SUMMARY
FUCD (Front Uni pour le changement démocratique, or United Front for Democratic Change; until early 2006 known as Rassemblement pour la Démocratie et la Liberté/RDL, or Rally for Democray and Liberty) 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 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 FUCD emerged.
FUCD’s precursor RDL was formed from a splinter faction of Alliance Nationale de la Résistance (ANR, or National Resistance Alliance) at some point in late 2005. Mohammed Nour Abdelkarim, ANR’s ex-military commander and member of the Tama people (a “non-Arab” group native to eastern Chad and western Sudan), was the founder-leader of RDL. Nour had also previously fought with the factions (see MPS) that brought Idriss Déby to power; he had also been part of the Janjaweed militia in Sudan’s West Darfur region. In December 2005, Nour stated that RDL wanted to remove Déby from power, as the president had become corrupt and “worse than Hissène Habré”. The RDL was largely comprised of ethnic Tama, but also included deserters from the Chad National Army (Armée nationale tchadienne, commonly called “ANT”).
In early 2006, RDL sided with seven other anti-Déby groups and was reconstituted as FUCD. One of these groups was RPJ (Rassemblement Populaire pour la Justice, or Popular Rally for Justice), led by Abakar Tolli. Many RPJ members were government defectors from the Bourogat-Zaghawa ethnic group, and thus close kin of President Déby and his Bideyat-Zaghawa group. Another of these groups was CNT (Concorde nationale du Tchad, or Chadian National Concord), which was led by “al Jineidi” and comprised of members from Chad’s “Arab” (collection term used for Arabic-speaking nomadic and semi-nomadic groups) population. Nour remained the leader of the group, and the primary goal of ousting Déby remained unchanged. General Abdullah Gok was one of FUCD’s top military commanders, and the group had 3000-4000 fighters at its peak strength in 2005 to 2006.
FUCD was also part of a wider regional conflict context, and received considerable amounts of secondary support from the Government of Sudan in 2005 and 2006. At the time, the Chadian and Sudanese governments were embroiled in what has been referred to as a “proxy war”, with both N’Djamena and Khartoum supplying rebel factions along the Chad-Sudan border. As a part of this dynamic, Sudan supplied FUCD with large amounts of weapons, materiel, and logistic support; the group was also given access to Sudanese territory in order to stage attacks in Chad. Both Nour and Gok had personal relationships to the Sudanese government, as they had participated in Sudanese counterinsurgency operations in Darfur (for more information about this conflict, see Sudan: Government). For example, Nour had been a recruiter for the PDF militia. Chadian authorities even accused Nour of being the “hand picked dissident” of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and FUCD of being a “Sudanese militia”. For example, many of FUCD’s original (that is, RDL) rank and file members had experience from fighting in western Sudan alongside militias loyal to the Government of Sudan. However, the Chadian claims regarding the extent of FUCD’s Sudanese links were likely somewhat exaggerated, given the intense enmity between the two countries. Furthermore, Sudan appears to have discontinued its support to FUCD in late November 2006, to instead focus on supporting the newly formed UFDD, an anti-Déby rebel alliance.
On 22 October 2006, FUCD joined the UFDD alliance. However, FUCD left this only about a month later, as it initiated negotiations with the Government of Chad, a move seen as illegitimate by the other constituent groups within UFDD. It should be noted that a FUCD splinter faction, led by Abdelwahid Aboud Makaye, and Abakar Tolli’s RPJ faction opted to stay within the UFDD; a faction led by Adouma Hassaballah Djadareb also opted to defect to the UFDD. Similarly, the CNT faction had left FUCD in July 2006 and instead initiated a close cooperation with RAFD, another rebel group active at the time. On 24 December 2006, FUCD and the Government of Chad signed the “Tripoli Accord”, a peace agreement that included both political and military power-sharing provisions. On 4 March 2007, the FUCD leader became Chad’s new Minister of Defense, and Addullah Gok was made deputy secretary general of the National Gendarmerie force on 29 March. However, most FUCD fighters refused to disarm and instead opted to join various local Tama militias.
