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| Africa Horn |
| Chadian president denounces Bashir as an enemy |
| 2005-12-25 |
| The tense situation between Sudan and Chad has witnessed grave escalation on the background of Chad's accusations against Sudan of arming rebels who launched attacks against the border Chad city of Adri at the beginning of the week at a time when the African Union is making efforts in Sudan with the aim to contain the crisis between the two countries. In a statement on Friday, the Chad government said it is in a state of war with Sudan, and described the Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir as Chad's enemy." The statement appealed the people of Chad to mobilize its lines in confrontation of the "Sudanese enemy." Chad's foreign minister Ahmad Alam Me said that the Sudanese ambassador to Chad was summoned to the foreign ministry and he was handed over a memorandum including "Sudan's aggressions against Chad." The spokesman for the Chad's government in a press conference called on Chad's friends "to support it by all means in this crisis." During his visit to Adri, the president of Chad Idris Deibi accused his Sudanese peer Hassan al-Bashir of wanting to "destabilizing his country." Deibi added that the attack against Adri was made by the rebels, but it was a direct aggression by the Sudanese government against Chad. An aggression that was led by the Sudanese defense minister Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hussein who is close to Bashir." Chad's president stressed that the attacks aimed at creating what he called a state of chaos and exporting the Darfur war to his country, expressing opposition simultaneously to Bashir being handed over the Presidency of the African Union by the beginning of January 2006. Sudan denied Chad's accusations. The Sudanese foreign ministry circulated a statement on foreign diplomatic missions in Khartoum saying that "Sudan is innocent from what is accused by Chad of supporting groups opposing Chad." The statement described Chad's accusations as "false and a policy that does not serve the march of bilateral relations and fraternity ties, and does not serve the realization of stability in the region and the positive interaction among community groups which are closely intermingled on the two countries borders. "The Sudanese foreign ministry summoned Chad ambassador to its Saqr Youssef and expressed to him Sudan's regret over Chad's filing a complaint to the UN Security Council accusing Sudan of interfering in its internal affairs. The spokesman for the Sudanese foreign ministry Jamal Muhammad Ibrahim said that his country still considers that dialogue is the only means to solve this crisis and welcomes the initiative of the African Union which calls for containing this crisis. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #2 A return to the old Cold War situation of "war in Africa by proxy"! |
| Posted by: gromky 2005-12-25 16:10 |
| #1 It would appear that China supports Sudan, and France supports Chad. It will be interesting to see if the two countries' foreign backers play any part in this confrontation, whether it plays out diplomatically or on the battlefield. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-12-25 11:26 |