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| | Chad - Government and Politics |
 | | Libya took advantage of Chad's instability in the early 1970s to press its claim to the Aozou Strip in northern Chad, based on centuries of close ties among border populations and an unratified 1935 Franco-Italian agreement, which had been ignored by intervening governments. |
 | | French ties with Chad, based on historical, commercial, political, and strategic interests, rivaled those of Libya, and the Aozou Strip provided an arena in which this rivalry could be pursued. |
 | | Chad's political shifts in the early 1980s resulted from international fears of Libyan intervention through influence in Goukouni's regime, France's revised African policy following the Socialist Party's election victory in 1981, and military gains by Habré. |
| www.countrystudies.us /chad/43.htm (890 words) |
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