Author	Bram Posthumus
Publication	Searching for Peace in Africa
Year	2000

Summary

Chad is one of the many oddities left behind by colonial cartographers and perhaps one of the more striking examples of what Basil Davidson called 'The Black Man's Burden': the artificial nation state in Africa. Under French colonial rule, which only lasted from 1891 until independence in 1960, the territory was part of French Central Africa. With nothing more than a set of lines defining the independent state of Chad, a concept of national unity had to be invented. The heavy-handed way in which this was done by the first post-independence government fed and fanned the succession of civil wars that have ravaged the country. Aggravating factors were regional differences within Chad, clashing politico-military personalities at the top of the various groups vying for power, clientelist politics in the capital city N'Djamena, and outside interference.
Chad can be roughly divided into the mainly pastoral, Muslim and Arabic-speaking north and east (called the north) and the mainly agricultural, Christian/animist, African and Francophone south-western tip of the country (known as the south). Before French rule, northerners would carry out raids in the south for slaves. Under the French, the southerners were quick to spot the advantages of western education, and since education automatically led to jobs in the civil service, southerners came to dominate the state apparatus.
Unsurprisingly, a southern activist and MP, François Tombalbaye became the first president of independent Chad. Political intolerance, enforced nationalism through a one-party state system, exorbitant taxation and the erratic nature of his government turned existing but surmountable differences between north and south (language, religion, culture) into irreconcilable divisions. In 1965, the first northern rebellions took place. Tombalbaye was killed in a violent coup in 1975 and replaced by General Felix Malloum, also a southerner.
The 1970s saw three significant changes. First, the north gained a foothold in the capital. In the face of a major military offensive from the north, Malloum was forced to sign a so-called Chartre Fondamentale, which guaranteed a degree of power sharing. He signed the Charter in August 1978. The other signatory was Hissène Habré, a Toubou from a northern clan, a man of letters turned rebel who had crashed onto the world scene by holding a French anthropologist, Françoise Claustre (and, later, also her husband) hostage between 1974 and 1977. With Habré and his troops, the north-south divide was transferred to and ultimately destroyed the capital.
Secondly, the wars became less political and began increasingly to reflect the personality clashes among the country's leaders. This was most prominently the case in the long-standing rivalry between Habré and another northerner, Goukouni Oueddei, the son of the traditional leader of the Toubou in the Tibesti Region. Their rivalry would prove to be the undoing of the country. The issue that divided them most deeply was the question of how to deal with Libya.
The third change was marked by active Libyan interference with Chad's violent conflicts (see also the section on the Chad-Libya conflict). Habré saw the Libyans as invaders and considered himself a true Chadian nationalist, the guardian of national unity. Oueddei on the other hand, favoured Libyan involvement - indeed Libya had backed the northern rebellion since 1977.
But there was wider interference. In the early 1980s, the civil wars briefly took on a Cold War hue with Habré receiving extensive American support brought to him via Liberia, Egypt and Sudan. Ultimately, this helped bring him the presidency in 1982. The American support formed part of the US strategy of the time which was aimed at containing Libya and, if possible, removing the Libyan leader Colonel Ghadaffi. Ironically, Sudan was instrumental in the success of the uprising that brought down Habré in 1990. It was led by his former commander, and the current president, Idriss Déby. The uprising was the result of another major personality clash that had developed between these two men.
The former-colonial power, France, was frequently called upon to save sitting governments from imminent defeat, which it did on three occasions. First, the French fought against northern rebels on behalf of Tombalbaye and did so reasonably successfully. They pulled out in 1971, leaving 900 men in N'Djamena. Seven years later, they were back, on the side of Malloum in an ultimately futile bid to stem the northern take-over of the country's political system. The French were also called upon by Habré to help fight off the Libyans, a campaign which was ultimately crowned with success in 1987.
Loose factions opposing the government of the day, coalescing into bigger groups, fragmenting into new splinters became a well-established pattern in Chadian politics. Some opposition groups grew into 'national' factions, while others remained under the control of local warlords with no ambition beyond control of their turf. These armed organisations are deemed to be symptomatic of the pervasive culture of violence, which is compounded by the wide availability of small arms. As the chairman of the Human Rights Commission within the Transitional Council told the EU-ACP Courier in 1994: 'In this country, people who are disconcerted pick up a weapon, go off into the bush and start organising rebellions'. According to Chadian political activists and intellectuals, this cycle of rebellion, repression, new rebellions and more repression can only be broken if the political culture of the country undergoes radical change.
On close inspection, the presidents, from both north and south, have much in common. With the exception of Tombalbaye they are all military men who have come to power through the barrel of a gun and maintain position by combining charm offensives with brutal repression. None have shied away from mass violence in order to demonstrate their hold on power. All have attempted to legitimise their presence by either holding (usually rigged) elections or changing the constitution. All have promoted a climate of clan-based clientelism. The state apparatus was filled first by southerners, and then by people from the north and east. Personal and clan loyalties have proved more important than competence. In a special feature on Chad, published in the EU-ACP Courier of May-June 1999, opposition politician Jean Bawoyeu Alingue remarks that 'The so-called north-south conflict is exacerbated by all the injustices this country has known.'
It was not until the early 1990s that some space became available for human rights groups and other members of civil society who tried to promote alternative (i.e. non-violent) ways of doing politics. Their freedom to operate appears to be increasingly restricted as 1999 progresses. For example, parliamentarians and journalists who questioned Chad's disastrous adventure in the Democratic Republic of Congo on the side of President Kabila (274 soldiers were killed in a single battle in 1998) have been harassed and intimidated. The latest controversy regarding the country's future oil revenues (see Prospects) will show how hard Chadian civil society will have to fight if it is to defend the ground it has gained in the past decade.

