[2][3] He entered in to politics in 1958, becoming a prominent figure in the new radical Chadian National Union (UNT), mainly a split from the African Socialist Movement (MSA) by promoters of the No-vote in the referendum on Chad's entry in the French Community.

[5] Abartcha proclaimed the Islamic Republic of Chad in exile and wrote and published a Maoist-oriented[6] political statement entitled Toward a United National Liberation Front, which will serve as a kind of draft of the official program of the future FROLINAT.

[6] Abatcha led the typical life of the Third World dissident in search of support in foreign capitals, first residing in Accra, Ghana, where he received his first military training and made friends among members of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon that had found asylum there.

The students in Cairo had developed a strong political sensitivity because they had come to resent that the degrees obtained by them in Arab countries were of no use in Chad, as French was the only official language.

[8] Among these students Abatcha recruited his first supporters, and with the help of the UPC Cameroonian exiles contacted the North Korean embassy in Egypt, which offered him a military stage.

[13] The unity was stronger on the field, with Abatcha and his so-called Koreans passing to Eastern Chad in mid-1966 to fight the government, and El Hadj Issaka assuming the role of his chief of staff.

[2][14][15] The following year Abatcha expanded his range and number of operations, officially claiming in his dispatches 32 actions, involving prefectures previously untouched by the rebellion, that is Moyen-Chari and Kanem.

Abatcha had been the one generally acceptable leader of the insurrection; after him the FROLINAT was more and more divided by inner rivalries, making it more difficult to provide the insurgents with a coherent organization.