The Chadian Civil War of 1965–1979 (French: Guerre civile tchadienne de 1965–1979) was waged by several rebel factions against two Chadian governments. The initial rebellion erupted in opposition to Chadian President François Tombalbaye, whose regime was marked by authoritarianism, extreme corruption, and favoritism. In 1975 Tombalbaye was murdered by his own army, and a military government headed by Félix Malloum emerged and continued the war against the insurgents. Following foreign interventions by Libya and France, the fracturing of the rebels into rival factions, and an escalation of the fighting, Malloum stepped down in March 1979. This paved the way for a new national government, known as "Transitional Government of National Unity" (GUNT).
Following the rise of GUNT, a new phase of civil war and international conflict broke out in Chad.
Background
Political situation in Chad
Chad gained independence from France in August 1960. The state was left with minimal infrastructure; there were no paved roads or railways. In the northern Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti (BET) region and much of the centre-east, government presence was restricted to a handful of towns. Economically, it relied on cotton exports and French subsidies. Chad was sparsely populated but ethnically, it was highly diverse. In addition, the country was divided by religion; about 50% of the people were Muslims, most of them living in the north and east, whereas Christians and animists dominated the south. Constitutionally, the country was bequeathed a parliamentary system, though this quickly morphed into a dictatorship. The country's first president, François Tombalbaye, was a southerner whose government quickly proved to be corrupt, granting favors to his political supporters in the south while marginalizing the rest of Chad. Tensions and discontent consequently grew, especially as Tombalbaye undermined traditional local leaders who still held great respect among the people and became increasingly authoritarian.
By January 1962, Tombalbaye had banned all political parties except his own Chadian Progressive Party (PPT). His treatment of opponents, real or imagined, was extremely harsh, filling the prisons with thousands of political prisoners. Civilian demonstrations on 16 September 1963 were crushed by the Chadian Armed Forces, resulting in between 19 and 100 deaths. Several opposition groups began organising
resistance, though the first attempted insurgencies were easily suppressed by Tombalbaye's forces. Many opposition leaders fled to neighboring Sudan, where they began to prepare for a full rebellion.
Chadian Armed Forces and French support
The Chadian Armed Forces were formed by Chadian veterans of the French colonial military, and continued to receive training and equipment from France. In 1964 the Chadian Army consisted of 500 soldiers trained by 200 Frenchmen. From independence until 1979, the Chadian Army was overwhelmingly dominated by Sara southerners. Few northerners joined, and initially there were only two northerners in the officer corps. From the 1960s to 1979, the armed forces consisted of four branches: the Territorial Guard/National and Nomadic Guard, which was responsible for controlling the north of the country; the Sûreté Nationale, which was to secure the borders, mitigate crime, and protect the President; the Gendarmerie, which acted as a police force; and the Chadian Army, which consisted of four battalions. The Gendarmerie was the best-trained of all the branches. There was also a small Chadian Air Force and a naval force that operated on Lake Chad. Until 1975 the Territorial Guard and Sûreté Nationale answered to the Ministry of Interior, while the Gendarmerie and Army were overseen by the Ministry of Defence.
France maintained a significant military presence in Chad. As was common with many of its former African colonies, France and Chad had signed a military assistance agreement and a mutual defence pact. These accords included a secret provision which allowed Chad to request direct French military intervention in the event they were needed to ensure the domestic "maintenance of order". Under such circumstances, French military officers would take command of Chadian forces. The French embassy in Fort-Lamy also kept a signed, undated letter from Tombalbaye requesting protection in case his personal safety was jeopardised. In 1965, the French military had 1,000 troops in Chad, while French personnel permeated Chadian security institutions. The Air Force's pilots were almost all French until 1975. The military and intelligence service were headed by Frenchmen: Colonel Leverest commanded the Chadian Army, Adjutant-Chef Albert Gelino headed the Gendarmerie, and Camille Gourvennec led the main intelligence office, the Bureau de Coordination et de Synthèse du Renseignement (BCSR). These men were ruthless in regards to their readiness to violently suppress dissidents in Chad, and appreciated by the Chadian government as well as the French government. The heavy French involvement in Chad led to accusations of neocolonialism. While their presence aided Tombalbaye, his relationship with the French government was often tenuous.
War
Outbreak of conflict
French military officers oversaw the government in the BET until January 1965, when they were withdrawn. They were replaced by southern bureaucrats who had little knowledge of local culture and committed abuses, engendering alienation from the state among the locals. In September 1965 a Chadian soldier was killed in Bardaï, Tibesti in a fight following a dance. The local subprefect reacted harshly, having all the townspeople assembled and paraded nude. Nine people were arrested, including Toubou derde Oueddei Kichidemi and his son, Goukouni Oueddei. The local administration thereafter imposed restrictions on wearing turbans, growing beards, and assembling in groups. Resentful of this treatment, the residents of Bardaï rebelled.
