Ep. 114: A conversation with Dan Eizenga on Idriss Déby and Chad

Special guest Dan Eizenga, research fellow at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, joins us to share his expertise on Chad and the recent death of Idriss Déby. Listen to learn what happened, who is in charge of Chad now, and what it all means. In the news wrap, Kim and Rachel talk about new restrictions from the U.S. on Ugandan officials, share new resources like an edited volume on coronavirus politics, and a new postdoc opportunity on global racial justice available from Cornell University.

Books, Links, & Articles 
Coronavirus Politics: The Comparative Politics and Policy of COVID-19 edited by Scott L. Greer, Elizabeth J. King, Elize Massard da Fonseca, André Peralta-Santos

The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon

The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

Wrestling with the Devil: A Prison Memoir by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

Living by the Gun in Chad: Combatants, Impunity and State Formation by Marielle Debos

The Trial of Hissène Habré: How the People of Chad Brought a Tyrant to Justice by Celeste Hicks

“Death of Déby leaves big worries in Chad and beyond” by Obi Anyadike

“US imposes fresh visa restrictions on Ugandan officials over poll” by Julius Barigaba

“US slaps visa bans on Ugandans linked to disputed polls” by Al Jazeera

Judd Devermont’s Twitter Thread

“Comparative Analysis of Covid-19 Transmission and Mortality in Select African Countries” by Kanayo K. Ogujiuba and Uviwe Binase

“Adapting Covid-19 Containment in Africa: Lessons from Tanzania” by Thespina (Nina) Yamanis, Ruth Carlitz, and Henry A. Mollel

“Confronting Legacies and Charting A New Course? The Politics of Coronavirus Response in South Africa” by Joseph Harris

Previous Episodes We Mentioned
Ep. 113: A Conversation with Nanjala Nyabola     

Find the books, links, and articles we mentioned in this episode on our website, ufahamuafrica.com.

Transcript

Kim Yi Dionne   0:02  

Welcome to Ufahamu Africa, a podcast about life and politics on the continent. I'm Kim Yi Dionne, your host, and I'm joined by my co-host, Rachel Beatty Riedl. Hi, Rachel.

Rachel   0:11  

Hi, Kim. This week we have a news wrap talking about many things, literature prizes, the US-Uganda visa ban, but the big news this week is the death in office of Chad, President Idriss Déby.  

Kim Yi Dionne   0:26  

Yes, Rachel, and while we won't discuss Déby’s death at length in the news round, we are grateful that our guest for this week's episode is an expert on Chad, Dr. Daniel Eizenga, who during a very busy week has been gracious to give us some of his time and to get us and our listeners in the know on what we should know about  Déby's death, who's governing Chad now, and with the death in office of President Déby means for Chad and the region more broadly going forward. Dan Eizenga is a research fellow at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. His research focuses primarily on countering violent extremism in Sahel and the roles of civil military relations, traditional institutions and civil society across African states. Dan holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Political Science with Specializations in African Studies from the University of Florida, as well as a B.A. in International Development Studies with a minor in African Studies from Calvin College. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in the francophone African Sahel, primarily in Burkina Faso, Chad and Senegal.  

Rachel   1:31  

I can't wait to hear this conversation, Kim. And I read the New Humanitarian's piece on Déby and Chad this week, and I think it will really help all of our listeners get up to speed to get Dan's expertise and think about the broader implications for the region. But first, I wanted to help us get started in Uganda, where US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced visa restrictions on Ugandan officials who are believed to be involved in undermining the democratic process based on the recent elections. So a US statement that was released cited harassment of opposition candidates and violence by security forces around Uganda's general election in January as the reason for this visa ban.  

Kim Yi Dionne  2:18  

Yeah, Al Jazeera had reported that Blinken statement didn't specify who exactly was affected by the visa restrictions, and there hasn't yet to my knowledge been a reaction from the Ugandan Government. So we'll have to see if there's any teeth in these sanctions or, you know, in these in these limitations for travel, though, you know, some people are impressed that the US is trying to do something, in response to what have been, you know, very obviously, not free or fair competitive elections in Uganda. And I just want to think about, you know, just I just want to talk a little bit about this kind of US-Africa more broadly. There was this epic Twitter thread by Judd Devermont, this week that I just thought was really fantastic. And, you know, Judd is our friend. And, you know, he was on our show with a podcast mashup. He's the host of Into Africa, the podcast on politics and life in Africa, hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And so he was responding to this statement by US-Africa General Townsend in kind of saying that Africa is too important for Americans to ignore. And, you know, Judd wants to push back on that frame and in this thread, you know, he talks about how you know, Africa is influencing global affairs. It's not just about the US and Africa, but kind of how the US and Africa engage with each other more broadly in the world, and you know, talking in particular about how African countries are playing a critical role in the fight against climate change. And you know, how some of them were attending the summit earlier this week, commemorating Earth Day, and I especially love that he had a tweet in the thread about African innovation and in particular, mobile FinTech, you know, financial technology. And, you know, the ways, you know, Africans are using technology to send and share money with each other is kind of helping us, you know, elsewhere in the world, think about how we want to move money through mobile devices. I just, I don't know, in reading Judd's thread it was making me think about, you know, this tired frame about, you know, Africa as a place where America needs to compete with, you know, China or who, you know, in the Cold War, it was Soviet Union, you know, and not a place on  just kind of on its own standing. And so I hope folks will check that out and to follow through on the links that Judd shares in that long and that long thread he had earlier this week.  

