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A Short History of Chad

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The Republic of Chad has been plagued by long years of political unrest and civil war; in 1975 the country’s first President Francois Tombalbaye was killed in a coup d’etat. The following events including the takeover of new leader Felix Malloum were similarly fraught with bickerings and discontent among the people, leading to his ouster as President of the country in 1979. After Malloum’s ouster, civil war resurged up in 1982 when Chad was engaged in another war with Libya. But shortly after the Chad-Libyan war ended following a ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the dispute between the two countries, unrest persisted in Chad over the killings of civilians allegedly by government forces. In 1996, Idriss Deby won the first multi-part presidential elections, only to find his first few years in office marked by demonstrations and street protests that accused him of corruption. Chad began to accuse Sudan of giving support to the Chadian rebels.

In 2005, Chad declared war with Sudan as rebel groups continued to engage government forces in armed confrontation. Sudan responded with an attack on N’Djamena, the country’s capital, which was defeated by Chadian forces. In February 2008, rebels staged another attack on the capital city but this was repulsed by Deby’s troops with the support of French forces. But that did not end unrest in the country. Chad has continued to blame Sudan for its continuing political turmoil. In July 2009, the government and opposition groups forged an agreement through the establishment of an electoral commission for the presidential elections in 2011 in an effort to strengthen the democratic processes in the country.