CHAD: FRENCH AMBASSADOR LOOKS AT POST-ELECTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L NDJAMENA 000521

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR AF, AF/C, INR, DRL, DS/IP/AF, DS/IP/ITA;
LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICAWATCHERS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/23/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM CD FR
SUBJECT: CHAD: FRENCH AMBASSADOR LOOKS AT POST-ELECTION
STRATEGY

REF: A. A. NDJAMENA 351


B. B. NDJAMENA 431

Classified By: P/E HAYWOOD RANKIN REASON 1.4 (B, D).


1. (C) Summary: French Ambassador Bercot, in conversation
with Ambassador Wall April 7, confirmed that the March 30
battle went badly for the Chadian armed forces, but said that
Deby was using oil tax payments to buy helicopters and was
building up for an imminent riposte against the rebels led by
Mahamat Nour. Ambassador Wall emphasized the need for a
coordinated U.S.-French strategy to ensure a near-term
political transition, else the U.S. would consider making a
frank (i.e., critical) public statement about the May 3
election. Backing off his previous idea of encouraging Deby
now to undertake to leave office in one or two years, Bercot
instead recommended urging Deby after the election to name an
opposition figure as prime minister, who would name his own
cabinet. Bercot did not indicate how Deby could be persuaded
to follow this path, at a time when oil-tax receipts would be
skyrocketing, except to say he believed that Deby would
respond to respectful treatment, in particular an invitation
to the U.S. before the end of this year. Bercot held to his
dismissive view of the political opposition and his belief
that maintaining Deby in power was the only hope for Chad's
stability and eventual forward movement on democracy. End
Summary.


2. (U) French Ambassador Jean-Pierre Bercot called on
Ambassador Wall April 7. He was accompanied by French DCM
Francois Barateau, Ambassador Wall by DCM and poloff.

Fighting
--------------


3. (C) On the battle between the Chadian armed forces and
Mahamat Nour's RDL March 30, Bercot said that, unlike the
attack on Adre December 18 which he said had been "really
carried out by Sudan," the fighting on March 30 engaged
Mahamat Nour's forces. French satellite imagery had shown
140 Toyotas moving toward Modohyna (across the Wadi Kadja)
from Sudanese territory, a considerable jump from the 15-20
vehicles that had been previously observed being employed by
the RDL, and the French estimated on the RDL side there were
at least 1000 men (400 Tama, 300 Arab, and the rest a mixture
of SCUD remnants from the Hadjar Marfaine battle of March 22
and other Zaghawa elements under Abakar Tollimi). Meanwhile,
the Chadian force that moved on Modohyna had had fewer than
400 men. Deby's nephew, Chief of Staff Abakar Youssouf Itno,
was supposed to have teamed up with a force of gendarmerie
but had set out without orders from Adre directly across
Sudanese territory toward Modohyna and was massacred. Chad
suffered 65 wounded and an equivalent number dead, including
General Abakar. Some of the RDL had remained in Modohyna,
while 100 RDL vehicles had departed to the border area in the
"bulge" of Sudanese territory south of Daguessa/Mongororo (75
miles south of Modohyna). Radio silence had prevailed all
along this border area, suggesting imminent hostilities.


4. (C) Bercot said that the Chadian armed forces were
sending reinforcements to Goz Beida (the capital of Dar Sila
and regional military headquarters). They had just got their
C-130 back from Portugal (where it had been repaired and held
for two years for nonpayment),and the Russian helicopter
that had been shot down at Adre was now repaired. Two attack
helicopters were to arrive within a few days, either bought
directly from Ukraine or through Israeli middlemen. Deby
paid the advance on these helicopters out of the oil-tax
windfall he had just received from Esso. Deby had told
Bercot that, in the face of France's reluctance to provide
him with helicopters and transport, he had had no choice but
to look elsewhere for arms supplies. With this added
firepower, Bercot did not see the threat posed by Mahamat
Nour as being grave, though the move of some of his forces
southward suggested an attempt eventually to team up with
Southern rebels under Gibril Dassert. Bercot's greater
worry was Khartoum's intentions in regard to the Zaghawa
rebels, bloodied at Hadjar Marfaine; if Sudan threw greater
support in their direction, the threat would be much greater.


Transition
--------------


5. (C) Ambassador Wall asked how long a reelected Deby would
survive. Bercot said he did not expect Deby to finish his
next mandate. France had tried to direct him toward thinking
of leaving office but the coup attempt in 2004 had set back
its efforts. Deby had indicated his desire to groom his son
Brahim, but France had balked at the idea. Ambassador Wall
asked whether Bercot still contemplated an approach to Deby
about leaving office at some point after the election.
Bercot said he had not cleared his latest thinking with
Paris, but he now believed the best way to proceed was,
first, to persuade Deby to name a prime minister from the
opposition and allow him to form a new government that would
last at least one year. This prime minister would chose his
own ministers. The president would preside, the government
would govern. The opposition would show its capacity for
governing, at a time of previously undreamed-of revenues,
possibly without World Bank controls (if present negotiations
failed). Second, Deby would agree to real electoral reform,
looking toward the legislative elections. UNDP would
completely redo the voter registration, paid for by Chad's
new-found wealth.