Rachel   5:15  

Absolutely, Kim and even thinking about the mobile money, I would point some of our listeners to an earlier Ufahamu Africa episode where we interviewed many incredible innovators from across the continent who were part of the Mandela fellowship at the probe of African Studies at Northwestern and some of them were really doing incredible things in this space and thinking about how money transfers and insurance products and different ways of making money accessible were shifting the social, social, economic and political landscapes. So that was a really fun conversation. Kim, I also wanted to point our listeners to a new edited volume on Coronavirus Politics that was published this week by University of Michigan Press. The book is open access, which means it's available for free to download for all. So we encourage our listeners to click on that link, which you can find on our website. The book covers the global experience with COVID-19, but there are four chapters specifically examining COVID in Africa. A chapter comparing Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt by Kanayo Ogujiuba and Uviwe Binase as well as in depth case study chapters like the one on Tanzania by Nina Yamanis, Ruth Carlitz and Henry Mollel, and a chapter on South Africa by Joe Harris.  And of course, a chapter that you co-authored, Kim, with Boniface Dulani and Sara Fischer on Malawi's experience with COVID-19.

Kim Yi Dionne  6:48  

Yeah, it's a great volume, I was really excited to be part of that project, and as always, it's such a treasure to write and work with Boni. And this time to do it with Sara Fischer, who's actually a student of Lahra Smith at Georgetown. She's getting her Ph.D. in political science, but has a background in public health and so and is doing a whole dissertation on the various actors working to provide health services in Malawi. And so just the timing of it all worked out really well for us. Talking about books, I was really excited to learn this week that Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth is going to be translated into Somali. Aziz Mahdi posted to Twitter earlier this week that Hiil Press will publish this first Somali translation of the book. And, and I'm excited for them and and I'm excited to know that Frantz Fanon's work is, you know, going to have a new audience and that's, that's really great. I don't know, I guess I've just been thinking a lot about language and what languages works are in and how they're shared, especially after our, our fantastic episode last week with Nanjala Nyabola, and, you know, knowing that the Nyabola prize is still ongoing and just on that, I want to update some of our listeners, we had mentioned that there was still one more workshop left in the Nyabola prize. And so to just follow up, that's going to be on May fourth. It's a webinar for journalists and human rights practitioners who are interested in writing Op-Eds on technology and digital rights in Kiswahili. We'll have a link to the Eventbrite website where folks can sign up for that and participate in that webinar. 

Rachel  8:43  

Exactly, Kim I think on this topic of language, I was really excited to see this week that one of Africa's most distinguished authors Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o has become the first writer nominated as both author and translator for the International Booker Prize. The book The Perfect Nine, The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mumbi was among 13 books long listed for the award that celebrates translated fiction from around the world. The novel blends first, mythology and epic adventure to retell the origin story of Kenya's Gĩkũyũ people at the foot of Mount Kenya. Now, Ngũgĩ  wrote the novel in Gĩkũyũ and then translated into English, which really explored aspects of identity and unity and courage from a pre- colonial perspective. And in his career, which has spanned over half a century, movies, novels, short stories and plays have also served as the primary tools for his championing of African languages. I'd really encourage listeners who are interested in thinking about this as well to take a listen to episode 46 with Evan Mwangi on translations and literature, which features his own take as a professor of literature and on Ngũgĩ's works and their complex meanings and contributions.  

