The confirmation in 1996 of considerable exploitable oil deposits in Chad fuelled hopes that the country’s rulers might be provided with the means to alleviate the socio-economic plight of their seven million subjects. Certainly, this is the conclusion being advanced by the oil companies eager to overcome the various objections to their exploitation of this new windfall. Whether promises to ensure the equitable distribution of benefits will be honoured, however, must be in doubt, given the nature of the country’s political traditions and the kaleidoscope of internal factionalism. It seems equally likely that the novelty of relative wealth will exacerbate deep-rooted divisions and aggravate the violent nature of the competition for power in what has been described recently as a "ghostlike state."¹

Chad, Africa’s fifth largest country, is landlocked at vast distances from the oceans. Only three per cent of its area is arable land. To this day it has no railways and only 300 kilometres of tarred road.² Chad ranks 162nd out of 174 countries on the Human Development Index in the latest report of the United Nations Development Programme.³

The French conquest of Chad in 1900 brought under one administration a number of peoples who had never previously been subjects of the same rulers. In the south of the country, the French occupation was generally accepted by the animist agriculturalists as offering protection against the slave raiders from the Moslem north. France’s rule over this impoverished territory was also marked by a sharp dichotomy after 1920 between the civilian administration in the south and military rule over the nomadic pastoralists of the north and east, who were finally ‘pacified’ only in 1930. Indeed, France continued its military administration of these areas until 1965, five years after Chad’s independence.4 In educational matters, too, the country, essentially, was divided between those in the south who sought a Francophone education, along with the partial adoption of the Christian faith, and those in the remainder of the country who continued in the Koranic tradition.⁵

At independence, the political and administrative machine was firmly in southern hands.⁶ The rule of Chad’s first president, François Tombalbaye, a Sara from the south, soon deteriorated into a corrupt and intolerant tyranny, in which Muslims were gradually excluded from public life, the influence of their leaders eclipsed and their traditions ignored. Southern tax collectors preyed upon the north, aided and abetted by a brutal and undisciplined army.⁷ This harsh regime provoked a rebellion in central, northern and eastern Chad in 1965, that had reached such proportions by 1968 that it compelled the government to request French military assistance. This was forthcoming only on condition of a moderation in the administration’s treatment of Muslims.⁸

The French withdrew again in 1971, leaving Tombalbaye exposed to a growing number of enemies in the north and the south, where his attempts at indigenisation through the use of the onerous Yondo cult alienated many Christians and other members of the educated élite.⁹ Eventually, in 1975, an attempted purge of the army’s officer corps misfired, as it was pre-empted by the intended victims and Tombalbaye was killed in the course of a coup that brought General Félix Malloum, another southerner, to power.

Despite the more conciliatory approach of the new regime, the northern rebellion had gathered strength since the departure of French troops, and focused, when internecine strife permitted, upon the overthrow of any southern dominated administration.¹⁰ The rebel Front pour la libération du Tchad (Frolinat) constituted a loose and shifting alliance of various insurgent groups. By 1976, a serious rift had developed in Frolinat between two leaders of northern, Toubou origin, Hissène Habré and Goukouni Oueddei.

To gain a significant advantage over his rival, Goukouni was willing to concede to Libya’s surreptitious occupation of the northern Aouzou Strip, a region believed to be rich in uranium. With Tripoli’s assistance in 1978, he launched a major thrust towards N’Djamena, the capital, where Malloum’s government was saved only by direct military intervention from France.¹¹

In a pattern to be repeated in Chadian politics ever since, Malloum now struck up an alliance with an erstwhile foe, Habré, making him Prime Minister and conceding a major role in government to northerners. But by now Habré had amassed and trained a well-disciplined force that proved more than a match for Malloum’s demoralised national army when the time came. In February 1979, Habré’s forces seized control of the capital, though not before Malloum’s retreating army had massacred thousands of Muslim civilians. Once in control of N’Djamena, Habré’s troops retaliated against southerners, thousands of whom fled the city, in turn to exact their revenge against Muslim traders, thousands of whom were murdered in the next few months.¹²

