The President of the Transitional Military Council, Chadian General Mahamat Idriss Déby, spoke for the first time since taking office in April last year. In an interview with Jeune Afrique, the son of the deceased Idriss Déby returned to his father’s death or transition. A speech that did not allow the opposition to respond.
It was as an officer that Mahamat Idriss Déby experienced his father’s death. “I was still in the middle of a fight a few miles south,” he says when “Marshal” – that’s what he calls his father throughout the interview – got the wound that would be his. Deadly. “It was only at noon, after crushing the mercenaries, that I learned of his helicopter evacuation at Ndjamena. It was during my return that I received information about his death. ”
“A violent shock,” he admits. For me, for our family, for the Chadians, for Africa. But the chaos that the so-called chagologists predicted did not happen, he emphasizes. The transition has become military because the president of the National Assembly, who was in power, refused to take this charge, insists Mahamat Idriss Déby, who refuses any comparison with the military coup in Mali.
The election is scheduled for 18 months, a deadline that will be respected on two conditions, he stresses: that the Chadians come to an agreement and that the country receives the necessary support, according to him, to the organization of the vote than Treasury Chadian can not stand alone.
“Africans are quite capable of defending themselves”
Still in this interview, Mahamat Idriss Déby notes the announced end of Operation Barkhane by the French President. “I think Africans are quite capable of defending themselves against jihadist torture,” he comments. Chad’s commitments will be maintained within Minusma and the G5 Sahel. ”
With the release of opponents and a transfer he wants to include, it’s time for appeasment, he admits after the deadly clashes on April 27, which an investigation is underway. But there is no question of recognizing those he qualifies as Chadian mercenaries in Libya, facts (Front pour l ‘alternation et la concorde auTchad), which he never mentions.
Finally, Mahamat Idriss Déby denies any disagreement within his siblings as CMT whose goal is, he insists, to return power to civilians and to retire to the barracks. But he also leaves room for providence: “God determines destiny and power”.
► To read about: Africa’s press review, “Mahamat Idriss Déby speaks”
The people will never again accept either the armed conquest of power or the armed confiscation of power. Otherwise, the country will be cut off, and that is a real danger today. We must stop this by setting the conditions for a new start for our country, where everyone is on equal terms. And that is advice I would like to give to my younger brother, General Mahamat Kaka. I would like to say to him in the most solemn way I said to his father: if he wants to go this way of armed confiscation of power, he ends up through the same door as his father. We must look at Chad on a new basis, with principles that are inclusive and principles of equality for all Chadians. If he wants to play by the rules, to play with our country’s army to try to impress himself, he will have us in front of him, and by all legitimate means we will come to the end of this old system that wants to continue.
Success Masra, president of the Les Transformateurs party and member of the Wakit Tama opposition coalition
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