Chad has called on the US government to reverse its decision to include the country on its travel ban list.
Foreign
Minister Madeleine Alingué said in a statement that the decision
undermined the image of Chad and good relations between the two
countries.
She added that Chad was a partner in the fight against
terrorism and that the ban would ruin its bilateral relationship with
the US.
Citizens of Chad are now banned from gaining business and tourist visas for the US.
Seven
other countries are also affected by the ban - Iran, Libya, Syria,
Yemen, Somalia, North Korea and Venezuela - while Sudan was removed from
the list.
US President Donald Trump's original ban in March was
highly controversial, as it affected six majority-Muslim countries, and
was widely labelled a "Muslim ban". It has been challenged in court.
What does the travel ban mean for Chad?
President
Trump's proclamation will come as a surprise to many Lake Chad Basin
watchers, but US intelligence suggests that Chadian authorities have not
been sharing information relating to public safety and terrorism with
their US counterparts.
The US also said that Chad, a mainly
Muslim country, was a haven for jihadist groups but among the Lake Chad
Basin nations (Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria) , it has suffered the
fewest attacks from Boko Haram militants.
There is little to
indicate that the activity of these groups in Chad is anywhere as
significant as in, for example, Nigeria, which recently received US
support in an arms and aircraft deal.
Chad has been, in
Washington's words, "an important and valuable" partner in the fight
against Islamist militancy and its capital Ndjamena is home to the
headquarters of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) formed to
tackle Boko Haram.
Lack of international support
Chad has also hosted the annual US-led Flintlock military exercise in West Africa three times.
France
is another Western power that has seen value in keeping Chad close,
basing its regional counter-terrorism force Operation Barkhane in
Ndjamena.
It has not expressed any concerns - at least, not publicly - about its African partner not sharing intelligence.
President Idris Deby has long complained about the
lack of international support in funding the fight against Boko Haram,
even threatening to withdraw his troops from the MNJTF.
His
forces have struggled to sufficiently police its vast northern regions
and this could be part of what the US is concerned about.
However,
over the years, Chadian troops have proven their effectiveness in
battle during military interventions in the Central African Republic and
Mali.
More recently, they made a significant contribution in
suppressing Boko Haram fighters between 2014 and 2015 when the group
controlled huge swathes of territory in neighbouring Nigeria.
Losing Chad's cooperation would be major blow to counter-terrorism efforts in the region.
This curious attempt to arm-twist the central African nation could be counter-productive.
Exxon Mobile factor?
Observers wonder whether Chad's troubles started when it attempted to slap a record $74bn fine on US oil giant Exxon Mobil.
At the time, the current US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson headed the company.
Exxon Mobil was accused of not making royalty
payments but eventually avoided the fine, more than seven times Chad's
gross domestic product, as both parties reached a settlement.
There is however little to suggest it was the cause of this ban.
Chad
might feel hard done-by to suffer this punishment despite its
counter-terrorism track record, while its eastern neighbour Sudan -
labelled as a state sponsor of terrorism - is being removed from the US'
bad books.
President Deby would not want to see his country experience similar diplomatic and economic isolation (from the West, at least).
Sudan out, Chad in
Sudan
will see its omission from the travel ban list as a sign that the Trump
administration will also remove wider economic sanctions on the country
on 12 October.
The sanctions were first put in place in 1997
when Sudan was named a state sponsor of terrorism, while further
penalties were imposed for alleged abuses carried out in the troubled
Darfur region.
The State Department concluded that Sudan was
cooperating better on counter-terrorism, and in improving humanitarian
access to conflict areas, like Darfur.
In August, the Deputy
Commander of the US Africa Command, General Alexander Laskaris, visited
the capital Khartoum as both countries worked on resuming military
cooperation.
Sudan will see the thawing of relations with the US
and the outside world as a boost as it seeks to revive its bruised
economy, one of the largest in the region.
It will welcome the
renewed ability to trade freely with international partners and see this
as a path to attracting investment in its agriculture, mining and
petroleum sectors.
Source: BBC
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
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