France rallies world support for Chad president
N'DJAMEMA, Feb 5 (Reuters) - France rallied the international community on Tuesday in support of Chad's President Idriss Deby after he survived a fierce attack on the capital N'Djamena by rebels seeking to topple him.
Residents in the riverside capital of the central African oil producer said it was calm for the second day on Tuesday. Battles at the weekend between government troops and rebels had left bodies strewn in the dusty streets and hundreds injured.
People ventured out to try to buy food, but prices of basic goods like rice and sugar had skyrocketed.
Government troops, backed by tanks and helicopters, were guarding the central presidential quarter, where Deby and loyal troops had fought off an assault by rebels who stormed into N'Djamena on Saturday aboard dozens of armed pickup trucks.
Fighting in the capital stopped late on Sunday, when the rebels, who denounce Deby's 18-year rule as corrupt and dictatorial, said they were making a "tactical withdrawal". Deby's ministers said the army had beaten off the insurgents.
Chad's former colonial ruler France, after initially saying it was staying neutral, sponsored a non-binding statement adopted by the United Nations Security Council on Monday, which urged countries to support Deby's government against the rebels.
Reaffirming French backing for Deby's "legitimately elected" rule, French Defence Minister Herve Morin said on Tuesday there was no sign of rebel fighters returning to the Chad capital and that it seemed Deby was securing his grip on the country.
"Every day and even every hour that passes shows Idriss Deby regaining control of the whole country and things are improving for him," Morin told Radio France International.
"SWORD OF DAMOCLES"
Morin said the U.N. resolution would not change the role of French forces in Chad, but gave "international support to France's actions."
He said France was not threatening the rebels, but added there was "a sort of sword of Damocles" hanging over the rebels put there by the international community.
Critics of Deby, a French-trained pilot who took power in a 1990 revolt and won elections in 1996, 2001 and 2006, accuse him of ruling like a dictator. Morin said the 2006 polls, boycotted by the main Chadian opposition, were "perfectly democratic".
Taking advantage of the end of the fighting, thousands of refugees carrying children and belongings streamed out of N'Djamena on Monday over the river border bridge into Cameroon.
Despite the absence of fighting in the capital, residents said they feared for the future.
"What a curse for our country ... war has broken out, and at this time as I talk to you, I haven't got anything at home with which to buy food for my children," Gilbert, a civil servant who declined to give his last name, told Reuters.
The rebel attack, which Chad said was backed by neighbouring Sudan, forced the European Union to delay the deployment of a peacekeeping force to eastern Chad to protect thousands of refugees from the war in Sudan's Darfur region. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said this was a temporary measure.
Aid organisations such as Oxfam pulled some foreign staff from the country following the escalation in fighting, placing further strain on already overstretched humanitarian operations.
Morin said French military planes based in Chad had been flying surveillance missions near the Sudanese border for the past 36 hours to check on the positions of the rebels, who had launched their attack from over the border in Sudan.
"We don't see rebel columns arriving to help (the main rebel force)," he said, although he added rebel forces still remained somewhere outside N'Djamena. Rebel leaders said they had broken off their attack to regroup and await reinforcements.
"Idriss Deby's victory is not totally in hand," Morin said.
Morin said the deployment of the European Union military force had been suspended until Wednesday , but added that it would probably be held up for "a bit more time" to allow it to gauge the situation fully.
