"He may be a bastard, but at least he's our bastard." Those words have been attributed to Harry S. Truman, speaking of the Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, but today they reflect the attitude of the French government to the beleaguered president of Chad, Idriss Deby.
The government has officially denied helping Deby militarily during the rebellion that reached the Chadian capital earlier this month. But French newspapers published details over the weekend of a telephone conversation between President Nicolas Sarkozy and Deby.
It went as follows: "How are you, Idriss?" "I'm fine, fine." "Are you worried?" "No, what bothers me is that I'm starting to run out of munitions."
According to the press reports, a delivery of Russian munitions
dispatched from Libya - President Sarkozy is now friends with Colonel
Gaddafi who recently took his Bedouin tent to Paris - arrived shortly
afterwards. The French defence ministry finally confirmed today that
such a delivery from Libya took place. Officials say privately that
Deby is not "ideal" but there's no obvious alternative leader around.
France continues to support his government because Chad is seen as a buffer state which holds the key to the stability of an entire African region, already affected by the spillover of the violence from the Sudanese province of Darfur.
(Photo: Pascal Guyot/AFP/Getty Images)
Anne Penketh, in all reality, if anyone is thinking along the lines of 'they're bastards but at least they're our bastards' it is infact Idriss Deby and the Chadians in regards to Zarkozy and the French.
Anyway did you actually have a point to make or was it just an halfwitted attempt to be abusive to make you feel all hard and stuff. Plotless bore.
Posted by: Tshwane | Tuesday, 11 March 2008 at 01:21 PM