The rebels in Chad are likely to brace for destabilizing the government and assassinating the president.
The Wall Street Journal, citing a top American official, claims the government of Chad may be overthrown. The article says that, Timane Erdimi, the leader of the Chad’s rebels – Union des Forces Républicaines, asked the Central African Republic leaders in February 2022 to help overthrow the Déby government in Chad . The CAR leaders, however, denied plans to topple the government of Chad.
Mahamat Déby became President of Chad in April 2021, after the rebels killed his father, Idriss Déby.
Read also: Chad to face turmoil after Déby’s death
Timane Erdimi is a member of the ethnic group Zaghawa (Beri or Zakhawa) and nephew of the Chadian killed President Idriss Déby. The Zaghawa ethnic group has been deeply involved, particularly through strategic alliances with other ethnic groups.
Chad has been ruled by General Idriss Déby, a member of the Bideyat sub-clan of the Zaghawa tribe who took power by mounting an invasion from Darfur with Sudanese backing. Since then, revenues from the discovery of oil in the south have created an even more intense struggle for power among the northern tribes and clans. For 15 years, twin brothers Tom and Timane Erdimi were the right hand men of the president, handling the most sensitive (and lucrative) portfolios. As nephews of the president they were among his most trusted associates. At the time of their defection to the rebels in 2005, Tom was the President’s permanent undersecretary and chief of oil operations, while Timane was the manager of Cotontchad, the state cotton monopoly.
Tom Erdimi left Chad and relocated in Houston, where he had connections in the oil industry. It is believed that Tom is responsible for the movement’s financing. Field leadership of the movement was given to Timane, a career civil servant rather than a military man like his opponent Déby.
Déby described his new opponents as “mercenaries,” working for Khartoum’s petrodollars. He said he is “ashamed” for Timane Erdimi: “I know that in the history of wars, there have always been defections to the enemy, traitors to the fatherland and other kinds of persons who make up the fifth column. During the Algerian war of liberation, there were Harkis, Algerians who turned round to fight their own brothers from the ranks of the former colonial power. At the end of the war, they complained that France had abandoned them. Chadian ‘Harkis’ are well advised to meditate on that tragic historical lesson.”
Within the Zaghawa there are divisions between sub-tribes – the Zaghawa Kobe began to complain in the late 1990s that President Déby was favoring Bideyat (a group in Zaghawa tribe, who are concentrated in the Ennedi Massif of northeastern Chad) over the Kobe (Zaghawa’s group who live mostly in Chad and form the largest Zaghawa group) in key government positions. Despite this, the Kobe continue to dominate the ranks of the Armée Nationale Tchadienne (ANT), the Garde Républicaine, the police and the intelligence services. They are also the dominant group in Darfur’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the most significant challenge to Khartoum’s rule in the region. Friction grew within the Zaghawa ruling circle after the Darfur rebellion broke out in 2003.
In June 2005 an Act of Parliament allowed Déby to run for a third term as president. The unpopular legislation prompted a trickle of desertions from Déby’s security forces that became a flood in October 2005 as it became apparent Déby was intent on remaining president long after his constitutionally sanctioned two terms were over, possibly even intending to pass on power to his son Brahim. The deserters, including many Zaghawa officers, headed east to join various rebel movements operating near the Sudanese border. Déby was compelled to reorganize his Presidential Guard after a number of defections.
In December, Tom and Timane Erdimi also abandoned the government, sure that regime change was around the corner. The government quickly accused Tom Erdimi of treason, claiming he had embezzled millions of dollars while running state oil operations and had joined in a plot to assassinate the president. To further their aims the brothers founded the Rassemblement des Forces Démocratiques (RaFD).
The Erdimis believed they could take a path to power identical to that followed by Déby in 1982 – build a new armed movement in Darfur composed of Zaghawa defectors and then cross 800 km of desert and bush to seize power in N’Djamena.
