The Multiple Experiences of Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965-1990 By M i r jam de B r u i j n and Ha n van D i j k 1 •• •• I. Introduction The political history of Chad has received considerable attention from historians and political scientists. Debate in this literature has mostly concerned national politics and the consequences of political and military events for the distribution of power at the national level. However, with the exception of Pairault (1994), hardly any attention has been paid to the consequences of political conflicts, violence and the protracted war at the regional and local levels and the local per·spectives on the war. Recent analyses of conflict situations in, for exarrl·ple, Zimbabwe, Sudan and Mozambique have shown that wars are complex social phenomena rather than straightforward struggles in support of political ideologies (Van Walraven & Abbink 2003: 15). 2 Re·sistance movements frequently have an ambiguous relationship with the peasant population they are supposed to be fighting for. Often ex-tensive coercion is needed to win popular support (Kriger 1992, Clap·· ham 1998), and in this process, the local population suffers. This influ .. ences political relations well after resistance n1ovements manage to u1-· timately gain power. Attention for such complexities recently entered the debate on the civil war in Chad itself (Saleh Yacoub & Ngothe Gatta 2005, Garonde Djarma 2003). Trends and coalitions at the national level may be relevant for understanding events at the regional level, though in many cases local political dynamics of an entirely different nature play a prominent role in the conflict at the regional and local levels. In this article we present an analysis of the civil war of Chad as it manifested itself in the Guera that has always been mentioned as one of the core regions of the civil war. Events in three villages and the pro .. 1 A first draft of this paper was presented at the NVAS (Netherlands Associa-tion of Africanists) conference, 25-26 September 2003, in the panel entitled 'Conflict, violence and "reconciliation" in Africa: Local level views and efforts'. 2 An impressive number of sources can be mentioned here. See Van Walraven & Abbink (2003) for a recent overview. 62 Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965-1990 Mirjam de Bruijn and Ran van Dijk vincial capital are discussed as different case studies of the local dynamics of the civil war. Next to the search for local war stories this article also investigates the linkages between the local and national stories of the civil war. This was not a simple task, because of the lack of historical data: archival sources were hardly available. The local archives were in complete disarray, parts had been destroyed during the troubles. Problems were also encountered when interviewing people about their experiences during this period because of the erratic character of human memory. Another dilemma is the comparison of data that are available for the national level and on local level. The differences in sources make comparison difficult. It is therefore that we rather see this article as a first and tentative attempt to show that an elaboration of this local perspective on the civil war may form the nucleus of an alternative and new interpretation of the Chadian civil war. • After introducing the research area, the next section of the article is devoted to a brief description of the major events that form the context at the national level based on our re-reading of the historical accounts available. Hereafter, attention will be given to how the Guera figured in relation to this national picture (as reported in the literature). Subsequently, a detailed account will be given of events in the Guera at the level of three villages, Korlongo, Baro and Bourzan, situated in the northeast of the Guera in the prefecture of Mango, and the regional capital itself. from shifting cultivation systems to more permanent croping~ tional resistance movement that was founded in 1966 and soon mana- ged to become a thorn in the side of the regular Chadian army. During the period from 1965 to 1990, the region was the scene of protracted war, with shifting balances of power between different component parts of resistance groups against the regime .in power, and with local rivalries. The landscape of the Gue:ra is dominated by mountain massives separated by plains of alluvial origin. The region is in the centre of Chad about 400 km from the capital (see map in introduction). The area is in de-- pending on the possibilities for fertilizing. The minority of Arab agro-pastoralists subsists on a combination of livestock keeping and cereal II. The Guera The Guera played a significant role in the war. The first peasant rebellion against oppressive policies imposed by the post--independence government of Ngarta Tombalbaye and his Parti Progressiste Tchadien occurred in this region in the district of Mangalme. Many regard this uprising as a key event that triggered off more general resistance against the Tombalbaye regime. After this, political turmoil acquired its own dynamics. The Gw\ra was soon infiltrated by armed units of the FROLINAT (Front pou·r la Liberation National du Tchad), a na- the middle of the Sahelian zone with approximately 500-600 mm rain .. fall per annum. The region, with a surface area of 58,950 km2 , is ruled by a governor based in Mango and subdivided into four prefectures: Mango, Bitkine, Mangalme and Melfi. These have recently been sub-divided into sous-prefectures after an administrative reorganization. The number of inhabitants in 1993 was 306,253 and now is probably around 400,000. The population, collectively called Hadjerai (mountain people in colloquial Arabic), consists of a number of distinct ethnic groups that each speak a different language. Each group inhabits roughly one of the mountain blocks that dominate the landscape. Until recently the Hadjerai were mainly adherents of an animist cult called the Margay but now the majority have converted to Islam, with a min .. ority being Christians and Animists. A minority group of Arab agro-pastoralists can be found on the plains, and in the northern part of the region. During the dry season they are joined by Arab pastoralists who spend the dry season in the area. The Hadjerai population mainly subsists on millet and sorghum farming. The women cultivate peanuts, and sesame both for subsis-tence and as a cash crop. The area has been suffering from recurrent droughts over the past decades, which cause wild oscillations in crop production. Soil fertility is generally low, making permanent cultiva-tion without inputs difficult. Cropping systems differ widely, ranging •• cultivation. Some of these groups have very ancient ties to the region whereas others have moved into the area following the droughts and the fighting in the 1970s and 1980s. Nomadic Arab herding cattle and camels exploit the bush pastures mainly during the dry season. Apart from cultivation, people survive on handicrafts and an increas-- ing number of men are migrating to the capital N'Djamena, Sudan and beyond to the Central African Republic, Cameroon and Nigeria to look for work to supplement their family incomes. The region is poor by all standards and has very little infrastructure (de Bruijn et al., 2004). The history of the area is marked by violence. Before the colonial er:a the Hadjerai fiercely resisted slave-raiding by the empires of Ouaddai and Baguirmi located to the east and west of the Guera. The Margay priests were the main source of political authority, with little political centralization above the level of local communities. With colonialism, a new form of administration was introduced. Headmen (chefs de canton) were appointed by the French, a structure modelled on neighbour-ing pre-colonial empires. This organization remained in force after in-- dependence. Only after 2000, attempts were made to decentralize terri-- 64 Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965-1990 torial administration by creating sous-prefectures at the level of former colonial cantons. This proeess of administrative decentralization is still in progress. In response to oppression and excessive taxation, the first peasant rebellions broke out in central and eastern Chad in September 196f•, beginning in Bitchotchi in the district of Mangalme. Moubi peasants killed members of a government delegation who came to demand unpaid taxes, after which severe repressive measures were taken by the Chadian army (Abbo Netcho 1997 Buijtenhuijs 1978, Azevedo 1998). The first incidents in the Tibesti took place in the same month (Lemoine 1997). Ill. The Chadian 'Civil War': 1965-1990 During the 1960s and HI 70s, the FROLINAT-led revolt attracted attention, not only because of the media coverage of the a:Efaire Claustre 3 , but also because of the heavy foreign involvement in the conflict, initially by France and later on by Libya and the United States. The Chadian conflict was among the first and lengthiest of the so-called liberation wars in Africa (cf. Clapham 1998, Konings et al. 2000). In the general context of the Cold War, Libya's involvement in Chad was a constant worry for Western interests. Chad was considered to be of strategic interest because of its position between North and Central Africa, and East and West Africa, and as a place where various religions (Muslim, Christian and Animist), and cultures (Arabo-Berber and African) meet. Compared to other form2r French colonies, Chad was more disadvantaged when embarking upon independence. This landlocked country had little economic importance. There was no infrastructure, communication networks were not in place and there were very few educated people, with those that were educated being mainly from the south of the country. It was not possible to ensure even the most rudimentary form of administration in large parts of the country. The northern region known as BET (Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti), a virtually unpopulated desert area, remained under French administration until1965. Southern civil servants lacked credibility in the eyes of the northern populations because they belonged to groups they used to enslave. Moreover, these southern civil servants thought the time had come for them to oppress the northern populations after centuries of slave raiding (Buijtenhuijs 1978, Nolutshungu 1996). Political problems began soon after independence, when the regime oE Fran9ois (who later took the name Ngarta) Tombalbaye derailed in its attempts to hang on to power. Soon after independence, Tombalbaye established a one-party regime. One by one his political adversaries were accused of plotting against him, arrested, exiled or killed. In this process the north became increasingly marginalized politically and southerners came to occupy all the positions of power. Fran<;oise Claustre, a French archaeologist, was abducted by the FROLINAT forces (the army led by Hissein Habn§), and held hostage in the Tibesti region for 3 almost three years (21 April1974 until! February 1977) (see Claustre 1990). • 6i) Since independence, opposition to the Chadian government was growing among Cbadian migrants and refugees in Sudan and Egypt. This Chadian movement in exile was the precursor of the FROLINAT that was founded in Nyala (Sudan) on June 22, 1966 under the leadership of Ibrahima Abatcha. In the same year FROLINAT started attacks in the central and eastern parts of Chad, joining the existing peasant rebellions (Buijtenhuijs 1978, Lemoine 1997). By the end of 1968, the Chadian government had also to confront opposition in the northern provinces, the BET. 4 With the participation of northern population groups (Toubous or alternatively Goranes) in the rebellion, FROLINAT began to diversify. Within the original FROLINAT, internal strife began after the death o:E Ibrahima Abatcha in battle on February 11, 1968 with the question of who was to succeed him. A further complicating factor was the problem of how to coordinate military action and yet maintain contact in such a vast territory and with the very limited means available. The various FROLINAT units in the field, the 1'' Army in the centre and the east and later on the znd Army in the BET, had to act mostly using their own intelligence, and were effectively autonomous. • During the period from 1968 to 1973, the struggle against the government was characterized by low-level warfare with few resources (Azevedo 1998). With the firm backing of France, the Tombalbaye regime was in no danger despite the ine:Efectiveness of the regular Chadi.an army. However, FROLINAT forces increasingly took hold of the countryside in the north and east of the country. At the beginning of the 1970s, the French forces that had intervened in Chad su:Efered serious losses in skirmishes with rebel groups that were better equipped than anticipated. French e:Eforts were stepped up, and FROLINATwas put on the defensive. In the meantime divisions in the FROLINAT front became visible. Serious tensions arose between 4 Buijtenhuijs (1978) denoted the armed opposition with the French word Maquis which was the name of the French underground resistance against the Nazi regime during the Second World War. It is interesting to note that in E:urope the underground movement was seen in a positive light. 