UNDER-AGE RECRUITMENT IN CHAD

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NDJAMENA 000623

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

SECSTATE FOR G/TIP

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PHUM MCAP KAWC PREL CD
SUBJECT: UNDER-AGE RECRUITMENT IN CHAD


1. SUMMARY: International media attention to under-age
recruitment in Chad, stimulated by reports from Human Rights
Watch and UN, has brought an indignant rebuke from the
government spokesman, but, at the working level, it appears
to have resulted in enhanced cooperation from the Ministry of
Defense with UNICEF. END SUMMARY.


2. The rise of instability and armed conflict in eastern
Chad in the past four years, with a proliferation of Chadian
and Darfurian rebel groups and militias, has brought a
concomitant rise in the phenomenon of child soldiers along
the porous border. For some time, UNICEF has suspected that
the Chadian army also recruited under-age soldiers, without
being able to quantify the problem. The December 2006
reconciliation between the government and the Chadian rebel
group FUC (United Front for Change) put the army in the
position of inheriting a major child-soldier problem. FUC,
like other rebel groups in the eastern Chad/Darfur zone,
actively recruited child soldiers; its forces have been
ostensibly absorbed by the Chadian army; and its leader
Mahamat Nour has become Chad's Minister of Defense.


3. In close succession in mid-July, Human Rights Watch and
the UN issued reports on child soldiers in Chad, the latter
in more measured tones than the former, with resultant
international media attention. On July 17, the government
issued a communique reacting to press accusations based on
the Human Rights Watch report. The communique noted that
most of the child soldiers in the Chadian army were former
rebels, that demobilization and reinsertion were
time-consuming and expensive, and that determining the age of
soldiers was difficult. It expressed surprise that
international organizations (read UNICEF) and civil-society
organizations engaged in demobilizing child soldiers in Chad
had remained silent rather than praising Chad's efforts to
fulfill its commitments under the Convention on the Rights of
the Child. (Chad has signed several commitments, including
most recently, on May 9, an agreement with UNICEF on
demobilization of child soldiers throughout the country.)
Meanwhile, UNICEF/Chad has issued an emergency funding
request for 2.7 million dollars to pay for demobilization and
reintegration of thousands of child soldiers in the period
August 2007 to December 2008.


4. On July 14-16, poloff traveled to Mongo, the principal
city in the Guera region of central Chad, to meet with
officials and view child soldiers. After the reconciliatiion
with FUC, the Chadian army had turned over the old caserne in
Mongo to FUC, which now effectively controls the entire
Guera. Of the approximately 2000 FUC soldiers in Mongo (out
of some 9000 in the country),the Ministry of Defense
identified 193 as under the age of 18, the first significant
group of child soldiers in Chad designated for
demobilization. When UNICEF arrived in the Guera to
investigate, the number of children rose to 430. At the time
of poloff's trip, UNICEF had already transferred 159 from
Mongo in June and early July to reintegration centers run by
Jesuit Relief Services and Christian Children's Fund in
Abeche and Ndjamena. Poloff observed that the remaining 271,
temporarily in the care of the Chadian Red Cross in a cramped
facility, for the most part were unquestionably under 18, in
some cases substantially so. The FUC commander claimed that
all 430 were orphans who had been "camp followers" and never
been used as soldiers.


5. In a meeting with Charge in Ndjamena July 12, the
Governor of Guera, Amadou Ahidjou (a former leader in the
rebel group MDJT),said that these children had been used as
soldiers and did not have the mentality of children. They
were interested in learning a trade but if treated "like
children" (i.e., sent to school) had a tendency to run away.
Many, he said, came from Darfur. He criticized UNICEF for
calling for demobilization while being unprepared to carry
out reintegration. (He noted as well that the FUC presence
posed a continuing security challenge not only in Mongo but
throughout eastern Chad. He said that he had had to defuse a
near outbreak of fighting between the army and FUC in March.)


