GUEHENNO ON DARFUR: UNAMID SO FAR IS REHATTED AMIS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 USUN NEW YORK 000031 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/10/2018 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL SU SUBJECT: GUEHENNO ON DARFUR: UNAMID SO FAR IS REHATTED AMIS REF: STATE 2151 Classified By: Ambassador Jackie Wolcott for Reasons 1.4 B/D. ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. UN U/SYG Guehenno presented a previously scheduled briefing on Darfur to the Security Council on January 9 and used the occasion to strongly criticize Sudanese military forces for the ambush of a UNAMID convoy on January 7 that left one driver seriously injured and damaged several vehicles. Guehenno roundly criticized the Government of Sudan (GOS) for lack of follow through after its December 13 agreement to hold talks to resolve all outstanding issues. He told the Council that some Troop Contributing Countries (TCC) were compounding Khartoum-originated deployment problems by delaying reconnaissance visits to Darfur and setting conditions (such as allowing daytime operations only) that would disqualify their offers. He acknowledged the January 1 formal AMIS-UNAMID transfer of authority but said little had changed on the ground besides the color of the berets worn by the troops. Guehenno also expressed concern about escalating violence along the Sudan-Chad border as Chadian forces pursued Chadian rebels into Darfur. Council members uniformly condemned the January 7 attack but differed in their willingness to attribute blame for it to the GOS. Differences were resolved over the following days and a PRST issued on January 11. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (SBU) United Nations Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno briefed the Security Council on Darfur in open session on January 9. No other participants spoke in the open session. Council members then joined Guehenno in closed consultations. Guehenno on January 7 Ambush of UNAMID Convoy: Inexcusable -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) U/SYG Guehenno summarized the events of January 7 as follows: "A UNAMID supply convoy of more than 20 clearly marked white vehicles moving at low speed came under fire from Sudanese Armed Forces at approximately ten o'clock at night as they moved from Um Baru to Tine in West Darfur. The convoy, whose movements had been confirmed with the Government and rebel forces in advance ... came under sustained fire from light weapons and rocket propelled grenades for 10-12 minutes.... After the attack the UNAMID deputy force commander was telephoned by the Sudanese Armed Forces area commander ...(who) confirmed that it was a Sudanese Armed Forces unit which had fired upon the convoy." Later, in the closed consultations, Guehenno added that "forces can't open fire when they can't make an identification; if we did that, we'd have constant casualties." The UNAMID convoy did not return fire. UNAMID Deployment: Frustration Continues -------------- ¶4. (C) Guehenno recounted the familiar list of unresolved UNAMID issues -- including composition of the UNAMID military force, negotiation of a status of forces agreement (SOFA),24-hour operations, and land use in El Geneina. He agreed with Government of Sudan (GOS) characterization of these issues as technical, adding that "there is no good reason that these issues should persist ad infinitum, especially in light of the adverse impact they are having on the deployment of the mission and implementation of its mandate." ¶5. (C) Summing up his frustration, he said "five months after the adoption of resolution 1769, we do not yet have guarantees or agreements from the Government of Sudan on basic technical issues." He said SYG Ban Ki-moon had spoken recently with Sudanese President Bashir and the two had agreed to meet at the forthcoming African Union Summit after preparing the ground with relevant expert-level technical discussions. On the composition of UNAMID, Guehenno said the GOS "has verbally rejected the Nordic unit." On the SOFA issue, he said Khartoum had agreed to begin negotiations on January 12 and indicated that the UN would assign Assistant SYG Hicine Medilli to the effort. (NOTE. In the closed consultations, Guehenno explained that he is happy to call outstanding deployment issues "technical" if that allows Khartoum to more easily address them and he agreed that "each issue is small and easy to resolve," but he concluded that the entire package of problems has become a major political stumbling block. END NOTE.) ¶6. (C) Guehenno criticized other partners in the UNAMID deployment effort as well. He accused some TCC's of dragging their feet on scheduling reconnaissance visits to Darfur and USUN NEW Y 00000031 002 OF 002 submission of load lists needed to contract air transportation and said that others had set unacceptable conditions on their participation (such as offering day operations only or geographically limiting operations). (NOTE. USUN/MSC subsequently learned that the TCC in question is Egypt. END NOTE.) More generally, Guehenno said offers had not been forthcoming for crucial transportation and aviation assets, including "one heavy and one medium transport unit, three military utility aviation units (18 helicopters),and one light tactical helicopter unit (six helicopters)." He welcomed a UKUN offer to convoke a meeting (now scheduled for January 16) focusing on the missing assets and said DPKO continues to work with Ukraine about transferring tactical helicopters from another mission and with Russia about providing "airframes" for use by other TCC's. ¶7. (C) Guehenno described the AMIS-UNAMID Transfer of Authority (TOA) ceremony in El Fashir on December 31, 2007 at which the GOS was represented by the governor of North Darfur. He said even this modest show of UNAMID force was marred by a GOS objection to the ceremonial re-hatting of AMIS troops. He said UNAMID would continue to try to build on the "modest momentum" created by the TOA but admitted that "at the moment the mission is effectively a re-hatted AMIS, with few additional troops or police having arrived." Security Situation Deteriorating -------------- ¶8. (C) Guehenno described a worsening security situation in Darfur due to clashes between Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) forces and Sudanese Armed Forces and to cross-border operations by Chadian forces pursuing Chadian rebels into Sudan. He was especially concerned that Sudanese forces had arrested Major General Bashir, the JEM representative to the ceasefire commission in El Fasher, on charges stemming from an earlier attack on the police station in the town of Seleia. Guehenno was also concerned about reports that Chadian forces had evidently pursued Chadian rebels into Darfur on several occasions and that the Chadian Air Force had evidently bombed locations in Western Darfur where Chadian rebels may have congregated. Member State Comments -------------- ¶9. (SBU) Speaking first in the closed session, Ambassador Khalilzad, per Ref A, strongly condemned the attack by the Sudanese Armed Forces on the UNAMID convoy, introduced a draft PRST to that effect, and more generally called on the Government of Sudan to cooperate on the full range of outstanding UNAMID deployment issues, including acceptance of all UNAMID TCC's, clearance for 24/7 UNAMID operations, and provision of land and landing rights. ¶10. (SBU) Belgium pointed to the prediction of paragraphs 47-48 of the SYG's report that UNAMID would be tested early and urged the Council to impress on the African Union that, as a full partner in UNAMID, its credibility was as much at stake as that of the UN. ¶11. (SBU) Italy emphasized that the Heavy Support Package (HSP) seems to have been forgotten and contended that HSP has been as abject failure. Guehenno agreed and said HSP has been subsumed into UNAMID. UK said the Council could reasonably have differed four months ago as to whether UNAMID's deployment deplays were technical but that their persistence clearly showns that the problem is political. ¶12. (SBU) Burkina Faso, Croatia, and Costa Rica unambiguously supported the U.S. PRST. Russia, China, Panama, Indonesia, and Italy declined to accept DPKO's account of the January 7 incident as definitive. Differences were ultimately resolved in two expert meetings and a PermRep-level consultation. The PRST was adopted on January 11. KHALILZAD