Conflict Dynamics

The very first rebel group called itself Front de Libération National Tchadien (FROLINAT). With distinctly left-wing sympathies and intending to redress the imbalances that had grown up between north and south and build a truly national state, it was the only Chadian rebel movement with a political program. FROLINAT split as early as 1966 and became one of three groups, of which the FAN (Northern Armed Forces), led by Hissène Habré, was one. The various northern rebel groups remained active in the north and east and another group, claiming to be the 'Third Army' of FROLINAT, began operations in the area where Chad borders Nigeria.
In 1976, the FAN itself split, as a result of the rivalry between Goukouni Oueddei and Hissène Habré. Their dispute was fought out in the vast Bourkou, Ennedi and Tibesti areas (known as BET), which comprises one-third of the country but contains only six per cent of its population. Oueddei, with Libyan aid, was victorious in 1977 and threatened N'Djamena. Habré formed a Sudan-mediated coalition of convenience with president Malloum and the French. The result of this exercise was the Chartre Fondamental (1978). Malloum kept the presidency and Habré became prime minister.
Any hopes that this arrangement would last vanished when on February 12, 1979, N'Djamena was destroyed in battles between troops loyal to Malloum and Habré. Muslims and southerners were massacred and fighting continued in N'Djamena and the rest of Chad throughout the year. At least eleven factions were at war. Libya once again intervened and threatened to capture the capital, having already taken possession of the Aouzou Strip (see the separate section on this conflict). In the southern town of Moundou, more than 800 Muslims were killed, for which Malloum's police-chief, Wadal Abder Kamougue, was blamed.
This all-out war prompted the first pan-African peace initiative. There were protracted OAU-mediated negotiations, resulting in a government of national unity and transition (GUNT), briefly headed by Oueddei and also involving Habré. Nigerian peacekeepers were sent to N'Djamena. However, fighting among the various factions flared up regularly. In the south, Kamougue carved out his own fiefdom.
After a brief period of relative peace, the GUNT collapsed under the weight of its own internal divisions. In March 1980, Oueddei again asked his friends, the Libyans, for help when Habré began making military progress in N'Djamena and elsewhere. Fighting raged throughout much of 1980 and the French, who had kept essential services going in the capital, left altogether. With massive Libyan support, Oueddei managed to get rid of Habré for the time being. He took power; the Libyans stayed on, until they were replaced by another ineffective OAU peacekeeping force.
With American aid, Habré launched an offensive from Sudan, in January 1982. Six months later, he chased Oueddei out of N'Djamena. The northern take-over of the country was complete. During nearly seven years in power, Habré pursued a carrot-and-stick policy, holding reconciliation talks with a variety of faction leaders on the one hand while conducting merciless punitive campaigns on the other. In August 1982 one such campaign ended Kamougue's fiefdom in the south. In June 1983, Oueddei repeated his first rebellion, seizing parts of the BET region. Fighting in the south continued through 1983-84, between government forces and local commandos, known as codos.
