Author	Bram Posthumus
Publication	Searching for Peace in Africa
Year	1999

Summary

Having oscillated between plans for a complete merger on the one hand and outright war on the other, the relationship between Chad and Libya merits special mention. In addition to the almost perennial dispute over the Aouzou Strip, Libya has interfered directly in the internal politics of its much poorer southern neighbour (the income gap is 42:1). This interference finally resulted in a concerted - almost national - effort on the part of the Chadians to encourage their Libyan brothers and friends to return to their own country. Relations currently appear to be stable.

Conflict Dynamics

In 1969, Libya offered to mediate between the government of president Tombalbaye and the FROLINAT rebel armies. The Chadians refused. There were suspicions - later vindicated - about Libyan aid to the northern rebels.

Five years later, Libya occupied 114,000 square kilometres of Chadian territory, known as the Aouzou Strip, citing old claims to the area as justification. Under a 1935 treaty favouring Libya, the Strip had been divided between Italy and France. Following World War II, however, a new treaty was signed favouring what was then French Central Africa. Libya also claimed, with some justification, that the peoples living in the volcanic deserts of the BET region would probably prefer being part of Libya. However, Chad suspected - equally correctly - that Libya was intent on the annexation of the entire country.
Libya provided those Toubou rebels who were led by Oueddei with military and logistical support, enabling them to run large tracts of the BET region virtually unopposed from 1965 until 1988. This led the Chadian government to break off diplomatic ties with Tripoli completely, in 1978 and lodge a complaint with the UN Security Council. This was solved by neighbourly mediation.
In 1979, Libya took advantage of the turmoil within Chad to again invade the area. Because of his rapprochement with the Government of National Unity at the time, Goukouni Oueddei and his FROLINAT forces chased the Libyans out of the country, with some help from Habré. But a year later, in 1980, Oueddei again appealed to Libya to save his position against the onslaught of Habré's FAN. Another Libyan ally at the time, the Chadian Minister of Foreign Affairs and faction leader Acyl Amat extended a welcome to any friendly help in times of crisis. The Libyans were ready to comply. No reference was made to the Aouzou Strip. In the course of 1980, Libya sent up to 15,000 troops into Chad and defeated Habré in December 1980.
Later, the issue of Libyan assistance led to serious rifts in the anti-Habré camp. This came to a head when in January 1981, Colonel Ghadaffi proposed a full-blown merger between the two countries. It appeared that both president Oueddei and Kamougue rejected the idea outright, while Amat and the southern Muslims were all in favour. Not only the Government of National Unity but also the anti-Habré alliance disintegrated over this issue. In April 1981, Oueddei's and Amat's troops fought out their differences in eastern and central Chad, while the Libyans themselves organised mutinies in the south in order to destabilise Kamougue's position there. Libyan troops began to behave more and more like an occupation force, amidst growing resentment from the Chadians, not least their president, who was powerless to do anything about it. When the Libyans pulled out in November 1981 under intense OAU and Chadian pressure, they retained control of the Aouzou Strip. Seven months later the Oueddei government was over and his US-backed rival Habré marched into N'Djamena.
Libya once again entered deep into Chadian territory when it helped Oueddei to his victories in the north in 1983. Since the French were helping Habré with 3,000 troops, a direct confrontation between the two countries was inevitable and both sides used their air power to bomb each other's airfields, near N'Djamena and Ouadi-Doum respectively.
By 1985-6 it was clear that Oueddei was too close to the Libyans for his own comfort, unlike Amat, his successor Acheikh Ibn Omar and other faction leaders in the northern alliance. Consequently the alliance around Oueddei split, leaving the Libyans and a few smaller factions to fight Habré and the French. This was to result in their biggest defeat. Habré's troops, now assisted by elements from the old GUNT and with French backing attacked the Libyans, using nimble four-wheel drive trucks, driving them out of the country, including the Aouzou Strip by June 1987. The Strip, however, was retaken in August. The Libyan armed forces left behind up to US$ 1 billion worth of Soviet equipment and had more of their hardware destroyed when Habré launched a retaliatory attack into Libya, destroying a major airbase. A peace process was then started which led to the resumption of normal relations in October 1988. Habré remained wary of the Libyans, and asked the French to maintain their presence in Chad.
Indeed, this was by no means the end of Libyan-Chadian antagonism. Libya continued to occupy the Aouzou Strip and it used proxies such as the Islamic Legion to destabilise the government. The Islamic Legion was a group of West African and Middle East mercenaries, operating from Sudanese soil. The incursion that brought Idriss Déby to power was backed by Libya, through Sudan. Since then, the situation has calmed considerably. Libya and Chad agreed to hold talks and in April 1998, Ghadaffi came to N'Djamena on an official visit, amidst a great deal of public protest. However by mid-1999 there were signs that this new honeymoon period was drawing to a close.

