U.S. Calls Sudan Responsible for Coup Attempt; Concern Mounts for Darfur Refugees in Border Areas
By Stephanie McCrummen and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 4, 2008
NAIROBI, Feb. 3 -- Heavily armed rebels trying to overthrow the government of Chad battled near the presidential palace in the capital Sunday and later claimed to control a town on the eastern border with Sudan, raising concerns about the 240,000 refugees from Sudan's ravaged Darfur region who live along the border.
A Chadian official in the dusty town of Adre said Sudanese helicopters and Antonov bombers had helped the rebels attack government positions. The Bush administration also said Sudan was responsible for the rebels' attempted coup.
Sudanese officials called the allegations "baseless."
"Chad's problems are homegrown, and they are very old," Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, said Sunday. "But whenever there is a rebellion against the one dominant group or tribe, the easiest thing for them to do is to accuse Sudan."
Speaking with Radio France International, a Chadian official called the reported attack on Adre "a declaration of war."
On the second day of fighting, France called an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council to seek backing for a statement that would call for "support by all necessary means" for the Chadian government. Such language traditionally is used to justify military force. But the proposal ran into opposition from Russia, which contended it went too far.
The State Department ordered the evacuation of all nonessential government employees from the capital, N'Djamena, and the U.S. Embassy abandoned its compound near the presidential palace, which had been taking indirect fire.
French special forces evacuated 16 staff members from the U.S. Embassy as well as officials from the German Embassy, France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Maurice Ripert, told the Security Council behind closed doors.
The U.S. Embassy has set up temporary quarters at N'Djamena's airport, said State Department spokesman Karl Duckworth. "The situation is too unsettled to predict the outcome," he said.
The U.S. and French ambassadors to the United Nations issued statements supporting the government of President Idriss D¿by, as international concern mounted over the prospect of a rebel takeover that analysts say would be a foreign policy victory for the Sudanese government.
"We call on the Sudanese government to end the support immediately, to restrain rebel forces in Chad and to end the fighting that adds to the instability in the region," said Greg Garland, the State Department's spokesman for Africa.
But it remained unclear whether the government or the rebels -- a coalition of mercenaries, disgruntled government ministers and the president's own nephew -- were in control.
D¿by, whom Chadians accuse of hoarding the nation's new oil wealth, remained in the country Sunday and reportedly refused an offer of evacuation by the French military.
Meanwhile, N'Djamena -- a city of crumbling archways and wide, shaded boulevards -- slowly emptied.
As fighting raged throughout the day, hundreds of Chadians continued to flee the capital west across the Chari River into Cameroon, while French troops extracted about 500 foreigners, including Americans, from hotels, according to U.N. officials and witnesses.
The French also flew out 103 U.N. staff members from the capital, leaving only a small team to monitor the situation.
In eastern Chad, a fragile humanitarian relief effort appeared more vulnerable as aid workers faced the possibility of abandoning some of the 12 camps for refugees from the Darfur conflict, which began five years ago and has resulted in the deaths of as many as 450,000 people. Thousands of the 2.5 million displaced in the conflict there have crossed the border into Chad.
As rebel columns advanced toward N'Djamena last week, armed groups broke into a U.N. compound in the eastern town of Guereda, north of Adre, and stole five trucks, U.N. officials said. In response, the United Nations transferred 28 staff members and international aid workers and scaled back services for more than 30,000 Darfur refugees in two nearby camps.
"For the time being, the refugees will have to run their own affairs," said William Spindler, a Geneva-based spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Other than the rebel attack on Adre, eastern Chad was relatively calm Sunday, and Spindler said it was too early to talk about evacuating. However, U.N. officials were meeting in the regional capital of Abeche to determine whether to transfer other staff members from the trouble zones.
David Buchbinder, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, said a rebel takeover would amount to a foreign policy victory for Sudan, which has sheltered the Chadian rebels and given them weapons.
"For Sudan, this represents a military solution to the Darfur conflict," he said. "It's not a done deal, but if D¿by is overthrown, it means that the Darfur rebels have enemies on both sides. They are surrounded."
A Sudanese-backed coup would provide Sudan's government with a base from which to attack rebels in Darfur and raise the possibility of attacks on refugee camps in eastern Chad, analysts said.
In the capital Sunday, the rebels battled near D¿by's palace but either were pushed back by government forces or retreated north of the city.
A reporter huddled with Chadians in a hotel said the rebels appeared to be waiting for additional fighters to arrive from eastern Chad.
"Their goal is not to control the town," said Francesco Fontemaggi, a reporter with Agence France-Presse. "Their goal is to attack the presidential palace."
Lynch reported from the United Nations. Staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.
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