Chadian national government in the 1960s.
Moubi languages of Ouadda� Prefecture make up the second cluster of
this second distribution of Chadic languages. The Moubi are a sedentary
people who live south of the Massalit. They grow millet, sorghum,
sesame, beans, cotton, and peanuts. In recent years, they have also
adopted cattle herding, a practice borrowed from the Missiriye Arab
herders who regularly cross their lands and with whom the Moubi have
long exchanged goods and services. Like the Hajerai, the Moubi have
resisted the government since shortly after independence.
Arabic
There are about thirty different dialects of Arabic in Chad. The
Arabs divide themselves into three major "tribes": the
Juhayna, the Hassuna, and the Awlad Sulayman. In this context, tribe
refers to a group claiming descent from a common ancestor. The Juhayna,
who began arriving from Sudan in the fourteenth century, are by far the
most important. The Hassuna, who migrated to Chad from Libya, live in
Kanem Prefecture. The Awlad Sulayman also hail from Libya, but they
arrived in the nineteenth century, well after the others. Most of the
Arabs are herders or farmers.
Among Arabic herdsmen, life-styles vary considerably. The different
needs of camels, cattle, goats, and sheep result in different patterns
of settlement and movement. In addition to herding, many Arabic speakers
earn their livelihoods as small and middle-level merchants. In N'Djamena
and in towns such as Sarh and Moundou, Arabic speakers dominated local
commerce up until the 1970s; however, because of the anti-Muslim
violence in the south in the late 1970s, many moved to central or
nothern Chad.
Despite the diversity of dialects and the scattered distribution of
Arabic-speaking populations, the language has had a major impact on
Chad. In the Sahel, Arab herdsmen and their wives frequent local markets
to exchange their animals, butter, and milk for agricultural products,
cloth, and crafts. Itinerant Arab traders and settled merchants in the
towns play major roles in local and regional economies. As a result,
Chadian Arabic (or Turku) has became a lingua franca, or trade language.
Arabic also has been important because it is the language of Islam and
of the Quran, its holy book. Quranic education has stimulated the spread
of the language and enhanced its stature among the non-Arab Muslims of
Chad.
Not all Arabic speakers are of Arab descent. The assimilation of
local peoples (both free and slave) into Arabic groups has affected both
the dialects and the customs of Arabic speakers in Chad. Non-Arabs also
have adopted the language. To cite two examples, the Yalna and the
Bandala are of Hajerai and Ouadda�an origin, respectively, and were
probably originally slaves who adopted the Arabic language of their
masters. Among the Runga, who were not slaves, Arabic is also widely
spoken.
Chad - Congo-Kordofanian Languages
Moundang-Toupouri-Mboum
Classified as belonging to the Niger-Congo subfamily of the
Congo-Kordofanian family, languages in the Moundang-Toupouri-Mboum
groups are spoken by a variety of populations in Mayo-Kebbi and Logone
Oriental prefectures. These languages may be divided into seven
subgroups: Moundang, Toupouri, Mboum/Laka, Kera, Mongbai, Kim, and
Mesme. Speakers of Moundang, Toupouri, and Mboum/Laka are by far the
most numerous of this group. Despite belonging to the same language
group, these three populations have very different social structures,
life-styles, and myths of origin.
Moundang is spoken by more than 100,000 people in Mayo-Kebbi
Prefecture; numerous Moundang speakers also live in Cameroon. The
Moundang people raise millet for food and cotton for sale. They also own
cattle, which are used for marriage payments, religious sacrifices, and
payment of fines. Bororo herders live in the same region and often take
care of Moundang livestock.
On the broadest level, the Moundang still belong to a kingdom founded
two centuries ago. Although the French colonial administration and the
independent Chadian governments undermined the military power of the gon
lere (king), he continued to wield influence in the 1980s from his
capital at L�r�. On a smaller scale, clan institutions remain
important. Associated with particular territories, taboos, totem
animals, and marriage rules, clan government, which predates the
kingdom, is much less centralized. In some respects, the two sets of
institutions act as checks on each other. For example, the clans allow
the king to organize manhood initiation ceremonies, central to the
maintenance of Moundang identity; however, the councils of elders of
each clan may offer advice to the ruler.
In the nineteenth century, the Moundang suffered frequent attacks by
Fulani invaders from the west. They were never subjugated, but the close
contact has resulted in the adoption of Fulani principles of political
organization and dress.
Mboum/Laka speakers live in southern Logone Oriental Prefecture.
About 100,000 Mboum/Laka speakers lived in Chad in the 1980s; a larger
population lived across the border in Cameroon and Central African
Republic. Sedentary farmers, the Mboum and the Laka probably were pushed
east and south by the expansion of the Fulani over the past two
centuries.
The Toupouri language and people are found in Mayo-Kebbi Prefecture
around the town of Fianga. Almost all of their land is cultivated, and
productivity is enhanced by the use of animal fertilizer and double
cropping. During the rainy season, the Toupouri raise sorghum. Berebere,
a kind of millet, is grown in the drier part of the year. Cattle and
fish provide additional food resources. Numbering about 100,000, the
Toupouri live in the most densely populated part of Chad; some cantons
reach densities of twelve people per square kilometer. Overcrowding has
promoted emigration, primarily to N'Djamena and Nigeria.
Fulani
Fulani speakers are not very numerous in Chad. Part of the West
Atlantic subfamily of the Congo-Kordofanian family of languages, Fulani
(called Peul by the French) first appeared in the Senegal River Valley
in West Africa. Population growth and the vagaries of climate encouraged
the eastward drift of Fulani-speaking herders through the Sahel. Some
Fulani speakers adopted Islam and became very important actors in the
spread of the religion and the rise of Muslim states west of Chad. Many
of these people settled, taking up village or urban life and abandoning
nomadism. Other Fulani speakers, however, remained loyal to their
pre-Islamic faith and their nomadic life-style.
Fulani speakers arrived in Chad only in the past two centuries. In
the mid-1960s, about 32,000 Fulani lived in Kanem, southern Batha, and
northern Chari-Baguirmi prefectures, where they raised mainly cattle and
sheep. Many of the Fulani are fervent Muslims, and some are teachers of
the Quran.
Related to the Fulani ethnically and linguistically--but refusing
contact--are the nomadic Bororo of western Chad. In the dry season, the
Bororo pasture their animals around wells and pools in northern
Mayo-Kebbi Prefecture near Bongor. After the first major rains, they
leave for Kanem Prefecture, north of Lake Chad.
Banda-Ngbaka
Also members of the Niger-Congo subfamily of the Congo-Kordofanian
languages, Banda-Ngbaka languages are located in Gu�ra, Salamat, and
Moyen-Chari prefectures. Subgroups include Sango, Bolgo, Goula, and
Goula Iro. Although not spoken as a first language in Chad, Sango has
been particularly important because it served as a trade language during
the colonial era. Although most Banda-Ngbaka languages are found farther
south in Central African Republic, the presence of these subgroups in
Chad suggests that Banda-Ngbaka speakers were once much more numerous in
Chad. Bolgo, found with Hajerai and Goula languages in the vicinity of
Lake Iro and Lake Mamoun, is spoken by refugee populations. Populations
speaking these languages are very diverse. Although the Goula speak a
Banda-Ngbaka language, for example, their culture resembles that of the
Sara.
Chad - SOCIAL STRUCTURE
Toubou and Daza life centers on their livestock (their major source
of wealth and sustenance) and on the scattered oases where they or their
herders cultivate dates and grain. In a few places, the Toubou and Daza
(or more often members of the Haddad group who work for them) also mine
salt and natron, a salt like substance used for medicinal purposes and
for livestock.
The Toubou family is made up of parents, children, and another
relative or two. Although the husband or father is the head of the
household, he rarely makes decisions without consulting his wife. When
he is absent, his wife often takes complete charge, moving family tents,
changing pastures, and buying and selling cattle. Although Toubou men
may have several wives, few do. Families gather in larger camps during
the months of transhumance. Camp membership is fluid, sometimes changing
during the season and almost never remaining the same from one season to
the next.
After the family, the clan is the most stable Toubou institution.
Individuals identify with their clan, which has a reputed founder, a
name, a symbol, and associated taboos. Clans enjoy collective priority
use of certain palm groves, cultivable land, springs, and pastures;
outsiders may not use these resources without clan permission. Social
relations are based on reciprocity, hospitality, and assistance. Theft
and murder within the clan are forbidden, and stolen animals must be
returned.
Within the overall context of clan identity, however, Toubou and Daza
society is shaped by the individual. Jean Chapelle, a well-known
observer of Chadian societies, notes that "it is not society that
forms the individual, but the individual who constructs the society most
useful" for him or her. Three features of Toubou social structure
make this process possible. The first is residence. In general, clan
members are scattered throughout a region; therefore, an individual is
likely to find hospitable clans people in most settlements or camps of
any size. A second factor is the maintenance of ties with the maternal
clan. Although the maternal clan does not occupy the central place of
the potential clan, it provides another universe of potential ties.
Marriage creates a third set of individual options. Although
relatives and the immediate family influence decisions about a marriage
partner, individual preference is recognized as important. In addition,
once a marriage is contracted between individuals of two clans, other
clan members are forbidden to change it. The Toubou proscribe marriage
with any blood relative less than four generations removed--in the words
of the Toubou recorded by Chapelle, "when there are only three
grandfathers."
The ownership of land, animals, and resources takes several forms.
Within an oasis or settled zone belonging to a particular clan, land,
trees (usually date palms), and nearby wells may have different owners.
Each family's rights to the use of particular plots of land are
recognized by other clan members. Families also may have privileged
access to certain wells and the right to a part of the harvest from the
fields irrigated by their water. Within the clan and family contexts,
individuals also may have personal claims to palm trees and animals.
Toubou legal customs are based on restitution, indemnification, and
revenge. Conflicts are resolved in several settings. Murder, for
example, is settled directly between the families of the victim and the
murderer. Toubou honor requires that someone from the victim's family
try to kill the murderer or a relative; such efforts eventually end with
negotiations to settle the matter. Reconciliation follows the payment of
the goroga, or blood price, usually in the form of camels.
Despite shared linguistic heritage, few institutions among the Toubou
and the Daza generate a broader sense of identity than the clan.
Regional divisions do exist, however. Among the Toubou, there are four
such subgroups, the Teda of Tibesti Subprefecture being the largest.
There are more than a dozen subgroups of Daza: the Kreda of Bahr el
Ghazal are the largest; next in importance are the Daza of Kanem
Prefecture. During the colonial period (and since independence), Chadian
administrations have conferred legality and legitimacy on these regional
groupings by dividing the Toubou and Daza regions into corresponding
territorial units called cantons and appointing chiefs to administer
them.
Only among the Toubou of the Tibesti region have institutions evolved
somewhat differently. Since the end of the sixteenth century, the derde
(spiritual head) of the Tomagra clan has exercised authority over part
of the massif and the other clans who live there. He is selected by a
group of electors according to strict rules. The derde
exercises judicial rather than executive power, arbitrating conflict and
levying sanctions based on a code of compensations.
Since the beginning of the civil conflict in Chad, the derde
has come to occupy a more important position. In 1965 the Chadian
government assumed direct authority over the Tibesti Mountains, sending
a military garrison and administrators to Barda�, the capital of
Tibesti Subprefecture. Within a year, abuses of authority had roused
considerable opposition among the Toubou. The derde, Oueddei
Kichidemi, recognized but little respected up to that time, protested
the excesses, went into exile in Libya, and, with the support of Toubou
students at the Islamic University of Al Bayda, became a symbol of
opposition to the Chadian government. This role enhanced the position of
the derde among the Toubou. After 1967 the derde hoped
to rally the Toubou to the National Liberation Front of Chad (Front de
Lib�ration Nationale du Tchad--FROLINAT). Moral authority became
military authority shortly thereafter when his son, Goukouni Oueddei,
became one of the leaders of the Second Liberation Army of FROLINAT.
Goukouni has since become a national figure; he played an important role
in the battles of N'Djamena in 1979 and 1980 and served as head of state
for a time. Another northerner, Hissein Habr� of the Daza Annakaza,
replaced Goukouni in 1982.
Chad - Arabs
The Arabs of Chad are semisedentary (or seminomadic) peoples who herd
their camels, horses, cattle, goats, and sheep on the plains of the
Sahel. Except in the extreme north, they live among sedentary peoples,
and in the region around N'Djamena some Arabs have adopted a more
settled existence. In the rainy season, Arab groups spread out through
the region; in the dry season, they live a more settled existence,
usually on the dormant agricultural lands of their sedentary neighbors.
They leave the far north to the Toubou, avoid the mountains of Ouadda�
and Gu�ra prefectures, and move south of 10� north latitude only in
times of extreme drought.
The Arabs were not state builders in Chad, a role played instead by
the Maba in Wadai, the Barma in Bagirmi, and the Kanembu in Kanem-Borno. The Arabs exercised great
influence over all three empires, however, either by conquest (in the
case of Wadai) or by converting their rulers to Islam (in the cases of
Bagirmi and Kanem). As with nomads and seminomads elsewhere, the
possession of camels and horses translated into military potential that
commanded the respect of the settled states. For example, the Awlad
Sulayman of Kanem, despite their small numbers, gained fame and fortune
during the second half of the nineteenth century by playing the
increasingly aggressive empire of Wadai against weaker Kanem-Borno. In
the decade after 1900, they used the same tactic to enhance and enrich
themselves at the expense of the French and the Sanusiyya, a Muslim
religious order of Libyan origin with political and economic interests
in the Lake Chad Basin.
Chadian Arabs are divided into three "tribes": the Juhayna,
the Hassuna, and the Awlad Sulayman. Members of each tribe believe
themselves to be descended from a common ancestor. Among the smaller
social units, belief in a shared genealogy (rather than common residence
or a common faith) provides a major ideological rationale for joint
action.
As is true for the Toubou, the basic Arab social unit is the kashimbet,
a minimal lineage made up of several generations of men, their wives,
and children or grandchildren reckoned through the male line. Members of
the same kashimbet live near each other and more or less follow
the same route during migration. Each kashimbet is headed by an
elder male, or shaykh. This aspect of the social structure is visible in
the disposition of tents (or houses among the more sedentary Arabs of
N'Djamena). The residence of the shaykh is often at the center of the
camp or settlement, with the woven straw tents or adobe houses of his
relatives arrayed around it in concentric circles. The area is
surrounded by a fence or some other boundary that defines the zariba,
or walled camp. Within the kashimbet, loyalty is generally
intense, institutionalized relationships being reinforced by bonds of
common residence and personal acquaintance.
Kinship bonds also provide the ideological basis for broader units.
Led by the head of the senior lineage, who is more a "first among
equals" than a chief, the shaykhs of neighboring kashimbets
sometimes meet to decide matters of common interest, such as the date of
the annual migration. The shaykhs' leader, or lawan, may also
deal with outsiders on their behalf. He concludes contracts with farmers
to allow Arabs to pass the dry season on agricultural lands and levies
tribute on strangers who wish to use the group's pastures and wells.
Unlike what is found in Toubou society, marriage among the Arabs
strengthens kinship ties. First, marriage is more a family than an
individual concern; senior males from each family make initial contacts
and eventually negotiate the marriage contract. An ideal union
reinforces the social, moral, and material position of the group.
Second, parallel cousin marriage (that is, union between the children of
brothers or male relatives more removed), is preferred. This custom
encourages the duplication of bonds within the group rather than the
creation of a far-flung network of more tenuous, individual alliances,
as occurs among the Toubou. Finally, the marriage ceremony is itself a
community affair. Among the Toubou, marriage is associated with the
feigned "stealing" of the bride from her family, whose members
respond with grief and anger, but marriage among the Arabs is an
expression of solidarity. The ceremony is celebrated by a faqih
(Muslim religious leader), and a joyous procession of neighbors,
relatives, and friends escorts the bride to the house of her husband.
Despite their wide distribution and numerous contacts with sedentary
peoples, Arabs have never played a preponderant role in Chadian affairs.
During the colonial period, they resisted the French, who attempted to
impose a territorially defined administration but who ultimately
governed through the Arabs' kin-based social structures. This inability
of the colonial authorities to penetrate and change Arab social and
political institutions allowed the Arabs to resist Western education and
employment in the emerging capitalist economy. Their pastoral lifestyle
also saved them from the forced cultivation of commercial crops that so
disrupted the societies of their sedentary neighbors.
Since independence the Arabs have remained on the margins of Chadian
national life. The government, dominated by southerners, suspected the
Arabs of a major role in the civil strife of the late 1960s. In the
Sahel, however, settled non-Arab peoples (such as the Moubi and Hajerai
of Gu�ra Prefecture) have played a much more important role in
resisting central power. Although it is true that the Arabs have opposed
the government at times, they also have rallied to it. Such a pattern
suggests that the Arabs have followed their time-honored prescription of
keeping the state off balance to ensure maximum freedom of action.
Chad - Sara
Classical African religions regard the world as a product of a
complex system of relationships among people, living and dead, and
animals, plants, and natural and supernatural phenomena. This religious
tradition is often called "animism" because of its central
premise that all things are "animated" by life forces. The
relationships among all things are ordered and often hierarchical. Human
societies reflect this order, and human survival and success require
that it be maintained. Antisocial acts or bad luck signal that this
harmony has been upset, leading to efforts to restore it through ritual
acts, such as prayers, sacrifices, libations, communions, dances, and
symbolic struggles. Such intervention, it is believed, helps ward off
the chaos that adversely affects people and their souls, families and
communities, and crops and harvests.
Ancestors play an important role in Chadian classical religions. They
are thought to span the gap between the supernatural and natural worlds.
