• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Chad - Military Personnel

The capacity of the Chadian administration remains inadequate: the central and decentralized administrations lack of trained cadres and resources. The army hangs over the state budget (40 000 men approximately by 2016), while the social sectors, health and education, are struggling (35,000 students). But in 2004, the government discovered that many of the soldiers it was paying did not exist and that there were only about 19,000 soldiers in the army, as opposed to the 24,000 that had been previously believed.

The strength of the Chadian army is its ethnic component. Mainly recruited from the Zaghawa - an ethnic group from the northeast of the country - the elite units of ANT show a relative homogeneity and an equally relative loyalty to those in power. This rise of the Zaghawa in the military date of the coming to power of Hissène Habré in 1982. In that year, Ndjamena was taken by columns commanded by Colonel Idriss Déby, of Zaghawa origin. This rise was almost systematized after taking power in 1990 by Idriss Déby himself. All these reasons explain the many victories won by the Chadian army against the Libyan army in northern Chad (1986-87) against the anti-rebel Patasse in Bangui (1996-97) and the Central African army against pro- Patassé in 2003.

Precisely because of the Zaghawa ethnic component the term "relative" is not superfluous when talking about the homogeneity of the Chadian army. On several occasions in the past, dissension within the military hierarchy - and thus of the Zaghawa community - came close to the downfall of the regime. The latest example, the attack on N'Djamena in February 2008. The rebel movement was led in particular by Timane Erdimi, a nephew and former head of the chief of staff of the Chadian state. The assault had reached the capital, and Idriss Deby owed his salvation to his heavy tanks and securing the French army from the airport, which had been off his helicopter gunships.

A new approach to reform the army and make it more national, a policy that began in 2011, after decompression of military strength by the retirement of 17 000 soldiers including the illiterate, the disabled and elderly. DDR [Disarmament, demobilization, reintegration] was to prevent the men leaving the army from joining rebel groups. The Finance Act in 2015 provided for an open recruitment into the army - the recruitment of 8,000 soldiers in the ranks of the army, according to Article 33. The Ministry of National Defense and Veterans Affairs made 76.78% of the recruitment quota by 12 June 2015, three days before the first attacks perpetrated against N'Djamena by the EIAO (Islamic state in West Africa, a former Boko Haram). The government delegate in N'Djamena, Issa Adjideï, officially launched within the territory of the Governorate, the recruitment ceremony for 10,000 young people into the ranks of the Chadian army. In Salamat, over 2,000 young people from 18 to 25 years had postulated, General Abdoulaye Sarwa revealed a month later, satisfied with the operation.

Chad had a long period of political stability, and is making efforts to professionalize its armed security forces, including through training from the United States. The government is attempting to promote transparency by joining the African Peer Review Mechanism and is working with the World Bank and the IMF to develop mechanisms to limit corruption. The minimum age for voluntarily enrollment in the armed forces is 18, and the minimum age for being called to perform compulsory military service is 20. The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) states that compulsory military service is for a term of three years [for men] and that women must perform one year of military or civilian service at the age of 21.

When the United Front for Change (Front Uni pour le changement, FUC) was founded at the end of December 2005, it was led by Mahamat Nour Abdelkerim. At the end of December 2006, the FUC’s leader signed a peace agreement with President Idriss Déby Itno in Libya. Under this agreement, the FUC’s troops were integrated into the Chadian National Army (Armée national tchadienne, ANT), and their leader, Mahamat Nour, was appointed Minister of Defence.

The Government of Chad announced 28 October 2009 that some 1,744 fighters from Ahmat Soubiane's National Movement (MN) rebel group had been integrated into the Chadian Army (ANT) on October 27 in a ceremony conducted in the GOC's military re-integration camp in the town of Moussoro, some 100 miles northeast of N'Djamena The MN fighters brought with them some 47 vehicles, 17 of them with crew-served weapons mounted on them. National Mediator Abderamane Moussa presided over the ceremony, along with senior ANT and other GOC officials. The MN fighters will be paid their "arrears of salary" starting October 28. The lead ANT representative at Moussoro announced that "the minors among the MN fighters will be identified, registered, and handed over to UNICEF in Chad."

On 25 March 2014 at Camp Loumia, US Ambassador James Knight attended a graduation ceremony for more than 1,000 Chadian peace keepers for deployment to Mali with the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission (MINUSMA). The Chadian soldiers trained for several weeks under the mentorship of the U.S. Army’s 5th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment and received equipment for its peace-keeping operations in Mali, including trucks, water trailers, generators, and tents.

