Chad
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| National motto: Unité - Travail - Progrès (Unity - Work - Progress) | |||||
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| Principal languages | French, Arabic | ||||
| Capital | N'Djamena | ||||
| President | Idriss Déby | ||||
| Prime Minister | Pascal Yoadimnadji | ||||
| Area - Total - % water |
Ranked 20th 1,284,000 km² 1.9% | ||||
| Population - Total (2003) - Density |
Ranked 82nd 9,253,493 7.2/km² | ||||
| Independence | 1960 | ||||
| Currency | CFA franc | ||||
| Time zone | Universal Time +1 | ||||
| National anthem | La Tchadienne (The Song of Chad) | ||||
| Internet TLD | .td | ||||
| Country Calling Code | 235 | ||||
The Republic of Chad is a landlocked country in central Africa. It borders Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west. Due to its distance from the sea and its largely desert climate, the country is sometimes refered to as the "dead heart of Africa." In the north, it contains the Tibesti Mountains, the largest mountain chain in the Sahara Desert. Formerly part of the Federation of French Equatorial Africa, the country shares a relationship with Lake Chad.
Geography
Chad is a landlocked country in north central Africa measuring 1,284,000 square kilometers (496,000 sq. mi.) south of Libya. Chad has 5,968 km of border against Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Niger, Nigeria, and Sudan. Chad has four climactic zones: it has broad, arid plains in center, desert in north, dry mountains in northwest, and tropical lowlands in south. Only 3% of Chad is arable land and none of it has permanent crops. Environmental hazards in Chad include hot, dry, dusty harmattan winds occur in north, periodic droughts, and locust plagues. Lake Chad, which is in Chad and Cameroon, was once the second-largest lake in Africa but has shrunk dramatically during the last few decades and is now down to less than 10% of its former size. The people of Chad are known either as Chadians or Chadamites.
History
The area that today is Chad started out as a disconnected group of tribes. Humanoid skulls and cave paintings have been found there. Eventually, these tribes were overtaken by kingdoms. Chad was controlled by some weak local kingdoms until it was overtaken by the larger, but still completely African Kanem-Bornu Empire.
Later, foreigners started having a bigger influence on Chad. Starting in the Middle Ages, Chad became a crossroads between the Muslim traders and the native tribes. In 1891 Chad became a French colony. In World War II, Chad was the first French colony to join the Free French and the Allies, under the leadership of its Governor, Félix Éboué. In 1960, Chad became an independent country, with François Tombalbaye as its first president.
Chad's post-independence history has been marked by instability and violence stemming mostly from tensions between the mainly Arab-Muslim north and the predominantly Christian and animist south.
In 1969 Muslim dissatisfaction with President Tombalbaye — a Christian southerner — developed into a guerrilla war. This, combined with a severe drought, undermined his rule and, in 1975, President Tombalbaye was killed in a coup led by another southerner, Félix Malloum. Mr Malloum, also failed to end the war, and in 1979 he was replaced by a Libyan-backed northerner, Goukouni Oueddei.
By this stage France and neighbouring Libya were intervening repeatedly to support one side against another. The leader of the French-supported Northern rebel group FAN Forces Armées du Nord, Hissène Habré, a former defence minister, became prime minister in 1978. In 1982 he deposed President Oueddei, and assumed overall control of the state, abolishing the post of prime minister. His eight-year rule led to immense political turmoil, with human rights organisations accusing him of having ordered the execution of thousands of political opponents and members of tribes thought hostile to his regime.
Libya invaded Chad in 1975, theoretically to drive Habré from power. They occupied a narrow strip of land known as the Aouzou Strip. France and the United States responded by aiding Habré in an attempt to contain Libya's regional ambitions under Muammar al-Qaddafi. Civil war deepened. In 1980 Libya occupied all of northern Chad, but Habré defeated Libyan troops and drove them out in 1981. In 1983, Qaddafi's troops occupied all of the country north of Koro Toro. The United States used a clandestine base in Chad to train captured Libyan soldiers, whom it tried to organize into an anti-Qaddafi force. Habré's aid from the USA and France helped him to win the war against Libya. The Libyan occupation of the north of Koro Toro ended when Habré defeated him in 1987.
Despite this victory, Habré's government was weak and seemingly disliked by a majority of Chadians. He was deposed by Libyan-supported rebel leader Idriss Déby in 1990. Habré went into exile in Senegal. Déby installed himself as dictator. Soon after a constitution was written. Popular support for Déby was apparently shown in an election in 2001, where he defeated six other candidates with 67.3% of the vote. The election was described as being "reasonably fair", although there were some noted irregularities.