Kim Yi Dionne  10:04  

That's really exciting. I, you know, just at the same time, I'm teaching African politics at UC Riverside right now, and my students actually read an excerpt from Ngũgĩ' s prison memoir, published in, I believe it was 2018. It's called Wrestling With the Devil. And, you know, it's an excellent memoir. The reason why I assign it in my African politics class is so that students can have a sense of the continuities of colonialism. So he, you know, he does a great job of characterizing, you know, or bringing to life, you know, what, how we might think of colonizers, like how we might think of these, you know, white people who had settled in Kenya and what they were like, but the barbarity of colonialism, and in particular, the incarceration, of activists fighting against colonialism, and how the practices of that colonial carceral project continue, even in the post colonial period, as, of course, he's a witness to having himself been jailed for, for his really groundbreaking work, in particular, his play. And so it's, if you know, if folks haven't read it, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Wrestling With the Devil. I did want to also share this week, I saw that there was a call, you know, for all of our political scientists out there's a call for a new editor-in-chief of the African Journal of Political Science. And so, you know, this is I think, there's been a reemergence or rejuvenation of the African Association of Political Science. And I think an important initiative that they're taking is to really put some resources towards the journal and it's, you know, it's hopeful trajectory into, you know, being a place where a lot of people want to have their scholarship published. So this is really an exciting time. And, and I'm sure we have a lot of good candidates who are listeners to the podcast, that are thinking about, you know, how they can make their mark in publishing a work of really good scholarship and insights on politics and societies in Africa. Kim, that's awesome. And I also wanted to share a new call out for political scientists or non-political scientists any discipline for a new postdoc that we've just posted a Global Racial Justice, postdoc at the Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell, which will be really working with a great team of students and faculty in this research priority area in our center, with the goal to advance scholarship, knowledge dissemination, teaching, and really think about the roles of outreach and engagement with the general public, things like you know, podcasts here and other ways of disseminating work. So the goal is to generate new insights into the intersectional and multifaceted, globally relevant and locally contextualized challenges of racial, ethnic and religious inequality and discrimination. So racial justice is broadly defined within this international landscape, understanding those complexities and different ways in which it's experienced, and so we wish to provide, you know, this kind of stronger understanding and evidentiary basis for policy for social reconciliation and for redress. So please share this link that we will have up for potential candidates, and we welcome all applications. Yes, and if anyone is wondering whether race or racism exist in Africa, I encourage you to read Jemima Pierre, an anthropologist at UCLA, who has written quite a bit on this, and and I think it's going to be exciting seeing the work that the Global Racial Justice Initiative is going to be doing at Cornell. So thanks for sharing that, Rachel. You can find that link and all of the links we've mentioned here, as well as bonus links on our website, at ufahamuafrica.com.   

Thank you so much, Dan, for joining us this week when I'm sure you're quite busy fielding a lot of requests for your expertise on Chad.

Daniel Eizenga   14:43  

Oh, it's my pleasure Kim. It's really, really nice to be here with you all. I'm a fan of the show. And yeah, just excited to share a little bit of knowledge on Chad and help people understand what's going on.

Kim Yi Dionne  14:56  

This week, Chad's president, Idriss Déby Itno was killed after it was announced that he was projected to have won the Chadian presidential elections held on April 11. Déby had ruled Chad since shortly after seizing power in a coup in 1990. So Dan, can you tell our listeners a bit more about Idriss Déby, the rebel turned president and can you say, how was he able to hold on to power for so long?

Daniel Eizenga  15:23  

Yeah, I'd love to. Well, I think that if you let me go back a little bit before 1990 to give some just context on Idriss Déby. The New York Times had a really interesting obituary for him a couple days ago and pointed out that he's the son of a poor farmer and herder, who became president after turning rebel and had a long military career. And I think it's just really important for people to know that, you know, Chad after independence in 1960, was a pretty tumultuous place. And so, by the time that Idriss Déby had kind of gone through the formal training to become a military officer within the armed forces, he then was sent off to France, where he earned sort of recognition as a pilot. And when he came back in the late 1970s, Chad was in a context of just different  rival rebel groups kind of vying for power. And, Déby sort of threw his lot in with Hissène Habré, who became the next president of Chad in 1982. Basically, he won out of all these different rebel groups. And so many people will be familiar with Habré

 He was recently tried in Dakar, Senegal for crimes against humanity during the time that he was essentially dictator and Chad in the 1980s, and found responsible for mass atrocities. But one thing I want to point out about Idriss Déby, is that after Habré, finally kind of really consolidated control in 1982, over N'Djamena and over the north and eastern parts of Chad. He named Idriss Déby, commander of his national armed forces and in that role, Déby led what was called the Pacification Campaign in the south, which many, many people in Chad will refer to as the time called Septembre Noir, or Black September. And it's called that because Déby and the armed forces along with the sort of secret political police, the DDS and along with the presidential guard, would be fighting against what were kind of self defense community militias or Codos, and southern Chad. And the fighting was really brutal. They were massacres of people that were extrajudicially killed. Civilians were targeted. The  forces that were down there were sent down there to terrorize these communities into submission under Habré's rule. And that's something that Habré has had to face at the international criminal level. But Déby  has just, you know, I mean, now escaped forever, in the fact that he's died. So I want to spend a little bit of time on that, because it's not something that's getting much coverage now. And I think it's really important to understand some of the context for which Déby comes to power. 

