HUMANITARIAN UPDATE: NGO REACTIONS TO MINURCAT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 NDJAMENA 000048

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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).

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SUMMARY
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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.

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MINURCAT MANDATE
SOURCE OF SPECULATION
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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

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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.

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WHO IS RESPONSIBLE
FOR SECURITY?
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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.

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WHAT WAS MINURCAT'S JOB?
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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

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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.

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WHERE DOES THE DIS FIT IN?
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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.

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WHAT IF MINURCAT LEAVES?
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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

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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