France Scolds Chad Over Move Into Disputed Strip

PARIS — President Francois Mitterrand of France chided Chad on Monday for seizing military control of the disputed Aozou Strip in the north and refused the Chadians any French protection against retaliation there by Libya.

The cold and careful Mitterrand statement, made to two French journalists, reflected the concern in Paris that President Hissen Habre of Chad may have upset an unusual period of tranquility in the central African country by sending troops into the strip.

After the Chadian troops captured the main village of Aozou on Saturday, Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi retaliated by sending jets to bomb the village Sunday and Monday. The raids, from high altitude, caused little damage. But there were fears that Kadafi, humiliated by losing a piece of territory that Libya has claimed for many years and occupied since 1973, might feel forced to mobilize troops to recapture it.

Jana, the official Tripoli news agency, reported that Kadafi, in telephone calls to President Chadli Benjedid of Algeria and President Thomas Sankara of Burkino Faso, pledged his determination to drive the Chadian troops out of the strip.

Mitterrand told the two French journalists that while France supports Chad “in its battle for the reconquest of its independence and unity,” France has “always called for international arbitration” of the claims for the disputed strip.

Mitterrand made it clear that the Chadian president had defied his major supplier of arms by sending troops into the strip. He said that Habre, while visiting Paris on July 14 in search of support for a military effort to take Aozou, “had been again reminded of this (French) position” on arbitration.

Chadian Ambassador Ahmad Allam-mi had called on French television Sunday night for French protection against Libyan bombing of Chadian troops in the strip, but Mitterrand insisted that French forces are not and will not be involved in any action there.

“The action that President Habre has undertaken in this zone,” Mitterrand said, “involves only himself and the forces of his country, a sovereign and, I repeat, independent country.”

3,000 Stationed in Chad

Mitterrand said that French forces in Chad will not go beyond their original assignment of protecting southern Chad against Libyan attack. The French contingent consists of 3,000 men and squadrons of Jaguar bombers and Mirage strike aircraft.

Habre defied France, in the view of analysts here, because he could not resist the temptation to grab the last prize in a dramatic and surprising rout of Libyan troops this year. These troops had served in northern Chad as a bulwark for the Chadian rebel force of Goukouni Oueddei, a former president of Chad. But, after Oueddei and Kadafi quarreled and split in a mysterious dispute late last year, Habre attacked the north.

Libyans Routed

In a series of swift attacks, Habre’s troops, with some French logistical support, routed the Libyan units, forcing their retreat from every major oasis in the north, leaving many tanks and great stores of weapons behind. By the end of March, Habre controlled everything in Chad but the disputed strip. After trying in vain to enlist foreign aid for his venture, Habre sent his troops into the strip this month for another victory.

Libya claims the strip, 42,000 square miles of desert, on the basis of an agreement signed in 1935 by the leaders of two colonial powers, Benito Mussolini of Italy and Pierre Laval of France. Libya was then a colony of Italy and Chad a colony of France.

The accord was never ratified, but Kadafi cited it in justifying his seizure of the strip in 1973.