Kim Yi Dionne  18:30  

Exactly right, because everything I've read is talking about how he fought Habré as a rebel and then became president, but don't mention Black September.

Daniel Eizenga  18:39  

That's right. It's and I think that that's, that's sort of like this really big glossing over right now of reporting on Déby and it, it's not, doesn't speak to, it sort of keeps justice from people who had to suffer during that time period, right, the fact that that's not even recognized. And so I think it just is important to say it's important, I guess, I don't want to go into too much of the nitty gritty of events that happened once Déby  came to power. I mean, obviously ask me some follow up questions, if you like. But the, you know, you asked sort of how did he stay in power for this long and it is kind of a remarkable feat, when you put the previous political history of Chad in context, it was such a turbulent time after independence. The fact that he was able to consolidate control for 30 years is really remarkable. And I kind of see him doing that in a few different ways. The first was just through repetitive reforms of the constitutional architecture. So you know, he came to power in 1990. And this is a time across the continent where there's a lot of pressure for multiparty electoral systems to be enacted, and Déby understood that. But he also understood authoritarianism and the power of violent repression. And so he knew how to kind of manipulate that situation from the get go. And so he allowed for a national conference to be formed. It was, you know, reasonably inclusive. It drafted the Constitution, the Constitution was supposed to be, there was supposed to be a referendum organized and held within a year of that draft. And, Déby, just sort of this de facto head of state behind the scenes, was able to push out the head of the Transitional Council, then delay the referendum for two years. So it wasn't held until 1996. So we had a six year period where he was the head of state, power, interim with no real constitutional authority, no real, no rules based system behind him. And during that six years, he took that constitution draft and revised it down eliminating checks and accountability mechanisms on the executive. And the opposition kind of acquiesced to that, because they felt it was necessary, if they were ever to actually achieve a multi-party system. And the hope was that political change might come afterwards. Instead, Déby just kept  revising the Constitution to suit his ends. And so he repeated a similar feat in 2005, when he removed presidential term limits from the Constitution and organized a referendum to have that approved and the opposition boycotted that referendum to try and display how much of a sham it was that, of course, failed. And then most recently, in 2018, he did a complete rewrite of the Constitution, organizing what he called was an inclusive national conference. But really, it excluded quite a number of opposition actors. And in the process, he eliminated the position of Prime Minister, he reinstated presidential term limits, but did so non-retroactively so they didn't have any effect on his previous terms. And he raised the age requirement for candidacy, which was a strategic way for him to manipulate the elections because it excludes some of the younger up and coming political rivals within the Chadian context. And so he was just really skilled at kind of manipulating the overall situation. I could get into the details about this April 11, election, to give you some context about how that happened. But essentially, he just sidelined opposition actors at every moment that he could, if they were from a particular part of the country where he felt really threatened because of the constituency, he would target them with violent repression. He had the backing of the Supreme Court, so in this past April 11 election, three major opposition candidates tried to withdraw their candidacy because of issues that they saw with the electoral process, and the Supreme Court informed them that their names could not be removed from the ballot, it was too late to withdraw their candidate sees. And so even though they had requested to pull out, they weren't allowed to so that Déby could continue to make it look as though it were a legitimate process.

Kim Yi Dionne  23:07  

Right, and that he had effective competition, even though they had, you know, I'm sure at that point were, you know, no longer campaigning and even encouraging their supporters to boycott the election.

Daniel Eizenga  23:19  

That's exactly right. They were trying to get it out as far and wide as they could, their supporters should boycott the election. But Déby just needed the window dressing of political competition and legitimacy to keep going, and so that's sort of the style in which  he governed and the kind of character of his authoritarian governance. And I guess a final thing I'll say about how he was able to stay in power for so long, is just that he was really adept at pitting people against each other and, and you know, as he would, as soon as he enacted a multi party system, he could easily identify who the opposition actors were, because it forced them out into the open, right, which made them easier to manipulate, to bargain with, to surveil. And so he just exacerbated internal tensions within the political opposition, pitting them against each other, forcing them to make unpopular decisions with their constituencies. So that would then split, you know, the support that they had at home. He also used patronage to co-opt people by doling out positions in the government. He would routinely appoint southerners that could have potentially marshaled some kind of a political threat to him in the position of Prime Minister  and and then he also wasn't afraid of working with former rivals and helping them to accomplish goals if they remained ambitious, so long as they would set those goals outside the parameters of Chadian politics. 

