Chad guerrillas confront French troops

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Flown in by the US air force, troops from the reactionary pro-imperialist regimes of Morocco, Senegal and Gabon are now beginning to replace the French and Belgian paratroopers in Zaire.

The French foreign legion has completed its mission of brutally crushing one phase of the continuing rebellion against Mobutu's dictatorship. • But the partial withdrawal of French forces from central Africa does not end the direct military intervention of Giscard's government in the continent.

Central In the western Sahara, French troops continue to fight alongside the Moroccan and Mauritanian occupation forces against the liberation struggle led by the Polisario Front.

Farther east, in towe Republic of Chad, French forces are playing an increasingly central role in propping up the military dictatorship of General Felix Malloum.

The French bourgeoisie has a long history of strenuous involvement in this former colony, a massive territory that is sparsely populated and deeply impoverished. undoubtedly have collapsed as the FROLINAT (Front for the National Liberation of Chad) advanced.

The FROLINAT now is in complete control of the mountainous and desert region which makes up the northern third of the country. As its forces are fighting for control of the central grasslands, uprisings have developed throughout the south of the country in support of the rebel armies.

In the past, Gaddafi's regime in Libya was the • principal sponsor and supplier of the FROLINAT.

In exchange for this help, the Libyan dictator seized the chance of expanding his territory along the lengthy border with Chad.

Beyond control

But now it has become clear that the FROLINAT has passed beyond the control of Gaddafi.

The Muslims of the north have been joined by Christians and animists from the south in their struggles against Malloum.

The rebellion in Chad can schema of racial or reli- no longer be fitted to any gious tensions. It is these mass developments which have alarmed Gaddafi.

This hero of the WRP's daily Newsline is now desperately working to arrange negotiations between the Malloum dictatorship and the FROLINAT.

He has been supported in this by the governments of neighbouring Niger and Sudan, Malloum and former leaders of the resistance who, have made their comfortable peace with the dictatorship.

But the present leadership of the FROLINAT has so far refused adamantly to come to Libya for talks.

These anti-imperialist struggles of the Chad masses must be supported and developed by workers internationally.

It is vital that those thousands of workers who recently demonstrated in Paris against French imperialism now take up a fight throughout the labour movement for the immediate withdrawal of all French troops from Africa. ns