The national reconciliation dialogue launched two weeks ago by the military junta in Chad was again suspended on Saturday (September 3rd), after three days of siege by opposition party security forces and brutal repression of its gatherings.
The young General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, self-proclaimed Head of State at the head of a Military Council of 15 generals, in April 2021 on the death of his father President Idriss Déby Itno, immediately promised an inclusive and sovereign National Dialogue (DNIS) leading to elections “free and democratic”.
Several times postponed, the latter opened on August 20 in N’Djamena but, boycotted by the majority of the opposition and two of the most powerful armed rebel movements, it has still not begun its substantive work, -same postponed several times, fifteen days before its scheduled closing.
They were to be launched on Saturday but, at midday, the president of this forum of some 1,400 personalities supposed to represent all of Chadian society suspended the session until Monday, September 5, noted a journalist from Agence France- Hurry. This suspension must leave a little more time for a committee responsible for rallying those who boycott it and denounce a « monologue » between the junta and close personalities.
Encirclement
But, on the third day, Saturday, of the encirclement by the police and the army of the headquarters of the Transformers party and the brutal repression of any attempt to rally this party, the main opposition coalition, Wakit Tamma, as well as that one of the two main armed rebel groups, the Front pour l’Alternance et la Concorde au Tchad (FACT), reiterated their boycott, in particular because of the ” repression “.
On Thursday, September 1, the police dispersed with tear gas canisters a caravan of Transformers who called on the inhabitants of the capital to attend a meeting of their young leader Succès Masra on Saturday, and arrested 84 young activists for “prohibited demonstration and disturbance of public order”, according to the police. On Friday, September 2, she again brutally dispersed their gatherings. Mr. Masra then assured that 164 of his supporters had been arrested.
On Saturday, the police again fired tear gas at a few dozen young Transformers trying to reach their headquarters, an AFP journalist testified. An impressive deployment of police and soldiers blocked access to the neighborhood and prevented journalists from working, who were arrested if they tried to take out filming equipment, those from AFP testified.
At the end of the day, the neighborhood was still saturated with tear gas and a police truck took away a dozen young people arrested.
« Monologue »
Mr. Masra, who is demanding a “People’s Dialogue” instead of « monologue » current, denounces on his Facebook page the headquarters of his movement where he claims to be entrenched. “You are the soul of this People who stand up for justice and equality. We will win together”he writes to the Chadians.
On April 20, 2021, on the announcement of the death of his father, killed while going to the front against the rebellion of the Front pour l’Alternance et la Concorde au Tchad (FACT), after thirty years of exercising authoritarian power and without sharing, General Mahamat Déby had dissolved Parliament, dismissed the government, abrogated the Constitution but immediately promised to return power to civilians through “free and democratic elections” after a transition of eighteen months renewable once and a National Dialogue.
The absence of a large part of the political opposition, a large fringe of civil society and a large part of the most powerful rebels in the DNIS risks slowing down or even compromising national reconciliation and considerably delaying the promised elections.
Since its independence from France in 1960, Chad’s history has seen several coups, attempts and rebel offensives. A very laborious dialogue between the junta and around fifty armed groups – a prerequisite for national dialogue – resulted in a peace agreement on August 8, but it was signed by around forty movements, two of the three really active l ‘having rejected, including the FACT.