Kim Yi Dionne  24:51  

Right. 

Daniel Eizenga  24:52  

 So maybe some of your listeners won't be familiar but there's currently a UN peacekeeping mission in Mali. The acronym for it is MINUSMA. And the former leader of MINUSMA was Mahamat Saleh Annadif, who was a first political rival to Déby then became his chief of staff. And then went on to start an international career and then had a very successful career at the head of MINUSMA. And is now set to lead the UN Office for West African and the Sahel in Dakar. And it's ironic, I think, because you're here you got the UN Office for West Africa in the Sahel and Chad, I guess Chad can claim to be part of the Sahel, but it's not really part of West Africa, and Annadif is going to be the new leader. And you could also look at someone like Moussa Faki Mahamat, the chairperson for the AU commission right now. You know, he had a long career as foreign minister under Déby and before that as prime minister. And I think that both of those characters, sort of exemplify ways that Déby has, you know, sought to promote allies that would have otherwise potentially become really staunch rivals. And so that's just Yeah, I think that does a pretty nice job of capturing the spectrum that Déby has used to keep control for 30 years up until his death.

Kim Yi Dionne  26:17  

It will be interesting to see how these former rivals, who have now gone on to have, you know, successful careers beyond Chad, how they'll respond in the coming weeks and months. I want to talk about Déby's death. Most media outlets were quoting a military statement that read in part that Déby took control of operations during the heroic combat led against the terrorists from Libya. He was wounded during the fighting and died once repatriated to N'Djamena. Now I know the exact details of Déby's death are likely to be in dispute or the object of rumors for years to come, but I want to know more about what he was doing in the desert north of Chad's capital city in N'Djamena. Right, you know, and this military statement about, you know, terrorists from Libya, can you say more about the rebels who are in that area north of N'Djamena? And what we should know about them, and, you know, why have they been fighting their government?

Daniel Eizenga  27:21  

Sure. So the rebels that are there, our group known as FACT,  F.A.C.T.  or The Front for Political Change and Concord in Chad, and FACT comes from its French acronym, Front pour l'alternance et la concorde au Tchad. And it's a group that's led by Mahamat Mahdi Ali, and has been sort of around since I think roughly 2016. When Mahdi, he finally kind of made it official, but he has been on the political scene and Chad for a very long time, going back to rebellions that that were organized in the 2000s, his father, Mahdi, was part of those rebellions and helped to organize the sort of the most successful rebel rebellion up till now. In 2008, you had a sort of coalition of rebel forces come together, and they successfully laid siege to the presidential palace in N'Djamena. For I think, three days, and sort of the backstory to that is that they, the coalition was a big success militarily. But then when they finally got there, and they could actually take power, they weren't sure what would happen after they did. And in some conversations with, apparently with France, it became clear that there wasn't a clear strategy for what happened afterwards. And so the French threw their assistance behind Déby and, and helped Chadian armed forces pushed the rebels back out of the capital city. Anyway, in 2016 Mahdi created the fact from different rebel factions, but also several dissident Chadian and military officers that have become really unhappy with the continued rule of Idriss Déby. And so you had some  defections from the military. And its stated goal has always been to make President Idriss Déby lead power by force. They have since rejected the current Transitional Military Council, which has been led by Déby's son. I'm sure we'll talk about that soon. And they claim that there have been airstrikes that have targeted their command base on the eve of Idriss Déby's funeral, which was held earlier today. And so they're still very much operating. It remains to be seen what the next steps will be for them. But it looks like from media reporting, that they they may be well entrenched in southern Libya, that they may have some ties to Khalifa Haftar, who's the leader of the Libyan National Army, which is one of the main factions within the  Libyan,civil war right now as kind of de facto control over eastern Libya and a significant part of Southern Libya. And southern Libya has been sort of a staging ground for Chadian rebel groups in recent years, other rebel groups are there, the Union of Resistance Forces, Conseil de commandement militaire pour le salut de la République

(Military Command Council for the Salvation of the Republic), the Union of Forces for Democracy and Development. These are other rebel groups that are sort of seeking out safe havens and support in southern Libya. And that's just a really messy situation, it's hard to understand what's going on, the dynamics between the rebel groups are really fluid where you have, you know, individual level fighters whose motivations are totally different than the leaders, many of them are much more like mercenaries than they are really driven for power or for, for ideological purposes. And, and so I guess, yes, the way to make sense of it is simply that, you know, these are the, you know, the rebel groups themselves, or the outcome of Déby's authoritarian government in style. Right, he had to exclude certain groups from power, that was going to happen violently in some cases. And so for many, particularly with similar histories to Debbie, the taking power by force was the only option that they were left with. And that's kind of the legacy of these rebel groups. 

