SUMMARY
Revolutionary Forces of 1 April (alternatively Forces of Idriss Déby) was and armed group active in the Chadian intrastate armed conflict over government. 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, FROLINAT (Front de Liberation Nationale du Tchad, National Liberation Front of Chad) was the primary rebel organization in Chad. As FROLINAT fractionalized following internal divisions in the early 1970s, its many splinter factions continued to fight the Chadian government, and each other. In June 1982, Hissène Habré and his Armed Forces of the North (Forces armées du nord, FAN) seized government power from President Goukouni Oueddei and the “National Transitional Union Government” (Gouvernement d'Union Nationale de Transition, or GUNT), which had been established in 1979 following the signing of the “Lagos Accord” by 11 Chadian armed factions. Despite direct military intervention by Libya in support of anti-government armed groups (including GUNT and CDR), Habré was able to solidify his hold on power through the 1980s. It was in this context that Revolutionary Forces of 1 April emerged.
The Revolutionary Forces of 1 April emerged at some point in April 1989 following a split between Chadian President Hissène Habré and the commander-in-chief of the Chadian Armed Forces, Idriss Déby. Déby, who was a member of the Zaghawa (or “Beri”) ethnic group from northeastern Chad, had joined Habré’s FAN rebel group in 1978. Having received military training in France, Déby proved himself to be a highly capable military commander, and thus made a significant contribution to FAN’s military success. When FAN seized the Chadian capital N’Djamena and made Habré president in June 1982, Déby – by now considered a brilliant military strategist - was appointed commander-in-chief of the Forces Armées Nationales Tchadiennes (Chadian National Armed Forces, commonly known as “FANT”). However, fearing a plot to overthrow him was in the making, President Habré turned against some of his own followers in the late 1980s. As a result, Habré set up a new security force manned entirely by his own Gorane-Toubou ethnic group, and ordered purges targeting government officials and ordinary members of the Zaghawa group. Among those targeted by the purge was Déby, accused by Habré of plotting a coup together with other senior Zaghawa officials, namely Interior Minister Brahim Mahamot Itno and Army commander Hassan Djamouss. While Itno and Djamouss were killed, Déby managed to escape to Sudan. Déby also spent some time in Libya, where Muammar Gaddafi offered him Libyan assistance to overthrow Habré; however, the UCDP has not recorded any Libyan secondary support to Revolutionary Forces of 1 April in 1989.
In Sudan’s Darfur region, Déby gathered defected Chadian forces displeased with Habré’s increasing ethnic favoritism. In mid-April 1989 the “Revolutionary Forces of 1 April” announced its existence, and proclaimed that they were no longer able to bear the tribalism, injustices and lack of respect for elementary freedom in Chad. The group continued by stating that they had a desire to reorganize an opposition army in the country, and hoped to one day see Chad united and enjoying liberty, justice and democracy. There were no estimations regarding the numerical strength of the Revolutionary Forces of 1 April; the group was only active in Darfur, where it clashed with Chadian government troops.
In March 1990, Déby’s forces merged with several other Chadian rebel factions, including MOSANAT, to create the MPS (Mouvement patriotique du salut, or Patriotic Salvation Movement). After this, Revolutionary Forces of 1 April ceased to exists as a separate actor in the UCDP data.
