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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2016
Historically, connections between southern Libya and northern Chad have always been close, if only due to the fundamental need for connectivity that characterises most Saharan economies. Drawing on so far mostly inaccessible archival records and oral history, this article outlines the implications of this proximity, arguing that it led to intimate entanglements within families and an ongoing confusion of property rights. This in turn resulted in increased rather than diminished hostility during the years of war that opposed the two countries, as people attempted to define uncertain boundaries, and were – and still are – competing for access to similar resources, moral, symbolic, social, and economic.
1 International Crisis Group, ‘Divided we stand: Libya's enduring conflicts', Middle East/North Africa Report no. 130, 14 Sept. 2012, 6.
2 The term ‘Tubu’ (Kanembu for ‘people of the mountain’) is an external description that designates speakers of Tedaga and Dazaga, two closely related and mutually comprehensible languages. No local term corresponds to it. In Chadian Arabic and French, Teda tend to be referred to as ‘Tubu’, and Dazagada as ‘Goranes’. In the following, I will nonetheless use the term ‘Tubu’ to refer to both linguistic groups, as connections between them are close and boundaries often uncertain, and as this is the term that is most commonly used in the literature.
3 See, for example, ‘Fighting continues in Kufra’, Libya Herald, 21 Feb. 2012; ‘More die in Sebha despite ceasefire’, Libya Herald, 29 Mar. 2012; ‘More deaths in Kufra reported’, Libya Herald, 29 June 2012; and ‘Army says it will impose order in Kufra following new deadly clashes’, Libya Herald, 26 Feb. 2013.
4 More were killed in clashes between Awlād Sulaymān and Tubu in Sabha in the first half of 2014, where despite attempts at reconciliations, tensions persist: see ‘Ijtimā’ li-l-musālaha bayn qabīlatay al-Tubū wa Awlād Sulaymān’, Akhbar Libya 24, 9 July 2014; and ‘Liqā’ bayn Awlād Sulaymān w-al-Tubū li-l-ittifāq ‘alā ta'mīn Sabha’, Akhbar Libya 24, 23 July 2014. In spring 2015, conflicts broke out again between Zuwaya and Tubu in Kufra: ‘Lajnat al-azma li-a‘yān al-Tubū bi-l-Kufra tu'akid ‘alā al-bunūd allatī attafaqa ‘alay-hā khilāl ijtimā‘āt-hā’, Akhbar Libya 24, 27 Mar. 2015; and, at the same time, between Tuareg and Tubu in Ubari and al-Bayda: ‘‘Aqīla wa al-Thanī yabhathān ma‘a a‘yān al-Tubū hall al-iqtitāl ma‘a al-Tawāriq’, Akhbar Libya 24, 20 May 2015, which speaks of a ‘humanitarian crisis’ in the area. On the importance of transborder trade, see B. Olesky, ‘The other frontier warriors’, Libya Herald, 13 Jan. 2013; also International Crisis Group, ‘Divided’, 6. Bensaâd, A., ‘L'immigration en Libye: une ressource et la diversité de ses usages’, Politique africaine, 125 (2012), 101CrossRefGoogle Scholar, points out that these conflicts predate the current Libyan war.
5 See, for example, ‘Chadian Tebu forces reportedly enter Libya to join fighting around Kufra’, Libya Herald, 16 June 2012; and Idriss Déby on Radio France International, 29 Apr. 2013.
6 See, for example, (http://translatingfazzan.blogspot.fr), last accessed spring 2015, that displayed photographs of dead or wounded Tubu fighters and their Chadian identity papers. Officially, there are 12–15,000 Tubu in southern Libya, but real numbers are more probably in the hundreds of thousands: M. Cousins, ‘Tebu delegation heading to Tripoli as another Tebu man dies in Kufra’, Libya Herald, 27 Nov. 2012. Questions of nationality, meanwhile, are complex and contested: G. Grant, ‘Kufra election boycott going ahead as 1,000 Tebu are disbarred from vote’, Libya Herald, 4 July 2012; and ‘A‘yān al-Tubū yatlibūn bi-ta'jīl al-shurū’ fī-l-intikhābāt al-baladiyya bi-l-Kufra’, Akhbar Libya 24, 6 Apr. 2014.