Meanwhile, unrest grew in rural areas over issues of taxation. Tombalbaye attempted to buttress the paltry resources of his government by raising revenue, leading to tax increases and the collection of a "national loan" in 1964. Many Chadians were often confused to see tax collectors return to them to ask for the "loan" payments. Embezzlement of tax revenue and the forceful measures of the collectors generated resentment. The situation climaxed on 1 November 1965, when intense riots broke out in Mangalmé, Guéra prefecture that left over 500 people dead, including a representative to the National Assembly and nine other public officials. The riots—together with the revolt in Bardaï—marked the general start of widespread rebellion in Chad; the tax riots are usually considered the beginning of the civil war. Afterwards, spontaneous peasant revolts erupted throughout Guéra. By 1966 these had spread to Wadai Prefecture. Near Lake Fitri, there were open clashes between civilians and government forces. According to unconfirmed French reports, the Chadian Army torched villages and killed 250–400 people. Locals stated that soldiers bound alleged tax evaders and beat them to death. Chadian officials, fearing for their safety, rarely left their offices, diminishing administration in rural areas and further reducing tax revenue. Despite the financial problems, Tombalbaye pushed for increased defence expenditures in the 1966 budget.
Also in 1966, the Chadian government attempted to mandate the cultivation of food crops in the BET in an attempt to force the local nomads to "sedentarise". The Toubou disliked this treatment, and derde Oueddei asked for a delay in the implementation of the measure. The Chadian authorities attempted to arrest him. In December he and 1,000 of his followers fled to Libya. Oueddei's position as derde had been contested since he assumed the role in 1938, but Chadian actions in the BET led the Toubou to unify in his support. Three of his sons stayed behind and armed themselves against the authorities.
Founding of FROLINAT
As revolts spread throughout the countryside, some local leaders coalesced the resistance into small groups. On 22 June 1966, 24 delegates from various Chadian opposition groups met in Nyala, Sudan and founded the National Liberation Front of Chad (FROLINAT). The new organisation was a union of the Union Nationale Tchadienne (UNT) led by Ibrahim Abatcha, and the Mouvement National de Libération du Tchad (MNLT) led by Ahmed Hassan Musa. Musa was in prison in Sudan at the time, and Abatcha became FROLINAT's first leader. Though the organisation's leaders were mostly Muslims, some of its members were secularists. Abatcha was a committed socialist and FROLINAT adopted a left-leaning political platform—designed to attract the support of Arab socialist governments and the Eastern Bloc—and called for the institution of Arabic as an official language of Chad. FROLINAT hoped to secure the backing of Chad's Arab diaspora and Chadian expatriate university students; many of its earliest supporters were students in Cairo.
Following FROLINAT's founding, Abatcha and seven recruited students who had received military training in North Korea traveled into the Chadian interior to recruit new members and link FROLINAT with the local revolts. The organisation grew its ranks by taking advantage of anti-government sentiment caused by repression of unrelated rebellions. Abatcha tapped El Hajj Issaka, a deposed customary chief who had organised resistance in Dar Sila, as his top military commander. Mohammed El Baghalani became Abatcha's main representative in Sudan. Both men were much more conservative than Abatcha, and Baghalani preferred to appeal to the conservative Persian Gulf Arab states for materiel support rather than Egypt or other socialist states—to some success. Nevertheless, the diversity of political philosophies in FROLINAT laid the groundwork for future divisions; over time the rebels increasingly split into factions, headed by independent-minded commanders and backed by different ethnic groups. Abatcha's leadership was able to give FROLINAT some cohesiveness. However, Musa's faction broke off again soon after FROLINAT's founding, forming the independent Front de Libération du Tchad (FLT). The FLT never managed to gain much traction, and operated more akin to bandits in parts of eastern Chad such as Wadai.
The rebels also enjoyed covert support from the Kingdom of Libya, which claimed parts of northern Chad. However King Idris of Libya had no desire to clash with the French who backed Tombalbaye; accordingly the Libyans initially limited themselves to providing non-combat support such as nonlethal supplies and bases. However, the monarchy was overthrown in 1969, and Muammar Gaddafi assumed power in Libya. Gaddafi greatly increased Libyan support for the rebels, including supplying them with weapons. One of FROLINAT's leaders, Mahamat Ali Taher, went to Libya to meet with derde Oueddei to convince him to openly rebel against the government. Once this was done, Taher mobilised Toubou exiles for insurgent activities.
By 1967 FROLINAT had grown to become the most significant group in the rebellion. It established footholds in Batha, Salamat, Wadai, and Guéra prefectures, where its members plotted the assassination of government officials and ambushed army detachments. French observers stated that the insurgents aimed to aggravate Muslim resentment of black Chadians and prevent the government from collecting taxes. The lack of tax revenue forced Tombalbaye to cut expenditures, undermining administration and lowering the morale of civil servants. The president also attempted to ease local grievances by replacing Sara bureaucrats with Muslims. Frustrated at the army's inability to suppress rebellion in central Chad, he created the Compagnies Tchadiennes de Securité (CTS), an Israeli-trained unit under his personal control. By 1968, Tombalbaye's military forces consisted of the 1,200-strong Chadian Army, the 700-strong Gendarmerie, the National and Nomadic Guard, and 120 French soldiers. The president never completely trusted the regular army, and frequently characterised it as poorly motivated, undisciplined, and ill-trained. He used Moroccans as his personal bodyguards, while French, Israeli, and Congolese personnel were used to train new recruits rather than Chadians. The French and Congolese were also responsible for equipping some Chadian formations.