Gadaffi rethinks Chad support

Press, 7 December 1985, Page 11

Gadaffi rethinks Chad support

NZPA-Reuter Bamako, Mali

Libya’s leader, Colonel Muammar Gadaffi, touring West Africa and seeking a way out of stalemate in Chad’s 20-year-old civil war, has watered down his previously unqualified support for his rebel protege, Goukouni Oueddei. He has also offered to transform his 6000 man force in northern Chad into a peace-keeping force, pending a permanent settlement of the conflict. Colonel Gadaffi flew to Bamako, the capital of Mali, after three days in Dakar

where he discussed the Chad war with Senegal’s President, Mr Abdou Diouf, chairman of the Organisation of African Unity. He was greeted at Bamako by cheering crowds and will have talks with the President, General Moussa Traore. General Traore tried in March to make peace between Mr Goukouni and the man who displaced him in 1982 as president of Chad, Hissene Habre. He got the two enemies to Bamako but failed to arrange a meeting.

Colonel Gadaffi said in

Dakar that he was prepared to treat the Chadian rivals “on the same footing of equality”. In 1983, Libya sent some 6000 men into northern Chad to fight beside Mr Goukouni’s troops. Until yesterday, Colonel Gadaffi had always insisted that Mr Goukouni remained Chad’s legitimate head of state.

France, which used to rule Chad, sent more than 3000 soldiers to back Mr Habre in August, 1983, but withdrew them in September, 1984.

Diplomats following the

Dakar talks believe that Colonel Gadaffi wants to end his costly entanglement in Chad, in part because Libya's oil revenues are falling. r . But Mr Habre this week ruled out stationing a panAfrican peace-keeping force between his own' troops and Colonel Gadaffi’s. He said in Geneva that such a plan was unacceptable since it would seal the division of Chad. Mr Habre has also insisted that he be regarded as the legitimate Chadian leader. The argument over legitimacy has been the

main reason peace talks failed. Colonel Gaddafi said that he was prepared to meet Mr Habre in Libya but only as “head of one of the interested parties in the conflict”. “We will achieve peace and unity in Chad provided there is no foreign interference ... we are determined to achieve peace in Chad very rapidly,” he said. Mr Habre, who flew to Paris yesterday, said in Geneva that he did not rule out a summit meeting with Colonel Gadaffi but it seemed a long way away.