The National and Nomadic Guard of Chad () is one of five defence and security forces in Chad. (The others are the Army, the Gendarmerie, the Police and the Judicial Police.) Article 200 of the Constitution of 1996 states that the duties of the GNNT are the protection of politicians, government officials, and government buildings; the maintenance of order in rural areas; and the guarding of prisons and prisoners. These responsibilities remain unchanged in the new Constitution of 2018 but are now in Article 195. While the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

states, in Article 201, that the GNNT must "respect the liberties and rights of man" when exercising its functions, the GNNT has been accused of perpetrating serious

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

violations, as reported by Amnesty International. Following the murder of a GNNT

corporal Corporal is a military rank in use in some form by many militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. The word is derived from the medieval Italian phrase ("head of a body"). The rank is usually the lowest ranking non- ...

, the Guard extrajudicially executed the suspect on November 17, 1996. The GNNT is under the control of the Ministry for Territorial Administration, unlike the Army and the Gendarmerie, which come under the responsibility of the Ministry of Defence. From May 24, 2006, to June 12, 2019, the GNNT was commanded by

Brigadier General Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...

Mahamat Saleh Brahim, the cousin of President

Idriss Déby Idriss Déby Itno ' (18 June 1952 – 20 April 2021) was a Chadian politician and military officer who was the president of Chad from 1990 until his death in 2021. Déby was a member of the Bidayat clan of the Zaghawa ethnic group. A high-ranki ...

. His replacement was General Tahir Ahmat Hissein. The GNNT was first known in the 1960s as the Territorial Guard, but was quickly renamed the Nomad and National Guard, carrying out much the same duties it does today: providing security for officials, government buildings, and regional government posts. Differently from today, the GNN was then dominated by Southerners, with only 250

Toubou The Toubou or Tubu (from Old Tebu, meaning "rock people") are an ethnic group native to the Tibesti Mountains that inhabit the central Sahara in northern Chad, southern Libya and northeastern Niger. They live either as herders and nomads or as ...

. This also explains the resentment that brought in 1968 to the destruction of the GNN garrison of Aozou and the mutiny of the Toubou units, forming (the Second Army) of the

FROLINAT FROLINAT (french: Front de libération nationale du Tchad; en, National Liberation Front of Chad) was an insurgent rebel group active in Chad between 1966 and 1993. Origins The organization was a result of the political union between the left ...

. Notwithstanding this setback, President

François Tombalbaye François Tombalbaye ( ar, فرنسوا تومبالباي '; 15 June 1918 – 13 April 1975), also known as N'Garta Tombalbaye, was a Chadian politician who served as the first President of Chad from the country's independence in 1960 until ...

showed much more trust in the GNN than in the Army; by 1971, its numbers had risen to at least 3,500, commanded by

Camille Gourvenec Camille Gourvenec (died 1978) was an officer of the French external intelligence service SDECE, possibly with the rank of colonel, who, from 1966, was seconded as security adviser to President François Tombalbaye of Chad, and was therefore eff ...

, a French officer and Director of Information Services (

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

). Gourvenec's deputy was

Pierre Galopin Pierre Galopin was a French military officer who came to international attention when he was captured by a group of Chadian rebels, led by Hissène Habré, on 4 August 1974 in the Tibesti mountains, in the middle of the Sahara desert. He was tried ...

. When the Chadian Civil War extended itself to the Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti in 1968, the GNN found itself increasingly on the frontline against the insurgents. The final battle between the insurgency and the

Chadian Armed Forces The Chadian Armed Forces (''Forces Armées Tchadiennes'' or FAT) were the army of the central government of Chad from 1960 to 1979, under the southern presidents François Tombalbaye and Félix Malloum, until the downfall of the latter in 1979, wh ...

came in 1977–78, when

Goukouni Oueddei Goukouni Oueddei ( ar, كوكوني عويدي '; born 1944 in Zouar) is a Chadian politician who served as President of Chad from 1979 to 1982. A northerner, Goukouni commanded FROLINAT rebels with Libyan support during the first Chadian Civ ...

, leader of a FROLINAT faction, conquered all government strongholds in northern Chad, inflicting staggering losses to the armed forces. The GNN in particular lost heavily in early 1978 when Goukouni took Fada and the capital of the Bourkou-Ennedi-Tibesti,

Faya-Largeau Faya-Largeau (also known as Faya, ar, فايا لارجو or ) is the largest city in northern Chad and was the capital of the region of Bourkou-Ennedi-Tibesti. It is now in the Borkou Region, which was formed in 2008 from the Borkou Department ...

. This practically brought an end to the GNN, until it was revived shortly before 1996 by the former

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Notes

{{Border protection agencies Military of Chad Chadian–Libyan conflict