Global Insight Perspective

Significance

The deal, signed yesterday (8 February 2006), holds some promise of a resolution to the current dispute between Chad and Sudan.

Implications

The agreement's key provisions foresee a 're-establishment of relations (between the two governments), a ban on the use of one country's territory for hostile activities against the other, and a ban on the harbouring of rebels'. The agreement also envisages the creation of a peacekeeping force and a ministerial committee, chaired by Libya, to oversee the implementation of the agreement.

Outlook

It is quite clear that if Libya does not maintain its engagement, the Tripoli agreement is virtually worthless. Without a sizeable, effective and well-resourced peacekeeping force along the two countries' shared border, very real security concerns will continue to disrupt diplomatic relations between the two governments and indeed threaten the very stability and sustainability of Déby's own regime.

At the end of a two-day summit in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, yesterday, Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno and his Sudanese counterpart, Omar Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir, signed an agreement that brings an official end to the two-month diplomatic spat provoked by Déby's announcement in mid-December 2005 that the two governments were in a 'state of belligerence' following a series of rebel attacks on towns in eastern Chad. Having repelled the attackers from the town of Adré (Ouaddaï Prefecture) and pursuing some of them inside Sudanese territory, Déby accused the groups of being Sudanese 'government militias'. The 'state of belligerence' he declared in mid-December was something less than a 'state of war', but was certainly a divergence from the habitually cordial and co-operative relations the two countries had previously enjoyed.

Since that time, the war of words has escalated, with Khartoum continuing to deny involvement with the 'Chadian' rebels and N'Djamena seeking to draw international attention to Sudan's putative 'campaign of destabilisation' in neighbouring Chad. Meanwhile, the Chadian rebel groups continued to launch attacks from Sudan, while Sudanese Arab militias - known loosely as Janjawid - launched assaults on Chadian camps housing refugees fleeing fighting in the western Sudanese province of Darfur. Although there were no direct military clashes between Sudan and Chad, and no official breaches of sovereignty, tensions remained exceedingly high and the risk of escalation was ever present, particularly after a Chadian border commander launched a rocket into Sudanese airspace in January 2006.

The deal signed yesterday holds some promise of a resolution to the current dispute. Its key provisions foresee a 're-establishment of relations (between the two governments), a ban on the use of one country's territory for hostile activities against the other, and a ban on the harbouring of rebels'. The agreement also envisages the creation of a peacekeeping force and a ministerial committee, chaired by Libya, to oversee the implementation of the agreement. In closing remarks, al-Bashir reiterated his government's willingness to respect the accord and implement it throughout Sudanese territory, while Déby considered that the deal would permit the two countries to 'renew their relations'.

On the face of it, the agreement appears to satisfy each of the parties. Chadian allegations of Sudanese 'destabilisation' had brought considerable heat down on the Sudanese government, serving as the trigger for Sudan to be denied the scheduled presidency of the African Union (AU) and lending new weight to arguments within the UN Security Council about the establishment of a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur (an argument not shared by the government in Khartoum). Resolving the dispute with Chad should allow the Sudanese regime greater freedom of manoeuvre in its dealing with Darfur, the AU and the UN, with much of the government's policy on Darfur now focusing on damage limitation and the gradual resolution of the conflict.

The Tripoli agreement is also something of a boon for President Déby. Indeed, his principal motivation for stoking the dispute with Khartoum was to secure explicit and overt Sudanese endorsement of his presidency and to force Khartoum to take action against the rear-bases of the Chadian rebel groups in Khartoum. In reality, no concrete links between the Sudanese government and the various rebel groups in eastern Chad have ever been demonstrated. Knowing that Khartoum is intractably opposed to the presence of UN peacekeepers in Darfur, Déby was simply attempting to harness growing concern within the UN about the possibility of cross-border transmission of the conflict there.

