REFUGEE PROTECTION IN EASTERN CHAD - Part 2

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 NDJAMENA 000358 SIPDIS SIPDIS, SENSITIVE STATE FOR AF/C, PRM/AFR:MLANGE,S/CRS:PNELSON-DOUVELIS/JVANCE/ JBEIK E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREF PGOV KCRS SU CD SUBJECT: REFUGEE PROTECTION IN EASTERN CHAD - Part 2 REF: NDJAMENA 257 NDJAMENA 00000358 001.2 OF 005 ¶16. (SBU) Probably the most difficult challenge to child protection with respect to girls is the custom of early marriage in a polygamous setting where the economics of survival favor the custom. Camp conditions add another hurdle for girls seeking to avoid a forced early marriage in that they cannot flee to a neighboring village to escape family pressures and start a new life as they might have done in Sudan. Unconfirmed reports of an increase in attempted suicides or even infanticides bear watching and, if true, addressing via womenQs groups in the camps. ¶17. (SBU) The most difficult challenge with respect to boys as ever Q is to avoid their recruitment into fighting forces (which is always forced from a legal standpoint where children are involved). In addition to continually highlighting the issue in all of the camp sensitization meetings (e.g., with refugee leadership, in periodic training for gendarmes) and discussions with GOC authorities, UNHCR has tried to document and follow up on all reported cases of recruitment. Documenters have sometimes been threatened. UNHCR has provided funding to UNICEF to engage a consultant (formerly handling a PRM-funded CARE refugee programming in Chad) to come up with a more systematic way of documenting/preventing recruitment. While anecdotes abound about child soldiers in the ranks of Sudanese and Chadian rebels, and in the Chadian National Army (ANT) - particularly in recent months in/around the town of Guereda - there has been no systematic investigation into the practice and there are no programs for demobilizing child soldiers and reintegrating them into their refugee communities. The ICRC, however, has been able to provide Red Cross messages to parents of children who were taken into the ranks of the FUC a couple of years ago and whose whereabouts had been previously unknown to the very grateful parents. A recent strongly-worded letter from French DefMin Alliot-Marie about the presence of child soldiers in the ANT reportedly got the ChadiansQ attention, but little has actually changed. Recommendation: The USG should take an equally strong stand on the issue, insisting that dealing with child soldiers be a factor in any discussion of enhanced USG support for Deby and his armed forces. Human rights advocates are sure to make child soldiers a public issue in any event. ¶18. (U) Education (formal and informal) remains the primary point of entry for protection of refugee children. All refugee leadership groups with whom the PRM QS/CRS team met (men and women separately in each of the camps visited) as well as UNHCR and NGO staff pleaded for post-primary school educational opportunities such as secondary school or vocational training. Such programs would mainly target teenage children who, once having completed primary school, have virtually no activity with which to occupy themselves, making them prime candidates for recruitment. Refugees were aware of PRM-funded Refugee Education Trust activities but pointed out Q rightly Q that only a very few could benefit from the current level of programming. As high- lighted in earlier PRM monitoring reports, the dearth of adequately trained secondary-level teachers remains an obstacle to providing adequate secondary education. At the primary level, insufficient financing (including insufficient program budgeting) has limited the number of classrooms, provision of school materials and uniforms, and engagement of teachers. Established standards are not being met. ¶19. (U) Demonstrating the inter-connections among assistance sectors and between assistance and protection, girls participation in school is also threatened by the overall lack of family income that leads families to send young girls out to work, e.g., as housemaids for local Chadian villagers. There are no special programs to keep girl mothers in school since the custom is for teenaged girls to be married and thus keeping house rather than attending school. Refugee women leaders in Touloum Camp questioned the CCF emphasis on particularly vulnerable children such as the handicapped as opposed to all young children. The same leaders offered that they might be helpful in addressing the issue of forced early marriage by creating a committee that could be a sounding board for girls unwilling to be wed and their parents. They also liked the idea of a Qsafe houseQ at the camp for girls and women at risk of gender-based violence (GBV). Recommendation: Despite the challenges of insecurity, programming for youth, while not necessarily life-saving, should be prioritized. Protecting Refugee Women Q The High CommissionerQs Five Commitments ¶20. (U) Progress is lagging in meeting the five commitments refugee women in camp leadership positions through affirmative action, individual documentation for women (not just part of a NDJAMENA 00000358 002.2 OF 005 husbandQs ID),womenQs involvement in the