A fragile coalition was patched together, following mediation involving France, Nigeria, Sudan and Libya in a desperate attempt to fill the political and administrative vacuum. Goukouni was named President, Habré Defence Minister and the southern leader, Colonel Abdelkader Wadal Kamougue, Vice-President. With five different Chadian forces patrolling the capital, it was only a matter of weeks before the second battle of N’Djamena was joined. A year of sporadic fighting continued, until Habré was forced into exile and Goukouni’s hold on the presidency was confirmed by Libyan arms.¹³

Tripoli’s intervention provoked a storm of protest from other African states that insisted that Libyan troops should be withdrawn and replaced by a peacekeeping force of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), whose mandate was so controversial as to threaten the continued existence of the continental organisation.¹⁴ Habré now re-entered Chad from Sudan, where his forces had regrouped and rearmed with US assistance. In 1982, it was Goukouni’s turn to flee into exile and Habré was installed as President, sustained by French troops and aircraft against a Libyan backed attempt to reinstate their protégé.¹⁵

Fighting continued across northern Chad until 1987, as Libya sought to press its claims to the Aouzou Strip, assisted by various groups of Chadian rebels. Eventually, Habré managed, with considerable French backing, to defeat the invaders, forcing Tripoli to accept international arbitration on the disputed territory. France’s support was conditional upon Habré making an attempt at national reconciliation and, in 1985, two fine-sounding agreements were concluded in Libreville, heralding constitutional reform and the introduction of democratic practices.¹⁶ As the country returned to relative peace, the pressure for more than cosmetic reform increased. In 1989, Habré successfully combined his election as President with the referendum on a new Constitution.¹⁷ Yet, he now faced growing dissatisfaction from those within his own camp who believed they had failed to share adequately in the benefits of power. A failed coup plot precipitated the flight of Idriss Déby, a former commander of the armed forces, to Sudan. The following year, Paris demonstrated that the withholding of military support could also be a political weapon, when it failed to use its substantial garrison to defend Hissène Habré’s regime against Déby’s rebellion, now supported by Libya and Sudan. In December 1990, Déby entered N’Djamena, suspended the Constitution and dissolved the organs of state.

There were a number of reasons why France had refused to intervene in Habré’s defence. There was speculation about French secret service connections with the new leader. There were stories of unhappiness about Habré’s intention of leaving the development of Chad’s oil resources to a US consortium.¹⁸ The explanation most favoured, however, was that Habré’s fall from grace had been brought about by his evident reluctance to introduce multiparty politics. Déby was therefore constrained to do better, though the process continued to be a convoluted one. The new President also moved swiftly to include the French company Elf-Aquitaine in the oil consortium. In return, French forces assisted him in repelling the threat from Habré’s insurgents in Tibesti and, more dangerously, around Lake Chad.

Ironically, Habré’s removal interrupted progress towards a more open political system, for Déby was determined to retain firm control over any process of constitutional transformation, inaugurating what one author has called "... a temporary quasi dictatorship."¹⁹ This did not go unopposed, however, for public opinion was growing more vocal, and the northern and southern élite were demanding that a national conference should be convened. Déby successfully stalled the national conference until early 1993, and then manipulated it to slow down the transformation further.²⁰

By the end of 1995, French pressure on President Idriss Déby to complete the promised transition to legitimate civilian government had become irresistible. Of all the countries comprising the Franc Zone, only Chad had yet to hold multiparty elections. French assistance remained vital, and Paris now pushed the Chadian government towards holding a roundtable conference with all the rebel and opposing political groups that had enmeshed Chad in a series of overlapping civil wars for the last thirty years.

The conference eventually took place in January 1996 in Franceville, Gabon, but soon foundered on procedural points and questions of representation. Since Chad had 58 legal political parties and some fifteen external armed groupings, this was not altogether surprising. But it again brought into question the timing of Chad’s transition to democratic rule, as a plethora of political parties and rebel groups all continued to manoeuvre against a background in which northerners and southerners continued to regard each other with profound apprehension and even hatred. This situation was in no way helped by the activities of the Presidential Guard, which continued to act brutally against populations believed to support rebel groups.²¹ These operations had economic as well as political purposes, and Reno describes a situation "... where the Presidential guard and its Zaghawa associates are actively engaged in operations best described as predation."²²

Déby, however, used the breakdown in Franceville to divide his opponents, coming to an agreement with those parties ready to renounce violence. This cleared the way for the holding of a constitutional referendum on 31 March 1996. Despite some administrative confusion and with the assistance of the French garrison, the operation was carried out successfully, and 63,5 per cent of voters approved the new Constitution in a 71 per cent turnout of registered voters. This provided for an executive presidency with substantial powers, to be elected for a maximum of two five-year terms. Government insistence that the new dispensation provided for a good deal of regional decentralisation, failed to win the support of many southerners, who voted against the measure.

