The Toyota Wars: How Toyotas Went Viral In Africa
Imagine you’re on the battlefield, and you see a tank coming straight at you and your pathetic teammates, and all you guys have are some machine guns and some Toyota cars you brought onto the battlefield. Now imagine you somehow managed to win against the tank with your Toyotas (great! Now you’ve decided to become a devoted Toyota follower). This absurd scenario was exactly what happened during the Toyota War, when the Chadian Army defeated the heavy-armored Libyan Army. To understand this conflict, we have to start with the Aouzou Strip, an area which both Libya and Chad declared sovereignty over.
Libya and Chad had been arguing over the claims on this territory for decades and it intensified during the 1970s when there was discovery of rich uranium deposits. As a result, Libya, eager to acquire the deposits and spread its influence, occupied this region in 1973 and annexed it in 1975.
Now as expected, the Chadians were definitely furious at another nation occupying and annexing their territory without any legitimate cause.
Chad, however, had France backing them up, and the French launched military operations until 1986. These military operations were successful in defending Chad and allowing Chad to better prepare for further Libyan aggression.
Well, if you have ever studied the Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, you would expect him to come back and invade Chad once again.
Indeed, he did.
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In 1987, Gaddafi invaded Chad again, and this was later known as the Toyota War. To recapture the lost territory, the Chadian organized multiple well-coordinated counter attacks on the Libyan forces; most notably at the Battle of Fada, when the Chadian Army, with their Toyotas’ mobility, quickly maneuvered the Libyan forces. Libya lost about 800 soldiers, 92 tanks, and 33 infantry fighting vehicles, while Chad lost only 18 soldiers and 3 Toyota pickups.​
A month after Fada, a ceasefire was put into place, and in 1994, the International Court of Justice dismissed Libyan claims on the Aouzou strip. Chad finally secured this disputed region after defeating the Libyan tanks with Toyota cars. This African conflict brought the adaptability and mobility of Toyota pickups to other African countries, and most of them started to utilize these pickups in conflicts; therefore, we mostly see pickups in documentaries or movies entailing warfares in Africa. Meanwhile, this war reflected Gaddafi’s incompetent military leadership, which indirectly contributed to his downfall. Without these cheap Toyota vehicles, Chad would never be able to reclaim this lost land and would never be able to defend against Libyan threats. The Toyota War definitely brought a lot of changes to the African continent specifically. It brought a new military concept to the African nations with the military usage of the Toyota pickups and it brought Chad a secured land that had been disputed for decades.