distribution of food aid, provision of sanitary materials, and addressing Gender Based Violence (GBV) (including traditional harmful practices such as genital cutting/mutilation). Participation in camp leadership and food aid is good, though women do not speak up much in the presence of men. As noted above, the issuance of ID cards has been held up by the GOC. Sanitary materials have not been distributed in the last six months, owing in part to the theft of materials stocked in Abeche when the townspeople looted the UNHCR warehouse after the brief Chadian rebel occupation last November. Recommendation: Given that distribution of sanitary materials is a fairly straightforward task, UNHCR should without further delay import and distribute the necessary fabric to meet the established standard of at least three meters every six months for every woman/girl of reproductive age. ¶21. (U) Insecurity has weakened efforts to combat GBV considerably as humanitarian staff have undergone several evacuations. It has also weakened the coordination between involved organizations in such places as Iriba where the referral process (referral of women for medical care and for follow-up monitoring) is being handled differently by different NGOs. (UNHCR/Iriba is fully aware of the issue and is trying to get all NGOs to cooperate.) In Oure Cassoni, cultural resistance to discussing GBV and the lack of staff/an agency dedicated to GBV alone have meant that even getting refugees to acknowledge that there are GBV incidents is lagging. UNHCR has recently carried out AGDM (age, gender, diversity mainstreaming) surveys with refugees who identified security for women refugees as a critical concern in every camp. Programming will be needed to help meet those concerns. The recent establishment of a sort of traveling traditional court could prove helpful in drawing out survivors of GBV. ¶22. (SBU) HIV/AIDS work in the camps is essentially limited to preventive messages and some distribution/availability of condoms. There is no systematic voluntary testing/counseling, no aggressive prevention of mother to child transmission, and no drug treatments. Prevalence has not been determined as voluntary testing is not routine. IMC reported, however, that of a group of 37 refugees in Kounoungou who did seek testing, 22% tested positive in the initial round; only three were thought to have gone to Abeche for follow-up testing. ¶23. (U) Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is widely practiced among the refugees. Some medical personnel in some camps reported some infrequent acts to move away from the practice such as women requesting not to be fully sewn up again after delivery of a child or traditional cutters suggesting that the younger generation of girls might not need such extensive cutting as has been done traditionally. Beliefs in charms and traditional medicines are widespread and sometimes result in medical treatment being sought too late to be as effective as possible. Refugee Camp Security/Neutrality ¶24. (SBU) Maintaining the exclusively civilian character of the refugee camps is becoming increasingly challenging as the Darfur crisis drags on. Aggravating factors are increased refugee frustration and hence susceptibility to recruitment, the emergence of Chadian rebel groups, and increased Chadian government boldness in using/seeing the refugees used in the Chad-Sudan confrontation. Problems identified to date are recruiting (sometimes forced) and the presence of weapons and combatants in camps. The most egregious known recruitment incident was in March 2006 when Sudanese rebels (JEM and NRF) Q with Chadian acquiescence/support Q forcibly took several thousand refugees from Breidjing/Treguine Camps. Nothing on that scale has since been reported; however, S/CRS Wintermeyer heard a report that one person has been recruiting for the JEM and NRF in those camps, and the Chadian authorities have done nothing to stop him. Wintermeyer also heard in Djabal Camp that JEM had openly recruited there from September to November 2006. ¶25. (SBU) In Kounoungo Camp, Chadian FUC rebels allegedly distributed weapons to Tama refugees who were most likely Chadians who had fraudulently registered as refugees when the camp was originally opened. According to the UNHCR Guereda Protection Officer, following the GOC-FUC accord in December 2006 the FUC distributed weapons to many of the people in the Tama villages that surround the camp in a ploy to increase the number of FUC adherents qualified to be demobilized/reintegrated into the ANT as per the GOC-FUC accord. Gendarme weapons sweeps in some of the camps (e.g., Goz Amer) have turned up weapons on occasion and International Medical Corps reported seeing NDJAMENA 00000358 003.2 OF 005 QtechnicalsQ in Am Nabak Camp when IMC staff happened to be in the camp on an unusual schedule. JEM is also reported to have cached weapons in Am Nabak and in Oure Cassoni Q probably the two most problematic camps in terms of actual/potential militarization. A UNHCR community services officer in Oure Cassoni who had learned of some weapons caches in/near the camp from refugee women was verbally threatened and subsequently moved by UNHCR. One refugee watcher opined that the Sultan of Bahai, who is President DebyQs