June 19, 2017
Peace intervention: a case study of civil war in Chad
1. Introduction
Chad declared its independence in 1960s when it got rid of the colonial ruling of French. In 1965, however, Chad suffered from its civil war, which is due to complicated tribal and religious conflict. The contending for leadership continued for decades, which divided the nation, damaged normal production, and resulted in loss of citizen’s lives.
In 1965, Francois Tombalbaye, the leader of South Chad, took over the army in south Chad and dominated this region after the pull out of France troop. Tombalbaye implemented the racism policies that he enforced several bans toward northern Muslims, including wearing turbans, gathering of three or more (Chai, 2004). Some of the Muslims, including old, young, women and men, were insulted and punished due to the violation. Besides, the corruptions were everywhere among the army that taxes were collected compulsorily, which resulted in the revolt and rebellion and finally the armed struggle. As a result, the Front Liberation Nationale du Tchad, aimed at the establishment of a real independent government, was established and governed by Ibrahim Abacha. The war between these two parties worsened the economic development of Chad and even a split took place within the high-level authority of the government.
Finally, the France implemented military intervention and Tombalbaye was replaced with the former General Felix Malloum, who preferred solve the conflict between south and north Chad through negotiation. At the same time, the Front Liberation Nationale du Tchad was split to two parties after the death of Abacha, one was led by Hissene Habre, the other one was led by Goukouni Weddeye, who was supported by the Libya government. In 1976, Habre signed a peace agreement with the government of Malloum and established the Temporary National Unity Government and agreed Malloum to be the “President” when faced with the threat of Weddeye.
Weddeye kept launching large-scale attacks toward the control area of Malloum, who in turn with the help of France tried hold off these attacks. Nonetheless, there was an armed conflict between Malloum and Habre because of power struggle. As a consequence, other groups seized the chance drifted into the war, which threw the Chad into chaos.
2. International interventions
2.1. European Union
Human rights in Chad were violated significantly due to insecurity, including internal violence, frequent attacks. People in Chad were threatened by death, felt insecure, had no access to health care, food and water, and become destitute and homeless. The state no longer has the ability to stop the violation and protect people from wars, therefore, with respect to humanitarianism, the European Union undertook the responsibility to protect Chadians, which was consented by the with the United Nation(书上war).
The mission and goals were to improving security by reducing the frequency of human rights violation and the possible threats of rebels, which prescribed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSCR). The EU were supposed to provide foods and water to people who suffered from these wars, protect free movement of not only refugees but also humanitarian personnel.
The build of democracy was also their objective. From the Democratic Peace point of view, democracies rarely fight each other, which means that democracies are more peace internally and externally (书). Therefore, by democratizing non-democratic country, the root course of war could be addressed and the peace zone will be expanded, which ultimately promote the reconciliation and achieve peace and stability. The EU were allowed, however, only to deal with issues regard to humanitarianism (out). Therefore, the EU were making efforts to helping the Chad build a more peaceful environment.
In order to promote the peacekeeping process, EU also deployed a large military force, which contributed largely by France. The French troops came into play when there were rebel attacks in order to protect refugees, the international personnel and promote security. Besides, France provide military training to strengthen the ability of Chad army, which will increase the possibility of government army to protect citizens from the rebellions.
2.2. Organization of African Unity
The OAU decided to mediated the conflict within Chad in 1979 when the civil war had been lasted for 12 years. What the EU did is bring the major parties of Chad together and hold a conference for the sake of a negotiated settlement of the conflict. Negotiated settlement is not likely to seek a military victory as defined by traditional war end, which will result in a genocide to the losing side since the victors are more likely to give punishment. In contrast, the negotiated settlement is more likely end the war in a peaceful manner, which will result in power sharing and government institutions and less causalities.
The negotiation lasted for five days that internal (Malloum, Habre, Weddeye, etc.) and external actors (Libya, Nigeria, etc.) communicated with each other and make coordination, which resulted in a peace accord. The peace accord comprises of six provisions, including ceasefire, neutral peacekeeping force, transitional government of national union, etc.
However, these attempts didn’t work well and only one provision, which is the peacekeeping army provided by Nigeria, was fulfilled and the conflict condition after the first conference even worsened. Therefore, a second conference was held, which aimed at the establishment of the transitional government of national union. With the intervention and influence of some African countries, the peace agreement concluded that the leader of the transitional government was “appointed” from one of the major parties of Chad and the election will be hold eighteen months after.
This agreement then was protested by other minority groups and the temporary peace cannot be sustained, which led to the third conference. In the conference, as argued by the minorities, the transitional government was mandated to be dismissed, which was opposed by the majority groups who argued it is a significant interfere of the domestic politics.
The fourth conference, therefore, was held to mediated the conflict among these parties. At this time, the 11 parties of Chad joined the conference, including the majorities and minorities. The conference ended with an agreement that requires the ceasefire of all parties, which was monitored by the OAU peacekeeping troops composed of the neighbor countries of Chad, and a regeneration of a transitional government of national union, which consisted of the representatives of the 11 parties.
3. Evaluation and analysis
3.1. Success of the engagement of EU
The effectiveness of humanitarian intervention of EU could be evaluated by the level of security and humanitarian condition. The efforts that the EU made could be valued as positive since the