Chad was now effectively divided by the 16th parallel, with Goukouni Oueddei, his allies and Libya above it; and Hissène Habré, his allies, and the French below it. There was a tense truce, during which the two sides, both consisting of volatile and unpredictable alliances prepared for the next war. Meanwhile some physical and economic regeneration took place.
In February 1986, Oueddei and Libya crossed the 16th parallel, triggering a French response. N'Djamena airport was bombed, as were Libyan air bases in northern Chad. Habré was greatly helped by a dramatic falling-out between Oueddei and his Libyan allies. When, in October 1986, word came out that Oueddei was prepared to make peace with his arch-rival Habré, his house in Tripoli was surrounded and he was shot and wounded. His fighters then decided to side with Habré and Libya was comprehensively defeated in 1987. Most faction leaders returned to Chad to join Habré's government, leaving Oueddei as a lone figure of opposition in exile, now living in Algiers.
Another period of relative calm followed. A referendum was held for a new constitution in December 1989. Its democratic credentials are doubtful, to put it mildly, but Habré was endorsed for another seven years. However, he was not to complete his time in office. Incursions were mounted from the east by the president's former commander Idriss Déby who was joined by the re-grouped codos. In 1990, Déby, with Sudanese aid, launched his biggest offensive and took N'Djamena on December 1, sending Habré into exile.
'I don't bring gold, or money - but freedom' said Déby on taking over the presidency. But the 1990s have seen more rebellions, clashes, talks, deals and double-deals. It must be immediately added that the scale and intensity of the fighting have not reached the catastrophic levels of the 1970s and 1980s. Nevertheless, very serious human rights abuses, including mass executions, rapes and beatings, continue to be reported, especially in the south. Déby has faced coup attempts and there have been at least five armed-opposition groups operating at any one time in the west, east and south. The biggest challenge to the Déby government to date was posed by FARF (Armed Forces for a Federal Republic). FARF posed a threat for two reasons: it openly harboured federalist aspirations and it operated from an area where oil had been discovered. In May 1998, FARF surrendered to the government; its leader, Laokein Barde, reportedly fled the country. In August 2000, Chad and Nigeria decided to move forward on security matters in the area around Lake Chad, where the remnants of rebel groups were reportedly engaged in acts of banditry, a problem that the two countries want to eradicate. In early 1999 another rebellion started in the BET area, led by a disgruntled former minister in the Déby government, once more vindicating the words of the Human Rights Commission's chairman, quoted above. In August 1999, president Déby sent a delegation to the BET to open talks with Youssouf Togoimi, the leader of the rebels who call themselves MDJT (Mouvement pour la Dé mocratie et la Justice au Tschad). This was done in order to, as one government official put it, 'find out what he wants'. No settlement was reached and fighting continued to be reported throughout the rest of 1999 and into 2000, with both government and rebels claiming success.