They connect these two worlds specifically by linking living lineage
members with their earliest forebears. Because of their proximity, and
because they once walked among the living, ancestors are prone to
intervene in daily affairs. This intervention is particularly likely in
the case of the recently deceased, who are thought to spend weeks or
months in limbo between the living and the dead. Many religious
observances include special rituals to propitiate these spirits,
encourage them to take their leave with serenity, and restore the social
order their deaths have disrupted.
Spirits are also numerous. These invisible beings inhabit a parallel
world and sometimes reside in particular places or are associated with
particular natural phenomena. Among the Mbaye, a Sara subgroup, water
and lightning spirits are thought to bring violent death and influence
other spirits to intervene in daily life. The sun spirit, capable of
rendering service or causing harm, also must be propitiated. Spirits may
live in family groups with spouses and children. They are also capable
of taking human, animal, or plant forms when they appear among the
living. The supernatural powers that control natural events are also of
major concern. Among farming peoples, rituals to propitiate such powers
are associated with the beginning and end of the agricultural cycle.
Among the Sara, the new year begins with the appearance of the first new
moon following the harvest. The next day, people hunt with nets and
fire, offering the catch to ancestors. Libations are offered to
ancestors, and the first meal from the new harvest is consumed.
Among the more centralized societies of Chad, the ruler frequently is
associated with divine power. Poised at the apex of society, he or (more
rarely) she is responsible for good relations with the supernatural
forces that sanction and maintain the social order. For example, among
the Moundang, the gon lere of L�r� is responsible for
relations with the sky spirits. And among the Sara Madjingay, the mbang
(chief) of the village of B�daya controls religious rituals that
preserve and renew the social order. Even after the coming of Islam, the
symbols of such authority reinforced the rulers of nominally Islamic
states such as Wadai, Kanem-Borno, and Bagirmi.
Finally, most classical African religions involve belief in a supreme
being who created the world and its inhabitants but who then retired
from active intervention in human affairs. As a result, shrines to a
high god are uncommon, and people tend to appeal to the lesser spirits;
yet the notion of a supreme being may have helped the spread of
Christianity. When missionaries arrived in southern Chad, they often
used the local name of this high god to refer to the Christian supreme
being. Thus, although a much more interventionist spirit, the Christian
god was recognizable to the people. This recognition probably
facilitated conversion, but it may also have ironically encouraged
syncretism (the mixing of religious traditions), a practice disturbing
to many missionaries and to Protestants in particular. Followers of
classical African religions would probably not perceive any necessary
contradiction between accepting the Christian god and continuing to
believe in the spirits just described.
Because order is thought to be the natural, desirable state, disorder
is not happenstance. Classical African religions devote considerable
energy to the maintenance of order and the determination of who or what
is responsible for disorder. In the case of illness, for example, it is
of the greatest importance to ascertain which spirit or which person is
responsible for undermining the natural order; only then is it possible
to prescribe a remedy. In such circumstances, people frequently take
their cases to ritual specialists, who divine the threats to harmony and
recommend appropriate action. Such specialists share their knowledge
only with peers. Indeed, they themselves have probably acquired such
knowledge incrementally as they made their way through elaborate
apprenticeships.
Although classical African religions provide institutionalized ways
of maintaining or restoring community solidarity, they also allow
individuals to influence the cosmic order to advance their own
interests. Magic and sorcery both serve this end. From society's
standpoint, magic is positive or neutral. On the one hand, magicians try
to influence life forces to alter the physical world, perhaps to bring
good fortune or a return to health. Sorcerers, on the other hand, are
antisocial, using sorcery (or "black magic") to control or
consume the vital force of others. Unlike magicians, whose identity is
generally known, sorcerers hide their supernatural powers, practicing
their nefarious rites in secret. When misfortune occurs, people often
suspect that sorcery is at the root of their troubles. They seek counsel
from diviners or magicians to identify the responsible party and ways to
rectify the situation; if the disruption is deemed to threaten everyone,
leaders may act on behalf of the community at large. If discovered,
sorcerers are punished.
The survival of any society requires that knowledge be passed from
one generation to another. In many Chadian societies, this transmission
is marked by ritual. Knowledge of the world and its forces is limited to
adults; among the predominantly patrilineal societies of Chad, it is
further limited to men in particular. Rituals often mark the transition
from childhood to adulthood. However, they actively
"transform" children into adults, teaching them what adults
must know to assume societal responsibilities.
Although such rites differ among societies, the Sara yondo
may serve as a model of male initiation ceremonies found in Chad. The yondo
takes place at a limited number of sites every six or seven years. Boys
from different villages, usually accompanied by an elder, gather for the
rites, which, before the advent of Western education with its nine-month
academic calendar, lasted several months. In recent decades, the yondo
has been limited to several weeks between academic years.
The yondo and its counterparts among other Chadian societies
reinforce male bonds and male authority. Women are not allowed to
witness the rite. Their initiated sons and brothers no longer eat with
them and go to live in separate houses. Although rites also mark the
transition to womanhood in many Chadian societies, such ceremonies are
much shorter. Rather than encouraging girls to participate in the larger
society, they stress household responsibilities and deference to male
authority.
Chad - Islam
Tenets of Islam
"Islam" means submission to the will of God, and a Muslim
is one who submits. In A.D. 610, Muhammad, an Arabian merchant of Mecca,
revealed the first in a series of revelations granted him by God (Allah,
in Arabic) through the archangel Gabriel. Later known simply as the
Prophet, Muhammad denounced the polytheism of his fellow Meccans and
preached a new order that would reinforce community solidarity. His
censure of the emerging individualistic, mercantile society in Mecca
eventually provoked a split in the community. In A.D. 622, Muhammad and
his followers fled northwest to Yathrib, a settlement that has since
come to be known simply as Medina, or "the city." This journey
(called the hijra, or the flight) marks the beginning of the Islamic
Era. The Muslim lunar calendar begins with this event, so that its year
1 corresponds to A.D. 622. (However, the solar and Muslim calendars are
separated by more than 622 years; a lunar year has an average of 354
days and thus is considerably shorter than the 365-day solar year.) In
Medina, the Prophet continued his preaching. Eventually defeating his
detractors in battle, Muhammad became the temporal and spiritual leader
of most of Arabia by the time of his death in A.D. 632.
In the decades after his death, Muhammad's followers collected his
revelations into a single book of recitations called the Quran. During
the same period, some of his close associates collected and codified the
Prophet's sayings, as well as accounts of his behavior, to serve as
guides for future generations. These compilations are called the hadith,
or "sayings," which, along with the Quran, are central to
Islamic jurisprudence.
The shahada (or profession of faith) states the central
belief of Islam: "There is no god but God (Allah), and Muhammad is
his Prophet." This simple testimony is repeated on many ritual
occasions. When recited with conviction, it signals conversion.
The duties of a Muslim form the five pillars of the faith. These are
recitation of the shahada, daily prayer (salat),
almsgiving (zakat), fasting (sawm), and, if possible,
making the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj).
Islam in Chad
Islam became a dynamic political and military force in the Middle
East in the decades immediately following Muhammad's death. By the late
seventh century A.D., Muslim conquerors had reached North Africa and
moved south into the desert. Although it is difficult to date the
arrival and spread of Islam in Chad, by the time Arab migrants began
arriving from the east in the fourteenth century, the faith was already
widespread. Instead of being the product of conquest or the imposition
of political power, Islamization in Chad was gradual, the effect of the
slow spread of Islamic civilization beyond its political frontiers.
Islam in Chad has adapted to its local context in many ways. For one
thing, despite the presence of a large number of Arabs, Arabic is not
the maternal language of the majority of Chadian Muslims. As a result,
although many Chadian Muslims have attended Quranic schools, they often
have learned to recite Quranic verses without understanding their
meaning. Hence, perhaps even more than among those who understand
Arabic, the recitation of verse has taken on a mystical character among
Chadian Muslims. Islam in Chad also is syncretic. Chadian Muslims have
retained and combined pre-Islamic with Islamic rituals and beliefs.
Moreover, Islam in Chad was not particularly influenced by the the great
mystical movements of the Islamic Middle Ages or the fundamentalist
upheavals that affected the faith in the Middle East, West Africa, and
Sudan. Beginning in the Middle East in the thirteenth century, Muslim
mystics sought to complement the intellectual comprehension of Islam
with direct religious experience through prayer, contemplation, and
action. The followers of these mystics founded brotherhoods (turuq;
sing., tariqa), which institutionalized their teachers'
interpretations of the faith. Such organizations stimulated the spread
of Islam and also provided opportunities for joint action, for the most
part, which was not the case in Chad, where only two brotherhoods exist.
Perhaps as a result of prolonged contact with West African Muslim
traders and pilgrims, most Chadian Muslims identify with the Tijaniyya
order, but the brotherhood has not served as a rallying point for
unified action. Similarly, the Sanusiyya, a brotherhood founded in Libya
in the mid-nineteenth century, enjoyed substantial economic and
political influence in the Lake Chad Basin around 1900. Despite French
fears of an Islamic revival movement led by "Sanusi fanatics,"
Chadian adherents, limited to the Awlad Sulayman Arabs and the Toubou of
eastern Tibesti, have never been numerous.
Chapelle writes that even though Chadian Islam adheres to the Maliki
legal school (which, like the other three accepted schools of Islamic
jurisprudence, is based on an extensive legal literature), most Islamic
education relies solely on the Quran. Higher Islamic education in Chad
is all but nonexistent; thus, serious Islamic students and scholars must
go abroad. Popular destinations include Khartoum and Cairo, where
numerous Chadians attend Al Azhar, the most renowned university in the
Islamic world.
Chadian observance of the five pillars of the faith differs somewhat
from the orthodox tradition. For example, public and communal prayer
occurs more often than the prescribed one time each week but often does
not take place in a mosque. Moreover, Chadian Muslims probably make the
pilgrimage less often than, for example, their Hausa counterparts in
northern Nigeria. As for the Ramadan fast, the most fervent Muslims in
Chad refuse to swallow their saliva during the day, a particularly stern
interpretation of the injunction against eating or drinking between
sunrise and sunset.
Finally, Chadian Islam is not particularly militant. Even if young
Muslims in urban areas are aware of happenings in other parts of the
Islamic world, they have not responded to fundamentalist appeals.
Chad - Christianity
Christianity arrived in Chad in the twentieth century, shortly after
the colonial conquest. Contrary to the dominant pattern in some other
parts of Africa, however, where the colonial powers encouraged the
spread of the faith, the earliest French officials in Chad advised
against it. This recommendation, however, probably reflected European
paternalism and favoritism toward Islam rather than a display of
liberalism. In any case, the French military administration followed
such counsel for the first two decades of the century, the time it took
to conquer the new colony and establish control over its people.
Following World War I, however, official opposition to Christianity
softened, and the government tolerated but did not sponsor missionaries.
Since World War II, Chadian Christians have had a far greater
influence on Chadian life than their limited numbers suggest. The
missions spread the ideology of Westernization--the notion that progress
depended on following European models of development. Even more
specifically, Roman Catholic mission education spread the French
language. Ironically, even though Islam spread more quickly and more
widely than Christianity, Christians controlled the government that
inherited power from the French. These leaders imparted a Western
orientation that continued to dominate in the 1980s.
Protestantism in Chad
The Protestants came to southern Chad in the 1920s. American Baptists
were the first, but missionaries of other denominations and
nationalities soon followed. Many of the American missions were northern
offshoots of missionary networks founded farther south in the
Ubangi-Chari colony (now Central African Republic) of French Equatorial
Africa (Afrique Equatoriale Fran�aise). The organizational ties between
the missions in southern Chad and Ubangi-Chari were strengthened by
France's decision in 1925 to transfer Logone Occidental, Tandjil�,
Logone Oriental, and Moyen-Chari prefectures to Ubangi-Chari, where they
remained until another administrative shuffle restored them to Chad in
1932.
These early Protestant establishments looked to their own churches
for material resources and to their own countries for diplomatic
support. Such independence allowed them to maintain a distance from the
French colonial administration. In addition, the missionaries arrived
with their wives and children, and they often spent their entire lives
in the region. This family-based expansion of the missionary networks
was not peculiar to Chad in the 1920s. Some of the missionaries who
arrived at that time had grown up with missionary parents in missions
founded earlier in the French colonies to the south. Some missionary
children from this era later founded missions of their own. Many
remained after independence, leaving only in the early and or mid-1970s
when Tombalbaye's authenticit� movement forced their
departure.
The puritanical message preached by many Protestant missionaries
undermined the appeal of the faith. Rather than allowing a local
Christian tradition to develop, the missionaries preached a
fundamentalist doctrine native to parts of the United States. They
inveighed against dancing, alcohol, and local customs, which they
considered "superstitions." New converts found it almost
impossible to observe Protestant teachings and remain within their
communities. In the early years, Chadian Protestants often left their
villages and settled around the missions. But abandoning village and
family was a sacrifice that most people were reluctant to make.
Although language and doctrine probably discouraged conversion, the
educational and medical projects of the Protestant missions probably
attracted people. The missionaries set up schools, clinics, and
hospitals long before the colonial administration did. In fact, the
mission schools produced the first Western-educated Chadians in the
1940s and 1950s. In general, the Protestant missionary effort in
southern Chad has enjoyed some success. In 1980, after a half-century of
evangelization, Protestants in southern Chad numbered about 80,000.
From bases in the south, Protestants founded missions in other parts
of Chad. For the most part, they avoided settling among Muslims, who
were not responsive to their message. In the colonial capital of
Fort-Lamy (present-day's N'Djamena), the missions attracted followers
among resident southerners. The missionaries also proselytized among the
non-Muslim populations of Gu�ra, Ouadda�, and Biltine prefectures.
Although Christianity appealed to some in the capital (there were
estimated to be 18,000 Christians in N'Djamena in 1980), efforts in
other parts of the Sahel were relatively unsuccessful.
In the late 1980s, the future of the Protestant missions in Chad
remained unclear. As noted, many Protestant missionaries were forced to
leave the country during the cultural revolution in the early and
mid-1970s. Outside the south, other missions have been caught in the
cross fire of warring factions. Rebel forces have pillaged mission
stations, and the government has accused the missionaries of complicity
with the opposition.
Roman Catholicism in Chad
The Roman Catholic missions came to Chad later than their Protestant
counterparts. Isolated efforts began as early as 1929 when The Holy
Ghost Fathers from Bangui founded a mission at Kou, near Moundou in
Logone Occidental Prefecture. In 1934, in the midst of the sleeping
sickness epidemic, they abandoned Kou for Doba in Logone Oriental
Prefecture. Other priests from Ubangi-Chari and Cameroon opened missions
in K�lo and Sarh in 1935 and 1939, respectively.
In 1946 these autonomous missions gave way to an institutionalized
Roman Catholic presence. This late date had more to do with European
politics than with events in Chad. Earlier in the century, the Vatican
had designated the Chad region to be part of the Italian vicarate of
Khartoum. Rather than risk the implantation of Italian missionaries
during the era of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, the French
administration discouraged all Roman Catholic missionary activity. For
its part, the Vatican adopted the same tactic, not wishing to upset the
Italian regime by transferring jurisdiction of the Chad region to the
French. As a consequence of their defeat in World War II, however, the
Italians lost their African colonies. This loss cleared the way for a
French Roman Catholic presence in Chad, which a decree from Rome
formalized on March 22, 1946.
This decree set up three religious jurisdictions that eventually
became four bishoprics. The first, administered by the Jesuits, had its
seat in N'Djamena. Although its jurisdiction included the eight
prefectures in the northern and eastern parts of the country, almost all
the Roman Catholics in sahelian and Saharan Chad lived in the
capital. The diocese of N'Djamena also served as the archdiocese of all
Chad. The second bishopric, at Sarh, also was delegated to the Jesuits.
Its region included Salamat and Moyen-Chari prefectures. The third and
fourth jurisdictions had their headquarters in Pala and Moundou and were
delegated to the Oblats de Marie and Capuchin orders. The Pala bishopric
served Mayo-Kebbi Prefecture, while the bishopric of Moundou was
responsible for missions in Logone Occidental and Logone Oriental
prefectures. By far the most important jurisdiction in 1970, Pala
included 116,000 of Chad's 160,000 Catholics.
The relatively slow progress of the Roman Catholic Church in Chad has
several causes. Although Roman Catholicism has been much more open to
local cultures than Protestantism, the doctrine of celibacy probably has
deterred candidates for the priesthood. Insistence on monogamy also has
undoubtedly made the faith less attractive to some potential converts,
particularly wealthy older men able to afford more than one wife.
The social works of the Roman Catholic Church have made it an
important institution in Chad. Like their Protestant counterparts, the
Roman Catholic missions have a history of social service. In the 1970s,
along with priests, the staffs of most establishments included brothers
and nuns who worked in the areas of health, education, and development.
Many of the nuns were trained medical professionals who served on the
staffs of government hospitals and clinics. It was estimated that 20,000
Chadians attended Roman Catholic schools in 1980. Adult literacy classes
also reached beyond the traditional school-aged population. In the area
of development, as early as the 1950s Roman Catholic missions in
southern Chad set up rural development centers whose clientele included
non-Christians as well as Christians.
Chad - EDUCATION
The establishment of Protestant mission schools in southern Chad in
the 1920s, followed by Roman Catholic and colonial state establishments
in later decades, marked the beginning of Western education in Chad.
From the outset, the colonial administration required that all
instruction be in French, with the exception of religion classes, which
could be taught in local languages. As early as 1925, the state imposed
a standard curriculum on all institutions wishing official recognition
and government subsidies. The state thus extended its influence to
education, even though the majority of Chadian students attended private
mission schools before World War II.
Education in Chad has focused on primary instruction. Until 1942
students who desired a secular secondary education had to go to schools
in Brazzaville, the capital of the AEF. This restriction obviously
limited the number of secondary-school students. Between World War I and
World War II, only a dozen Chadians studied in Brazzaville. Once in
Brazzaville, students received technical instruction rather than a
liberal arts education, entering three-year programs designed to produce
medical aides, clerks, or low-level technicians. State secondary schools
were opened in Chad in 1942, but recognized certificate programs did not
begin until the mid-1950s.
