From Texas to Chad: why one rebel fights

But as time went on, life in N'Djamena frustrated him. Having tasted life in the US, he grew fed up with being robbed by the capital city's police, which he says is a common occurrence. Chad consistently ranks near the top of Transparency International's list of the world's most corrupt nations, and Outman holds President Deby's government responsible for fostering that widespread corruption.

Gradually, he became convinced the country needed new leadership. Given how Deby last spring pushed through a change to the Constitution that allows him to run for a third term, Outman felt the only way to bring that change was through force. Still, it was no single event that drove him to join the rebels, he says.

Sudan has been the silent backer of Chad's rebels, until recentlyallowing them to train and launch their attacks from areas of Darfur, in western Sudan. Darfur is infamous for the 3-year-old conflict involving the Sudanese government's brutal response to a tribal uprising, which US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has repeatedly called genocide. Tens of thousands have been killed and around 1.8 million are now displaced, with at least 200,000 living as refugees in Chad.

Outman says it's all a tribal conflict, dismissing its political import and downplaying the humanitarian crisis. But looking at the FUCD rebels, it is hard to dismiss their own tribalism; their rank and file largely draws upon one tribe, the Tama, in opposition to another, the Zaghawa. The FUCD rebels cite the corruption and nepotism of Deby, a Zaghawa, as a source of their ire.

Outman has never seen any of the Sudanese refugee camps in Chad or the displaced persons camps in Sudan. But, to him, the protests on US campuses and letter-writing campaigns to Congress are distracting the world from the more pressing issue in central Africa: the need for revolution in Chad.

At Outman's camp last month, the sense of nervous anticipation for the coming coup attempt was a constant. Morning military exercises began at dawn, followed by long stretches of doing nothing, which meant anything from napping to cleaning one's gun to chatting with friends.

Outman took the military buildup in stride. Boxes of portable air compressors, grenades, artillery rounds, truckloads of spare tires, and all sorts of machinery sat in different piles around the camp.

This reporter came to learn over time with the rebels and meetings with Sudanese intelligence officials that FUCD's plans are partly, if not largely, dictated by powers in Sudan's capital, Khartoum.

But if Sudan is now supporting the Chadian rebels against Deby's regime, many consider it payback for the Chadian leader's years of support for Sudan's own anti- government rebels, such as the Sudan Liberation Army (both Deby and leaders from the SLA hail from the same Zaghawa tribe). It's all a of bit tit-for-tat on each side of the border, and it seems that these days Sudan and their alleged proxy army - the Chadian rebels - have the upper hand.

Page: 1 | 2 | 3