SPECIAL ENVOY MEETING WITH NISS DIRECTOR GENERAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L KHARTOUM 000849 SIPDIS FROM SPECIAL ENVOY GRATION TO AMB. NIGRO DEPT FOR S/USSES, AF/C, AF/E NSC FOR MGAVIN E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/16/2011 TAGS: ASEC KPKO MARR MOPS PINS PREL UN SU SUBJECT: SPECIAL ENVOY MEETING WITH NISS DIRECTOR GENERAL AND PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR FOR DARFUR REF: N'DJAMENA 287 Classified By: CDA Robert E. Whitehead for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) ¶1. (u) This is an action request. ¶2. (c) I met with NISS DG Salah Ghosh and Government of Sudan (GOS) Presidential Advisor on Darfur Ghazi Salah Eddin for an hour on July 16. A full report will follow in other channels, but I wanted to convey the following messages and ask Embassy Chad's follow up on four specific points. These are as follow. ¶2. (c) Ghosh confirmed that Chadian rebel leaders are back in Khartoum and that their forces have been instructed to take no cross border actions. The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and other security services remain in a defensive posture and do not intend to take action against the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) unless attacked, and they will not stage any military action into Chad, Ghosh added that the GOS is verifying Chad's support to JEM during the one-month test period that began on/about July 3 and will proceed with further confidence building measures after the test period on the basis of Chadian performance. ¶3. (c) He continued that Sudan remains unconvinced that Deby and the GOC are prepared to act in good faith. Ghosh said that thirty minutes earlier he received a report that Chadian aircraft had fired two missiles into a Sudanese village near the border. Full details of the attack were not yet available, but he would provide these to us as soon as he receives them. Ghosh insisted that there were no Chadian rebel forces in the village that had been attacked, only Sudanese civilians. He said that the GOS does not plan any retaliatory strikes into Chad. ¶4. (sbu) Ghosh raised a second area of concern, the GOS's May seizure of Sudanese properties in N'djamena and, he thought, Abeche. These locations included at least one well-known Sudanese school and a cultural center/social club in N'djamena. I told him we were unaware of this issue but would look into it through our embassy in Chad. ¶5. (c) We also discussed what the GOS needs to see from the GOC during the month test period and beyond. Ghosh responded that Sudan wanted the following: no further JEM funding from Chad, no safe havens for JEM fighters in Chad (presumably after JEM returns to Sudanese soil),no training, no facilities on Chadian soil, and no cross-border visits by JEM fighters returning to see their families in refugee camps. He appeared to relent on the latter, implying that familial visits might be permissible if the fighters did not use military vehicles or bear arms and were channeled through a single border crossing that the GOS could monitor. ¶6. (c) I raised the issue of ten MINURCAT monitoring teams on the Sudan/CAR border per the Dakar Agreement, to which Ghosh responded that he saw no value in such a mechanism or any further meeting of the Darfur Contact Group. (Note: Possibly because of the proposed Libyan involvement. End note.) He did favor the placement of monitors in JEM camps in Chad, which he said the GOC claimed was unnecessary since they planned to close down the camps. ¶7. (c) I would like Ambassador Nigro's help with the following issues. -- Confirm what Sudanese properties have been confiscated and see if the GOC is willing to give back these and any seized personal property as a confidence building measure. -- Find out if the aerial attack Ghosh described took place, and if it did, why. -- Inform Deby of Sudanese expectations during the test period and beyond, including placing Libyan and Sudanese monitors within JEM camps. -- Realizing that the Chadian border is very far from N'djamena, provide whatever verification you can on how the GOC is performing during the month long test period, and how the GOC perceives Sudan's performance on reining in the Chadian rebels. WHITEHEAD