7 Hence, in 2011 and 2012, the population of Faya-Largeau, the largest town in the B. E. T. (Borkou – Ennedi – Tibesti, Chad's northernmost region), had, according to figures provided by the town hall, doubled from 10 to 20,000.
8 International Crisis Group, ‘Holding Libya together: security challenges after Qadhafi’, Middle East/North Africa Report no. 115, 14 Dec. 2011, 28; Lacher, W., ‘Families, tribes and cities in the Libyan revolution’, Middle East Policy, 18:4 (2011), 140–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Although all sources agree on the fact of conquest, few agree on dates. According to G. Rohlfs, Kufra, Reise von Tripoli nach der Oase Kufra (Leipzig, 1881), 290; Forbes, R., ‘Across the Libyan Desert to Kufara’, Geographical Journal, 58:2 (1921), 88Google Scholar; and J. Chapelle, Nomades noirs du Sahara: Les Toubous (Paris, 1957), 49, the conquest took place in the first half of the eighteenth century. Davis, J., ‘La structure sociale de Koufra’, Annuaire de l'Afrique du Nord, 22 (1983), 547Google Scholar, dates it ‘maybe four hundred years’ back. J.-L. Triaud, La légende noire de la Sanûsiyya: Une confrérie musulmane saharienne sous le regard français (1840–1930) (Paris, 1995), 438, meanwhile, claims that the Zuwaya ‘progressively occupied Kufra from the mid-nineteenth century’.
10 Davis, ‘Structure sociale’, 551.
11 Bromberger, C., ‘Towards an anthropology of the Mediterranean’, History and Anthropology, 17:2 (2006), 103CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 See, for example, P. Pascon, La maison d'Iligh (Rabat, 1984), 9; and Baier, S. and Lovejoy, P., ‘The desert-side economy of the Central Sudan’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 8:4 (1975), 551–81Google Scholar.
13 Scheele, J., ‘Traders, saints and irrigation: reflections on Saharan connectivity’, The Journal of African History 51:3 (2010), 281–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 The term ‘connectivity’ is taken from P. Horden and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea (Oxford, 2000), 123 and passim. For its applicability or otherwise in the Sahara, see P. Horden, ‘Situations both alike? Connectivity, the Mediterranean, the Sahara’, in J. McDougall and J. Scheele (eds.), Saharan Frontiers: Space and Mobility in Northwest Africa (Bloomington, IN, 2012), 25–38. On the inherent instability that characterises many African environments, in particular those used as rangelands, see Beinart, W., ‘African history and environmental history’, Africa, 99 (2000), 279Google Scholar.
15 For analyses of such political structures among Tamacheq- and Hassaniyya-speakers in the Western and Central Sahara, see, for example, P. Bonte, L’émirat de l'Adrar mauritanien: harīm, compétition et protection dans une société tribale saharienne (Paris, 2008); C. Grémont, Les Touaregs Iwellemmedan (1647–1896). Un ensemble politique de la boucle du Niger (Paris, 2010); B. Lecocq, Disputed Desert: Decolonisation, Competing Nationalisms and Tuareg Rebellions in Mali (Leiden, 2010); and B. Rossi, ‘Kinetocracy: the government of mobility at the desert's edge’, in J. Quirk and D. Vigneswaran (eds.), Mobility Makes States: Migration and Power in Africa (Philadelphia, 2015), 223–56.
16 Archives Nationales du Tchad (ANT), N'Djamena, W21, ‘Rapport politique’, B. E. T., 1952; see also Chapelle, Nomades noirs, 70, 89, 98.
17 Chapelle, Nomades noirs, 175.
18 G. Nachtigal, Sahârâ und Sûdân: Ergebnisse sechsjähriger Reisen in Afrika. Erster Band: Tripolis, Fezzân, Tibesti und Bornû (Berlin, 1879), 184–90, 210–16, 225; Rohlfs, Kufra, 267–8.