At independence in 1960, the government established a goal of
universal primary education, and school attendance was made compulsory
until age twelve. Nevertheless, the development of standard curricula
was hampered by the limited number of schools, the existence of two- and
three-year establishments alongside the standard five- and seven-year coll�ges
and lyc�es, and the Muslim preference for Quranic education. Even so,
by the mid-1960s 17 percent of students between the ages of six and
eight were in school. This number represented a substantial increase
over the 8 percent attending school in the mid-1950s and the 1.4 percent
immediately after World War II. Although the academic year in Chad
parallels the French schedule, running from October to June, it is not
particularly appropriate for a country where the hottest part of the
April and May.
Quranic schools throughout the Saharan and sahelian zones
teach students to read Arabic and recite Quranic verse. Although
traditional Islamic education at the secondary level has existed since
the nineteenth century, students seeking advanced learning generally
have studied in northern Cameroon, Nigeria, Sudan, or the Middle East.
In Chad, modern Islamic secondary schools have included the Ecole
Mohamed Illech, founded in 1918 and modeled after Egyptian educational
institutions. Other schools included the Lyc�e Franco-Arabe, founded by
the colonial administration in Ab�ch� in 1952. The lyc�e offered a
blend of Arabic, Quranic, and secular French education. Numerous
observers believed that although the creation of a French-Islamic
program of study was commendable, the administration's major objective
was to counter foreign Islamic influence rather than to offer a viable
alternative curriculum.
Despite the government's efforts, overall educational levels remained
low at the end of the first decade of independence. In 1971 about 88
percent of men and 99 percent of women older than age fifteen could not
read, write, or speak French, at the time the only official national
language; literacy in Arabic stood at 7.8 percent. In 1982 the overall
literacy rate stood at about 15 percent.
Major problems have hindered the development of Chadian education
since independence. Financing has been very limited. Public expenditures
for education amounted to only 14 percent of the national budget in
1963. Expenditures increased over the next several years but declined at
the end of the decade. In 1969 funding for education dropped to 11
percent of the budget; the next year it declined still further to 9
percent. In the late 1980s, the government allotted only about 7 percent
of its budget to education, a figure lower than that for all but a few
African countries.
Limited facilities and personnel also have made it difficult for the
education system to provide adequate instruction. Overcrowding is a
major problem; some classes have up 100 students, many of whom are
repeaters. In the years just after independence, many primary-school
teachers had only marginal qualifications. On the secondary level, the
situation was even worse; at the end of the 1960s, for example, the Lyc�e
Ahmad Mangu� in Sarh (formerly Fort-Archambault) had only a handful of
Chadians among its several dozen faculty members. During these years,
Chad lacked sufficient facilities for technical and vocational education
to train needed intermediate-level technicians, and there was no
university.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Chad made considerable progress in dealing
with problems of facilities and personnel. To improve instruction,
review sessions and refresher programs have been instituted for
primary-school teachers. On the secondary level, increasing numbers of
Chadians have taken their places in the ranks of the faculty.
Furthermore, during the 1971-72 school year, the Universit� du Tchad
opened its doors.
Another problem at independence was that the French curricula of
Chadian schools limited their effectiveness. Primary instruction was in
French, although most students did not speak that language when they
entered school, and teaching methods and materials were often poorly
suited to the rural settings of most schools. In addition, the academic
program inherited from the French did not prepare students for
employment options in Chad. Beginning in the late 1960s, the government
attempted to address these problems. A number of model schools discarded
the French-style of a formal, classical education in favor of a new
approach that taught children to reinterpret and modify their social and
economic environment. Rather than teaching French as it was taught in
French schools to French children, the model schools taught it more
appropriately as a foreign language. These new schools also introduced
basic skills courses in the fourth year of primary school. Students who
would probably not go on to secondary school were given the chance to
attend agricultural training centers.
Unfortunately, all of the preceeding problems were complicated by a
fourth difficulty: the Chadian Civil War. Little has been written
specifically about how this conflict has disrupted education, but
several effects can reasonably be surmised. Lack of security in vast
parts of the country undoubtedly has made it difficult to send teachers
to their posts and to maintain them there, which has been particularly
Problenatic because as government employees, teachers often have been
identified with government policies. In addition, the mobility
occasioned by the war has played havoc with attempts to get children to
attend classes regularly. The diversion of resources to the conflict has
also prevented the government from maintaining the expenditure levels
found at independence, much less augmenting available funds. Finally,
the violence has taken its toll among teachers, students, and
facilities. One of the more dramatic instances of this was the
destruction and looting of primary schools, lyc�es, and even the
national archives attached to the Universit� du Tchad during the
battles of N'Djamena in 1979 and 1980.
To its credit, the government has made major efforts to overcome
these problems. In 1983 the Ministry of Planning and Reconstruction
reported that the opening of the 1982-83 school year was the most
successful since the upheavals of 1979. In 1984 the Universit� du
Tchad, the Ecole Nationale d'Administration, and the Ecole Nationale des
Travaux Publics reopened their doors as well.
In the late 1980s, the Ministry of Education had administrative
responsibility for all formal schooling. Because of years of civil
strife, however, local communities had assumed many of the ministry's
functions, including the construction and maintenance of schools, and
payment of teachers' salaries.
Primary Education
In the late 1980s, primary education in Chad consisted of a six-year
program leading to an elementary school certificate. In the south, most
students began their studies at the age of six; in the north, they
tended to be somewhat older. With the exception of schools that followed
experimental programs, the curriculum adhered to the French model.
Courses included reading, writing, spelling, grammar, mathematics,
history, geography, science, and drawing.
Primary-school enrollment for the 1986-87 school year was more than
300,000 students. There were 6,203 instructors teaching in 1,650
schools, but 10 percent of the instructors were in nonteaching
positions, yielding a pupil-to-teacher ratio of about sixty to one. Only
about 40 percent of all primary-school-aged children attended class, and
attendance was much greater in the south than in the Sahel or in the
northern parts of the country. Approximately 2.8 percent of
primaryschool children were enrolled in private schools, and most of
these were in Roman Catholic mission schools concentrated in the south
or near the capital.
Secondary Education
In 1983 secondary education in Chad continued to follow French
models. Primary-school graduates competed for entrance into two types of
liberal arts institutions, the coll�ge d'enseignement g�n�ral
(called a coll�ge, or CEG) or the lyc�e. The coll�ge
offered a four-year course of study, and the lyc�e offered a seven-year
program. In both institutions, students took a general examination at
the end of four years. Coll�ge students who passed could be
allowed to transfer to a lyc�e to complete their studies; successful
lyc�e students continued at their institutions. At the end of seven
years of secondary education, all students took comprehensive exams for
the baccalaureate degree, called the bac, a requirement for
admission to a university.
Students with primary-school certificates interested in teaching
careers could enroll in a coll�ge or lyc�e, or they could
enter a teacher training school. The normal school program was six years
long. The first four years were devoted to general education, much the
same as at the coll�ge or lyc�e, and the last two years
concentrated on professional training. Students finishing this course
were awarded an elementary-level teaching certificate. In 1986-87 Chad
had sixty-one coll�ges and lyc�es. More than half of these
schools were located in the N'Djamena area. There were 43,357 secondary
students enrolled in the 1986-87 school year. In the 1983-84 school
year, 5,002 coll�ge students took the exam, with a success
rate of 43.5 percent, or 2,174 students; 3,175 students took the bac,
and 36.9 percent, or 1,173 students, passed. Although still low, the
numbers of examination candidates suggested major improvements over
1960, when 2,000 students attended general secondary schools, and over
1968-69, when enrollment stood at 8,724. Finally, during the 1986-87
school year, Chad had five institutions for training primary-school
teachers, with a enrollment of 1,020 students.
Higher Education
When the country became independent in 1960, Chad had no university.
For the first decade of the nation's life, students who wished to study
beyond the secondary level had to go abroad. In the 1966-67 school year,
eighty-three Chadians were studying outside the country; the following
year, this number rose to 200. In the early years, almost all students
seeking advanced education were male. The largest number went to France
(30 percent in the academic year 1966-67, for example), but some
Chadians studied in Belgium, Senegal, C�te d'Ivoire, and Congo. At that
time, most students were pursuing degrees in education, liberal arts,
agriculture, and medicine.
Pursuant to an agreement with France, the Universit� du Tchad opened
in the 1971-72 academic year. Financed almost entirely through French
assistance, the faculty of 25 welcomed 200 students the first year. By
the 1974-75 academic year, enrollment had climbed to 500, and the
university graduated its first class of 45. The imposition of compulsory
yondo rites greatly disrupted the following school year, but
after the overthrow of Tombalbaye and the end of the authenticit�
movement, the university continued to grow. Enrollment rose from 639 in
1976-77 to a high of 1,046 in 1977-78. Enrollment then dropped slightly
to 974 in 1978-79. Unfortunately, the Chadian Civil War curtailed
university activities in 1979 and 1980, when the first and second
battles of N'Djamena threatened facilities and students alike. With the
return of relative calm in the early 1980s, the university reopened. In
1983-84 the university had 141 teachers and 1,643 students.
In addition to the university, higher learning in Chad included one
advanced teacher--training institution, the Ecole Normale Sup�rieure,
which trained secondary-school instructors. Enrollment in the 1982-83
and 1983-84 school years came to about 200 students. Degree programs
included history-geography, modern literature, English and French,
Arabic and French, mathematics and physics, and
biology-geology-chemistry.
Vocational Education
In 1983 vocational education was offered at three lyc�es
techniques industrielles (in Sarh, N'Djamena, and Moundou), and the
Coll�ge d'Enseignement Technique in Sarh. Enrollment figures for three
of the four technical schools stood at 1,490 in 1983.
Primary-school graduates interested in technical or vocational
training could follow two courses. They either could enter a firstlevel
, three-year program (premi�re cycle) at a coll�ge
(after which they could transfer to one of the four technical schools)
or they could enroll directly in one of the lyc�es for a six-year
program. Students completing the three-year premi�re cycle
received professional aptitude certificates; those finishing the entire
six-year course were awarded diploma.
Apart from the lyc�es techniques, several other
institutions offered vocational training in Chad in the early 1980s.
These included the Ecole Nationale d'Administration, which opened in
1963 in N'Djamena; a postal and telecommunications school in Sarh; a
school for technical education related to public works; and the Ba-Illi
agricultural school. Other Chadians studied at technical training
centers abroad.
In the late 1980s, advanced medical education was not available in
Chad. The only medical training institution was the National School of
Public Health and Social Work (Ecole Nationale de Sant� Publique et de
Service Social--ENSPSS) in N'Djamena. Its enrollment, however, has been
very limited; in 1982 there were only twenty-eight students in nursing,
three in social work, and thirtythree in public health.
Chad - HEALTH AND MEDICAL SERVICES
A range of diseases afflicts the populace of Chad. In 1983 infectious
and parasitic diseases were the most prevalent ailments, followed by
respiratory afflictions and nervous disorders. In 1988 a severe epidemic
of meningitis affected N'Djamena, in particular. By 1987 only one case
of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) had been reported to the
World Health Organization; however, it was likely that incidence of the
disease was many times higher, especially in the southern areas near
Cameroon and Central African Republic.
In the early 1960s, the government made a substantial effort to
extend the country's limited health infrastructure. Despite the ensuing
civil conflict, the government has attempted to maintain and expand
health services. Foreign assistance has allowed the construction of new
buildings and the renovation of existing facilities, as well as the
laying of groundwork for training health care professionals.
By the early 1980s, health facilities included five hospitals (at
N'Djamena, Sarh, Moundou, Ab�ch�, anda locality in Mayo-Kebbi
Prefecture). Two polyclinics served the population of the capital
region. Medical centers numbered 18, and there were 20 infirmaries and
127 dispensaries. Private medical facilities numbered seventy-five, and
twenty social centers administered to the needs of Chadians in all
prefectures except Biltine and Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti.
Despite apparent progress in health care delivery, it is difficult to
determine if growth in the number of facilities represented an increased
capacity or merely a reorganization and reclassification of health
establishments. The only data available in 1988, for example, showed
that despite the increase in numbers of units, the hospitals, medical
centers, and infirmaries increased the number of beds by only 238 more
than the number recorded in 1971. Modern health care was also very
unevenly distributed. Such facilities in Chad have long been
concentrated in the south and remained so in 1983. For example, eleven
of the eighteen medical centers were found there, along with three of
the five hospitals, and private care followed the same pattern, with
sixty-four of seventy-five centers in the southern prefectures. In
theory, therefore, people in the less populated sahelian and
Saharan regions had to travel very long distances for modern medical
care. In fact, distance, lack of transportation, and civil conflict
probably discouraged most people from making the effort.
A continuing shortage of trained medical personnel has compounded the
difficulty of providing adequate, accessible health facilities. In 1983
Chad's medical system employed 42 Chadian doctors, 8 pharmacists, a
biologist, 87 registered nurses, 583 practical nurses, 59 nurses
specializing in childbirth, 22 midwives, 19 health inspectors, and 99
public health agents. Foreign assistance provided another 41 doctors,
103 nurses, and 2 midwives.
More detailed information concerning health care in Chad was
unavailable in the late 1980s, largely because of the Chadian Civil War,
which had disrupted government services for many years. As a result of
this conflict, there were probably fewer health personnel in the late
1980s than earlier in the decade, particularly in the sahelian
and Saharan zones, where nurses abandoned rural infirmaries. Mortality
levels in Chad have been high for a long time, but the war may have
reversed the limited progress made in the 1960s in dealing with the
country's many health problems. Although the conflict was far from
resolved in the late 1980s, the Habr� government had been much more
successful than its predecessors in consolidating control over the sahelian
and Saharan regions of the country where modern health care has been the
least available. Although resources remained scarce, greater
international attention to Chad's plight produced more foreign
assistance than in the past.
Chad - The Economy
Chad's remoteness, its inadequate infrastructure, its recent history
of war, drought, and famine, and its dependency on a single cash
crop--cotton--for export earnings made it one of the poorest nations of
the world. In the mid-1980s, Chad's gross national product per capita
was only US$160, which clearly reflected the extent of the nation's
impoverishment. In the mid-1980s, Chad ranked among the five poorest
nations of the world according to World Bank statistics.
Chad's economy was based almost entirely on agriculture and
pastoralism. In 1986 the World Bank estimated that approximately 83
percent of the country's economically active population worked in
agriculture, 5 percent worked in industry, and 12 percent were engaged
in services, including government employment, trade, and other service
activities. Cotton processing, which includes ginning raw cotton into
fiber for export, some spinning and weaving, and producting edible oil
from cotton seed for local consumption, dominated industry.
Figures for the gross domestic product (GDP) also reflected
agriculture's importance. In 1986 the World Bank estimated that 46.3
percent of Chad's GDP came from agriculture and pastoralism. Industry
and manufacturing accounted for only 17.9 percent of GDP, while services
represented 35.7 percent of GDP.
Geography and climate played an influential role in Chad's economy.
The country is divided into three major climatic zones-- Saharan, sahelian,
and soudanian--which are distinguished by the level of annual
average rainfall. There are only two productive zones--the soudanian
cotton-producing zone of the south, sometimes called Le Tchad Utile
(Useful Chad), and the central sahelian cattle-herding region.
The northern Saharan region produces little.
In 1987 Chad's economy was dependent on a single cash crop-- cotton.
Like most other single-crop economies in the Third World, when world
commodity prices were high, conditions improved. When those prices fell,
conditions worsened. Despite several important swings, during the 1970s
and particularly in the early 1980s, cotton prices were good. Chad's
cotton revenues peaked in 1983 and 1984, but in 1985 world cotton prices
fell steeply, nearly crippling the cotton industry. This decline forced
a major economic restructuring under the auspices of the World Bank and
foreign donors. To revive the cotton industry, a 1986 restructuring
program curtailed all cotton-derived revenues to the government until
world prices rebounded. This program forced cutbacks on the production
of raw cotton and limited the level of government support to producers
for improved cropping methods, ginning, and other related industrial
operations.
Cattle and beef exports followed cotton in economic importance.
Estimates of the value of these exports varied greatly because large
numbers of livestock left the country "on the hoof," totally
outside the control of customs officials. Nevertheless, cattle and beef
exports accounted for 30 to 60 percent of all exports from 1975 through
1985, depending on the value of the cotton crop in a given year.
Approximately 29 percent of Chadians depended almost entirely on
livestock for their livelihood in the early 1980s, and livestock and
their by-products represented around 26 percent of GNP.
Chad's lack of resources limited the exploitation of mineral
deposits. There were known deposits of bauxite in the southern regions,
and reports indicated deposits of uranium and some other minerals in the
Tibesti Mountains and Aozou Strip. Even in late 1987, however, no
bauxite was being mined, and because of hostilities in the northern
zones, claims of mineral deposits there had not been verified. Chad's
only mining industry was the traditional exploitation of sodium
carbonate (natron) in dried beds around Lake Chad.
Oil offered one of the few reasons for economic optimism. In 1974 a
consortium of companies led by Conoco discovered oil near Rig Rig, north
of Lake Chad. Plans to exploit these reserves, estimated at 438 million
barrels, and to build a small refinery to serve Chad's domestic needs
were delayed in the late 1970s and early 1980s because of The Chadian
Civil War. In 1986 the government--with World Bank support--revived the
idea, and plans called for operations to begin in the early 1990s.
Nonetheless, these deposits would ensure only Chad's domestic needs, and
no oil would be exported. In 1985 Exxon, which had become the leader of
the exploratory consortium, discovered oil in southern Chad, near Doba.
The size of the reserves was not known, although it was believed to be
large. Exxon, however, suspended drilling in 1986 when world oil prices
fell.
