1500 French Troops In Chad

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32099, 22 September 1969, Page 15

1500 French Troops In Chad

(N Z P A.-Reuter—Copyright) PARIS, Sept. 21. French troops are fighting their first prolonged campaign since the Algerian War in the vast, sparsely-populated Central African country of Chad, where nomadic rebels are challenging the Government. The fighting in Chad has all the characteristics of a classic guerrilla war—ambushes, no fixed battle lines, accusations that the rebels are receiving external aid and a Government facing an elusive enemy. The intervention of the French soldiers, spearheaded by 400 Foreign Legion paratroops, has been cloaked in official silence, since it started last August. But official French sources now say there are about 1500 French troops in the land-

locked country, which is twice the size of France and has a population of 3,500,000. The French troops joined in the fighting against the rebels after President Franicos Tombalbaye of Chad asked for their help under a defence agreement with France.

The French troops are fighting in the centre and east of the country, according to latest reports. The rebels, who oppose the Government for tribal reasons and because of various administrative policies, appear to have their main strength in the north—an area inhabited by mainly nomadic, Moslem tribes. But according to travellers returning from Chad recently, there are also substantial pockets of rebels in some southern regions near the borders with the Central African Republic and Cameroun.

President Tombalbaye, who has ruled Chad since it became independent from France in 1960, has his capital

at Fort Lamy in the extreme south-west of the country. Relations have never been easy between the nomadic northerners, a mixture of Arab, Berber and Negro peoples, and the more settled southerners.

The rebel leader, Dr Abba Sidick, lives in Tripoli where he works at a hospital. He has denied Government accusations that his movement the National Chad Liberation Front, is helped from abroad. “It is a national liberation struggle aimed at establishing a government that will guarantee the same rights and duties to all the people of Chad, whatever their origins or opinions,” he told a French magazine recently. The Liberation Front, founded at Khartoum in 1966, by Mr Ibrahim Abatcha, launched its first attack on an administrative and police post in Chad in September, 1967. Mr Abatcha was killed in] battle early in 1968. Recent press reports from! Chad say the Foreign Legion- ] naires have killed more than!

200 rebels in the last four] months while the French havei suffered only one accidental] death. The French commander in Chad, General Michel Arnaud, returned to Paris for talks on the situation with the Defence Minister (Mr Michel Debre) early this month and told reporters that the situation was “not dramatic.” Informed sources said that the present situation did not seem to call for French reinforcements. Observers believe that the Government of President Georges Pompidou would be unwilling to increase its commitment in Chad which, according to one press report has already cost 240 m francs. Mr Debre has already ordered the recall of 130 French conscripts from Chad to avoid casualties among young men doing their military service. Under a similar defence [agreement to the one with Chad, France intervened briefly in Gabon in 1964 to [reinstate President Leon Mba [after a coup.