19 Nachtigal, Tripolis, 212–13.
20 Forbes, ‘Across the Libyan Desert’, 165.
21 R. Capot-Rey, Borkou et Ounianga: Étude de géographie régionale (Alger, 1961), 135.
22 Groundwater in much of the Borkou is easily accessible, at one to three meters below ground. This means that date palms, once they have reached a certain age, do not need to be irrigated, and hence allow for a primarily pastoral lifestyle. This was also the case in Kufra (Rohlfs, Kufra, 334).
23 Capot-Rey, Borkou, 104.
24 Baroin, C. and Pret, P.-F., ‘Le palmier du Borkou, végétal social total’, Journal des Africanistes, 63:1 (1992), 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25 G. Nachtigal, Sahârâ und Sûdân: Ergebnisse sechsjähriger Reisen in Afrika. Zweiter Band: Borkû, Kânem, Bornû und Bagirmi (Berlin, 1881), 84–5.
26 Cordell, D., ‘The Awlad Sulayman of Libya and Chad: power and adaptation in the Sahara and Sahel’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 19:2 (1985), 325Google Scholar.
27 Nachtigal, Borkû, 141–2.
28 Capot-Rey, Borkou, 90; and Cordell, ‘Awlad Sulayman’, 329.
29 Nachtigal, Borkou, 92; see also Chapelle, Nomades noirs, 61; and Cordell, ‘Awlad Sulayman’, 330.
30 Cordell, ‘Awlad Sulayman’, 335. Twice in the nineteenth century, the Awlād Sulaymān had been ‘annihilated’, once by the Ottomans in 1812, and then again by the Tuareg in 1850. In both cases, they recovered their fighting power within less than a generation: see G. F. Lyon, A Narrative of Travels in Northern Africa in the Years 1818, 19, and 20 (London, 1821), 54; and H. Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, Volume II (London, 1968), 275.
31 Subtil, E., ‘Histoire d'Abd el-Gelil’, Revue de l'Orient, 1:5 (1844), 28–30Google Scholar.
32 Davis, ‘Structure sociale’, 552.
33 Baroin, C., ‘La circulation et les droits sur le bétail, clés de la vie sociale chez les Toubou (Tchad, Niger)’, Journal des Africanistes, 78:1–2 (2009), 136Google Scholar.
34 Chapelle, Nomades noirs, 18, 42.
35 Davis, ‘Structure sociale’, 549; see also Rohlfs, Kufra, 243, 290.
36 G. Djian, Le Tchad et sa conquête, 1900–1914 (2nd edn, Paris, 1996), 117.
37 On trans-Saharan trade, in particular on the route that linked the Waddaï to Benghazi via Kufra, see Cordell, , ‘Eastern Libya, Wadai, and the Sanusiya: a tariqa and a trade route’, The Journal of African History, 18:1 (1977), 21–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and G. Ciammaichella, Libyens et Français au Tchad (1897–1914): La confrérie sénoussiste et le commerce transsaharien (Paris, 1987). On the anticolonial struggle, see A. Salifou, Kaoussan ou la révolte sénoussiste (Niamey, 1973); and Bourgeot, A., ‘Les échanges transsahariens, la Senoussya et les révoltes touaregs de 1916–1917’, Cahiers d’études africaines, 18:1–2 (1978), 159–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I agree with Triaud, Légende noire, 257, however, that the Sanūssiyya's initial purpose was primarily religious and ‘civilisational’ rather than military, and that, in Chad at least, anticolonial battles were mostly forced upon them.
38 Archives nationales d'outre-mer (ANOM), Aix-en-Provence, FM/SG/Afrique IV Dossier 36 ter, Mangin, ‘Situation de la Senoussia au Borkou’, 1907.
39 Triaud, Légende noire, 504; also Cordell, ‘Eastern Libya’, 31.
40 Triaud, Légende noire, 659.
41 Ibid. 549, 659, 508.
42 Rohlfs, Kufra, 333; Bey, A. M. Hassanein, ‘Through Kufra to Darfur’, Geographical Journal, 64:4 (1924), 288–9Google Scholar.
