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"Shortly before midnight on August 10 1960, the famous writer Andrâe Malraux stepped onto a balcony in front of a large crowd in Fort-Lamy, the capital of the French colony of Chad. As French Minister of Culture, he had come as President Charles de Gaulle's official representative to preside over the ceremonies marking the territory's independence. While Malraux invoked Chad's historical role as a launching pad for Free French Forces in the Second World War and the linked destiny of the two nations, the lights suddenly went out. A power shortage had plunged Fort-Lamy into darkness. Someone in Malraux's entourage scrambled to find a flashlight so he could finish the speech and so Franðcois Tombalbaye, Chad's leader, could read his. With this inauspicious beginning, independent Chad would soon embark on a tragic path leading to decades of violent conflict, foreign interventions, state collapse, and bloody dictatorship"--
List of contents
Introduction: 1. 'Experts in decolonization'; 2. Limousin; 3. The claustre affair; 4. The empire strikes back: French intervention and return to war; 5. The return of Habré; 6. Nigeria enters the scene; 7. The decline and fall of the central African empire; 8. Libya invades; 9. Endgame; Conclusions: The collapse of a neocolonial order; References; Index.
About the author
Nathaniel K. Powell is an historian focusing on the history of postcolonial Franco-African relations. Awarded his PhD from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, he has published extensively on the history of postcolonial Franco-African relations and on French military interventions in Africa.
Summary
The first comprehensive narrative of French involvement in Chad's civil wars in the first two decades of its independence between 1960 and 1982, this study explores France's counterinsurgency efforts to protect the regime of François Tombalbaye and its contribution to the rise to power of Hissène Habré, one of Africa's most notorious dictators.
