Today's (Tuesday, 12 February) BBC World Service Radio program "Analysis" has an excellent resume of the current state of play in Chad. Here's the blurb:
What is France doing in Chad? Late last month Chadian rebels began to make their way towards the Chadian capital, Ndjamena. And they came very close to overthrowing the government of President Idriss Deby. But French troops based in Ndjamena played a crucial role in stopping the coup by defending the militarily strategic airport in the city. The question is, why did France do that? And how do French actions fit in with the other players in Chad, notably neighbouring Sudan? Our World Affairs Correspondent Mark Doyle explains.
It's worth clicking for a ten-minute listen. The BBC interviews several French, African, and British experts on the difficulties facing the European Force (EUFOR) deployment, originally formed with protecting Chad and the Central African Republic from spillover from Sudan's Darfur problems, now risking association with one side in a Chadian civil war. According to yesterday's VOA:
In a statement released from Gabon, an allied group of rebels said it no longer believed in the neutrality of a force essentially composed of French troops. They demanded that other European countries refrain from sending their troops to the peacekeeping mission, whose final objective, the rebels say, is to protect the government of long-standing President Idriss Deby.
Deployment of non-African troops in Africa has been problematic. Great Britain successfully intervened (as part of a UN effort) in Sierra Leone in 2000, but recent attempts to convince Africans of the efficacy of international intervention have faced opposition. In Sudan's Darfur, the international community is still unable to come up with helicopters for a UN/African Union force.
France is an essential player in Chad and elsewhere in Africa, but carries so much former colonial baggage that the EU may have serious difficulty ever convincing parties to the conflict that it is fielding a neutral force. It may require tons of patience (and logistical assistance from the international community), but finding African solutions (the AU, of course, but also through successful regional organizations like West Africa's ECOWAS) to Africa's many armed conflicts should be the default posture. France has stressed training in its RECAMP program, as has the US in ACRI and ACOTA programs. Anything else runs the risk of association with colonial memories, and can embroil well-meaning (?) non-African organizations in conflicts that are just as complex as those of the Middle East.