66 Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965-1990 the 1'' and the 2nd armies. The 1''Army, originating in the east of the country and supported b~ the Libyan government led by Gadaffi, recl~Imed the leadership oJ: FROLINAT without consulting the leadership (Goukouni Oueddei) of the 2nd Army, the FAP, (Forces Armees Populaires) that came from the north. This led to fighting between the two gro~ps. Hissein Habre organized resistance against -Libyan influence m Chad and created the CCFAN (Conseil de Commandement des Forces Armees du Nord) in 1976 or FAN (Forces Armees du Nord) as It came to be called later on, a third power bloc within FROLINAT that would become Habre's personal vehicle to power (Buijtenhuijs 1987, Azevedo 1998). Moreover Habre began to beat the drum of militant Islam in the north and confront Christians and animists (Noltshungu 1996, Azevedo 1998). Armed clashes began on February 12, 1979 between the FAN and the anned forces within the Chadian army loyal to General Malloum. The 1'' Army and some smaller factions belonging to FROLINAT poured into N'Djamena to support Habre, and the Chadian army retreated southwards. The southern inhabitants of N'Djamena fled the city and mass killings took place both of southerners in the north and of northerners in the south. With these events, the fission between north and south acquired a distinct character. The south was now ruled by the Comite Permanent, headed by Colonel Kamougue, while the north was split among a number of factions originating from the totally fragmented FROLINAT, each of which formed a provisional government in its own area. The population was obliged to pay for the continuing civil war (Dadi 1987: 156-7). From 1973 onwards, the political and military situation deteriorated rapidly. The president of Chad adopted a collision course with large parts of the population: his French allies and his own army with his movement towards Afncan authenticity inspired by the examples of M.obuto in Zaire and Caribbean advisors. He ceded control over the Aouzou strip in the extreme north of the country to Gadaffi, which was deeply resented by the opposition and his own entourage. Senior army officers were arrested and imprisoned. The troops fighting in the north were underprovisioned and ineffective. The military coup d'etat against Tombalbaye during the night of April13, 1975 surprised nobody. 5 • When Felix M.alloum as chair of the CSM. (Conseil Superieur Militaire) came to power in 1975, the FROLINAT rebellion could still be controlled. Most opposition leaders realizing this were inclined to start negotiations with the military government in N'Djamena. However, the harsh and pate_rnalistic to:aes from the capital, supported by France, led to a hardenmg of positJ.ons. Libya gave military support to the opposition. By 1978 the whole of the north was under the control of the opposition. For the moment the regime of Felix Malloum was saved by FROLINAT's inability fonn a united front. The anti-Libya party, headed by Hissem Habre and his FAN, negotiated a new structure for the governance of Chad in 1978 under the heading of the' Charte Fondamentale, which envisaged a better partitioning of political power between the north and the south of the country, and reform of the adminI~traive and military apparatus of Chad. Following this agreement, Fehx Malloum remained president and Hissein Habre became prime minister. t? The pact soon crumbled because of fundamental disagreement between Malloum and Habre over the distribution of cornpetences, which paralysed the whole administration (Dadi 1987, Buijtenhuijs 1987). . It v;ras ~ore ~urpisng that he succeeded in clinging on to power despite his mcreasmg 1solatwn, madness and heavy drinking (Noltshungu 1996). 5 • El'/ During 1979 a number of initiatives were taken to repair the damage and to arrive at some form of government. After a brief interlude with Lol Mahamat Choua as president, Goukouni Oueddel became presi.-' dent of the GUNT (Gouvernement d'Union Nationale de Transition). During the following years, the role of the Libyans was crucial: they increasingly infiltrated Chad and selectively supported a number of different factions. Until 1982 the situation was very unclear. The GUNT was soon torn apart by internal discord. Some factions had the support of Libya and wanted French troops to leave the country and allow greater Libyan influence. The FAN, led by Hissein Habre who was the Minister of Defence in the GUNT, was squarely opposed to any Libyan influenee in Chad and wanted Libyan troops to leave the country. Goukouni Oueddel, who was acting as president, kept to the middle of the road. Insecurity reigned throughout the country. In the east, armed clashes started in 1980 between the FAN and the pro-Libyan factions. Initially the FAN was defeated and retreated to Sudan but with support from France, the United States and Sudan, it regained control of the centre of the country and took N'Djamena in the middle of 1982 (Lemoine 1997). From 1982 to 1987 the Chadian conflict was dominated by the Libyan invasion and occupation of the north and the involvement of both France and the United States in the Cold War struggle between Libya with the Soviet Union in the background and a hesitant France with the US in the background. This is not to downplay the role of the Chadian parties, but opposition to Hissein Habre disunited the GUNT and under the much-contested leadership of Goukouni Oueddei: it became increasingly a client of Moarnmar Gadaffi. 68 Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk Military activities predominantly took place in the north which was occupied by the Libyans who were behaving like conquero;s, and soon lost support among the Gorane/Toubou section of the population. Around 1986, Goukoum Oueddel decided to side with the FAN' of Hissein Habre. He was subsequently arrested and shot in the stomach by the Libyans (Lemoine 1997: 273-4). The CDR (Conseil Democratique Revolutionaire -the Arab party) was the most loyal ally of Gadaffi and was enl!rely dependent upon Libya for its military supplies. Govern" ment forces under Habre received enormous support from the French and the Americans. The opposition and Libyan forces were annihilated and dr1ven back far into Libya in the course of 1987. FROLINAT as a relevant political and military entity, ceased to exist because of internal discord. In the south a rebellion by the Codos, a loosely knit movement of southern rebels with no articulated political programme, attracted the most attentwn and incited severe repression by the FANT in the southern districts. Due to insecurity here too, the situation was very bad for the local population. . Hissein Habre used two methods to remain in power. One was the brutal repression of all forces opposing his regime. A conservative estimate is that 40,000 people were killed and many more were imprisoned and tortured by the DDS (Direction de la Documentation et de la Securite), his secret service. A second strategy he followed was the coaptation of former opponents into his government and the army. However, th1s led to diScontent amongst his closest aids because he created powerful losers within his own following (Atlas & Licklider 1999: 44, Foltz 1995: 29). W1th the opposition outside his movement being powerless, any challenge would only come from inside. A dissident movement led·by the Hadjerai, the MOSANAT (Mouvement pour le Salut Natzonal du Tchad), was brutally repressed (Buijtenhuijs 1987, Nolutshungu 1996). When two of his closest aids, Idriss Deby and Hassan D]amous, defected in April 1989 and escaped to Sudan, they started the MPS (Mouvement Patriotique du Salut), with an important Hadjerm component composed of the remains of the MOSANAT and HadjeraJ refugees m Sudan. From April to December 1990 the MPS defeated the forces of the Chadian government and took over N'Djamena on December 2, 1990. ~espit numerous armed uprisillgs and punitive expeditions, the De by government has remained in power ever since. Essentially Deby 6 H~baptized FANT (Forces Arm{es Nationales Tchadiennes) because of the southern troops in the FAN, though FAN elements remained entirely dommant. l~cuswn . ?f Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965-1990 • 69 has followed the same strategy as Hissein Habre by eo-opting former enemies into his government. Unlike in the Habre era, this did not result in his downfall, probably because he has allowed multi-party democracy and the expression of dissen.t. Discontent and political struggle have thus been channelled through state institutions instead of the use of violence, despite alleged fraudulent elections, authoritarian periods and political manipulation at all levels (Atlas & Licklider 1999: 46, Buijtenhuijs 1998). The current situation of near chaos with the Darfur crisis and violent resistance by a coalition of discontented former Deby allies shows how fragile these coalitions are in the Chadian context (de Bruijn & Van Dijk 2006, ICG 2006) . IV. The Gut\ra and the Hadjerai in the 'Civil War' In the early phase of its existence FROLINAT claimed to be in charge of a popular revolt against imperialism based on the support of the ma-· jority of the Chadian population. As this FROLINAT text dated 196H stated: Grace a la confiance et au soutien de nos masses populaires le Frolinat a reus-· si a se renforcer militairement et poUtiquement a l'intirieur du pays en libfir.. ant des regions entieres du territoire national ... (cited in Buijtenhuijs 197B:: 197- 80) • However, in 1978 Buijtenhuijs was already raising doubts as to whether forces associated with FROLINAT did indeed control these areas. To what extent were they in command of the situation in the countryside? What was the character of their relations with the popu-· lation? Where were the regions that they claimed to control? Did they establish an administrative structure and service delivery? Reading Buijtenhuijs (1978), one cannot but conclude that the differences be-· tween the regions and between ethnic groups were significant. In some areas FROLINAT did not lead the opposition at all as the population did not accept their authority (Buijtenhuijs 1978: 173-4). In the south they had very little presence. Later on, FROLINAT fell apart into a. number of factions, which was not conducive to having control over the countryside. So the situation in the Guera described below is certainly not representative of the whole of Chad. Though most of the literature and research on the history of revolts and the civil war in Chad focus on the national level and very little is known about the course of events at a regional level, the Guera fea-· tures regularly in the main sources on the civil war (Buijtenhuijs 197B, 1987, Nolutshungu 1996, Lemoine 1997, Azevedo 1998, Garonde 200:1, Saleh Yacoub & Ngothe Gatta 2005). Throughout the whole period cov- '10 Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk Civil War in the Gw§ra Region of Chad, 1965-1990 ered by this article (1965 -1990), the Guera was at centre stage in two ways. Firstly, the Guera was part of the battleground. Armed groups were soon present in the bush, and tried to gain a hold over the population and the countryside. Therefore, especially at the beginning of the conflict, the Guera was an important area over which the government needed to try to impose order, as a citation Buijtenhuijs found in a military document from the late 1960s shows. "Passons au Gu€ra, oU d'€normes efforts ont ete faits par les forces arm€es, mais oU