CHAD: ARCHBISHOP ON MUSLIM ATTACKS AND ON THE

UNCLAS NDJAMENA 000346

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR AF, AF/C, INR, DRL, DS/IP/AF, DS/IP/ITA;
LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICAWATCHERS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM CD
SUBJECT: CHAD: ARCHBISHOP ON MUSLIM ATTACKS AND ON THE
OPPOSITION



1. (SBU) Summary: In a meeting with the Ambassador March 1,
Archbishop Ngartery said the anti-Danish-cartoons violent
demonstration on February 11 had been an opportunity for
Chadian Christians to show the path of peacefulness in not
reacting. He said that the only way out of Chad's present
political impasse was for France to persuade Deby to go into
exile or delay the elections and promote a genuine national
dialogue. In his view, the only northerner acceptable to
southerners in the event of a transition was former president
Goukouni Oueddai, while the only widely-respected southern
oppositionist was General Kamougue. End summary.


2. (U) Ambassador Wall called on Chad's Catholic Archbishop
Monseigneur Mathias Ngartery March 1. The Ambassador
explained to the Archbishop that he had had numerous recent
contacts with the Muslim community and did not want to appear
to neglect the Christian community. The Ambassador praised
the role of the church particularly in the field of
education. He had visited Catholic schools the week before
in Sarh (the Archbishop's home city). He and the Archbishop
the previous morning had presided over the inauguration of
new classrooms at the Cornelia Connely Center, a women's
training project on the outskirts of Ndjamena.


3. (SBU) The Archbishop asked the Ambassador's perspective
on relations with the Muslim community. The Ambassador said
that he had been more optimistic before the demonstration of
February 11 protesting the Danish cartoons, which had turned
violent, but he still believed that the tendency of the
Chadian Muslim culture favored peaceful coexistence. A few
extremists had perverted what the demonstration's organizers
had intended to be a peaceful protest of the cartoons. The
Archbishop said that rioters had attacked Christians and
their property, including churches. God had given the
Christian community the opportunity to show the path of
peace, by not reacting in kind. He said his church had
sponsored dialogue with the Muslim community, and he had been
pleased that some young Muslim participants had said that the
violence had been un-Muslim. What perplexed him was that the
government had not given an authorization for the
demonstration. Yet the demonstrators set forth from the
Grand Mosque with Sheikh Hissein Hassan Abakar, president of
the Superior Council of Islamic Affairs, at the head, and the
Minister of Interior had addressed them. The Archbishop said
that he had formally asked the government for an explanation
but had received none.


4. (SBU) On the present political impasse, the Archbishop
said that the central question was how to make Deby leave
office without violence. Elections had now been announced
for May 3, and without external pressure on Deby -- and with
or without external electoral assistance -- he would run.
Deby would prepare two or three candidates to run against him
to give an impression of a campaign. The Ambassador observed
that even if there existed a sudden willingness to have a
proper election, time was too short now to prepare one. The
Archbishop said it was incumbent on external players, the
French specifically, to pressure Deby into exile or into at
least standing down, but it was necessary to convince the
French first. The Archbishop feared that without such
pressure on Deby, the most likely scenario would be his
violent overthrow.


5. (SBU) The Ambassador asked the Archbishop if he thought
there existed an opposition figure who could rally the
populace, whether the opposition parties could agree on such
a candidate, and whether it might need to be a candidate from
the North. The Archbishop said that, however much Arab
states (for example, Sudan) might seek to impose an Arab as
president in Chad, the populace would never accept an Arab
president. Nor would the people of the South accept a
relative of Deby (for example, the recently self-exiled Timan
Erdimi); it was Deby and these relatives who had sunk Chad
into its present mess and the populace rejected them all.
According to the Archbishop, the only northerner who could
gain popular acceptance as a transition leader would be
former president Goukouni Oueddai (now in exile in Algeria),
"a true nationalist." However, the Archbishop said, it was
now important and necessary to have a southerner running the

country, if it were going to be saved, and most northerners
realized as much. At the present juncture, he said, the one
southerner who might be acceptable across the national
spectrum was Wadal Abdelkader Kamougue (from Sarh). However,
the Archbishop concluded, the opposition parties were
unlikely to be able to agree on a single candidate, and in
any case, General Kamougue could probably only serve as a
transitional figure.


6. (SBU) Comment: The Archbishop appears to be technically
correct that there was no official written authorization for
the anti-cartoon demonstration February 11, but the chief
authorizing official, the Interior Minister, addressed the
assembled masses, and police were prepositioned (if
inadequately for a group of several thousand),so there was
authorization de facto if not de jure. His views on the
unifying role of former president Goukouni in a possible
transition government are noteworthy, coming from a respected
religious leader with deep roots in southern Chad. His
opinion of the prospects of General Kamougue, one of the
grand old men of Chadian politics whose glory days are seen
to be behind him, is not widely shared.
WALL