The following article, written by Pavan Kulkarni, was first published on December 5, 2024 on The People’s Dispatch.
France is on the verge of losing its last military stronghold in Africa’s Sahel after Chad’s government, one of the last in the region to continue to play host to its former colonizer, announced its “decision to terminate the defense cooperation agreement” on November 28.
65 years of military ties with France has made no contribution to securing the country from terrorist attacks and insurgencies, its president Mahamat Deby said in a broadcast on State TV on December 2.
To “send a clear message to the French President: withdraw your troops from Chad without delay”, Wakit Tamma (The Time Has Come) will organize a march to the French embassy in the coming days, its spokesperson Mahamat Trebo told a press conference earlier that day.
“France has been present in the country since 1960 without adding any kind of assistance to us. It looted and stole our resources, and contributed, directly and indirectly, to helping terrorism and the presence of Boko Haram that threatens our security.”
A popular platform that has been on the frontline of the protests against French neo-colonialism in the country, Wakit Tamma was established under the aegis of the Union of Trade Unions of Chad (UST) and Chadian Human Rights League (LTDH) in early 2021.
In the years since, a wave of mass protests in France’s former colonies has already driven its troops out of other Sahelian countries. Regimes domestically perceived as French puppets in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger were removed by popularly supported coups, bringing in military governments that went on to sever ties with France and order its troops out of their countries.
While mobilizing other states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to impose sanctions on these countries and even threaten a military invasion of Niger last year to ostensibly ‘restore democracy’, France had propped up a military junta in Chad.
With the support of France, Mahamat Deby took power in a military coup in April 2021 after his father Idriss Deby, a French loyalist who had ruled as a dictator since 1991, was killed while on a visit to the frontline of the Chadian troops’ battle against a rebel group in the north.
Protracted Struggle of Chadian Popular Forces against French Neo-Colonialism
Condemning the “dynastic succession”, Wakit Tamma had led protests in several cities, mobilizing hundreds of civil society activists and anti-French opposition parties to the streets, defying the ban on demonstrations. In a violent crackdown, security forces killed 15 and arrested more than 700, several of whom reported torture in custody.
As the protests continued, several charges were brought against leaders of Wakit Tamma in October 2021, after suppressing more protests earlier that month. In December, Wakit Tamma mobilized over a thousand people from a cross-section of the Chadian civil society to march in the capital N’Djamena to protest against the France-backed military junta.
French flags were thrown to the ground, stamped over and set on fire during the protests in February 2022 and again in May that year. The increasingly violent crackdown on the protests, peaked when the security forces killed 128 people, disappeared 12, detained 435 and arrested 943 to suppress the protests on October 20, 2022, which has come to be known as Black Thursday.
In the aftermath, the junta outlawed Wakit Tamma and suspended over half a dozen parties including the Socialist Party Without Borders (PSF) and Rally for Justice and Equality of the Chadians (RAJET).
In a mass trial boycotted by the Chad Bar Association which condemned it as a “parody of justice,” over 340 were sentenced to one to three years in the Koro Toro maximum security prison, deemed “Chadian Guantanamo” by the Chadian Human Rights League (LTDH). Its president, Max Loalngar, who was one of the coordinators of Wakit Tamma, was forced into exile.
“A Pressure Cooker Ready to Explode”
Speaking to Peoples Dispatch last September, Loalngar explained that further mass protests were only prevented by the brute force of the junta’s repressive apparatus holding down the popular movements. But underneath Chad was a boiling “pressure cooker ready to explode”.
Earlier that month, amid a scuffle that broke out under contested circumstances, a French medic shot dead a 35-year Chadian soldier seeking treatment for an infected finger at the French garrison in Borkou province’s capital Faya-Largeau.
Residents spontaneously mobilized in protest to surround the garrison, with some reportedly trying to break in. The Chadian army shot many people to disperse the protest. “Our army” has become a “mercenary force”, serving the French under Deby’s command, Secretary General of RAJET Mahamat Abdraman had told Peoples Dispatch.
In the meantime, France was threatening Chad’s western neighbor Niger with a war to ‘restore democracy’ after its troops were ordered out by a military government that had replaced its puppet regime in a coup supported by Niger’s anti-French protest movement earlier in July.
Claims of being defenders of democracy were ringing increasingly hollow in the region as France, the US, and institutions like the World Bank continued to support Chad’s unpopular and increasingly repressive military junta. Dressing up its military leader Mahamat Deby as a democratically elected president had become an imperative.
On February 27, 2024, authorities confirmed that the election had been scheduled for May 2024. On the same day, security forces arrested and shot dead Ahmed Torabi, a senior leader of the Socialist Party without Borders (PSF).
With the support of popular movements and other political parties that opposed France and the military junta it had installed, PSF’s president Yaya Dillo had emerged as the main challenger to Deby in the election.
“Soldiers are surrounding us,” he wrote in his last social media post on the early morning of February 28. Dillo, along with two other party members, were gunned down in their headquarters, whose bullet-ridden building was subsequently demolished. 25 other members of the party were imprisoned, forcing the rest to go underground or into exile.
Chilled by Dillo’s execution, few opposition leaders wanted to contest Deby. Two who did were barred “because they had their applications included irregularities,” the so-called Constitutional Council said. When the election seemed practically uncontested, the Prime Minister of President Deby’s own government played the opposition candidate.
Formerly an opposition leader in exile, Succès Masra was brought in by the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) – another colonial institution of France – to reach an agreement with Deby, who appointed him the Prime Minister of Chad on January 1, 2024.
In case he won, Masra told AFP ahead of the election, he would ensure that Deby would have a high position by his side. He lost with 18.54 % of the votes. Deby bagged 61% as per official results, which distributed the remaining 20-odd% among the eight other symbolic candidates.