malheureusement les r€sultats n'ont pas ete concluants. La situation est stagnante, et la population nous €chappe. C'est d'ailleu:rs l'endroit oU il y a le mains de milices villageoises susceptibles cJletre constituees ... Au Gu€ra done, un gras effort est a aecomplir sur la population ... " (Buijtenhuijs 1978: 174) The second way in which the Guera was drawn into the conflict was the participation of the Hadjerai in the anned forces both on the side of the government and the rebels. According to current wisdom, the regular Chadian army was mainly composed of southerners, and the rebel forces were primarily Arabs and Goranes from the north. However, the number of Hadjerai 7 from the Guera on both sides in the conflict was considerable and some rose to high-level positions and at times opposed those in power, which led to severe repression in the Guera itself. by Buijtenhuijs's observation that most of them had a background in Koranic education (1978: 135- 6). • 7 In pre-colonial times, the Hadjerai ferociously defended thei'r area against the armies of the surrounding slave-raiding empires. Under colonial rule many Hadjerai joined the French army, which still has an office in Mango to pay out army pensions. After independence, the Chadian army also took them on as military personnel. Many Hadjerai men migrated to Sudan to work and escape oppression by the Tombalbaye regime, and joined F'ROLINAT factions as well. However, only rough estimates are available about the ethnic and regional composition of the various FROLINAT armies (Buijtenhuijs 1978, 1987, Lemoine 1997). According to sources cited in Buijtenhuijs (19'78: 174-8), large parts of the centre and the east of the country were controlled by 'bandits', who were not only causing insecurity and attacks on military targets but were also able to paralyse the economy. They demolished schools and clinics in the countryside (they needed money and medicme) (BmJtenhuijs 1978: 141). The provisioning of fuel and basic food and clothing was disrupted, and the shops were empty. 'Pour l~ se':' le prefecture du Guera, dont les besoins ont ete chiffres par le Pnifet a 2100 tonnes seulement 80 tonnes ant ete acheminees ace jour.' 8 According to Intelligence reports, FROLINAT rebels surrounded a number of rural towns and were in 'a position to ensure the fall of Mango ... Within a fe~v weeks' (Mitchell1972 cited in Buijtenhuijs 1978: 208). Because of this situation, Tombalbaye asked the French army for support and, with assistance from helicopters, the French army wiped out the maJonty of the 200-300 armed bands in the course of 1970. However, Libya started to support FROLINAT and despite several setbacks in battle, rebel forces regained control of the countryside 10: the Guera by the end of 1972. As a result, almost half of the school>. were closed livestock keeping was no longer possible because of theft., and clinics had been pillaged and no longer functioned properly. There was no public transport and trade possible because of the msecunty, and cereal stocks and standing crops were pillaged by rebels, which numbered approximately 2,000 men (Buijtenhuijs 1978: 260). The First Years of Rebellion (1965-1975) Soon after the revolts against the Tombalbaye regime started in Mangalme in 1966, the first skirmishes occurred between rebel groups hiding in the bush and the regular Chadian army. These bands were mainly on the plains because of insufficient water in the higher parts of the mountains. According to testimonies recorded by Buijtenhuijs (1978: 133-4), rebels presented themselves in the villages to explain th.eir activities and objectives and asked per:mission to recruit youths from the villages. An anonymous observer adds that in the Guera these recruits were mainly youth who were required to leave school because of their 'advanced' age or their bad behaviour, which is contradicted 71 • All these military results were attained despite the fact that the 1" Army, which was active in the region, was su~ering from 1nt~ral du:-~ cord and fighting with Arab factions. The fmal result was that onlo administrative centers were occupied by the regular army while the countryside was abandoned to the rebels where they could do wh~i: they wanted. Local chiefs- the ch~fs de canton- retreated to the capt-tals of the districts of Mango, Melfi and Bitkme. There was hardly any control by the FROLINAT leadership of the bands active in the field and as a result of the lack of educated p~ole in these bands, there was no trace of any form of regular. administra·tion. The rebels had to live off the population and levied taxes on money and food. The zakat (Islamic income tax) was also levied. Ac·cording to documents from FROLINAT itself, village committees were set up to take care of political education but it is d,oubtful whether these committees really had any importance m the Guera. s Official document cited in Buijtenhuijs (1978). 72 Habre in Power (1982-1990) After Hissein Habre took power, the fighting moved to the n~rth of Chad and relative calm reigned in the Guera until 1986. Habre ruled the c~untry with an iron fist in the Guera as well as elsewhere. The Hadjerai played an important role in the FAN, which could be ex .. · d by the animosity between the Hadjerai and the 1'' Army and l ame pthe 't t' in the CDR, which had been dominating t h e mi'l't I ary SI ua IOn . Guera for a long time and did not enjoy good relatwns with the Had]8'.( below). Moreover the 1''Army and the CDR were controlled by rai see d' . d t d for a Arabs, the traditional adversaries of the Ha Jerai an suppor e long time by Libya-' Secondly, the second-in-command m the FA~ Idriss Miskine, who was also Minister of Foreign Affarrs when Habre In the literature very little is said about the economic and food security situation during this period, although in other Sahelian countries famine was ravaging the countryside. In the absence of trade, transport and security, it is doubtful whether aid agencies were able to distribute food in the Guera. It is not known whether rainfall was deficient or not, as production figures for crops and rainfall figures we;e not collected. Years of Turbulence (1975 --1982) Whereas during the last years of the Tombalbaye regime there seems to have been a lull in the fighting because the Chadian army gave up its efforts to control the countryside in the Guera, this began to change after the CSM (Conseil Superieure Militaire) took power. When it became clear that peace could not be achieved at the negotiating table, the 1' 1 Army and its offshoot - the Vulcan Army - started to be increasingly dependent on outside aid from Libya and that coming indirectly from socialist countries. Following a conflict over the leadership of the 1'1 Army, a new Arab-dominated group, the Conseil Democratique Revolutionaire, was established in the Guera in 1979. Another development is what could be labeled the gradual 'professionalization' of warfare, with more sophitcae~d weaponry and bettertrained combatants on both sides as a result of the influence of Libya and France. When the north and the south of Chad were divided after the events in February 1979 and the ascent to power of the GUNT, the Guera was dominated by the 1'' Army and the CDR, both supported by Libya (Dadi 1987: 157, Buijtenhuijs 1984: 22). However, from the sources available it is not clear who was in power in which place in the Guera. As tension increased between the FAN and the GUNT in the capital, fighting broke out between the 1'' Army and the FAN of Hissein Habre in March 1980. A few days later, the FAN attacked Mango, which was also held by the 1" Army, and took over the city (Lemoine 1997: 182). Other FROLINAT factions supporting the GUNT (FAC and FAP) started fighting the FAN in N'Djamena. As these factions were backed by Libya, FAN had to retreat eastwards and when, backed by France, it opened an offenaive in Chad, the eentre of the country was one of its targets because of its strategic location on the route to N'Djamena. In 1981 fighting also broke out between the CDR and the 1'' Army in Mango. The FAN conquered Oum Hadjer in December 1981 and by the middle of 1982 the centre of Chad was under the control of the FAN. Fighting between the FAN and remnants of the CDR continued in the Guera and the north until December 1982 (Lemoine 1997: 233, 238). 73 Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965-1990 Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk • I • became president, was a Hadjerai and was very popular, even among Habre's opponents. Relations between the Hadjerai and the FAN were marked by ten. though By 1983 Hadjerai had defected from the newly formed swn, · ' ~ h d· ) when Chadian army (FANT: Forces Armees Nationa 1es .c a zennes .. fighting forces of the GUNT in the north of Chad. Relatwns becamE even more strained after the death of Idriss Miskme m 1984 fr.om ma· lariaiO because the Anakaza, the ethnic group of Hissem Habre, doml·· nated politics. In October 1986 the Mouvement pour le Salut Natwnal du Tchad (MOSANAT) was founded under HadJerai leadership. In 1987 the last two Hadjerai ministers were removed from govern-· t hich made conflict between the Hadjerai and Habre mevitable. ;~n M~SANT allied itself in 1987 with a FROLINAT faction (FRO· LI~AT-Orignel) and the 1'1 Army and this coalition started a reblw~: from Sudan in 1987. The Guera paid a heavy pnce as dozens of village,, were destroyed during the government campargn to wipe out ;he op~:· sition and numerous educated Hadjerai were executed 1n N DJ amend. and in the Guera itself (Foltz 1995: 28-9). · 1989 hen Idriss Deby was organizing his rebellion, the Later on, m w . · d s l t) f Idriss MOSANAT joined the MPS (Mouvement Patrwtzque u . a u o . D "by Again the Hadjerai played an important role m a rebellwn a:i~st the :Habr€ regime and they were anwng the troops that defeated the FANT in the course of 1990. In conclusion there is only very general information available about the Guera in so~rce on the civil war and the political history of Chad. The historiography of the war is solely concerned with natwnal effects :he t . • 9 10 "t h .. (1984· 19-22} for a discussion of CDR relations with Libya. See B m] en UlJS . . . :,. According to rumours, there were major divergences between h1m and H.L.>- sein Habre. '14 Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965-1990 and not with the impact of the war at a regional and local level. In as far as local and regional events are mentioned, they are squarely put within this national framework, and regional and local specificities are absent. The diversity and cultural, linguistic and historical differences among the Hadjerai are neglected or downplayed to show the role they play at the national level. This means that local and regional histories, not only of the Guera but also of other regions in Chad, are still to he written. V. Local Histories of Civil War in the Guera In this section the question as to what this period of war meant for the people on the ground is central. Did they experience war and, if so, what kind of war was it? Were all the people involved in the same way? What are their perspectives of the war? Do these people's stories reflect the national dynamics of the war and the involvement of the Hadjerai as they are described above? Are the national and local merged in this sense or are they separt~? To understand the experience of war at a local level, one should consider local history but investigating local histories of war and of situations of crisis is not easy. What do people remember of these difficu1t periods? What do they want to share with an outsider? Wartime experiences are full of tension. People were sometimes forced to do things that they may regret in retrospect, or the whole period is loaded with bad memories which are difficult to relate to a stranger or that are too traumatic to be remembered at all. Memories of past experiences are also moulded to fit present concerns. Some parts are left out, while others are emphasized. Interviews about people's experiences during the war were held in villages as well as in urhan settings, N'Djamena and Mango the district capital, and among migrants from the Guera villages. 11 The difficulties we encountered to gather information is illustrated by the following example. In the villages where we did research, nobody except for people with political functions claimed to have taken part in any of the movements. However, many Hadjerai we interviewed claimed that the Hadjerai were the ones who helped Hissein Habre and Idriss Deby to power. These must have been other Hadjerai than those we encountered. 