African Union slammed for being ‘passive’ on Chad crisis
The African Union is attracting criticism for looking the other way on the situation in Chad, where a president was assassinated last year ahead of inauguration for a new term, plunging the country into a chaotic transition period.
And on Thursday, pro-democracy civil society organisations on the continent said the AU has refused to whip Chad in the same style it used previously against other errant members, a situation they argued had created impunity in N’Djamena.
The groups wrote to Namibia, the November chair of the AU Peace and Security Council, the continental body’s most powerful 15-member organ on security policy, to lament about the worsening civilian situation in Chad.
'Dangerous precedent'
They included the Open Society-Africa, Pan Africa Lawyers Union (PALU) and the African Meeting for the Defense of Human Rights, known by its French acronym RADDHO.
“A dangerous precedent is being set in the Chad case, whose goal posts keep shifting in fundamental ways,” they charged.
“The breaches to AU norms focusing on [the] rule of law and democracy strengthening as contained in the ACDEG [African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance] are being undermined with impunity by General Mahamat Deby and his junta.”
ACDEG is a 2007 continental policy that forbids coups or other unconstitutional changes in government. Offender countries have traditionally been suspended from the AU until they revert to civilian-led governance.
Military takeover
In April last year, President Idriss Deby was assassinated on a battlefront, where he had commanded his troops against insurgents. He had just won his sixth term in office and was awaiting inauguration. His son, General Deby, immediately led a military takeover as the head of a military transition council for 18 months.
In October, Gen Deby was sworn in as president of Chad for another 24 months, following a ‘dialogue’ with some opposition groups. He has since named opposition politician Saleh Kebzabo as the new prime minister. But this extension was rejected by Washington.
Civil society groups argue Chad was treated differently even when it clearly violated constitutional norms, including staging a coup. In the last 20 years of AU’s existence, in which it witnessed 20 coups, member states where it happened and purveyors of those putsches were suspended from the continental body, except Chad in 2021 and Zimbabwe in 2017.
“The passive stance taken by the PSC [Peace and Security Council] on the unconstitutional change in Chad is now being seen by that country’s military as a ‘green light’ to oppress its citizens,” the letter said.
“Almost 20 days after the announcement of the extension of the transition period and the endorsement of General Deby’s candidacy for [the] 2024/25 elections, the government went ahead and violently cracked down on protesters in what rights groups dubbed a massacre.”
Some reports had indicated more than 200 people were killed in October as they protested against the government. And AU Commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat, a Chadian national, condemned the brutal force used on protesters.
However, the AU is accused of doing little even as Chad violated all the transitional pledges, including extending the transition from military rule beyond 18 months, violating human rights and establishing a transitional council as a lawmaking body.
“Nothing short of an immediate suspension of Chad from AU beckons, as was done to other countries whose democratic journeys were interrupted by military coups,” the groups said.
The Democracy Charter also says that perpetrators of unconstitutional change of government should be barred from running in subsequent elections meant to restore democracy. In Chad, Gen Deby will be eligible to contest the presidency at the end of the transition period.
The AU Peace and Security Council did not immediately respond to the letter but it was expected to sit on Friday for a session on continental peace and security.
It also includes Kenya, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Ghana, Morocco, Gambia, Djibouti, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Senegal and Tunisia. BY DAILY NATION



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