Chad , officially Republic of Chad, republic (2005 est. pop. 9,826,000), 495,752 sq mi (1,284,000 sq km), N central Africa. Chad is bordered by the Central African Republic on the south, Sudan on the east, Libya on the north, and Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria on the west. Ndjamena is the capital and largest city.

Land and People

The terrain in the south is wooded savanna; it becomes brush country near Lake Chad. The only important rivers are the Chari and the Logone, both of which flow into Lake Chad and are used for irrigation and seasonal navigation. Northern Chad is part of the Sahara Desert; areas of the mountainous Tibesti region there are 11,000 ft (3,353 m) high. The country has no railroads and few all-weather roads.

Chad comprises some 200 ethnicities, which fall into two distinct, and often hostile, population groupings. In the south, where the bulk of the population is concentrated, live sedentary agricultural peoples, including the Sara, Massa, Ngambaye, and Moundang; most are Christians, but some follow traditional religions. In the north are seminomadic and nomadic Muslim peoples, including Arabs, Tuareg, Hadjerai, Fulbe, and Toubou. French and Arabic are the official languages, but more than 100 languages and dialects are spoken throughout the country.

Economy

Chad's landlocked position, poor transportation network, inadequate natural resources, and ongoing political turmoil have severely hampered economic development. The economy is based primarily on sedentary subsistence agriculture and nomadic pastoralism, employing 80% of the workforce but contributing only about 32% of the GDP. The best farming zone is in the south, where rainfall is sufficient for the cultivation of cotton and peanuts (the country's leading cash crops) for export and some subsistence crops, including sorghum, millet, rice, potatoes, and manioc. Cattle, sheep, goats, and camels are raised, and there is fishing in Lake Chad. During drought periods, Chad requires food aid to meet necessary levels.

Natron and uranium are the country's chief minerals, and petroleum is produced in the southern Doba basin, which is connected by pipeline with the Cameroonian port of Kribi. Industry is limited to food processing and the production of textiles and light consumer goods. Imports—largely machinery, transportation equipment, industrial goods, foodstuffs, and textiles—generally outweigh exports, mainly cotton, cattle, gum arabic, and oil. Chad's chief trading partners are the United States, France, Cameroon, and China.

Government

Chad is governed under the constitution of 1996 as amended. The executive branch is headed by a president, who is elected by popular vote for a five-year term; there are no term limits. The prime minister is appointed by the president. Members of the 155-seat National Assembly are popularly elected for four-year terms. Administratively, Chad is divided into 18 regions.

History

Traditionally, the region around Lake Chad was a focal point for trans-Saharan trade routes. Arab traders penetrated the area in the 7th cent. AD Shortly thereafter, nomads from North Africa, probably related to the Toubou, entered the region; they eventually established the state of Kanem, which reached its zenith in the 13th cent. Its kings converted to Islam, the religion also practiced by the successor state of Bornu. The Wadai and Bagirmi empires arose in the 16th cent.; they warred with Bornu and in the 18th cent. surpassed it in power. By the early 1890s all of these states, weakened by internal dissension, fell under the control of the Sudanese conqueror Rabah el Zobaír.

French expeditions advanced into the region in 1890, and French sovereignty over Chad was recognized by agreements among the European powers. In 1900, French forces defeated Rabah's army, and by 1913 the conquest of Chad was completed; it was organized as a French colony in French Equatorial Africa and remained under military rule. Chad was later linked administratively with Ubangi-Shari (now the Central African Republic), but in 1920 it again became a separate colony. It was granted its own territorial legislature in 1946. In the French constitutional referendum of 1958, Chad chose autonomy within the French Community . Full independence was attained on Aug. 11, 1960, with Ngarta Tombalbaye as the first president.

Tombalbaye steadily strengthened his control over the country, and by 1965 it had become a one-party state. Chad suffered severely from the W African drought of the late 1960s and 1970s. Discontent among northern Muslim tribes with the increasing power of Tombalbaye's southern-dominated government evolved into a full-scale guerrilla war in 1966. French troops helped battle the revolt, which ended in 1973. However, the main Muslim guerrilla group, the Chad National Liberation Front (FROLINAT), figured prominently in fighting between Chad and Libya throughout the 1970s and 80s. During this period, Libya occupied various parts of Chad and supplied FROLINAT (which initially did not oppose Libyan expansionism) with arms.

Tombalbaye was killed in a coup in 1975. In 1979 a coalition government headed by Goukouni Oueddei, a former rebel from the north, assumed power, ending control of the government by southern Chadians, but he was overthrown in 1982 by the forces of former prime minister Hissène Habré. In 1987, the combined forces of FROLINAT and the Chadian government (with French and U.S. military aid) drove Libya from the entire northern region with the exception of the Aozou Strip and parts of Tibesti; in 1994 the International Court of Justice rejected Libya's claims and returned the area to Chad.

In 1990, Idriss Déby, leader of the Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS), overthrew the Habré government and promised democratic reforms and a new constitution. A national democracy conference in 1993 established a transitional government with Déby as interim president and called for free elections within a year. Armed rebel groups continued to challenge the government, which, for its part, repeatedly postponed the elections. Multiparty presidential elections were finally held in 1996; Déby was returned to office, and the MPS also triumphed in the 1997 legislative elections.