12 ll !hro~gut the articl~ people remain anonymous to protect their security. Despite th1s, some people w1ll be recognizable because of their role and/ or function. now or in the past. The criterion used to decide whether or not to report these stones was whether the events in the story were public knowledge or nOt. J2 El Hadj Garonde, however, also mentions very few Hadjerai in his eyewitness account (Garonde Djarma 2003). • • 7[) Either the claim is false, or these were Hadjerai who were already disconnected from rural society, or became disconnected during the war. The final possibility is that they were killed during the various massacres that took place in the Guera and N'Djarnena. Those who were part of the movement may also be disinclined to talk about their role in the civil war. The whole period, with all the atrocities committed and the ethnic and religious cleavages involved is a source of political tension. An open and honest discussion about all these evn~s se~m n~t possible as many of those involved are still in place, and th1s m1ght sbr up old and new conflicts. An important number of the informants who shared part of their war experiences with us were ordinary villagers during the time ~f thewar. Some occupied political positions in the villages and were lmked to the organization of national government in that sense. In the fol-· lowing section we give a sketch of the situation as it was ex~rincd: by these people in the small town of Mango and the three v1llages ot Baro Bourzan and Korlongo. Mango is an admm1strabve town ot 20 000 inhabitants and is the capital of the Guera. Baro is the main village of the Migaami canton, now a sous-prefecture. It has 5,000 in-· habitants and is situated 30 km south of the main road between Man-· go and Mangalme, east of the Abu Telfan massif. Bourzan is a small village of 600 inhabitants along the road from Mango to Am Timam 40 km south of Mango, and Korlongo is located 20 km west of Mango some kilometres north of the road to Bitkine and has approximately 4 000 inhabitants. Below, we summarize the results of the interviews V.:ith (former) inhabitants of these four sites in which we concentrated our research efforts. 13 The interviews revealed that despite the com·rnon history of the area, there was considerable variation in war ~x·­ periences and local perspectives from one village to another. In the m·terviews themes were discussed that may help to assess the mfluence of the w~r on the villages and its population and to gain some insight into the relationship between the local and the national war stories. These themes were 1) violence and repression; 2) the organisation of the rebellion· and 3) the role of religion and ideology; moreover, the differences b~twen the various sites can partly be explained by th1~ variation in the relations between those who are considered rebels and the leading chiefs and administrators in the villages (see below, section 6). Despite the diversity in data and inevitable subjectivity, the case studies offer an interesting view of the way in which their geographical situation, political position in the past, their accessibility, and 13 These villages were not selected because of their war histori.es but becau~ of the migrant communities we interviewed in N'DjamEma. The h1story of war lS only one part of our research project in Chad. Civil War in the Gui§ra Region of Chad, 1965-1990 Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk 76 their degree of integratJ·.on m · t o th e mo d ern world influenced their wartime experiences. Mango: District Capital, Safe Haven? As an administrative centre, Mongo was a. centre of military activit though not necessarily the centre of fighting. During the civil war the;;; were very few safe havens for the ordinary people. In the northeastern part of the Guera, Mongo was probably such a place. During this period the number of mhabitants in Mongo increased and a new quarter (Secteur4) was created (see de Bruijn 2006). In the first period of the war, until 1979, Mango was a site of refuge for many people as it was more or less under the control of the regular Chadian army. In the poorest quarter on the eastern outskirts of Mango (Secteur 4), we encountered several people who had fled their villages during the war and beco~e mternally displaced people. When the CDR took control in Mango m 1979 they fled back to their villages because they felt more secure there. As an old Arab who left his village told us: · . · me rap?eI ant les annees bandits n:" d~ne r~en lorsque les 5 a 6 p.ersonn.es ~ues • complex with a boarding school, a church and houses for the clerics, next to today's Secteur 4. The head of this church left his house during the first attack and was shot dead. The others fled, and tbe buildings were deserted. The soldiers of the CDR subsequently occupied the 4 buildings and lived off the local population.I What many people painfully regret is the destruction of the beautiful gardens around Mongo. The CDR cut down all the fruit trees and destroyed the environment, creating the empty space that is now Secteur 4. On the other hand, this quarter attracted many refugees, especially when the Red Cross set up a food distribution centre there on the vacant ground next to the Protestant mission during the 1983-1984 droughts and the area became 15 home to refugees and people bit by the famine. Now this area has been transformed into a residential part of town where extremely poor people can still be found. This impression of experiences during the war in Mongo suggests displacement and refuge that may be typical for the whole zone. The stories we gathered in the three villages show similar patterns. aOyo: celui qui a beaucoup de b€tail qui Baro: Between Government and Rebel Troops b~ndits se presentent, on tranche sa gorge ( .. ,) Je te~oms devant moi, que je connais. Si les rebelles se presente.nt au VIllage, ils nnposent 8. la population de payer 50.000 f.t 100.000 FCFA, s1 ce ~·est p~s fait, ils torturent et tuent la population. S'ils .attrapent un chef de. v11lage, 1l faut le sauver en donnant le prix fix€ par les rebelles si non, on llil tranche la gorge. Mais aussi a chaque fois qu'ils se pn§sentent 'un taureau ou des chevres et rnoutons sont abattus a leur honneur Il t, str t 'g' · t · s on une a e le qu~ es 1a suite: l:s _re belles, ils descendent a des kilometres du vil~age et envment quelques elements pour ce travail, si les villageois refusent tls les rackettent." ' On th€ other hand when another movement took over, this often entaJ.led new hardships and a period of insecurity. A tailor now Jiving in Mango explamed: "En ce qui concerne le CDH, nous avons fui ce quartier, presque toutes les p;rso?nes sauf les r:belles qui l'occupaient. Moi en question, je suis all€ me refug1er dans, man v1llage. Je suis sorti de Terr.nel au secours au village en entendant les resonances. des o.rr.nes lourdes, et meme derriere moi croyant que les reb~ls sont en tram de me poursuivre. Arrive au village les r€sonances des fuslls s'entendaient. J'ai passe quelque temps lil-bas 5 a~s. Ma rais d la f m,·t e e t a1, 't qu~ on e J., a1. eu peur d e la mort. En ce temps, j'ai 'fui la mort, je n'€tais pas la. Se r;~uge clans un trou des montagnes, on te poursuit toujours. Pendant m on se] our au village, je suis revenu encore ~tla famine." ' of Mongo is today partly a result of the The present apernc~ events that happened durmg the war. When the CDR occupied Mongo town, they established their headquarters in the Protestant mission, a • Baro is located at the entrance to two valleys that lead into the Abu Telfan Massif, which is a nature reserve where restrictions on the use of natural resources are officially in force. This reserve provides dryseason pasture for pastoralists. A big wadi that meanders through Baro contains water during the rainy season and in the dry season shallow weils are dug in its bed to provide water. The wadi and its direct surroundings provide good agricultural land. Both tbe water situation and the reserve make Baro an attractive place to live for cultivators and herders. Over the past decades this area has attracted many Arab livestock keepers from the north searching better pasture areas. Consequently, more and more nomads have. settled in the region. The original inhabitants of Baro belong to the Migaame, or Djongor Abu Telfan, as they are called in the older literature (Fuchs 19'10, Vincent 1987). During the 20th centUty Baro was one of the areas where French schooling and the Catholic mission had a lot of influence. As a result, the Migaame are among the better educated, and many work aS civH servants in town. At present Baro is also relatively well provisioned in terms of government services and social care. There are several elementary schools and since 2004 a secondary school that is run by the Catholic mission. The village has a dispensary originally established Interview with the head of the Protestant church in 2003. 15 Interview with various old ladies in Secteur 4, see also de Bruijn 2006. 14 r 78 Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk by the Catholic mission, an extension agent of the agricultural service, and several NGOs run programmes in the area. ·Despite this, poverty is Widespread and there are numerous female-headed households that are struggling to survive. Many inhabitants are dependent on remittances from relatives in town. In spite of its long presence in the area th~ Catholic c~urh does not have a large foilowing at present: the ma~ Jonty of Ba_ro s mhab1tants are Muslim, and the Margay cult, the animistic rehgwn of the Hadjerai related to the mountain spirits, still has some influence. Th.e info~mat on Baro was collected from migrants in N'Djamena and mhabitants of Baro who lived through the war. Many people fled the VIllage and settled in N'Djamena, Cameroon and even Nigeria. Only a .Eew of them have returned to Baro. 16 Many of these informants had gone to school, including the chef de canton, who was directly involved m the rebelliOn at a certain stage, and we were able to com.inunicate 17 with them in French , wh:lch enabled us to gain more insight into the dynam1cs of local politics during the war in Baro than elsewhere. Baro did not, exist before the war. At independence the village that provides today s chef de canton of Baro was situated at the foot of Mount Duram, a few kilometres from the current administrative centre of Baro. On the mountain is the altar of the Margay (mountain spirit). By the end of the 1950s, the Catholic church had chosen Duram as one of their entry points into the Guera. This request led to discord in the village but finally the chef de village allowed the missionaries to build their compound on his own. fields some 2 km from the village. He saw the advantages of having the missionaries in his village because they would build a dispensary and a school and would educate his people. It was only on these conditions that he allowed them to settle in his village. And the installation oE the Catholic mission did indeed bring the VIllage a pnmary and secondary school, a hospital and a church. The number of Catholics in the village grew with time and at independence the VIllage was relatively integrated into 'modern' life. The peasant uprising in Mangalme in 1965 did not leave the villagers· near Abu Telfan untouched. They felt the same discontent with the 16 Initially it wa.s not easy to find people who were willing to tell us about the ~1story of ~h wa. .r m Baro .. Finally, we met a lady who had left Baro in 1979 and hved m N DJamena ever smce. She was very interested in her own history and contacted variou~ for~e rebels for us and talked to other older Baro migrants. Sh~ p~t together ~n th1s way her war history of Baro that we discussed with her. Th1s h1story also mcluded interviews we did ourselves in N'Djamena Baro and Mango. · ' . 17 !n .the Guera each sub-group of the Hadjerai has its own dialect. Chadian Arab1c 1s the market language. I Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965-1990 f I I ·Ii •• ,, I I 79 Tombalbaye government as the people in Mangalme and they have not seen any improvement in their situation since independence. Soon after the events in Mangalme, men from Abu. Telfan joined the uprising. The Abu Telfan and especially Duram where the Catholic mission was situated became an important target for the rebels. In 1967 18 the Catholic mission was attacked and the school, hospital and other mission buildings were seriously damaged. The missionaries were forced to leave and some were even killed. Medicine was stolen and equipment destroyed. 