Global Voices Online

This is an eyewitness account of violence in Chad: ““For over 7 hours we heard that battle rage. We felt afraid, wondered which part of the body to try to get under a 24 x 20 inch table. Was it more important to save the head or the chest? The legs? Did I want a bullet in any part of my body at all? Then, a grenade was lobbed into our yard but didn't go off. The soldiers cordoned off the area. People were running in the street trying to get away from the fighting but seemed to get blocked between the 2 factions.”

Le Pangolin writes about the extrajudiciary detention [Fr] of opposition politicians in Chad and France's conspicuous silence.

Fodé-Moussa Keita links to an article that presents sons of African presidents who are groomed to take over the presidency (fr).

Parti Liberal du Tchad posts their official response (Fr) to Idriss Deby's recent visit to France.

Prisma International writes that the Chadian government plans to discharge all child soldiers [Fr] currently serving in its army. A UNICEF investigation counted 400 children between the ages of eight and eleven among the ranks of Chad's armed forces.

African journalists working in France are calling on the two remaining French presidential candidates, Nicolas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal, to begin a new chapter in Franco-African relations (Fr), according to the blog of the Alliance for Democratic Progress. “We have to reconsider everything, make a fresh start, a sort of “big bang,” so that France stops treating us like children. Africa must be a partner.” (Fr)

Afroshangai Blog posts an article about Chinese interest in Africa, “China, unlike just about every other country in the world, has a clear African strategy which is being implemented with military precision. President Hu Jintao’s visit is the third by a senior Chinese leader in twelve months…”

The blog of CAR presidential candidate Olivier Gabirault points to a Liberation article stating (Fr): “In 1997, Paris, linked to its former colony by a defense accord, disengaged by closing its two military bases (Bangui and Bouar) for economic reasons. Ten years later, French soldiers are back to support President Francois Bozize … On the opposite team are partisans of ex-President Ange-Felix Patasse and soldiers who now oppose the one who deposed Patasse in March 2003: General Francois Bozize, elected president last year. But also Tchadians who are combatting the Idriss Deby regime.”