Agence France-Presse,
PARIS: Chad's Prime Minister Nourredine Delwa Kassire Coumakoye on Tuesday rejected a ceasefire with rebels who fought their way into the capital and blamed neighbouring Sudan for the insurgency.
A rebel alliance that seized large parts of the capital Ndjamena at the weekend responded to a non-binding United Nations Security Council statement opening the way to foreign military intervention by agreeing to a ceasefire.
“Why a ceasefire? They (the rebels) don't exist any more. With whom would we sign a ceasefire? … We've got them under control,” Coumakoye told French global television channel France 24.
“We don't just have control of the situation. There is no more rebellion. They have all been decimated. Those who remain are being pursued about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the capital.”
Coumakoye accused the Khartoum government of being behind the attack, after the rebels crossed Chad last week from rear bases in the west Sudanese border region of Darfur, where Sudan's army and Arab militias have cracked down on a rebellion in a conflict that has razed whole tracts of territory.
“We say we are being attacked by Sudan because these elements who came were there in the shape of the Sudanese army,” he said.
“The majority are children recruited in the madrassas (Koranic schools) who don't understand a word of Chadian. They aren't Chadians. They're the Sudanese people's army,” he added.
In New York, the Security Council on Monday unanimously condemned the rebel attacks. It also called on UN member states to provide support, if requested, to President Idriss Deby Itno, whose government and Khartoum frequently accuse each other of backing rebels.
Washington on Monday also warned Khartoum against any support it might be offering the insurgents, but Sudan's secretary of state for foreign affairs, Sammani al-Wassila, said such allegations were baseless.
“Sudan has no interest in destabilising Chad,” he told the Sudanese media.
The rebel advance began the week a European Union peacekeeping force was set to start its deployment in Chad on the border with Darfur, commanded on the ground by a French general.
The European Union said Monday it still intends to deploy this 3,700-strong military force with a mandate to protect Darfur refugees as well as Chadians and people from the neighbouring Central African Republic fleeing violence in their countries.
Chad's Foreign Minister Ahmat Allami met his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner in Paris on Tuesday and said afterwards that “the Chadians involved in this affair are mere instruments of a cause that isn't their own”.
“We're ready to give them our hand to have them take part in the framework of the August 13 political accord,” Allami said, referring to a pact signed in Ndjamena between Deby and the political opposition in 2007.
Under this EU-backed accord, the opposition agreed to hold off on new elections until 2009 and share power to an extent, while new computerised and tamper-proof electoral lists were drawn up and so that biometric voters' cards can be issued to prevent fraud.
Rebel spokesman Abderaman Koulamallah said the rebels had “given their agreement to an immediate ceasefire”, but sought “a non-exclusive national dialogue with a view to a peaceful resolution of the Chadian conflict … (and) the installation of a truly democratic political regime”.
After the non-binding Security Council statement, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday that France — with 1,450 troops and Mirage fighter jets stationed in Chad — was prepared to intervene militarily.
Sarkozy warned that “if Chad was the victim of an aggression, France could in theory have the means to oppose such action and intervene if need be”, but the French military have denied rebel accusations of taking part in fighting so far except to protect the airport and evacuate civilians.