19 The rebels 20 also attacked the compound of the chef de canton and stole the guards' weapons before disappearing into the bush. A second attack was staged in 1970, again to get arms and medicine. The Chadian government provided the chef de canton with weapons and posted government troops to support his fight against the rebels. Alongside the chef de canton, the chef de village took sides with the Chadian government and resisted other attacks. Because the village of Duram was well protected, the rebels attacked surrounding villages and general insecurity in the area increased. 'Les rebelles commencerent par piller les villages environnants, des combats san·· glants et meurtriers eurent lieu entre les rebelles et les paysans envi·· ronnants; les plus meurtriers furent celui de Dorga ii 28 km de Baro, Boutill et Tabo.' 21 It was then that the government decided to settle I I the inhabitants from the surrounding villages and mountains in present-day Baro, just north of a large water course and the Catholi.c Mission buildings so that government troops could provide protection. Baro increased enormously in size, and the village became a small town. • Despite these measures, the situation became too difficult in the course of the 1970s and the chef de canton decided to strike a deal with the rebels. This move changed Baro's position vis-a-vis the gov·· ernment, with the result that the chef de canton was arrested and ta·· ken to N'Djamena as a political prisoner. When he left Baro, govern·· ment control of the situation declined and the rebels extended their IS In the interviews the date of the first attack varied between 1966, 1~67 and 1969. It is important that right from the start of the civil war the region was involved in the violent conflict. 19 This was confirmed in an interview with Pere Serge in N'Djamena on O~l·03-2003, who was living in Baro in this period and was one of the priests who were forced to flee. Later in 1980 he was again a victim of such an attack and taken hostage in Am Timam to the southeast. 20 In the interviews the rebels are often named sawraa, which means rebellion or revolt in Chadian dialect of Arabic; sawri is rebel. 21 Information collected from the lady in N'Djamena. 80 Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965-1990 Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk r I! power over the village. 'Le canton jut envahi, le palais du chef Jut brUle et les maisons de ceTtains paysans ne furent pas epargnees.'22 The effect was that the people felt abandoned by their own government and many took sides with the rebels (sawraa) and some men joined them in the bush. The imprisoned chef de canton was replaced by the present chef de canton, his son Ahmat Maharap 23 , four months before the Chadian army staged the military coup against Tombalbaye in April 1975 and' Malloum became president. The new government ordered the chefs de canton in the regions to levy taxes on the rebels and force them into submission. However, when it was clear that the security situation in the area had deteriorated, they withdrew the chefs de canton to Mango and left the population unprotected. Two large groups of rebels were present in Sissi, a village near Baro in the centre of the Abu Telfan Massif. Ahmat negotiated with them in order to keep the situation calm around Baro. Correspondence between Ahmat Maharap and the sous-pnifet of Mango, dated 10, 13, 14, 19 and 26 June 1975 24 show that Ahmat asked for help because he was not able to control the rebels. They refused to pay taxes, disrupted the transport of cotton from the fields and generally controlled the rural areas. t I \ To cite one of Ahmat's letters to the sous-prefet (compatriote sousprefet) on 26 June 1975: · "J'ai l'honneur de vous avertir que les rebelles ant refuse aux gens des ;il- lages de payer l'imp6t. Ils ant dit, si nous continuous avec la collection des impOts, ils vont nous attaquer d'ici en quelques jours." Another letter from the same Ahmat chef de canton of Baro to the prefet of the Guera dated 10 June 1975 reads as follows: "1\fous etions en tournee a Sissi. Re9u comme renseignement par leur representant du nom Bakari, on lui a dit de me dire qu'ils ne vont pas se rallier, mais ils interdisent le mouvement du coton comme impOt et qu'il y aurait clans six mois beaucoup de sang coule par dessus. On a dit que la republique sera divisee en deux cOtes: les musulmans seront commandes par eux. Les Idem. We interviewed him on several occasions. A video-taped interview in which he t~ld h~s life history was made in April 2003. His appointment tilted power relations m the canton. Ahmat Maharap is the son of a former slave or servant of the chef de village who gave land to the Catholic mission. When'the French ~ske this .v~lage chief. to become chef de canton he refused and put his 'slave' pos1tlon, ~:zpectmg.ha he, as chef de village, would be in charge in case m ~lns of Important dec1s10ns. Th1s pow~r balance was definitively turned upside down by the period of troubles in the region. · 24 By chance, we found these letters in the archives of the sous-prefecture of Mango, which were in total disarray. 22 23 •• 81 kirdis 25 seront com.rnandes par les Saras. Le nombre est de 130 tetes armees de fal [illegible] ... " • In the region around Baro there were two commanders: J amal Faya and Idriss Mahadjir, as mentioned by Ahmat in these letters and during the interview. We heard several stories about Jam~ ~ay. Jamal Faya means 'camel of Faya'. His name indicates that he ongmated from Faya, the capital of the BET. He was a very tall man and people still speak of him in admiration; indications of the number of men that 26 lived with him in the bush varied from sixty to 130 He fed them by exploiting the villagers. Idriss Mahadjir must have had a similar group. Ahmat went to their camps to negotiate a deal, but they took h1s m1h-· tia's weapons. Back in Baro he asked the advice of his councillors who told him to leave Baro and join the rebels because he nsked bemg ar-rested by the government. Ahmat went back to the bush and joined the rebels. 27 He became a leader of the sawraa, fighting against villages J.!l the east with his own team of 50 men. During one attack on a village on the Sudanese border he was wounded and the sawraa finally let him return to Baro. Because he did not want to fight again he left for N'Djamena where he lived with other chefs de canton from the Guera in Klemat, in that time a Hadjerai quarter. The rebels lived in the bush in camps. The story of a former rebel from Baro28 , who lives in N'Djamena and is an agent of the forest service gives some insight into this life as a rebel. In 1970 when he was 12-,13 years old he was shocked by the maltreatment of his uncle by the Tombalbaye administrators and this made him decide to go into the bush where he encountered a rebel group and decided to JOlll theLT ranks. To do so, he had to swear on the Koran: :tlu debut, j'ai jure le Coran, et done je ne peux rien dire, les succes et les grands tueries sont • 25 Kirdis is the word used by Muslims from the north to denote pagans. The term is pejorative and expresses the superiority of Muslims over them. 26 60 is the number the people in the village gave us. In a letter from :the chef de canton to the district head in Mango h.e mentioned .th~ t.here were 130 people. As the local authorities seemed well mformed, th1s md1eates a stalemate. The authorities knew exactly where the r.ebels were locat~d but they wE;re incapable of attacking their sites and controllmg the countryside becal.lse ol a lack of fighting capacity. 27 In another story related by migrants in N'Djamena, it was said that jnst before or during the attack in 1979 the rebels took the chef de canton host.~e when he had a meeting in a village nearby. The ~ebls burned dov:n the chef_ de canton's quarters and plundered the governments weap?ns deJ?Ot m Baro. Fe.~r­ ing government reprisals, or simply because he sympathized w1th the rebels, the chef de canton decided to join the rebels. 2s. We interviewed him in N'Djamena, but not in his own home. He was very nervous during the interview in March 2003. 82 Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965-1990 Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk des secrets, je me sacrifie, c'est tout, c'est le chef seulement qui peut dire, mais il est mort, done l'histoire est finie, mais le Coran est toujours la.' As a young rebel, he was mainly given tasks in the camp, where he did the cooking, etc. His story reveals how difficult life in these camps was, living under trees in different ethnic groups. He mentioned Moubi, Bidiyo and Migaame. 'Quelqu'un qui est sous un arbre, est-ce qu'il peut dire qu'il est content? Il ne peut pas F He also mentioned the difficult periods during the drought when there was nothing to eat and some people starved to death. The older rebels attacked villages." Apparently Ahmat became the head of one such 'battalion'. The rebels (1 '' Army) finally took control of Baro in 1979 and they shut down the Catholic mission and Catholicism was outlawed. The Catholics all either fled or were forced to convert to Islam. All the items from the mission were declared forbidden and pE>ople who possessed such objects were fined 50.000-100.000 F'CFA. They had to bury their ploughs, tables, chairs and all other 'western' equipment, and they had to feed the sawraa. A migrant woman in N'Djamena remembered how her mother coped with this situation. She had to cook for the rebels at that time, which she did with a smile. She preferred to please the rebels so that they would be kind to her. They rewarded her with small gifts of money. Other women living today in Baro told us that women were forced to marry the rebels. The rebels simply asked for the most beautiful women and took them away. Most of these women did not return to Baro and their present whereabouts are not known. When the FAN took power in Chad in 1982, the situation did not improve much in Baro. The chefs de canton from the Guera who were in N'Djamena offered their help to the FAN through Idriss Miskine, a Hadjerai and the second-in-command of the FAN, to fight the remnants of the 1'' Army and the CDR. Their offer was declined. Later, when the FAN had taken over Baro, too, the chef de canton returned and took up his former post. During 1984 and 1985, famine raged through the country. When food aid arrived, FAN troops tried to take it for themselves. Due to intervention by the chef de canton, the food was finally distributed among the population, the soldiers were withdrawn from Baro and the administration was put in the hands of the chef de canton. People's sto:ries about the hardships they faced during this period are confirmed in a film documentary made in the area by 2fl Interview in N'Djamena, April 2003; the film Daresalam (Let there be peace) made by Issa Serge Coelo, a Chadian film maker, is a Chadian account on this period. The film is based on personal experiences and illustrates how young men were recruited by the rebellion and the role of intern'al conflict in the rebellion. • • 83 Brandpunt30 who followed the Red Cross, which was the only erner-· gency aid organization in Chad at the time. The FAN also had a death list of people they considered hostile to their cause. Only one of the men from Baro on the list survived. He was a prominent member of the Catholic Church and remains ·so today. When the FAN entered the area, he fled Mango where he was living at the time having fled Baro when it came under the command of the rebels after the attack of 1979. He went to Lagos where he hid for almost three years. When he finally returned to Baro in the mid-1980s he found that his brother, who was his caretaker, had destroyed the house 32 to prevent FAN troops from taking it. 31 When one of the priests retumed to Baro in 1982 his first conclusion was that the Muslims had taken over as the church was almost empty. Other people left because of the famine. The story of the chef de village, who is the son of the first chef de canton who invited the Catholic mission to establish itself in Durarn, coincides with these historical facts. The chef de village did not leave Baro after the rebels attacked in 1979 or when they occupied Baro in the 1980s. He decided to stay and support his people but when famine ravaged the country in 198'1 he also fled to join his brother who had migrated to N'Djamena in 1962 before the problems started. The chef left the village in the hands of his cousin. His wife left after him with the children. She went from village 33 to village where she begged for food and sometimes for work. Finally she joined her husband in N'Djamena. The chef de village died of illness in N'DjamEma and never went back to Baro where his cousin had taken over his post and never returned it to the son of the former chef de village, who according to the old chief's branch of the family is the rightful successor to this office. Even today, members of the family of the chef de village claim their rights to this post. An important aspect of the rebellion in the history of Baro seems to be an anti-modern, anti-Christian and pro-Muslim attitude. Baro was an important point of attack for the rebels because of the Catholic mission that represented the modern world. By destroying their work, they expressed an anti-modern attitude. Many Catholics left Baro and others hid their religion, while some converted to Islam. Now a large 30 Video-tape 12207, 2-10-1982, KRO, Brandpunt. Documentary about the situation in Chad in 1982, in the archives of the Nederlands Instituut voor :Beeld en Geluid. 