Remoteness and distance are prime features of economic life in Chad.
Transportation and communications are difficult, both internally and
externally. Douala, Cameroon, the nearest port from N'Djamena, is 1,700
kilometers away. By the mid-1980s, the only paved roads linking the
capital to the interior, some 250 kilometers of hardtop, had disappeared
because of insufficient maintenance. Of the estimated 31,000 kilometers
of dirt roads and tracks, only 1,260 kilometers were all-weather roads.
The remainder became impassable during the rainy season. There were no
railroads in Chad.
Since independence, Chad has relied on outside donors and regional
institutions for economic survival and development. Chad's principal
sponsor has been France, which has subsidized the budget. Through the
mechanisms of the Lom� Convention between the member of the European
Economics Community (EEC) and their farmer colonies in Africa, the
Caribbean, and the Pacific (ACP), France has also subsidized Chad's
cotton production and exports. French companies have dominated trade,
and French banks have controlled Chad's finances.
Information on Chadian government finances was fragmentary and
inconsistent. The political instability from 1976 to 1982 left large
sections of the country beyond any form of central control, and during
this period the state had very few finances. After 1982, however,
fragmentary estimates indicated a growing importance of donor finances
and a decline in internally generated revenues. In addition, during the
1980s military spending was high. Although the proportion of real
government expenditures for defense was difficult to assess, it could
have represented as much as 70 percent of government spending. Despite a
measure of political stability after 1982, the situation worsened in
1985 with the collapse of cotton revenues. In 1986 the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) joined in efforts by other donors,
including France, the EEC, and the United States, to stabilize Chad's
financial and budget difficulties.
Chad - ROLE OF GOVERNMENT
In 1986 approximately 83 percent of the active population were
farmers or herders. This sector of the economy accounted for almost half
of GDP. With the exception of cotton, some small-scale sugar production,
and a portion of the peanut crop, Chad's agriculture consisted of
subsistence food production. The types of crops that were grown and the
locations of herds were determined by considerable variations in Chad's
climate.
The soudanian zone comprises those areas with an average
annual rainfall of 800 millimeters or more. This region, which accounts
for about 10 percent of the total land area, contains the nation's most
fertile croplands. Settled agricultural communities growing a wide
variety of food crops are its main features. Fishing is important in the
rivers, and families raise goats, chickens, and, in some cases, oxen for
plowing. In 1983 about 72 percent of all land under cultivation in Chad
was in the soudanian region.
The central zone, the sahelian region, comprises the area
with average annual rainfall of between 350 and 800 millimeters. The
minimum rainfall needed for the hardiest of Chad's varieties of millet,
called berebere, is 350 millimeters. The western area of the
zone is dominated by the Chari and Logone rivers, which flow north from
their sources in southern Chad and neighboring countries. The courses of these rivers, joining at N'Djamena to flow on to
Lake Chad, create an ecological subregion. Fishing is important for the
peoples along the rivers and along the shores of Lake Chad. Flood
recession cropping is practiced along the edges of the riverbeds and
lakeshore, areas that have held the most promise for irrigation in the
zone. International donor attention focused on this potential beginning
in the mid-1960s. Particular attention has been paid to the traditional
construction of polders along the shores of Lake Chad. Land reclaimed by the use
of such methods is extremely fertile. Chad's only wheat crop is
cultivated in these polders.
In the rest of the sahelian region, the hardier varieties of
millet, along with peanuts and dry beans, are grown. Crop yields are far
lower than they are in the south or near rivers and lakes. Farmers take
every advantage of seasonal flooding to grow recession crops before the
waters dry away, a practice particularly popular around Lake Fitri. The sahelian
region is ideal for pasturage. Herding includes large cattle herds for
commercial sale, and goats, sheep, donkeys, and some horses are common
in all villages.
The Saharan zone encompasses roughly the northern one-third of Chad.
Except for some dates and legumes grown in the scattered oases, the area
is not productive. Annual rainfall averages less than 350 millimeters,
and the land is sparsely populated by nomadic tribes. Many of Chad's
camel herds are found in the region, but there are few cattle or horses.
Chad's subsistence farmers practice traditional slash-and-burn
agriculture in tandem with crop rotation, which is typical throughout
much of Africa. Sorghum is the most important food crop, followed by
millet and berebere. Less prevalent grains are corn, rice, and
wheat. Other secondary crops include peanuts, sesame, legumes, and
tubers, as well as a variety of garden vegetables.
Crop rotation in the soudanian zone traditionally begins
with sorghum or millet in the first year. Mixed crops of sorghum and/or
millet, with peanuts, legumes, or tubers, are then cultivated for
approximately three years. Farmers then return the land to fallow for
periods up to fifteen years, turning to different fields for the next
cycle. Preparation of a field begins with cutting heavy brush and
unwanted low trees or branches that are then laid on the ground.
Collectively owned lands are parceled out during the dry season, and the
fields are burned just before the onset of the first rains, usually
around March. Farmers work most intensively during the rains between May
and October, planting, weeding and protecting the crops from birds and
animals. Harvesting begins in September and October with the early
varieties of sorghum. The main harvest occurs in November and December.
Farmers harvest crops of rice and berebere, grown along
receding water courses, as late as February.
The cropping cycle for most of the sahelian zone is similar,
although the variety of crops planted is more limited because of
dryness. In the polders of Lake Chad, farmers grow a wide range of
crops; two harvests per year for corn, sorghum, and legumes are possible
from February or March to September. Rice ripens in February, and wheat
ripens in May.
As with most Third World countries, control of the land determines
agricultural practices. There are three basic types of land tenure in
Chad. The first is collective ownership by villages of croplands in
their environs. In principle, such lands belong to a village
collectively under the management of the village chief or the
traditional chef des terres (chief of the lands). Individual
farmers hold inalienable and transmittable use rights to village lands,
so long as they, their heirs, or recognized representatives cultivate
the land. Outsiders can farm village lands only with the authorization
of the village chief or chef des terres. Renting village
farmlands is possible in some local areas but is not traditional
practice. Private ownership is the second type of tenure, applied
traditionally to the small plots cultivated in wadis or oases. Wells
belong to individuals or groups with rights to the land. Ownership of
fruit trees and date palms in the oases is often separate from ownership
of the land; those farmers who plant and care for trees own them. State
ownership is the third type, primarily for large enterprises such as
irrigation projects. Under the management of parastatal or government
employees, farmers enter into contractual arrangements, including paying
fees, for the use of state lands and the benefits of improved farming
methods.
Detailed and reliable statistical information on Chad's agriculture
was scarce in the late 1980s; most researchers viewed available
statistics only as indicators of general trends. The one region for
which figures were kept was the soudanian zone through survey
coverage by officials of the National Office of Rural Development
(Office National de D�veloppement Rural--ONDR), who monitored cotton
production. These officials also gathered information on food
production, but this effort was not carried out systematically. Survey
coverage of the sahelian zone was first hampered, then
prevented, by civil conflict from the mid1970s to the early 1980s.
Moreover, figures from international and regional organizations often
conflicted or differed in formulation. For example, total area devoted
to food production was difficult to estimate because sources combined
the area of fields in production with those lying fallow to give a total
for arable lands. The arable land figure has shown a gradual increase
since 1961. Estimated then at 2.9 million hectares, it rose to almost
3.2 million hectares in 1984. In 1983 there were about 1.2 million
hectares in food production and in 1984 slightly more than 900,000
hectares. Therefore, perhaps a third of Chad's farmlands were in
production in a given year, with the balance lying fallow.
<>Cotton
Background of Cotton Cultivation
Cotton is an indigenous crop to southern Chad. In 1910 the French
colonial administration organized market production on a limited scale
under the direction of the military governor. By 1920 the colonial
administration was promoting the large-scale production of cotton for
export. The French saw cotton as the only exploitable resource for the
colony and as an effective means of introducing a cash economy into the
area. Indeed, the elaboration of colonial administration went hand in
hand with the extension of cotton production throughout the region.
France's motives were clear: it sought to ensure a source of raw
materials for its home industries and a protected market for its exports
abroad. France also intended that taxes derived from commercial ventures
within the colonies would offset the expenses of the colonial
administration. Therefore, customs duties on cotton exports from Chad,
then a part of French Equatorial Africa (Afrique Equatoriale Fran�aise--AEF),
were paid to the governor general at Brazzaville (in contemporary
Congo), as were duties on exports from other colonies under regional
administration. Revenues from a head tax were paid in cash locally and
went directly to the lieutenant governor of the colony. Not
surprisingly, virtually the only means of earning the money to pay the
tax was by the sale of cotton to the French.
In 1928 exploitation of cotton within the colony was placed in the
hands of Cotonfran, a private company. Under the terms of the contract
between the colonial administration and Cotonfran, the administration
maintained a certain quantity of production by the villages, and
Cotonfran bought at least 80 percent of that production. The cotton was
ginned locally, but no further transformation was permitted; all the
cotton fiber was then exported to France.
The colonial administration fixed the quantity of cotton produced and
the price paid to the peasant producer on the basis of calculations
furnished by Cotonfran of costs and expectations for the price of cotton
on the world market. France reorganized village administration by
replacing traditional chiefs with individuals more amenable to the
colonial power, which assured the proper cultivation of the cotton crop
and the collection of taxes. This system included forced labor and the
subordination of growing food crops to cotton.
Production Factors
In 1988 the entirety of Chad's cotton was produced in the five soudanian
prefectures of Mayo-Kebbi, Tandjil�, Logone Occidental, Logone
Oriental, and Moyen-Chari, plus the Bousso region of Chari-Baguirmi
Prefecture, which juts down into the soudanian zone. Few
regions outside these prefectures offered sufficient water and
population to sustain cotton production. Moreover, in this land of
difficult transport, areas producing a cash crop also needed to be able
to grow enough food for their people. Typically, the cultivation of
cotton and food crops was carried on side by side. Efforts to extend the
cultivation of cotton to the neighboring sahelian prefectures
of Salamat and Gu�ra have had little success. In 1983 and 1984, with
production at its highest in a decade, these two prefectures represented
only .005 percent of total production. Suggestions also have been made
from time to time to bring cotton production to the fertile borders of
Lake Chad. Trials have shown the high yields possible there, estimated
at 3,000 to 4,000 kilograms per hectare. As of 1987, however, farmers in
the Lake Chad area had not taken voluntarily to cotton production.
Traditionally, farmers have resisted government efforts to control local
production of such crops as wheat, and the history of coercion and
government intervention associated with cotton was no inducement.
The government has introduced methods to increase crop yield, which
include the expanded use of fertilizers and insecticides. Even so,
compared with crop yields of more than 1,000 kilograms per hectare for
other francophone West African states (such as Cameroon, Mali, and C�te
d'Ivoire), until 1982 Chad's crop yields did not significantly exceed
500 kilograms per hectare; from 1983 to 1987, yields averaged almost 750
kilograms per hectare.
Area under cotton cultivation reached a peak in 1963 of 338,900
hectares. From 1963 until the end of the 1970s, the area under cotton
cultivation averaged 275,000 hectares. In the 1980s, however, the area
has been consistently less than 200,000 hectares. By 1983 the area of
land under cotton cultivation had dropped by 36 percent from the average
during the 1960s and 1970s. Several sources estimated the area in
southern Chad under cotton cultivation at 30 to 40 percent of all land
in cultivation, and in some areas of Mayo-Kebbi Prefecture, it may have
been higher.
Cotton production has exhibited wide swings. Factors such as climatic
conditions, production prices, and civil strife have influenced
production. The first crop to exceed 100,000 tons came in 1963, but the
1970s were the best years for production, which from 1971 to 1978
remained well above 100,000 tons per year. Chad reached its all-time
record production in 1975. Production suffered from 1979 to 1982 because
of the Chadian Civil War and hit a twenty-year low in 1981. In 1983,
with the return of some political stability and higher market prices,
production improved but then fell from 1984 to 1987, a reflection of
declining world cotton prices.
Once the crop is harvested, the producers must sort the cotton to
separate lower quality yellow cotton from higher quality white cotton.
Since the late 1970s, the proportion of white cotton generally has been
90 percent or more of total production. Going back to the 1960s, the
quality of Chadian cotton had been consistently high, except for 1972
and 1973, when the proportion of yellow cotton rose to 18 percent. Since
1980 the quality has remained high at initial sorting, with white cotton
representing more than 95 percent of the crop and accounting for 98
percent of production in 1984.
Administrative Structure
In 1989 the official structure responsible for the production and
marketing of cotton was composed of the ONDR under the Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development, of Cotontchad, and of the Cotton
Price Stabilization Board (Caisse de Stabilisation des Prix du
Coton--CSPC). Founded in 1965, the ONDR was originally given
responsibility to monitor, improve, and assist all agricultural
production. By the mid-1980s, however, the government's emphasis on
cotton production made the ONDR an important factor for the cotton
industry only. Cotontchad, successor to Cotonfran, was founded as a
parastatal company in 1971 to collect, buy, gin, transport, and export
the cotton crop. The company also had responsibility for elements of the
small national textile, soap, and edible oil industries. The CSPC's task
was to stabilize prices paid to peasant producers by funding operating
losses incurred by Cotontchad. Assuring a constant price to the producer
not only helped maintain a certain level of production for Cotontchad
but also limited costs to the company by holding down producer prices.
The ONDR, the CSPC, Cotontchad, and the government itself were involved
in determining producer prices. In addition, the CSPC supported the
program to improve yields. Between 1971 and 1983, an estimated 57
percent of all payments by the CSPC were made in conjunction with the
program to improve cotton production.
Other major actors in the cotton industry were the private banks, the
French Textile Development Company (Compagnie Fran�aise pour le D�veloppement
des Textiles--CFDT), and French and EC institutions, as well as the
World Bank. Private banks provided the credits necessary to Cotontchad
and to the peasants to finance the opening of each planting season and
especially to provide capital for the import and distribution of
fertilizers and insecticides. The CFDT marketed Chad's cotton on the
world market. The CFDT also contributed to the smooth operation of
Cotontchad through technical agreements to maintain equipment and to
provide expertise in improving cropping methods through the ONDR. In
addition, the CFDT supported research carried out by the Cotton and
Textile Research Institute (Institut de Recherche sur le Coton et les
Textiles-- IRCT), a small public research facility located near Doba.
Subsidies to Chad's cotton production under the Lom� Convention were
paid through the Stabex system of the EEC. Those funds were channeled to
the CSPC for price support to the producers. The CSPC also received
portions of funds needed to assure payments to producers from Cotontchad
as well as from the central government. Between 1971 and 1983, virtually
all income to the CSPC derived from rebates paid by Cotontchad into the
system.
After 1984 the system became far more dependent on external sources
of funds (such as Stabex) because of sharply reduced income to
Cotontchad. In addition to Stabex, the EC's European Development Fund
(EDF) contributed directly to the program of improving yields. French
assistance remained crucial to the system. The Central Fund for Economic
Cooperation (Caisse Centrale de Coop�ration Economique--CCCE) was a
shareholder in Cotontchad, and the other arm of French foreign aid, the
Cooperation and Aid Fund (Fonds d'Aide et de la Coop�ration--FAC),
directed assistance to the southern zone in support of the cotton
complex. FAC also provided direct assistance to the government, which,
among other things, helped pay the salaries of officials and
functionaries, especially those in the ONDR.
Pricing Mechanisms
Prices paid to Chad's cotton producers, the peasants of the southern soudanian
zone, have risen slowly over the years. The structure included separate
prices for white cotton and for yellow cotton. From 1971, when the
distinction arose, to 1978, the price for white cotton was CFA F50 per
kilogram (for value of the CFA F) and stayed at this level during much
of the period of heavy civil conflict until 1982. From 1982 to 1985, the
price increased steeply to CFA F100 per kilogram, at which point it had
leveled by 1987, despite downward pressure because of the fall in world
prices and a new program of cost reductions by Cotontchad under World
Bank direction. The price paid for yellow cotton has not kept pace with
this rise, reaching only CFA F40 per kilogram in 1983, where it remained
through 1987.
The price paid to the producer traditionally has not covered actual
production costs, either for the peasant or for Cotontchad. As much as
50 percent of the costs of production has been borne by outside donors,
primarily from the EDF, through the Stabex system. Between 1981 and
1984, the EDF financed between 70 and 80 percent of the costs of the
program to improve yields, largely through subsidies to the CSPC for
price support and subsidies for Cotontchad in the initial purchase of
insecticides and fertilizers. The costs of improvements have been
reimbursed only partially from payments made by producers through the
ONDR.
Restructuring the System
By 1987, because world prices were still insufficient to recoup
costs, Cotontchad was rapidly going broke. In the mid-1980s, annual net
losses were estimated at CFA F18 billion. Net losses per kilogram of
ginned cotton were estimated at CFA F453 in 1985 and CFA F298 in 1987.
These figures stood in contrast to 1984, when there was a net profit of
CFA F193 per kilogram. Cotontchad's position was not expected to improve
unless the world price of cotton reached the CFA F600-per-kilogram
range.
With World Bank backing and support from France, the Netherlands, and
the EC, restructuring of Cotontchad began in 1986 with government
implementation of the Emergency Cotton Program. At the producer level,
the program called for freezing the price paid producers at the CFA
F100-per-kilogram level through 1988 and studying new methods of fixing
producer prices to reflect world market conditions. Subsidies on
improved inputs, such as fertilizer and insecticides, were eliminated as
of 1987, with producers assuming the costs. Cotton production was to be
limited to about 100,000 tons by restricting the area under production
to 75,000 hectares during the program period. At the company level,
Cotontchad sold nonessential assets to the private sector (including 2
aircraft and about 150 vehicles), closed its branch office in Bangui,
Central African Republic, and laid off administrative staff. It also
closed six ginneries and reduced the number of cotton collection centers
in accordance with the production target of 100,000 tons. For its part,
the government exempted Cotontchad from taxes, particularly export
duties, and suspended its contributions to the CSPC, the ONDR, and the
Debt Amortization Fund (Caisse Autonome d'Amortissement--CAA). Staffs at
the CSPC and the ONDR were reduced, and the roles of both organizations
were reviewed.
