France supplied ammunition for Chadian army

FRANCE: France's military admitted yesterday that it had transported munitions to the Chadian army during the recent rebel attack on the capital, N'Djamena, earlier this month.

The admission is likely to fuel arguments about the neutrality of the EUfor peacekeeping mission to Chad currently being deployed and which contains, among others, strong Irish and French contingents under Irish command.

Chad's rebel groups yesterday strongly criticised France for a "neo-colonialist" intervention which they say propped up the regime of President Idriss Deby.

France, which has long-standing military co-operation agreements with Chad and more than 1,000 troops on the ground, insisted, however, that its forces took no part in the fighting and that they focused on evacuating more than 700 foreign nationals.

A defence ministry spokesman, Laurent Teisseire, however confirmed media reports that French aircraft had transported ammunition for Chad's Russian-built T-55 tanks from Libya to N'Djamena.

"Chad says it called on Libya to supply it with munitions for this Soviet-era equipment. Within this framework, France put into effect its co-operation agreement with Chad with regard to logistics," Mr Teisseire told reporters at a briefing in Paris.

France's La Croix newspaper had earlier suggested it was the French government that had contacted Libya to secure the munitions.

Libyan leader Muammar Gadafy visited France for the first time in 34 years in December, in a rapprochement which led to criticism of President Nicolas Sarkozy for allegedly turning a blind eye to human rights violations in his haste to wrap up business deals in the energy-rich North African country.

France was behind a February 4th statement from the UN Security Council urging members to support the Deby government, but many analysts have questioned Paris's apparent reluctance to press for a political solution to Chad's long-running civil conflict.

The current insurrection began in late 2005 when Mr Deby announced he would change the constitution to seek a third term. Elections in May 2006, boycotted by the opposition, were strongly criticised by observers.

The rebels argue that France is a partisan player in the conflict and that its intervention has made the EU peacekeeping mission there a legitimate target. 

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times