In 1998 an armed insurgency began in the north, led by President Déby's former defence chief, Youssouf Togoimi. A Libyan-brokered peace deal in 2002 failed to put an end to the fighting.
In 2003 and 2004, unrest in neighbouring Sudan's Darfur region spilled across the border, along with many thousands of refugees.
In 2005, Chad announced that it was in a [[Chad-Sudan conflict|"state of war" with Sudan. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference(OIC) has urged Sudan and Chad to exercise self-restraint to defuse growing tension between the two neighboring countries.
Politics
A strong executive branch headed by President Déby of the Patriotic Salvation Movement dominates the Chadian political system. Déby was elected constitutionally in 1996 and 2001, although international observers noted irregularities in the election process. The president of Chad was limited to two terms until Déby had that constitutional provision removed in 2005. The president is elected by universal suffrage for those over 18. The president has the power to appoint the prime minister (re-instated after the removal of Habré) and the Council of State (or cabinet), and exercises considerable influence over appointments of judges, generals, provincial officials and heads of Chad’s parastatal firms. Chad's legislative branch consists of a unicameral National Assembly. Its judicial branch consists of a Supreme Court, a Court of Appeal, criminal courts, and magistrate courts.
Economy
Chad's primarily agricultural economy is being boosted by major oilfield and pipeline developments that began in 2000. Over 80% of Chad's population continues to rely on subsistence farming and stock raising for its livelihood. Cotton, cattle, and gum arabic have, until recently, provided the bulk of Chad's export earnings, but Chad began to export oil in 2003 from three oilfields near Doba. It has been estimated that income from oil increased Chad's per capita GDP by 40% in 2004, and may double it in 2005.
Chad's economy has long been handicapped by its landlocked position, poor internal communications, high energy costs, scarce water resources and a history of instability. Until now, Chad has relied on foreign assistance and foreign capital for most public and private sector investment projects but oil income will transform government finances.
A consortium, led by ExxonMobil (US), and with the participation of Chevron (US) and Petronas (Malaysia), invested $3.7 billion to develop oil reserves estimated at 1 billion barrels (0.2 km³) in southern Chad, and Chad became an oil-producing country in 2003, with the completion of a pipeline (financed in part by the World Bank) linking its southern oilfields to terminals on the Atlantic coast via neighbouring Cameroon. Chad hopes to avoid the waste and corruption experienced in some other African oil-producing countries; as a condition of its assistance, the World Bank has insisted on a new law which requires that 80% of oil revenues will be spent on development projects.
Provided stability is maintained, the outlook for Chad's economy is now better than it has ever been. It is known that further reserves of oil exist within the country, in addition to the oilfields that are already being exploited.
Demography
There are more than 200 ethnic groups in Chad. Those in the north and east are generally Muslim; most southerners are Christians or animists. Through their long religious and commercial relationships with Sudan and Egypt, many of the peoples in Chad's eastern and central regions have become more or less Arabized, speaking Arabic and engaging in many other Arab cultural practices as well. More than three-quarters of the Chadian population is rural.
Culture
Chad is a very culturally diverse nation. Among the manifestations of this diversity is the extremely large number of languages spoken there. Although the only official languages in Chad are Arabic and French, there are also more than 100 tribal languages spoken. The largest ethnic group in Chad, the Christian/animist Sara peoples living in the south, only makes up 20% of the population. In central Chad, people are mostly nomadic and pastoralist. The mountainous north has a sparse, mostly Muslim population of mixed backgrounds. Each society in Chad (smaller than the groups described above) has developed their own religion, music, and folklore.
The largest Christian churches are the Roman Catholic Church, the Assemblees Chretiennes du Tchad, the Eglise Baptiste du Tchad and the Eglises Evangeliques au Tchad.
Government
- Official site of the government (in French)
- Embassy of Chad in the United States (domain name expired in June 2003), former page
News
- AllAfrica.com - Chad news headline links
- News and links
Overviews
- BBC News Country Profile - Chad
- CIA World Factbook - Chad
- US State Department - Chad includes Background Notes, Country Study and major reports
- World Bank — Chad Summary Data, Statistics & Sources
- World Bank — Chad Data Profile
Directories
- Columbia University Libraries - Chad directory category of the WWW-VL
- Open Directory Project - Chad directory category
- Stanford University - Africa South of the Sahara: Chad directory category
- Yahoo! - Chad directory category
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