Chad - Subsistence Farming
Since the 1950s, Chad's food production has declined. Even so,
despite pockets of malnutrition remaining in areas where rains failed or
locusts damaged local crops, the overall picture for Chad's food
production was good in the 1985-87 period. The rebound of food
production in this period was the result of good rains, the return of
political stability, and the absence of major conflict in the sahelian
and soudanian zones. The downturn in cotton production and
added restrictions on its cultivation also released lands and labor for
farmers to put into food production. Production was so high in these
years that, for the first time in a decade, it was estimated that Chad
had returned to food sufficiency. This followed a cereal shortfall in
the drought years of 1984 and 1985 of around 325,000 tons. Total cereal
production rose thereafter to the 700,000-ton level, well above the
estimated 615,000 tons of grains needed for food sufficiency.
Yet the overall food sufficiency registered by Chad in these years
served to underscore the problem of regional imbalances in cereal
production. The sahelian zone experienced a chronic shortfall
in cereal production, whereas the soudanian zone traditionally
had a cereal surplus. The soudanian zone was also the biggest
producer of all subsistence food crops and of cash crops. It was
estimated that the soudanian zone produced between 53 and 77
percent of Chad's total cereal production from 1976 to 1985, with the
average falling in the 60- to 70- percent range. But because the
populations of the two regions were approximately equal, the lack of a
good transport system and marketing mechanisms to allow the rapid
transfer of the southern surplus to the northern zones was a constant
problem. This danger was especially threatening during times of drought
affecting the sahelian zone.
Sorghum and Millet
Chad's most important subsistence crops were sorghum, millet, and berebere.
Areas under production for these grains showed a downward trend after
the mid-1950s, dropping from an average of 1.5 million hectares to
around 1 million hectares in the 1960s and 1970s and falling to levels
averaging 750,000 hectares between 1981 and 1986. Taking an average for
all lands devoted to grain production during the years from 1981 to
1985, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), sorghum
and millet cultivation accounted for 85 percent of the total area.
Between 1980 and 1985, these coarse grains accounted for 80 to 95
percent of all grain production.
Wheat
In 1987 wheat was Chad's least important cereal grain. Farmers
planted the crop in polders around the shores of Lake Chad, and some
small planting also was done in the oases and wadis of northern Chad.
Replacing an earlier state operation, the Organization for the
Development of the Lake (Soci�t� pour le D�veloppement du
Lac--SODELAC) was founded in 1967 to organize cultivation and provide
wheat for the state-owned flour mill at N'Djamena, the Grands Moulins du
Tchad. The flour mill began operations in 1964 but closed in 1980; as of
1987, operations had not resumed. In the late 1970s, plans to plant some
20,000 hectares of wheat in polders failed because warfare around Lake
Chad affected the infrastructure of SODELAC and the construction of new
polders and because farmers resisted SODELAC-controlled production.
Wheat production generally followed trends similar to the production
of other cereals, remaining low in the 1960s and 1970s but reaching a
high in 1983. In 1984, however, production fell sharply. The bulk of
wheat was traded through traditional channels to those herders in the
northern regions of Chad who preferred wheat to millet or sorghum.
Rice and Corn
At the time of the French conquest, rice was grown on a small scale.
Before World War I, the Germans on the Cameroon side of the Logone River
encouraged the spread of rice cultivation. By World War II, the French
imposed cultivation in the areas of southern Chad near La� and K�lo,
along the Logone River. Although production was destined originally for
colonial troops, the taste for rice spread in some localities. What was
originally intended by the French as a commercial cash crop had become a
local subsistence crop by the 1980s.
The Development Office for Sategui Deressia (Office de Mise en Valeur
de Sategui-Deressia--OMVSD), founded in 1976, replaced Experimental
Sectors for Agricultural Modernization (Secteurs Exp�rimentaux de
Modernisation Agricole--SEMAA), originally responsible for the
organization, improvement, transformation, and commercialization of
rice. Efforts by these organizations to extend commercial rice
cultivation had mixed results. The area under rice cultivation has
increased since the 1950s. Yet even in the 1980s, the greater part of
this area was cultivated by traditional means. Schemes for controlled
paddies at Bongor and La� put only 3,500 hectares and 1,800 hectares,
respectively, into cultivation before political events of the late 1970s
and early 1980s disrupted efforts and international donor funding
ceased. The bulk of rice production from traditional floodwater paddies
was traded to the towns and cities or was consumed locally.
Corn was a crop of minor importance, grown in and around village
gardens for local consumption. Production from the late 1960s through
the mid-1980s remained in the 20,000- to 30,000-ton range. By 1987 no
efforts at commercialization had been made, nor had the government tried
to improve and extend corn production.
Peanuts
Peanuts have become an important food crop in Chad. Peanuts were
eaten roasted or dry, and their oil was used in cooking. Peanuts were
cultivated in both the soudanian and the sahelian
zones. Production of peanuts was more stable than that of any other
major crop, staying in the 90,000- to 100,000-ton range from the 1950s
through 1987, with dips in drought years. The area under peanut
production also remained stable, although kilograms-per-hectare yields
declined slightly. The droughtresistant nature of peanuts made their
production particularly important for the peoples of the sahelian
zone, where peanuts were planted alone or in combination with millet in
the first year of rotation; in the soudanian region, peanuts
were traditionally planted in the third year of crop rotation.
Although considerable efforts were made to commercialize peanut
production, most efforts failed. Through the 1960s and 1970s, about 97
percent of the annual crop went to local consumption. What remained was
sold to various edible oil manufacturing concerns, none of which
succeeded. For example, a Chinese-built peanut oil mill at Ab�ch�,
finished in 1969, never operated. Local farmers sold surplus peanuts
through traditional channels, rather than to the state monopoly set up
in 1965, the National Trading Company of Chad (Soci�t� Nationale de
Commercialisation du Tchad--SONACOT). This parastatal bought local
produce for sale abroad or domestically to state-run commercial
operations. Unlike Cotontchad, SONACOT was never given the means to
compel farmers to sell their crops, and it did not have the resources to
compete with prices offered by traditional traders. With the collapse of
central authority in 1979, SONACOT disappeared. The only commercial
sales of peanuts were then limited to Cotontchad purchases in the south,
but by 1987 these had been halted to reduce costs.
Tubers
The importance of tubers has grown dramatically over the years.
Cassava and yams were the most important crops in this category, with
much smaller production of potatoes, sweet potatoes, and coco yams
(taro). Grown only in the soudanian zone, tubers were once
neglected, although such cultivation is widespread in other parts of
subtropical West Africa. Estimates in the 1950s put tuber production at
50,000 tons annually. Production rose and by 1961 it exceeded 200,000
tons. From 1961 to 1984, the proportion of roots and tubers in the
national diet rose from 6 to 17 percent. The reason for this important
shift in eating habits among people of the soudanian zone was
the hedge these crops provided against famine in years when drought
reduced millet and sorghum production.
Chad - Livestock
Livestock raising, and in particular cattle herding, is a major
economic activity. Animal husbandry was the main source of livelihood
for perhaps a third of Chad's people. The growing importance of cattle
and meat exports underscored this point. In the 1960s and 1970s, these
exports were estimated at between 25 and 30 percent of all merchandise
exports. The proportion of these exports grew in the 1980s as the value
of cotton exports declined. It was impossible, however, to know with
certainty the actual values of cattle exports. For processed meat
exports, less uncertainty existed because these exports were controlled
from the slaughterhouse to the point of export; in 1985 processed meat
exports represented less than 1 percent of all merchandise exports. The
real value of Chad's cattle herds was in the export by traditional
traders to markets in Cameroon and Nigeria. These "on the
hoof" exports passed largely outside the control of customs
services. Therefore, these exports were neither counted nor taxed.
Perhaps one-fourth of cattle's estimated 30-percent share of total
exports, was officially recorded.
The size of Chad's herds was also difficult to determine. Considered
to have declined in the mid-1970s and again in the early 1980s because
of drought and warfare across the sahelian zone, estimated to
be growing at a rate of 4 percent annually, reached some 4 million head
of cattle, 4.5 million sheep and goats, 500,000 camels, and 420,000
horses and donkeys by the mid-1980s. Sheep and goats were found in all
regions of Chad.
Before the drought of the 1980s, the sahelian zone held the
largest herds, with about 80 percent of the total cattle herd. Smaller
numbers of cattle were found in the soudanian zone, along with
about 100,000 buffaloes used in plowing cotton fields. Camel herds were
concentrated in the dry northern regions. Herders practiced
transhumance--seasonal migrations along fairly well-set patterns.
With the 1984-85 drought, transhumance patterns changed. Camels were
brought farther south into the sahelian zone in search of
water. Cattle were herded even farther south, sometimes through Salamat
Prefecture into Central African Republic.
The government and international donor community had contemplated
considerable improvements for Chad's livestock management, but these
plans were undermined by the Chadian Civil War, political instability,
and an inadequate infrastructure. The most successful programs have been
animal vaccination campaigns, such as an emergency project carried out
in 1983 to halt the spread of rinderpest. The campaign reached some 4.7
million head of cattle across the nation and demonstrated the
capabilities of Chad's animal health service when given external
support. The Livestock and Veterinary Medicine Institute of Chad
(Institut d'Elevage et de M�decine V�t�rinaire du Tchad--IEMVT),
which was financed by foreign aid, was capable of producing vaccines for
Chad as well as for neighboring countries. Despite plant capacity, by
1984 a lack of a trained staff limited production to vaccines for
anthrax and pasteurellosis.
Two institutional efforts to manage cattle marketing were attempted
in the 1970s and 1980s. The Chadian Animal Resources Improvement Company
(Soci�t� Tchadienne d'Exploitation des Ressources Animales-- SOTERA),
a mixed enterprise formed as a livestock company with participation by
some traditional livestock traders, began operations in 1978. Its aim
was to control live animal exports through a license system and to have
a monopoly on exports of chilled meat and hides. It was hoped at the
time that the association of traders to SOTERA would increase the
effective collection of export taxes on livestock by 50 to 75 percent.
By 1984, however, SOTERA handled only a small portion of the domestic
market and less than 30 percent of the export trade. A second
institution, the Center for the Modernization of Animal Production
(Centre de Modernisation des Productions Animales--CMPA), was engaged in
marketing dairy products, supplying chicks to farmers, and overseeing
the sale of eggs and the processing of feed. But, among other problems,
the CMPA was unable to compete with local traders for milk needed to
produce cheese for sale. Although highly subsidized, this venture also
was unsuccessful and demonstrated the resilience of the traditional
private network for marketing produce.
Despite these institutional difficulties, the international community
continued to support efforts to expand animal health services to Chad's
herders. Some estimates suggest that the nation's herds could be
increased by 35 percent if the distribution of water were improved,
extension services were made more available, and animal health services
were expanded.
Chad - Fishing
Manufacturing
The small industrial sector was dominated by agribusiness, and
Cotontchad in particular. Next in importance were the National Sugar
Company of Chad (Soci�t� Nationale Sucri�re du Tchad-- SONASUT), the
Chadian Textile Company (Soci�t� Tchadienne de Textile--STT), the
Logone Breweries (Brasseries du Logone--BdL), and the Cigarette Factory
of Chad (Manufacture des Cigarettes du Tchad--MCT). Observers estimated
that these five industries generated some 20 percent of GDP. Of lesser
importance were the Farcha Slaughterhouse (Abattoir Frigorifique de
Farcha), the Industrial Agricultural Equipment Company (Soci�t�
Industrielle de Mat�riel Agricole du Tchad--SIMAT), and Soft Drinks of
Chad (Boissons Gazeuses du Tchad--BGT).
During the Chadian Civil War, the facilities and equipment of many
industries were badly damaged. Most industrial operations either ceased
or were reduced greatly, and almost all foreign investors withdrew from
the country. Those operations that did continue on a reduced scale were
limited to the soudanian region, which was not involved
directly in large-scale fighting. By 1983, with the reestablishment of
political stability on a national scale, the five major industrial
concerns resumed full operations, and the less significant ones, such as
SIMAT and the BGT, were rebuilt.
With the exception of the two bottling companies (the BGT and the
BdL), which were privately owned, all the other important industries
were either parastatals with majority government ownership or mixed
companies with important government participation. For the most part, private participation was limited to French
investors; investment by private Chadian interests was extremely rare.
French companies were also important shareholders in the larger Chadian
companies, such as Cotontchad. Except for Cotontchad, whose top
management was Chadian, all the other major industries were run by
expatriate directors, accountants, and mid-level managers who, for the
most part, were French.
Industrial output grew rapidly in 1983 and 1984, as industries
resumed operations that had been interrupted by war. By 1984 and 1985,
prewar levels of output had been either reached or exceeded. Growth
slowed for all industries after 1985, however, because of the dramatic
downturn of world cotton prices, and output in 1986 began to decline.
Cotton fiber production by Cotontchad, which directly reflected
production of raw cotton, fell sharply in 1985. This decline was
stabilized in 1986-87 by emergency support from international donors.
These donors prescribed retrenchment programs to prevent the total
collapse of the cotton industry. The restrictions imposed on the
production of ginned cotton fiber, however, reduced by half the number
of ginning mills, with raw cotton production limited to about 100,000
tons. Production of edible oils by Cotontchad was also affected by the
program of cost savings.
Other industries were affected directly by the fall of cotton prices.
STT textile production slowed, as did the production of agricultural
equipment by SIMAT, which made plowing equipment for use in cotton
planting. Furthermore, the drop in revenues to farmers in the soudanian
zone for their cotton and peanut production affected their ability to
buy equipment. Lost revenues to farmers, along with the reduction in the
numbers of workers needed in ginning operations, took a toll on cash
earnings and therefore on buying power. By 1986 the ripple effect of
these lost revenues in the cotton sector was widespread. The downturn in
production in all industries left Chad with considerable unused
capacity, ranging from 15 to 50 percent.
A number of other factors resulted in the slump in Chadian industry.
Commercial sale of goods was low in a largely cash poor or nonmonetary
economy. The decline in the cotton sector, which had provided the
largest infusion of cash into the economy, further reduced consumer
demand. Another impediment to industry was the high local cost of
production compared with the cost of production in neighboring
countries. Factors that raised local production costs included high
transportation costs, overdependence on imports, and restricted
economies of scale for small operations. Imported inputs were equivalent
to about 30 percent of industrial turnover for Cotontchad, the BdL, and
the STT and to about 60 percent for the MCT. Local substitutes for
inputs were often more expensive than imported equivalents. Imports were
often marketed to subsidize local production by a given industry. An
example was SONASUT's importing refined sugar at less than local
production costs, selling it locally, and using the proceeds to
subsidize sugarcane production on SONASUT plantations. Interlocking
relationships of production among companies also kept production costs
high. For example, the BGT used SONASUT's refined sugar in its
production of soft drinks, according to a convention with the government
to use local inputs, even though imported refined sugar was cheaper.
Before the warfare of the 1979-82 period, Chad's industrial sector
included between 80 and 100 small- to medium-sized enterprises, in
addition to the major manufacturing industries. Most processed
agricultural products or competed in the importexport trade. About half
were local subsidiaries of foreign-owned firms or were Chadian firms
with significant foreign capital. The foreign-owned distributorships
sold agricultural equipment, construction materials, and petroleum
products.
Since 1983 the return of foreign investment has been slow because of
the high costs of rebuilding and a continuing perception of political
uncertainty. Of the approximately twenty enterprises that had reopened
by the late 1980s, most were import-export enterprises that lacked a
formal relationship with the banking sector. Most Chadian-owned
enterprises had managed to reestablish themselves. Yet by 1986, small
enterprises that had assembled bicycles, motorcycles, and radios
remained closed.
The lack of access to credit was another impediment to business
expansion in Chad. Despite the reopening in 1983 of the Bank of Central
African States (Banque des Etats d'Afrique Centrale--BEAC) and of two
commercial banks, the International Bank for Africa in Chad (Banque
Internationale pour l'Afrique au Tchad--BIAT) and the Chadian Credit and
Deposit Bank (Banque Tchadienne de Cr�dit et de D�p�t--BTCD), the
high proportion of available credit going to Chad's major industries
limited credit available to smaller enterprises. Moreover, the banks
invoked strict criteria for loan eligibility because of the high risk of
lending in Chad. Few owners of small businesses knew sufficient
accounting and technical skills to meet bank information requirements
for loans.
Mining
The only mineral exploited in Chad was sodium carbonate, or natron.
Also called sal soda or washing soda, natron was used as a salt for
medicinal purposes, as a preservative for hides, and as an ingredient in
the traditional manufacture of soap; herders also fed it to their
animals. Natron deposits were located around the shore of Lake Chad and
the wadis of Kanem Prefecture.
Natron occurs naturally in two forms: white and black. More valuable
commercially, hard blocks of black natron were exported to Nigeria.
White natron was sold on local markets, principally in N'Djamena and
farther to the south. Although efforts were made in the late 1960s to
control the commercialization of natron through the creation of a
parastatal, by 1970 those efforts had failed because of resistance by
traditional chiefs and traders who controlled production through a
system of perpetual indebtedness.
A number of other mineral deposits are known, but none had been
commercially exploited by the mid-1980s. Bauxite is found in the soudanian
zone, and gold-bearing quartz is reported in Biltine Prefecture. Uranium
is reported in the Aozou Strip, as are tin and tungsten in other parts
of the Tibesti Mountains, but exploration reports in 1971 for these
three minerals did not indicate large or rich deposits. As of 1987,
conflicts in the region prevented further exploration.