In February and early March, 2006 the families of Timan Erdimi and General Seby Aguide Béchibo were both evicted from their state owned buildings and their goods seized on government orders.
After this an apparent attempt to shoot down an aircraft carrying President Déby on March 14 was blamed on the Erdimi brothers and General Aguide, a Zaghawa officer who was dismissed from the army on March 10.
A rival and sometime collaborator of the Erdimi brothers now emerged is General Mahamat Nouri, a Goran of the Anakaza sub-tribe from Faya-Largeau and an important minister in both the governments of Hissène Habré (also an Anakaza Goran from Faya-Largeau) and Idriss Déby before he quit to join the rebellion in 2005. General Nouri formed the Union des Forces pour la Démocratie et le Developpement (UFDD), composed mainly of Goran tribesmen from the Tibesti region.
Nouri said “Chad cannot continue to be governed by one family or tribe,” though Nouri himself is suspected by many other rebels of wanting to restore Goran domination of the government.
Timane Erdimi reorganized the RaFD as the Rassemblement des Forces pour le Changement (RFC).
In early January, 2009, Erdimi joined his force with several other rebel groups in the Union des Forces de Résistance (UFR) (RFI, January 19, 2009). His leadership of the alliance was reportedly imposed by Khartoum, which also supplied new Chinese-made military equipment.
Timane Erdimi has always denied acting as a proxy for Khartoum.
However, he is still widely seen as perpetuating the Bideyat-Zaghawa domination of Chadian politics. For all its rhetoric, the Zaghawa armed opposition is fundamentally undemocratic, as no conceivable free election would return the minority Zaghawa to power. Erdimi has admitted that, should he take power, his plan for Chad “is not democracy,” but will rather focus on developing the government’s infrastructure. Neither Paris nor Washington would have supported the Erdimi authoritarian regime. That is why Moscow has reached him, probably through Khalifa Haftar, who controls the eastern part of Libya and has ties to the Russian Wagner Group.
The Déby regime accused the rebel leader on Wednesday of seeking help from Russian Wagner Group mercenaries to derail the process toward reconciliation and overthrow the government. US intelligence confirms there is a conspiracy against Débi, involving the Wagner Group.
As many as 10 Russians were detained in June 2021 near the city of Fay Largo, in a war zone, a month after President Déby had been murdered.
This fuels suspicion that a story of Russia stepping up in Chad with reconnaissance and preparation is a 2-year one, at least.
Prigozhin can provide the rebels with material and operational support to overthrow the President of Chad and take over the government.
Russia has a stake in Chad, eager to get a grip on N’Djamena, which means control of gold, oil, and uranium deposits. Russian companies affiliated with Yevgeny Prigozhin will develop and sell them in a shadow.
Moscow seeks to undermine the dollar (amid abandoning US dollars as a global trade currency) and expand gold’s role in Russia’s international reserves portfolios. With control over gold deposits, the Kremlin expects to improve the economic stability and reduce the impact of sanctions on its financial system. With sanctions imposed, Moscow is actively buying up gold. The Russian Central Bank is promoting the role of gold by getting rid of foreign currencies and securities.
That is why Russia is so active in Mali and Sudan.
Read also: Russia is on the way to take gold off
Control of Chad could be also negotiated by the Kremlin and Khartoum, as the last could build its influence in Chad in exchange for expanded Russian military presence in Sudan.
Chad, leaded by Déby and his father, closely cooperated with France and the United States in the war against ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates in the Sahel region. The Muslim-majority country hosts US special forces and its own soldiers are deployed to fight jihadist groups in neighboring Niger, Cameroon, and Nigeria. In case pro-Russian regime takes power, that will be the next Kremlin’s step to oust France from the area of historical interest.
We believe Russia operates through the Russian embassy in the Central African Republic to brace for toppling the Chad government.
With government toppled, Chad will take the pro-Russian side in the UN and give up the democratic path of development. There’s a good chance for Niger to be the next state where Russia will try to increase its influence.
