The only legacy of the reconciliation process aside from the co-optation of oppositionists by bribery or lucrative appointments was the resolution of the split within the Zaghawa elite – the dominant ethnic group in the ruling class – that excluded Tom and Timane Erdimi...
A new cabinet had just taken charge under Prime Minister Saleh Kebzabo formerly a leading oppositionist which included leaders of armed opposition groups such as the new Higher Education Minister Timane Erdimi who led the Rassemblement des Forces pour le Changement militia (AC Vol 63 No 4 Prime Minister quits as funding crisis deepens)...
Mahamat had up to then operated in a sophisticated way allowing dissidents to return and working for reconciliation with bitter opponents such as Timane Erdimi...
They wanted to find out what two Chadian armed opposition groups the Front pour l'Alternance et la Concorde au Tchad (FACT) led by Mahamat Mahdi the group that claims responsibility for killing Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno and the Union des Forces de Résistance (UFR) of Timan Erdimi were doing recently in Damara Touadéra's home town (AC Vol 54 No 11 Déby's enemies crowd in & Vol 62 No 9 Death on the front line a coup and then an about turn)...
Others such as Souleymane Abakar Adoum showed their loyalty in the 2005-2009 crisis when many Zaghawa close to Déby shifted to the opposition led then by Tom and Timane Erdimi...
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That February with the help of the French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Libya’s Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi he defeated the rebellion led by Mahamat Nouri and Timan Erdimi...
Furthermore Timan Erdimi pronounced from his exile in Doha that Déby was again under threat an unthinkable statement unless cleared with the Qatari authorities...
General Idriss Déby's nephew Timan Erdimi chairs the UFR while Mahamat Nouri and Adouma Hassaballah who were previously important have taken a back seat...
Rassemblement des Forces pour le Changement led by Timane Erdimi who with his twin brother Tom Erdimi was formerly influential in the entourage of their uncle Idriss Déby; their family is from the Bideyat subgroup of the Zaghawa...
Vol 48 No 1 |
- CENTRAL AFRICA
Chad’s President Idriss Déby Itno will call for tougher international action against Sudan’s Islamist regime which backs several armed opposition groups in Chad including Tom and Timan Erdimi’s Rassemblement des Forces Démocratiques...
His brother Dawsa Déby and half-brother Timane Déby along with Tom and Timane Erdimi (the pillars of his regime until 2004) are close to Minni Arkou Minnawi's wing of the Sudan Liberation Army and especially to Khalil Ibrahim Mohamed's JEM...
Last October some of his Garde Républicaine crossed the border and formed the Socle pour le Changement l'Unité et la Démocratie (SCUD) headed by Yaya Dillo Djerou a Zakawa/Bideyat and nephew of Tom and Timane Erdimi the powers behind Déby's regime until 2004's coup attempt...
