Chad asks U.N. to debate Libyan role

Press, 4 August 1983, Page 10

Chad asks U.N. to debate Libyan role

NZPA-Reuter N’djamena

Chad has asked for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council after four days of alleged Libyan air raids on the recaptured northern town of Faya-Largeau which it said had caused a frightening death toll. The Foreign Ministry said yesterday that it wanted the Security Council to take up “Libya’s intensified aggression,” adding that since Government troops had recaptured the town on Saturday Faya-Largeau had been subjected to daily bombings from Libyan aircraft. (Rebel forces in Chad said that they had retaken FayaLargeau. The rebels’ Bardai Radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation, said that the town had been recaptured after a 72-hour siege.)

France has sent anti-air-craft guns requested by the

Chadian Government to repulse the air raids, but authoritative sources denied a French Defence Ministry report that they had already arrived. The President, Mr Hissene Habre, said in a message to the Security Council that the raids had left a “frightening and dramatic death toll among the civilian population” and he

accused Libya of genocide.

American Redeye antiaircraft missiles were being flown to Chad yesterday as United States officials accused Libya of stepping up air attacks. A State Department spokesman, Alan Romberg, said that Libyan air attacks on Chad were continuing with increasing severity. Libya has repeatedly denied that either its ground troops or its Air Force are engaged in fighting.

Two Chadian Ministers denied a Libyan report that Mr Habre had been killed in the fighting. The Information Minister, Mr Soumalia Mahamat, called the report by the Jawa news agency, “an absolute lie.” Official sources said earlier that two top aides of the former President, Goukouni Oueddei, had died in the four-hour battle for

1 control of Faya-Largeau, which had served as his rebels’ headquarters since its capture on June 24. Both had been Cabinet Ministers in the mid-19705. Two Cabinet Ministers in Mr Oueddei’s Administration ousted by Mr Habre 13 months ago were among some 1200 rebels captured. An important gathering of rebel leaders was being held when Government troops had launched their attack, the sources said. In Washington the Zairean President, Lieuten-ant-General Mobutu Sese Seko, today began three days of m'etings with United States Government officials which were expected to include talks on the Libyan-backed rebellion in Chad. Zaire has 2000 soldiers in Chad. General Mobutu said last week that they were there for the defence of the capital, N’djamena.