Chad: War oil

As often, to fully understand the situation of a country, you have to go back and question its history, old and contemporary.In Chad, it tells us that the Sahelo-Saharan part of this country is traditionally populated by warriors.And, by questioning the genesis of this army, we discover that its relative power in relation to the armies of neighboring countries comes partly from oil money.

In Chad, war and warriors

The northern two -thirds of Chad territory belong to the great Saharan ensemble that the French colonizers had a lot of trouble conquering, and never really managed to pacify.In Tibesti and the enedi lived - and still live - "warlike ethnic groups" just as attached to their freedom as the Tuaregs of the former Sudan, like the Toubou and the Zaghawa.We can re -read with profit nomads and commanders (1993) to better understand how rebellious these populations were rebellious and quick to do battle.

A great connoisseur of the black nomads of the Sahara, Jean Chapelle had also noted during his career as a meharist in northern Chad that, in Toubou society, "each man, to stand in the face of others, must have enemies,And he finds them ".He continues: "The level of the fatal offense is very low: the sarcasm, the allusion, the material or moral damage, the injury brought to an animal, are enough to spring the daggers.The customs of the Toubou generate the brawl as the cloud generates lightning.»»

Moreover, this area was not more controlled after independence (1960), and Colonel Chapelle himself remained prefect of Faya-Largeau until 1963.Then, in the late 1960s, Chadian President François Tombalbaye had to resolve former colonial administrators within the framework of the famous (and unprecedented) Mission of administrative reorganization (MRA), which tried without much success, between1969 and 1974, to restore state authority in these irredentist territories (read Chad, genesis of a conflict, Christian Bouquet, 1982, L'Harmattan).

In the same way that the Tuaregs overflows from Mali, the Toubou and the Zaghawa occupy for a long time of spaces that overlap the borders: the former consider themselves at home in the South Libyan (Fezzan), and the latter live as well in DarfurSudanese than in the Chadian enemy.

In Chad, the war as recurring as the dry season

This warlike culture of the populations of northern Chad did not blunt with the independence of 1960, on the contrary. Car après cette date ces groupes nomades n’ont eu de cesse de combattre le pouvoir central, tenu par des « sudistes»», jusqu’à le faire tomber militairement en 1979 lorsque les troupes de Goukouni Oueddei (originaires du Nord) sont entrées dans N’Djamena.

Subsequently, the supreme judiciary will always be in the hands of a warlord from one of the northern ethnic groups: Hissène Habré, then Idriss Déby (then her son), but the weapons will continue to be heard in a wayAlmost permanent, either to repel the Libyan neighbor when he intended to conquer the Aozou band, or when dissident armed groups were trying to walk on the capital.That is to say almost every year in the dry season.

During this long period of external and internal wars, the French army was often at the forefront.She was able to see at work an army who knew how to fight, with fighters who often forced the admiration of French soldiers for what could be a form of sense of honor, or more simply understanding of the fact that, inThis profession, death is in the contract.Something that is not so easily accepted by soldiers from other G5 Sahel armies.

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The relationship between the Chadian army and oil was forged in the early 1970s when Colonel Gaddafi decided to annex the Aozou band, this portion of territory of around 100,000 square kilometers which is located north of theTibesti.The Libyan leader referred to a text dating from 1919 which actually granted Italy this piece of desert.Admittedly, the treaty had never been ratified, so the Libyan claim was baseless, but Gaddafi thought that there was in the basement of manganese and oil, and that justified its obstinacy.

His troops therefore invaded the area in 1973, then Libya annexed it purely and simply in 1976.The official cards of the time report the new border route.However, the Chadian authorities, sometimes with the support of the French army, multiplied attempts to reconquest until it is satisfied in 1986.The Chadian army could therefore boast, in addition to having restored the country's territorial integrity, of having taken up the Libyan neighbor an important source of potential wealth.

A Oloduc funded by the World Bank

Since the prospecting conducted by the geological and mining research office (BRGM) in the 1950s, we had good reasons to think that the Chadian basement received oil, especially in the south around Doba but also in Kanem and inTibesti.However, it was not until 1975 to confirm that the reservations of the Doba site were profitable, and it was not until 1988 that the exploitation started.

It is true that large oil groups have long hesitated to engage in Chadian deposits.Those of the Center-West and North were located in chronic insecurity areas, and if those in the South were less threatened, they were nonetheless one-shore, that is to say landlocked in the continent andOver 1,000 kilometers from the first ocean port.

