Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06NDJAMENA487
2006-04-03 11:42:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Embassy Ndjamena
Cable title:  

CHAD: KEBZABO ON OPPOSITION UNITY AND OBSTRUCTION

Tags:  PGOV PHUM KDEM CD 
pdf how-to read a cable
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FM AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3446
INFO RUEHUJA/AMEMBASSY ABUJA 1014
RUEHAR/AMEMBASSY ACCRA 0309
RUEHDS/AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA 0677
RUEHBP/AMEMBASSY BAMAKO 0553
RUEHKM/AMEMBASSY KAMPALA 0352
RUEHKH/AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM 0094
RUEHLC/AMEMBASSY LIBREVILLE 0750
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 1251
RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI 0515
RUEHNM/AMEMBASSY NIAMEY 2531
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 1638
RUEHYD/AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE 1011
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0642
UNCLAS NDJAMENA 000487 

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

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

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM CD
SUBJECT: CHAD: KEBZABO ON OPPOSITION UNITY AND OBSTRUCTION


UNCLAS NDJAMENA 000487

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

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

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM CD
SUBJECT: CHAD: KEBZABO ON OPPOSITION UNITY AND OBSTRUCTION



1. (SBU) Summary: Southern Muslim leader Kebzabo
acknowledges that the regime has more to fear from the armed
rebels than from the democratic opposition but the latter is
relatively unified for the first time and determined to go
beyond boycotting the coming election. End Summary.


2. (SBU) Saleh Kebzabo, just returned from travel to Mali,
received poloff March 31 for a two-hour discussion. He
dismissed rumors that he had been traveling because he wanted
to avoid pressure from President Deby and his henchmen to put
his name forward as a candidate in the May 3 presidential
election or because he wanted to distance himself from his
fellow opposition leaders in the coalition CPDC. The trip to
Bamako was a long-standing plan, and during his travel he had
maintained constant contact with his CPDC partners. He was
aware that a few of the lesser CPDC leaders had been
approached by Deby with significant enticements, but he had
not been personally so approached, and it was notable that
none of the 20 party leaders in the CPDC had succumbed. The
four personages who had thrown their name in as candidates
were, according to Kebzabo, of course not worth discussing,
not opposition at all but mere Deby hangers-on.


3. (SBU) Kebzabo said that the upcoming election
represented a tragic backward step for Chad. It would be the
worst election farce since Deby came to power. Kebzabo did
not enjoy boycotting elections. He wanted to run. He would
have done so again in this election, even if he were sure
Deby had retained the capability to fix the result, if only
Deby had made a few concessions, just a little nod in the
direction of democracy. Deby could have made a modicum of
effort to talk to the opposition, he could have cleaned up a
few of the many major areas of fraud, such as the double
documentation at voting booths or the four days allotted to
nomads for voting or the fictive voter registration. But
Deby had been unwilling to pursue even the most superficial
dialogue or make the most superficial concessions. Certain
of his total support from France and apparently certain of
the passivity of the rest of the international community,

Kebzabo said pointedly, Deby had treated the democratic
opposition as if it did not count or exist.


4. (SBU) Kebzabo acknowledged that there were limits to what
the democratic opposition could do to get Deby's attention.
The overwhelming boycott and universal lack of interest in
the June 2005 referendum that had granted Deby the right to
run for a third term had not seemed to bother him much. The
democratic opposition would have to do more now than merely
boycott. Thus, the CPDC was determined that there would be
an "active boycott." The CPDC leadership had not yet
coordinated a detailed strategy, but, suffice to say, there
would be widespread attempts by the opposition to prevent the
actual vote taking place. Kebzabo admitted that Deby had a
monopoly on the nation's force of arms and resources and, for
this reason, Deby would probably be able to prevail easily in
squelching this "active boycott." But he had given the
democratic opposition no option but to do what it could --
with its limited capabilities and its mind-set oriented to
peaceful methods -- to stand up to this charade.


5. (SBU) What made the election even more of a charade,
Kebzabo said, was the present context of coup plots and
warfare on the eastern frontier. By a long shot, Deby was
not so cavalier about the armed opposition as he was the
democratic opposition, and, sad as it was to say, he had far
more reason to be preoccupied with the armed opposition,
given how he himself came to power. For his part, Kebzabo
said he deeply feared an armed takeover -- in this, he shared
Deby's concern. Kebzabo said that he was in contact with
certain of the rebels (he refused to give more information on
this point) and could affirm that the battle at Hadjar
Marfaine on March 20 was not nearly the sweeping victory over
the SCUD rebels that the government or journalists had
portrayed. The journalists had been shown only what the
government wanted them to see. The SCUD retained the
capacity to have another go and was regrouping, according to
his information. Meanwhile, Kebzabo continued, the previous
day (March 30) the Chadian armed forces had suffered a severe
blow further south at the hands of Mahamat Nour's RDL. This
sort of fighting, with potentially severe consequences for
the Chadian armed forces and for Deby, was likely to continue
right up to the election, and beyond, in Kebzabo's estimation.


6. (SBU) Poloff asked whether Kebzabo thought his somewhat
unusual status as a Southerner who was also a Muslim gave him
any advantage as an aspirant to national office. Kebzabo
said that religion was, or had become in recent years, the
most potent dividing line in a much-divided nation. However,
he had always seen himself -- and been widely seen among the
populace -- as a Southerner planted in Lere, and not
particularly as a Muslim. When he had campaigned for
president in 2001, he had not wanted to try to exploit the
Muslim card in any way, because it was a dangerously
two-edged sword -- emphasis on it could cause loss of
Christian support while not bringing in Muslim support.
Chadians of his generation had not tended to see the country
through a religious or ethnic perspective, as Chadians did
now. There had been a North and a South and people had
thought of a few major ethnic groups, Gorane and Sarah but
not much else. Few had even heard of the word "Zaghawa,"
much less of any Zaghawa clans and subclans.


7. (SBU) Kebzabo said that Deby had fomented ethnic
perception and dissension, as it was essential to his
continued hold on power that the Muslims and Northerners
automatically oppose any Southerner or Christian. The regime
used many methods to fix the results of the elections, but
one of the most potent methods was not electoral fraud in the
technical sense of tampering with results -- it was the use
of prefects and sub-prefects to fan out to every village
chief, especially in Muslim areas, to twist their arm to turn
out a unified village vote for the regime. However, Kebzabo
believed that the regime could no longer automatically count
on the Muslim vote. Impoverishment and degradation were a
generalized phenomenon touching Muslim and Christian alike,
as all communities recognized that a tiny elite was robbing
them blind. The only way to know for sure how Muslims would
vote would be a free and fair election, which Deby was more
determined than ever to prevent.


8. (U) Bio note: Saleh Kebzabo heads the UNDR (Union
Nationale pour le Developpement et le Renouveau). He is a
Moundang from Lere on the Cameroon border in the South (Mayo
Kebbi Ouest),the country's most populated region. A
journalist, born in 1947, he became a major opposition figure
in the early 1990's, after having founded the country's first
independent weekly newspaper. He made a surprise decision in
1996 to back Deby during the first presidential election
campaign, explaining that he sought to promote national
unity. He served as foreign minister 1996-97, subsequently
as minister of public works/transportation and then as
minister of mines/energy/oil. He has served intermittently
in the National Assembly but now holds no official position.
WALL