31 Precise information on the attack in 1979 and how Baro was terrorized was explained in a taped interview with this informant in April2003. 32 P€re Serge, interview 03-03-2003. 33 We met her on several occasions in Baro and during the course of many short meetings she told us her story. Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965 ~ 1990 majority of the people are Muslim. Another effect of the rebellion and the presence of rebels in the bush and later in Baro itself was the progressive impoverishment oJ' the villagers. Probably however, the most important effect is the creation of Baro itself. Though many people have returned to their original villages over the past decades, Baro remains an important centre and is now a sous-prefecture, which stresses its central position in the national administration. The geographical situation of Bourzan makes it a special case as i.t h; located on the main road from Mango to Catalog and Abu De!a, which was an important transport axis for government troops fighting rebel,; who were hiding in the Salamat, Chad's south-eastern region, and for transporting the cereals produced in this area to Mango and N'Dja .. mena. 34 In addition, Bourzan was close to pockets of resistance, and inhabitants were always being suspected of supporting the rebels. Inhabitants' accounts all refer to a deep feeling of insecurity during this time. 84 r 1 i Bourzan: The War in the Margins Bourzan is a Bidiyo village and situated in the valley south of Mango and south of the Abu Telfan Massif. The village used to be hidden in the mountains but the French colonial administration forced the inhabitants to come down onto slopes in order to gain firmer control, i.e. for the levying of taxes, the recruitment of labour, and to maintain the road from Mango to Am-Tirnam. Later on, the Chadian government resettled the village along the laterite road from Mango to Catalog and further on to Abu De1a and Am-Timam. Other villages are still in or behind the mountain range. Migration from Bourzan has always beep important. During the colonial period and just after. independence the men migrated temporarily to Sudan for work and migration to N'Djamena became important by the end of the 20th century and is still on the increase. With about 500 inhabitants, Bourzan is much smaller than Baro. The village has no chef de canton, though it is 12 km from Niergui, which is the seat of the sous-pri!fet and of the chef de canton. There are no educated people in Bourzan. The village used to have a school but since the villagers refused to pay the teacher - a young man from Bourzan he left and settled in Niergui. In general, educated people among the Bidiyo are rare, partly because they have always refused external influences like development organizations, schooling and the Catholic mission. Bourzan has a mosque, an Imam and Koranic schools. Islamization of the area is recent: the first Muslim clerics visited Bourzan in the 1950s but they met with resistance. However, over time they have become very influential, especially among the youth. The village is extremely poor by any standards. Only two families have a small herd of cattle. More than a third of the households are female-headed, and another group are in effect female-headed because the husbands are in town and never return. The provision of water is a severe problem too as the only well in the village runs dry during the dry season, forcing the women to walk 5 km to the next village. There are no healthcare facilities except in. Niergui where the chef de canton resides, but this is 7 km away. •• 85 War experiences were collected from elder women and men, and a migrant from Bourzan who lived in N'Djamena and happened to be our guard. 35 These people had not had important positions in their vi) .. lage, in the local administration or in any religious context. The infer·· mation about Bourzan is therefore qualitatively different from that collected in Bare, an administrative and religious centre. Also in Bourzan, reference was made to Mangalme as the centre o:E resistance and it is thought that the Bidiyo joined them. After these events, they remembered a long period of continuous uncertainty until Hissein Habre finally defeated his adversaries in 1987 (Libya and th<e CDR), without any clear demarcation of periods of time. It could not be established with certainty if and when militia plundered the vill.age. The older people mix the first period of trouble (1967 -1975) and the second period (1976-1987). For them it was a long period of extreme insecurity aggravated by periods of drought and bad harvests. • • As in Baro, the inhabitants of Bourzan refer to the rebels in the bush as 'Arabs' and to a rebel leader named Jamal Faya (see above) who con-trolled the area for a long time. In our informants' accounts, the rebels were defined as outsiders. As our guard, a rnigrant in Sudan back in the 1950s explained, a large proportion of the rebels were recruited in Sudan among the migrants there. They were encouraged to join the re .. hellion and were promised they would be paid for doing so. He himseH did not join the rebellion but left Sudan and returned to his village. During the droughts of the 1980s he left for N'Djamena and was later joined by his wife and children. Bidiyo men joined the rebellion and probably did not live in the bush around Bourzan but were elsewhere in the region. In interviews we did not hear of direct casualties as a result of the war. Unlike in Baro, the rebels here never tried to estab·· 34 The Salamat is an important area because it produces flood-retreat sor- ghum (berbere). 35 He was an important informant because he did not hesitate to tell us his story. We recorded it in variol,ls interview sessions in 2002 and 2003 and tran·· scribed it from the Bidiyo language into French. Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965-1990 lish permanent control over Bourzan but the accounts of our informants still refer to constant exploitation. Nevertheless the war influenced livelihoods very profoundly. The rebellion created a situation of deprivation in the village. From the long history told by our gnard, it became clear that the people of Bourzan were living under enormous The women told us that the fear of being raped or attacked in the bush stopped them from gathering bush products, which is one of the important activities of Bidiyo women. Even today they have not resumed gathering bush products in the same way as other villages we observed. The situation in Bourzan seems to have been worse than in Baro. The only option left for the inhabitants of Bourzan was to migrate, as one of the informants said: ' ... those who remained in the village died'. People who lived through this time told us that the village was deserted; nobody was left. 37 Some migrated far, others stayed in the vici- 86 pressure: " ... Pendant la nuit, les gens quittent leurs cases pour passer la nuit dans la montagne parce qu'ils ant peur des rebelles et, pendant le jour, ils regagnent le village. Les gens construisent leurs cases, c'est pour s'habituer pendant le jour seulement. D€s la coucht§e du soleilles gens ant deja fait le repas et quittent le village, ... " The rebels lived around Bourzan in camps in the bush hidden behind the camps of nomadic Arabs and came to the village regularly to demand food. One story tells how Jamal Faya entered the village and sat under a tree with his men until the village had provided them with food. • • Taken together, these accounts indicate how the inhabitants of Bourzan were not able to resist external pressures and did not have an an- The third village in which we collected information about the war is a large village; comparable in size to Baro today. Korlongo is located about 30 km west of Mongo, 2 km off the main road from Mongo to Bokoro (and N':Ojamena), in fact easy to control for government forces. From a socio-economic point of view, this village is relatively wealthy. It consists of a number of compounds that are spread all over the vil- despite the fact that some women still brew sorghum beer for the older men to consume. Our guard explained this as follows: 36 An important acconnt was given by the old Margay priest in the village who fled the village at this time with his family. HE~ had two reasons for fleeing: one was famine and the other was intolerance of the Mar gay cult.. food distribution centres. Many from Bourzan did not survive, or did not return to the village. Korlongo: Accommodating Political Reality has become a Muslim comrnunity and Muslin1 rituals are major events, The inhabitants of Bourzan suffered during the famine caused by the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s but the effects of the droughts were aggravated by the war. In times of war, drought is a definite blow to people's livelihoods. The famine was aggravated by reduced opportunities for people to go out i.n the bush to gather fruits or to hunt game. nity, for instance in Niergui, where they were able to gain access to swer to the violence imposed on them. They were neither important in the war as a stronghold for the rebels, nor for the government which turned them simply into objects of predation. During this period of political unrest, a large number of people converted to Islam. From the accounts we collected it appears that the Margay cult was not appreciated by the rebels and that they encouraged people to abandon this practice. We heard stories about people being forced to convert to Islam, and as a result of such violence other people converted of their own 'free' will. The few families who still adhere to the Margay cult were able to resist this pressure because, they say, they were protected by their personal Margay. 36 Today Bourzan "L'isla:ffi etait venu avant les rebelles. L'arrivee de l'islam n'a pas'rendu tout le monde musulman, parce que jusq'aujourd'hui certains sont des animistes, adorent le margay. Certaines personnes sont devenues musulmanes avant la rebellion et d'autres sont devenues musulmanes pendant la rebellion, parce qu'elles ont ete forcees par les rebelles. Les rebelles les ont tapees et casse leur margay. Les rebelles ont dit que celui qui adore le margay on va le taper et casser son margay. Tousles re belles sont des musulmans." 87 • • lage territory. The village is inhabited by :Oangaleat; one of the larger sub-groups of the Hadjerai. Eacb compound is made up of 5-20 houses inhabited by extended families, surrounded by fields that are intensively cultivated. In total around 4,000 people live in the village. Like Baro, the village has a Catholic mission post, which was established in the 1960s, and also has a dispensary and ele.mentary schools. It is not however the seat of the sous-prefecture. The most striking differmce with the other villages is its agricultural system, which consists o:C an elaborate system of infields separated by cattle routes for herds of cattle going to and from the compounds. Besides the infields, which are mainly cultivated by the women, the men cultivate fields of sorghum and flood-retreat sorghum sometimes as much as a three-hours wall..: from the main village. 