N’DJAMENA, 7 February 2008 — Chad’s government is in total control of the country after beating off a rebel offensive, President Idriss Deby said yesterday.
Making his first public appearance since rebels attacked the Chadian capital at the weekend and besieged his presidential palace, Deby said: “We have total control of the situation, not only in the capital, but also the whole country.”
Rebel forces said they were still occupying positions “around N’Djamena” and vowed to fight any French intervention. “If we are attacked, then we have the right to legitimately defend ourselves,” rebel spokesman Ali Ordjo Hemchi said.
“We ask France to remain neutral, on the side of the Chadian people, and not on the side of a failed regime,” he added, saying he was speaking from Chad.
He said rebel forces had routed early yesterday a column of pro-Deby Sudanese rebels northeast of the capital, but there was no independent confirmation of this.
Deby’s government said it had defeated its Chadian rebel foes, who had made a lightning advance last week from the eastern border with Sudan’s Darfur region. The rebels said they had pulled back and would strike again.
N’Djamena was calm yesterday. Ambulance workers collected the bodies of those killed in the weekend fighting, which injured hundreds of people.
The conflict has delayed the deployment of a 3,700-strong European Union peacekeeping force in eastern Chad to protect thousands of Darfur refugees.
Tens of thousands of N’Djamena residents fled south into Cameroon and Nigeria after the weekend fighting, but hundreds started returning after the Chadian government made TV and radio broadcasts saying it was safe to come back.
“I am going home because the situation seems to have stabilized. We heard it on the radio... That’s why we’re going home,” said Issara Hassan, a student.
A Chadian police officer with a megaphone told the crowd at the border: “Come back home. N’Djamena is at peace.”
French warplanes have been flying reconnaissance missions over rebel positions and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that a rebel motorcade of between 100 and 200 vehicles was still somewhere east of the capital.
Kouchner said the UN Security Council statement had created an obligation to support Deby’s government, which he said had been the target of a coup bid by the rebels.
In Rome, Pope Benedict added his voice to international calls for an end to the conflict.
In Brussels, the European Union earmarked $3 million in humanitarian aid, but has suspended deployment of the mainly French EU force to protect Darfur refugees.
“Conditions are still too chaotic to obtain a full assessment of the situation but what is clear is that many people are already suffering,” said EU Development and Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Louis Michel.