43 For parallel examples from the Western Sahara, see, for example, Pascon, Maison; Elboudrari, H., ‘Quand les saints font les villes: lecture anthropologique de la pratique sociale d'un saint marocain du XVIIe siècle’, Annales ESC, 40:3 (1985), 489–508Google Scholar; R. Boubrik, Saints et société en islam: La confrérie ouest-saharienne Fadiliyya (Paris, 1999); and Gutelius, D., ‘The path is easy and the benefits large: the Nasiriyya, social networks and economic change in Morocco, 1640–1830’, The Journal of African History, 43:1 (2002), 27–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
44 Djian, Tchad, 90, 118, 119.
45 Ibid. 146, 176, 187.
46 J. Ferrandi, Le centre africain français: Tchad – Borkou – Ennedi (Paris, 1930), 147: and Djian, Tchad, 168.
47 ANOM 10 APOM 401, Boujol, ‘La Senoussya au Tchad’, 7 June 1939. A small Ottoman military detachment was based in Faya and Aïn Galakka from August 1911 to February 1913, but they were logistically largely dependent on the Sanūsiyya, and several officers were affiliated to the order: ANOM FM/Tchad I/2, ‘Rapport de reconnaissance’, 9 July to 7 Sept. 1912.
48 In the Sahara and Sahel more generally, ‘power is constituted not so much by the ability to master the local environment than by the ability to master the system of localities’: Walther, O. and Retaillé, D., ‘Le modèle sahélien de la circulation, de la mobilité et de l'incertitude spatiale’, Autrepart, 47 (2008), 110CrossRefGoogle Scholar, emphasis added. See also Retaillé, D., ‘L'espace nomade’, Revue de géographie de Lyon, 73:1 (1998), 71–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lecocq, B., ‘Distant shores: a historiographic view on trans-Saharan space’, The Journal of African History, 56:1 (2015), 23–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
49 Djian, Tchad, 123; also Evans-Pritchard, E. E., ‘The distribution of Sanusi lodges’, Africa, 15:4 (1945), 187CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
50 Tubu ‘anarchy’ is a colonial trope, but one that clearly has some grounding in reality: see, for example, C. Baroin, Anarchie et cohésion sociale chez les Toubou: les Daza Késerda (Niger) (Paris, 1985); also Scheele, J., ‘The values of “anarchy”: moral autonomy among Tubu-speakers in northern Chad’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 21:1 (2015), 32–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
51 ANOM FM/Tchad I/2, ‘Territoire militaire du Tchad, rapport d'ensemble’, 17 May 1913.
52 ANOM FM/Tchad I/2, ‘Rapport trimestriel du colonel commandant le Territoire militaire du Tchad sur la situation des circonscriptions’, Feb.–Apr. 1914.
53 ANOM FM/Tchad I/8, ‘Câble’, 27 July 1914.
54 ANT W19, ‘Rapport trimestriel’, B. E. T., 2nd quarter 1919.
55 ANT W19, ‘Rapport trimestriel’, B. E., 1st quarter 1929.
56 ANT W18, Rottier, ‘Rapport de Mission’, 1929.
57 ANT W18, ‘Rapport trimestriel’, B. E. T., 1st quarter 1931.
58 See, for example, Rottier, ‘Rapport’; and ANT W89, Aubert, ‘Lettre au Lieutenant Gouverneur du Tchad’, 16 June 1929.
59 ANT W18, ‘Rapport trimestriel’, B. E. T., 3rd quarter 1931.
60 ANT W18, ‘Rapport trimestriel’, B. E. T., 3rd quarter 1930.
61 ANT W18, ‘Rapport trimestriel’, B. E. T., 1st quarter 1931.
62 ANT W153, ‘Bulletin no. 2’, 1 Oct. 1934. Similar numbers of Libyans, essentially pastoral nomads, settled further south, in the Egueï in northern Kanem: ANOM 10 APOM 399, Masson, ‘La Senoussiya au Tchad’, 1 June 1938.
63 ANT W19, ‘Rapport trimestriel’, B. E. T., 1st quarter 1929; and ANT W18, ‘Rapport trimestriel’, B. E. T., 3rd quarter 1932.