By far the potentially most important resource is oil. In 1970 a
consortium of Conoco, Shell, Chevron, and Exxon started exploration and
in 1974 discovered minor oil deposits at S�digi, near Rig Rig, to the
north of Lake Chad. Total reserves at S�digi were estimated at 60
million tons, or roughly 438 million barrels of oil. Exploration in 1985
by the Exxon-led consortium discovered potentially large deposits near
Doba in the southern region of Chad. Further efforts were suspended in
1986 when world oil prices continued to drop, although the consortium
maintained a liaison office in N'Djamena in 1988.
Plans existed in the late 1970s to exploit the deposits at S�digi
and to construct a small refinery at N'Djamena. Those plans lapsed
during the conflicts of the late 1970s and early 1980s but were revived
in 1986 by the government with the support of the World Bank. The
reasons for proceeding with plans to exploit these deposits and build a
refinery were clear. The cost of importing petroleum products exceeded
the cost of extracting and refining domestic crude, even when
international oil prices were low. The plans, which anticipated
operations to begin in the early 1990s, included well development in the
S�digi field, a pipeline to N'Djamena, a refinery with a 2,000- to
5,000-barrels-per-day capacity, and the transformation or acquisition of
power-generating equipment in the capital to burn the refinery's
residual fuel oil. The refinery's output would satisfy 80 percent of
Chad's annual fuel needs, including all gasoline, diesel, butane, and
kerosene; lubricants and jet fuel, however, would still have to be
imported.
Water and Electricity
In the late 1980s, public utilities in Chad were extremely limited.
The Chadian Water and Electricity Company (Soci�t� Tchadienne d'Eau et
d'Electricit�--STEE), was the major public utility company. The
government held 82 percent of the shares and CCCE held 18 percent. STEE
provided water and electricity to the four main urban areas, N'Djamena,
Moundou, Sarh, and Ab�ch�. The company supplied water, but not
electricity, to six other towns. Despite old equipment and high
maintenance costs, STEE was able to meet about half of peak demand,
which increased significantly from 1983 to 1986. Production of
electricity rose by 35 percent from 1983 to 1986, and the supply of
water increased by 24 percent during the same period. In 1986 STEE
produced 62.1 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and supplied 10.8
million cubic meters of water.
In N'Djamena the majority of households had access to water. There
were, however, only about 3,000 officially connected customers, a good
proportion of which were collective customers. There were also an
estimated 1,500 illegal water connections. The rest of the people
received water from standpipes. Some 5,000 customers were officially
connected for electricity in the capital in 1986, with an unknown number
of illegal connections. Because electricity was so expensive and because
electrical appliances were beyond the means of most people, the
consumption of power per household was low. The high cost of electricity
also hindered the expansion of small- and medium-sized enterprises.
Chad - TRADE AND COMMERCE
Historically, Chad has been a country of traders. The ancient
kingdoms of Kanem, Borno, and Wadai built their power on trade with
Libya, Egypt, and Sudan. During the colonial period, trade increased
with francophone countries and Nigeria. In the 1970s, the structure and
direction of external trade remained similar to the pattern of colonial
times, the most important trading partners being France and Nigeria.
Exports to France were principally cotton fiber, and imports were
finished manufactured goods and equipment. Much of the trade with
Nigeria, consisting of cattle, fish, natron, and other traditional
products, was unrecorded and did not pass through official channels.
Since the civil upheavals of the late 1970s and early 1980s, which
restricted all external trade, unofficial trade with Nigeria has
resumed. Official trade with France declined after 1982, primarily
because many French-affiliated firms closed during the conflicts. As of
late 1987, many of those concerns had not reopened.
Controlling smuggling and black market activity was very difficult.
Chad and its neighbors had few resources that could be devoted to border
control. Collusion among smugglers and border patrols and customs agents
was common. Moreover, Chad's unofficial trade with Nigeria, Cameroon,
and Central African Republic has historical and social roots. Tribal and
extended family connections across borders encouraged traders to
maintain long-range commercial and financial networks beyond colonial
and, later, national government control and taxes. Traders unofficially
exported the bulk of Chad's exports of cattle, fish, and other
traditional products. Unofficial imports consisted of petroleum products
and consumer goods, such as sugar, cooking oil, soap, and cigarettes,
that competed with production by national industries. The permeability
of Chad's borders and the informality of traditional trading networks
denied the government revenues ordinarily derived from export-import
duties. Locally produced goods and legal imports fared badly in this
market, burdened as they were with high production costs, lack of
economies of scale, and price distortions imposed by government
controls.
Exports
The bulk of Chad's official exports were agricultural products, which
have accounted for 80 to 95 percent of all exports since independence.
Of these exports, cotton fiber was most important, followed by cattle
and beef exports. The value of Chad's cotton fiber exports rose steadily
in the 1970s. During the early 1980s, as armed conflict took its toll on
cotton production, the value of cotton fiber exports dropped. The return
of political stability in 1983 and increased cotton production coincided
with a rise in world cotton prices, resulting in dramatic increases in
the value of Chad's cotton exports in 1983 and 1984. The value of these
exports more than doubled from 1982 to 1983 and almost doubled again in
1984.
The downturn of world cotton prices in 1985 caused a collapse in
cotton exports. The value of cotton fiber exports from Chad in 1985 was
less than half that of the record 1984 level; the value fell even
further in 1986. In 1984 cotton fiber had represented 73 percent of the
value of all Chad's exports, but in 1986 it represented only 43 percent.
The value of all exports also reflected the decline, falling. From a
high in 1984 of almost CFA F48 billion to around CFA F34 billion in
1986.
The estimated value of Chad's cattle exports remained more stable
from 1983 to 1986. As the value of cotton fiber exports declined, the
relative importance of cattle exports to the Chadian economy grew.
Imports
Since the late 1960s, the economic significance of imported
manufactured and capital goods has grown considerably. From 1967 to
1970, manufactured goods of all types accounted for 46 to 50 percent of
Chad's imports. By 1975 manufactured goods accounted for 65 percent of
imports. The total value of all imports also grew, doubling between 1965
and 1970 to almost CFA F13 billion. Total imports continued to grow
through 1978 to nearly CFA F36 billion before showing a serious decline
from 1979 to 1981 because of the heavy fighting. Imports increased after
1982, reaching around CFA F37 billion in 1983 and then doubling by 1985.
The leap in imports between these years reflected not only the increase
in imported manufactured and capital goods needed to rebuild the
shattered economic infrastructure but also an increase in food
assistance in these years of drought. The downturn of imports between
1985 and 1986 indicated in part a decline in food imports with the
return of good rains.
Direction of Trade
Throughout the 1960s--Chad's first decade of independence-- France
remained its most important official trading partner. In 1970 France
absorbed 73 percent of Chad's exports and provided some 40 percent of
Chad's imports. Between 1979 and 1985, Chad diversified its markets by
trading more actively with Spain, the Federal Republic of Germany (West
Germany), and particularly Portugal, which absorbed the bulk of Chad's
exports, mainly cotton fiber. By 1985 France ranked sixth behind
Portugal, West Germany, Cameroon, Spain and the Benelux countries
(Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg). Chad's exports of beef and
other traditional products to its neighbors, and especially to Nigeria,
did not appear in official trade figures.
Although losing significance as a customer, France remained Chad's
most important supplier. In 1985 France supplied almost onefourth of
Chad's total imports. The United States ranked second, followed by
Cameroon, Italy, and the Benelux countries; unspecified West European
countries accounted for about 21 percent of Chad's imports in 1985. Chad
had little trade with Middle Eastern and North African countries. Both
official and black market oil imports came from either Cameroon or
Nigeria. Chad had no declared trade with the Soviet Union or East
European countries.
Chad - Government and Politics
SEVERAL THREADS OF CONTINUITY ran through Chad's political
development during its first twenty-eight years of independence that
began in 1960. Dominated by a series of authoritarian regimes, most
under military rule, Chad had no representative national institutions in
1988. Its ruling party, the National Union for Independence and
Revolution (Union Nationale pour l'Ind�pendance et la R�volution--UNIR)
was organized by the government in 1984; UNIR leaders were appointed by
the president from among government officials, and the party served
primarily to reinforce government policy. By late 1988, UNIR had not
opened the political process to democratic participation.
Political fragmentation also characterized Chad's political
development since independence. The Islamic northern and central regions
and the colonially exploited south were divided by regional stereotypes
rooted in their past, which included centuries of slave raids from the
north. Subregional, religious, cultural, and individual differences
complicated major regional divisions.
Chad's diverse population was drawn into power struggles in the drive
for independence following World War II. Numerous political parties and
coalitions sought foreign assistance to bolster weak popular support.
The nation's first independent regime grew increasingly repressive
during its fifteen years in power as its leader, Fran�ois Tombalbaye,
attempted to pacify this fractious population and transform southern
economic domination into political control. Several dissident groups,
most from the northern and central regions, united under the National
Liberation Front of Chad (Front de Lib�ration Nationale du
Tchad--FROLINAT), but this coalition, too, was plagued by factional
strife.
In the early 1970s, Tombalbaye contributed to his own eventual
downfall by implementing the authenticit� movement, an
illconceived authenticity campaign that sought to impose southernbased
ritual traditions on the nation's civil service. The resulting cycle of
public protest and government repression culminated in a 1975 coup, in
which Tombalbaye was killed. His successor, F�lix Malloum, continued
the pattern of concentrating political power in the executive branch of
government but was persuaded to bring rebel leaders Goukouni Oueddei and
Hissein Habr� into his government. Their rebel forces eventually proved
stronger than Malloum's army, and he was forced out of office in 1979.
His successor, Goukouni, was the first of Chad's insurgent leaders to
become president of Chad.
A series of unsuccessful coalition governments oversaw Chad's descent
into a state of civil war. The major coalition, the Transitional
Government of National Unity (Gouvernement d'Union Nationale de
Transition--GUNT), was led by Goukouni, whose relatively conciliatory
style of governing contrasted with the previous pattern of authoritarian
regimes. His critics considered him weak and indecisive, and he was
strongly influenced by Libyan leader Muammar al Qadhaafi, whose primary
aims were to install a sympathetic Muslim leader in Chad, expand Libya's
influence in the region, and reduce Western influence across the
continent.
A salient feature of Chad's foreign policy since independence has
been foreign intervention--especially by Libya, Chad's aggressive
neighbor to the north, and France, the former colonial power. Libya took
advantage of Chad's instability in the early 1970s to press its claim to
the Aozou
Strip in northern Chad, based on centuries of close
ties among border populations and an unratified 1935 Franco-Italian
agreement, which had been ignored by intervening governments. French
ties with Chad, based on historical, commercial, political, and
strategic interests, rivaled those of Libya, and the Aozou Strip
provided an arena in which this rivalry could be pursued. In addition,
neighboring countries, especially Sudan and Nigeria, also took an active
role in events in Chad, hoping to achieve a favorable balance of power
in the region. Other Central African and West African states sought to
contain Chad's violence and avoid being caught up in the spreading
instability.
Chad's political shifts in the early 1980s resulted from
international fears of Libyan intervention through influence in
Goukouni's regime, France's revised African policy following the
Socialist Party's election victory in 1981, and military gains by Habr�.
Habr� had served in governments led by Tombalbaye, Malloum, and
Goukouni, and he had led insurgencies against all. Finally in 1982, with
loyal northern forces and French and United States support, Habr�
ousted Goukouni and proclaimed himself president of Chad.
Habr�'s patrimonial state was another authoritarian regime. A
written constitution empowered him to appoint almost all high officials
and reduced the legislative branch to a token assembly. He determined
the pace and direction of activity in all branches of government. At the
same time, Habr� gained popular support by stabilizing Chad and working
to establish peace. He also began to reintroduce social services to a
population for whom warfare had been the most noticeable sign of
government activity.
In 1988 factional dynamics in Chad still resembled precolonial
politics. Habr� was a master strategist in this arena, and he succeeded
in winning over numerous former opponents through combined military and
political means. Nevertheless, the threats of new rifts among allies and
of future alliances among enemies still existed, in keeping with the
model of the segmentary political systems that had dominated the region
for centuries.
To strengthen existing ties among former opponents and to mobilize
grass-roots support for his government, Habr� proclaimed his intention
in 1988 to transform the ruling party, UNIR, into a people's vanguard
party. Many people in outlying areas were still skeptical of the need
for an increased governmental presence, however, and many southerners
still considered national government a northern imposition. Both
problems underlined the political challenge that faced Chad as the 1990s
approached.
<>POLITICAL BACKGROUND
Preindependence Factions
Chad became part of French Equatorial Africa (Afrique Equatoriale
Fran�aise--AEF) in 1905 and became a separate colony within the AEF in
1920. Colonial policy exploited the agricultural potential of the south,
exacerbated regional animosities that were the result of centuries of
slave raids from the north, and failed to prepare Chadian citizens for
self-rule. During World War II, the colonial governor general, F�lix
Ebou�, brought Chad to international attention by leading the AEF in
support of Charles de Gaulle's Free French movement.
After the war, Gabriel Lisette and other political activists,
including Fran�ois Tombalbaye, established the Chadian Progressive
Party (Parti Progressiste Tchadien--PPT). The PPT protected southern
interests in competition with the more influential Chadian Democratic
Union (Union D�mocratique Tchadienne--UDT). The UDT was dominated by
expatriates, who treated Chad's political arena as a forum for debate
over events in Paris.
More than two dozen political parties and coalitions arose to oppose
this Eurocentric view of local politics and to compete with the UDT and
the PPT. These groups were generally aligned as southerners, northerners
who sought to share in the nation's economic development, other
northerners who opposed modernization, and socialist groups who hoped to
replace the European-dominated economy with one oriented more toward
local needs. Further fragmentation occurred along subregional and
religious lines and over the question of the future role of expatriates
in Chad.
Chad's 1946 constitution declared it an overseas territory of France.
As French citizens, its people elected representatives to a territorial
assembly, which in turn elected delegates to a French General Council
for the AEF and to several governing bodies in France. Chadians demanded
further political rights, however, including training in administrative
and technical areas that would lead to self-government and the right to
set their own political agenda independent of other francophone states.
The PPT won a plurality in the Territorial Assembly, and Lisette became
head of the first government established under the loi cadre of
1956, an enabling act that made Chad an autonomous republic within the
French Community, instituted universal suffrage, and established a
single electoral roll.
Demands for greater local control of politics led to dramatic
political shifts in the late 1950s. The UDT, attempting to shed its
expatriate emphasis, was reorganized and renamed Chadian Social Action
(Action Sociale Tchadienne--AST). The AEF was dissolved in 1958 amid
rising African demands for autonomy. A series of unstable provisional
governments followed the ouster of Lisette as the PPT's leader in 1958.
His successor, Tombalbaye, became head of the territorial assembly in
1959 and head of the nation's first independent government in August
1960.
Southern Dominance, 1960-1978
Tombalbaye banished Lisette and many of his supporters from Chad and
eliminated Lisette's power base by dividing the Logone region of the
south into three prefectures. Tombalbaye openly discriminated against
the north, ignored the growing national political awareness that was
evident during the postwar years, and established a repressive regime
that contributed to Chad's fragmentation during his fifteen-year tenure
as president.
Major regional rifts were complicated by intraregional divisions,
especially in the north, where numerous warlords, each with an
ethnic-based following or cadre of supporters, attempted to overthrow
Tombalbaye's regime. In 1966 northern rebels united as the FROLINAT.
They established bases in Sudan and received assistance from Algeria and
Libya, but FROLINAT, too, was divided over military and political
issues, attitudes toward Libya, interpretations of Islam, and individual
leadership style. An important split occurred in 1969 between northern
factions and those from Chad's eastern and central regions, which had
dominated the group for three years. Northern factions went on to form
FROLINAT's Second Liberation Army.
Tombalbaye expelled French troops from Chad but otherwise perpetuated
the dependence established under colonial rule. He employed French
advisers in many government posts and allowed France to control most of
the nation's financial operations. Tombalbaye also strengthened
presidential authority and resisted recommendations of his expatriate
advisers, who urged him to decentralize authority to provincial
officials and traditional leaders. Rather than assuage northern
grievances or pacify the increasingly numerous rebel armies, Tombalbaye
responded with repression. He dissolved the National Assembly in 1963
and eliminated rival political parties. He also jailed outspoken critics
and closed down most public media. His repressive style and rebel
violence were mutually reinforcing, leading Tombalbaye to recall French
troops.
Amid increasing destabilization in the early 1970s, Tombalbaye sought
first to protect southern interests. He implemented the authenticit�
movement, an ill-conceived campaign (modeled on that of Zairian
president Mobutu Sese Seko) that deemed southern cultural
characteristics more authentic than those of the north. Opponents
successfully exploited public outrage when Tombalbaye required civil
servants to undergo yondo--traditional initiation rites
indigenous only to his ethnic constituency among the Sara population of
the south. Weak efforts to pacify the north by granting limited autonomy
to traditional leaders and releasing prominent political prisoners
served only to recruit new dissidents.
After Muammar al Qadhaafi seized power in Libya in 1969, he exploited
Chad's instability by stationing troops in northern Chad and by
channeling support to Chadian insurgents. Although Tombalbaye expelled
Libyan diplomats in 1971, blaming them for inciting a coup attempt and
inspiring unrest, in general he sought a balance between concessions and
resistance to Qadhaafi's regional designs, hoping to persuade Qadhaafi
to reduce his support for Chadian insurgents. Tombalbaye voiced a
willingness to cede the Aozou Strip and did not object to Libyan troops'
being stationed there after 1973. Chad erupted in renewed protests
against Tombalbaye's unpopular and weakened regime, culminating in a
successful coup against him in 1975.
