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Africa's Thirty Years' War: Chad. Libya. and the Sudan, 1963-1993. By J. Millard Burr and Robert 0. Collins. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8133-3566-3. Maps. Glossary. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvii, 317. $65.00.
In this work, Burr and Collins focus largely on Chad and the impact of its relations with both Libya and Sudan, but the repercussions of the events described are felt through the whole of Northeast Africa. The civil war that broke out in Chad in 1963, three years after independence, led eventually to external involvement as Libya's Muammar Qaddafi saw an "opportunity" to flex his military muscle and disseminate his Islamic socialist ideology, bankrolled by Libya's burgeoning petroleum industry. Qaddafi's claim to the Aozou Strip and his support for Muslim rebels within Chad had an impact upon neighboring Niger and Nigeria, and caused concern in France and the United States, hardly staunch allies when it came to African policy. Thereafter, relations between Libya and Egypt deteriorated as Qaddafi pressed for unification of their two countries, a proposal spurned by Egypt's Anwar alSadat, and likewise, as Qaddafi intrigued in the Sudan, endeavoring (successfully as it turned out) to overthrow Jafaar Muhammad...