CHAD/SUDAN/C.A.R.: CONVINCING DEBY TO ACCEPT UN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 001252 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/29/2017 TAGS: PREL KPKO UNSC CD SU FR SUBJECT: CHAD/SUDAN/C.A.R.: CONVINCING DEBY TO ACCEPT UN PEACEKEEPING REF: A. N'DJAMENA 245 ¶B. 05 PARIS 7792 Classified By: Political Minister-Counselor Josiah Rosenblatt, 1.4 (b/d ). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: MFA Chad desk officer Michael Deslaimes (PROTECT THROUGHOUT) on March 27 said that the international community needed to emphasize to Chad's President Deby the benefits for Chad of a UN peacekeeping mission on the Chad-Sudan border, rather than stress how such a mission could help resolve the Darfur crisis. Deslaimes claimed that Deby believes the international community is discounting Chad's interests in preference to seeking resolution of the Darfur problem. Deslaimes described policy disagreements within the MFA on how the Chad-Sudan-C.A.R. regional mix should be handled. END SUMMARY. DEBY'S RELUCTANCE AND HOW TO COUNTER IT -------------- ¶2. (C) In a surprisingly frank March 27 exchange, MFA Chad desk officer Michael Deslaimes (PROTECT THROUGHOUT),just returned from a two-week TDY in Chad, discussed Deby's resistance to accepting a robust UN peacekeeping operation along the Chad-Sudan border (ref A). Deslaimes said that Deby's skepticism derived from his perception that Chad is being asked to agree to such an operation largely because of the international community's desire to resolve the Darfur crisis. According to Deslaimes, Deby does not think that the international community cares much about Chad and its problems, viewing them only as ancillary to the Darfur issue. Deby's perception was not completely unreasonable, Deslaimes said, given the international community's and the media's strong focus on Darfur and the conventional wisdom that "solving the Darfur problem" would alleviate, if not put an end to, the region's other problems as well. ¶3. (C) Deby has three main concerns, Deslaimes believed. First, Deby thinks that a strong UN presence could legitimize Chad's rebels by making them de facto players. Second, Deby believes Chad government forces are stronger than the rebel forces; a UN presence could jeopardize the government's advantage by emboldening the rebels to take action against the government and then withdraw into UN-controlled zones and seek protection from the UN against any government response against them. The UN mission would thus become a factor in the ongoing conflict between the government and rebel factions, helping the rebels more than it would the government. Third, Deby is concerned that the main purpose of the UN mission, as noted, would be to assist in resolving the Darfur problem and not Chad's own problems. ¶4. (C) Deslaimes advised that it would be better for the UN, the U.S., and other interested parties, from now on, to emphasize to Chad how such a mission would benefit Chad and to de-emphasize the Darfur angle. A UN presence could serve as a "cordon sanitaire" by sealing the border and confining Darfur's problems to Darfur, hindering their spread to Chad and C.A.R. This would also inhibit Sudanese support for rebel groups in both Chad and C.A.R., which might result in decreased Chadian support for rebel groups operating in Sudan/Darfur. ONE BIG PROBLEM OR A SERIES OF SMALLER ONES? -------------- ¶5. (C) Deslaimes said that France shared in helping Deby draw the conclusions that he has. Deslaimes said that for a long period, with all attention focused on Darfur, the GOF had trouble drawing attention to Chad and C.A.R., which shared some but not all of Darfur's problems. The MFA decided, he said, to stress the regional nature of the Darfur problem in an effort to call attention to Chad and C.A.R. This effort was successful, he noted, with the U.S., among others, adopting over time a more regional perspective. However, Darfur seemed nonetheless to remain the primary issue of concern. Deslaimes said that he did not favor the MFA's tactic of "selling" Chad and C.A.R. as part of the Darfur problem; he thought that both country's problems needed to be considered separately and not linked together to form a much larger, more complex, and more difficult problem with Darfur as its center. ¶6. (C) A better approach, Deslaimes said, would be to isolate and treat each country's problems, rather than to combine them into one "Darfur package problem." Overselling Darfur, Deslaimes believed, was in large part responsible for Deby's unwillingness to agree to a robust UN presence in Chad. Deslaimes noted that his approach was not without its shortcomings and he conceded that many of Chad's and C.A.R.'s problems were closely linked to Darfur. But he repeated that the signals sent to the respective countries had to be PARIS 00001252 002 OF 002 tailored to their concerns and not reflect only interested parties' overriding concerns about Darfur. COMMENT -------------- ¶7. (C) Deslaimes, whose wife serves at France's Embassy in Chad, and who will become DCM in Bangui this summer, was notably blunt in describing his disagreement with how the MFA had handled these issues. He acknowledged that, as Chad desk officer, he tended to advocate Chad-centered concerns, which had on occasion put him at odds with his colleagues. He claimed, however, that at times over the last year, concern about Darfur had taken undue precedence within the MFA, which he thought was not the proper approach. ¶8. (C) Deslaimes can come across as an ureconstructed champion of French colonial legacies and a defender of African strong men. A shocked Togolese expatriate revealed that Deslaimes had defended Eyadema as a "great African." (Deslaimes is also MFA desk officer for Togo.) In discussions about democratic dialogue in Chad, Deslaimes has been a consistent defender of President Deby, even at his most beleaguered, as a bulwark against chaos (ref B). ¶9. (C) Deslaimes has frequently demonstrated an iconoclast and contrarian nature, in which he seems to take a certain pride, but he is also adept at logically and forcefully expressing his views. His colleagues have expressed some difficulty in working with him but they have probably benefited, even if they would be reluctant to admit it, from some of his out-of-the-box thinking. END COMMENT. Please visit Paris' Classified Website at: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm STAPLETON