Official Conflict Management

The United Nations has at times discussed the issues between Chad and Libya in the Security Council. The organisation also sent an observer mission to the Aouzou Strip. Called UNASOG (United Nations Aouzou Strip Observer Group), it was established in 1994 to verify the withdrawal of Libyan forces in accordance with the verdict reached at the International Court of Justice in The Hague (see below). To this end, it sent nine observers and six international civilian staff to the area between May and June 1994. According to UN documentation, UNASOG achieved its objective when both countries declared withdrawal to be complete.
Chad and Libya finally agreed to lay the case before the International Court of Justice, which on February 3, 1994 rejected Libya's claim to the territory. This was followed by an April 5 agreement on full Libyan withdrawal by May 30, to be followed by treaties on friendship, good neighbourliness and cooperation.
The Organization of African Unity (OAU) has undertaken numerous attempts to settle the disputes between Chad and Libya. In 1977, it set up a commission to look into the border dispute. In 1981, following Libya's de-facto occupation of Chad in the wake of Habré's defeat, the OAU attempted to have the Libyans replaced by an pan-African peacekeeping force, without much success.
When the fiercest fighting between the two countries was under way, in 1987, the OAU mediated a cease-fire between the two sides which came into effect in September. Diplomatic moves towards rapprochement continued when Malian president Moussa Traore, as chairman of the OAU, arranged a direct meeting between the two leaders, Hissène Habré and Colonel Ghadaffi, resulting in an 'historic handshake'. The Nigerian, Algerian and Gabonese heads of state were present at the occasion. Nevertheless, fighting continued on the ground, while a commission, headed by president Bongo of Gabon tried to work out a settlement. Despite sporadic clashes, the cease-fire appeared to hold but neither side was willing to accept neutral arbitration on the matter of the Aouzou Strip. Then, on May 25, 1988, Ghadaffi demonstrated a complete change of mind at the summit celebrating the 25th birthday of the OAU, recognising the Chadian government and expressing his wish to settle all disputes in a brotherly fashion. Talks began in Gabon in July, and the peace process actually gathered pace with the handing over of prisoners of war to the OAU, in September and the restoration of full diplomatic relations, in October.
Individual governments have also made contributions to negotiations on various occasions. The first mediation attempt was undertaken by Sudan which intervened when Chadian-Libyan relations were almost at breaking point in early 1978. The two countries restored diplomatic ties and promised to search for a peaceful solution for the Aouzou problem. All this was confirmed at a mini-conference in southern Libya, in the presence of high-level representatives from Sudan and Niger. In various later stages, personal interventions by the presidents of Gabon, Tunisia and Togo - among others - resulted in the two sides restoring diplomatic relations.

Multi Track Diplomacy

Prospects

A definitive solution to the Aouzou problem has still to be found. It is doubtful whether Libya has indeed completely terminated its occupation; reports in 1997 claimed that it still held at least some parts of the Strip. Chad certainly does not want to reclaim the strip by military means. For the time being, Libya seems to have frozen its designs on the country as a whole.
Chad will also remain stuck with the problem of an unknown number of landmines in the northern BET region, which have been placed there by the Libyan armed forces.

Recommendations

Service Information

REPORTS:	Amnesty International: Chad - Hope betrayed. 1997; Minorities at Risk: The Southerners in Chad. 1994, regularly updated;
OTHER PUBLICATIONS:	Country Survey: Chad. In: EU-ACP Courier, May-June 1999. Published by DGVIII, Brussels; Conflits et violences au Chad, by Bernard Lanne. In: Afrique Contemporaine, numéro special, 4e trimestre 1996; Between Sand Dunes and Savanna - Chad and its Environment. Panos Institute, London; The North-South Conflict: Myth or Reality? Al Mouna Centre, N'Djamena;
SELECTED INTERNETSITES:	http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/chad/chadlinks (offers a variety of links to political and economic organisations - including those who are at both sides of the debate about the Chad-Cameroon oil project - Amnesty information on Chad, the US State Department statements on human rights in Chad and many more); http://antenna.nl/aseed/oilwatch (NGO site which carries news on oil companies and their behaviour); http://www.exxon.com/essochad (comprehensive site with the oil company's side of the oil story);
RESOURCE CONTACTS:	Jan van Criekinge - National Development Cooperation Commission of Belgium, Email: Jan.Van.Criekinge@ncos.ngonet.be; Hans Determeijer - hans@antenna.nl; Best gateway organisations to Chad: Centre de l'Information et de Liaison des Organisations Non-Gouvernementales, CILONG. Email: cilong@intnet.td; Eirene/Chad. Email eirene-int@eirene.org;
ORGANISATIONS:	Association Tchadienne pour la Promotion et la Défense de Droits de l'Homme (ATPDH), B.P. 4082, N'Djamena, Chad, Tel. +235 51 58 33, Fax +235 51 58 84; Ligue Tchadienne des Droits de l'Homme (LTDH), B.P. 2037, N'Djamena, Chad, Tel. +235 51 61 35, Fax + 235 51 61 09; Data on the following organisations can be found in the Directory section: Amnesty International; Oxfam

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