Kim Yi Dionne  31:50  

Right, and the legacy of Déby's rule.  

Daniel Eizenga  31:52  

Yeah, right. Absolutely.  

Kim Yi Dionne  31:54  

And it created this, you know, this expectation of how power changes hands.

Daniel Eizenga  32:02  

Absolutely.   

Kim Yi Dionne  32:04  

Or doesn't for that matter.  

Daniel Eizenga  32:05  

I think that's like a key point about this kind of authoritarian governance, right. It looks stable on the outside. It looks like 30 years in power. That project strength, you know, that suggests that, you know, Chad is a stable place. But the reality is that there's just an inherent instability baked into that system that you can't get rid of. And when you're faced with something like the unexpected death of the President, then all of a sudden that stability is just completely revealed, right. It comes completely right to the top. And that's the situation that I think Chad finds itself in today.

Kim Yi Dionne  32:44  

Right. And as you mentioned, following Idriss Déby's death, the military announced it had created this Transitional Council, and that leading it was Déby  son, Mahamat Déby, and he's a 37 year old general in Chad's army who I believe was responsible for his father's security detail. And, you know, as someone who's written about presidential deaths in office, I'm actually familiar with constitutional procedures for transition. And, in Chad, you know, the transition runs afoul of article 81 of Chad's 2018 constitution. And in article 81, it states that, in the case of a vacated presidency, the president of the National Assembly, would govern the country as an interim head of state and election would have to be called to install a new president within 90 days. And just going a bit further and in, you know, in another part of the Constitution, it requires that the President, as you mentioned earlier, had to be at least 45 years old. There were also stipulations that precluded members of the armed forces or security forces from running for the presidency without first having been placed on extended leave. So those two conditions in particular should make Mahamat Déby  ineligible for an election that the military council has said will take place 18 months from now. So I want to hear your thoughts on, you know, is this extra constitutional transition surprising? And should we be thinking about Mahamat Déby as a likely candidate, even a potential front runner in a forthcoming presidential race or should we also be looking to, you know, some of these expatriate Chadians who have seen some success internationally, since they weren't able to actually challenge Idriss Déby in Chad itself?

Daniel Eizenga  34:40  

Yeah, thanks, Kim. That's a good question. I mean, I would firstly just call it what it is. This is a coup, you know, the extra-constitutional transition, but it's really the military has stepped in a moment of crisis and you know, effectively said that it's dissolving the National Assembly dissolving the government dissolving constitution, you know, then then later decided that, well, you know, we're not really sure who we want to put to ministry positions yet. So we're going to let the government come back. But it's temporary, and they're not allowed to do anything new, they have to keep just doing what they were doing before, so we can try and maintain some sense of normalcy. And so it's clear that Déby's death, Idriss Déby's death was a surprise. And probably, internally within the military, particularly the parts of the military that were always most loyal to Idriss Déby, the plan for some kind of extra-constitutional takeover of power to then put his son Mahamat in control was just always there. And so that's what I think we're seeing play out. And I don't think that that's terribly surprising. Because, you know, many folks have been speculating for a long time that Déby was trying to groom some of his sons to sort of at least play a really consequential rule role and whatever happened after he was no longer in power. Mahamat has always been identified as one of those potential sons. I think that, you know, that the reality is that there was a rules based system in place, as you know, right. There was a Constitution on the books, there was a referendum, a popular referendum that approved that constitution, it went through a questionable National Assembly, but it did receive votes from Parliament that put it in place, and so it should have been upheld. And and, and then at least there'd be, you know, some semblance of constitutional legitimacy behind the process. And that's totally gone. Haroun Kabadi is the president of the National Assembly. He's obviously a really big MPS party leader, a staunch ally of the Déby family. He came out a couple days ago saying, you know, the President, made it very clear before his death that he felt the military council needed to be put in place due to the many security crises that the country is currently facing. And so he's trying to provide some legitimacy and take away the argument that, you know, he should be the one that's the Interim President right now, by invoking these crises and invoking that this was Idriss Déby's desire. I think that that, you know, it's not, like I said, it's not surprising, it is disappointing, there's an opportunity here for Chadian politics to have opened up a little bit, for more political space for the opposition to have been, you know, allowed, that might not have been such a terrible thing. But it would have meant that members of Debbie's family and the power players and the Déby regime would have lost a little bit of control. So, you know, I don't know, I don't know, if we're likely to see Mahamat Déby, turn out to be a candidate, or front runner for that matter. You know, it's a bit complicated now, by the fact that he's still maintaining his military position and the head of this council. And as you know, you know, the Constitution says that a civilian needs to run if you can, it can't be someone from the military or security forces. And obviously, it's not unheard of in African politics, that, you know, someone will resign their posts from the military and then quickly run for president and when. So it's possible that something like that might happen, they may try and make that maneuver. It's possible that you have some of these other allies that have been abroad, but had always had ambitions of being President, maybe they will come back, possibly to you know, Mahamat's brother, Zakaria Déby, Zakaria Idriss Déby. He is currently ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. He was often pointed to as someone that Déby might be grooming for a high up position as well. He has a background, a bit more background in governing. He served a few different roles in his dad's cabinet. He also has a background, I think, a degree in International Relations from the University of Tunis. And, and so, you know, maybe he'll come back into play here, there. There have been some that have, you know, asked whether or not there's a rivalry between the brothers. I'm not so sure if there's a rivalry but they may figure out a way to keep the Déby regime going. And so that's something I think to pay attention to as well. On that front.

