Chad's Government Declares State of Emergency (ROP at Work)
AFP ^ | 11/13/2006
news.yahoo.com
N'DJAMENA (AFP) - Chad's government declared a state of emergency covering much of the country after recent clashes between Arab and non-Arab communities killed hundreds of people in the east.
"Given the seriousness of the situation and the scope these clashes are taking, the government has adopted a state of emergency in three regions (Ouaddai, Wadi Fira and Salamat) currently affected" by the fighting, the government said in a statement.
As a precaution, the state of emergency -- which also muzzles the media -- will extend to most other parts of the north central African nation, including the capital and the mountainous Borkou, Ennedi and Tibesti region bordering on Libya.
The government declaration comes after violence erupted in eastern Chad this month as Arab horsemen raided and torched villages whose inhabitants are mostly of black African descent, killing roughly 300 people.
The clashes followed separate fighting in the same region pitting government troops against a newly merged alliance of rebels that briefly seized two towns in October.
"This state of emergency aims to quell serious threats to public order leading to insecurity that is rife in these regions," said the communique released after a special session of President Idriss Deby Itno's cabinet.
The government also plans to appoint district administrators in regions under the state of emergency and give them full powers to react to the unrest, the statement said.
Newspaper censorship will be restored, the statement said, and radios will be banned from reporting on issues "that could threaten public order, national unity, territorial integrity and respect for republican institutions."
Chadian opposition politicians and journalists swiftly denounced the emergency measures as draconian.
"If we've arrived at this situation, its because of the absence of the state in these regions and of the fault of those who govern us," said Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh, spokesman for the Coordination of Political Parties for Defence of the Constitution, the country's chief opposition coalition.
And Nadjikimo Benoudjita, head of a leading editors' association, warned the censorship amounted to "the death of press freedom."
Once again, the Chadian government blamed neighboring Sudan for causing the latest bout of unrest, darkly accusing the Khartoum government of crafting and launching "a global strategy ... to destabilize Chad."
Much of the recent violence began in the vast and desolate Salamat region of southeastern Chad and its chief town, Am-Timam, where clashes have left roughly 100 people dead, the government says.
The violence has since spread to the Ouaddai region bordering Sudan, where the raiders have killed more than 220 people, wounded dozens more and displaced thousands from their homes, according to UN relief agencies.
Those who fled and were wounded in the violence recounted chilling tales of Arab horsemen accompanied by pick-up trucks sweeping into villages, killing and torching everything in sight.
"The Arabs killed many," said 21-year-old Ousmane, being treated for bullet wounds at a hospital in Goz Beida, the main town in Ouaddai. "They surprised us as we went to our fields.
"They insulted us. They said 'Nouba, Nouba'," he said. The local word for black is also used to mean 'slave'.
Both Goz Beida and Am-Timam were briefly occupied late last month by the rebel Union of Forces for Development and Democracy (UFDD), before the rebels pulled back toward the borders of Sudan and the Central African Republic.
N'Djamena has also accused Sudan of aiding the rebels, who are seeking to overthrow Deby. |
