Much of western media coverage of the attempted coup in Chad focus on the plight of foreign nationals fleeing the fighting between the government of Idris Deby and rebel groups. We learn little in this coverage as to what is going on here.
This is where the insight of the Social Science Research Council’s Alex de Waal (who maintains a blog on Sudan) comes in. In a posting on the US magazine Monthly Review’s online MRZine, De Waal provides some context and discuss what to expect next.
See here.
P.S. Of mainstream media coverage, the Christian Science Monitor (whose Africa reporting often go beyond the dead-counts, coups and venal African leaders) also does well with a piece on France’s motives (here). This is also part of the context in which to read this past Sunday’s New York Times profile of French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (which I blogged about here).
