Sarkozy to urge probe into Chad opposition figures
26 Feb 2008 23:18:31 GMT Source: Reuters
(Adds Chad foreign minister comment, paragraphs 18-19) By Pascal Fletcher and Emmanuel Jarry DAKAR/PARIS, Feb 26 (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy will press Chadian President Idriss Deby on Wednesday to set up an international investigation into the fate of two Chadian opposition figures, French officials said. Sarkozy is due to visit Chad briefly on Wednesday on his way to South Africa for an official visit. Human Rights Watch said Sarkozy should not visit Chad unless its government proved that the two opposition figures -- Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh and Ngarlejy Yorongar -- who are said by their families to have been seized by Chad's military were alive. "The message to his Chadian counterpart will be very clear -- there must be a credible investigation and therefore there must be a credible investigative commission," Sarkozy's spokesman David Martinon told reporters before the visit. Martinon said the French president would tell Deby that friendship between their two countries could grow only if the pace of democracy accelerated in Chad. That meant quickly restarting dialogue with the political opposition and finding out "without delay" what had happened to the two missing political opponents, Martinon told a later news conference. An official at Sarkozy's office said the investigating panel should be "international, with recognised figures who could find out what had happened to the two opposition people." Controversy surrounds the fate in all of three opponents of Deby who were dragged from their homes by armed men on Feb. 3 in the dying hours of a rebel attack on the capital N'Djamena. Chadian authorities say they detained former president Lol Mahamat Choua, 70, as a "prisoner of war" on Feb. 3. The government said on Tuesday Choua was being freed from a military prison but would remain under house arrest while the inquiry against him continued. But they deny holding the two other opposition figures. "RISK OF TORTURE" Contesting this, Human Rights Watch quoted witnesses as saying Saleh and Yorongar were seized by government soldiers on Feb. 3 as the rebels pulled back from N'Djamena. "Human Rights Watch is concerned that the two men are victims of enforced disappearance," the U.S.-based rights group said in a statement that called on the government to reveal the whereabouts of the two and release them. Amnesty International said the men were at grave risk of being tortured and said the French government knew they had been detained. It called on Sarkozy to demand an explanation. Former colonial power France has backed Deby against the rebels, and intelligence and logistics support from the French military helped him to beat off the two-day insurgent assault. "We believe that Sarkozy should not go to Chad unless there is concrete evidence that Saleh and Yorongar are alive," Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch told Reuters. "Given there is little doubt they were taken by the authorities, the authorities should produce them." Chadian Foreign Minister Ahmat Allam-Mi said on Tuesday information had been received on Monday from Yorongar's sister and chauffeur that he was living in the city. "We were told that Mr. Yorongar ... is probably going to speak tomorrow to explain the circumstances of his arrest," Allam-Mi told a news conference at the United Nations. Chad accuses neighbouring Sudan of backing the anti-Deby rebels, a charge denied by Khartoum. (Additional reporting by Patrick Worsnip at the United Nations; Writing by Pascal Fletcher in Dakar and Francois Murphy in Paris; Editing by )
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