HOT

and GETTING HOTTER

I spent the first night without worrying about the fact that I do not own a blanket. The weather has decidedly shifted into summer gear and it is easily 80 degrees at midday possibly more. If only I had the weather channel to tell me just hot warm it really is here.

Speaking of temperatures, the conflict in Chad has taken so many turns and caused the loss of so many lives that it makes one wonder if this heat wave isn’t man made. Three rebels groups that have been fighting the Chadian army for just under a decade managed to cross hundred of miles of open desert and then storm and capture 90% of the capital of this landlocked nation over the weekend. It is hard to imagine that the army did not see the dust of a hundred vehicles flying across the desert. Still, it appeared that the national army was caught off guard. Perhaps it is because they never expected to have to lift a finger in their own defense.

France has been a longtime ally to the government there and has intervened on several occasions to thwart rebel attacks. However this time is different.

France is soon to lead a large UN sanctioned peacekeeping mission composed of the European Union’s peacekeeping force – EURFOR – and classical UN peacekeepers from all over the world. The mission, dubbed MINURCAT, is designed to bring peace and stability along the Chad/Sudan and Chad/Central African Republic borders. On Sunday, the French defense minister declared that, in keeping with its role in this peacekeeping force, France would remain neutral. However just 30 minutes later, the French foreign minister announced that France would not remain neutral and would defend the rule of law and legitimacy underlining that President Deby had been democratically elected.

True. Deby was elected.

Deby was elected but only after he launched a military coup to overthrow the previous president then lifted term limits when he came to the end of his second term in office. That last maneuver caused massive defections in the army and even some of his own family members took up arms against him.


I cannot help but wonder if France’s sudden neutrality wasn’t also motivated by the harsh characterization of French nationals in Chad following the episode when a French NGO, Zoë Ark, nearly got away with abducting several hundred Chadian children on the pretense that they were Darfur refugee orphans who needed urgent medical attention in France. Not so true.

When pressed for the truth, Zoë representatives stated that international law required that they take kids from poor homes where they are suffering and transfer them to better homes where they will be love and cared for. They may have been driven by compassion, but they drove right across a bunch of laws protecting children. In the end, it was proven that the children were not orphans, refugees, sick, or even from Darfur, and it was suggested that the children were actually heading for cash-paying, barren French couples. The parents who released control of the children were told that the children were going to get an education, a retreat, or day trip, and would return shortly. The Chadian judiciary worked its magic and sentenced everyone to eight years of hard labor in Chadian prisons. After that episode, it was open season on the French. Anything French was ridiculed, spat upon, and trampled in the streets. Now that Chadians desperately need their help, the French … well … they may just … bide … their … time.

Is that too cynical of me?

Perhaps. Today however the tides seem to have changed again. The United Nations Security Council, reacting to analyses that an overthrow of the Chadian government could mean far more instability in the region and especially in Darfur, called on all member states to respond to the pleas of the current government and prevent its overthrow. In short, the UN has given France free reign to lift their neutrality and use military means to rout the rebels. What did the French think?

Well, their reactions have been almost just as contradictory as in the first instance.

First the foreign affairs minister announced that, despite the findings of the UN Security Council, France would not change its current stance of neutrality but would maintain its presence to ensure the safety of evacuating civilians and those remaining in the city.

But then, not 15 minutes later, the president of French gave a speech in which he stated that France would not shy away from its duty, making direct reference to the UN Security Council’s call for action from member states.

What will it mean if French decides to throw its weight behind the Chadian government and chase the rebel back across the border into Darfur? I am not certain, but I am apprehensive. Things quieted almost immediately after the rebels left for their mad trek across the desert. A heated retreat would be instability at best and renewed fighting on a larger scale on the other side of the spectrum.

Keep following the news and I will try to do the same.

Maa salaam