Living by the Gun In Chad

Combat, commitment, and the termination of Africa’s mutual interventions

“…This was especially significant because the rebels were on their way to N’Djamena for another assault on the capital, but this time they were rapidly halted. A defensive line formed by the Chadian army and its elite corps in early 2009 had its desired effect (Debos, 2016: 83, 132). In spite of Sudan stepping up support to the Chadian rebels, the Chadian army proved to be militarily superior (Tubiana, 2011: 23).…”

“…This, combined with pressure from the Zaghawa generals within his army, led Déby to reverse his support for the Sudanese government. In December 2005, he started to support Darfurian Zaghawa rebels, providing them with weapons and rear bases in eastern Chad and enabling them to recruit fighters in refugee camps (Debos, 2016: 131; Flint and de Waal, 2008: 207). Déby’s decision to support Darfurian rebels thus marked the start of the Chad–Sudan mutual intervention.…”

Varieties of post-civil war violence

“…In order to explore the wider variety of post-civil war outcomes beyond war recurrence, it is helpful to examine research which explores social, organizational, and individual dimensions of civil war (Debos, 2016; Kalyvas, 2003, 2006; Lacher, 2020; Lombard, 2016). Kalyvas (2006), for example, has argued that social cleavages and rivalries, particularly at the local level, are as much a product of wartime experiences as they are a cause, and that reasons for individual participation in violent acts may have little to do with the state-level objectives espoused by leaders of armed groups.…”

“…In practice, such groups are often violent and unaccountable, meaning that even in the absence of outright civil war the population is unable to enjoy many of the most tangible benefits of peace, including security of persons and property. In Chad, for example, dozens of armed groups, formed throughout decades of chaotic civil conflict, persist to this day, and play a highly visible and semi-formal role in Chadian politics, manning ad-hoc customs checkpoints and local defense groups, occasionally assisting government forces against rebel incursions, and all the while negotiating access to state positions and resources (Debos, 2016). In the aftermath of the 2001 war in Afghanistan, a host of regional warlords rose to prominence, many of them maintaining local power throughout the various stages of the post-invasion insurgency by developing symbiotic relationships with the national government and international actors (Malejacq, 2016).…”

“…Evidence from several contemporary post-civil war contexts indicates that non-state groups, including but not limited to pro-government militias, thrive in such contexts. Chad, for example, has long stagnated in what Debos (2016) has described as the “inter-war”: “spaces and times that are affected by violence even if there is no direct fighting between rebel an governmental forces,” in which a plethora of armed groups subsist through engagement in a variety of formally illicit activities, typically involving the extortion of unarmed civilians. Louisa Lombard (2016: 22) has described a similar situation in the Central African Republic, where despite many years of peacebuilding efforts by international organizations, “pluralized capacities for violence” remain the norm, as armed groups continue to be present, “either as standing forces or as networks that could easily be re-mobilized.” In El Salvador, Douglas Farah (Farah, 1996) has observed how even after the signing of peace accords, right-wing paramilitary groups continued to assassinate moderates and leftists.…”