President “Déby”… His Own Worst Enemy!
By: Roshan Oshi
The regime of “Mohamed Déby” in Chad has committed a costly strategic mistake by allowing the UAE to use it as a “pawn” in its campaign against the Sudanese people. Chad has become a military base for the UAE-backed militias in their aggression against Sudan.
President “Mohamed Déby’s” strategic blunder lies in prioritizing his public image over the historical and political interests of his country. This misstep has inflicted a blow on his regime that even his adversaries could not achieve since the days of his father, “Idriss Déby.” By empowering his family’s historical rivals within his administration and supporting their tribal extensions in Sudan, Déby has jeopardized his own rule.
Is there a new opportunity for Sudanese-Chadian relations amidst the intersecting events and the rapid internal and external transformations? The support of “Kaka Déby’s” regime for the militias of “Hemedti” has turned the road to reconciliation between the two nations into a thorny path, making it nearly impossible to overcome the dynamics fueling the ongoing conflict and alignments.
There was an opportunity for retreat. However, when President “Mohamed Déby” imagined that aligning with the UAE would secure his place in Chadian and regional history as a leader who ended French influence in his country and facilitated new interests to transform it into an “Emirati colony,” that opportunity vanished forever.
Now, “Mohamed Déby” finds himself ostracized, even by his own tribe. Senior military and state leaders reject the ongoing bloodshed among their tribal extensions in Sudan. They resent the brutal drone strikes by “Hemedti’s” militias targeting displaced civilians in camps in El-Fasher, launched from “N’Djamena” and “Am Jarass” airports. These accusations are supported by satellite images and evidence provided by the Sudanese army, implicating Chad in the Sudanese war.
Similarly, leaders from the Déby family who have faced internal tensions due to President “Mohamed’s” policies are now seeking to initiate dialogue with neighboring Sudan to clarify the position of the reasonable voices within Chad’s leadership.
President “Mohamed” has failed to grasp that the geographic and demographic interconnections between the two nations are an unchangeable reality. It was evident that his rule would drag Chad into wars beyond its capacity and that attempts to alter these interconnections would clash with major players within his own country.
It’s worth recalling, amid this deliberate oblivion, one chapter from the blood-soaked history of the Déby regime in Chad. The very groups with which President “Mohamed” currently allies had threatened his father’s rule for years. These groups seize every opportunity to topple his regime. Thus, empowering “Hemedti’s” militias, which have tribal ties to these groups, is akin to playing with fire—a fire that will inevitably ignite soon.
What is required today from President “Mohamed Déby” is not more reckless leaps into the unknown, but rather a recognition of reality and an understanding of the balance of gains and losses.
With love and respect.
