N’Djamena: Chad has arrested a group of people trying to carry out a “destabilisation plot,” as police and opposition sources said one of the detainees was an opposition lawmaker.
“A small group of ill-intentioned individuals attempted to carry out a destabilisation plot against the institutions of the republic,” the government said in a statement Wednesday, without indicating how many people were involved.
The government said the army had “neutralised” the group and that the arrested ringleaders had been handed over to prosecutors for investigation.
“This small group... had been conspiring for more than four months to jeopardise the country’s hard-won peace,” it said.
A police source said that “several civilians and soldiers, including Saleh Makki,” an opposition lawmaker, had been arrested Monday.
Opposition leader Saleh Kebzabo said in an email to AFP that he received reports of “numerous” arrests in the capital N’Djamena and that “several sources” had confirmed to him that Makki was among those arrested.
On Wednesday, security forces foiled a coup against the government of President Idriss Deby that had been in preparation for several months.
“Today, May 1, a group of individuals with bad intentions sought to carry out an action to destabilise the institutions of the republic,” Hassan Sylla Bakary read in a statement broadcast on state-owned television.
“They did not count on the valiant security forces who have tracked them since December 2012 and who, this morning, neutralised them,” he said.
The impoverished former French colony has a long history of coups and rebellions, and Deby himself led rebel troops into the capital N’Djamena in 1990 to seize power.
He has since won four elections and cast himself as a key ally of the West against Al Qaida-linked Islamist fighters across the vast, arid Sahel region.
Bakary said the suspected plotters had been handed over to the state prosecutor. However he did not reveal their identities or give further details of the plot.
Deby deployed around 2,000 troops to Mali earlier this year to help drive out Islamist fighters who had seized the northern two-thirds of the country, earning him the gratitude of France which spearheaded the operation there.
However, the president has plenty of enemies both at home and abroad.
The UFR, a Chadian rebel coalition that laid down its weapons in 2010, warned in March that they would relaunch their rebellion after Deby failed to enter talks with them.
Last week, Deby accused neighbouring Libya of allowing Chadian mercenaries to set up a training camp from where they could seek to destabilise his country, a charge Libyan authorities rejected.