Kim Yi Dionne  39:41  

Three years ago, you wrote a paper titled the unstable foundations of political stability in Chad. In it you show that while at the time external actors saw Chad as, you know, politically stable, an important partner in security efforts, domestic politics, including the repression of political opposition and civil society suggested that Chad's political stability may not have had solid foundations. And you alluded to this earlier. Now your paper documented growing domestic grievances, and attacks on civil liberties. I wonder the extent to which, you know, three years ago, you were already thinking about what we just saw transpire this past week. In that paper, you discuss what you called the inevitable problem of succession pointing out how since independence, power in Chad has only been transferred through violent means. What are the potential scenarios the analysts are forecasting for Chad in the coming months, and given the role that Chad has played? And kind of, you know, various geopolitical security interests? What does this change in its leadership and its current political instability  mean for security in the region more broadly?   

Daniel Eizenga  41:00 

I think the best analysts are going to be really quick to say the situation is very much in flux right now. At this point only a few days into the establishment of this transitional council , military rule effectively. So it's impossible to really know what’s gonna happen in the coming weeks, much less months or years. I think the situation is much more tumultuous than it actually seems right now on the outside. There’s been a lot of glorification behind  Déby  and his death and trying to recognize the things that he accomplished, particularly on the international scene and I think that just, like I pointed out to you now a few times that is sort of obscures the inherent domestic instability that’s characterized Chad for a  very long time under Déby’s rule. Those conditions are not going away. In fact, there are still going to be rebel challenges, there are going to be political challenges. There is still some sense of civil society and opposition in N'Djamena and they've been able to stoke social movements before and so that’s what I got out of that paper. 3 years ago, those movements were by no means gone. They may see this now as an opportunity to put more pressure on domestic channels. I think rightly, I think that the most optimistic and hopeful outlook for Chad right now is that some soft of agreement could be made to actually install a civilian transition that was much more inclusive of the broader segment of Chadian society, that did include some of these civil society actors some of the political opposition that have been sidelined that haven’t taken arms. If necessary I suppose you could see it if members of the military, members of rebel groups, and armed groups were included in that kind of transition as well. It is important that you don't exclude them, that increases the likelihood of renewed violence. I just don't know, I think we will know more after Déby’ s funeral. I said that happened earlier today, and it has kind of produced a moment of tenuous calm. Sort of a moment of reflection and just respect for the country’s leader, but undoubtedly there are going to be challenges to the authority of the transitional military council afterwards. Whether those are rebel challenges, political challenges, whether it's simply like having to manage the very fragile socio-economic conditions that characterize Chad already, the military is not necessarily the best entity for governance. I don’t know that Mahamat Déby or the senior officials that also make up the council really have any experience outside of the military and how to do things like managing the economy, how to ensure that the education sector can remain open, and how to respond to unforeseen threats. Say like a global pandemic. I really don’t think that they’re prepared for those kinds of challenges and so, that does not bode well, in my mind, for stability in the long run. Outside of the broader regional context that you brought up. Chadian solidiers are currently, at least they have been currently deployed to the tri-border area between Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger as part of the larger Sahel G5 effort to combat militant Islamist groups there. Chadian soldiers are stationed around Lake Chad. They’ve deployed at different times recently to Northeastern Nigeria as well as eastern Niger to confront Boko Haram and Islamic State of West Africa as part of the larger Lake Chad Basin Theater. You’ve got refugees fleeing violence from Central African Republic and there fleeing into southern Chad, ongoing civil war in Libya, which seems a bit sort of calm for the moment, but the risk of instability there is I think quite high right now. We’ve got ongoing transition in Sudan with possibilities for conflict to flare up in Darfur  which borders eastern Chad and so you’ve got Chad sort of in the center of what is already a very unstable, larger region and it's about to confront the instability that was inherent to Déby’s regime. And so in that confrontation I think that most analysts would agree that the likelihood for increased instability, increased insecurity, more turbulence is higher than the kind of inclusive civilian led transition that I described and I think would be the best option right now.   

