Danger signals over Chad
By Ben Mensah
The motive for Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi's obsession with wanting to unite his country with other Arab states has baffled and eluded many. But it has not escaped those who have bothered to read the maverick Colonel's ideas presented in his Green Book which he seeks to propagate in several African countries, including Chad.
In 1980 Col. Gaddafi came very close to uniting Libya with Syria but his plan failed on ideological ground when President Assad of Syria pointed out disagreements with the Green Book philosophy. Earlier attempts at uniting Libya, first with Egypt and then Tunisia, have similarly floundered on ideological and geographical differences.
This time round Colonel Gaddafi appears to be on the threshold of a break-through in his ambition to establish the nucleus of an Arab African Federation with Morocco. The General People's Congress in Libya has unanimously approved the federation agreement while a referendum in Morocco has also endorsed it.
Libya and Morocco are nearly 2,000 kilometres apart yet the proposed Federation is being hailed as a marriage of convenience with advantages for both sides. For while Morocco hopes to put a halt to Libyan support For the Polisario Front, Libya in turn expects Morocco not to oppose or criticise Col. Gaddafi's support for one action in the protracted civil war in Chad.
Predictably, an alliance of this nature has elicited prompt reaction From France which views with deep concern, the ramifications of the union agreement between Libya and Morocco which stipulates that an attack against one of them is an attack against the other.
While it is obvious that the French would not wish to go to war with friendly Morocco, they may also wish to impress upon King Hassan to use his new relationship with Col. Gaddafi to convince him to withdraw Libyan troops and support for the Goukhounni Weddeve faction in the Chad civil war and thereby pave the way for the reciprocal withdrawal of French troops and support for President Hissen Habre.
The flurry of trips to Morocco by French leaders including President Mitterand himself, seem to lend weight to this speculation. The French government has tenaciously denied any such plan yet there is little doubt that apart from not wanting to add Morocco to the French-Libya conflict over Chad, the French would also love to pull out of Chad the 3,000 troops on whom about £250,000 is spent a day.'
Col. Gaddafi may genuinely want to promote Arab unity through his union with Morocco but there is no doubt that the other dividends he hopes to reap include the presentation of an opportunity to the French to discuss the Chad crisis with the Libyans.
In this context, the Libyans appear to have achieved some success. For it is significant that as almost simultan-eously as the treaty with Morocco was being endorsed and President Mitter- and was being hosted in Rabat, the French Defence Minister, Mr Charles Hornu was also inspecting French troops in Chad after which he announced to journalists that the withdrawal of French troops depended on Col. Gaddafi agreeing to withdraw his.
It may appear preposterous for anyone to regret an opportunity for the withdrawal of foreign troops from a country that has been devastated by a protracted civil war. But in this case the opportunity offered by Col. Gaddafi must be regarded as phoney and coming from a man who is not only good at confusing his enemies, but also has a long term ambition to implement his ideas as propounded in his Green Book beyond the borders of Chad into many other countries. He is the type of person who is likely to return his troops to Chad to foist the leader of the faction he supports in the civil war on the country after the withdrawal of the French troops.
Such is the man who contemptuously compares the democratic process of people standing in queues to cast their votes in ballot boxes with the throwing away of papers in a dustbin and also regards the victory of a candidate with 51% of the votes in a contest as dictatorial because another 49% did not vote for him.
His avowed condemnation of democracy in a one-party, two-party, multi-party or non-party society should leave President Mitterand and his government in no doubt about his unpredictable nature. If anybody is taken in by Col. Gaddafi's blandishments, it is the ordinary people of Chad who will eventually be made to bear the brunt of a renewed and intensified civil war following the departure of the French troops.
Undoubtedly the French government, under pressure from the electorate, is likely to be entertaining the idea of pulling out its troops from Chad whether Col. Gaddafi withdraws his or not. The prospect of this development and the accelerated manoeuvres of Col. Gaddafi to hurry the French troops out of Chad should therefore remind President Hissen Habre, Goukhounni Weddeye and other leaders of Chad of their responsibilities to ensure that Chad re-unites into a peaceful society for all Chadians who should no longer be made to endure the backlash of personal antagonism among a few leaders.
The objective of a recent splinter group from Goukhounni Weddeye's camp to step up the war against President Hissen Habre's government may not be the best approach to solve the crisis. But their courage in breaking away should prove not only to the Goukhounni Weddeye camp but also the Habre camp that there are other people who are dissatisfied with the state of affairs and are prepared to rebel against their leadership. Any such action may compound an already difficult situation, but the message must now be clear to the present leaders in the Chad conflict that if they persist in their uncompromising attitude to each other and refuse to attend the Organisation of African Unity sponsored talks in the Congo they stand the danger of either being swept off their feet by new leaders or the French troops will withdraw and the civil war will resume with the return of Libyan troops to cause more havoc to the entire population.
