UNDPKO UNVEILS PLAN TO SPEED DARFUR DEPLOYMENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L USUN NEW YORK 000390 SIPDIS SIPDIS IO AND AF FOR FRONT OFFICE, PLEASE PASS TO SE WILLIAMSON E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/01/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV KPKO AF SU SUBJECT: UNDPKO UNVEILS PLAN TO SPEED DARFUR DEPLOYMENT Classified By: Ambassador Alejandro Wolff for reasons 1.4 (b,d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: UN Department of Peacekeeping Operation's Enhanced Integrated Deployment Plan (EIDP) seeks to populate Darfur with badly-needed engineering assets from all available sources, to include borrowing from the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS),hiring through local contractors and requesting selected Troop Contributing Countries (TCCs) to deploy available assets. The primary mission of these assets would be used to create infrastructure in Darfur to allow for the deployment of additional units to UNAMID. DPKO has not made the EIDP official and intends to brief the Security Council within two weeks on the new plan. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) Building on earlier comments from UNAMID SRSG Rudolph Adada, UNAMID Force Commander Gen. Agwai and UN Department of Field Support (DFS) Acting Head Jane Holl Lute, DPKO briefed P3 Military Advisors (MilAds) on the EIDP. This Plan seeks to address the critical shortfall of engineering assets in UNAMID using the following approaches: - Borrowing Chinese, Egyptian, and Pakistani engineering assets already deployed in Sudan as part of UNMIS. This surge capacity would be for not more than ninety days; - Request additional engineering assets from current UNAMID TCCs, particularly South Africa; - Request TCCs that have yet to deploy infantry battalions restructure their units to have three standard rifle companies and one light engineering company instead of the standard four rifle companies (NOTE: a standard rifle company consists of 150 troops). This would allow for battalions to have their own organic light engineering capability. -Attempt to contract locally for engineering assets. ¶3. (C) DPKO went on to brief P3 MilAds on UNAMID deployment projections for the remainder of 2008. The first Egyptian and Ethiopian Battalions are scheduled to arrive in Darfur by August, (NOTE: UN Secretary General's report dated 14 April called for these two battalions to deploy by May) with additional Ethiopian and Egyptian battalions scheduled to arrive by the end of the year. The second Senegalese battalion is scheduled to deploy in the fall. Additionally, all former AMIS battalions should be brought up to UN manning levels by the end of the year. The UN also continues to push the GOS to agree to the deployment of a Thai battalion and two companies of Nepalese troops. The end of 2008 should also see the deployment of all enabling assets, giving UNAMD total troop strength of approximately 15,300, about 78.5 % of the 19,500-troop strength UNAMID is authorized (NOTE: This does not include police). 4)(C) COMMENT. Engineering assets are critical to the deployment and success of UNAMID, and DPKO's plan to bring all assets to bear is promising if not tardy. However, there is likely to be pushback from UNMIS, and USUN intends to seek info from DPKO as to what the opportunity costs to UNMIS will be from losing engineering assets for ninety days. Additionally, given that the EIDP entails building bigger camps in more locations, the UN will need to acquire new land from local authorities and/or the GOS. Past experience suggests that this is likely to be problematic. Additionally, the Secretariat will need to coordinate closely with TCCs to smooth over possible relocations of units as well as for any changes to existing MOUs concerning changes to equipment and unit composition. Khalilzad