The late 1990s saw renewed fighting in the north and other parts of the country. The president was again returned to office in 2001 in a disputed election, and the following year the MPS again won the legislative elections. A peace accord was signed with rebels in the north in May, 2002, but fighting erupted there again in Jan., 2003. The same month the government signed a peace agreement with rebels in E Chad, and in the following December a new peace agreement was signed with the northern rebels.

Fighting between local rebels and government troops and militias in Darfur, Sudan, which began in early 2003, has driven tens of thousands of refugees into E Chad. There also have been clashes between Chad's army and the Sudanese militias, and Chad has accused Sudan of backing former Chadian rebels to fight against Sudanese rebels. Chad also has received refugees from the Central African Republic, 30,000 of whom fled a coup there in 2003 and smaller numbers that were displaced by banditry in 2005.

In May, 2004, Chad's national assembly approved a constitutional amendment that ended the two-term limit on the presidency, allowing Déby to run for a third term in 2006. The amendment was approved in a referendum in June, 2005. Desertions (Sept., 2005) from the Chadian army increased the number of rebels based in Darfur, and in December there was fighting between the rebels and the army in E Chad. Chad again accused Sudan of backing the rebels and called for international intervention in Darfur.

In Dec., 2005, the national assembly voted to allow the government to use oil revenues that were to be set aside, under an agreement with the World Bank, for poverty reduction projects and future uses. Chad said the change was necessary because of national financial difficulties, caused in part by the rebellion in the east. In response, the World Bank halted loans to Chad and froze a Chadian oil escrow account, but an interim agreement, reached (Apr., 2006) after Chad threatened to halt oil production, allowed Chad access to the escrow account. A new agreement on poverty reduction projects was signed with the World Bank in July, but two years later (Sept., 2008) the World Bank canceled an oil pipeline deal with Chad because the government had failed to live up to the agreement. Oil revenues also were a source of friction with foreign consortium producing the petroleum. In Aug., 2006, Chad threatened two foreign companies with expulsion until they agreed to pay a renegotiated tax bill, and the president called for Chad to be a partner in the consortium.

Meanwhile, the assembly voted in Jan., 2006, to postpone its elections for a year, until 2007, citing financial problems as the reason. Some observers, however, believed that the real reason for the postponement was to assure Déby of support in the national assembly. An agreement (Feb., 2006) between Chad and Sudan that was intended to end cross-border incursions had little immediate effect on the fighting in the region. In Mar., 2006, government forces foiled a coup plot against Déby, whose position seemed increasingly uncertain. The following month Chadian rebels mounted a drive that reached into the capital before it was defeated.

Déby was reelected in May, but the opposition boycotted the vote and denounced the election and the official turnout figure of 61% as frauds. The security situation remained unstable, with continuing militia incursions from Sudan into Chad and attacks by Chadian rebels in Chad, Sudan, and the Central African Republic. In November, in the southeast, Chad also endured attacks by Arabs on non-Arab Chadians. That same month the government agreed to the stationing of a proposed UN peacekeeping force on its side of the Sudan border, but three months later the government said it would not allow any military peacekeepers to be stationed in its territory.

The signing, in Dec., 2006, of a peace agreement with one group of rebels did not fundamentally alter Chad's deteriorated security situation. Fighting with the rebels continued sporadically into 2007. A clash with rebels in Apr., 2007, led to fighting between Chadian and Sudanese troops after Chadian forces crossed the border in pursuit of the rebels. The following month, however, both nations signed an agreement intended to bring peace to their border region. An accord between the government and opposition parties, signed in Aug., 2007, postponed the next round of national assembly elections until 2009 to create electoral lists and voter ID cards that would prevent fraud.

In September the UN Security Council authorized the sending of peacekeepers to Chad to protect refugees there, and the following month the government and the main rebel forces signed a peace accord. New fighting erupted in November, however, and in December Sudan accused Chad of mounting attacks in W Darfur in conjunction with rebels there. In Feb., 2008, the rebels advanced into the capital before being forced to retreat; government and rebel forces continued to battle in E Chad in subsequent months. Later in February the 3,700-member European peacekeeping force (EUFOR) began deploying in Chad to protect Sudanese and Chadian refugees. The following month Sudan and Chad again signed another accord intended to pacify the area along their common border, but Sudan broke off relations in May, accusing Chad of supporting an assault by Darfurian rebels against Sudan's capital.

Bibliography

See H. D. Nelson, ed., Area Handbook for Chad (1972); J. A. Works, Pilgrims in a Strange Land: Hausa Communities in Chad (1976); M. P. Kelley, State in Disarray: Conditions of Chad's Survival (1986); T. Collelo, Chad: A Country Study (2d ed. 1990); S. C. Nolutshungu, Limits of Anarchy: Intervention and State Formation in Chad (1996); M. J. Azevedo and E. A. Nnadozie, Chad: A Nation in Search of its Future (1997); S. Decalo, Historical Dictionary of Chad (3d ed. 1997); M. J. Azevedo, Roots of Violence: A History of War in Chad (1998); J. M. Burr, Africa's Thirty Years' War: Chad, Libya, and the Sudan, 1963-1993 (1999).

