AFRICA ELEVENTH STOP CHAD

CHAD

AFRICA

BACKGROUND :

Africa covers 6 per cent of the surface of the Earth and provides 20.4 per cent of Earth’s landmass.   Occupying this massive  and significant territory there are 1.1 Billion people. Africa is the second largest and second most populous continent on Earth.


CHAD

The Republic of Chad is yet another landlocked country. It is bordered by Libya to the North,Sudan to the East, the Central African Republic to the South , Cameroon and Nigeria to the South West and Niger to the West. Chad is the fifth largest country in Africa and the 21st largest in the world. With a population of 13,606,000 it is the 71st most populous country in the world. Chad ranks second to South Sudan in Maternal Mortality with 1,100 deaths per 100,000 Live Births.(Remember Australia has ...5!) Chad has 91.94 infant deaths per 100,000 Live Births ( Remember Australia has ...4.49 !) Average life expectancy at birth is 51 yrs the 182nd highest rank in the world ( Remember Australia is 83 yrs the 9th highest in the world Japan is No.1 at 87 yrs.)

The country is religiously diverse with 55% Mohammedans of three different groups, 22% Catholics, 18% Protestant and 5% Animist & other.

There are 200 identified ethnic groups.Most people are said to be more aware of their regional grouping than of National identity. In the North of the country the people are mainly  Toubous nomads, in the South the main national ethnic group the Sara live stable lives side by side with nomads such as Arabs.

Official business is conducted in French or Arabic, but over 100 languages are in use in the country.

The legal system is based on French Civil Law and Local customary law as long as that does not conflict with modern concepts of justice and equity.

With a literacy rate of only 33%, Chad has one of the lowest literacy rates in Sub-Saharan Africa. Interestingly in 2010, it was recorded that 24.3 % of the population had mobile phones. 

The Southern third of the country , the Sudanic zone, is rich in wildlife and plant life. All the major species of African wildlife are to be found here and elephant poaching has been a major problem.
 
It is thought that significant human population in Northern Chad dates back as far as 7,000 B.C. - this may be a tad romantic.  However there exist in Chad some of the more significant African archaeological sites.  These date back to around 2,000 B.C. For more than 2,000 years the area has supported stable agricultural populations . However for more than 700 years the Kanem Empire reaching from parts of Libya through much of Chad and into Nigeria and Cameroon was dominant in the region.It overcame the well-established and developed Sao civilisation which had grown up in the Lake Chad region since around 700 B.C. Kanem had strongly developed the slave trade by raiding the Southern grasslands, not only to satisfy their Mohammedan trading partners to the North but also for themselves. The Kanem population was around 30% enslaved.

The Kanem Empire thus controlled the trade routes across the Sahara into central Africa. But along with material goods, there came in due course, the Mohammedan religion, which took over Kanem. But over the centuries its influence produced the same in-fighting and dynastic struggles that were characteristic of the Mohammedan world. By the end of the 14th Century Kanem had effectively fallen apart.

By 1900 Chad had become a fully integrated colony of France. By 1920 it was known as French Equatorial Africa. But French administration of the colony did not even match standards of modernity the French were achieving in other colonies. The principal production was originally raw cotton and in 1929 this was very much expanded.

After WW II the colony was granted independence in 1960. A government of Southern Sara people was elected. But in 1965 the Mohammedan Northerners asserted themselves, starting a civil war. The Government collapsed in 1979 and the Mohammedans continued to fight the civil war among their own factions. Libya sought to supplant French influence in Chad, but this adventure ended in disaster when a French backed President rallied the Chad population in a manner no-one had done before and the Libyans were driven off in a humiliating retreat. This President -Habre - established a harsh dictatorship, allegedly killing thousands and advantaging his own Daza ethnic group. He was overthrown by his deputy  Idriss Deby in 1990. He has ruled the country since then. Despite repeated attempted coups , his " Patriotic Salvation Movement" remains securely in power. The country is reputedly one of the poorest and most corrupt in the world. Since 2003 crude oil has been the country's principal source of export earnings, overtaking the traditional cotton trade.


France has continued to exercise a significant influence in Chad, partly because the approx. 1,000 soldiers she stationed there repeatedly help to support the President against the Government's enemies. However this influence was not sufficient to stop Chad giving oil rights to the American EXXON corporation in 1999 - a decision bitterly resented by the French.