258 thE sudan handbookpro-Libyan warlord Idriss Déby repeated Habré’s 1982 ghazzua (desert
commando raid), using Darfur as a springboard to take N’Djamena for
the second time.
Such prolonged Libyan involvement in Darfur – in 1988 Gaddafi went
so far as to ask Khartoum for its annexation through a Sudano–Libyan
‘Treaty of Union’ – has led to the development of new commercial routes
through the desert. These are used by many people from western Sudan
to migrate to Libya in search of work. The routes are extremely dangerous
(people regularly die of thirst in the desert) but they continue to be
travelled by labour migrants and by bandits and smugglers.
The extended Libyan presence in Darfur has left a damaging legacy:
it was the Libyans who first armed local Arab tribes and used them in
the so-called Failaka al-Islamiyya (Islamic Legion). Gaddafi had two aims
behind this. He wanted to reinforce the Arab presence in Darfur against
the non-Arabs, in order to increase his potential constituency for an
eventual Libyan annexation, and he wanted to use Failaka al-Islamiyya
as shock troops for the conquest of Chad. But once the Darfur Arabs
were armed, nothing prevented them from using the guns for their own
purposes – or for those of the government in Khartoum, as happened
after 1989. A large part of the intractable situation in Darfur today finds
its roots in the dangerous and confused policies once pursued there
by Libya. Even though Libyan involvement in Darfur is no longer so
significant, it is far from over and, as usual in the case of Libyan diplo-
macy, it remains contradictory. Tripoli pretends to support the Khartoum
regime while frequently undermining it by giving assistance to the rebels,
particularly the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).ChadThe relationship between Sudan and Chad is the mirror image of that
between Sudan and Libya. Before the 1990s Khartoum had little interest
in Chad, either diplomatically or commercially, as it bordered Sudan’s
most neglected region – Darfur. This changed in December 1990 whenThe Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors Khartoum, together with Paris, backed the Chadian rebel force led
(www.riftvalley.net).