One of the main opponents of the military regime in Chad, hundreds of supporters of whom were killed or imprisoned a year ago in a bloody repression, advocated, on Sunday, November 19, “reconciliation” with the power a month from now. a constitutional referendum.
Success Masra, president of the Transformers party, who fled a year ago, returned from exile on November 3 after signing a “reconciliation agreement” with the power of the transitional president, General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno.
This agreement provides in particular for a “general amnesty” for those responsible for the murders of demonstrators on October 20, 2022, for almost all of the very young men killed by police and military bullets. Around fifty according to the government, more than 300 according to the opposition, national and international NGOs and a report by experts commissioned by the United Nations.
Mr. Masra on Sunday urged hundreds of his supporters gathered in N’Djamena to “appeasement” and not “claim revenge,” reports an AFP correspondent. By hammering home the word “reconciliation” repeatedly, Succès Masra “prayed to God to soothe the hearts” of the victims and their families and “guide them toward collective responsibility.” “Reconciliation is not capitulation,” he said.
The rest of the opposition, many of whose leaders are still in exile, denounces a “deal” of fools and castigates a rallying of Mr. Masra to power in the perspective of elections promised for 2024. It calls for a boycott of the referendum of December 17 and judges the amnesty as a means of “shielding from prosecution the criminals (…) who killed en masse, tortured, kidnapped and made young people disappear on October 20, 2022”, summarized for AFP Max Kemkoye, President of the Union of Democrats for Development and Progress (UDP).
Young men “executed”
Mr. Masra’s long speech was punctuated by ovations from a compact crowd of supporters dressed in national colors. “His speech reassures the people, we are standing,” enthuses Etienne Josue, 25 years old. “It brings back a feeling of hope in us, after October 20, there was no more hope,” adds Salim Abdoulaye, 32. “Our brother Mahamat Déby can count on us as an ally of the people. We are ready to continue with the authorities to find a comprehensive solution,” Mr. Masra concluded.
General Déby was proclaimed by the army on April 20, 2021 transitional president at the head of a junta of fifteen generals following the death of his father Idriss Déby Itno, killed by rebels on his way to the front after leading the Chad with an iron fist for thirty years. He immediately promised to return power to civilians through elections at the end of an eighteen-month transition, ultimately extended by two years eighteen months later.
On October 20, 2022, more than 600 young men, including 83 minors, were arrested – at least a thousand according to the opposition – and deported to the sinister Koro Toro penitentiary in the middle of the desert. Most were sentenced there a month and a half later to prison for “insurrection” in a mass trial without lawyers. They were then quickly pardoned by General Déby and released. But the opposition and international NGOs say dozens, if not hundreds, disappeared on October 20 and the following days, “executed” or died during transport to Koro Toro.