(Adds EU welcoming new government, paragraphs 10-12) By Moumine Ngarmbassa N'DJAMENA, April 24 (Reuters) - Chadian President Idriss Deby has brought four political opponents into his new government, handing over the defence and justice posts to opposition figures in a major concession to critics. Deby, who survived an assault by anti-government rebels on the capital N'Djamena and his presidential palace in early February, has come under pressure at home and abroad to loosen his grip over the landlocked former French colony. Last week he appointed a career diplomat, Youssouf Saleh Abbas, as his prime minister, and Abbas immediately offered to negotiate a peace with the eastern rebels, many of whom are former government officials, military officers and soldiers. In a presidential decree late on Wednesday, Deby named a new cabinet that included four members of the Coordination of Political Parties for the Defence of the Constitution (CPDC), a coalition that groups his main unarmed political foes. The biggest surprise was his appointment as defence minister of a retired general and opposition figure, Wadal Abdelkader Kamougue, who was one of the military masterminds of the 1975 coup that overthrew Chad's first president, Francois Tombalbaye. Kamougue, in his 60s, is an experienced political figure who served as Deby's first prime minister after the latter seized power in an eastern revolt in 1990. Widely respected, he later formed an opposition party and became a parliament deputy. The other new CPDC cabinet members are Justice Minister Jean Bawoyeu Alingue, Agriculture Minister Naimbaye Lossimian and Territorial Management Minister Hamid Mahamat Dahlob. Chad's opposition, most of whom boycotted as unfair the 2006 election that returned Deby for a third term, welcomed the appointments as the follow-up to a pact signed last year, in which the president pledged to seek a political consensus. "We hope big reforms can be made which can lift up Chad," said new minister Dahlob. EU BACKS POLITICAL OPENING The European Union, which has a military force deployed in eastern Chad to protect refugees and civilians who have fled violence in neighbouring Sudan's war-torn Darfur, also welcomed the opening up of the Chadian government to opposition figures. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and aid commissioner Louis Michel called on all Chadians to join a national peace process to end the conflict in the African country. Michel said the EU would back an "all-inclusive dialogue that should ensure the necessary conditions for the holding of free and transparent elections". But it was not clear if the new cabinet offered an immediate prospect of peace with the armed rebel groups in the east which Deby says are supported and supplied by Chad's neighbour Sudan. Sudan denies the charges and has in turn accused Deby of supporting Sudanese anti-government rebels fighting in Darfur. Deby and his Sudanese counterpart Omar Hassan al-Bashir signed a non-aggression pact in Senegal last month, but each has already accused the other of breaking the deal. At least one of the Chadian rebel groups reacted coolly last week to Prime Minister Abbas' offer of peace talks. Deby, a French-trained former pilot, has resisted rebel calls that he step down and allow fresh elections to appoint a successor. The CPDC wants Deby to seek peace with the eastern rebels, who denounce him as corrupt and dictatorial. They demand he launch a national dialogue to start a transition period leading to fresh, democratic elections. In his new cabinet, Deby named as his foreign minister Moussa Faki Mahamat, another former prime minister, but kept on Ahmat Mahamat Bachir as his interior minister. He brought back as oil minister Mahamat Nasser Hassane, who had previously occupied the post until he was sacked in 2006. Chad started pumping crude oil in 2003 through a pipeline to Cameroon operated by U.S. major Exxon Mobil Corp. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/) (Additional reporting by William Schomberg in Brussels; Writing by Pascal Fletcher, editing by Mary Gabriel)
Fighters of the Sudan Liberation Army Abdel-Wahed faction gather for a meeting with UN and African Union officials in the mountainous area of Nertiti on the edge of Jebel Marra in ...