6. (C) With these two changes, Bercot continued, democracy
would be under way and Deby would probably agree to leave
office on his own, so long as the international community
paid him the necessary homage, including an official visit to
Washington before the end of 2006. Bercot said that he had
been working on Deby to get him to understand how much he
needed the United States. He had told Deby that France was
losing influence everywhere in Africa, that the United States
was an inescapable factor ("incontournable") which was
increasingly turning its attention to the area and being
sucked into Darfur. Deby had embraced Taiwan, thereby losing
it relations with a key member of the Security Council, and
Russia and Great Britain were not much interested in Chad.


7. (C) Ambassador Wall said that he had had a good meeting
with Deby the previous week, during which Deby had mentioned
his desire for a trip to Washington. The one point that the
Ambassador had raised with Deby on which Deby had not given
any response was the Ambassador's request for his thoughts on
a plan for transition. As for a visit to Washington, the
invitation would be even harder to contemplate after the May
3 election. Bercot bridled at the suggestion that May 3
would be seen as a sham; he doubted that more than 20 percent
of the voter registration was fraudulent. The Ambassador
said the election would be easier for Washington to accept if
Deby agreed on a credible transition plan. Bercot complained
about the word "transition," which he said was a red flag to
Deby. As for May 3, if Washington thought the election was a
total fraud, it would lose any capability of having positive
influence on Deby. The Ambassador said that in the absence
of a strategy for transition, or call it alternation of
power, he would not be able to recommend mere silence in the
face of this fraudulent election, as the credibility of the
United States would be put in question. Bercot said that
France too stood for democratic principle and sought to
protect its credibility. In fact, he insisted, there was no
basis on which to prove that the May 3 election was totally
fraudulent by African standards. He defied the opposition to
prove that the voter registration had been systematically
manipulated. The election would be a mess, of course, but
what else could be expected in a country of such size and
poverty and illiteracy? The answer would be now for UNDP to
conduct a precise voter census paid for by Chad. The
Ambassador noted that he had received a letter from the Prime
Minister requesting financial assistance to pay for the
election, but he had sent a letter of refusal, as Chad had
done nothing in the year since UNDP had submitted its
recommendations on electoral reform. Bercot concluded that
he and the Ambassador had different views on this subject.


8. (C) Bercot launched into his accustomed diatribe against
the opposition parties. They bore much greater
responsibility for the present political blockage than did

Deby. They had made two grave errors, banking on the
international community and on the armed rebellion. They had
tried to sucker the international community by presenting
proposals full of grand words that could only apply to a
developed democracy but had no reality in the African
context. They had hoped for chaos in the wake of desertions
and rebellion. They could not agree among themselves on a
single candidate, had no program, and only sought raw power.
Worse, opposition leaders Yorongar and Choua had written to
Paris condemning the French ambassador and predicting that
French policy would provoke a massacre of French citizens in
Chad. Meanwhile, Bercot had warned these gentlemen that if
there were blood on the streets May 3, their relationship
with France would be at an end. France would not be sending
observers to the election (the opposition would immediately
claim that France assisted Deby in fixing the election),and
it appeared the European Union was reluctant, but the
Francophonie and African Union would send observers.


9. (C) To the Ambassador's question when and how he proposed
to motivate Deby to agree to the idea of an opposition prime
minister and electoral reform after he was elected, Bercot
responded that "all among us" (French, American, EU
ambassadors) would need to approach Deby within the month
after the election to tell him he had a stark choice, to take
the proffered option of democracy or to go it alone.
Meanwhile, Wolfowitz would hopefully negotiate reasonably.
Deby was a "desert fox," intelligent by instinct rather than
education, with whom it was necessary to be concrete and
practical. It was necessary not to dwell negatively on the
past or to shock Deby with an account of his failings but to
emphasize one's concern for Chad's future and stability. For
France, Deby was hardly the preferred leader, and with his
necessary departure France would want to normalize relations
with Chad, on the basis of thorough reforms. The trouble
was, the country was so corrupt and rotten, removing the tip
of the pyramid would do nothing to change the mess the
country was in. Rather, it was necessary to reconstruct the
base, and his proposal for cleaning up the legislative
election and bringing the opposition into government would
start that process. If someone else suddenly replaced
Deby, the process of change would be set back by years.


10. (C) The Ambassador expressed interest in exploring
Bercot's ideas for approaching Deby in the months after the
May 3 election. He said that he would like to consult
further on any public statements about the election and on
Deby's possible future official visits in the context of a
strategy to encourage positive change in Chad. He also
cautioned against pursuing a strategy that risked saving Deby
but losing Chad.


11. (C) Comment: French thinking about approaching Deby
about his third-term agenda appears to be in flux. Stepping
back from his earlier suggestion about encouraging Deby to
step down within a year, Bercot flagged an idea for a more
modest agenda. While Deby might find it more acceptable, we
have doubts that his embittered opponents would ever sign on.
Still, we would like to be able to probe the French on their
thinking in the event such a plan might have traction. End
Comment.
WALL