brother and with whom the PRM Q S/CRS team met, was involved in facilitating weapons movements to the JEM and NRF rebels who are based only about three kilometers from the Oure Cassoni Camp, on the Sudan border. ¶26. (SBU) Potential camp security/neutrality risks that have NOT/NOT been clearly identified/verified to date, but to the possibility of which UNHCR et al should be alert, include diversion of supplies and food to combatants, rebel training within camp boundaries, taxing of refugees to fund arms procurements, intimidation of refugees to provide support for military activities, and use of refugee camps to shelter combatants from conflict. Routine rebel visits to family members who are in refugee camps are generally not too problematic provided that weapons are left outside of camps and no military activities are undertaken inside the camps. ¶27. (SBU) A number of refugee watchers have described Oure Cassoni as a Qrear baseQ for JEM/NRF rebels who, after the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) was signed, somehow supplanted the SLA/Minawi as the rebel group with which refugee sympathies lie. Staff of the International Rescue Committee (IRC),which is the principal implementing agency in the camp, believe that claims of militarization of the camp are exaggerated and that use of the term Qrear baseQ, which means different things to different people, is potentially dangerous for IRC staff and operations in Darfur should it become Qconventional wisdomQ that IRC is running a base of Sudanese rebel military operations. [Comment. It would be prudent to avoid imprecise use of the term Qrear baseQ while taking all possible measures to assure that the camp not be militarized. End comment.] IRC community services staff, while acknowledging that security restrictions on contact hours within the camp make it more challenging than usual to ferret out what is happening, reported that refugee women have become more outspoken about the presence of rebels and the need for them to stay out of the camp and that recruitment of refugee youth has diminished in the last six months. While the refugee camp market is often considered to be better than the one in Bahai town, IRC says that one sees rebels at Bahai market to a much greater extent than at Oure Cassoni market. ¶28. (SBU) Refugee women leaders complained to the PRM-S/CRS team that they resented rebels entering the camp and drawing the attention of the SAF Antonov 26 bombers (Note. The SAF had bombed in the area before, and, in the week previous to the PRM-S/CRS team visit, had injured several people with bombs, including several ACTED NGO employees. End note.). One male refugee pulled one team member aside to complain that armed men had threatened him one night when a victim of attempted rape sought shelter in his home, that rebel combatants had run into the camp for safety during the JEM-SAF skirmishing in November 2006, and that refugee leaders had used bull horns to incite the camp population to refuse any UNHCR plan to move the camp further away from the border. In a meeting with male refugee leaders, S/CRS Emboff Wintermeyer briefed refugees on some points from the meeting SE Natsios had had with rebel leaders in Abeche on 19 January - the USG wants the rebels to unite politically so they can negotiate from a stronger position; the DPA, which the rebels do not like, will at least remain as a starting point for further negotiations. The leaders seemed to resent EmboffQs further statements that housing rebels and their arms was against UNHCR rules, and could jeopardize camp funding, as well as make the camp a legitimate military target for the Sudanese Air Force (SAF). They also told Emboff that they would refuse to move if UNHCR attempted to relocate the camp further away from the Sudanese border. ¶29. (SBU) This protection issue is one of the thorniest to address given that the root cause of a refugee situation is also the driving factor in any militarization of refugee camps. UNHCR has been consistently stressing the need to maintain the exclusively civilian character of refugee camps in all of its dealings with the GOC and in sensitization sessions with all levels of refugee leadership. In his March 25 speech to refugees and townspeople in Kounoungo (reftel),President Deby said all of the right things about no weapons, recruiting, or conflict within the refugee camp. However, whether the GOC is committed to such principles when its own interests are at stake is unlikely. NDJAMENA 00000358 004.2 OF 005 Recommendation: The USG and other interested donors should lean on the GOC even more strongly to insist that it keep Sudanese rebels out of camps. ¶30. (SBU) Relocation of the heretofore two most problematic camps in terms of their location close to the border Q Oure Cassoni and Am Nabak Q has been a priority for several years but has been consistently frustrated by the difficulty of finding adequate water in a place that the local population would accept the refugees. A promising site near Biltine became a battlefield in a FUC-ANT clash late last year, and is now littered with unexploded ordnance, adding an additional challenge. In addition, a UNHCR site search mission found two sites in Kanem that might work; one could potentially