CHAD: SEBY AGUID AND THE ZAGHAWAS

UNCLAS NDJAMENA 000433

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: SEBY AGUID AND THE ZAGHAWAS

REF: 04 NDJAMENA 705


1. (SBU) Summary: President Deby's Zaghawa clan is severely
divided, a result of his insufficient support for the Darfur
rebellion and fears of tribal retribution against his rule,
according to the son of the Sultan of Iriba. Recent
conversations with him provided insights into the Zaghawa and
other ethnicities, Deby's tribal troubles, and
recently-defected General Seby Aguid in particular. End
Summary.


2. (SBU) Poloff called on Dr. Ali Haggar, head of the Haute
Ecole de Commerce in Ndjamena, March 9 and 17 for an inside
view of the Zaghawa tribe, from which President Deby, leading
Chadian rebels, and the largest proportion of Darfur rebels
come. Playwright, linguist, economist, and human-rights
advocate, Ali was an advisor to Deby for a while, then was
sacked and jailed, and now has established an institute that
is a model for multi-ethnicism in Chad. Ali has an elevated
pedigree, as he is the son of the Sultan of the Zaghawa in
Iriba and his mother was the daughter of the Sultan of the
Oueddai in Abeche.

--------------
Got to be Good at Taking Care of Your Own
--------------


3. (SBU) Poloff asked how true an analogy Togo and Syria
were to Chad (a small minority of warrior tradition
dominating the military officership, exercising an
unbreakable lock-hold on power, which becomes hereditary).
Ali said that the analogy was a good one, except that the
Zaghawa minority in northeastern Chad was much smaller (less
than six percent, possibly much less) than the Kabyes in
northern Togo (roughly 20 percent) or the Alawis in northern
Syria (12 percent). The Zaghawas, along with the Goranes of
northern Chad, he said, constituted a majority of officers in
the Chadian army (Ali roughly estimated 60 percent were
Zaghawa and Gorane, of which 60 percent Zaghawa) and were, of
course, the most trusted officers with the most sensitive
positions who had done most of the serious fighting when it
was needed. But the Zaghawas in Chad, as evidenced by the
coup attempt of March 14 and preceding coup attempts, were
severely divided, unlike the ruling minorities in Syria and
Togo. Another difference from the Kabyes and Alawis, Ali
said, was a Zaghawa aversion to hereditary rule.


4. (SBU) Noting that Eyadema and Asad strove to take care of
their co-tribalists as a first priority, poloff wondered why
Deby seemed to have done a less good job of taking care of
his own. Ali gave several answers. First, Deby had been
insufficiently supportive of the Darfur rebellion. His elder
half-brother Daoussa had been instrumental in starting and
maintaining the Darfur rebellion, but now Daoussa had dropped
out of the picture, and Deby had from the start in 2002 not
been a loyal supporter of the pan-Zaghawa cause. Second,
Deby had driven the country into the ground and even Zaghawas
had become concerned at the level of corruption and
incompetence. Ali said all Zaghawas were painfully aware
that the fall of Deby would be certain to have dire
consequences for them, unless another Zaghawa took charge,
which necessarily would have to be by force of arms not
ballot. (Ali personally felt a continuation of Zaghawa power
would be disastrous and knew, at the same time, that he and
his family would likely be harmed in the event of change of
power to a different ethnicity; i.e., he felt deeply worried
at any conceivable scenario.) Third, Deby had toyed with
the idea beginning in 2002 of grooming his son Brahim (then
only 23 years old) as his successor, violating the
nonmonarchical tradition among the Zaghawas, and especially
outraging his cotribalists because of the boy's youth and bad
reputation. Fourth, Deby's last two marriages were romantic
marriages outside the tribal network, also a serious breach
of tradition.

--------------
Seby Aguid
--------------


5. (SBU) Ali characterized the February 17 defection of
Major General Seby Aguid as the most serious indicator yet of
division "within the family." He said Seby Aguid was a
Bideiyat Zaghawa from the Bahai area, just like Deby. Seby
was a paternal cousin of twins Tom and Timan Erdimi, who, Ali
believed, were maternal nephews of Deby. Illiterate and
one-armed, Seby Aguid was seen in the Zaghawa community, at
least among the soldiery, as a straight-talking man of action
and courage -- "widely admired and loved." When poloff
pointed out that Seby Aguid appeared to have been the author
of a considerable amount of brutality, Ali said that a
reputation for brutality would not have tarnished his
reputation among the Zaghawa soldiery. (Note: We have heard
disparagement of Seby Aguid from the officer corps, on
account of his being illierate. End Note.) Isak Diarra, who
decamped with Seby, was another close relative, Ali thought,
although he did not know Diarra's precise relationship to
Deby or Seby. Meanwhile, Col. Ramadan Bakhit, commander of
the armored squadron in the presidential protective reserve
unit and alleged leader of the March 14 coup plot, according
to Ali, was a nephew of Seby Aguid. Bakhit had been
commander for 15 years and "would have died 100 times to save
Idriss" Deby, but he had been revolted by Deby's ransacking
of Seby Aguid's home and turning Seby's children out into the
streets. (Here, too, Ali said, Deby had violated an
ingrained Zaghawa precept.)


