Three Unending Wars

Aside from the war in Lebanon, there are three others still going on in which the U.S. Administration has at least a marginal interest. Following is a refresher and an update on what has been happening on those fronts:

Chad

The last time most Americans were aware of Chad was in the summer of 1983, after the Administration—with a good deal of fanfare—announced that it was rushing military help to that country to protect it from Libya's Muammar Qadhafi, whose forces had entered Chad in support of a rebel movement.

This was, in fact, done. The Administration sent the aircraft carrier Eisenhower to waters off the Libyan coast, where two of the carrier's interceptors drove off a pair of Libyan Mig-23 jets that they encountered on patrol. Then, Redeye antiaircraft missiles were flown to the Chadian capital by U.S. military instructors; and two AWACS electronic surveillance planes were dispatched to the Sudan, just across the border from Chad, to monitor aerial activity. All of this got big headlines and led the evening newscasts of the TV networks.

Meanwhile, the French—who took the leading role in the defense of Chad because it once was a French colony—sent in a total of 3,000 French troops, who were too late to prevent Chad's principal northern city from being taken over by the Libyan-backed rebels. But the French promptly drew a "red line" across Chad, at the 15th parallel of latitude, and told Qadhafi and his friends that they could go no farther. Then the French sat down to try to figure out a peaceful solution to the conflict. This made the story drop out of the news virtually altogether until late January—when France announced that one of its pilots had been killed in combat. Newspaper readers who saw this story discovered that not only were the French still there, but so were the Libyans, the rebels and the other major actor in Chad's drama, Chad's president.

Sixteen Years of Strife

Actually, it would have been some sort of a miracle if the problem had been solved within such a short period. Chad—a land of swamp and desert, and one of the world's poorest countries—has been in a state of civil war for most of the time since it got its independence from France in 1960.

For the first eight years, the country was ruled by ethnically black Christians from the southern area. In 1968, the people of the north, who are mostly Arab Muslims—ethnic ally and culturally so close to the Libyans that the nomadic tribesmen who live in southern Libya and northern Chad are unaware of being different or of living in different countries—had for long felt they were being discriminated against, and launched a rebellion. For years, there was vicious fighting. By 1978 one of the northerners, Goukhouni Waddei, became president of the country. One of his ministers, another Muslim from the north, Hissein Habre, carried out his own rebellion and succeeded in taking the government himself in 1981. He has been president ever since. Goukhouni in turn has been trying to fight his way back into power, and has been receiving the help of Qadhafi.

Qadhafi's interest in Chad goes a long way back. For ten years he has been occupying a strip of territory in the north of Chad called the Aouzou, which he claims was an integral part of Libya when it was an Italian colony. Whatever his imperial ambitions for the rest of Africa may be, one thing that is sure is that he intends to go on occupying the Aouzou.

But he would like his possession to be given legal status, and believes that he can get it if he can help Goukhouni back into power. His joint operation last summer with Goukhouni's forces—which the Libyan army has trained—was the kickoff towards this goal.

After stopping the Libya-Goukhouni team at the "red line" last summer, the French tried assiduously but vainly to get Goukhouni and President Habre to negotiate their differences. Similar peace efforts carried out by the Organization of African Unity also failed. Personal enmity between the two rivals from the north of Chad was a major reason for the lack of success.

Then, in late January, the Libyan-supported rebels surprised the French by attacking a town just over the "red line." When French planes came to reconnoiter, one of them was shot down by a SAM-7 missile. It was not clear who had done the shooting, but France's Ministry of Defense said that Libya was in any case "responsible." France reacted by reinforcing its air contingent in Chad and by ordering its troops to take control of an area extending an average of 60 miles north of the "red line." Analysts in Paris saw the move as a major strategy shift aimed at forcing Libya out of Chad—something they have not tried to do up to now. The Chadian rebels said they regarded the advance as an "open declaration of war" and would retaliate with the assistance of Libya. What happens next could put Chad on the front pages once again. Whether the U.S. will once again jump into the fray is not yet clear.