Idriss Déby

Idriss Déby (Fada, June 18, 1952-Tibesti Region, April 20, 2021) was a Chadian military and politician. He served as Chad's president from 1990 until his death in combat in 2021, he was also a historic leader of the Patriotic Salvation Movement.

Biography

Early Years

He began his military career at the N'Djamena Officers School, continuing in France, where he graduated in 1976 as a fighter pilot.

He started out as a General in the Chadian Civil War. In 1990, Déby's troops clashed with the troops of former president Hissène Habré, until on December 2 they occupied the country's capital, taking over the government and naming Déby the new president.

After three months of exercising a provisional government, on February 28, 1991, a multi-party constitution was approved.

Starting in 1993, Déby convened a national conference of political parties, different organizations and rebel groups to start a path and rebuild democracy in the country, creating the High Transition Council, which It would be led by him, and whose objective was to lead the country until the elections were held.

Presidency

First terms

In 1996 he was elected president in democratic elections with a majority vote, and re-elected in 2001.

In 2007, the kidnapping of one hundred and three children in the city of Abéché by members of the French NGO Arch de Zoé caused a diplomatic confrontation between their government and those of Spain and France that was resolved within a few weeks. Human rights defenders, citizen movements, trade unionists and journalists critical of the government are at risk from the government's increasing use of repressive laws and intelligence services to muzzle critics and hinder their work, Amnesty International has found. In 2016 the World Bank gives a loan of 222 million dollars for a project considered controversial to pump oil in Chad and send it by pipeline to Cameroon.

In February 2008, the rebel opposition managed to imprison him in their presidential palace during the Second Battle of N'Djamena in the Chad conflict.

Fourth term

His party won 133 of 188 seats in the general elections on February 13, 2011.

On April 25, 2011, he was re-elected for a fourth term in the first round of the presidential elections by 88.7% of the vote, against Albert Pahimi Padacké (6%) and Madou Nadji (5.3%). The main opponents had decided to boycott the election, challenging the conditions under which the elections would take place and denouncing an "electoral masquerade". Turnout is 64.2% according to the electoral commission, but opponents also express doubts about the true turnout rate, which they estimate at 20%.

He opposes Western military intervention during the 2011 Libyan Civil War, a position that many media outlets then described as supporting General Muammar al-Gadhafi, some claiming he would have sent elements of the guard. For his part, he declared that he wanted the Libyan dictator to leave power, but gently and not after an armed intervention that, according to him, "will leave traces".

In May 2012, Idriss Déby launched a vast anti-corruption operation in the country, dubbed “Operation Cobra”. The State then loses an estimated amount of 300,000 million CFA francs (or 460 million euros) per year due to the embezzlement of public funds. The objective was to ensure the income and expense circuits and control the preparation, award and execution of public contracts. After one year and 23 inspection missions carried out in N'Djamena and 22 in the provinces, around 25 billion CFA francs have been recovered.

In January 2013, Chad sent troops to northern Mali to participate in Operation Serval. Idriss Déby then described what is happening in northern Mali as a consequence of "the dislocation of Libya" and the "spreading from their arsenal". This action in Mali, or in the Central African Republic and Nigeria against Boko Haram, earned Idriss Déby strong support from France and the United States.

During this tenure, Idriss Déby launched a major economic diversification, with the country's economy until then being based mainly on the oil industry. Although Chad was one of the least developed countries (LDCs) on the African continent in 2001, in 2015 it was ranked third in the Africa Performance Index (API), a tool for rating and ranking public sector institutions in Africa.

Idriss Déby this year released 4.57 million euros to help the Lake Chad region, plagued by desertification and fertile for the development of terrorist groups such as Boko Haram. Chad being a strategic objective for Boko Haram, Idriss Déby turns part of his policy of this mandate towards the fight against terrorism.

Faced with the growing threat of Boko Haram, a terrorist group linked to the Islamic State in northern Nigeria, Idriss Deby increases Chad's participation in the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF), an armed force comprised of Niger, Nigeria, Benin and Cameroon. In August 2015, Idriss Déby stated on this issue in an interview that the MNJTF "beheaded" to Boko Haram.

On December 1, 2015, on the occasion of the summit "Climate challenge and African solutions" on the sidelines of the Paris Climate Conference (COP 21), Idriss Déby alerted the international community about the need for financing for the future of Lake Chad, whose surface had been divided by eight since 1973: «The question of Lake Chad is old. At every climate meeting for 20 years, this topic has been raised from Copenhagen, Rio and today Paris. I am not sure that until today we have found ears, at least concrete actions."

Murder

He died in northern Chad on April 20, 2021 while commanding troops fighting the rebel group Front for Alternation and Harmony in Chad (FACT). The day before his victory in the elections of the April 11, which would have ushered in his sixth term.