HUMANITARIAN UPDATE: NGO REACTIONS TO MINURCAT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 NDJAMENA 000048 SIPDIS STATE FOR AF/C, S/USSES, PRM/AFR NSC FOR GAVIN LONDON FOR POL - LORD PARIS FOR POL - BAIN AND KANEDA ADDIS ABABA ALSO FOR AU E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/25/2020 TAGS: EAID PGOV PHUM SOCI PREL PREF CD SU SUBJECT: HUMANITARIAN UPDATE: NGO REACTIONS TO MINURCAT MANDATE SITUATION AND SECURITY CONDITIONS IN EASTERN CHAD REF: A. N'DJAMENA 43 ¶B. N'DJAMENA 35 Classified By: AMB LOUIS J. NIGRO, JR. FOR REASONS 1.4 (b) and (d). -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) Humanitarian NGOs are speculating about the concrete impact of the ongoing GOC-UN debate regarding MINURCAT's future after 15 March 2010 (See Ref A). If the UN and Chad do not arrive at a modus operandi that permits MINURCAT to continue activities pursuant to its mandate under UNSC 1861 until at least March 2011, the NGOs are seeking clarity on how the the winding down and eventual departure of the MINURCAT PKO from eastern Chad will affect the massive humanitarian response to the needs of some 350,000 refugees and IDPs. When all is taken into consideration, most appear to feel that -- in the event of an early withdrawal or drawdown of MINURCAT PKO resources and activities -- the only practical impact would be the loss of MINURCAT's role in planning and implementing mass evacuation in the event of combat in the area of humanitarian operations. 2 . (C) The NGOs indicate that MINURCAT's military assets are already inappropriate and unsuitable as tools to confront entrenched violent criminality, but note that the loss of "escort service" will bring uncertainty to the planning of movements in the deep field - not because MINURCAT escorts were the appropriate solution to the insecurity they are confronting, but because they have configured their operations to that solution, and are confused as to how they might re-organize themselves. They do not see any functional element within the GoC's existing security and administrative and structures that can take on the government's responsibility to ensure the safety of the international community in Chadian territory. The NGOs say that the only real sources of security are the local Chadian communities which are themselves both victims and well-springs of the criminality which operates throughout the east -- and that there is little hope that dramatic shifts in the application in these communities of customary law away from a conflict-and-compensation cycle toward the national judicial code can be expected in the near future. Humanitarian organizations are therefore carefully re-assessing their operations and exposure in eastern Chad, in expectation of some kind of "security vacuum" -- and they, like Nature, abhor a vacuum. END SUMMARY. -------------- MINURCAT MANDATE SOURCE OF SPECULATION -------------- ¶3. (C) Partner NGOs have been exchanging theories regarding the news that the GoC is contemplating non-renewal of the MINURCAT mandate when the UNSC discusses it in the weeks to come. Rumors of the GoC's 05 January demarche to the SRSG that non-renewal was an option under consideration had been slowly leaking into the humanitarian community, with no direct confirmation until the recent public announcement of a J15 January GoC note verbale to the UNSC on the subject. NGO heads complain that MINURCAT leadership has not briefed the broad NGO humanitarian community, leading to considerable speculation as to what the future holds for the PKO in eastern Chad. 4.(C) RefCoord has listened to views from a range of major partner international NGOs. NGOs start from the point of view that the primary threat currently confronted in the region is that of violent criminality against attractive international targets for theft or kidnapping, deeply entrenched in the eastern Chadian communities and enjoying considerable if not total impunity. They stress that security from such attacks must come from within the affected communities themselves, since that is the source of the criminality. They note in particular that without active community rejection of the criminals, no police or military force, whatever the source, can confront such a threat short of the establishment of an equally violent and repressive police state. They point out that many unrealistic demands NDJAMENA 00000048 002 OF 004 for provision of security have been placed on MINURCAT, and MINURCAT has perhaps unrealistically encouraged these expectations. ¶5. (C) When closely questioned, NGOs have made clear that they are reassessing their security and personnel postures in eastern Chad, while trying to sort out which instances of authority must realistically be assigned responsibility for different aspects of security. They believe that armed MINURCAT and DIS escorts between deep field bases and refugee and IDP camps have always been an unsustainable solution to the problem of violent criminal attacks, and one that is more likely to engender even greater violence from the criminals. The humanitarians are wedded to the principle that the host government and authorities are in all cases responsible for the security of humanitarian actors in their territory. Those responsibilities include not only guarding the borders against rebel incursion, a task the GoC's forces do increasingly well, but the provision of essential policing and judicial investigation, as well as the prosecution of cases and eventual punishment of the guilty. -------------- WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR SECURITY? -------------- ¶6. (C) NGOs are unanimous in their agreement that the instances of authority in Chad, as currently conceived and functioning as various instruments of the formal judicial system, are not now and will not for a generation or more be capable of running a functioning judiciary that provides predictable and consistent recourse to the law for all concerned. This leaves the humanitarians to consider seeking protection under less formal judicial systems, such as customary and traditional law and conflict resolution mechanisms. Traditional authorities -- Sultans, canton and village chiefs, ethnically and/or regionally based -- along with Governors, Prefects and Sub-Prefects appointed by the central government, are