The Dynamics of Conflict in the Tri-Border Region of Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic Patrick Berg March 2008 • The security situation in the eastern part of Chad and parts of the Central African Republic has deteriorated dramatically in the last three years. However, this is not primarily due to a spill-over of the conflict from the neighbouring Sudan/Darfur, but rather an escalation of pre-existing national conflicts. • While the crisis in the Central African Republic is of a predominantly domestic nature, the growing interrelation between the conflicts in Darfur and Chad has given rise to a new conflict system that can only be resolved by simultaneously addressing the causes of conflicts in both countries. • The mostly isolated analysis of single elements of the larger conflict system is one of the reasons for the failure of international peace efforts. What is needed is the development of a comprehensive regional strategy and better coordination of the numerous actors involved – including China, Libya, the African Union and the League of Arab States – as well as a return to the primacy of political solutions over the resort to international military missions in ongoing conflicts. Home-grown Conflicts The Darfur crisis raging in Western Sudan, with its millions of refugees, hundreds of thousands of people killed and unabated violence against the civilian population, has been at the centre stage of the global public arena since the conflict escalated in autumn 2003. Massive movement of refugees and cross-border attacks have since also drawn attention to the neighbouring regions in eastern Chad and the northern Central African Republic. The security situation there has deteriorated dramatically since the end of 2005, a development interpreted by the media as well as the political debate as a direct spill-over of the Darfur conflict. This point of view, however, fails to fully explain the origins of the crises in the neighbouring countries. Although the crisis in Darfur has undoubtedly contributed to the further escalation of existing conflicts, the problems in Chad and the Central African Republic each have particular causes of their own. These often have a long history that must not be overlooked when trying to understand the complexity of the region’s present-day web of increasingly interrelated conflicts. Chad: All Against All Chad today is marked by the country’s division along ethnic and religious lines, the beginnings of which date back to the colonial era. The lack of trust and confidence among the various groups of the population has led to the development of a repressive and authoritarian political culture in which ethnically homogenous elites exploit the country’s resources to their exclusive benefit. Ethnically based rebel groups compete for this exclusive control of the state apparatus, displaying little inclination towards democratic reform of the authoritarian presidential system. Since independence changes in power have thus always been the result of military force and have merely led to a replacement of the ruling elite while otherwise maintaining the existing political system. Thus, a vicious cycle of violence and repression has developed which yet remains to be broken. The security situation in Eastern Chad has deteriorated due to three main factors. To begin with there is the continuous presence since the 1960s of various rebel groups, which use the sparsely populated eastern part of the country as 1