© RFI
Idriss Déby Itno in his Marshal of Chad clothes.
On April 20, 2021, Chadians learned on national radio and television of the death of 68-year-old Head of State Idriss Déby, in power for thirty years. A military council (CMT) headed by one of his sons was responsible for leading the transition. Why and how did Idriss Déby die? A year following the death of the Marshal of Chad, RFI has reconstructed the thread of events thanks to the confidences of actors and witnesses of this historic moment. In the first part of this investigation, we wonder regarding the circumstances that led Idriss Déby Itno to go to the front at the risk of his life.
In this month of April 2021, Idriss Déby is making his overwhelming presence felt in Ndjamena. Along the main avenues of the capital, the electoral posters of the head of state, in power since he ousted his former ally Hissène Habré in 1990, are spread out on the panels and the walls. The city is as always filled with many men in uniform, the heat is overwhelming, it is the month of Ramadan. The Sunday 11 Election will be a formality for him, facing opponents who are either former collaborators or candidates who have announced their withdrawal from the race. The opposition has largely decided to boycott the plebiscite for a sixth term for the head of state.
Much more than towards the polls, it is towards the northern border of his country that the gaze of the “marshal” turns. Symbolically, it is indeed on the day of this election that the Front pour l’alternance et la concorde au Tchad (Fact) announces the launch of its offensive. In reality, confirms the leader of the movement, Mahamat Mahdi Ali, the Fact entered Chadian territory ” since 6 », and took control of an area located west of the Tibesti massif, as far as Zouarké.
The objective then is to disrupt the election » and fix the « soldiery “by Deby” in order to allow the interior demonstrators (who then respond to the call of the Chadian political opposition and civil society) to rise up », Specifies today the leader of the Fact. For that, he has, he says, a force of 500 pickups and 2,500 to 3,000 well-armed fighters.
► To (re)read: Chad: Fact rebels advance inside the country
Coming from a family of wealthy merchants of the Gorane ethnic group, Mahamat Mahdi Ali is an intellectual trained in France who thinks, like many others before him, that ” only strength ” would do ” fall Deby “. In April 2016, he broke away from Mahamat Nouri’s UFDD to form Fact.
In the chaos that has prevailed in Libya since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, rebel groups have sold their services to various actors. First targeted by Khalifa Haftar, the Fact then approached, in 2017, the strongman of eastern Libya. Some of its fighters take part in training provided by militiamen from the Russian Wagner group. They get their hands, over the fighting, on stocks of weapons from Gaddafi’s army or provided by Haftar’s sponsors: Russia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt. This ” opportunity link with Wagner and Haftar, does not mean, however, that the Fact benefited from their help in planning its operation, especially since Khalifa Haftar and Idriss Deby showed their closeness in the name of ” fight once morest terrorism ».
For the Fact, the desert road will limit losses
Between April 11 and 17, the rebels progressed rapidly despite Chadian airstrikes and regular overflights by French aircraft, which were supposed to dissuade them from continuing their journey. They divide their forces: some pretend to take the direction of Faya-Largeau, to ” fix the Chadian contingents and the French eyes “, extrapolates a French officer, while the bulk of the troop, regarding a thousand men, rushes at full speed, 600 kilometers to the south, along the border with Niger. This ” unusual road allows them to circumvent the Chadian garrisons, but also to reduce their losses, explains Mahamat Mahdi Ali: “ to avoid the Chadian heavy artillery, we decided to leave the rocky areas to branch off towards the desert where the sand dampens the bombs, where shrapnel does not kill by ricochet “says Mahamat Mahdi Ali.
« The Fact surprised us, because it is strong in field strategy, capable of leading to false leads to concentrate our few resources on one point “, confesses a very senior French military official, who does not exclude that in the future ” an operation of the same type once more thwarts our surveillance. “Because France does not have the material, human and technical means to keep a permanent watchful eye on the desert, especially since its gaze is primarily directed towards ” Mali and the three-border area “. Result : ” in reality “, insists this senior officer, ” we look when the Chadians ask us, to invalidate or confirm their information. They work primarily with human intelligence, and generally do it very well.. But not this time. Were the Chadians fooled or did the rebels benefit from complicity? “ There is clearly something wrong with the fact that they got in without a problem. asks a member of the security apparatus who has gone back and forth between power and rebellion.