all ill-defined centers of power, often claiming informal conflict resolution responsibilities. The humanitarian NGOs routinely describe interactions with these individuals in attempts to develop links to the leadership of the communities within which they work, and to seek resolution to conflicts with which they are confronted in those communities. There were some indications in December 2009 and January 2010 that some of these leaders are seeking to influence the deployment of ANT and Gendarme forces within their communities to confront criminals - this in particular in the areas around Iriba and Farchana in the northern and central sectors of the country. -------------- WHAT WAS MINURCAT'S JOB? -------------- ¶7. (C) Humanitarian NGOs are beginning to express the opinion that they may have mistakenly bought into the idea that MINURCAT and the DIS were somehow conceiFa~$^DQpbiQombat between Chadian armed opposition groups and the ANT. In particular, they see MINURCAT's role as having been to design and prepare for implementation of mass evacuation plans, in which the PKO would ensure the safety of assembly points for the IOs and NGOs in the midst of on-going combat operations, and to provide the necessary tactical ground transport and airlift to move the humanitarian staffs out of danger -- airlift which, unlike the WFP-run Humanitarian Air Service (UN HAS),would be expected to continue flying into the crisis. ¶8. (C) NGOs in particular are extremely critical of MINURCAT and the UN Department for Safety and Security (UNDSS) for its non-performance of this crucial and limited task. The NGO's Coordinating Committee (Comite de Coordination des ONGs - CCO),has sought since August 2009 to participate in the design of an evacuation plan, in the hopes of avoiding the NDJAMENA 00000048 003 OF 004 possibility that staff might be left behind in a rapid clearing of the east of humanitarian workers. In particular, NGOs wanted to carefully consider the cut-off point for the evacuation of staff, in order to safeguard to the maximum extent their locally-hired Chadian staff from abandonment. They express extreme frustration with the UN agencies as being unforthcoming with responses, to the extent that the CCO has sent its request for coordination to the UN's headquarters for both DPKO and UNDSS. -------------- WHERE DOES THE DIS FIT IN? -------------- ¶9. (C) NGOs are cautiously positive in recent assessments of the special force created to provide policing in refugee and IDP camps, the Detachement Integree de Securite, or DIS. The DIS has been on the ground for a year, and has been receiving higher marks for responsiveness since around September 2009. Vulnerable populations in the camps have viewed favorably the significant number of female officers within the DIS, noting their greater effectiveness in talking to women victims of violence. NGOs have stated that on the occasion of several recent residential break-ins, the DIS were the only force to respond to calls for help. An attack on a DIS-escorted convoy in mid-December, which began with the perpetrators opening fire without first trying to stop the convoy, resulted in a surprisingly robust response from the DIS escorts that allowed the convoy to successfully remove itself from the zone of attack. Though such an incident highlights NGO conviction that armed escorts engender armed attacks, the fact that the DIS responded well was positively noted. ¶10. (C) That said, NGOs stress that the DIS is becoming more competent at their core mandate -- the policing of vulnerable populations in camps -- and cannot be sustainable at current levels and equipment as an escort service. Pulling them off the day-to-day camp community policing duties will de-police precisely the populations they were created to protect. -------------- WHAT IF MINURCAT LEAVES? -------------- ¶11. (C) NGOs are beginning to conclude that they may have deployed into the deep field in eastern Chad, and developed overly ambitious activities, based on a misunderstanding of the tools for security at their disposal. They are concluding that MINURCAT and the DIS were and are unsuitable and inappropriate to replace the authorities in carrying out responsibilities for securing the east against entrenched violent criminality. They see no instance of legitimate force in the GoC inventory that will be capable of imposing security on the communities which are both the victims, and well-springs, of this criminality. The communities themselves are not able to impose their will on the various elements within their membership, these being the source of some interethnic conflict that threatens to break out as long as serious resource constraints continue to challenge all in their attempts to survive in the harsh environment of eastern Chad. ¶12. (C) This context leaves the NGOs in particular wondering what, if any, impact the departure of MINURCAT might have. Change brings uncertainty, and the NGOs express considerable discomfort with this uncertainty. Some have stated that the most concrete direct loss would be the air assets, both fixed-and rotary-wing, that might rescue them from a situation of outright warfare between the ANT and armed opposition groups - but note that the environment seems to have calmed considerably in this regard in recent months. Many express the opinion that the non-renewal of the MINURCAT mandate would accentuate the continuing feeling of uncertainty in eastern Chad; the grounding of air assets and cantonment of MINURCAT forces that would precede the actual physical departure of the forces would leave a difficult to define vacuum in the international presence in the east. What that vacuum would realistically entail, the NGOs are challenged to explain, since they for the most part did not find the force that practically useful. A number of organizations that have thrown their lot in with MINURCAT-escorted convoys to and from work are uncertain how NDJAMENA 00000048 004 OF 004 they would continue with activities. Many suggest that returning to the mechanisms some had utilized in the past, providing direct payment to gendarmes to provide convoy security, may have to be considered. But for the most part, NGOs express a fear of the vacuum itself, without being able to visualize just what might seek to fill it. NIGRO