Official Conflict Management

In 1981, the United Nations was formally requested to help finance the African peacekeeping efforts, but the Chad delegation at the UN blocked the request. In 1995, the UN visited Chad in a mission reporting on arms proliferation in the West African region. It described the country as 'a potential powder keg', awash with arms, and beset by 'staggering political instability'. The mission met with the head of state and recommended increased support for the demobilisation effort.
Chad provoked the Organisation of African Unity's first major peace initiative. In 1979, when the entire country was suffering from grave factional fighting with heavy loss of life, the OAU requested Nigeria to convene several peace conferences, none of which proved particularly successful. The OAU also attempted to settle the subsequent war of early 1980. Secretary-General Edem Kodjo presented the factions with a simple peace plan, worked out with Liberian president Tolbert (five days before he was murdered in a coup). The plan included proposals for cease-fire, talks, a peacekeeping force and a monitoring commission. A multinational force was going to be sent, but for a limited time and with a limited mandate, because the OAU had no money to pay for the operation, estimated to cost US$ 62 million.
However, none of the main faction leaders in Chad had time to discuss the latest OAU peace plan. Not until November 1981 did the first OAU-sponsored peacekeepers enter Chad, and then in a force far smaller than the 6,000 originally planned. Their mandate was unclear, their financial base very shaky and they could not stop the fighting. Three months before Habré's military take-over of the country, Nigerian troops started going home, effectively pulling the plug on the entire exercise, which formally ended in June 1982. Since then, the OAU has limited itself to mediation attempts.
Neighbouring and other African governments have made a number of efforts to settle the conflicts. All of them took place in the midst of battles between government and one or more of the factions. Between 1977 and the late 1990s, countries and actors as diverse as Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Libya, Togo, Guinea, Senegal, Egypt, Gabon and the Central African Republic have played their parts in trying to bring the fighting groups to the negotiating table. They acted either in tandem with the OAU or - in the case of the Togolese and Gabonese presidents - individually. Invariably, the cease-fires that resulted were short-lived. Sudan, Libya and Niger pushed the idea of the Government of National Unity (GUNT), which was laid down in the so-called Chartre Fondamental of March 27, 1978. The other tangible result of mediation on the part of Sudan, Nigeria (and France) at the height of the February 1979 fighting was the series of four OAU-sponsored conferences in Nigeria.
In August 1978, France helped mediate peace talks between Malloum and Habré, which contributed to the establishment of the short-lived first GUNT. In February 1979, the commander of the French troops in N'Djamena, Louis Forest, participated in mediation efforts, initiated by Sudan, between Malloum and Habré. Later that month, the French government offered its good offices to settle the Habré-Oueddei conflict.
France and the US paid modest sums into the maintenance of the OAU peacekeeping force that was in Chad between November 1981 and June 1982. During a press conference in February 1979, the French president at the time, Giscard d'Estaing, first raised the idea of Chad as a federation. This has remained a taboo with southerners favouring federation and northerners rejecting it. With Déby in power and the prospect of unprecedented windfalls from future oil exploitation (currently being prepared in the south), federalism is never likely to be contemplated by the central government.
On February 20, 1997, the European Parliament passed a motion expressing its concern over reports of human rights abuses emanating from Chad and cautioning EU member states against providing the Chadian government with political, financial and military support - a reference to, among others, France.
All Chadian governments have attempted to make peace with rebels, only to either renege on their own promises or to find that they themselves had been double-crossed or overtaken by events. As early as 1968, secret negotiations were held with the Toubou rebel leaders in the north and in 1971 the government reached an Accord with rebels in the east and with some six FROLINAT leaders. None of these initiatives bore any fruit. Following every violent change of regime, attempts were made at reconciliation. In 1982, president Oueddei set up a short-lived National Reconstruction Committee. Hissène Habré did something similar after his take-over in 1982, and so did his replacement Idriss Déby in 1990. There have been occasional successes: some factions have disbanded, integrated their soldiers into the army and become political parties. With others, agreements continue to be reached and broken. Following the old tradition of secret talks, Kamougue, now speaker of the National Assembly, approached FARF leader Laokein Barde, in order to work out a negotiated settlement. These talks were once again overtaken by events in May 1998.
Government attempts at peace and reconciliation have frequently taken the form of compensation and job-offers to those who are willing to come out of the bush. In a sense, reconciliation was frequently 'bought', leaving former rebels with the option of returning to the bush if they decided they did not like the terms of the deal any more. This system is still by and large in place: particularly successful rebel leaders (i.e. those that become president) can reward the loyalty of their fellow rebels, immediately giving rise to resentment among those excluded from preferment. Perhaps the more substantial changes that the Déby government has made, including reinstating the multi-party system in 1992, after exactly thirty years of one-party rule, will open the way for a non-violent method of opposition. The National Conference, which was held in 1993, and in which, forty opposition parties, twenty other organisations and six rebel movements took part, represented a move in that direction.
An office in the transitional parliament was set up and tasked with creating a mechanism to deal with complaints of human rights abuses. Human rights organisations in the country have accused it of being ineffective.
In 1993, the government set up a National Disarmament Commission. It has met with considerable success, retrieving 11,000 weapons. Nevertheless, the large variety of rebel movements and the upsurge of bandits ('coupeurs de route') suggest that there remains a lot to be done. There are still an estimated 30,000 guns unaccounted for in Chad and for many people the gun has become the primary means of production.