Chad A landlocked country in north-Central Africa surrounded by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, and Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon to the west.

Physical

Out of the Sahara in its northern half rise the volcanic Tibesti Mountains, with reserves of tungsten, while in the east is the great depression surrounding Lake Chad, with deposits of natron (hydrated sodium carbonate).

Economy

Chad is one of the poorest countries in Africa, with a mainly agricultural economy which is vulnerable to drought. Major exports include cotton and livestock products. The industrial sector is small, mostly comprising textiles and food processing.

History

Northern Chad has been inhabited for about 10,000 years and southern Chad since about 500 BC. During the 8th century BERBER peoples moved into the area and founded the empire of Kanem. This empire expanded and in the 13th century merged with the kingdom of Bornu. The neighbouring kingdoms of Baguirmi and Ouaddaï grew more powerful during the 16th century. The three kingdoms fought during the 17th century until in the early 1890s all fell under the control of the Sudanese conqueror, Rabeh. French expeditions advanced into the region, and French sovereignty was recognized by the European powers. After confrontation with the British at Fashoda (1898) France declared a protectorate, and in 1908 Chad became part of French Equatorial Africa, though control was complete only in 1912. In 1920 Chad became a colony under French administration, its rich mineral deposits being rapidly exploited. In 1940 Chad was the first colony to declare for the FREE FRENCH. It became autonomous within the FRENCH COMMUNITY in 1958, and a fully independent republic in 1960, with François Tombalbaye as the first President. Since then the country has struggled to maintain unity between the Arabic-speaking Muslim peoples of the north and the more economically developed south and west. In 1980 Libya invaded, proposing union between the two countries. Civil war lasted until 1987, when French and US intervention led to Libya's withdrawal and the installation of Hissène Habré as President. Habré was deposed in 1990 by his one-time military commander Idriss Déby. A democratization process was agreed upon, and a transitional legislature was installed in 1993. In 1994 Libya agreed to hand back to Chad the Aouzou Strip, an area rich in minerals occupied by Libya since 1973. Armed rebels, based in the south of the country, agreed to a ceasefire in 1996 and a constitutional referendum, which had been postponed several times, was held. A new constitution was approved, establishing Chad as a unitary state. Déby and his supporters were victorious in elections in 1996 and 1997.

Chad Under French influence since 1900, it became part of French Equatorial Africa in 1910. A large, sparsely inhabited, landlocked country in central Africa, it was largely neglected by the French colonial authorities, so that by 1933 there were still only eighteen qualified teachers in a country more than twice the size of France. The first secondary school was not established until after World War II. Nevertheless, it became an autonomous territory within the French Community in 1958, and achieved independence on 11 August 1960. Subsequently, the country suffered from tensions between its more populous and economically active south, inhabited largely by tribes following animistic religions, and the more sparsely populated north, whose inhabitants were mainly Muslims (predominantly of Arabian descent) living in hierarchical social structures dominated by tribal chiefs. The French administration had favoured the ruling elites over the more anarchic southern population groups, which caused the latter's bitter resentment.

During the 1950s the southern population became increasingly powerful, and upon independence they provided the first President, François Tombalbaye (b. 1918, d. 1975). His attempt to infringe some of the traditional powers of the northern chiefs led to a series of local revolts, which culminated in a civil war (1966–8). The government collapsed, but was saved by French intervention in 1968. Tombalbaye had no intention of becoming more conciliatory, or less corrupt than he had been since taking office. His nationalist policies, which included the prosecution of Christian missionaries and the requirement to change all European names into African ones, failed to impress the population.

Tombalbaye was deposed in a military coup in 1976, which led to a power vacuum and the eruption of a civil war between various ethnic factions. One of the most powerful leaders from the north of the country, Goukouni Oueddai, called for the help of 10,000 Libyan troops in 1980. Despite this, his CIA-backed rival, Hissène Habré (b. 1936), was able to assume power in 1982. Following the renewed advance of Libyan troops to help Goukouni, France sent its troops to assist Habré, so that the country was effectively divided between a Libyan-controlled northern half and a French-dominated southern half. A ceasefire was agreed in 1987, and civilian rule was gradually restored. Habré failed to attract significant popular support because of his brutal regime, under which up to 40,000 people were said to have been murdered. He was deposed in 1990 by Idriss Déby (b. 1956), though human rights violations continued, albeit on a smaller scale.

In 1998, Youssouf Togoimi left the government to found the oppositional Mouvement pour la Démocratie et la Justice au Tchad (Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad, MDJT). It organized a rebel movement which operated from the north against government forces. Déby was unable to contain the rebels, but in 2001 he was re-elected President. In 2000, the country received loans for a pipeline into neighbouring Cameroon, allowing it to export its oil from the Doba region. The project was controversial since it led to the depletion of the rain forest, while there were also concerns that the income provided would increase the stakes in the civil war.