Once upon a time, Mahamat Assileck Halatad dreamed about dislodging the Chadian government by force of arms but today he is part of a national dialogue spearheaded by the junta that succeeded President Idriss Déby who died last year.
By Special Correspondent, Lemine Ould M. Salem.
Since he set foot in N’Djamena on 18 August, Assileck has struggled to find time for himself, to visit his relatives and childhood friends or simply take a walk around the town where he was born just over half a century ago and which he no longer dreamed of seeing during his lifetime given his continued exile abroad.
“Thirty years is a long time. The more time passed, the more I told myself that I would never see my country, Chad, again,” admitted the man who was one of the main media figures abroad of the radical opposition to President Idriss Deby Itno, who died in the spring of 2021.
Deby’s death came just after his re-election at the head of this vast Sahelian country, a veritable tribal and ethnic magma, while leading a counterattack by his army against a column of rebels from Libya that was heading towards the capital.
It was the umpteenth time that this French-trained former military officer who had initially taken power by force in 1990 took the physical risk of leading the operations himself to counter rebels who had come to dislodge him from power.
The last time before his death, the man who was the absolute master of Chad for more than thirty years had distinguished himself at the end of March 2020 by personally leading a vast and victorious offensive of his army around Lake Chad to drive out the dreaded Boko Haram jihadists who have been blighting Nigeria and its neighbours since 2009.
That feat earned him the title ‘Marshal of Chad’ by the National Assembly, which is dominated by his supporters.
Once his death was made public, a Military Council of Transition (CMT), composed of fifteen generals, installed his son, General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, 37 years old today in his place.
Mahamat was until then the discreet boss of the presidential guard.
This well-equipped and trained elite unit of the Chadian army and whose effectiveness, as well as the face of its leader, was discovered by the world in 2013 when it was sent to northern Mali to assist the French operation Serval engaged in driving out jihadists linked to Al Qaeda who occupied a region twice the size of France.
As soon as he was installed in his late father’s position, the young general immediately abrogated the constitution, dissolved parliament and dismissed the government.
But he promised to return power to civilians through “free and democratic” elections after a “transition” of eighteen months renewable once.
He also pledged not to run in future presidential elections.
But last June, MIDI, as his compatriots call him in reference to the acronyms stemming from his full name, changed his mind, declaring that “if Chadians do not manage to agree” that he would hand over his “destiny” to “God” on a possible candidacy.
“There is no immutable promise”
“In politics, there is no immutable promise. It is all about context,” said Assileck, whose group, the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD), with the help of other rebel groups, had tried several times to oust the late head of state from power, as in February 2008.
The UFDD fighters, backed by hundreds of elements including a large number from the Union of Resistance Forces (UFR), had launched a daring attack on the Chadian capital before being miraculously defeated by the loyal army after several days of fierce fighting around the presidential palace.
“It was a different time,” said Assileck who together with a defence minister under Idriss Deby, Mahamat Nouri, and that of the UFR, Timam Erdilmi, nephew and former director of cabinet of the late president, are the main leaders of the forty or so “politico-military” groups taking part in the National Sovereign Inclusive Dialogue (DNIS) that the young general solemnly opened on 20 August in N’Djamena.
This dialogue which was negotiated for more than five months in Doha, Qatar, is supposed to put an end to decades of unrest and instability in this country of 16 million people.
This has been the goal even if it is boycotted by the major rebel group of the Front for Alternance and Concord in Chad (Fact), which is behind the death of Idriss Deby, and the so-called radical opposition.
“The presence of all would have greatly facilitated things. I understand that there may be divergent opinions. But there is a new generation in power. During the long months of pre-dialogue that we experienced in Doha with the government delegates, we were able to talk without taboos about the main problems of the country and agreed on the idea of rebuilding Chad on a consensual basis. Despite the often-sharp differences in the debates during the N’Djamena dialogue, no one imposed their point of view on the other. All decisions were approved after frank and free discussions. This permanent search for consensus explains to a large extent the fact that the dialogue went on well beyond the initial deadlines,” the former rebel explained.
The principle set by the participants in the dialogue to decide on measures to adopt or reject being the rule of consensus and not that of voting, Assileck has seen a series of decisions pass before his eyes that do not suit his camp at all, nor the opposition in general.
He, who has long dreamed of a Chad free of military influence, could do nothing to prevent the validation by delegates of measures largely favourable to the current junta.
On Saturday 1 October, while it was supposed to last only 18 months, renewable once, as initially promised by the junta, the transition period was extended by 24 months.
Better still, the President of the Military Transitional Committee (PCMT), who had pledged not to run for the upcoming presidential elections, is now allowed to do so, as are the other members of the CMT.
”We did not come to this dialogue so that in the end we would end up continuing the war inside the capital. We came to find solutions that will allow our country to get out of the political impasse in which it has been plunged for several decades” the former warlord said.
He added: ”In a political dialogue, you have to know how to demand, to require, to convince. But one must also know how to make concessions. In the case of the right of the president of the CMT or other military personnel to be candidates in future elections, the majority of delegates felt that they have the right to stand, citing the fact that no Chadian law prevents them from doing so. This is true. Moreover, we are discussing with a power dominated by the military, which is the main organised force in this country. Lucidity therefore dictates that we accept this possibility”.
”This does not mean that if the current head of state goes before the voters, he is guaranteed to be elected. If the opposition gets organised and takes advantage of the opportunities offered by the new rules and institutions that will frame the transitional period, such as the government of national unity that will be installed and the expansion of the powers of the National Transitional Council, which acts as a parliament, it has a chance to emerge victorious from the future elections, if not to force the future president not to abuse his power,” said Assileck.
“Avoiding a new Mali”
Does he not know that his point of view is not shared by the external partners of his country, which is entirely landlocked and largely dependent on international aid?
In a communiqué dated 19 September, the African Union (AU) called on the junta to respect “the eighteen-month period for the completion of the transition.”
It also declared “unequivocally that no member of the Transitional Military Council can be a candidate in the elections at the end of the transition.”
The European Union also expressed its “concern” after the adoption on Saturday by the DNIS delegates to extend the transition and allow the head of the military junta to run for president.
Assileck enthused: “We have already seen what sanctions, such as the closure of borders or the economic and financial embargo, have produced in Mali when the army carried out its second coup in May last year. The population suffered the most and the Malian junta became even more tense, to the point of breaking off relations with countries traditionally closely linked to Mali, such as France.
“France was forced to withdraw its soldiers from the country, leaving Mali in the hands of the jihadist groups who are now taking control of large parts of the territory and increasing their violence. Putting Chad under sanctions means creating a new Mali multiplied by a thousand because of the tradition of wars in the country and its proximity to fragile and sensitive countries, not to mention the risks of throwing the country into the arms of dangerous external actors”.
The former warlord was making pointed references to the situation in neighbouring Libya, the Central African Republic where Sudanese or Russian mercenaries from the private company Wagner have been based for several years.
LOS/lb/as/APA