CHAD: VIEW OF OPPOSITION LEADER FROM EAST

UNCLAS NDJAMENA 000409

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
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: VIEW OF OPPOSITION LEADER FROM EAST

REF: A. A. NDJAMENA 360


B. B. NDJAMENA 400


1. (SBU) Summary: The leading oppositionist from the East,
Ibni Oumar, describes the drawdown of Chadian security forces
in the border area as a net plus, despite the resulting
lawlessness. He says that his public call for obstruction
of the May 3 election has not yet taken specific form. End
Summary.


2. (SBU) Poloff called on oppositionist Ibni Oumar Mahamat
Saleh March 13. Ibni Oumar, from Biltine, is one of the six
leading figures in the opposition coalition CPDC. A member
of the Oueddai ethnicity which is concentrated in the area of
Biltine and Abeche (linguistically related to the Tama,
around Guereda, and the Masalit, around El Geneina, and
others in the Maba group),Ibni Oumar is the only significant
in-country opposition figure from the East.


3. (SBU) Ibni Oumar said that it would be unfair to
characterize the Chadian opposition, especially the parties
that came together in the CPDC two years ago and have
maintained their cohesion ever since, as stubborn or
negative. The CPDC, he said, would boycott the May 3
election, and some of its members (he included, ref B) had
called for obstruction of the election. But their hostility
to this election, he said, had to be seen in the light of the
15 years of rule by Deby. With the best will, the political
class in Chad had sat down with this ruler in the 1993
national conference to produce a new constitution and two
sets of elections. He and others who were now staunchly in
the hostile opposition had agreed to run in elections and
even agreed to serve from time to time in Deby's government,
hoping thereby to promote a spirit of reconciliation and to
help build a better Chad. Deby had demonstrated that it was
all too possible in Chad to write a good constitution and
have an adequate set of laws on the books but see them
rendered worthless by a strongman holding the reins of power
(state revenues and force of arms). A critical element, on
which the opposition had depended, had been the
constitutional requirement that Deby serve no more than two
terms. By mounting a fraudulent referendum to change that
essential requirement, a referendum based on fictional voter
lists and fictional voting results, Deby had gone beyond
redemption. The country was poised on the verge of complete
collapse, thanks to this robber baron, he argued.


4. (SBU) Poloff asked what form obstruction of the election
might take. Ibni Oumar said that the CPDC had not yet
produced a specific strategy for dealing with the election,
and, he admitted, the CPDC might not be able to come to
agreement on a specific strategy. But he anticipated a call
for a massive turnout of the populace, as nonviolent as
possible, specifically to assert their unwillingness to vote.
He said that he had met the UNDP resrep March 10 and
conveyed his and the CPDC's lack of interest in any
conceivable arrangement that might involve their
participation in this election.


5. (SBU) Noting that Ibni Oumar hailed from the area where
the Zaghawa, Arab, and Maba ethnic groups interfaced, Poloff
asked Ibni Oumar's views on Darfur and recent violence in
eastern Chad. Ibni Oumar acknowledged that there had been an
increase in lawlessness in the border area, entailing raiding
of some villages (mainly Dadjo ethnicity) along the border
south of Adre and hijacking of NGO cars north of Adre. The
proximate cause, he said, was the sudden "retreat" of Chadian
gendarmerie and armed forces from along most of the border,
after the rebel attack Adre in December. On balance, he
said, the absence of these forces was a good development.
The greatest source of instability and terror in the area, he
claimed, had been these very forces, whose commanders were 90
percent Zaghawa and Gorane (far northerners) and who
constantly bullied and robbed the local populace. Now, with
this respite from Zaghawan depradations, what he called
"bandits" had seized their opportunity. The local people,
especially the Dadjo, were forming their own self-defense
forces and were beginning to be able to cope with these
bandits, whose identity was not clear. Ibni Oumar doubted
that they were made up principally of Arabs, as there had not
traditionally been animosties specific to the Chadian Arabs,
unlike in Darfur, and he had not heard believable claims to
this effect. He dismissed the idea that these "bandits" had
been sent to Chad by Sudan. Rather, local bands, probably of
varying ethnic make-up, had been taking advantage of the
situation.


6. (SBU) As for Darfur, Ibni Oumar thought disarmament was
going to be one of the most difficult issues. Having
liberally handed out arms to Arabs in Darfur, Sudan no longer
had much control, either of some of the Darfurian Arabs (most
populous ethnicity there after the Fur) or over the sea of
arms flowing throughout Darfur and into Chad, on top of the
flow coming from Libya and Chad into Darfur. To conclude,
Ibni Oumar brought the discussion back to the imperative of
peaceful change of regime in Ndjamena, offering his view that
a failure to reverse Chad's slide would make impossible any
resolution of Darfur, since the Deby regime (Deby's Zaghawa
henchmen if not always Deby himself) had nutured the
rebellion from its inception and his regime was teetering on
the brink of violent collapse.


7. (U) Bio Note: Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh is the head of
PLD (parti pour les Libertes et le Developpement),one of the
few parties that is not highly ethnically-based. He is
spokesman for the CPDC. He was generally seen as an ally of
the ruling party until he ran for the presidency in 2001,
which incurred a rebuke from the Grand Imam for splitting the
Muslim vote. A PhD in mathematics, he held planning and
other ministries in the late 1980's and 1990's.
WALL