Nov. 8 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Government of Chad has reaffirmed this Tuesday in its version of what happened during the political violence unleashed on October 20, where some 50 people died and more than 300 were injured, and has stressed that what happened responds to “insubordination” rather than a peaceful protest.
Pending the conclusions of an investigation into what happened, the Executive has already outlined its main arguments and will seek to defend that the protests registered in the capital, N’Djamena, and other important cities were an operation promoted by the opposition to trigger a popular uprising .
As detailed by the government spokesman, Aziz Mahamat Saleh, the security authorities sought in those days to quell the protests, although they encountered armed youths who attacked the residence of the president of the National Assembly or a police station, among other buildings, collects Radio France Internationale.
According to Mahamat Saleh, the main slogan of the mobilization was to “make the country ungovernable and divide Chad”, even if it was necessary to resort to “insurrectionary means”. “When you attack the residence of the president of the National Assembly, a military camp or a police station, it is actually anything but a peaceful demonstration,” he has said.
The Chadian authorities have collected photographs and official documents that support their version and point to Succès Masra, an opposition leader, as one of the main instigators of what they consider to be a revolt.
Likewise, from N’Djamena it has been assured that the Police “acted in self-defense” and that, “in an unexpected and absurd situation, they could not contain themselves (…) and what had to happen happened.”
The Chadian authorities announced on Monday that they accepted the deployment of an international fact-finding mission to clarify what happened during the violence in mid-October.
Chad’s junta leader, Mahamat Idriss Déby, has previously described those protests as an “organized insurrection” supported by “foreign powers” and has accused the protesters of “cold-bloodedly killing civilians and assassinate members of the security forces” with an eye toward sparking a “civil war.
The protests erupted after the junta decided to extend Déby’s term for another two years, who had initially planned to step down to return power to a civilian government. He was appointed president by the Army in 2021 after the death of his father, Idriss Déby Itno, who had led the country since 1990.