It is then that an unprecedented assembly was born: the World Bank agreed to finance - with public credits - the pipeline which would allow private operators Exxon, Chevron and Pétronas to transport their crude oil to the Cameroonian port ofKribi, so that it is transported to European or American refineries and offered on the market at prices that are not burdened by the cost of evacuation infrastructure.

A promising oil management law

Une telle transaction supposait des contreparties sérieuses, sous peine de voir se dresser contre le projet toutes les organisations de la société civile qui voyaient d’un mauvais œil le « cadeau»» de la Banque au secteur privé, pour un montant voisin de 500 millions de dollars.

En 1999, le président Idriss Déby a donc promulgué – sous la pression – une « loi de gestion des revenus pétroliers»» visant à inscrire l’exploitation de l’or noir au Tchad dans un cercle vertueux.The implementing decrees signed in 2003 and 2004 fixed the distribution rules as follows: during the first five years, 80 % of the fees and 85 % of dividends would be assigned to the expenses of the sectors considered as priority by the national strategy to reduce thePoverty (SNRP), that is to say education, health, rural development, infrastructure, water resources and the environment. Était également créé un « fonds destiné aux générations futures»».In addition, 5 % of the royalties would be paid to decentralized communities, and 15 % would go to non -priority spending in the public sector.

As G..Magrin and G.Van Vliet: "For the first time, an oil operating project was put at the service of the objectives of strengthening the capacities of the State and sustainable development.»» La Banque mondiale avait également innové en indemnisant les occupants des terrains empruntés par l’oléoduc, notamment en versant 550 000 francs CFA (840 euros) par manguier arraché (Le Pétrole du Tchad.Dream or nightmare for populations?Martin Pétry and Naygotimiti Bambé, Karthala, 2004).While asking the question of individual land ownership in the regions concerned, this principle of compensation was going to be jurisprudence on the rest of the continent.The colonizers had not thought about it during the construction of the railways ...

In Chad, the army priority, the police, the justice system

Alas, the Chadian president quickly returned to his promises: he had a corrective law adopted in December 2005 passing the army in the priority sectors, the police, justice and governance.And the World Bank took note of this turn in a report published in 2009 stressing that the initial project had not achieved its objectives either in poverty reduction or in the improvement of governance.

In the absence of transparency in the use of funds, it was not possible to encrypt the share of the aid thus diverted from social objectives to the armed forces, but in 2010 the NGO CCFD-Terre Solidaire estimated that military expenditurehad gone from 53 million euros in 2004 to 420 million euros in 2010.The rise in power of Chadian military means was also visible during the operations carried out by Idriss Déby against the rebels who attacked his regime in the years following this parajure law.

Autrement dit, « grâce»» à l’argent du pétrole, le Tchad dispose désormais d’une armée qui n’a peut-être pas toujours eu le dernier mot contre ses ennemis de l’intérieur, mais qui force l’admiration sur le théâtre des opérations sahéliennes antidjihadistes.In this observation, there is neither virtue nor moral, but an obviousness of realpolitik.

However, a significant part of corruption also explains the improper use of the oil rent.In September 2020, an ex-minister was taken to prison for suspicions of embezzlement of public funds committed between 2013 and 2016.It is likely that it is only the tree that hides the forest.

What amount?

The Initiative Report for Transparency in Extractive Industries (EITI), published in 2020, begins by pointing all the difficulties encountered by investigators to obtain the Chadian authorities the desired data.

Over the pages, we nevertheless learn that oil production in 2018 in Chad did not exceed 127,000 barrels per day, while the 2003 simulations left on the basis of 140,000 barrels per day.This deficit was offset by an average price of $ 59 per barrel, which should have ensured total income from the petroleum sector up to $ 676 million.It is clear that we do not find this amount in the state budget for the year 2018.Would it be there that we would not have elements to know how this resource has been redistributed.

So where did the oil rent go?Probably in the pocket of a few dignitaries of the regime, but also in the equipment and the formation of an army which, for several years, has managed to contain the jihadist advance in the Sahel.We would probably have preferred that it was fairly redistributed to the Chadian population, as we could have dreamed of during the agreement with the World Bank.

The circle is not virtuous, we risk seeing a popular dissatisfaction that will play the play of jihadists, on a territory which, which was, until now, preserved from this threat.The oil rent is likely to turn against those to whom it was intended.

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