Multi Track Diplomacy

Domestic
During the February 1979 massacres in Moundou, Chad's most senior imam and bishop travelled from the capital to the southern town to try and defuse the situation in what was one of the few religiously inspired attempts to intervene in the conflict.
Since the early 1990s, human rights organisations have sprung up and from 1992 onwards they have staged successful stayaways and demonstrations in N'Djamena. The first occasion was prompted by the murder - allegedly by soldiers - of the vice-chairman of the Ligue Tchadienne des Droits de l'Homme (LTDH, Chadian Human Rights League). This was one of the few signs of public outrage at the numerous human rights violations that have been perpetrated with apparent impunity virtually since independence.
The LTDH, which was set up in 1991, has kept up its campaign for the respect of human rights on the part of the security forces. In February 1993 it accused the Republican Guards of conducting a genocide campaign in the south. Other human rights groups, like the Association Tchadienne pour la Promotion et la Défense des Droits de l'Homme (ATPDH, Chadian Association for the Promotion and the Defence of Human Rights) also reported massacres of civilians in the south. The Chad Non-Violence organisation even recalled its representatives from the transitional parliament that had been put in place pending elections.
Finally, there was a modicum of success: the Centre pour la Recherche et la Coordination des Renseignements (CRCR, the government intelligence service) was dissolved in May 1993. As under Habré, this branch had been responsible for gross and widespread human rights violations.
In March 1998, an alliance of human rights groups and labour unions called a two-day strike to protest against killings committed by all fighting forces in the country, especially the government and the FARF rebels. This was the first report of such mass popular action.
All human rights organisations in Chad are subjected to various forms of repression: people are arrested and tortured - torture is routine in Chad - or raped. In late March 1998, police surrounded the offices of major human rights institutions in N'Djamena, in response to the protests against the killings in the south.
The Association Tchadienne pour la Non-Violence (ATNV) is a human rights organisation, mainly active in the south. Its chairman, Julien Beassemda, was attacked in Europe in November 1997, following an assault on the compound next to his house, where former FARF fighters were also staying. Beassemda was deeply involved in the negotiations between FARF and the government. He regarded the attack on his house as the end of the peace process. ANTV has 61 local committees and 5,000 members in the south. The organisation is engaged in activities of reconciliation, mediation between nomads and farmers, settling the FARF issue by involving all players - including traditional leaders - in the peace process. It uses a non-violent method of action well known throughout Francophone Africa: the 'villes mortes', or 'dead cities', where everyone stays indoors and nothing opens for one or two days. It has training centres for non-violent conflict resolution and has helped set up a seminar in Donia on the oil project, which was attended by all stakeholders (see the Prospects section below).
At a different level, the Al Mouna Centre in N'Djamena organised colloquia in 1996 and 1998 on the real or perceived linguistic and religious differences between the north and the south. Its publications include a book of essays, entitled The North-south Conflict: Myth or Reality? This kind of work could prove very useful for building a more inclusive political culture in the country.

International
French military involvement received far from unanimous backing from French opinion leaders. French intellectuals, among them Jean-Paul Sartre, made their opposition to the French adventures in its former colonies publicly known.
Amnesty International has issued reports on human rights violations since the 1980s, which have been even-handed in their approach. Government and rebel forces have either denied or ignored the charges. Since the early 1990s, however, Amnesty has been one of the channels that local human rights and peace groups can use to further the causes of non-violent conflict resolution, respect for human rights, an end to clientelism and an equitable distribution of the wealth the oil may produce.
Following the highly public Pinochet-case, the Senegalese thought they had a similar case on their hands. At the beginning of 2000, former Chadian president Hissè ne Habré who had been in exile in the capital Dakar was reported to be under investigation for human rights abuses carried out under his regime. Human Rights watch had brought the case, actively supported by a Senegalese human rights network and the Chadian groups LTDH and ATPDH. Pending the investigations, Habré was placed under house arrest by a Senegalese court in February. Like the Pinochet case, the action was made possible by the 1984 UN Convention against Torture, which Senegal had signed in 1986. In the Convention, there is a 'no save haven' clause which obliges states to persecute known or alleged torturers who are present on their territory. Habré stood accused of 581 cases of torture. (In addition, a 1992 report drawn up in Chad accused Habré of 40,000 political murders, carried out by his notorious secret service). However, early July, the Senegalese Indicting Chamber tasked with judging the admissibility of the case, decided it should be dropped because the crimes were not committed in Senegal. The decision followed the removal of the original indicting judge by Senegal's new president Wade. Human rights organisations said they would appeal.
The arrival of e-mail arrived in Chad has enabled international NGOs to act on information coming from the country. This is certainly the case in the proposed oil project (see Prospects), against which development and environmental groups like Friends of the Earth, Oxfam, and other British, Dutch and German groups have been lobbying their governments. They want them and the World Bank to study that project's social, environmental and economic impact. This was done and after ample deliberations the World Bank approved a US$ 193m loan in June 2000. However, by that time, the composition of the oil consortium that was to set up the project had been changed: Royal Dutch Shell and the French statal Elf had withdrawn from the US firm Exxon-led consortium, Shell because it decided the Gulf of Guinea was more promising and Elf had become part of the privatised TotalFinaElf group, which scrapped the project. They were replaced by the Malaysian Petronas and another US company, Chevron.
Indeed the World Bank has many questions it wants to see answered before any money is made available. Both inside and outside Chad, the actions and behaviour of the international NGOs have come in for criticism. They have been accused of bully-boy tactics, aimed at stopping the project altogether, while Chadian groups want the oil to start flowing with guarantees for fair distribution of the proceeds. replaced by new ones.