64 According to ANOM AEF Série D 4 (4) D 49, in 1939, Kufra had not got enough resources to feed the local population. This situation had not improved fifteen years later: ANT W20, ‘Bulletin politique mensuel’, B. E. T., Dec. 1954.
65 Interviews, in Faya and N'Djamena, spring and summer 2012.
66 ANT W18, ‘Rapport trimestriel’, B. E. T., 2nd quarter 1934.
67 Ibid; and ANT W22, ‘Lettre du chef de la région du B. E. T. au chef du Territoire du Tchad’, 13 Sept. 1956. Most successful traders were from the Fazzān rather than from the Mediterranean coast, and in the archives, ‘Fezzanais’ is used throughout (locally, people speak of ‘Libyans’). Many of these ‘Fezzanais’ had trading and family connections on the coast, however.
68 ANT W20, ‘Rapport politique’, B. E. T., 1st term 1944.
69 ANT W20, ‘Rapport politique’, B. E. T., 1st term 1945. The Colonne Leclerc was a military raid by the Free French armed forces that captured, in 1941, Kufra from its base in French Equatorial Africa, overland via northern Chad. It greatly relied on local auxiliaries and ‘indigenous’ (mostly West and Central African) soldiers, and led to a regional boom in infrastructure and the availability of ready cash.
70 ANT W20, ‘Rapports politiques’, 1st term 1948 and 1st term 1949.
71 ANT W21, ‘Rapport économique’, Borkou, 1955.
72 A. Le Rouvreur, Sahariens et Sahéliens du Tchad (Paris, 1962), 395.
73 ANT W125, ‘Lettres de l'Ambassade du Royaume Uni de Libye, au Ministre des Affaires Étrangères tchadiennes’, 11 Dec. 1961, 24 Jan. 1962, and 14 June 1962; Archives de la Préfecture de Faya (APF), Faya-Largeau, ‘Enquête de moralité sur les commerçants étrangers’, 30–1 Oct. 1973. Permission to use these archives was granted by the Prefect of the Borkou in May 2012.
74 ANT W125, ‘Lettre de Laurentie’, 21 Apr. 1939; ANT W18, ‘Lettre du Gouverneur Général de l'A. E. F. au commandant du territoire du Tchad’, 4 Aug. 1938.
75 ANT W22, ‘Bulletin politique mensuel’, B. E. T., Sept. 1955.
76 Ferrandi, Centre-africain, 223.
77 ANT W21, ‘Rapport politique’, B. E. T., 1957; see also ‘Rapport économique’, Borkou, 1955.
78 ANT W22, ‘Bulletin mensuel’, B. E. T., June 1958. Otherwise, and despite French fears encouraged by rumours of the Libyan government's claims to property rights in northern Chad (see, for example, ANT W22, ‘Bulletin mensuel de renseignements politiques et économiques’, B. E. T., Mar. 1951), Libyan settlers never seem to have attempted to develop any political institutions in Faya, indicating that their aspirations lay elsewhere: ANT W21, ‘Rapport politique’, B. E. T., 1957.
79 The main references here remain R. Buijtenhuijs, Le Frolinat et les révoltes populaires au Tchad (1965–1976) (Paris, 1978); Le Frolinat et les guerres civiles au Tchad (1977–84) (Paris, 1987).
80 A. S. Bodoumi, La victoire des révoltés: Témoignage d'un ‘enfant soldat’ (N'Djamena, 2010), 106, 162. Throughout this time, the Frolinat found it difficult to ‘govern’ the area in any meaningful way: see Bodoumi, Victoire, 166, 194–5; APF Frolinat, Conseil de la révolution, ‘Décision N 002/ETAM/G/FAP/79’, 3 Feb. 1979; Frolinat, Secteur No 1, Commission de redressement, ‘Note de service’, 14 Aug. 1980; Frolinat, Secteur no 1, ‘Décision 001/CCFAN/CCF/80’, 22 Sept. 1980.
81 According to M. Azevedo, Roots of Violence: a History of War in Chad (Amsterdam, 1998), 89, when Faya was taken by the Chadian army in 1987, it was defended by 1,000 Libyan soldiers. This roughly corresponds to local estimates.