accommodate 25,000 refugees, but whether any would agree to move to the other side of Chad is unknown. A recent water assessment mission may also have found water some 50 kms to the northwest of Bahai and while the site could probably not accommodate all of the Oure Cassoni refugees, it could be used to decongest the camp which would be good from a water standpoint as well as a protection one. [Comment. While there is disagreement about the relative extent of the violations of the civilian character of the camp, Oure Cassoni definitely violates international guidelines. The suggestion that if UNHCR could find a suitable alternative site it might deregister any refugees who refused to move was very controversial for NGO and UN interlocutors. Though it might enhance UNHCRQs credibility in some quarters and deny the GoS an excuse or justification to bomb the Bahai area, it might end up cutting off large numbers of vulnerable women and children who are not currently able to dictate terms to rebels. End comment.] Recommendation: While camp relocation is clearly not going to happen this year given that the rainy season will be starting soon, UNHCR should accelerate measures to ready feasible sites such as arranging for the clearance of UXO from the Biltine site. ¶31. (SBU) Camp relocation should be vigorously pursued. Alone it will not prevent militarization. Other possible measures to reinforce the civilian character of camps include empowerment of refugees to resist militarization Q through strengthening womenQs decision-making in the camps and by providing alternative educational/ vocational activities for youth Q and the fielding of a UN police-type force that would help protect the refugee camps in part by keeping rebels out. In meetings with the PRM-S/CRS team, refugee women in Touloum and Oure Cassoni Camps specifically asked for Qblue helmetsQ as a way to improve security for women, with the Oure Cassoni refugees further specifying that Qblue helmetsQ would make sure that Sudanese rebels did not come into the camp. [Comment. While some humanitarians worry that any UN military force would be drawn into Chadian and/or Sudanese rebel politics and that the presence of military forces could compromise the desired neutrality of humanitarian operations, a UN force that reinforced law and order to ensure the security/neutrality of the camps would arguably be acceptable to most. End comment.] ¶32. (SBU) Last, but not least in the effort to prevent militarization, UNHCR needs to buttress its protection staffing in order to be able to closely monitor the camps. Personnel limitations imposed by the Qphase fourQ security designation obviously have a negative impact on the number of staff hours that can be spent working with refugee groups and verifying the civilian character of camps. In many of the UNHCR Field Offices, there is essentially one international protection officer that serves as the second in command and is often acting head of field office or is absent given the schedules of R&R and other needs to travel within eastern Chad. At the time of the PRM-S/CRS team visit, for example, three of the four field offices visited had the protection officers as acting head of office. ¶33. (SBU) Summary of Recommendations on Refugee Protection in Eastern Chad UNHCR needs to buttress its protection staffing in order to be able to closely monitor the camps. he USG and other interested donors should lean on the GOC even more strongly to insist that it keep Sudanese rebels out of camps. The USG should take a strong stand on the child soldier issue, insisting that dealing with child soldiers be a factor in any discussion of enhanced USG support for Deby and his armed forces. Human rights advocates are sure to make child soldiers a public issue in any event. While camp relocation is clearly not going to happen this year given that the rainy season will be starting NDJAMENA 00000358 005.2 OF 005 soon, UNHCR should accelerate measures to ready feasible sites such as arranging for the clearance of UXO from the Biltine site. Protecting our current investment in the gendarme force, ensuring that gendarmes charged with protecting refugees/camps and humanitarian operations have adequate weaponry to discharge their duties should be part of the bilateral USG-Chadian dialogue. Embassy/Ndjamena should track the gendarme stipend issue to ensure that it is resolved favorably and that gendarmes are paid as quickly as possible. The USG should weigh in with the GOC (in consultation with UNHCR) in getting the individual ID cards distributed soonest. Despite the challenges of insecurity, programming for youth, while not necessarily life-saving, should be prioritized. Given that distribution of sanitary materials is a fairly straightforward task, UNHCR should without further delay import and distribute the necessary fabric to meet the established standard of at least three meters every six months for every woman/girl of reproductive age. UNHCR at the Abeche and Ndjamena levels should address the firewood depletion issue much more aggressively from a business -minded perspective of pay-now-or-pay-more-later . Pressure to follow up and to explain the financial requirements to donors should continue. ¶34. (U) Tripoli minimize considered. TAMLYN