Prospects

'I did not come by Air Afrique,' Déby once famously said, a remark widely interpreted to mean that he intends to stay on for as long as he deems it necessary. The message seems to read: 'Remove me by force if you want to.' In spite of headlines in magazines like Afrique Asie that the twilight years of Déby's reign were near, there is little evidence to suggest that this is indeed the case. It is true that the rebellion under Togoïmi is rather larger than the government would have the Chadians believe but it does not pose a threat to the Déby presidency. The same is probably true of the newly formed Coordination of Armed and Political Opposition Movements (known by its French acronym CMAP), which Togoïmi has given a wide berth until now.
The big test for Chad's ability to hang together and develop a new, non-violent, and more equitable politics, is located in the south, the economic lifeline for the entire country. It produces the cotton that earns Chad its little foreign exchange and it feeds the country when the rains are good. But Chad stands to gain a great deal more foreign exchange when the Doba oilfield, also in the south, is opened for exploitation. This is expected to happen in 2004. The anticipated windfall, combined with continued northern domination of political life and the long-standing tradition of clientelism, is the perfect backdrop for the next conflict. However, conflict is not inevitable and may yet be averted.
Oil was first discovered in Doba in 1974. In January 1995, agreement was reached between a consortium consisting of Exxon, Shell and Elf-Aquitaine and the governments of Chad and Cameroon to build a 1,050 km pipeline from Doba to Kribi on the Cameroonian Atlantic Coast. A parliamentarian, Yorongar Ngarlejy, who alleged that Déby got a kickback out of the project, was thrown in jail but later released on the personal orders of the president. He continues to charge that the presidential family is doing very well out of the project. In the meantime, a new oil consortium (see above) will invest US$ 3.7 billion in the project; whether is has inherited the generous tax breaks the previous consortium had extracted from both African governments is not clear. Neither is it clear whether the new consortium is as meticulous as the first one said it was going to be in ensuring that a second Niger Delta - with its pollution, people displacement and social disruption - will be avoided. Especially the Malaysian companies operating in Africa are not known for their cultural and environmental sensitivity and neither are the Americans.
The Chadian government is projected to earn a total of US$ 8.5 billion from the exploitation, about US$ 100 million per annum. Minorities at Risk writes: 'How the revenue from the oil is distributed and how the people of the region are affected by the building of wells...will determine whether [people] remain content'. In December 1998 parliament passed a law stipulating how the money will be spent (mainly on health, education and infrastructure). It will also be kept in a separate bank account, theoretically assuring transparency. Time will tell if the old ways have indeed been

Recommendations

The UN mission is very worried about the free flow of arms in Chad and recognises that the problems here and in Niger are probably the most intractable in the region. The national Disarmament Commission was seen as a positive development. More along these lines needs to be done but it is unclear how this can be brought about in a cash-strapped nation with a foreign debt of close to US$ 1 billion. All these problems were acknowledged by the mission.
In the Netherlands, there is a small working group on Chad within the Dutch Labour Party. In a modest 1998 publication on the oil issue (Dutch only) it recommended the oil consortium to behave responsibly and minimise impact on local biodiversity, agricultural land and drinking water quality. It also recommended more civil society participation in Chad itself, thus ensuring better distribution of oil and other revenue, a watchdog function for the World bank (although the group doubted whether this was feasible) and a modest role for international NGOs.

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 INTERNET SITES:	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

About the author

Bram Posthumus has worked as a freelance journalist since 1990. Before that he was a teacher of English language and literature in Nyanga, Zimbabwe. His work in journalism concentrates mainly on West and southern Africa and on the themes of conflict and post-conflict situations and migration. He has travelled extensively in both regions, visiting among others Angola, Mozambique, Liberia, Zambia and Guinea, with Mali, Senegal and Chad planned for the near future. He publishes in a variety of international magazines (African Business, New African, EU-ACP Courier) and other monthlies and weeklies in the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK and South Africa.