Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06NDJAMENA847
2006-06-16 11:31:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Ndjamena
Cable title:  

CHAD: POLITICAL OPPOSTION TO TAKE FRANCE TO TASK

Tags:  PGOV PREL KDEM KCRS CD 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO1366
RR RUEHTRO
DE RUEHNJ #0847/01 1671131
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 161131Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3940
INFO RUEHUJA/AMEMBASSY ABUJA 1174
RUEHAR/AMEMBASSY ACCRA 0383
RUEHDS/AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA 0790
RUEHBP/AMEMBASSY BAMAKO 0658
RUEHDK/AMEMBASSY DAKAR 1093
RUEHKH/AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM 0241
RUEHLC/AMEMBASSY LIBREVILLE 0865
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 1441
RUEHNM/AMEMBASSY NIAMEY 2711
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 1835
RUEHYD/AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE 1231
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0734
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0797
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS
RUEHTRO/AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI 0243
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 NDJAMENA 000847 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT. FOR AF, AF/C, DRL, PRM, S/CRS
LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/16/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM KCRS CD
SUBJECT: CHAD: POLITICAL OPPOSTION TO TAKE FRANCE TO TASK

REF: NDJAMENA 826

Classified By: POL/ECON OFFICER MICHAEL P. ZORICK, REASONS 1.4 (B) AND
(D).

--------
SUMMARY:
---------

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 NDJAMENA 000847

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT. FOR AF, AF/C, DRL, PRM, S/CRS
LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/16/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM KCRS CD
SUBJECT: CHAD: POLITICAL OPPOSTION TO TAKE FRANCE TO TASK

REF: NDJAMENA 826

Classified By: POL/ECON OFFICER MICHAEL P. ZORICK, REASONS 1.4 (B) AND
(D).

--------------
SUMMARY:
--------------


1. (C) Chad's political opposition intends to tell the
visiting French Minister-Delegate for Cooperation that she
should see President Deby's initiative for political dialogue
as they see it: a red herring designed to tell the
international community what it wants to hear. That said,
the opposition is engaged in its own efforts at conforming to
the desires of outsiders. Their proposals for dialogue were
designed to confirm to what they think the AU, EU and USG
will support, and not necessarily as a viable approach to
resolving Chad's domestic political crisis. END SUMMARY

--------------
THE DOCTOR MUST TALK
TO THE PATIENT
--------------


2. (C) Pol/Econ Officer met June 14 with Salibou Garba, head
of the National Alliance for Democracy and Development Party
(AND) and member of the opposition umbrella group
Coordination of the Political Parties for the Defense of the
Constitution (CPDC). Garba gave us a confidential preview of
the CPDC's letter to France's Minister Delegate for
Cooperation and Francophony, Brigitte Girardin, who is
visiting Chad June 15-16.


3. (C) The CPDC letter repeated much of the crisis analysis
that had filled a good part of the group's recent draft
proposals for dialogue that Garba had passed to us June 8
(reftel). It contained none of the proposals -- Garba said
those were for USG eyes, as the CPDC's direct response to AF
DAS Yamamoto. The letter differs significantly in tone as
well, calling on France, as an "international partner who
seems to want to come to Chad's sick-bed", to understand that
"therapies concocted without first knowing the patient often
lead to fatal and tragic consequences, from which comes the
necessity of listening to the patient, and learning where he
is sick."


4. (C) The CPDC letter stresses that political dialogue must

be non-exclusive -- CPDC code-word for including in some
fashion Chad's armed opposition. It calls for any such
dialogue to be "god-fathered" by the international community,
and to be prepared under the aegis of the African Union,
given that the AU's Peace and Security Council had declared
itself seized with the Chadian crisis at its 49th session.


5. (C) The CPDC written submission to Minister-Delegate
Girardin closes with a reference to conducting politics as
usual with a president the group considers illegitimate. The
letter asks the rhetorical question, "Can we accept the idea
that in politics, the lie can be institutionalized? For our
part, realism must not mean validating the false and
cleansing the filthy." It warns the Minister not to be
fooled by the call for political dialogue emanating from the
Presidency only one week before Girardin's arrival in Chad,
calling it a red herring of the same sort as the memorandum
on electoral transparency which the President signed just
before the February 2004 visit of France's then-Foreign
Minister de Villepin.

--------------
DIALOGUE A LA CPDC
--------------


6. (C) Pol/Econ Off followed up with Garba on the draft

NDJAMENA 00000847 002 OF 002


proposals contained in the CPDC's "Note for the Attention of
Mr. Donald Yamamoto -- Political Crisis in Chad -- Framework
for a Resolution". To the question of just how realistic the
CPDC's suggestions were, Garba stated that this was the
CPDC's attempt to design an approach and structure that
responded to what the group perceived to be ideas that the
AU, EU, and USG could support. Garba noted that various
international community members had proposed a strong Prime
Minister from the opposition; to get there, the CPDC thought
it would require changes to the constitution, and fencing in
the President, as suggested in the draft proposals. He
reminded us that the international community's suggestions
were similar to the structures developed in the 1993 National
Conference in Chad -- and which President Deby had dismantled
within only a year.


7. (C) We questioned whether Garba or his CPDC colleagues
thought that it was sufficient to have international backing
to operationalize an approach to pursue results that bore
striking similarities to those that had been sought, and not
achieved in the past. Garba noted that there was no chance
of success in any dialogue without full support from strong
foreign partners to back the President into a corner. He did
not, however, believe that this would guarantee success, and
in fact implied that Deby might be past influencing, and
would only cede or leave power if forced.

--------------
COMMENT
--------------


8. (C) It would appear that both the political opposition and
the Presidency are playing "Please the Foreigners" with their
proposals of political dialogue. As long as Deby fills the
newspapers with regular announcements of dialogue-planning
activities, and the parties in the MPS alliance declare
themselves willing to engage, there will appear to be a
process in train to which the international community will
have to react. The CPDC will point out that Deby's process
has no sanity check in it -- the international community will
be kept at arms distance. They will call for outsiders to
organize, finance, facilitate, and ultimately impose change
on the President -- a level of engagement in Chadian affairs
that is unlikely to be quickly forthcoming. The two groups
are set to continue talking past each other. Meanwhile, the
men with guns sit to the East and South. END COMMENT.


9. (U) Tripoli Minimize Considered.
WALL