37 In the area there are many deserted sites where villages were once located. The neighbouring village of Bourzan- where probably 100 families lived given the number of stone circles indicating the presence of a granary - has completely disappeared. What remains is one large compound about 1 km south of Bourzan where mainly women live. 88 Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965-1990 1970. The rebels set up a governance structure in the village that ex- When the German anthropologist Peter Fuchs did research in this village 45 years ago, the situation was quite different. Then the whole village was located close to the hills (Fuchs 1970). Over the past decades the village has fanned out but not without struggle and discord. However, a similar organization has developed in all the hamlets. This development took place despite the presence of rebels in the area, the famines of the 1970s and the 1980s, and the repressive policies of the various Chadian governments. Information on the period of civil war in this village was collected from the chef de village, some migrants, old. women and migrants who live in N'djamena in the Diguel Zafaye quarter, where an important Dangaleat community settled during the 1970s and 1980s. When the rebellions against the Chadian government started in the 1960s, Islam was already common practice in the village. Fuchs (1970) 89 erted firm control over the inhabitants' behaviour. Some inforrnants • • even talk about a surveillance system with informants among the inhabitants. The rebel chief was placed next to the villagechief (or above him), under them each quarter had a chief, called a Khaid; and a secretary. These people had to receive the rebels and administer the law when conflicts arose between the village inhabitants. The inhabitants of Korlongo did not escape exploitation and arbitrary fines like in Baro, though the pressure from the rebels was probably less severe and more regulated than in Baro after it was taken over by the rebels. This form of cohabitation with the rebels probably protected the village, and the livelihoods of the villagers were less affected. They were able to develop their complex system of land use and had more assets in the form of livestock and housing than in the other two villages. wrote about this village's links with the Muslim world and situates it in the history of the village in relation to the Islamic empires that surrounded the Guera in the 19th century. Korlongo was then a stronghold for the Ouaddai warriors in the 19th century who came to hunt for slaves. 38 During the tim" of Fuchs's research in the 1950s and early 1960s, mention was even then made of Koranic schools in the village. However Islam was not the dominant religion. By the time of our field research, all the villagers were Muslim and they had destroyed everything that was related to the Margay cult (cf. Fuchs 1997: 245). Fol" example, when we were in the village, we did not come across any women VI. Comparison Between the Villages What do these stories tell us about the local manifestation of the civil war? First of all, we can no longer speak of one civil war on the loc:al level. Secondly, people experienced it all differently depending on their situation in the village and in the developments of the time. There are similarities and generalities in these stories that can be summarized under the headings of relations between rebels and local leaders, of violence and repression, of organization of the bush rebellion, and of who brewed beer, which was still common practice in other villages. ideology and religion guiding the war leaders. However, these com- The geographical situation and the presence of Islam may be among the monalities were experienced differently in the three villages diseussed reasons for the different experiences of Korlongo during the ci~l war. The first attack is remembered as a terrible event. In 1969 the Catholic mission was burned down, the nuns were abducted and all the personnel (Muslim and Catholic) had to flee. There are reports that the village was also burned down but some attribute this to an accident, while others say it was done by rebels. H"reafter, the village history gives a different picture of the war: It appears as a period in which there were difficulties but not on the scale of those in other villages. The reason for the relative calm in this period in Korlongo might have been the different relationship they had with the.rebels. The chef de village (Khalial Doungous) at the time collaborated with a rebel commander, Mahamat Kanem, nicknamed Timpi, who decided to choose the village as his base following negotiations with the chef de village in ss In Baro and Bourzan the villagers have stories to tell about how they fought against these warriors from Ouaddai, so historically these villages occupy a completely different position. above. • • Relations between Rebels and Local Leaders The differences can be explained to some extent by taking into account the linkages of the village leaders: the chef de village, chef de canton and the rebels or government; i.e. the way these villages are integrated into a 'larger' Chad and the higher levels of the civil war. The three villages differ clearly in the relationship that local leaders maintained with the rebels or the government. In the canton of Niergui to which Bourzan belongs, the national struggle for power was linked with a local conflict over the position of the chef de canton. The brothers of the chef de canton were competing for this position. The brother who was chef de canton was murdered by the 'rebels' among who was at least one of his brothers who wanted to succeed him. This brother, who reached the rank of captain in the FAN of Hissein Habre,-is still chef de canton in Niergui. Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk Civil War in the Gw2ra Region of Chad, 1965-1990 Bourzan was just a simple agricultural village without a Catholic mission, or any (improvement' in the sense of 1nodernizatiqn. So it was an unattractive village for the rebels and government troops to turn into a stronghold. The chef de village did not play any role in negotiations with the rebels, except that they forced him to convert to Islam. Consequently, the inhabitants of Bourzan were extremely vulnerable and unprotected, which culminated in the migration of almost the entire population during the droughts in the 1980s. conditions, we saw in the three villages, to the situation of war and. its variable effects. For instance the high number of female-headed house·holds, and the absence of any technological progress in cultivation in Bourzan and Baro, in contrast with Korlongo, which is a well-orga .. nized village with a clear political structure that organizes common activities and solves all kinds of problems. The villagers of Korlongo told us that after a difficult time at the beginning of the war they were neither looted nor plundered during the civil war. Instead, they claim that they were simply not involved and continued their lives as normal. 90 Baro was clearly a differ<mt case with the presence of the Catholic mission and the chef de canton who was loyal to the Chadian government until 1979. It became a target village and stronghold for both the rebels and government troops. Choices that are more conscious were made here by the leadership, though in the end the chef de canton was tricked, by luring him into negotiations and stealing the weapons of his troops and forcing him to change sides. The village came under extreme pressure from the various rebel groups who took power hereafter. • • The rebels and their commanders were of different ethnic origins, and certainly not only Arabs. They lived in groups of 50-60 men of varying ages. They made their camps far from the villages in the bush and in some cases they were encircled by ferick (tents, camps) of the Arabs, who helped the rebels to hide from the regular army. The adult men plundered the villages if necessary and the boys were left in the camp to do the cooking and camp maintenance. These camps were moved every now and then to avoid surprise attacks by the regular army. The villagers knew of course where the rebels were camped. As in Bourzan, women were forced to cook their meals and deliver them_ to the rebels at night. Unlike in Baro and Niergui, the canton in which Bourzan lies saw no struggle for political leadership in its relations with the rebels and the Chadian government. Baro's chef de canton returned in a powerful position once Hissein Habre was in charge. He was so influential that he was able to persuade the FAN troops not to confiscate the food aid destined for the inhabitants of Baro but to hand it over to him to distribute in the village. He is still the chef de canton and is influential vis-·a-vis the sous-prefecture. Ji'rom the village histories it becomes clear that the rebels exerted heavy pressure on the Gue:ra. They ruled through a system of exploitation, fear and oppression, although relationships with the rebels were not the same in the three villages and they changed over time. This certainly does not read as if a liberation movement supported by the population took hold of a liberated countryside. Instead, this local perspective reveals that a guerrilla war was fought against the people (cf. Doornbos 1982). The movements varied over time but this did not make much of a difference for the population. It is important to note that indeed here we see a difference in the course of time between Korlongo and the other two villages. The question is whether it is possible to link the current economic and social Organization and Recruitment In the interviews, the rebels are indicated as rebelles, or alternatively as 'Arabs', which is a proxy for stranger since the Arab nomads are re·· garded as strangers in the region, or Sawraa (warrior, rebel). By using these terms, our informants place these people in the bush, and classify them as outsiders, not their own people. 39 The chief of Korlongo seems to have taken a conscious decision to strike a deal with the rebel leaders in the bush, which may explain this village's present relative prosperity. Violence and Repression 91 • • It seems that each of these groups controlled a specific area. Some·times, as in the case of Korlongo, a commander agreed with a village chief to take a village under his wing. In such cases, the rebels became commanders of the village. In the 1980s, the villagers of two areas refer to the same commander: Jamal Faya. Jamal Faya has become a legend-ary commander who is also well-known in N'Djamena where he lived until his death a few years ago. Ji'rom the local accounts we gain very little insight into the way rebels were recruited. Ji'rom the literature we have gained some insight. In Su·dan, campaigns were held by FROLINAT representatives to make lo-cals join their forces. Refusing to join was not easy for fear of being 39 At present tension between Arabs and Hadjerai are again mounting. J:[ad·· jerai villagers complain that cattle theft and violent incidents are on the increase and that they are not protected by the government (information June 2006). 92 Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965~ labelled a traitor. On the other hand, the Chadian government perceived returning migrants as potential agents for the opposition and they were regarded with the utmost suspicion. Many migrants who were supposedly approached in Sudan joined the opposition forces because the economy there was bad and they were desperate for employment40 Men from the villages in the Guera joined for several reasons. First, in Mangalme they were part of the peasant revolt that was subsequently incorporated into the FROLINAT's 1'' Armye Personal motives may also have played an important role. The accounts we gathered reveal that only a few local villagers left their village to join the bands in the bush. The way in which the people in the bush are portrayed indicates that they may indeed have been mostly northerners or Arabs." They said that the 'rebels' were mainly outsiders, migrants from Chad recruited in Sudan or people from the north, and that when young men joined the :rebellion they did not remain in their home areas. 