(N’Djamena) The party of Yaya Dillo Djérou, the main opponent in Chad, accuses the military of having “executed at point blank range” its leader on Wednesday to oust him from the presidential race in two months against his cousin, the General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, head of the junta.
The government has refuted this accusation.
“It’s an execution, they shot him point-blank to execute him because he had become a nuisance,” Robert Gamb, secretary general of the Socialist Party Without Borders (PSF), assured AFP.
Since Thursday, a photo has been circulating in groups on social networks close to Mr. Dillo’s family, but not authenticated at this stage, showing a close-up of the head of the remains of a man resembling Mr. Dillo exactly. Dillo, a very clear little hole surrounded by a black halo right in the middle of the temple.
On Thursday, the PSF and other opposition leaders were already talking about an “assassination” to exclude him from the May 6 presidential election. A PSF spokesperson specifically accused the presidential guard, the elite army unit responsible for the security of the head of state, of having led the assault on the party headquarters in the center of N ‘Djamena.
AFP journalists had seen trucks full of these “red berets” heading at high speed towards the PSF HQ at the height of heavy automatic weapon fire and dull detonations resounding from the besieged building.
“Unarmed”
“We cannot attack with an entire arsenal of war an opponent alone in an office” and “who did not have a weapon,” protested Mr. Gamb, interviewed by telephone by AFP from Libreville.
“We did not execute anyone,” replied Communications Minister Abderaman Koulamallah to AFP, also questioned about the alleged photo of the remains.
“He refused to surrender, there were exchanges of bullets, there was no execution” in this assault which left four soldiers dead and three in Mr. Dillo’s camp, he said. added the minister for whom the opponent had “himself shot at the police”.
Friday, two days after the deadly assault, calm had returned to N’Djamena and most of the armored vehicles and soldiers deployed on Wednesday had disappeared.
But a large excavator was demolishing the PSF headquarters, according to AFP journalists, kept at bay by a thick army security cordon, of which armored vehicles could be seen from a distance around the building.
According to the government, Mr. Dillo was wanted for having plotted an alleged “assassination attempt” on the president of the Supreme Court ten days ago and led an attack on the headquarters of the all-powerful intelligence services on Tuesday.
“Staging”
In an audio message to AFP a few hours before his death, the 49-year-old opponent firmly denied and in return accused the junta of a “staged” intended to exclude him from the presidential election in which Mahamat Déby did not participate. no secret of his intention to present himself.
The latter, then a young general of 37 years old, was proclaimed by the army Transitional President at the head of a junta of 15 generals on April 20, 2021, upon the announcement of the death of his father, Marshal Idriss Déby Itno. The patriarch then ruled this vast Sahelian country with an iron fist for more than 30 years.
Mahamat Déby immediately promised to return power to civilians through elections after an 18-month transition, but when this term expired, he extended it by two years. The opposition denounced a “dynastic succession” of the Débys.
Risk of coup
Mr. Dillo was one of his fiercest opponents and the one that the Déby clan, of which he is a member, feared the most, according to political scientists: because he came from the Zaghawa family and ethnic group which, although very minority in Chad, has monopolized the highest positions in the military and state apparatus for more than 33 years.
Because the Déby clan and the Zaghawa ethnic group are becoming more and more fissured every day in recent years, and even openly today, say experts in the region and diplomats who see a risk of a coup d’état.
Mr. Dillo could lead behind him a significant fringe of Zaghawa officers hostile to Mahamat Déby, according to them.
Latest defection to date: a brother of the late marshal, General Saleh Déby Itno, joined Yaya Dillo’s PSF on February 10. He was arrested in the assault Wednesday.
“With the assassination of Yaya Dillo, the authorities are showing that we must strike very hard before the elections, so that everyone falls into line. It is a very strong message sent to the opposition, to its own fault and to the Zaghawas,” analyzes for AFP an African expert in the region, who wishes to remain anonymous because he is a diplomat.
Mahamat Déby, according to him, “wants to bypass any possible opposition”.
“There is not today an opponent who can represent a threat in the race for the presidency,” adds for AFP Enrica Picco, director of the analysis center International Crisis Group (ICG) for whom “the answer in the case of Yaya Dillo leaves no room for interpretation.”
“But his death and the arrest of Saleh Déby could fuel desires for revenge for part of the clan,” she warns.
In New York, the spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General said that “it is very important to show restraint before the first round of the presidential election.”
“It is important that citizens respect the rule of law and that nothing is done that could make things even more difficult,” Stéphane Dujarric said, adding that the UN is monitoring “the situation very closely.”