MINAWI CANCELS CHAD TRIP DUE TO REBEL SURGE ON

C O N F I D E N T I A L KHARTOUM 000150 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR AF A/S FRAZER, S/E WILLIAMSON, AF/SPG, AND AF/C NSC FOR PITTMAN AND HUDSON E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/30/2013 TAGS: PREL PGOV MOPS SU CD SUBJECT: MINAWI CANCELS CHAD TRIP DUE TO REBEL SURGE ON N'DJAMENA REF: KHARTOUM 00101 Classified By: CDA Alberto Fernandez, Reason: Sections 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (SBU) Senior Assistant to the President and Chairman of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) Minni Minawi canceled his January 31 trip to N'djamena after Chadian authorities informed him that President Deby and his senior security officials were leaving N'djamena to confront advancing Chadian opposition elements. In a January 31 phone call with Poloff in Khartoum, Minawi said that the Chadian opposition were just over 100 kilometers from N'djamena. ¶2. (C) Chadian officials did not request a delay in the visit until the morning of January 31, according to Minawi. He interpreted the late notice as an indication that opposition's gains over the last 24 hours had caught N'djamena by surprise. Minawi has been planning his trip to Chad since a January 14-22 visit to Tripoli during which, he later reported, Libyan officials had held N'djamena responsible for rising Sudan-Chad tensions (reftel). ¶3. (C) Comment: While Minawi's stated purpose for the Chad visit was to help reduce the confrontation between Deby's government and Khartoum, Minawi's limited influence within the Sudanese Government and his own adversarial relationship with the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) make it more likely that he intended to request financial support and a measure of political coordination for the resource-deprived and beleaguered SLM from his fellow Zaghawa ethnic group. End comment. ¶4. (U) Tripoli minimize considered. FERNANDEZ