The attention was now refocused on the organisation of the much postponed presidential elections that were eventually scheduled for 2 June 1996. There were fourteen candidates besides Déby, which proved to be of great advantage to the incumbent, who took nearly 44 per cent of the vote in the first round. He was therefore the clear favourite to win the second round against the second-placed contender, Abdelkader Wadal Kamougue, who had taken twelve per cent. Turnout was reported as 76 per cent.

Opposition protests about irregularities and calls for a boycott delayed the holding of the second round until 3 July, by which time Déby had concluded an agreement with the third-placed candidate, Saleh Kebzaboh. The absence of most of the regionally-based candidates and the very nature of such a lop-sided contest contributed to voter apathy, for the turnout was far lower than the first round. Déby claimed a comfortable victory, with 68 per cent of the vote. His rival Kamougue secured a creditable 32 per cent.

Legislative polls were postponed a number of times, and only took place in January/February 1997. Logistical problems were probably the reason for the delay, and the entire operation would have been impossible without the support of the French military. The results, eventually released in March, showed Déby’s Mouvement patriotique du salut (MPS) to have taken 63 of the 125 seats, and other parties supporting the President another five. In a gesture calculated to reassure donors and investors, Déby included the two main opposition leaders in his cabinet.²³

Déby now used his position to co-opt and divide his opponents. For much of 1996 rebel groups had been relatively quiet. On 18 April 1997, the government signed a peace accord with the most dangerous of the rebel factions, the Forces armées pour un république fédérale (FARF).

Breakaway factions of FARF and other rebel groups have since emerged to torment the government that does its utmost to reassure potential investors by playing down the seriousness of the threat.²⁴

This is the political and institutional nebula in which the oil companies and their financial backers have to operate. The handling of the project to exploit the recently found oil reserves in Chad and its resulting profits will go a long way in determining N’Djamena’s relations with its disparate subjects, and could well revive southern demands for autonomy.

Low oil prices threatened the viability of the oilfields and the associated pipeline until very recently. It is expected that the oilfields will be able to produce some 250 000 barrels of high quality crude per day, and that the fields will have a life of up to thirty years. A 1 050 kilometre long pipeline will carry the oil from the Doba region in southern Chad to the port of Kribi in Cameroon.²⁵

The governments of Chad and Cameroon are dependent upon a US $125 million loan to cover their shares in the pipeline. Further loans are to be provided by various foreign banks and the soft-loan arm of the World Bank.²⁶ The oil companies were particularly keen for the World Bank to participate in the project, not least because they sought cover against political and environmental critics.²⁷

The planned Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline has drawn considerable attention in the media. One of the more interesting articles appeared in African Agenda, entitled A new Ogoniland in the making?. This would seem to indicate one area of threat that investors would do well to note. The author, Korinna Horta, makes the following point:

"As the project comes up for consideration this year by the World Bank, it remains unclear whether the millions of poor people in Chad and Cameroon have anything to gain. Although funds are likely to flow into the coffers of the governments of the two countries, the detrimental environmental and social impact of the project could outweigh any benefits accrued from the revenue. Already there are concerns that if concerns [sic] about compensation, environmental degradation and social problems are not addressed in time, the region has the potential to develop into another Ogoniland scenario.

What emerges is a case of corporate welfare: The private sector – the oil companies and the commercial banks – are taking cover behind publicly funded or guaranteed institutions, be they the World Bank group or the export-credit agencies of individual countries. The financial risks in this particular case are shared with – if not shouldered by – public funds and guarantees from both multilateral and bilateral sources. And by using World Bank and AfDB funds earmarked for Chad and Cameroon, those funds will be no longer available for other projects that may have a more direct impact on improving the lives of the citizens of those countries."²⁸

Whatever the merits of this line of argument, it could indicate the emergence of a new political issue of importance. Certainly, the Ogoniland example remains a stark warning against complacency.