82 APF, ‘Compte rendu des renseignements’, 18 Jan. 1983; see also ‘Procès-verbal d'audition, I. I. K.’, 23 Dec. 1987; and ‘Procès-verbal d'audition, C. I. W.’, 30 Dec. 1987. These sources are all police records of statements made by migrants who returned to Chad after Libya had been defeated, and who clearly felt obliged to exaggerate Libyan wrongdoing and their own patriotism.
83 APF, ‘Fiche de renseignement sur C. T.’, 10 Aug. 1986.
84 APF, ‘Le responsable de la sous-commission sécurité au camarade président de la Commission de gestion de la ville de Faya’, 13 Sept. 1983.
85 APF, Congrès populaire de base de Faya, ‘Bulletin politique et économique’, May 1984.
86 APF, ‘Interrogatoires’, n. d. (Oct. 1983).
87 APF, Congrès populaire de base de Faya, ‘Bulletin politique et économique’, May 1984.
88 See, for example, APF GUNT, ‘Compte-rendu de la semaine du 6 au 11 septembre 1983’; ‘Liste nominatives des prévenus détenus à la maison d'arrêt de Faya’, 27 Oct. 1983; and ‘État nominatif des personnes appréhendées pour des diverses infractions et libérées par la suite’, Nov. 1983.
89 See especially Bodoumi, Victoire, 170, 182, 190, and passim.
90 Ibid. 202–3, 307–8. Bodoumi, himself Tubu and highly partisan, but clearly representative of current local readings of the events, speaks of a ‘Tubu hunt’.
91 APF, ‘Procès-verbal d'audition, C. I. W.’, 30 Dec. 1987; ‘Procès-verbal d'audition, A. M. H.’, 30 Dec. 1987.
92 APF, ‘Commission de gestion de la ville de Faya, Sous-commission de sécurité publique’, 14 Sept. 1983.
93 APF, ‘Procès-verbal de la réunion du Comité Régional à propos de l'Effort de Guerre’, 1 Aug. 1989.
94 APF, Frolinat/CCFAN, ‘Notes de service’, 5 Oct. 1980, 29 Oct. 1982, and 29 Jan. 1983.
95 APF, ‘Lettre du Préfet du B. E. T. au Ministre des Finances’, 19 June 1987.
96 APF, ‘Bulletin de renseignement mensuel’, June 1995; see also ‘Procès-Verbal de réunion sur l'examen de la situation de sécurité dans la préfecture du B. E. T.’, 26 June 1995. Not all of these were from the Borkou, as otherwise, the region would have been emptied of its inhabitants within a few months.
97 In the late 1980s, virtually all small vehicles used for trade with Libya were former army vehicles that had been ‘privatised’ by Frolinat fighters: APF, ‘Rapport succinct sur l’état d'esprit des Toubou qui sont à Faya’, 9 Jan. 1988.
98 In 1980, when Hissène Habré took Faya; then again in 1982 and 1983, when the GUNT (then led by Goukouni Oueddeï) attempted to extract rent-payments from current occupants; and again in 1987, after the Libyan army was defeated: APF, Frolinat, ‘Notes de service’, 22 May 1980 and 29 Oct. 1982; ‘Décision du préfet par interim’, 3 May 1983; and ‘Décision portant formation d'un comité de recensement, construction et remise à l’État des biens abandonnés par les Libyens (maisons, boutiques, jardins et palmiers)’, 1987.
99 APF, ‘Déclaration par le responsable des boutiques – maisons – jardins de Faya-Largeau’, 17 Apr. 1987.
100 APF, Sous-préfet du Borkou, ‘Note de Service’, 10 June 1988.
101 APF, ‘Sous-Préfet au Commandant de la Région militaire no 1’, 16 Mar. 1993; and ‘Attestation de restitution des biens immobiliers’, 27 July 1994.
102 Undated letter to Moussa Khayrallah, written in the 1990s, in the addressee's possession.
103 Interview in Faya, Sept. 2012.
104 This point was made, thirty years ago, by Cordell, ‘Awlad Sulayman’, 319–21, but to little avail.
