Refugees displaced by the war in Sudan receive food from aid agencies at the Metche camp in eastern Chad [File: Jsarh Ngarndey Ulrish/AP]
Chad faces pressures from conflicts in neighbouring countries, but it remains largely secure, having pushed Chadian rebel groups to the fringes after the death of Deby’s father, former President Idriss Deby, in 2021. Several aid groups are using the country as a base to respond to the crisis in Sudan.
The new deal aligns with Orban’s ambitions. The prime minister has long called for tougher controls on people coming into the EU. In July, Hungary assumed the role of the rotating EU presidency, allowing Orban to further push his agenda. This week, Orban pressed for the EU to field asylum claims in countries outside the bloc.
A jostle for influence?
Some analysts said Orban might also be angling to join an ongoing power game in Africa that is seeing big powers like Russia, China, the United States, India and the EU jostle for influence.
The continent’s vast natural resources, growing population and collective weight at the United Nations General Assembly make it attractive.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia has taken advantage of the fallout between France and its former Francophone allies of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
As French and other Western troops have withdrawn from the Sahel since 2022, Russia’s Wagner paramilitary forces, now called Africa Corps, have moved in. Russian troops have been present in CAR since 2018. Their mission to push back armed groups and protect President Faustin Archange Touadera’s rule has been largely successful.
Investigations by the French paper Le Monde revealed Gaspar Orban, the prime minister’s son, was one of the diplomats shuttling between Chad and Hungary in the past year. This has raised speculation over the elder Orban’s end game with some wondering whether the new friendship with Chad is meant to secure private benefits for the prime minister. The younger Orban is not a state official and had not previously undertaken diplomatic assignments.
Deby’s image at home
Flaunting a new European military friend could help current President Deby solidify his credibility on the home front, something he has struggled to do since he assumed power, Ochieng said.
Deby took power after his father and longtime President Idriss Deby died while leading soldiers on the battlefield against a rebel group. Under Chadian law, the speaker of parliament should have taken over, but the younger Deby, a four-star military general, formed a military council to lead the country.
His detractors accused him of carrying out a palace coup, and opposition party members in Chad questioned Deby’s claim to the presidency. When people took to the streets to protest in October 2022, security forces killed more than 200 demonstrators.
Although Deby went ahead to organise and win elections this May, questions of his legitimacy remain, and the government appears anxious over a possible coup stemming from the military or opposition groups. Deby’s grab for power and his government’s failure to condemn Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has angered military and political elites. Many share ancestry with the Zagawa tribes in Darfur where reports of RSF massacres and human rights violations are rife.
In February, Chad’s military said an opposition leader, Yaya Dillo – who is Deby’s cousin – launched an attack on the army headquarters. The resulting shootout saw Dillo and several other members of his party killed.
“Islamist militants are actually not the biggest threat to Deby because they’ve been largely contained. The biggest threats are those internal divisions,” Ochieng told Al Jazeera. “Unfortunately, that’s not something the Hungarian troops can really help with. In the unlikely event of a coup or something like that, those soldiers would just be forced to wait it out and see what happens next.”
However, the added military assistance from Hungary or elsewhere could help Deby boost his profile with the military, which is all-powerful in Chad. It also provides more clout internationally, Ochieng said, as N’Djamena works to present itself as a neutral side in the Russia-West tensions.
Chad is presently the only Sahelian anchor for the West after the fallout between France and the western Sahel countries. About 1,000 French soldiers are deployed in Chad along with about 100 US soldiers (although a disagreement over US operations caused authorities in May to expel some of the US contingent. US officials described the expulsions as rooted in a “temporary paperwork” issue.)
There is much anxiety in Western countries over how long their soldiers will last in Chad, experts said. That’s fuelled by Deby’s visit in January to the Kremlin, where Putin offered “security assistance”, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s trip to Chad in June.
At the same time, Chad did not hesitate to detain four Russians deemed hostile in September when they landed in N’Djamena for unclear reasons. Two of them – Maxim Shugalej and Samer Sueifan – are well-known for oiling Moscow’s propaganda machine in African countries and have previously been detained in Libya.
“That was Deby saying, ‘We will not tolerate a more incendiary Russian presence in our country,’” Ochieng said.
Source link : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/23/why-is-hungarys-orban-sending-soldiers-to-chad
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Publish date : 2024-10-23 13:49:00
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