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| Africa: Horn |
| 150 MDJT fighters defect |
| 2004-11-17 |
| More than 150 rebels in northern Chad have defected to the national army, the central African country's Defence Minister Emmanuel Nadingar said on Wednesday. Nadingar told Reuters the men were members of the Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad (MDJT), which launched a rebellion in 1998 against President Idriss Deby's government in the north of the former French colony. The government portrayed the defections as a success for its efforts to disarm the rebels and end the six-year uprising, but the MDJT said the authorities were exaggerating a decision by a small number of its fighters to return to civilian life. "152 members of the MDJT decided to accept the hand of peace offered by the president and return to life within the law," the minister said. He said they were on their way to a military training centre, where they would join the regular army. Nadingar said he expected more defections. But Mahamat Mahadi Ali, the MDJT's deputy foreign representative, told Reuters the defectors numbered only about 20 men who simply wanted to become civilians and were not from the group's heartland. "There has not been any move to join the army as such," he said. "This is a non-event for us." The group still attracts volunteers to a fighting force of about 1,500, he said by telephone from France. Despite various peace deals, the MDJT still fights sporadic battles with government forces in the remote Tibesti region, which boasts the highest mountains in the Sahara desert. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |