SUMMARY
FAT (Forces Armées Tchadiennes, or Chadian Armed Forces) was an armed group active in the Chadian intrastate armed conflict over government during the 1980s. Since it gained independence from France in 1960, Chad has been hard-hit by armed conflict. The country is characterized by an immense ethnic diversity, and these divisions have been exacerbated by a tradition of factionalism. Historically, there has been animosity between the mainly Muslim north and the more Christian and animist south. Another prominent feature of the Chadian conflicts has been a strong regional dimension, as particularly Libya and Sudan have had strong influence on Chad’s conflict dynamics.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, the most prominent insurgent group in Chad was FROLINAT (Front de Liberation Nationale du Tchad, National Liberation Front of Chad), which sought to bring down the autocratic government of President Francois Tombalabye. Even as FROLINAT became beset by internal dissention and splits in 1971, its two major splinter factions - First Liberation Army and Second Liberation Army – served as the basis for the growth of new insurgent movements in the 1970s. Particularly the Second Liberation Army, which soon after the split from FROLINAT was reorganized as CCFAN (Conseil de Commandement des Forces Armeés du Nord, or Command Council of the Armed Forces of the North), proved decisive for the future Chadian conflict dynamics. In 1975, President Tombalabye was overthrown in a military coup, and subsequently replaced by General Félix Malloum. It was against this background that FAT emerged.
FAT was originally created as the armed forces of the Government of Chad during the rule of President Félix Malloum (1975-1979). When Malloum was ousted and replaced by the “Transitional Government of National Unity” (Gouvernement d'Union Nationale de Transition, or GUNT) in 1979, FAT became an independent militia group led by the former commander of Malloum’s gendarmerie forces, Wadel Abdelkader Kamougue. However, FAT decided to support the GUNT-led Government of Chad and new President Goukouni Oueddei - the ex-leader of the rebel group FAP, a CCFAN splinter faction - in the fighting against Hissène Habré’s FAN, another splinter faction of CCFAN. In return for this support, Kamougue was made vice president in the new government; FAT was also allowed to retain de facto control over swaths of territory in southern Chad. It was thus not until Habré and FAN seized government power in June 1982 that FAT emerged as a separate non-state actor in the UCDP data. FAT mainly functioned as a regional force in Chad’s five southern prefectures, where it claimed to be representing primarily the Sara ethnic group. Kamougue also stated that his primary goal was to work for unity in southern Chad in order present a united front against Habré. It was also suggested that Kamougue sought to secede from Chad and create an independent “Republic of Logone”, which would have included the cotton producing areas of southern Chad and the north of the Central African Republic.
In 1982, it was estimated that FAT was comprised of around 1750 fighters. Furthermore, the Democratic Revolutionary Council (CDR), FAP, and other factions that had been part of the GUNT government backed FAT with troops in the fighting in southern Chad in August and September 1982.
In September 1982, FAT was defeated by ex-FAN forces now fighting as part of the Government of Chad, and thus ceased to exist as a separate non-state actor in the UCDP data. Kamougue was forced into exile in Cameroon, and a substantial number of the FAT fighters were eventually integrated into the government armed forces. Kamougue himself later joined the rebel alliance GUNT, before eventually defecting to the Government of Chad in 1986.
