Chad - country.
Publié le 04/05/2013
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B Industries
The processing of cotton and cottonseed oil and the manufacturing of peanut oil are major industries in Chad.
Modern meatpacking plants have been established inN’Djamena and Sarh.
The fishing industry furnishes fresh, dried, and smoked fish for domestic use and export.
Petroleum mining and processing are increasinglyimportant industries in Chad.
Gold and natron, a mineral used to make soap, glass, paper, and medicines, are also mined.
Forestry is important in the south.
The outputof electricity in 2003 was 120 million kilowatt-hours.
C Transportation and Communications
Of a road network of 33,400 km (20,754 mi), only about one-quarter are all-weather.
Chad has no railroads.
The main airport at N’Djamena can accommodate largejets, and about 55 other airports serve smaller craft.
The radio station in N’Djamena is government-owned and broadcasts programs in French, Arabic, and eight Africanlanguages.
In 1997 there were an average 236 radio receivers and 1.4 television sets for every 1,000 inhabitants.
V GOVERNMENT
Political instability plagued Chad throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1989 a new constitution providing for an elected president and parliament came into effect.
Thisconstitution was suspended, and parliament dissolved, after an insurgent group, the Patriotic Salvation Movement, took power in December 1990.
Chad was then ruledby an interim government consisting of a 33-member state council headed by a president.
After internal pressure for elections mounted, a democratic constitution wasapproved by public referendum in March 1996.
Under this (subsequently amended) constitution, the head of state is the president, who is popularly elected to a five-year term.
A popularly elected, 155-seat National Assembly serves as the country’s legislature.
Its members serve four-year terms.
The constitution also allows for theoptional creation of a popularly elected Senate to serve as the upper house of the legislature.
In 2004 Chad maintained an army of 25,000 members and an air force of 350.
The country has signed defense agreements with France, which gives Chad’s armytechnical and other aid.
VI HISTORY
Cave paintings indicate that Chad was a fertile and populous country in ancient times.
By the 9th century AD, the kingdom of Kanem ( see Kanem-Bornu Empire) was established in what is now western Chad, with its capital at Njimi, near Mao.
Its rulers adopted Islam in the 11th century.
Kanem was subjected to neighboring Bornu inthe 16th century, and in the succeeding period the chief powers were the sultanates of Baguirmi and Wadai in the south.
The export of slaves to North Africa was animportant sector of the economy of these states.
In the late 19th century the area was subdued by the Sudanese conqueror Rabih al-Zubayr, and it was taken over by the French on his death.
In 1910 Chad became apart of the French Equatorial Federation, with headquarters in Brazzaville, the Republic of the Congo, about 2,400 km (about 1,500 mi) away.
The change to colonialstatus resulted in little interference in the way of life of the indigenous peoples and little development beyond the establishment of cotton plantations in the south.
In 1960 Chad, like other French colonies in Africa, became independent.
Desperately poor, the governments of President François Tombalbaye, a southerner, weresupported by French aid.
The dissatisfaction of northern Muslims first surfaced in 1963 and forced some changes in the Bantu-dominated one-party government.
This,however, was not enough to satisfy them, and in 1969 Muslim guerrillas began to operate in the north.
With support from neighboring Libya, their attacks escalatedduring the following years.
Despite military aid from France, Tombalbaye’s situation was made totally untenable by the drought of the early 1970s.
He was assassinatedin 1975.
Tombalbaye’s successor, General Félix Malloum, was not able to end the civil strife.
By 1979 the war had engulfed the south, Malloum was overthrown, and anortherner, Goukouni Oueddei, emerged as president.
In 1980 Libya intervened to support Oueddei against rebels under former defense minister Hissène Habré, whowas backed by Sudan and Egypt.
After the Libyan forces withdrew late in 1981 at Oueddei’s request, Habré renewed his offensive, and his troops captured N’Djamenain June 1982.
In 1983 the ousted Oueddei formed a rival government in the north.
In the continued civil strife, Oueddei had the backing of Libyan troops, while Francesent troops and supplies to keep Habré in power.
By the end of 1988, Libyan forces had been driven out of Chad, and the two nations had normalized diplomaticrelations.
In December 1990, however, Habré was ousted by an insurgent group, the Patriotic Salvation Movement, which had Libyan support.
The rebel leader, GeneralIdriss Deby, then assumed the presidency.
In January 1992 the Deby government claimed to have crushed a rebellion by forces loyal to Habré, and France sent moretroops as a safeguard.
In the early 1990s Chad continued to suffer from widespread political and ethnic unrest, including the massacre of 82 civilians by PresidentDeby’s private guard in August 1993.
In 1994, however, the government reached a cease-fire agreement with the rebel group Comité de Sursaut National pour la Paix et la Démocratie (CSNPD); the CSNPDcommitted to withdraw troops from southern Chad, and the government agreed to appoint members of the CSNPD to the national army.
In addition, a 20-yearterritorial dispute with Libya came to an end when the International Court of Justice ruled that Chad had sovereignty over the Aozou Strip, a stretch of land along theLibyan border covering about 115,000 sq km (45,000 sq mi).
In June and July 1996, under a new, democratic constitution, Deby was popularly elected president in thenation’s first presidential elections.
Deby was reelected in May 2001.
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