Kim Yi Dionne46:22 

Yeah. It’s hard you know just seeing photographs from the funeral, right. President Emmanuel Macron of France, sitting in the front row right beside Mahamat Déby  at the funeral is such a, you know, you talk about this tenuous calm. And it’s almost like it's this performative act. France shows up to show that everything's okay. You know at the same time we’re releasing statements that we want a civilian transition, we’re right here lending credibility to this temporary military council. 

Daniel Eizenga 47:13 

Yeah. I mean France has certainly not come out strongly to condemn what is essentially a coup. I think that  tacit support is very clear and probably goes as far as calling it explicit support.  

Kim Yi Dionne 47:29 

Yeah.  

Daniel Eizenga  47:30 

You know, France has a lot of interests in Chad and maintaining a stable Chad and maintaining the relationships that it has in Chad as well and all of that with Idriss Déby surprisingly gone is thrown into the flux. And so there’s a heavy degree of realism I think being deployed to try and sort out the best moves for French interests are. And that’s a really challenging situation, because I don’t think that they’ve ever really fully grappled with the fact that their stable lynchpin, partner in the Sahel, really characterized at least underneath the in the foundations by a significant amount of precarious stability, really inherent instability. And I think they’ve got to figure that out now.   

Kim Yi Dionne  48:23 

Yeah, they’ve gotta deal with the consequences of relying on that.  

Daniel Eizenga  48:27

That’s right.   

Kim Yi Dionne 48:27   

Relying on that stable instability.  

Dan chuckles.   

Kim Yi Dionne 48:34 

Now, the last question we ask all our guests, before we go. Is there anything you’re reading now or read recently that you found interesting and would encourage our listeners to pick up? 

Daniel Eizenga 48:44 

Well, I mean. I guess, I will make two suggestions for books on Chad that I think are really great and provide very different views to Chadian history and politics. First is Living by the Gun in Chad: Combatants, Impunity, and State Formation by Marielle Debos. It's just a really fascinating account based on in-depth ethnographic research, but in addition to this really, really rich ethnography. Her theoretical analysis of just how populations deal with violence and chaos and this, the end of war not really being the end of violence, not really being peace. Her theoretical discussion of that, I think, is just very stimulating  and so I absolutely recommend people pick up that book, especially if they're looking to learn more about Chad. I think it's probably the most authoritative text on modern Chadian politics. And the second book isThe Trial of Hissène Habré: How the People of Chad Have Brought a Tyrant to Justice by Celeste Hicks. Celeste Hicks has a background as a journalist and so the writing is a little different. It's more accessible to the general public, but she does a really excellent story of documenting how Hissène Habré came to be held to account. How he was brought to justice and it's a really fascinating story because it's all based on nearly quarter century campaign of activists and survivors that were able to obtain documents from Habré’s regime when  Déby kind of ran him out of town and with those documents they pieced together the evidence they needed to bring him to justice in Dakar. It's just a really important story and it's one that I think a lot of folks would benefit from learning.   

Kim Yi Dionne 50:48  

Thank you so much for your time this week, Dan.

Daniel Eizenga 50:50 

My pleasure, Kim. Thanks for having me. I had a lot of fun. Thanks for giving me the chance to talk about Chad. 

Kim Yi Dionne 50:58   

That's all for this week. Thanks for listening to this episode of Ufahamu Africa. To find any of the articles, books or links we talked about, head to ufahamuafrica.com. Don't forget to follow and share your thoughts with us on Twitter at Ufahamu Africa. Our podcast is available on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, SoundCloud and Stitcher. If you like what you're hearing on Ufahamu Africa, please share this episode and review our show on Apple podcast. This podcast is produced by Meghan DeMint. With help from Research and Production Assistant Fulya Felicity Turkmen. We are generously supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and received research assistants from Cornell University and the University of California, Riverside. Our music is courtesy of Kevin MacLeod.