Chad is an impoverished, largely illiterate country in whose vast rural expanse boys and girls are deemed to have grown up by the age of thirteen. It is also a country with a deeply-ingrained martial tradition. In addition to the widespread practice of children working as herders, agricultural laborers, and household help, there is therefore an equally deeply-ingrained tradition (especially in the north and east) of adolescent males being trained as fighters, although on nothing like the scale of, for example, Sierra Leone or Liberia.

The rise of instability and armed conflict in eastern Chad since 2003, with a proliferation of Chadian and Darfurian rebel groups and militias, has brought a concomitant rise in the phenomenon of child so ldiers along the porous border. For some time, UNICEF had suspected that the Chadian army also recruited under-age soldiers, without being able to quantify the problem. The December 2006 reconciliation between the government and the Chadian rebel group FUC (United Front for Change) put the army in the position of inheriting a major child-soldier problem. FUC, like other rebel groups in the eastern Chad/Darfur zone, actively recruited child soldiers; its forces have been ostensibly absorbed by the Chadian army; and its leader Mahamat Nour has become Chad's Minister of Defense.

Horatio Lord Nelson (1758-1805) was the sixth of the 11 children of a clergyman. He joined the navy aged 12, on a ship commanded by a maternal uncle. Midshipman was the lowest officers' rank in the Royal Navy, being the rank belonging to cadets. In the age of sail, boys as young as nine in the Royal Navy were sent to sea and actually given authority over men as old as their parents with decades of seafaring experience. The adolescent phase of life as known in Modern Europe didn’t really exist. The concept of a prolonged period of quasi-adulthood during which adult responsibilities are temporally suspended is a product of the modern industrial age. The gradual emergence in the modern world of compulsory education through age eighteen, higher average age of marriage, and child labor laws that excluded younger people from the workplace all contributed to the development of "adolescence" as a defined stage of maturation separating childhood and adulthood.

Audie Murphy, the baby-faced Texas farmboy who became an American Legend, was born 20 June 1924. One of the most-decorated heroes of World War II, Audie was only 16 when his mother died. He watched as his brothers and sisters were doled out to an orphanage or to relatives. Seeking an escape from that life in 1942, he looked to the Marines. War had just been declared and, like so many other young men, Murphy lied about his age - he was only 17 at the time - in his attempt to enlist. But it was not his age that kept him out of the Marines; it was his size. Not tall enough to meet the minimum requirements, he tried to enlist in the paratroopers, but again was denied entrance. Despondent, he chose the infantry. By the war's end, Murphy had become the nation's most-decorated soldier, earning an unparalleled 28 medals, including three from France and one from Belgium. Murphy had been wounded three times during the war, yet, in May 1945, when victory was declared in Europe, he had still not reached his 21st birthday. Murphy, who once said that he could only sleep with a loaded pistol under his pillow, was haunted by nightmares of his wartime experiences throughout his adult life.

Gil Coronado grew up in the barrios of San Antonio. Orphaned at age five, he often found himself in trouble with the law. He dropped out of high school and was soon involved in gangs. At age 16, Coronado lied about his age and enlisted in the Air Force. After a 30-year Air Force career, he had earned his GED, a college degree and had been presented with more than 35 awards and decorations, including the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star.

Gen. (Ret.) John W. Vessey, Jr., had an Army career that began prior to America’s entry into World War II, when he lied about his age to enlist in the Minnesota Army National Guard. He spent much of his career on battlefields, fighting in World War II and the Vietnam War, and commanding all U.S. forces in South Korea in the late 1970s. Vessey retired from the Army in 1985 as the 10th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after serving for more than 46 years.

Demobilization and reintegration of child soldiers is often portrayed as hopeless-especially where child soldiers have been forcibly recruited and made to participate in atrocities. Preventing re-recruitment should also be a concern. Demobilization and reintegration of child soldiers is difficult, but country case studies show they can become productive members of their communities. Key factors are political will, including child soldiers in peace agreements, resources to meet their special needs, and community and family involvement. Demobilization may be involuntary for child soldiers and they may fear the transition from military to civilian life and an uncertain future.

