VZCZCXYZ0003
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHNJ #0487/01 0931142
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 031142Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3446
INFO RUEHUJA/AMEMBASSY ABUJA 1014
RUEHAR/AMEMBASSY ACCRA 0309
RUEHDS/AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA 0677
RUEHBP/AMEMBASSY BAMAKO 0553
RUEHKM/AMEMBASSY KAMPALA 0352
RUEHKH/AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM 0094
RUEHLC/AMEMBASSY LIBREVILLE 0750
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 1251
RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI 0515
RUEHNM/AMEMBASSY NIAMEY 2531
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 1638
RUEHYD/AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE 1011
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0642

UNCLAS NDJAMENA 000487 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR AF, AF/C, INR, DRL, DS/IP/AF, DS/IP/ITA; 
LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICAWATCHERS; NAIROBI FOR OFDA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM CD
SUBJECT: CHAD:  KEBZABO ON OPPOSITION UNITY AND OBSTRUCTION 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  Southern Muslim leader Kebzabo 
acknowledges that the regime has more to fear from the armed 
rebels than from the democratic opposition but the latter is 
relatively unified for the first time and determined to go 
beyond boycotting the coming election.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Saleh Kebzabo, just returned from travel to Mali, 
received poloff March 31 for a two-hour discussion.  He 
dismissed rumors that he had been traveling because he wanted 
to avoid pressure from President Deby and his henchmen to put 
his name forward as a candidate in the May 3 presidential 
election or because he wanted to distance himself from his 
fellow opposition leaders in the coalition CPDC.  The trip to 
Bamako was a long-standing plan, and during his travel he had 
maintained constant contact with his CPDC partners.  He was 
aware that a few of the lesser CPDC leaders had been 
approached by Deby with significant enticements, but he had 
not been personally so approached, and it was notable that 
none of the 20 party leaders in the CPDC had succumbed.  The 
four personages who had thrown their name in as candidates 
were, according to Kebzabo, of course not worth discussing, 
not opposition at all but mere Deby hangers-on. 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  Kebzabo said that the upcoming election 
represented a tragic backward step for Chad.  It would be the 
worst election farce since Deby came to power.  Kebzabo did 
not enjoy boycotting elections.  He wanted to run.  He would 
have done so again in this election, even if he were sure 
Deby had retained the capability to fix the result, if only 
Deby had made a few concessions, just a little nod in the 
direction of democracy.  Deby could have made a modicum of 
effort to talk to the opposition, he could have cleaned up a 
few of the many major areas of fraud, such as the double 
documentation at voting booths or the four days allotted to 
nomads for voting or the fictive voter registration.  But 
Deby had been unwilling to pursue even the most superficial 
dialogue or make the most superficial concessions.   Certain 
of his total support from France and apparently certain of 
the passivity of the rest of the international community, 
Kebzabo said pointedly, Deby had treated the democratic 
opposition as if it did not count or exist. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Kebzabo acknowledged that there were limits to what 
the democratic opposition could do to get Deby's attention. 
The overwhelming boycott and universal lack of interest in 
the June 2005 referendum that had granted Deby the right to 
run for a third term had not seemed to bother him much.  The 
democratic opposition would have to do more now than merely 
boycott.  Thus, the CPDC was determined that there would be 
an "active boycott."   The CPDC leadership had not yet 
coordinated a detailed strategy, but, suffice to say, there 
would be widespread attempts by the opposition to prevent the 
actual vote taking place.  Kebzabo admitted that Deby had a 
monopoly on the nation's force of arms and resources and, for 
this reason, Deby would probably be able to prevail easily in 
squelching this "active boycott."  But he had given the 
democratic opposition no option but to do what it could -- 
with its limited capabilities and its mind-set oriented to 
peaceful methods -- to stand up to this charade. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) What made the election even more of a charade, 
Kebzabo said, was the present context of coup plots and 
warfare on the eastern frontier.  By a long shot, Deby was 
not so cavalier about the armed opposition as he was the 
democratic opposition, and, sad as it was to say, he had far 
more reason to be preoccupied with the armed opposition, 
given how he himself came to power.  For his part, Kebzabo 
said he deeply feared an armed takeover -- in this, he shared 
Deby's concern.  Kebzabo said that he was in contact with 
certain of the rebels (he refused to give more information on 
this point) and could affirm that the battle at Hadjar 
Marfaine on March 20 was not nearly the sweeping victory over 
the SCUD rebels that the government or journalists had 
portrayed.  The journalists had been shown only what the 
government wanted them to see.  The SCUD retained the 
capacity to have another go and was regrouping, according to 
his information.  Meanwhile, Kebzabo continued, the previous 
day (March 30) the Chadian armed forces had suffered a severe 
blow further south at the hands of Mahamat Nour's RDL.  This 
sort of fighting, with potentially severe consequences for 
the Chadian armed forces and for Deby, was likely to continue 
right up to the election, and beyond, in Kebzabo's estimation. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Poloff asked whether Kebzabo thought his somewhat 
unusual status as a Southerner who was also a Muslim gave him 
any advantage as an aspirant to national office.   Kebzabo 
said that religion was, or had become in recent years, the 
most potent dividing line in a much-divided nation.  However, 
he had always seen himself -- and been widely seen among the 
populace -- as a Southerner planted in Lere, and not 
particularly as a Muslim.  When he had campaigned for 
president in 2001, he had not wanted to try to exploit the 
Muslim card in any way, because it was a dangerously 
two-edged sword -- emphasis on it could cause loss of 
Christian support while not bringing in Muslim support. 
Chadians of his generation had not tended to see the country 
through a religious or ethnic perspective, as Chadians did 
now.  There had been a North and a South and people had 
thought of a few major ethnic groups, Gorane and Sarah but 
not much else.  Few had even heard of the word "Zaghawa," 
much less of any Zaghawa clans and subclans. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Kebzabo said that Deby had fomented ethnic 
perception and dissension, as it was essential to his 
continued hold on power that the Muslims and Northerners 
automatically oppose any Southerner or Christian.  The regime 
used many methods to fix the results of the elections, but 
one of the most potent methods was not electoral fraud in the 
technical sense of tampering with results -- it was the use 
of prefects and sub-prefects to fan out to every village 
chief, especially in Muslim areas, to twist their arm to turn 
out a unified village vote for the regime.  However, Kebzabo 
believed that the regime could no longer automatically count 
on the Muslim vote.  Impoverishment and degradation were a 
generalized phenomenon touching Muslim and Christian alike, 
as all communities recognized that a tiny elite was robbing 
them blind.  The only way to know for sure how Muslims would 
vote would be a free and fair election, which Deby was more 
determined than ever to prevent. 
 
¶8. (U) Bio note:  Saleh Kebzabo heads the UNDR (Union 
Nationale pour le Developpement et le Renouveau).  He is a 
Moundang from Lere on the Cameroon border in the South (Mayo 
Kebbi Ouest), the country's most populated region.  A 
journalist, born in 1947, he became a major opposition figure 
in the early 1990's, after having founded the country's first 
independent weekly newspaper.  He made a surprise decision in 
1996 to back Deby during the first presidential election 
campaign, explaining that he sought to promote national 
unity.  He served as foreign minister 1996-97, subsequently 
as minister of public works/transportation and then as 
minister of mines/energy/oil.  He has served intermittently 
in the National Assembly but now holds no official position. 
WALL