General F�lix Malloum, a former government critic imprisoned by
Tombalbaye, proclaimed himself head of the Supreme Military Council
(Conseil Sup�rieur Militaire--CSM), which seized power in 1975. As a
southerner with strong kinship ties to the north, Malloum believed that
he could reconcile Chad's divided regions and establish representative
institutions. He set a high priority on freeing Chad from French
economic and political control, but in this effort he was unsuccessful.
He sent French combat forces home, but he retained several hundred
French advisers and renegotiated a series of military accords to ensure
emergency aid.
Malloum was unable to convert dissatisfaction with Tombalbaye's
regime into acceptance of his own. His opponents exploited popular
displeasure with the remaining French presence by recruiting new
dissidents. In response to this threat, Malloum seized control of all
branches of government and, in the increasingly repressive manner that
characterized his presidency, banned almost all political activity. His
opposition coalesced around FROLINAT, which established alternative
administrations in outlying areas to compete with N'Djamena. In 1978, in
the face of mounting violence, Malloum reluctantly called for the return
of French forces.
Transition to Northern Rule
In 1978 officials in Chad and neighboring countries attempted to
craft a coalition that could control the country through military force
and still claim to have some popular support. Urged by African heads of
state and French advisers, Malloum attempted to bring FROLINAT faction
leaders Hissein Habr� and Goukouni Oueddei into the government, but
these two northerners soon clashed with Malloum and each other. While
Habr�'s troops engaged government forces, Goukouni seized the
opportunity to occupy government buildings and claim control of
N'Djamena. Talks were held first in Sudan and then in Nigeria, but by
late 1979 neighboring states were working primarily to contain Chad's
spreading violence and limit Libyan interference in regional affairs.
As N'Djamena became a war zone, with fighting among FROLINAT factions
and southerners going on between 1979 and early 1982, outsiders
proclaimed the disintegration of the state. Although major disruptions
occurred, the government struggled to maintain basic official functions.
Executive functions were allocated according to ministerial portfolios
and were given limited attention. Many buildings in the capital city
were destroyed, but a small civil service continued to operate. Public
services were erratic but not absent. Still, the government fought for
its survival rather than to protect its citizens, and thousands of
people sought refuge in rural areas or neighboring countries.
Talks in Lagos and Kano in 1979 culminated in the formation of GUNT,
led by Goukouni, which incorporated several rival northern commanders.
Malloum left the country, and the locus of governmental power shifted
from south to north, largely because of northern military successes,
popular discontent throughout the country, and pressure from neighboring
states for an end to Chadian violence. National unity became
increasingly ephemeral, however, as members of this coalition were
polarized between Habr� and Goukouni. Goukouni was the son of the derde,
a respected traditional leader among the Teda population of the north,
one of the Toubou groups that had generally been receptive to the
Libyan-based Sanusiyya brotherhood before independence. In his view,
Libyan interests in Chad were valid. Goukouni requested Qadhaafi's
assistance against Habr� in 1980, bringing Libyan troops into the
country as far south as N'Djamena.
As head of state, Goukouni did not implement promised democratic
reforms, but neither did he tolerate unlimited reprisals against the
south. Instead, he was relatively tolerant of minor expressions of
dissent, warned security forces against harsh retaliation in the south,
and gave local administrators limited autonomy.
Both allies and opponents perceived this relatively conciliatory
attitude as a presidential weakness and a hesitant style of leadership.
Indeed, this hesitancy was apparent in 1981 when Qadhaafi proclaimed a
merger between Libya and Chad. Following international and domestic
protests, Goukouni reversed his position and balked at Qadhaafi's
regional demands.
French political shifts in 1981 also had an important impact on
events in Chad. The election of Fran�ois Mitterrand as French president
heralded a reorientation in African policy. Socialist leaders vowed to
reduce the overall French presence in Africa and to avoid an open
confrontation with Libya, a major source of French oil imports. French
support shifted cautiously to Habr�, who appeared willing to resist
Libyan domination with outside support and whose decisive leadership had
been demonstrated against French troops for over a decade. France's
Socialist Party pursued its goal of reducing its interventionist profile
in Africa by persuading francophone states, through the Organization of
African Unity (OAU), to send peacekeeping troops to Chad. Goukouni
called for the removal of Libya's forces, but when Habr�'s Armed Forces
of the North (Forces Arm�es du Nord--FAN) moved on the capital, they
encountered almost no resistance from the OAU-sponsored InterAfrican
Force (IAF). As a result, in June 1982 FAN seized N'Djamena and
proclaimed Habr� head of state.
Habr�'s decisiveness and his preference for French rather than
Libyan patronage shifted the focus of government once again. He took
limited steps to assuage regional dissent, relying on northerners in
most military commands and top political offices but appointing
southerners to several executive and administrative positions. Habr�
also reduced the aim of independence from French domination to the
status of a long-term goal. France maintained vital economic, financial,
military, and security assistance; underwrote the budget; effectively
operated the banking system; and provided a variety of commercial and
technical advisers. Furthermore, Habr� used French and United States
military assistance to repel Libyan troops, Libyan-supported insurgents,
and local rebel forces. French funds also helped Habr� co-opt former
opponents.
As president, Habr� brought more peace to Chad than that country had
known in a decade. Habr� vowed to remove Libyan forces from the north,
reconcile north and south, and establish a democratic state. In his
first six years in office, he took steps to accomplish some of these
goals.
Chad - STRUCTURE OF GOVERNMENT
Constitutional System
Between 1959 and 1988, Chad's constitution was revised six times and
altered by several major amendments. The preindependence constitution
adopted by the territorial assembly in March 1959 was modified at
independence in 1960. The new document established a parliamentary
system of government with an executive prime minister. Further revisions
in 1962 strengthened the executive, and the 1965 constitution eliminated
all rivals to the ruling party, the PPT. In 1973 President Tombalbaye
codified in the constitution his version of the authenticit�
movement to reaffirm indigenous values. This movement required civil
servants to undergo initiation rites common to some ethnic
constituencies of the south. Following a military coup in 1975, in which
Tombalbaye was killed, and the general deterioration of state
institutions, lengthy negotiations in 1978 led to a new constitution
that established an unsuccessful coalition among Chad's warring
factions.
In June 1982, when Habr� seized control of N'Djamena, he dissolved
the existing government and in October promulgated the Fundamental Law,
a document that served as an interim constitution through 1988. In July
1988, Habr� appointed a constitutional committee to draft a new
document to be presented to the government in 1989.
The Fundamental Law of 1982 declared Chad a secular, indivisible
republic, with ultimate power deriving from the people. Both French and
Arabic were adopted as official languages, and
"Unity-Work-Progress" was adopted as the nation's motto. The
constitution authorized the office of president, Council of Ministers
(cabinet), National Advisory Council (Conseil National Consultatif--CNC,
an interim legislature), and national army. It placed overriding
authority for controlling all of these in the office of the president.
President
Article 2 of the Fundamental Law designated the president as head of
state and government. He was chairman of the Council of Ministers, with
a mandate to define the fundamental policy choices of the nation. The
president was the commander in chief of the armed forces and head of an
ostensibly civilian government. The Fundamental Law allowed the Command
Council of the Armed Forces of the North (Conseil de Commandement des
Forces Arm�es du Nord-- CCFAN) to select the president. Habr�
dissolved the CCFAN when he established the ruling party, UNIR, in 1984.
No succession procedures were in place after 1984, and most observers
expected Habr� to remain in office after the new constitution was
presented to the government in 1989.
The Fundamental Law authorized the president to legislate by decree,
and he often did so. He also appointed and dismissed ministers,
legislators, and high-level civil and military officials. Only the
president could initiate constitutional amendments; this procedure
required, however, consultation with both ministers and legislators.
The president's international authority included negotiating and
ratifying treaties and accords and guaranteeing Chad's observance of
them. He was technically required to consult with ministers and
legislators, but more often he simply notified them of his foreign
policy decisions.
Council of Ministers
The president and twenty-three appointed ministers formed the Council
of Ministers in 1988. The council's portfolios included agriculture and
rural development; civil service; commerce and industry; culture, youth,
and sports; defense national veterans, and war victims; education;
finance; food security and afflicted groups; foreign affairs;
information and civic orientation; interior; justice; labor; livestock
and rural water; mines and energy; planning and reconstruction; posts
and telecommunications; public health; public works, housing, and urban
development; social affairs and the promotion of women; state; tourism
and the environment; and transportation and civil aviation. The
president held the portfolio for defense. Only one woman served on the
Council of Ministers. Executive appointments were divided among most
regions of the country, although northerners dominated most organs of
government.
The general responsibility of the Council of Ministers was to carry
out the wishes of the president, although constitutional language
defined its task as overseeing national reconstruction, establishing a
democratic way of life, guaranteeing fundamental rights of individuals
and associations, and guaranteeing the effective participation of all
social classes in the managing of public affairs. The council was also
responsible for maintaining a national army, reorganizing the national
police, reorganizing public enterprises and parastatal, developing an
effective health care system, assisting victims of war, relaunching the
economy, reforming the school system, devising an investment code to
encourage domestic and foreign capital formation, reconstructing the
communication system, and regaining Chad's self-sufficiency in food.
Article 18 summarized ministerial responsibilities in foreign policy.
These responsibilities were to maintain friendship and cooperation with
all peaceful countries, to uphold the principles of the United Nations
(UN) and OAU, to support legitimate struggles by people under racial and
colonial domination, to combat all forms of expansionism, and to
practice nonalignment in foreign policymaking . Article 19 restricted
ministers from holding a second office in government, although many
government officials in 1988 also held office in UNIR.
National Advisory Council
The Fundamental Law formalized the institution of a weak legislative
branch of government. Thirty advisers, who served at the discretion of
the president, made up the CNC in 1988. Although they were authorized to
elect their own council president and two vice presidents, their mandate
was only to advise the president regarding states of emergency and war
and to consult with him regarding fundamental policy choices,
international agreements, budgetary allocations, and general plans for
political, social, and economic development. In practice, the CNC
supported presidential policy.
As of 1988, the people of Chad had no elected representatives at the
national level. The appointed CNC provided a formal structure for
representative government and policy deliberation, but it was entirely
subordinate to the executive branch. Legislators effected policy changes
only if the president agreed with them.
Regional Government
Throughout the 1980s, Chad was divided into fourteen prefectures.
Each was further subdivided into subprefectures, administrative posts,
and cantons. Most prefectures were divided into two to five
subprefectures; the total number of subprefectures was fifty-four.
Administrative posts and cantons were often organized around traditional
social units, especially in areas where an existing bureaucratic
structure could represent the state. In general, the national government
relied on traditional leaders to represent its authority in rural areas.
In many of these areas, civil servants could not maintain order, collect
taxes, or enforce government edicts without the cooperation of respected
local leaders.
Administrators at each of these levels (prefects, subprefects,
administrators, and canton chiefs) were appointed by the president or
the minister of interior and remained in office until the president
dismissed them. Each prefect was assisted by a consultative council
composed of ten or more members nominated by the prefect and approved by
the minister of interior. Traditional leaders were often included, and
council protocol was sometimes based on local rank and status
distinctions.
During the 1960s, the government granted municipal status to nine
towns, based on their ability to finance their own budgets. These
municipalities generated most of their revenues through administrative
fees, fines, and taxes, and they organized communal work projects for
many city improvements. Their governing bodies were relatively
autonomous municipal councils, chosen by popular consensus or informal
elections. Each council, in turn, elected a mayor from its own ranks.
The official policy of autonomy for municipal councils was generally
overridden by the requirement that almost all council decisions be
ratified by the prefect or the minister of interior.
Judicial System
Chad's legal system was based on French civil law, modified according
to a variety of traditional and Islamic legal interpretations. In the
late 1980s, the civilian and military court systems overlapped at
several levels, an effect of Chad's years of warfare. Civilian justice
often deferred to the military system, and in some areas, military
courts--many of which were established by rebel armies during the late
1970s--were the only operating courts. In the 1980s, the government was
working to reassert civilian jurisdiction over these areas.
Chad's Supreme Court was abolished following the coup in 1975 and had
not been reestablished by 1988. The highest court in the land was the
Court of State Security, comprising eight justices, including both
civilians and military officers, all appointed by the president. In
addition, a court of appeals in N'Djamena reviewed decisions of lower
courts, and a special court of justice established in 1984 heard cases
involving the misappropriation of public funds.
Criminal courts convened in N'Djamena, Sarh, Moundou, and Ab�ch�,
and criminal judges traveled to other towns when necessary. In addition,
each of the fourteen prefectures had a magistrate's court, in which
civil cases and minor criminal cases were tried. In 1988 forty-three
justices of the peace served as courts of first resort in some areas.
Chad also had an unofficial but widely accepted system of Islamic
sharia courts in the north and east, which had operated for a century or
more. Most cases involved family obligations and religious teachings. In
other areas, traditional custom required family elders to mediate
disputes involving members of their descent group, i.e., men and women
related to them through sons and brothers. Civil courts often considered
traditional law and community sentiment in decisions, and the courts
sometimes sought the advice of local leaders in considering evidence and
rendering verdicts.
Chad - POLITICAL DYNAMICS
Factionalism
Chad's political environment in the 1980s was a fluid, changing
network, bearing the imprint of centuries of factional dynamics.
Traditional authority has generally been diffuse, rather than
concentrated in a single individual for an entire society. Clusters of
descent groups defined the society in many areas. Factions arose when
descent groups clashed, and strong leaders sought kin-group support in
confronting one another. Social norms focused on preventing conflict
through family law, religion, and authority relations, and a key feature
of factional strife was the reunion that eventually followed many
violent clashes.
As a result of these traditional beliefs and practices, many Chadians
viewed politics according to a segmentary model of descent group
fragmentation. They scorned the idea that national leaders, in fixed
terms of office, could demand loyalties, regardless of the issues
involved. From their perspective, centralizing power and authority
served to deny, rather than to implement, democratic principles. In
Chad, as in other faction-ridden political systems, opposition and
alliance were constantly recalculated, as costs and benefits to the
individual or kin-group were weighed. Politics were often blurred and
not defined in terms of distinct bipolar rivalries.
Factional fragmentation in Chad occurred in response to predictable
issues, such as France's postcolonial role, relations with Libya, the
value of negotiation versus armed confrontation, and ethnic and regional
balances of power. Rifts also resulted from basic disagreements over
policy decisions, forms of retaliation against rivals, and personality
clashes. Reconciliation often brought former rivals together in the face
of a more threatening opponent.
Factions assumed particular importance after independence because of
Chad's diverse ethnic groups, the traditional scorn for centralized
authority, the weak impact of central government policies in the north,
and the generally inadequate infrastructure that impeded communication
among regions. Most important, northern resentment found its expression
in numerous strong leaders--in effect, warlords--but instead of
organizing under a strong warlord to secede, factional armies in the
north sought to wrest control from the government and from each other.
Hissein Habr� is an example of a leader whose career has
demonstrated skill as a factional strategist. He entered politics after
returning from graduate study in France in 1971, but he abandoned his
original post in the Tombalbaye government to join the opposition
FROLINAT. In this organization, he had personality clashes with a number
of leaders, including FROLINAT's ideologue, Abba Siddick. In 1972 Habr�
formed an army of his own, allied with fellow northerner Goukouni
Oueddei, in opposition to Siddick. Habr� and Goukouni managed a fragile
alliance for more than three years, despite differences in style and
ability. Habr� negotiated a large ransom payment from Paris for French
hostages he and Goukouni kidnapped in 1974, but by the time the hostages
were released in 1977, Habr� and Goukouni had ended their alliance.
This arrangement did not last because Habr� clashed with Malloum
over regional and policy issues. Their confrontation allowed Goukouni to
seize the capital and declare himself head of state. As minister of
national defense, veterans, and war victims in Goukouni's regime, Habr�
continued to clash with his northern rival over policy, style, and,
increasingly, over Libyan involvement in Chad. Habr� fled N'Djamena
and, with French and United States support, returned to oust Goukouni as
head of state in June 1982.
Habr� decided he would form alliances only from a position of
strength, and he proceeded to defeat, intimidate, or co-opt a number of
rebel leaders. He then moved to end factional strife, curb the nation's
continuing violence, and extend the reach of government into the
countryside. As of 1988, he had been fairly successful in his dual
pursuit of national reunification and reconciliation. He had
consolidated his control of Chad's fractious population through both
military and political tactics, and, following the example of his
predecessors, he had strengthened the executive branch of government and
postponed democratic reforms. Habr�'s authoritarian rule outweighed the
nation's strong centrifugal tendencies, but just barely. He defeated
numerous rebel armies between 1983 and 1987, and as a result of these
clashes, the disarray among his opponents, and French financial
assistance, he won over most former opponents.
Among those groups that rallied to Habr�'s government was the Action
Committee of the Democratic Revolutionary Council (Comit� d'Action et
de Concertation du Conseil D�mocratique R�volutionnaire--CAC-CDR),
founded in 1984 as the intellectual wing of the opposition CDR. Under
the leadership of Mahamat Senoussi Khatir, it declared support for Habr�
in 1985. The People's Armed Forces (Forces Arm�es Populaires--FAP), a
former FROLINAT faction led by Goukouni, also declared support for Habr�
in October 1986, although Goukouni remained outside the country,
attempting to negotiate a dignified return. Goukouni's one-time vice
president and leader of the Chadian Armed Forces (Forces Arm�es
Tchadiennes-- FAT), Wadel Abdelkader Kamougu�, was Habr�'s minister of
agriculture and rural development in 1988. The Democratic Front of Chad
(Front D�mocratique du Tchad--FDT) was also won over by Habr�. The FDT
was a coalition of groups formed in Paris in 1985 in opposition to both
Goukouni and Habr�. Led by General Negu� Djogo, the FDT shifted its
support to Habr� later that year. Djogo became Habr�'s minister of
justice in early 1986 and was shifted to minister of transportation and
civil aviation in mid-1988. Two other former FDT leaders also joined the
government, one as minister of finance and the other as minister of
culture, youth, and sports.
