Shotgun Union

Gaddafi's takeover stirs fear

In his vaunted ambition to establish a Saharan Islamic empire, Libyan Strongman Muammar Gaddafi has searched hard for a suitable first partner. In the eleven years since coming to power, he has at various times tried to woo Egypt, the Sudan, Syria and Tunisia into joining him in a "federation," "union" or "merger," all without any tangible success.

Thus the announcement last week that Libya would "merge" with its southern neighbor Chad would have been laughable were it not for one formidable difference: a Libyan military occupation already in effect. Since early December Gaddafi has had some 5,000 members of his "Islamic Legions" inside Chad. Backed by artillery, tanks and air cover, the Libyan troops had broken the stalemate in the country's nine-month-old civil war by helping President Goukouni Oueddei to defeat his rival. Defense Minister Hissene Habre. The proposed Libya-Chad merger thus appeared less a union between consenting sovereign nations than an outright Libyan annexation of the impoverished, landlocked country of 4.5 million. Chad is an ideal launching position for his expansionist dream of a Saharan empire that would stretch from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.

Understandably, reaction from African nations who fear that they could be the next gleam in the Libyan leader's eye was swift. Said Gabon President Omar Bongo: "This annexation attempt creates a very serious situation." Egypt's Anwar Sadat and the Sudan's Gafaar Nimeiri expressed comparable concern. Within the Chad capital of N'Djamena, where months of internecine combat have left the city ravaged, there was incredulity. Said Abdelkader Kamougue, Vice President of Chad's transitional government legitimized by the 1979 Lagos agreement: "It's an impossible marriage."

Perhaps no country was more sur prised and upset by the Libya-Chad agreement than France, Chad's former colonial ruler and self-proclaimed postcolonial "protector." Until last May, France regularly backed Chad with financial and military aid, and it privately supported Habre's losing side in the civil war. Thus the mood in Paris now was one of embarrassment as well as consternation. As it happened, the announced merger came only a day after Libyan officials revealed that they had signed a long-term contract with Elf Aquitaine, France's state-con trolled oil company, for exploration rights covering about 6,000 sq. mi. of Libya's oil fields. It was obviously a strange thing for France to do: strike an oil deal with hostile Libya at the very time that it was encroaching on friendly Chad?

The French government quickly tried to limit the political damage caused by the discovery of its ambiguous policy. Industry Minister Andre Giraud immediately took action to cancel the oil contract with Libya. Foreign Ministry officials were dispatched from Paris to reassure other French-speaking nations such as Niger, Senegal and the Ivory Coast that France was prepared to bolster their defenses. Said French Foreign Minister Jean Franc,ois-Poncet: "France will, as it always has, stand by its African friends to defend their security."

During the civil war in Chad, the government of President Valery Giscard.

d'Estaing had been unable or unwilling to offer sufficient resistance to the Libyan invasion. Now it has also become evident that France's traditional role as benefactor of its French-speaking African allies was in jeopardy and that its foreign policy was in some disarray. Indeed, the zigzagging nature of France's policy toward Libya prompted Le Quotidien de Paris to conclude that the Giscard government had become "Carterized."

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