Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08STATE95572
2008-09-05 22:01:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Secretary of State
Cable title:  

HUMANITARIAN SECURITY IN EASTERN CHAD -- NEED FOR

Tags:  PREF PHUM CD 
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VZCZCXYZ0034
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHC #5572 2492204
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 052201Z SEP 08
FM SECSTATE WASHDC
TO RUEHNJ/AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA 0000
INFO RUEHKH/AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM 0000
RUEHBS/AMEMBASSY BRUSSELS 0000
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 0000
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 0000
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0000
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0000
C O N F I D E N T I A L STATE 095572 

SIPDIS
FOR AMBASSADOR FROM AF AND PRM
BRUSSELS/LONDON/PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHERS
GENEVA FOR RMA
USEU FOR FRANCIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/01/2018
TAGS: PREF PHUM CD
SUBJECT: HUMANITARIAN SECURITY IN EASTERN CHAD -- NEED FOR
GOC ACTION

REF: STATE 43042

Classified By: PRM DAS WILLIAM E. FITZGERALD FOR REASON 1.4(D)

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Action Request
--------------

C O N F I D E N T I A L STATE 095572

SIPDIS
FOR AMBASSADOR FROM AF AND PRM
BRUSSELS/LONDON/PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHERS
GENEVA FOR RMA
USEU FOR FRANCIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/01/2018
TAGS: PREF PHUM CD
SUBJECT: HUMANITARIAN SECURITY IN EASTERN CHAD -- NEED FOR
GOC ACTION

REF: STATE 43042

Classified By: PRM DAS WILLIAM E. FITZGERALD FOR REASON 1.4(D)

--------------
Action Request
--------------


1. (C) Objectives: Security for humanitarian operations
and civilians in eastern Chad will be a top priority with the
impending end of the rainy season and the need to renew the
MINURCAT mandate which expires in September. The
international community needs urgently from the Government of
Chad (GOC):
(1) a signature on the MOU with MINURCAT to allow newly
trained Chadian police to deploy to the field,
(2) a commitment to halt Darfur rebel recruiting in the
refugee camps and cooperate with MINURCAT's effort to prevent
forced recruitment in the camps, and
(3) an end to the use of child soldiers in the Chadian Armed
Forces and fighting forces associated with the GOC.
In addition, the GOC should consider contributing more from
its own resources to help defray costs of assisting the
internally displaced Chadian nationals.

Embassy Ndjamena is requested to raise these four issues with
the GOC at the highest appropriate level. Please report back
no later than September 12 as UNSC 1778 of September 25, 2007
established MINURCAT for just one year and we will need to
decide soonest on a USG position about the mandate and
renewal.

--------------
Background Factors
--------------


2. (C) MOU WITH MINURCAT: One of the principal tasks of
the United Nations Mission in the CAR and Chad is to train up
a special police force of 850 Chadians -- to be known as the
Integrated Security Detachment (DIS by its French acronym) --
to provide better security for the refugee and IDP camps,
nearby towns sheltering IDPs, and humanitarian operations
generally by creating more secure "space". In addition to
supporting this effort through its assessed UN contributions
for such peacekeeping missions, the USG through PRM
("migration and refugee assistance appropriation) has
provided $2 million to the MINURCAT Trust Fund to cover
stipends for the police officers. Other donors have provided
such voluntary funding for the other aspects of the DIS such
as facilities and equipment. To date, some 275 new police

officers have been trained. However, they cannot deploy to
the field until the GOC signs an MOU with MINURCAT. The GOC
has been stalling on signing. (Comment. This is obviously
not a good backdrop for the upcoming UN Security Council
deliberations on renewing, or even expanding, MINURCAT,s
mandate).


3. (C) DARFUR REBEL RECRUITING IN THE REFUGEE CAMPS: This
remains a longstanding issue complicated both by GOC equities
in supporting rebels (including its brethren) to fight
against the Khartoum Government and by the GOC,s depending
at times on the Darfur rebels for support in combating the
Chadian rebels. Reftel, which was the basis for the
Embassy's last demarche on the subject, includes information
about the February-April spike in rebel recruitment among new
arrivals from Darfur and in the camps of Oure Cassoni (2,000
JEM soldiers trumpeting their presence around the camp
perimeter to such an extent that the refugees formally
complained to the prefet),Am Nabak (youth parading through
the camp with arms),and Mile (recruitment of drivers for
rebel vehicles before and after the attack on Ndjamena).
Much of the humanitarian programming in the refugee camps is
aimed at protecting refugees from recruitment -- every thing
from perimeter security to providing education and after
school activities to keep youth occupied. It has always been
clear however -- as it is in all refugee settings around the
world -- that the Chadian Government,s will to keep refugee
camps from being militarized is the critical element in
success of such programming. The GOC has been an uneven
partner at best in ensuring that there is no rebel misuse of
refugee camps through recruitment of refugees, taxation of
refugees, diversion of humanitarian supplies, and trafficking
of arms through camps. (All of these could technically make
the refugee camps legitimate military targets for the
Government of Sudan though we would clearly stress the
humanitarian principle of avoiding civilian casualties.)
Without the support of the GOC to prevent recruitment and
militarization, no amount of humanitarian programming will
achieve success.


4. (C) CHILD SOLDIERS: Abuse of children younger than 18
years of age by putting them into fighting forces is a
widespread, worldwide phenomenon, often justified, as in the
case in Chad, as a cultural norm and demanded by the
exigencies of a wartime situation. Child soldiers are used
by the Chadian National Army, Sudanese rebel groups that
cooperate with the GOC, Chadian rebel groups, and village
self defense forces. Children who are living in IDP and
refugee camps are particularly vulnerable. The use of child
soldiers is a violation of Chadian law as well as numerous
international laws and principles. It is a type of human
trafficking and a worst form of child labor. An August 2008
report by the United Nations Secretary General on children
and armed conflict in Chad found that children in and around
refugee camps continue to be recruited by armed groups,
including by force and cites such examples as the JEM
recruitment of six children from Iridimi Camp on June 17,

2008. The UN report also confirmed continued use of child
soldiers by the Chadian army despite assurances to the French
Government in advance of the EUFOR deployment that such
practices would cease. In one of the most recent
eggregious examples, child soldiers were used by the JEM
during its May attack on Omdurman, Sudan. With developments
such as the more obvious GOS support for Chadian rebels and
the Zoe,s Ark affair, Deby has so far escaped the sanctions
of the French or of others, though advocates for children
have not, and likely will not, drop the issue. The United
States has reported on child soldiers in Chad for several
years in the annual Department of State Human Rights Report.


5. (SBU) IDPs: There are some 186,000 internally displaced
Chadians as a result of attacks by Janjaweit from Sudan and
the communal hostilities set off by the rise of Chadian rebel
groups. Some have been displaced multiple times. These
people survive through an international humanitarian effort
to which the GOC contributes essentially nothing beyond the
secondment of Chadian gendarmes paid by the international
community despite Chad,s oil assets. Unlike refugees, IDP
protection and assistance are first and foremost the
responsibility of the government. The 2008 international
humanitarian budget (the revised Consolidated Appeal) for
Chad is $306 million of which well over $100 million is for
the IDPs. Much of the international interest in Chad stems
from international interest in the well-publicized Darfur
situation, but even there interest is falling off given the
duration of the conflict and other newer humanitarian
situations around the world that claim donor interest and
resources.
RICE