Yearbook 1996
Chad. In March, the government and 13 opposition parties signed the so-called Franceville agreement. It meant that a national ceasefire was included and a special group was appointed with the task of assisting an independent electoral commission during the upcoming elections.
In April, Chad received a new and approved referendum.
On June 2, the country’s first presidential election was held. As no candidate got the required absolute majority in the first round, a second round was held on July 3. There, incumbent President Idriss Déby, who had taken power in Chad in a 1990 coup, overcame General Abdelkader Wadal Kamougue by 69 to 31% of the vote.
It was estimated that about 77% of the country’s voting citizens cast their vote. Idriss Déby swore presidential election on August 8. A few days later, he appointed his prime minister. His election fell on former Prime Minister Djimasta Koibla.
- ABBREVIATIONFINDER.ORG: What does CD stand for? In the field of geography, this two letter acronym means Chad. Check this to see its other meanings in English and other 35 languages.
Since 1998, the country’s most active partisan movement has been Chad’s Democracy and Justice Movement (MDJT) led by Youssouf Togoimi, the former Defense Minister of Debbie. It operates mainly in the Tibesti mountain range in the northern part of the country. In April 1999, the movement decided to coordinate its actions with two other armed organizations: the Movement for Democracy and Development, the MDD and the Democratic Revolutionary Council.
At the presidential election on May 20, 2001, President Déby was re-elected with 67.4% of the vote. The six candidates who were beaten pointed to widespread electoral fraud and demanded the election canceled, but the foreign election observers declared themselves moderately satisfied with the election.
In February 2002, the government and leaders of the MDJT signed a peace agreement to end 3 years of bloody civil war. As part of the agreement, a ceasefire was to be implemented immediately, prisoners released and the rebels to be enlisted in the army and government. At the same time, Parliament passed a law granting amnesty to the guerrilla movement, which planned to take part in the elections in April of that year.
The result of the parliamentary elections was that President Déby won 110 out of the 155 seats. On March 30, the Supreme Communications Council announced that the proliferation of any political debate in private or local radio stations was prohibited. This type of debate was only allowed in the state media.
In January 2003, Chad in Gabon signed a peace treaty with the National Rebellion Movement operating in the country’s southeast. In June, the government was forced to repay $ 7.5 million. US $ to the IMF, after falsifying information about impending loan repayments. The oil pipeline from Chad to Cameroon funded by Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco, Petronas and the World Bank was inaugurated in October – despite criticism from NGOs. Chad’s government pledged to invest 80% of its revenues from oil exports in education, health, the environment and access to drinking water. It happened after it had to admit that 4 million. US $ 2000 had been used to buy weapons.
Although the Senegalese government had decided in 2001 that its courts did not have jurisdiction over criminal acts committed outside Senegal, in late 2003 it decided to detain Chad’s former president Habré until an international tribunal demands him extradited. Since 2001, a Belgian court has investigated abuses against thousands of families by the Habré regime in Chad.
Population 1996
According to Countryaah.com, the population of Chad in 1996 was 7,010,034, ranking number 91 in the world. The population growth rate was 3.290% yearly, and the population density was 5.5671 people per km2.
Economic conditions
The economy of the Chad has long been disadvantaged by various concomitant factors: the very internal geographical position (the closest sea outlet is more than 1000 km from the southern borders); the shortcomings of the internal communications system; climatic adversities, with recurrent episodes of drought. The disastrous effects of political instability, the conflict with Libya and the persistent internal tensions between black groups in the South and Islamic groups in the North combine and interact with these environmental conditions: the disproportionate military spending has for many decades stolen capital from investments. in the productive sectors, increasing the external debt and aggravating the poverty of the population. Until the early 21st century. the economy of Chad was essentially based on the primary sector, which absorbed more than three quarters of the workforce and still contributed, for more than half, to the formation of the gross domestic product. At its improvement they have been in wide measure the development plans launched after independence, frustrated by the excessive concentration on some monocultures (cotton in particular), by the lack of works for the storage of water resources in the arid northern belt, and by the desertification process, accentuated from incorrect interventions on natural vegetation to make way for commercial crops that have sometimes had unsuccessful results. Agriculture supplies products for both food consumption and export. Among the former, poor cereals still prevail (millet, sorghum), to which are added peanuts (450,000 tons per year), cassava, corn, rice and dates. Considerably developed, despite fluctuations due to seasonal factors, is cotton growing, which represents the most profitable commercial cultivation, even if Chad it has lost ground to other African producers. Other commercial crops include gum arabic and sugar cane. Breeding (6.5 million cattle and almost 9 million goats and sheep in 2005) is practiced mainly in the central regions and, by nomadic shepherds, in the north.
A new phase for the economy of Chad began in 2003, the year in which the extraction of oil from three fields located in an area N of Lake Chad (Doba basin) began, after the exploration they had been suspended several times due to the lack of safety factors for the technicians of a consortium of three oil companies (two US and one Malaysian) that ran them. Exports began in late 2003 with the completion of an oil pipeline, 1070 km long, linking oil fields to offshore terminals.of Kribi, on the coast of Cameroon. In 2004, oil production reached the threshold of 225,000 barrels per day (156,000 in 2007), equivalent to the maximum capacity of the pipeline. In 2006 the first state oil company of Chad (Société des Hydrocarbures du Tchad) was born. In the ‘Aozou belt’, on the border with Libya, deposits of uranium minerals have been identified. Manufacturing industries are limited to food processing plants (sugar refineries, oil mills), cotton processing factories and some mechanical and chemical industries close to the most important centers. The trade balance, traditionally in deficit due to imports of hydrocarbons, capital goods and foodstuffs, has recorded a substantial surplus since the start (2003) of oil exports. Main buyers are the United States (78% of export value) and China (10%); among suppliers the France (21% of imports) and the United States (12%).
The transport system remains backward (550 km of paved roads; railway network non-existent).