Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06NDJAMENA968
2006-07-19 14:23:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Ndjamena
Cable title:  

CHAD/DARFUR: NMRD CLAIMS CHADIAN PRESSURE TO JOIN

Tags:  PGOV PREL KDEM KCRS PHUM CD SU 
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RR RUEHTRO
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ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 191423Z JUL 06
FM AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4113
INFO RUEHUJA/AMEMBASSY ABUJA 1211
RUEHDS/AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA 0829
RUEHBP/AMEMBASSY BAMAKO 0693
RUEHDK/AMEMBASSY DAKAR 1135
RUEHKH/AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM 0276
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 1478
RUEHNM/AMEMBASSY NIAMEY 2746
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 1883
RUEHYD/AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE 1275
RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI 0607
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0775
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0838
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS
RUEHTRO/AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI 0270
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NDJAMENA 000968 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT. FOR AF, AFC, DRL, PRM, S/CRS
LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHER
NAIROBI FOR OFDA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/19/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM KCRS PHUM CD SU
SUBJECT: CHAD/DARFUR: NMRD CLAIMS CHADIAN PRESSURE TO JOIN
JEM AGAINST SLA/MM


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 03 NDJAMENA 000968

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT. FOR AF, AFC, DRL, PRM, S/CRS
LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHER
NAIROBI FOR OFDA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/19/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM KCRS PHUM CD SU
SUBJECT: CHAD/DARFUR: NMRD CLAIMS CHADIAN PRESSURE TO JOIN
JEM AGAINST SLA/MM


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

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


1. (C) The Darfur rebel group National Movement for Reform
and Development (NMRD) has indicated a desire to revisit its
objections to the DPA, and implied a readiness to support DPA
implementation. The group's General Secretary has stated
that the group must be recognized as a valid interlocutor and
participant in all future discussions of DPA implementation,
and sanctions lifted against its current Revolutionary
Council Chairman, Gibril Abdel-Karim Bari. The NMRD is under
heavy pressure from some Chadian sauthorities to join the
Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in active opposition to
DPA implementation and DPA signatory Minni Minawi's Sudan
Liberation Army faction (SLA/MM). END SUMMARY.

--------------
WE WANT TO BE COOPERATIVE
--------------


2. (C) National Movement for Reform and Development (NRMD)
General Secretary Khalil Abdullah met July 18 with
Ambassador, at the former's request. Abdullah recalled that
NMRD leaders had had extensive conversations with Embassy's
POL/ECON officer after the May 5 signing of the Darfur Peace
Agreement (DPA). He said they had made clear that their
principal objections to the DPA were (a) that they had not
been participants in its negotiation, and (b) that there were
inadequate individual compensation provisions in the
agreement.


3. (C) Abdullah pointed out that he must be able to sell the
agreement in the refugee camps where NMRD followers are
living. He said this is a very difficult task when he has no
individual compensation to offer people who have been denied
access to their homeland for several years, and have
essentially lost everything.


4. (C) More generally, Abdullah stressed that the issue of
individual compensation had become Dr. Khalil Ibrahim's

Justice and Equality Movement's (JEM -- from which the NMRD
had split in march 2004) only talking point in opposing the
DPA in the camps. According to Abdullah, JEM leaders tell
refugees and IDPs that Minni Minawi's Sudan Liberation Army
faction (SLA/MM) has taken all the money that should have
gone to the people, and that the JEM is under fire from the
USG and UN because of its Islamic roots. Abdullah suggested
that Abdel Wahid Mohamed el-Nur's SLA faction (SLA/AW) is
using the same approach, in coordination with the JEM.


5. (C) Abdullah's message was that the NMRD leadership, which
he said was essentially composed of himself and former
Chadian army officer Gibril Abdel-Karim Bari, would prefer to
be seen as cooperative toward the DPA; as ready to discuss
their difficulties with the agreement, without necessarily
re-opening it; and as prepared to sign on to agreement
implementation. What the NMRD needed to allow for this was
recognition from the UN, AU, and USG as a viable movement in
all further Darfur discussions, and the lifting of sanctions
against Gibril Abdel-Karim.

