Fragile peace' in Chad

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loyal to and the Prime Habre.

Once Sudanese dictated state.

Peace has returned to the capital city of Chad, as the real civil war bites still deeper into new areas of the country.

In N'Djamena last Monday, a ceasefire was signed between the troons President Malloum forces supporting Minister Hissene again, it was the army and the government which these affairs of lormal terms, mne ceasefire reconstructs the facade of the 'Government of National Reconciliation' that had been shattered by the recent in-fighting.

But in reality, the balance of power has shifted decisively.

With only 400 soldiers under his command in the capital, Habre was able to seize control of most of the city extremely rapidly.

Depressed by long years of experience with the incompetent officers of the state army, the French military 'advisers' in N'Djamena were delighted by the discipline and efficiency of Habre's Northern Armed Forces' (FAN).

In the minds of the imperialists, the success of FAN has bred fantasies of crushing the liberation struggle through the agency of these renegades from the rebel army.

A former leader of the FROLINAT himself, Habre has risen to power swiftly in N'Djamena. But he has barely begun the far greater task of defeating the liberation struggle which he deserted and betrayed.

As the clients of imperialism fought out their private battles, the armies of the FROLINAT advanced further towards the capital.

They captured Adre, a key border town on the eastern frontier with the Sudan, controlling the highway between N'Djamena and Khartoum.

Other towns in the east fell, and the fate of still more in the western and central provinces is disputed (one of these-Massakori-is barely a hundred miles from the capital).

The French army has been given new hope in its imperialist mission. But at the same time, the FROLINAT has been able to strengthen its positions while the fragile state apparatus of Chad has been cracked down the middle.