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Chad in state of emergency
15/02/2008 07:27 - (SA)
N'Djamena - Chad's president declared a nationwide state of emergency, telling his citizens that tightened controls were needed to restore order after recent rebel attacks.
In a speech broadcast on national radio and television on Thursday, President Idriss Deby said he had signed a decree that would increase the government's powers for 15 days, starting on Friday, as allowed in Chad's constitution.
Deby said the decree instituted "important and urgent measures to maintain order, guarantee stability and assure the good functioning of the state".
The text announced "a state of emergency throughout the territory of the Republic of Chad".
The declaration gave extra powers to regional governors to control the movement of people and vehicles, banned most meetings, allowed the government to control what was published in the media, and instituted a midnight to 06:00 curfew.
"These are exceptional measures, but I must do this to assure the regular functioning of the state," Deby said, calling on regional governors to "mobilise all their means - human and material - to help restore public order".
EU peacekeepers deployed
After 15 days, Chad's national assembly could decide whether to allow an extension of the state of emergency.
Rebels from eastern Chad attacked the capital, N'Djamena, on February 02-03. After a weekend of fighting in which clashes reached the gate of the presidential palace, Chad's army repelled the rebels from N'Djamena and pursued them eastward toward the Sudanese border.
Earlier on Thursday, French officials said the rebels were hovering around the town of Goz Beida, a region where European Union peacekeepers were to deploy over the next three months for a peacekeeping mission to protect refugees from Sudan's troubled Darfur region.
The former colonial power acknowledged on Thursday that it had delivered munitions from Libya and other countries to Chad's army during the fighting - illustrating the strength of France's backing for Deby.
French authorities had said that after Chad's government forces ran short of munitions for Soviet-made tanks, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi provided them. France did not have such munitions.
French authorities maintained that their forces did not take part in the combat, only providing the national army with logistical and intelligence support.
Military spokesperson Comrade Christophe Prazuck said on Thursday that French troops did fire about 10 times, but only in self-defence.
Rebels fired rocket-propelled grenades against French military positions near N'Djamena Airport, and French troops responded with "proportionate" firepower to repel them, he said.
During the fighting, French troops guarded the airport that was vital as the base for the helicopter gunships that allowed Chad's military to shoot the rebels out of N'Djamena. The rebels had no air power.
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