Be that as it may, he is an Idriss Déby Itno described as ” anxious by one of his comrades, who is flying to Brazzaville on Friday 16 April. He attended, along with some twenty African leaders, the swearing-in of another president re-elected in contested circumstances, Denis Sassou-Nguesso.
Back in Ndjamena, the head of state learns that the breakthrough of Fact is more important than anticipated. Here are the rebels close to the city of Mao, provincial capital of Kanem, some 300 kilometers from the capital. ” Idriss Déby fears that Mahdi will find support there among the Gorane notables, Kanem is their region, and that he will collect men, supplies and weapons there. “says one of his former advisers.
« When he returns from Brazzaville, we do iftar together “, recalls a long-time companion, now a member of the Transitional Military Council (CMT). “ He decides to go there. We, at the general staff, of course we do not agree, because the president, his place is not at the front. »
Going to the front once morest everyone’s advice
But Idriss Déby does not care regarding the remarks of his generals and his close family. He decides to leave. A habit: in 2008, when the rebellion threatened Ndjamena, ” he refuses to be extradited by France, goes into battle and even loses his aide-de-camp, killed at Massaguet right next to him “, recalls a minister who has known him for a long time. In 2020, it is the staging of its success once morest Boko Haram during the operation ” Bohoma wrath in the lake region, which earned him his marshal’s baton.
Civilian or military, all those who knew him were not surprised by the decision of this leader ” courageous, but sometimes angry “, as he repeated regularly that his destiny was to die in the field of honor. ” I know him since high school and I know that we can’t change him, he didn’t listen, for him the leader must be with his troupe “Adds one of his generals met in Ndjamena. ” He always spent time at the front, often in the fifth vehicle, a very advanced position », recalls a diplomat formerly stationed in Ndjamena, the Chadian capital, where the population sometimes nicknamed him « the great survivor ».
Unbeknownst to his own family, Idriss Déby therefore left for Mao on Saturday 17 at the end of the day, followed by a swarm of people close to the palace. ” Just before it was a show smiled one of his main advisers at the time: for those close to him and for the general staff it was out of the question, but he did not listen. Even his generals learned that he had left when he was already there. In his community, people are required to accompany the chief to war, even if they are not necessarily soldiers, so we laughed because some cadres stormed off still dressed in civilian clothes because they were in behind him, they hadn’t even had time to take a uniform on the way. »
He arrives in the area at the end of the day, bivouacs and finds the military leaders already there, first of all his son, Mahamat, boss of the presidential guard, the elite unit of the army, and the chief of staff, General Daoud. The two men are at the maneuver of the fights once morest the Fact. They emerge from a particularly violent but favorable day.
The day before, Friday, they managed to track down Mahdi’s men in Birr Dom. On Saturday, at dawn, they gave chase, over more than 400 kilometers, finally catching up in the followingnoon at Zigueï, regarding 200 kilometers northeast of Mao, the stragglers of the Fact, ” stuck in quicksand ».
Superior in number and in armament, the loyalists, supported by French intelligence and air supply (water, fuel), inflicted a first setback on Fact at Bir al-Deine, destroying several dozen vehicles. They claim to have caused nearly 300 deaths and a hundred prisoners.
At dawn on Sunday April 18, Mahamat Idriss Déby and General Daoud returned to the front line to lead a new assault. Idriss Déby, he follows the situation in withdrawal. But the circumstances of the battle will catch up with him.
► “Death of Idriss Déby: investigation into the great enigma” is an investigation coordinated by François Mazet and Florence Morice, with Franck Alexandre, Madjiasra Nako and Esdras Ndikumana.