This whole affair was a “farce” orchestrated by France which had already chosen Deby as Chad’s “democratically elected President”, maintains Ordjei Chaha, the general coordinator of Wakit Tamma, which had campaigned for a boycott of the elections.
Congratulating Deby, French President Emmanuel Macron sent his minister for foreign trade and Francophonie, Franck Riester, to attend Deby’s swearing-in ceremony.
“Although there were troubling shortcomings, we welcome the milestones in Chad’s transition process,” the US said. Expressing concern over “allegations of irregularities”, the UK declared, “Chad’s presidential election on 6 May marked an important milestone in the country’s transition back to civilian rule”, the “final stage” of which would be the “local and legislative elections.”
Despite the denial of accreditation to 2,900 EU-trained electoral observers to monitor the election, European leaders congratulated Deby on the result.
A Fragile Military Government
Even as Deby consolidated his position with the Western powers, his regime had become “very fragile”, said Wakit Tamma leader Chaha, who is also the President of the RAJET party. “There is discontent in all sections of the armed forces”.
The ripple effects of Deby’s meddling in neighboring Sudan’s civil war by supporting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is on an ethnic cleansing campaign, are being felt along the ethnic faultlines that extend across the border into Chad – even into the rank-and-file of its army.
On the other hand, the popular support consolidated by the military in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger by defying France, deposing the regimes it had propped up in these countries and uniting to form the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) has become an increasingly enticing example.
“I have no doubt that Deby would also have been deposed in a coup if he had continued his subservience to France,” said RAJET’s Secretary General Mahamat Abdraman.
The slightest opening of democratic space by the “elected government” risked letting the anger against France, held down by state repression, explode out into mass protests. “This time the army would have sided with the protesters. We had even been encouraged by many quarters within the army” to resume protests, Chaha told Peoples Dispatch.
Deby’s Volte-Face
As the popular wave of anti-colonial sentiments that had swept away France-backed regimes in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger rose menacingly against the Chadian political shores, President Deby appeared to change course and swim with it.
On November 28, his foreign minister Abderaman Koulamallah announced the government’s “decision to terminate the defense cooperation agreement” with France. “This decision, made after thorough analysis, marks a historic turning point,” added Koulamallah’s statement. “66 years after the proclamation of the Republic of Chad, it is time for Chad to assert its full sovereignty and redefine its strategic partnerships in line with national priorities.”
In his state broadcast on December 2, Deby said he would only seek reciprocal relations with nations that respect Chad’s sovereignty and independence.
“It is too early to definitively assess the intentions of President Deby, but the decision taken by his regime to break military cooperation with France is to be commended,” Abdraman argues. “For the anti-French movement, there is hope that it will lead to a restructuring of diplomatic relations between Chad and France, and make way for the liberation of Chad from French neo-colonialism. However, we must not rejoice too soon. It is still far too early to declare a victory,” he warns.
“As the last Sahelian country to host French military bases, ending Chad’s military cooperation with France will not be an easy task. France will likely attempt to destabilize the country to instigate chaos favorable to its interests. Chad remains a pivotal link in France’s influence in the Sahel region, especially after its withdrawal from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.”
The last president who tried to end Chad’s military cooperation with France was Francois Tombalbaye, the country’s first President, who was then killed in a coup, Abdraman recalls.
Chadian Common Sense
Chaha reassures that should Deby be threatened by a France-backed coup after calling for the withdrawal of French troops, people from across Chad will take to the streets en masse to defend him – the same people who, until the announcement on November 28, were hoping to instigate a coup against Deby by anti-France forces in the military. Because “everyone in Chad – from the educated to the illiterates – know that the root of all our problems is France. Not Deby,” explains Abdraman.
This Chadian common sense also informs the current position of Wakit Tamma. Despite fighting against his rule for three years under intense repression, its press statement on December 2 reassures Deby that Wakit Tamma “stands by your side” to complete the task of driving French troops out of Chad.
Recognizing the dangers France now poses to Deby’s rule and Chad’s stability, he should in turn “wholeheartedly invest in social cohesion and inclusive politics” to shore up domestic support and security, adds Abdraman. “His regime must strengthen ties with member countries of the Alliance of Sahel States to learn from their victories over French colonialists and enhance bilateral cooperation with these revolutionary nations.”
On the other hand, Ramadan Fatallah warns that AES countries should be on the guard against attempts by France to infiltrate their project by using Deby, seeing a darker maneuver at play to demobilize the popular anti-colonial forces.
He is the communications-in-charge of PSF’s branch in France, where many of the party’s members are in exile after the killing of its president Dillo and the arrest of over two dozen of its leading members. The remaining members in Chad have been forced underground. Its general Secretary Robert Gam was “abducted” by Chad’s intelligence services on September 20.
“How can it be that just weeks ago, the French President’s special envoy to Africa, Jean-Marie Bokel, declared…that French military bases in Chad would remain unaffected, and yet barely 24 hours after the departure of the French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, Chadian authorities released a statement announcing their decision to end military cooperation,” Fatallah asks.
“All the African governments that have successfully expelled French troops from their territories have popular support, unlike Chad, where the people have endured unprecedented repression under Deby’s rule backed by France,” he told Peoples Dispatch.
Wakit Tamma leader Chaha also shares the feeling of uncertainty regarding the sincerity of Deby’s will to ensure the departure of French forces. “The final departure of French forces from Chad will only come by force,” he maintains. He is however confident that Wakit Tamma, with the support of Chad’s popular forces, will exert that force against which Deby cannot afford to stand in this conjuncture.
Featured photo: Wakit Tamma (The Time Has Come) members in a press conference on December 2, commending the decision of Deby to order French troops out of Chad. Photo: Wakit Tamma.