--------------
CAUGHT IN THE CROSS-FIRE
--------------


6. (C) Abdullah set out some of the NMRD's current realities
as an explanation for the difficult position in which the
movement finds itself. He pointed out that NMRD forces were
camped in the area of the Chadian border town of Adde on July

NDJAMENA 00000968 002 OF 003


3, 2006 when the area came under Chadian rebel attack. He
said Chadian rebels also fired on NMRD forces en route to the
attack against the Chadian army. He suggested that, despite
NMRD attempts to maintain relations of non-interference with
Chadian rebel groups, these are receiving Sudanese financial
and material support, and so are under Khartoum's pressure to
strike at both Darfur rebels and Chad's government forces.


7. (C) Abdullah stressed that one of the reasons the NMRD was
located inside Chad was to avoid being accused of actively
acting as DPA spoilers inside Darfur. This went hand in hand
with NMRD's continued rejection of JEM and SLA/AW requests to
join forces against the SLA/MM and DPA implementation.

--------------
CHADIAN THREATS
--------------


8. (C) Abdullah described what the NMRD saw as the current
state of play in Chad's relations to the Darfur conflict. He
said that the Chadian President's half-brother, Daoussa Deby,
is a driving force behind JEM's harassment of and attacks
against the SLA/MM. He supported the consistently-heard --
but also consistently denied -- rumors that Daoussa,
operating on behalf of the Deby regime, is funneling
resources to JEM so that JEM will behave as a proxy or
mercenary force against Chadian rebels in the Sudan/Chad
border area. That JEM also has a more "national" (read:
anti-Khartoum) agenda is a bonus for Chad's President.


9. (C) Daoussa Deby had also been the conduit for Chadian
government support to NMRD, but according to Abdullah, that
support has dwindled to nearly nothing. This is because
Daoussa has made it contingent upon NMRD cooperation with JEM
against Khartoum, which implied NMRD military action against
the SLA/MM, as the later had signed on to the DPA, and thus
was in league with Khartoum. Daoussa sees NMRD as militarily
capable and wants those capabilities to reinforce JEM.
Abdullah also believed that Daoussa's support for JEM actions
against the SLA/MM was linked to Daoussa Deby's personal
animosities in regard to Minni Minawi. While NMRD still has
contact with the Chadian authorities through the recently
promoted Brigadier General Mahamat Ismail Chaibo (who is a
direct family relation to NMRD leaders),Daoussa has become
the only channel for money, and he is now openly hostile to
the NMRD. "He tells us, to join JEM, or be destroyed."

--------------
TIME IS RUNNING OUT
--------------


10. (C) Abdullah stated point-blank that time is running out
for DPA implementation. He said that there are declining
numbers of Darfur rebel or political leaders willing to
support the DPA among the people. The SLA/MM's increasing
isolation as the only group fully backing the DPA puts it
into a class by itself -- the Khartoum collaborators. JEM
and the SLA/AW are spoiling in Darfur, with Chadian
government support, including attacks on SLA/MM. The NMRD is
vulnerable now on all fronts -- from Chadian rebels in the
pay of Khartoum; from JEM, for continued refusal to join
forces; from Daoussa Deby and Chadian government forces, for
continued refusal to join JEM. The NMRD has no interest in
JEM's "national" agenda, having only a Darfur focus.
Abdullah repeated that the NMRD's objections to the DPA could
be worked out, but only if NMRD could get a seat at the
table, and sanctions could be lifted. He implied that NMRD
had the credibility needed in Darfur to be a positive player
in shifting the balance in favor of DPA implementation.

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

NDJAMENA 00000968 003 OF 003




11. (C) NMRD's otives for seeking us out at this time may be
may, and not especially tied to a sudden desire to suport
the DPA. Not least among them may be persoal difficulties
NMRD leadership has with Daoussa Deby. The fact that the
movement appears to have no allies inside Darfur cannot be a
comfortable position, and now it seems its Chadian
benefactors have issued an ultimatum: prove useful to us in
our conflict with Khartoum, or get out. We believe key
members of the Deby regime remain determined to buy allies
against the regime's enemies, but we are not clear that they
have made the connection between the friends they pay and
those friends' attitudes toward the DPA -- and ultimately,
the probability that they will be seen as engaged in
sanctionable opposition to the DPA. Regardless of where one
comes out in analyzing their motivations, we still do not
have verifiable information as to their actions. We hope
that those international allies of the DPA operating inside
both Sudan and Chad, especially the AMIS forces, will be
energized to clear some of the doubt surrounding the many
accusations leveled against DPA spoilers and their probable
financial benefactors. END COMMENT.


13. (U) Tripoli Minimize Considered.
WALL