6. (SBU) (Bio information of Seby Aguid from embassy files:
Commanded the Republican Guard in mid-1990's when he was seen
as a key figure in the regime with the Erdimis and Daoussa.
Cited in the press for conducting massacres in the East. In
the late 1990's as deputy director of the Gendarmerie, he
carried out a wave of executions in the Logone provinces,
became director general of the Gendarmerie but was relieved
of that post in 1999 due to allegations of torturing a
businesswoman. Promoted from colonel to brigadier general
and then major general in 2000, led the counterattack against
a rebellion in Bardai. As First Deputy Chief of the Armed
Froces, received military decoration for valor at Bardai. In
October 2005 Deby sent him, as Chief of Saff of the Armed
Forces, with Tom Erdimi and Daoussa to negotiate with Zaghawa
Chadian rebels led by Yahya Dillo. February 17, 2006, joined
the rebels.)

--------------
Who Are the Zaghawa
--------------


7. (U) Dr. Ali said that "Zaghawa" was a typically
triliteral semitic word, used by Arabs to describe the
ethnicity of the inhabitants of northern Darfur and
northeastern Chad who speak a nonsemitic language. The word
which the Zaghawa people use to describe themselves is
"Beri," and these people call their language Beriyya. They
are closely related to the Gorane and other Nilo-Saharan
peoples of northern Chad, linguistically and culturally
(i.e., greater ease of intermarriage),and the whole northern
group know themselves as Teda (i.e., Zaghawa/Beri plus the
peoples of Borkou, Ennedi, Tibesti, and Kanem). (Note: The
term Teda is, we understand, more commonly reserved for the
language of the Toubou people inhabiting the Tibesti region
of northwestern Chad, while Daza is the language of the
Gorane people of Borkou and east to the Ennedi; while the
term Gorane is sometimes used to describe all the
Nilo-Saharan northerners, even to include the Zaghawa.
Confused?)


8. (U) Dr. Ali said that at the time of colonization there
were four Beri (Zaghawa) sultans, three in what is today
northern Darfur and one in what is today Chad. The sultan in
Chad was based in the area of what has today become the town
of Iriba. (The town was created around a watering hole in
the 1930's, the sultan having decided to move there from what
had been a much tougher but more defensible site nearby, when
the colonial era had brought more stability.) Iriba is
today the center of the Kobe sub-tribe of the Beri.
President Deby comes from the Bideiyat sub-tribe, centered
north of the Kobe in Bahai. Even further north, in true
desert, is the Borogat sub-tribe, centered more or less at a
watering hole called Kouba, in the vicinity of Fada in the
Ennedi. On the Darfur side, according to Ali, the three
Zaghawa sultans at the time of colonization were based in
Tine, Kornoi, and Koulbous. The Darfur Zaghawas are divided
into Touwer sub-tribe centered at Tine and the Wagui centered
at Kornoi. The Darfur Zaghawas were and always have been
more numerous. Ali estimated there to be one million
Zaghaas today, with 300-400,000 in Chad (note: a higher
figure than we usually hear, but of course, ther is no
census). At the time of the defeat of te Sultanate of Fur
in 1916 by the British, the tw most important "empires" of
the region, accordig to Dr. Ali, were not Zaghawa but the
Fur in Nyla and the Oueddai in Abeche. The groups in the
Oueddai realm speak related languages known generically as
"Maba," consisting of the Masalit (mainly West Darfur),Tama
(around Guereda),Aboucharib (around Am Zoer),and Mimi
(around Biltine). The Dadjo are a large ethnicity, south of
the Maba speakers but without close linguistic ties to them,
on both sides of the border, running from Goz Beida east.

--------------
Who Are the Chadian Arabs
--------------


9. (U) Dr. Ali said that the Fur and Zaghawa-Goranes were
fiercely resistant to Arab incursion and influence, though
strongly Koran-based and strong slavers in their own right,
while the Oueddai were more willing to accept the Arabs. The
Arabs passed through beginning some centuries ago and
established themselves in a central belt from Arada to
Ndjamena (Oum Hajjar, Jidda, Bokoro, Dagana-Massakory, and
even Am Timan further to the south). The Baguirmi sultanate
(centered near Ndjamena in Massenya) kept its own language,
allied to the Sarah group of southern Chad, but in the manner
of the Fur and other peoples along this central zone (Arab
and non-Arab),the Baguirmis were slave-raiders. "Arab," in
Chad, Ali insisted, is used in the linguistic sense -- if
someone only speaks Arabic as his native tongue, he is
"Arab." (Note: Ali was being doctrinaire on this point, as
the term does carry a racial implication, even when people in
question all seem to have the same outward racial appearance.
End Note.)
WALL