Several factions of codos, or commandos, were also convinced
to rally to the government. Codos were southern rebel
formations nominally united under the leadership of Colonel Alphonse
Kotiga. Many of them declared their support for Habr� during 1985 and
1986. Other small groups also rallied to Habr�'s government in 1986 and
1987, including the Democratic and Popular National Assembly
(Rassemblement National D�mocratique et Populaire--RNDP) and the
Assembly for Unity and Chadian Democracy (Rassemblement pour l'Unit� et
la D�mocratie Tchadienne--RUDT).
A number of groups remained actively opposed to the government in
1988. Several of these formed a coalition, the Supreme Council of the
Revolution (Conseil Supr�me de la R�volution--CSR) in 1985. The CSR
included nominally united remnants of GUNT, which had controlled the
national government under Goukouni's leadership from 1979 to 1982.
Goukouni disappeared from the GUNT command while he negotiated
unsuccessfully to return to Chad on his own terms in 1987. In 1988 he
proclaimed his allegiance to Habr� but soon thereafter announced the
reorganization of the GUNT alliance under his command.
Another group in the CSR, the was founded in 1979 by Acyl Ahmat but
in 1988 led by Acheikh ibn Oumar. The CDR formed the core of Habr�'s
opposition in 1988, following military and political losses by GUNT.
Also opposed to the government in 1988 were the Popular Movement for the
Liberation of Chad (Mouvement Populaire pour la Lib�ration du
Tchad--MPLT), which had broken away from FAP under Aboubakar Abdel
Rahmane's leadership, and its splinter group, the Western Armed Forces
(Forces Arm�es Occidentales--FAO); several factions of FROLINAT,
including those led by Hadjero Senoussi and Abdelkader Yacine; and the
Movement for the National Salvation of Chad (Mouvement pour le Salut
National du Tchad--MOSANAT), led by Boda Maldoun. MOSANAT, a
Hajerai-based organization, maintained its antigovernment stance through
several administrations. No remaining rebel army, by itself, posed an
immediate threat to Habr�'s regime.
Chad - National Union for Independence and Revolution
Habr�'s political support came primarily from northerners, the army
that brought him to power, and civilians who admired his tough stand on
such issues as opposition to Libyan interference in Chadian affairs. To
broaden his support, in 1984 he undertook a program to extend the reach
of government into rural areas, first by seeking the advice of the
nation's prefects. Southern prefects advised that in addition to
lingering animosity based on the early association of FAN with FROLINAT,
which had worked to oust the southern-based government of Tombalbaye, a
major concern in that region was the conduct of the army. The army had
become, in effect, an obstacle to security.
In 1984 Habr� dissolved the CCFAN and established a political party,
UNIR. Habr� retained broad power to control the party agenda, and he
appointed military officers to nine of the fourteen positions on the
party's Executive Bureau, which served as the primary liaison between
the party and the government. To placate the south, six posts were
allocated to southerners.
UNIR was designed primarily to mobilize and inspire popular
participation in government and to enable the president to control that
participation. Other important goals were to increase the civilian
emphasis in government and, finally, to achieve peace between north and
south. The party invoked national values such as brotherhood and
solidarity, individual respect, confidence, and "healthy criticism
and self-criticism." It also developed a repertoire of songs,
chants, and sayings intended to bolster these aims.
The eighty-member UNIR Central Committee was important in extending
the reach of the party throughout the nation. For this purpose, it
employed groups of about sixty agents (animateurs) and ten
organizers (encadreurs) in each prefecture to convert apathetic
and war-weary citizens into party activists. Militant UNIR recruiters
delivered public speeches on the need for unity, peace, and progress
through the party organization and for reduced Libyan influence in Chad.
They also helped recruit members to party affiliates, such as youth
groups, women's organizations, and trade associations.
The main political impact of UNIR by 1988 was to maintain a cadre of
elites on the periphery of the government. The party was successful at
orchestrating political displays but had not inspired widespread
loyalty. People generally remained skeptical of the ability of
government to improve their lives. Rural citizens in particular had seen
few benefits of national development and feared that the government's
inevitable urban bias would make life even harsher for them.
The party's effectiveness as a democratic forum was hampered by the
fact that the president controlled its agenda. UNIR provided very
limited opportunities for debating government policy and had little
patronage to dispense, except its own offices. It served primarily to
convey to the president a sense of popular opinion and to reassure him
that his government was not entirely out of touch with its constituency.
In this role, UNIR usurped much of the limited power of the interim
legislature, the CNC, and left the appointed legislators to act
primarily as bureaucratic housekeepers. Habr� reportedly intended to
allow for greater democratic participation at some time in the future,
but before doing so, he hoped to provide sufficient political
indoctrination to guarantee support for party aims.
In 1988 Habr� proclaimed his intention to convert UNIR into a
people's party, a "revolutionary vanguard," for the purpose of
grass-roots political mobilization. To begin this task, he created the
People's Revolutionary Militia (Milice Populaire de la R�volution--MPR),
but the MPR was not yet operational in mid-1988. As head of the UNIR
Executive Bureau, the president was to appoint the leader of the MPR and
control its agenda.
The MPR mandate was to reach people through the local party
organization in each of the nation's administrative divisions. This
structure--subdivided into groups, subgroups, sectors, and subsectors
corresponding to the nation's prefectures, subprefectures,
administrative posts, and cantons--was intended to provide UNIR with an
apparatus for enforcing its decisions and a forum for promoting its
programs. It would also augment the government's internal security
apparatus.
Chad - Political Style
During his first six years as president, Habr�'s style of governing
was essentially to juxtapose spheres of influence, including the Council
of Ministers, a few close advisers, and personal friends and relatives,
all of whom sought to influence presidential decision making. Habr� was
at the center of these spheres, each of which coalesced around his
agenda. His political strategy was based on a segmentary model that
exploited Chad's traditionally fluid, factional political dynamics.
Habr� understood factional dynamics on several levels, first as one
of the Toubou herdsmen among whom he was born and whose livelihood had
for centuries depended on manipulation of the social system to their
advantage, and as a Western-educated member of a small elite, whose
political longevity depended on his ability to broker alliances. Habr�
used this traditional and modern background in his efforts to craft a
stable nation out of a divided state torn by factional strife.
That people were tired of war also contributed to Habr�'s political
successes in his first six years as president. A combination of
resignation and opportunism brought former opponents into alliance with
the president, who often was simply more tenacious than they were. To
most of these former opponents, Habr�'s authoritarian regime was
preferable to a return to civil war. Factional disputes were not always
resolved; sometimes they were submerged and could be expected to recur.
Habr�'s military style was characterized as smart, tough, and
decisive. Observers described him as a pragmatic military leader,
undeterred by bureaucratic and political niceties and undistracted by
sentiment, ideology, or foreign entanglements. Although he had a sizable
following among civilians, as of 1988 he still governed largely as a
military officer. He had not made the shift in style from supervising a
military bureaucracy, in which orders were given and obeyed, to
overseeing a civilian government that required broad consensus
formation. Political communication was generally one directional, from
the president down.
Habr� established a reputation for ignoring seniority in making
assignments, and, as a result, officers sometimes reported to their
juniors when working on specific projects. One military commander,
Hassane Djamouss, whose 1987 successes led to the rout of Libyan forces
from much of the north, became a well-known example of this feature of
Habr�'s style. Djamouss was a former minister of the civil service,
trained as a livestock technician, but correctly judged by Habr� to be
a master strategist.
Habr� also developed the reputation as a manager who set overall
goals for his subordinates and left the mechanics of accomplishing those
goals to lower-level managers. This decentralized responsibility and
decision-making authority accorded well with traditional values of
individualism held by many Chadian ethnic groups, and it had worked well
in many military settings. A by-product of this feature of Habr�'s
style was that officials with delegated responsibility commonly bypassed
bureaucratic regulations in order to accomplish their goal. Adhering to
the chain of command was not the measure of success in Chad's government
of the 1980s.
Habr� made several cautious attempts to bring peripheral ethnic
groups into the political process. Most high civilian and military
appointments were from his own or a closely related ethnic group, but he
appointed southerners and other non-Toubou civilians to several
executive and administrative positions, despite occasional bureaucratic
snarls that resulted from these attempts at national reconciliation.
Faced with internal threats to his regime, Habr�'s reaction was
essentially repressive. Political opponents were often imprisoned or had
their travel restricted. He broadened intelligence-gathering networks
within the military (in 1986, for example, in response to growing
opposition within the army) and expanded the power of the Presidential
Guard. At the same time, he believed in his own power to
"rehabilitate" and co-opt former opponents and was sometimes
successful in gaining a measure of their trust.
During its first nearly three decades of independence, Chad had a
strong president and weak state institutions, but it also enjoyed some
benefits of the weakness of the state. It had been spared much of the
flamboyant political posturing that was evident in a few more peaceful
and prosperous nations. Habr� had not squandered public resources on
grandiose monuments to himself, nor had he encouraged a sycophantic cult
of personality. Public office was not yet synonymous with extraordinary
wealth, and, as a result, public cynicism toward government in the 1980s
was surprisingly low.
Chad - Mass Media
Within the complex and changing foreign relations triangle comprising
Chad, France, and Libya, the large nations of Nigeria and Sudan were
also important actors. Nigeria considered France its primary rival in
its attempt to chart the course of West Africa's political development.
Its generally paternalistic relations with Chad intensified after the
coup that ousted President Tombalbaye in 1975. After that, limiting
Libyan expansion while avoiding direct clashes with Libyan troops also
became important goals. Nigeria sponsored talks among Chad's rival
factions in 1979 and promoted a little-known civil servant, Mahmat Shawa
Lol, as a compromise head of a coalition government. Lol's perceived
status as a Nigerian puppet contributed to mounting opposition during
his short term as president in 1979.
The two nations forged stronger ties during the 1980s. Hoping to
benefit commercially and diplomatically by expanding regional trade
relations, Nigeria replaced France as Chad's major source of export
revenues. Bilateral trade agreements involved Chadian exports of
livestock, dried fish, and chemicals and imports of Nigerian foodstuffs
and manufactured goods. Both governments also recognized the potential
value of the large informal trade sector across their borders, which
neither country regulated. In addition, Nigerian industry and commerce
employed several thousand Chadians workers.
Chad's relationship with Nigeria was not without its strains,
however. Beginning in the late 1970s, clashes occurred around Lake Chad,
where both countries hoped to exploit oil reserves. Both also sought to
defuse these confrontations, first by establishing joint patrols and a
commission to demarcate the boundary across the lake more clearly. Then
in the early 1980s, the low level of Lake Chad brought a series of tiny
islands into view, leading to further disputes and disrupting
long-standing informal trade networks.
This relationship was also complicated by Nigeria's own instability
in the north, generated by rising Islamic fundamentalism. Thousands of
casualties occurred as the result of violent clashes in Nigeria
throughout the 1980s. Most religious violence was domestic in origin,
but Nigerian police arrested a few Libyans, and Nigerian apprehension of
Libyan infiltration through Chad intensified.
Nigeria's 1983 economic austerity campaign also produced strains with
neighboring states, including Chad. Nigeria expelled several hundred
thousand foreign workers, mostly from its oil industry, which faced
drastic cuts as a result of declining world oil prices. At least 30,000
of those expelled were Chadians. Despite these strains, however,
Nigerians had assisted in the halting process of achieving stability in
Chad, and both nations reaffirmed their intention to maintain close
ties.
Sudan, Chad's neighbor to the east, responded to Chad's conflict with
Libya based on its own regional, ethnic, and cultural tensions. In
Sudan, the Islamic northern region had generally dominated the
non-Muslim south. Sudan's ties with Libya, although cautious during the
1970s, warmed during the 1980s, strengthening N'Djamena's fears of
insurgency from the east.
The populations of eastern Chad and western Sudan established social
and religious ties long before either nation's independence, and these
remained strong despite disputes between governments. Herdsmen in both
countries freely crossed the 950-kilometer border, seeking pastureland
and water sources as they had for centuries. Muslims in eastern Chad
often traveled through Sudan on the hajj, or annual pilgrimage to Mecca,
and many young people from eastern Chad studied at Islamic schools in
Sudan. In addition, Sudan's cotton plantations employed an estimated
500,000 Chadian workers in 1978.
At the same time, the basis for political enmity between these two
nations was set in the early 1960s, when Chad's southern bias in
government offended many Sudanese Muslims. Sudan allowed FROLINAT rebels
to organize, train, and establish bases in western Sudan and to conduct
raids into Chad from Sudan's Darfur Province. Refugees from both
countries fled across their mutual border.
Following the coup that ousted Tombalbaye in 1975, relations between
presidents Jaafar an Numayri and Malloum were surprisingly cordial, in
part because both nations feared Libyan destabilization. Sudan sponsored
talks among Chad's rebel army leaders in the late 1970s and urged
Malloum to incorporate them into his government. (Numayri promoted the
talents and intelligence of Habr�, in particular, and persuaded Malloum
to appoint Habr� to political office in 1978.) These ties were strained
in part because of Numayri's warming relations with Libyan leader
Qadhaafi.
As violence in Chad increased between 1979 and 1982, Sudan faced its
own internal rebellion, and relations deteriorated after Numayri was
ousted in 1983. In 1988 Habr� assailed Sudan for allowing Libyan troops
to be stationed along Chad's border and for continuing to allow assaults
on Chadian territory from Sudan.
Chad - Relations with Other African States
Chad maintained generally close ties with its other African
neighbors, but the primary base of these ties were Chad's economic and
security needs, together with other governments' concerns for regional
stability. Overall, African states sought to protect their own
interests--to isolate or contain Chad's continuing violence without
becoming involved militarily. As France was attempting to transfer more
responsibility to former colonies and subregional powers, francophone
African leaders urged each other and the former colonial power to
increase assistance to Chad. Each side partially succeeded.
African states had other reasons for ambivalence toward Chad in
addition to their own security concerns. Chad's long-standing unrest,
border conflicts, overall instability, and poverty contributed to its
image as a relatively unimportant ally. It underwent frequent shifts in
government; from 1979 to 1982, it was not always clear who was in
charge. In 1982 Chad's new president, Habr�, appeared to some African
heads of state to be a Pariseducated northerner with aristocratic
pretensions, who had not done enough to win their support.
Because of Chad's landlocked status and limited air transport
service, Cameroon was an important neighbor and ally throughout most of
the 1970s and 1980s. Imports and exports were shipped between Yaound�
and N'Djamena by rail and road, as were military and food assistance
shipments. Cameroon became an increasingly important trading partner
during the 1980s, following unsuccessful attempts in the 1970s to
conclude multilateral trade agreements with Congo and Central African
Republic. In 1987 Cameroon was Chad's third largest source of imports
after France and the United States, and Cameroon purchased Chadian
cotton and agricultural products.
The Cameroonian town of Kouss�ri had been an important supply center
and refuge for Chadians during the worst violence of the late 1970s.
The population of the town increased from 10,000 to 100,000 in 1979 and
1980. Cameroon's government urged France to increase assistance to stem
Libyan advances because officials feared direct confrontation with
Libyan troops and the influx of weapons and refugees from Chad.
Zaire's President Mobutu Sese Seko was one of President Habr�'s most
consistent allies in Central Africa. Even before Habr� seized power in
1982, Mobutu's desire to lead Africa's pro-Western, antiQadhaafi efforts
and to compete with Nigeria as a subregional power had led him to
provide military training and troops for the IAF in Chad.
Chad's relations with Central African Republic were not cordial, but
the two nations were generally on good terms. Central African Republic
controlled another important access route, and the two nations had
concluded a number of agreements regarding trade, transportation, and
communication. Chad's President Tombalbaye had clashed with the former
president of Central African Republic, Jean-Bedel Bokassa, over the
establishment of a central African customs union in the late 1960s,
however, leading Tombalbaye to close their common border. After this
occurrence, Central African Republic remained fairly aloof from Chad's
economic and security problems. Some Chadian refugees crossed into
Central African Republic during the 1980s, but Bangui's major concern
was preventing Chad's ongoing turmoil from spreading across its southern
border.
Niger and Chad shared a number of common features of postindependence
political development, but these two landlocked, poor nations were
unable to contribute noticeably to each other's progress. The
inhabitants of their northern provinces--primarily Tuareg in Niger and
Toubou groups in Chad--were both referred to by Libyan leader Qadhaafi
as his ethnic constituents, and both nations complained of Libyan
insurgence in these mineral-rich areas. At the same time, important
segments of both societies supported Qadhaafi's goal of establishing a
Central African Islamic empire. Both nations also shared the dual
heritage of Muslim and Christian influences and regional economic
inequities, and both found themselves overshadowed by Nigeria's wealth
and large population.
Chad had become one of Africa's intractable dilemmas in the 1970s,
confounding leaders who sought peace and prosperity for the continent as
a whole. Chad's conflict with Libya became symbolic of the OAU's
frustrated attempts to impose a coherent framework on Africa, and it
defied the OAU resolution to uphold colonially imposed boundaries and
settle inter-African disputes peacefully. The OAU formed a series of ad
hoc committees to mediate the ChadLibya dispute, and in 1988 the six
committee members--Algeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Mozambique, Nigeria, and
Senegal--succeeded in bringing together foreign ministers from Chad and
Libya to pursue diplomatic recognition and peace talks. The committee
also requested written documentation of each side's claims to the Aozou
Strip in the hope of finding a legal channel for curbing violence there.
Chad - Relations with the United States
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CITATION: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress. The Country Studies Series. Published 1988-1999.
Please note: This text comes from the Country Studies Program, formerly the Army Area Handbook Program. The Country Studies Series presents a description and analysis of the historical setting and the social, economic, political, and national security systems and institutions of countries throughout the world.
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