[1978: Massive French intervention against Goukouni's Frolinat forces…]

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1978: Massive French intervention against Goukouni's Frolinat forces.

August 1978: Habre forms a coalition with Malloum - but it, quickly breaks down into sectarian slaughter. Goukouni gains ground.

March 1979: Talks to form a new coalition government for Chad open in Nigeria.

November 1979: Government installed with Goukouni as President, Kamougue (chief warlord of the south) as vice-president, and Habre as minister of defence.

April 1980: French troops withdraw. Fighting breaks out in capital between Goukouni and Habre forces.

December 1980: Goukouni, with massive Libyan aid, defeats Habre. Habre regroups in the north east with aid from Egypt and Sudan.

January 1981: Goukouni announces 'merger' of Chad with Libya; then retreats after strong objections from Kamougue, from African states, and from France.

May 1981: Mitterrand government comes to power in France, seeks deals with Libya. Libyan troops withdraw from Chad. Goukouni calls in Nigerian, Zairean and Senegalese troops (heavily aided by the US and France) but they stay neutral between him and Habre. Spring 1982: Goukouni gets military aid from France. May 1982: Goukoúni appeals unsuccessfully to Libya for aid against Habre. Kamougue distances himself from Goukouni.

June 1982: Habre takes the capital, Ndjamena, and is promptly recognised as ruler by US, France, Nigeria, etc. Despite pleas from Habre, Nigerian, Zairean and Senegalese troops withdraw..

September 1982: Habre, in alliance with anti-Kamougue southerners, forces Kamougue into exile; refuses all demands for autonomy for the south. Kamougue • subsequently links up with Goukouni and Libya. March 1983: Talks between Habre and Libya break down. June 1983: Goukouni starts a new offensive; with massive Libyan aid: according to the Paris daily Le Monde, some 3,000 troops and.50 aircraft...* -itself.

, This year the first sign of a backlash came on the eve of 12 July celebrations when an Orange mob stormed through a Catholic estate in the town of Ballynahinch in Co. Down.

'Catholics did not miss the fact that after five hours of riots involving 500 loyalists, only three people had been arrested. Nationalists are dealt with quickly and brutally. There was some reaction to these events and individual Protestants were evicted from houses , surrounding the town.

In Tyrone Catholic houses were burnt out in a mainly Protestant estate after an Orange march, and most Catholics in the area moved out.

Youths from the Bogside in Derry reacted angrily the following night and attacked a Protestant block of flats. This action was condemned as 'antirepublican' and 'stupid' by Sinn Fein Assembly member Martin McGuinness.

There are many forma of struggle, of violence and' of sectarianism which have become common in the North of Ireland over the last decade, but mob attacks like these are not one of them. Nothing like this has happened since the late 1960s or early '70s up to the outbreak of large scale sectarian assassinations -- mainly of Catholics by Protestants. - in 19723.,