SUMMARY
CNR (Comité national de redressement, or National Council for Recovery; alternatively Conseil national de redressement du Tchad/CNRT) ) was an 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. Following almost 25 years of internal strife, involving a plethora of rebel groups, Idriss Déby and his MPS ousted President Hissène Habré in December 1990, and was able to solidify his hold on power, despite continued challenges from several armed groups. It was in this context that CNR emerged.
CNR was created in 1992, following clashes between government troops and forces loyal to Chadian Minister of Public Works and Transport, Colonel Abbas Koty, in the capital N’Djamena in June that year; the fighting was described as an attempted coup masterminded by Koty. The Chadian faction loyal to Koty was then coalesced into the CNR at some point after June 1992. The group’s primary goal was to remove President Idriss Déby from power; Koty accused Déby of being “dicatatorial” and “nepotist”, and of “squandering public money”. Furthermore, the enmity between Koty - who had been a member of MPS during the 1990 revolt against President Habré - and President Déby could also be traced to the factionalism that had marred Chadian politics since the 1960s. Koty belonged to the Kobe clan of the Zaghawa ethnic group, a clan whose support Déby (himself a Zaghawa, but from the Bideyat clan) had needed in order to consolidate his power after becoming president. As such, after MPS seized N’Djamena in December 1990, Koty had been promoted to colonel and appointed chief-of-staff of the army. However, Déby soon took measures to reduce the influence of the Kobe clan, which included transferring Koty to the Ministry of Defense in July 1991, where he would no longer have direct control over any armed troops. In December 1991, Koty’s influence was marginalized further, as he was appointed Minister of Public Works and Transport. Consequently, Koty’s revolt and subsequent creation of CNR had been preceded by increasingly diminished power and influence within the Déby administration. Few reliable estimations of CNR’s total cadre strength existed, but it was reported that the group had around 100 fighters in 1992.
It was not possible to establish whether CNR cooperated with other rebel organizations, or whether it received any support from external actors.
On 16 October 1993, Koty and the Government of Chad signed the “Tripoli 1 Agreement”, in which it was agreed that the CNR would lay down arms, its fighters reintegrate into the Chadian army, and the group itself transform into a mainstream political party. As part of the agreement, Koty returned to N’Djamena where he was killed under highly unclear circumstances on 22 October 1993. The Chadian government claimed that he was plotting another coup, but this was never verified; other sources argued that Koty had been lured into a trap, as his popularity allegedly made him a threat against President Déby. After 1994, the exact nature CNR’s activities were not known. However, it was indicated that it still existed as a political organization, led by Hissein Koty Yacoub, outside of Chad in 1997; the group may also have been active in eastern Chad as late as 1998, but no confirmation of this information was found.
