SUMMARY
MDJT (Mouvement pour la démocratie et la justice au Tchad, or Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad) 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. Following almost 25 years of civil 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 MDJT emerged.
Members of the Toubou ethnic group officially formed MDJT in October 1998 in the Tibetsi region, a sparsely populated and marginalized area in northwestern Chad. The principal founder and leader (“president”) of MDJT was Youssouf Togoimi, a member of the Teda-Toubou subgroup. Before he defected from the Government of Chad to create MDJT, Togoimi had been Minister of Defense and Minister of Interior, Security, and Decentralization in President Déby’s administration; a jurist by profession, Togoimi had also served as state prosecutor during the rule of Hissène Habré. Another important co-founder was Hassan Mardigue, a colonel from the Chad National Army (Armée nationale tchadienne, commonly known as “ANT”). The primary goal of MDJT was to overthrow the Chadian government led by President Déby, who Togoimi accused of being “dictatorial” and corrupt. However, the group was primarily concerned with the interests and rights of the Toubou people; particularly the Teda-Toubou had experienced discrimination during the rules of both Habré and Déby. As such, it was suggested that Togoimi had launched the MDJT insurgency as a result of an interethnic rivalry with President Déby, who hailed from the Zaghawa ethnic group; at least during the first years of his rule in the 1990s, Déby had been known for favoring the Zaghawa.
In September 2002, Togoimi was seriously wounded in a landmine blast, and died not long after in Libya. Following his death, there was intense intragroup competition over who would succeed him. General Adoum Togoi, who favored negotiations with the Government of Chad, claimed that he was the new MDJT leader, but this was vehemently rejected by the group’s hardline, anti-negotiation factions. There was no information to suggest that Togoi ever took full control over MDJT. Eventually, Colonel Hassan Mardigue, one of the group’s more hardline figures, emerged as the group’s new president, beating out more moderate candidates, such as Vice-president Maurice Hel-Bongo.
At the peak of its strength in 2001-2002, MDJT had around 1000 fighters. MDJT mainly recruited its members among the Toubou from the Tibetsi region. There were also defections from the ANT to MDJT, and fighters from the Teda-Toubou community in neighboring Libya also joined the group. The Teda-Toubou population in neighboring Libya was generally supportive of the MDJT, and supplied the group with financial support, food supplies, and fuel. The support was primarily organized by Barka Wardougou, one of the top military leaders of the Libyan Teda-Toubou. While it was generally considered as sympathetic to the MDJT, the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi did thus not itself provide any secondary support to the group. In the first years of the group’s existence, there were defections from the government by several non-Teda politicians to MDJT. The fact that the largely Toubou-centric group was able to attract officials from other ethnic backgrounds was attributed to Togoimi’s personal popularity, and the perception that he was “above ethnic divisions”. However, most of these officials soon left the MDJT, as they claimed that the Teda dominance was too great within the group.
MDJT was primarily active in Tibetsi, where it managed to establish full control over parts of the region; however, it proved incapable of operating effectively outside of Tibetsi. In Tibetsi, MDJT attempted to establish its own, parallel governance structure. There were however no indication that this governance was ever particularly far-reaching or effective. For example, the group attempted to open both schools and medical centers in a few Tibetsi locations, but the lack of necessary professional skills among the MDJT members meant that these services remained relatively dysfunctional.
Following a common pattern for Chadian rebel organizations, MDTJ was hard-hit by internal fragmentation following Togoimi’s death in 2002. As mentioned, the core MDJT remained under Mardigue’s leadership, but several splinter factions emerged in different geographical localities. For example, there were MDJT splinters in the Wour, Zouar, Bardai, Zoumri, and Aouzou areas. Little evidence suggested that any of these factions evolved into salient groups; however, the Zoumri-based faction, led by Chouhai Dazi, joined the AN rebel alliance in 2008.
In 2004, MDJT together with the “People's Democratic Front”, the “People's Front for National Renewal”, and remnants from the largely defunct CDR and MDD rebel organizations joined together to create Union des Forces pour le Changement (UFC, or “Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad”). The purpose of the UFC was supposedly to overthrow President Déby. However, it was not clear if UFC was an outright merger of the movements or just a tactical alliance, and it does not appear to have been particularly salient. It was reported that MDJT carried out attacks together with ex- CDR and ex- MDD fighters, but UFC as a unitary actor does not appear to have been active at all. Then, on 18 August 2005, MTJD and the Government of Chad signed the “Yebibou Agreement”, which included a ceasefire and provisions for the reintegration of the group’s member into the armed forces or civil services; the UCDP did not record any violent activities involving the MDJT after this.
