Chad: the worst is yet to come

Posted By Blake Hounshell Monday, February 4, 2008 - 1:20 PM Share

What's going on in Chad, the world's #5 failed state? The AP reports that rebel forces allegedly tied to the Sudanese government have resumed their bloody assault on N'Djamena. The Chadian capital is held by government troops backing strongman Idriss Déby. But what are they fighting about? Harvard's Alex de Waal explains at length on his blog, "Making Sense of Darfur." The worst is yet to come, he warns:

The war for Chad is not over. It is likely to become more bloody and involve a wider humanitarian disaster before any solutions can be grasped. The next week will be critical for the future of the country–and for the wider region, including Darfur, as well.

The French, proving once again that tolerance for friendly authoritarians is not an American invention, are backing Déby to the hilt. The trouble, De Waal warns, is that Déby may seize the opportunity to engineer "a massacre of the civilian opposition." If that happens, what will newlywed Nicolas Sarkozy and his bleeding-heart foreign minister, Doctors Without Borders founder Bernard Kouchner, do about it?

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