6. On July 12 and 25 poloff met Jean-Francois Basse, UNICEF
protection officer in charge of child-trafficking issues in

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Chad. Basse said that the government of Chad had been
cooperative in child-soldier discussions, except for a
break-down in the dialogue in mid-July. It had signed the
May 9 agreement; a coordinating committee had been
established with wide representation from the government, UN
agencies, and non-governmental organizations; and the
committee had conducted regular weekly meetings. The May 9
agreement stipulated that UNICEF was to have access to all
military sites. So far the Minister of Defense had only
given UNICEF access to Mongo. After the removal of the first
159 child-soldiers from Mongo, the next tranche of 100 had
been scheduled to be transferred on July 14, but the Minister
of Defense had then insisted that the child-soldiers' former
commanders accompany the youngsters to the reintegration
centers. UNICEF could not accept this condition, and the
transfer of the remaining child soldiers in Mongo was
temporarily at an impasse. At the July 17 regular meeting of
the coordinating committee, the issue remained unresolved,
and the Ministry of Defense representative, General Bashir
Haggar (not from the FUC, but a Zaghawan),insisted that
there were no child soldiers in the Chadian army, except for
FUC.


7. However, on July 18 Minister of Defense Mahamat Nour
changed his mind about requiring FUC commanders to travel and
remain with the child soldiers being demobilized in Mongo,
and another 100 were transferred to a center run by CARE in
Ndjamena. A further 75 were transferred to Ndjamena
(Christian Children's Fund) on July 23, and Basse expected
that the final 25 would be out of Mongo by the end of July.


8. At the weekly coordinating committee meeting on July 24,
General Bashir reversed himiself on child soldiers in the
army. He said that the Ministry of Defense would now conduct
a survey of child soldiers in three areas, Goz Beida, Abeche,
and Ndjamena, to include army elements guarding the
presidential compound in Ndjamena, and he undertook to
provide this survey as soon as possible to UNICEF. He
expressed regret at the tonality of the government communique
of July 17. He said that the communique had not been
coordinated within the government (including with the
Ministry of Defense). He also expressed regret that the
military (FUC) had shown up earlier in the week at the Red
Cross holding center in Mongo, in contravention of the
ministry's undertaking with UNICEF.


9. Basse said that General Bashir's admission of the
existence of child soldiers in the Chadian army was a signal
development, changing the previous position that child
soldiers in the army were only a FUC problem. A survey of
Goz Beida (where UNICEF experts had, in the autumn of 2006,
identified 50 cases of recruitment of child soldiers by the
army),Abeche, and Ndjamena did not represent the entire
country but these three areas were a good place to start and
adequate for the time being. An effective dialogue appeared
to have been reestablished with the military command. It was
to be expected that it would take some time for the army's
central command adequately to sensitize local commanders in
the field.


10. Basse said that UNICEF would be working hard to build
capacity to receive demobilized child soldiers. It was
necessary to proceed quickly but step by step. The three
nongovernmental organizations now receiving children did not
have the capacity to handle the anticipated thousands. Basse
had communicated with UN headquarters to recommend that Save
the Children and International Rescue Committee, both large
organizations with substantial experience in eastern Chad and
in demobilizing child soldiers globally, be invited to
participate. As for pledges of financial support, France,
which chairs the UN working group on child soldiers in Chad
(but does not have a track record for ponying up on such
issues),had made a pledge so far, and he expected Norway to
come forward.


11. Basse said he agreed with the Governor of Mongo's
characterization of these child soldiers. They were
physically children but could not be treated as children, so
they presented a "very tough" challenge for reintegration.
Basse acknowledged the governor's frustration with the

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reintegration process. As challenging as monitoring
recruitment was, he said, the much greater challenge was
reintegration. Basse noted that most areas of UNICEF's
concern, children's health for example, did not tend to
entail potential confrontation with the government, but child
soldiers were a highly sensitive issue. UNICEF had weathered
this first potential crisis, apparently with a strengthened
hand, as government of Chad appeared eager to avoid adverse
international media attention.


12. Comment: Chad is an impoverished, largely illiterate
country in whose vast rural expanse boys and girls are deemed
to have grown up by the age of thirteen. It is also a
country with a deeply-ingrained martial tradition. In
addition to the widespread practice of children working as
herders, agricultural laborers, and household help, there is
therefore an equally deeply-ingrained tradition (especially
in the north and east) of adolescent males being trained as
fighters, although on nothing like the scale of, for example,
Sierra Leone or Liberia. Given this tradition, it is
encouraging that the Ministry of Defense appears so quickly
to have distanced itself from the government spokesman's
initial outrage.
TAMLYN