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Sub Saharan Africa

Chad

Flag of Chad

Last reviewed: 18 December 2007

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HISTORY

Chad, formerly part of France's Central African colonial administration, became independent on 11 August 1960, although a large part of the north of the country remained under French military administration until 1964. Francois Tombalbaye, the leader of the PPT party, became President. He declared single party rule in 1963. In 1965 the National Front for the Liberation of Chad (FRONILAT), started a rebellion in the north and the east of the country claiming that the government was run solely in the interests of southerners. This set a persistent pattern in the country's politics of armed rebellions based on claims of ethno-regional bias in central government. At no time has the government in N'Djamena proven able to control the whole of the country's territory, in the face of a constant proliferation of armed insurgencies. In 1975 Tombalbaye was killed in an army coup led by General Felix Malloum, who assumed the Presidency. During the late 1970s and 1980s, Chad sought assistance from France to counter the FRONILAT insurgency, part of which was backed by Libya, who had effectively annexed the Aouzou strip in the far north of the country.

In 1978 Malloum attempted to diffuse the rebellion in the north by inviting the leader of an anti-Libyan FRONILAT faction, Hissene Habre, into the government. A 3-year period of chronic instability ensued, as the different armed factions making up the government constantly clashed. Military interventions, first by Libya and then by a peacekeeping mission from the Organisation for African Unity, were incapable of bringing stability. In June 1982 Habre's armed group took over N'djamena, effectively settling the prolonged battle for the control of the capital and for the Presidency. However, the armed dispute with Libya over the sovereignty of the Aouzou strip continued.

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