Chadians Come Out As Calm Returns
President Says Sudan Incited Rebel Attack

By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 7, 2008

JOHANNESBURG, Feb. 6 -- Life eased toward normality Wednesday in Chad's capital of N'Djamena as a few shops reopened and people began venturing out of their homes on the quietest day since rebels attacked last week, according to humanitarian workers.

With the rebels in retreat, President Idriss D¿by, a former fighter pilot dressed triumphantly in military garb, summoned reporters to his presidential palace, spread his arms wide and declared, "Look at me, I'm fine," the Associated Press reported.

D¿by accused neighboring Sudan of instigating the rebel attack and said his government was "in total control, not only of the capital, but of all the country."

D¿by said only a quarter of the members of his government remained. "I do not know where the rest have gone," he said. "There are traitors. When the time comes we shall work on that issue."

The grim toll of several days of intense fighting came into focus as government forces consolidated their hold over the city.

Relief officials have collected 80 bodies from the streets of N'Djamena in the past two days, which brings the death toll to at least 148. Nicolai Panke, a top official in Chad for the International Committee of the Red Cross, predicted that the toll would reach at least 200, with more than 1,000 injured.

The Chadian Red Cross and government officials were attempting to identify as many of the dead as possible before burying them in mass graves, Panke said.

Tens of thousands of Chadian refugees, meanwhile, remained across the border in northern Cameroon and in neighboring Nigeria. U.N. relief officials said they had ordered 50,000 blankets, 10,000 emergency tents and 25 tons of soap.

There was little sign the refugees were ready to return to the capital.

"It is a bit better, but people are still waiting for a better day" before crossing the Chari River back into N'Djamena, Panke said.

Doctor Without Borders said 60,000 refugees had fled to the town of Kousseri in northern Cameroon.

"The needs are also very serious there," said Caroline De Coster, a spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders. "We don't see any Chadians going back to N'Djamena."

French Defense Minister Herv¿ Morin met with government officials in N'Djamena. The French, after receiving U.N. Security Council approval to defend the government of their former colony, made clear Tuesday that any renewed rebel assault would meet a counterattack by its sophisticated military, including fighter jets and 1,900 troops already in the country.

The rebels called for peace the same day, then appeared to be in full retreat Wednesday. Two Chadian government helicopter gunships and one military airplane fired on the rebels as they fled eastward in their pickup trucks toward Sudan, said a French military spokesman, Capt. Christophe Prazuck.

"They were chasing the rebels," he said, speaking from Paris.

Prazuck said that it was too soon to rule out a renewed rebel assault but that "with each day that's passing, it's less and less probable."

There also was little reported progress in an African Union peace initiative led by President Moammar Gaddafi of Libya, which shares its southern border with Chad.

The rebels began their daring dash across Chad's desert last week in hundreds of pickup trucks mounted with machine guns. They reached N'Djamena on Friday and attacked the city and presidential palace over the weekend before beginning a withdrawal Monday.

Analysts say the attack was part of a much larger regional struggle between Chad and Sudan, which accuse each other of backing rebels in the other's country. The rebels who attacked D¿by's palace and some of the militias who helped repel them are based in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, along the border with Chad.

David Buchbinder, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who specializes in Chad, said that only regional peace would protect civilians in the two countries. But he said the government is more focused on weakening the retreating rebels.

"I think the government doesn't want the peace," Buchbinder said. "Gaddafi is going to have to twist their arms. I don't see any leverage on the rebels' part."

In his interview with reporters, D¿by said of the rebels, "We are going to catch them before they enter Sudan."