SUMMARY
UFDD (Union des Forces pour la Démocratie et le Développement, or Union Force for Democracy and Development) was an alliance comprising several 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. After three turbulent and violent decades, characterized by near-constant conflict, former rebel leader Idriss Déby, of MPS, seized power. His rule was, like his predecessors’, characterized by ethnic favoritism, particularly of his native Zaghawa, which made him deeply resented by many non-Zaghawa ethnic groups. However, Déby also alienated many among his own Zaghawa kin by removing the presidential term limit in 2005; many Zaghawa also accused Déby of rigging the 2006 election in his own favor. It was in this context that UFDD emerged.
UFDD was created on 22 October 2006, following the unification of UFDP (Union des Forces Democratiques pour le Progrés), FUCD, and elements from the largely defunct CDR. The primary goal of UFDD was to overthrow the Chadian President Idriss Déby, and the group claimed to pursue national unity and the creation of a “forum” that would gather all Chadian armed groups, political parties, and civil society to facilitate democratic elections. The UFDD later absorbed several other rebel factions, including RAFAD (La Résistance Armée contre les Forces Anti-Démocratiques, or Armed Resistance against Anti-Democratic Forces), RND (Rassemblement National Démocratique, or National Rally for Democracy), and RPJ (Rassemblement Populaire pour la Justice, or Popular Rally for Justice). It is also worth noting that FUCD defected from the UFDD alliance after only about one month; the reason for this was the decision of FUCD leader Mohammed Nour Abdelkarim to enter negotiations with the Government of Chad. However, a FUCD faction led by Abdelwahid Aboud Makaye opted to remain within UFDD.
Mahamat Nouri, the leader of UFDP, was the top political leader of UFDD; consequently, UFDP was the dominant faction within the UFDD. Nouri was a veteran of the Chadian intrastate conflict, having first fought with FROLINAT, the main rebel organization in the 1960s and early 1970s, and then with one of its splinter factions, Hissène Habré’s FAN. In FAN, Nouri – who like Habré came from Anakaza subclan of the Goran-Toubou ethnic group – rose to the rank of second in command. Having briefly served as a public official of Goukouni Oueddei’s government in 1979, Nouri again joined Habré’s rebellion as FAN reneged from the GUNT-government; when Habré eventually seized power in 1982, Nouri became a central figure within the new regime. Nouri was also a capable military commander, and he led Chadian government forces during the Chad-Libya conflict in 1987. When Déby took power in 1990, Nouri abandoned Habré and went on to occupy several different minister positions in the Déby government. It was not until May 2006 that Nouri, who at the time served as the Chadian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, defected from the Government of Chad; he then created UFDP in July the same year. Aside from Nouri, other important UFDD leaders included Acheikh Ibn Oumar (the leader of CDR), RPJ leader Abakar Tolli, and (until his defection from the alliance) FUCD leader Mohammed Nour Abdelkarim.
It was estimated that UFDD had 2000-3000 fighters, hailing from the Gorane-Toubou ethnic group, as well as the “Arab” (collection term used for Arabic-speaking nomadic and semi-nomadic groups) and Ouaddai (all people/groups from the Ouaddai region, with the Maba ethnic group being the largest subgroup) communities. UFDD’s RPJ faction included members from the Bourogat-Zaghawa ethnic group, who were close kin to President Déby’s Bideyat-Zaghawa group; many RPJ members were in fact government defectors displeased with Déby’s nepotistic rule. For the duration that it was part of UFDD, FUCD contributed several thousand additional fighters, most of which came from the Tama ethnic group. Following FUCD’s departure, the Gorane-Toubou was by far the largest constituent ethnicity within the alliance; consequently, UFDD was generally referred to as a “Gorane” faction despite its inclusion of other groups. UFDD was primarily active around the towns Abéché and Adré, in southeastern Chad, and on Gorane-Toubou territory in the western parts of the Ennedi region.
UFDD was also part of a wider regional conflict context, and received considerable amounts of secondary support from the Government of Sudan in 2006 and 2007. 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. In fact, it was suggested that Sudanese military intelligence had a pivotal role in the creation of UFDD, and especially in Nouri’s acquisition of the leadership position. As part of this dynamic, Sudan supplied UFDD 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. Furthermore, following FUCD’s departure from the UFDD alliance, Sudan largely abandoned the former in favor of the latter.
Following the defection of FUCD from the alliance, the weakened UFDD initiated a close cooperation with RAFD, which was mainly comprised of government defectors from President Déby’s own Zaghawa ethnic group. Even if the available information is ambiguous, there does not appear to have been a formal merged of UFDD and RAFD in neither 2006 nor 2007. In May 2007, UFDD suffered another internal split as Acheikh Ibn Oumar and Abdelwahid Aboud Makaye, together with about 500 cadre members, left the alliance to create their own group, which was called “UFDD-Fondamentale”. In March 2008, Adouma Hassaballah Djadareb and a significant number of Ouaddaian fighters splintered from UFFD to create the Union des forces pour le changement et la démocratie (UFCD, Union of Forces for Change and Democracy).
On 1 January, UFDD, RAFD, and UFDD-Fondamentale merged together in the Alliance Nationale (AN, or National Alliance); after this date, UFDD ceased to exist as a separate actor in the UCDP data. Following the breakdown of AN at the end of 2008, UFDD and RAFD entered a new alliance, called UFR (Union des Forces de la Résistance, or Union of Forces for the Resistance), on 19 January 2009. All activities involving UFDD was thus coded by the UCDP as UFR after this.