42 In a way, these findings indicate that the rebel forces were rather distinct from the population in the villages. • • The question is whether any ideology at all motivated the rebel troops in the bush. Were they simply warlords whose own survival was most important? Or were their actions inspired by an ideology, i.e. a 40 This information was given to us by a villager from Bourzan who lived in Sudan in this period. 41 This is confirmed by another eyewitness account. El Hadj GarondE! (2003) reports that there were few Hadjerai who joined the bands in the first stages of the rebellion against the Tombalbaye regime. 42 As it is not clear to which part of FROLINAT the bands in the Guera belonged (1st army, Armee Volca:n, CDR, FAN) during the successive phases of the conflict, who is recruiting whom is very unclear. There could be parallels though with the current situation in eastern Chad and Darfur, in which numerous rebel groups recruit deserters from the Chadian army, Chadian refugees residing in Sudan and even in refugee camps across the border in eastern Chad. B3 Muslim identity coupled to an anti-modern ideology? Muslim ideology was probably part of an anti-imperialist ideology of the rebellion's leaders in the Guera. Doornbos (1982) also mentions that once the rebels occupied an area in eastern Chad they completely neglected development in the area, or worse, they wilfully destroyed any existing infrastructure. The stories of the people testify to the fear the villagers had for these men as they would not allow them anything considered 'modern' such as chairs, torches, hospital equipment or western/French education. Staff at the Catholic and Protestant missions was forced to leave, and their infrastructure was destroyed. Healthcare fac:D.ities were dismantled as these represented the western world and the 'western' buildings were used for housing the rebel troops, which also meant that they were ruined over time. VII. Discussion Ideology and Religion A contested element of the movement was its religious character. Buijtenhuijs (1992) denies that the FROLINAT ideology had religious features. However, for the people we interviewed in the Guera, all important characteristic of the rebels was their Muslim identity. As reported by a former rebel, one had to pledge an oath on the Koran before being allowed to join a band. The rebels also had a very negative attitude towards the animistic beliefs that were still prominent in the villages of the Guera, and this created tacit resistance among the villagers. However, many turned to Islam, at least as far as the outside world was concerned, and hid their animistic practices. 1990 • • The most important observation is that in general the ordinary people during the civil war were not connected to or involved with either the party that represented the state or the party that opposed the state. At this local level people were concerned about their own survival and to some extent involved in local power struggles, but they were not emotionally connected to the larger struggle at the level of the state. Therefore, the differences in the nature of the information about the civil war obtained from the literature and from our interviews are so vast that we wonder whether they are dealing with the same political conflict and war. From an ideological point of view none of the multiple parties was able to incite any enthusiasm for their cause. The majority of the rural population did not feel involved in any of the politlcal projects of the parties involved. They resented state oppression just as deeply as the exploitation by those they regarded as 'bandits', 'rebels', 'Arabs' and sawraa. Any claims by the parties about representing the interests of the rural population are therefore false. An alternative explanation for this apparent gap between official and local information on the civil war may be the fact that people simply do not want to be reminded of the war. Since 1990 when Idriss Di>by's MPS took power, there has been some degree of political stability. However, this does not mean that the lives of the people in the rural areas have become easy. Because of this long period of insecurity, which is indeed very long compared to other conflict areas in Africa, remote rural areas like the Guera are in an extremely bad shape. Any physical or social infrastructure was destroyed during the conflict, and when some stability was attained the Chadian state did not have the resources to rebuild what was destroyed. Recurrent food deficits as a Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk Civil War in the Guera Region of Chad, 1965-1990 result of periodic drought continue to plague the population and malnutrition levels are high despite all kinds of NGO development efforts to improve food security. As a result, people are preoccupied with the daily struggle for survival and do not ha~e the psychological sp_~ce to delve into the past, when their current ex1stence lS already so d1ff1Cult. It is tempting to attribute all the changes observed to the war and associated events. However, the inhabitants of the Guera were already exposed to the outside world, with Islam and Christianity, and with 94 The strange thing is that, although they remained outsiders and were socially disconnected from rural society, the rebels in the bush interacted in many ways with local power relations. In the view of local people, power is embodied by a person and his function, and not by systems of thought and political parties or movements: They ~s­ sociate a specific movement with the one in charge a';d With the mtensity of violence and oppression. It must be e~phas1zd that these groups of rebels spent a number of years in the Vlclmty of the v~lages, and that there must have been no fighting for considerable penods of economic opportunities, which they encountered when on labour mi- • • time as neither the govern:ment nor the rebels were able to har_m ~he I II I I 95 other. As a consequence, there must have been some level of da1ly mteraction between the population and the rebels, resulting, for example, in a number of cases of marriages to village wom.en . Local p~r­ ceptions of rebels as outsiders must, therefore, be cons1dered w1th caution. These perceptions probably reflect the amb1guous relatwnship people have with the past, and may not have been the same at the time of the conflict. However this does not rule out the possibility that national and local levels wer~ disconnected. In the Gu€ra national events are mentioned with different terms than those used at the national level. At the national level, people make a distinction between the col~nia pe~od, the Tombalbaye regime, the war, and the reigns of Habre and Deby. But these periods are not in any way related to local events. Events a~ the national level do not necessarily have their corollary at the regwnal •··. and local level at the same time, and it would also not seem to make a difference for the people at the local level who is in charge in the capital or who is hiding in the bush as a rebel. Inhabitants of the rural areas are always caught in between. The difference is to be found m the way in which local leaders engage in these national struggles. In Korproblongo the agreement between the local ch1ef and a reblad~ ably saved the villages a lot of trouble. In Ba:ro, resistance was 1mt1ally successful. However, later on when the village was no longer backed by the government and had been taken over by the rebels, the villagers had a hard time when they found themselves exposed simultaneously to the rebels' harsh regime and to the drought. The canton in which Bourzan is located was engaged in an internal struggle for its political leadership and the parties made use of one of the opponents in the national conflict. gration in Sudan or elsewhere. However, some changes that were already under way were speeded up by the civil war. From being a very remote refuge area for runaway slaves and population groups that resisted enslavement by neighbouring empires in pre-colonial times, the Guera found itself at centre stage in a civil conflict during which the social and political organization of the area was fundamentally transformed. The key to understanding this is the role of modern weapomy. In the past the inhabitants of the Guera were able to resist ouh;iders because, even with their primitive weapons, they were greatly helped by the terrain and their own personal courage. In the age of firearms, this possibility no longer existed because the villagers were helpless against a regular army and rebel groups with automatic rifles and machine guns. Conversion to Islam gained pace during the civil war, either voluntarily (as in Korlongo), or forced in some way or another (as in Baro and Bourzan). Christianity as the religion associated with the West and with the south of Chad lost ground. Today nothing much has changed from an economic point of view. Life is still very hard in this part of Chad. Periodic droughts, poverty and malnutrition still dominate the lives of the inhabitants oJ' the Guera. The achievements and the impact of development efforts have been limited. This situation in itself leads to resistance against a gov- • emment that does not facilitate their lives, does not stop the exploitation of the population and is not able to bring development to the zone despite all the rhetoric about the oil exploitation project. Discontent with today's policies also came to the fore when the Guera was to be divided into two parts as a result of the decentralization policies in 1997 and 2002. The opposition of the Hadjerai was direct: 'Nous sommes disposes. Frets cette fois-ci pour mourir a cause de notre region comme ce fut le cas de 1965', were the words of a leader of the movement against this plan (L'Observateur, 5, 1997, 04/16). These words illustrate how the Hadjerai have not forgotten the war and the terrible times they endured. Whether they will be able to join forces is another question. With all their different war stories it will not be easy to draw these people together to oppose today's dominant regime. Mirjam de Bruijn and Ban van Dijk Civil War in the Gu€ra Region of Chad, 1965-1990 References Garonde Djarma, El Hadj (2003): T€moignage d'un militant du Frolinat. Paris (I1Harmattan). Abbo, Netcho (1997): Mangalme 1965. La revolte des Moubi. Saint-Maur (Editions sepia). 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Paris (L'Harmattan). • • Synopsis Most research on the recent political history of Chad has concentrated on events at the national level, but different parts of Chad were involved in the political conflict and ensuing civil war in very divergent ways. Little is known about the motivations and organization of the rebel groups on the ground, their relationship with the local population and how the latter were affected by these rebel groups and the clashes between the Chadian national army and opposition groups. The aim of this article is to show how a specific region, the Guera in central Chad, was involved in this national conflict. The different war stori.es of three villages in Mango sous-prefecture show how different the war was at the local level. Zusammenfassung Der Uberwiegende Teil der Forschung zur neueren politischen Geschichte des Tschad hat sich auf Ereignisse der nationalen Ebene konzentriert, obwohl ver- f--· 98 Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk schiedene Regionen des Tschad in unterschiedlicher Weise in den politischen Konflikt und den daraus hervorgehenden BUrgerkrieg verwickelt waren. Nur wenig ist iiber die Motivlage und die Organisation der Rebellengruppen in der Provinz bekannt. Ebenso weiH man nur wenig Uber die Beziehungen der Rebellengruppen zur lokalen BevOlkerung und dartiber, welche Auswirkungen die Kampfe zwischen den Rebellengruppen und der tschadischen Armee auf die lokale BevOlkerung hatten. Das Anliegen dieses Artikels ist es zu zeigen, wie eine bestimmte Region, das Guera im Zentrum des Tschad, in den nationalen Konflikt einbezogen war. Der Artikel stellt dabei die verschiedenen VerHiufe des BUrgerkrieges in drei Di:irJern der Sous-pr{jeci:ure von Mango dar und zeigt damit auf, wie sich der Krieg auf der lokalen Ebene entwickelte. Mirjam de Bruijn &·Han van Dijk African Studies Centre P.O. Box 9555 2300 RB Leiden The Netherlands +31 (0)71 5273360 Bruijnm@ascleiden.nl, Dijkh@ascleiden.nl. I I I • • -rc;.~:·ow -·~ ·----------·--~ -