SUMMARY
GUNT (Gouvernement d'Union Nationale de Transition, or “Transitional Government of National Unity”) was and 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 has been 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 in this context that GUNT emerged.
In 1979, President Malloum was forced out of government following years of fighting against several rebel organizations, including the CCFAN splinter factions FAN and FAP. On 15 March 1979, several of the Chadian rebel factions signed the “Kano Accords”, which included a ceasefire and provisions for the formation of a National Transitional Union Government (Gouvernement d'Union Nationale de Transition, or GUNT). Then, on 21 August, new negotiations resulted in the “Lagos Accord on National Reconciliation in Chad”, signed by 11 major Chadian factions, including FAP and FAN. As part of the Lagos agreement, FAP leader Goukouni Oueddei was appointed President in the new GUNT-led Government of Chad. However, on 7 June 1982, rebel forces from FAN (which had defected from the Lagos Agreement) captured N’Djamena and established its leader, Hissène Habré, as the new Chadian president. After the fall of N’Djamena, GUNT was thus transformed into a non-state actor fighting against the Habré-led Government of Chad.
As GUNT was driven from N’Djamena, eight of its constituent factions regrouped itself in northern Chad; the group claimed that it would fight against the “regionalist dictatorship” of President Habré. GUNT also established a “rival government”, which was based in the small oasis town Bardaï, located in the Tibetsi region close to the Libyan border. As a rebel organization, GUNT was organized as an umbrella organization; its constituent factions, while operation under a common front, maintained high levels of autonomy. Groups comprising GUNT included, among other factions, FAP, CDR, Volcan Forces (a splinter faction of the First Liberation Army), FROLINAT Originel, and FAO (Forces Armees Occidentales, or “Western Armed Forces”). Serving as an example of the extreme factionalism in Chad, FAO was a splinter faction of the MPLF (Movement Populaire pour la Liberation du Tchad, or Popular Movement for the Liberation of Chad), which itself was a splinter (originally called the “Third Liberation Army”) of FAP. However, even if the various GUNT factions remained relatively autonomous, the umbrella organization was under the overall command of ex-President Goukouni Oueddei. The armed forces of the GUNT factions were organized in an armed wing called ANL (Armee Nationale de la Liberation, or National Liberation Army), which in 1983 was comprised of around 4000 fighters.
Reflecting the prominent regional dynamics of the governmental conflict in Chad, Libya – at the time led by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi – provided a significant amount of secondary support to GUNT. The Libyan involvement in Chad was, at least in part, driven by regional power ambitions and territorial claims; for example, Libya had in 1973 annexed the “Aouzou strip” along the Libya-Chad border. Libya committed itself to both warring support (by sending large regular army forces to fight alongside GUNT), and non-warring support (mainly the supply of weapons and training, as well as allowing GUNT to use Libyan territory).
On 14 August 1986, GUNT commander Ibn Oumar announced that his CDR, which had joined GUNT in 1979, would no longer be a part of the umbrella organization. Several smaller GUNT factions - including FROLINAT Orginel, Premiere Armee, FROLINAT Fundamental, and FAO - sided with CDR. Later the same month, fighting erupted between GUNT’s FAP and CDR factions, consolidating the departure of the latter from the umbrella organization. Later in the fall of 1986, Libya turned on GUNT openly sided with the CDR, providing Oumar’s fighters with direct warring support. GUNT forces, primarily those loyal to Goukouni Oueddei, led by ANL commander-in-chief Adoum Yacoub, announced on 9 January 1987 that they had sided with the Government of Chad to fight against the Libya-supported CDR; GUNT thus ceased to exist as a separate non-state actor after this date.
