YPFP Abroad

"An African portrait: Chad"

 Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of essays by YPFP members about their travels, work and studies abroad. This member spent several months in Chad. YPFP does not publish content anonymously; however, we made an exception in this case to protect the author.

Watching the dust rise from the ambient cacophony on the dirt roads as the sun undergoes its daily colorful mutation, I can barely make sense of Chad. People walking around, slowly pacing every step, the horde of people is now starting to disperse, on their way to the local mosque. The poverty is more than tangible: it can be felt at every street corner, among the young children who run after Westerners to sell them peanuts, or by the patent lack of hygiene or basic services. The lack of adequate health and industrial infrastructures has been the most prevailing plague of this oil-rich country that yet attracts considerable foreign investments. Skinny women and children go about while the men sit on the ground, watching at the cars passing by. Another day just went by in Chad.

Home to 9.1 millions people, Africa’s 5th largest nation has been the stage for conflicts between Arab- Muslims and Christian animists for many years. Idriss Deby seized power as his predecessors: trading a dictatorship for another one, his reign being characterized by nepotism and corruption. Since taking office, Deby has been faced with more than half a dozen insurgencies. A former coup leader, he helped Hissen Habre (Chad’s former president) get into power in 1982. Following accusations of plotting a coup, he fled to Sudan to come back a year later with his Patriotic Salvation Movement (PSM), forcing Habre in exile in Senegal in 1991 and proclaiming himself president. Re-elected in Chad’s first post independence elections in 1996, 2001 and 2006, the lack of transparency clearly indicates that he will hold on to power as much as he can. Driving through the streets of N’Djamena, his benevolent portrait is hung on lampposts and at round points, generally garnished with popular slogans such as ”Chad, the country of freedom and democracy”. The president and his cronies are watching over the country: the midnight police, spies and Libyian collaboration are the daily trade of the regime. Local hotels are foreign-owned and generally serve as spying turf for foreign interests such as France or Libya. The phones are wired, conversations listened to and people are observed.

Sudan’s conflict is spilling over the porous border with Chad as attacks on eastern Chadian tribes take place. Idriss Deby, who is from the same ethnic group (Zaghawa) as the rebels in Sudan, has allegedly been supporting them. In a tit-for-tat retaliation, Bashir’s government is now backing the rebels in Chad, who are supposedly mostly from Sudan. Furthermore, it seems that the rebels are backed by some ministers from his PSM. Despite increasing tensions between both countries, no open conflict is taking place and Deby keeps denying the situation in order to keep foreign investments pouring in. How long can it last? Following an attack on the eastern border that killed more than 200 Chadians, the country is currently in a state of emergency. Deby is standing still, while the tension is rising in the Capital. Deep in the night, Tala, a police officer harboring the president’s portrait on his cap, explains that many people are now staying in at night, putting an end to the nocturnal activities of city. Some are getting ready, others are waiting, their rifle in their hands, for the arrival the rebels. Weakened by a split within his Zaghawa ethnic group, who felt misrepresented, and by defection, Deby is now turning towards France and oil companies for arms supplies and military backing.

Oil companies such as Exxon or Petronas have been exploiting the oil reserves for years, paying the required 12.5% on the generated income. Denounced by humanitarian agencies and the World Bank for using the pipeline’s money to buttress his power and strengthen the military, the oil companies and the president remain bedfellows with occasional disagreements. When Chad paired with China to the detriment of Taiwan, the alarm bells should have rung. It is no coincidence that Deby’s threat of expulsing Chevron and Petronas, who hold 60 percent of the consortium operating the $3.7 billion pipeline, came at a time when Chad broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan to engage with China.

Napoleon once declared in 1804 that ‘ (…) the day China will awake, it will shake the world’. This was indeed a very accurate statement. China already plays a major role in Africa and is omnipresent in Chad. Idriss Deby relied on China for a better deal if the foreign-owned companies refused to re-negotiate, while playing nationalist interests. In a country like Chad, the wise use of petrodollars would have been acclaimed, but the money would clearly be used to reinforce his party and to clear the way for China. The experience with the World Bank and the end of the oil programs are a reminder of Deby’s truthful intentions. The president is following the ‘resource nationalism’ trend spreading through oil rich developing countries. The status quo will be preserved in exchange of sophisticated weapons to avoid being overthrown. China, barely masking its ambitions of developing a pipeline that would connect Chad to Sudan, where it is already well implanted, would have a route from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Guinea, were it to connect to the existing pipeline through Chad and Cameroon.

Although China claims that this new partnership with Africa stands as a great opportunity for development, we may witness a new form of colonialism where Africa is becoming the experimenting ground for China’s imperialism. China’s energy consumption is second to the US and the struggle for oil is rife. Indeed, China is taking over, implying that foreign-owned companies have less leeway for negotiating deals and also lose ground politically and economically while China emerges as the super power of the continent.  Africa’s oil exports are growing rapidly and could represent 25% of US oil export by 2015, which is if China’s influence is restrained. Furthermore, it is important to note that China has no particular interest in maintaining peace or democratic regimes in Africa and is more than likely going to support highly doubtful regimes such as Sudan’s Aman Bashir government as long as its interests are secured. Further destabilization in the region could increase oil prices and stand as another benefit if the ‘Middle Kingdom’ owns most of the pipeline deals.

Is Chad becoming the next Latin America of the Cold War? Will it be the next ground for proxy wars between Asian states and the West? This is how globalization reaches out to one of the most isolated country in the world: a geopolitical conflict in Asia exports to Chad, the quest for Western interests against China highjack a local African economic and political life. People remain confident that it will just be another event in their country. “This is not the first time it happens. We will do as before. We will just survive and get on with it” Tala declared on a resigned tone.