While international law now establishes eighteen years as the minimum age for involvement in conflict, age criteria may not always be relevant to the actual experience of children as soldiers. Many child soldiers may not know their age and local conceptions of children and youths, and their role in society, may vary. Given the duration of many conflicts, some combatants may be a few years over eighteen and thus not be counted as child soldiers at the time of a peace accord or demobilization exercise, but they will have spent their developing years as a soldier-deprived of the normal skill development and moral socialization skills gained from their families and communities. Practitioners in El Salvador and Angola usefully adopted the terms "underage soldier" and "youth combatant" to avoid emotional debates over the term child soldier.

In 2014 Chad was not named to the Child Soldier Prevention Act signed into law in 2008. There were no reports of child soldiers in the Chadian National Army during the reporting period. Joint UN/Government of Chad completed screening missions on 2,800 troops and found no children. By the end of 2013, Chad completed 9 out of 10 points on its Child Soldiers’ Action Plan, signed with the UN in 2011. However, a minor with a guardian’s consent may volunteer for military service prior to age 18 and the law does not establish a clear minimum age for these children. No clear, uniform penalties exist for contravening the ordinance that establishes the minimum age for recruitment. Although the UN Action Plan calls for a law criminalizing all use of child soldiers, to date no such law has been enacted. The lack of a law criminalizing the use of child soldiers and the lack of adequate penalties for using child soldiers increase the risk that children could be used as child soldiers in future conflicts.

British NGO Child Soldiers International, an "international...advocacy organization which campaigns for the effective implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict", indicates that the provisions dictating the minimum age for military service are set out in section 32 of Loi 06-012 2006-03-10 PR du 10 mars 2006 portant réorganisation des forces armées et de sécurité. Child Soldiers International also notes that, according to the 2006 law, military service is compulsory for all citizens of Chad, except those who have a proven physical disability. The NGO specifies, however, that the law "remains in force, but it is not fully enforced". The organization explains that although the legislation provides for compulsory military service for all citizens, the reality is that "successive leaders that have acceded to power have all kept their own permanent armies, sometimes integrating them with existing armed forces".

According to Child Soldiers International, "recruitment, particularly in the north, often takes place informally and the persistent practice of patronage means that official army recruitment procedures are often further subverted". In addition, the NGO points out that for the past 20 years, recruitment has been "haphazard" and there have been "indiscriminate mass recruitment drives". According to a government official interviewed by the NGO, state officials recruit "who they want" and they "strengthen the ethnic clan".

In 2011, Chad made a minimal advancement in efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labor, particularly by eliminating the use of child soldiers in the Chadian army. During the year, the Government worked with both its national army and with rebel groups on demobilization. Although children may have continued to be used by rebel groups, the US Government reported that no evidence was found that child soldiers have remained in the national army. In April 2011, the Government of Chad signed the joint Government of Chad-UN Action Plan on Children Associated with Armed Forces and Groups in Chad to prevent children from being recruited in the future. However, the Government has not enacted laws that would improve its weak legal framework on child labor, has not enforced laws to protect children from the worst forms of child labor and lacks programs to reduce the worst forms of child labor. The Government continues to lack laws criminalizing the use of children as child soldiers and addressing the use of children for illicit or pornographic purposes.

Many sources indicate that minors were still being recruited and enrolled in the national army and other armed groups in Chad (AI Mar. 2013, 2; Centre for Human Rights Mar. 2013, 1-2). According to Amnesty International (AI), at least 36 children were enrolled in the national army in 2012, and the Chadian government has made little effort to implement the Action Plan on children associated with armed forces and groups in Chad, which was signed in 2011 by the government and the United Nations (Mar. 2013, 2).

Child Soldiers International also indicates that dozens of children were enrolled in the national army in 2012 and that no measures have been taken to put an end to the practice. The NGO also published the following information: "One must acknowledge that the ban on child recruitment remains difficult to enforce because of low birth registration rates in Chad, as a result of which most candidates to recruitment do not have birth certificates or other proof of age. However, recruiting agents had not received any instructions or child protection training prior to the 2012 recruitment campaign, and age verification methods used were flawed. furthermore, the 11,000 recruitment quota set by the government appears difficult to meet for the narrow age group targeted (18-20 year-olds) and may have put pressure on recruiters to enrol without thorough age verification. Finally, it is concerning that some recruiting agents set up temporary recruitment desks in local schools, thereby unwittingly encouraging school-age children to enlist." (Child Soldiers International 2013, Tchad : Enfants Soldats International : Contribution à l'Examen périodique universel, Second cycle, 17e session, 2013)