For his part, Libyan President Muammar al-Qadhafi - a patron of both Déby and the National Islamic Front (NIF) regime in Khartoum - has offered both parties a way out of the diplomatic mess. On paper at least, Déby can now rely on greater co-operation from the NIF in dealing with the Chadian groups - a co-operation guaranteed by al-Qadhafi, who continues to enjoy considerable influence over al-Bashir. The reward for Khartoum is al-Qadhafi's backing for an enlarged AU peacekeeping force in Darfur and along the Sudan-Chad border. In comments prior to the opening of the summit, by which time the modalities of the agreement will have already been established, the Libyan leader was explicit in his opposition to a UN force in Darfur, insisting that an 'African solution' would be found to the crisis and that 'we have no need of blue helmets (UN peacekeepers), we have our own African forces and we do not need forces from our friend (Tony) Blair' (a reference to the latest diplomatic initiative by U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair on behalf of a UN deployment). Backing up such claims, al-Qadhafi offered the AU some '100,000 Libyans, 1,000 tanks and 100 aircraft' to close the Chad-Sudan border. In typical fashion, these commitments are surely inflated and exaggerated - not least because Sudan would oppose such a sizeable foreign force on its own soil. However, if the Tripoli agreement is to hold, as the Libyan leader surely hopes it will, some considerable support in practical and diplomatic terms will be offered to the 7,000-strong AU force ineffectively deployed in Darfur. The presence of makeshift AU president and Congolese head of state Denis Sassou Nguesso at the Tripoli talks seems to confirm the semi-official nature of al-Qadhafi's commitment to the AU.

Of course, the Libyan President's engagement in the Chad-Sudan dispute is far from altruistic and the Tripoli agreement reflects a number of his own agendas. It bolsters al-Qadhafi's claims to be at the forefront of African diplomacy - a role he has pursued increasingly aggressively since the late 1990s - while emphasising the centrality of the AU's role in the resolution of African disputes. However, it also advances Libya's own policy and reading of the conflict in Darfur. In his opening comments at the summit, al-Qadhafi explained that responsibility for the conflict was 'shared equally between the president of Sudan and the inhabitants of Darfur' - a proposition that reflects his own desire to protect his client, but that would probably be rejected by the UN and many of the Western countries engaged in the mediation process. While not absolving Darfuri rebel groups of responsibility for the humanitarian crisis and gross human rights abuses, international opprobrium has always - quite rightly - focused on the activities of the Khartoum-backed Janjawid. Al-Qadhafi's historic involvement in Darfur - from where Déby's Libyan-backed putsch in 1989 was launched and where al-Qadhafi trained units of the Failaka al-Islamiya (Islamic Legion) in pursuit of sub-regional hegemony - hardly testifies to an even hand in the conflict, particularly in view of the Libyan leader's personal contribution in the 1970s and 1980s to the racist 'Arabist' ideology that continues to inform the conflict in western Sudan.

Outlook and Implications

While hardly a breakthrough in terms of the Darfur conflict as a whole, the Tripoli agreement is a significant development in the resolution of one of its sideshows - the largely phoney war between N'Djamena and Khartoum. With the international community failing to convince Khartoum of the need for UN peacekeepers, the UN Security Council may endorse the provisions of the Tripoli agreement if they are taken up with the AU and if Libya makes good on its commitment to support the regional peacekeepers, if only because it would save lengthy disputes within the Security Council about the size and mandate of the proposed UN force. However, it is quite clear that if Libya does not maintain its engagement, the Tripoli agreement is virtually worthless. The defrosting of Chad-Sudanese relations will be quickly reversed if Sudan does not take action against Chadian rebel rear-bases or if Déby continues in his petitioning for a UN force in Darfur. Equally, without a sizeable, effective and well-resourced peacekeeping force along the two countries' shared border, very real security concerns will continue to disrupt diplomatic relations between the two governments and indeed threaten the very stability and sustainability of Déby's own regime.

Contact: Raul Dary

24 Hartwell Ave.
Lexington, MA 02421, USA
Tel: 781.301.9314
Cel: 857.222.0556
Fax: 781.301.9416
raul.dary@globalinsight.com

www.globalinsight.com and www.wmrc.com