CHAD MINISTERS BRIEF S/USSES GRATION ON DEBY VISIT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 NDJAMENA 000097 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR AF/C, S/USSES NSC FOR GAVIN OSD FOR HUDLESTON LONDON FOR POL - LORD PARIS FOR POL - BAIN AND KANEDA ADDIS ABABA ALSO FOR AU E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/15/2015 TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM CD SUBJECT: CHAD MINISTERS BRIEF S/USSES GRATION ON DEBY VISIT TO KHARTOUM, MINURCAT WITHDRAWAL RATIONALE REF: A. KHARTOUM 103 ¶B. N'DJAMENA 35 ¶C. NDJAMENA 96 ¶D. PARIS 172 NDJAMENA 00000097 001.4 OF 004 Classified By: Charge d'affaires a.i. Sue Bremner, for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) S/USSES General Scott Gration met February 15 with Chadian FM Moussa Faki Mahamat, NSA Mahamat Ismail Chaibo, and DefMin Wadal Kamougue Abdelkader to offer congratulations on Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno's February 8-9 breakthrough visit to Khartoum (Ref A) in pursuit of fully normalized bilateral relations between Chad and Sudan, consistent with the two nations' January 15 agreement. Gration's interlocutors stressed that although Deby had indeed made a dramatic and courageous gesture in traveling to Sudan, Darfur's problems were not yet resolved. FM Faki reported that he was currently trying to bring Sudan Presidential Envoy Ghazi Salahuddin and Sudan JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim to N'Djamena, perhaps later this week, for talks aimed at getting the JEM to the negotiating table in Doha, if possible before Sudan's April elections. Also on hand to facilitate Gration's visit was Chadian Ambassador to the U.S. Adoum Bechir, with whom Gration had a conversation on potential follow-on processes to the current Doha arrangement. Gration delivered talking points on the advisability of full MINURCAT mandate renewal to FM Faki, who stressed that Chad wanted to be flexible on military draw-down modalities, but that it did regard the military side of MINURCAT as a disappointment. Gration sees Deby on February 16, and will deliver the MINURCAT points to him also. END SUMMARY. -------------- APPRECIATION FOR GRATION'S ROLE IN SUDAN -------------- ¶2. (SBU) All of General Gration's interlocutors stressed Chad's gratitude for U.S. efforts on the Sudan electoral process, facilitating NCP-SPLM relations to address outstanding elements of the CPA, and helping South Sudan define a political course of its choice. All pointed out that they hoped the U.S. would continue to call for parallel initiatives to resolve the problems of South Sudan and at the same time address Darfur's problems. Faki noted that Chadians sometimes had the impression that the U.S. had found Darfur more difficult than South Sudan to grapple with. It was true that Southerners were relatively clear on how they wanted to move ahead, in part because after 20 years, the SPLM had come to know the negoatiating tactics of the NSC and had become pragmatic. The Darfuri, in contrast, sometimes felt passionate to the point where possible ways forward were obscured by impractical demands. Bilateral problems between Chad and Sudan were the result of the Darfur crisis, and would not go away until it was settled, said Faki, Chaibo and Kamougue. -------------- DARFUR AT TURNING POINT -------------- ¶3. (C) Faki offered that Darfur and indeed Sudan seemed to be at a turning point. Each actor on the ground was still trying to prove its reasons for existence, but most rebel groups were weakened militarily. A Chadian delegation would meet Sudan counterparts in El Genneina February 18 to close the border and consult on progress with respect to the February 21 deadline for expelling across the border, deporting to third countries or granting refugee status to remaining rebels. The border monitoring protocol signed January 15 promised to usher in a useful arrangement, but closing and patrolling the border would be difficult absent resolution of Darfur's underlying social, political and economic problems, Faki continued. There had been fighting in Darfur even the previous week between the SLM and Minni NDJAMENA 00000097 002.5 OF 004 Minnnawi's units, Kamougue pointed out. Military solutions alone would not work. Chaibo credited Deby with taking the first steps toward fully normalized relations with Sudan. He avowed that the GoC was now waiting to see if Khartoum were able to meet the February 21 deadline. Minor disputes within Darfur, mismanaged by Sudan, had escalated into the present crisis there, said Chaibo. He requested that General Gration press the GoS to take action on the ground to engage the people of Darfur so that their grievances would be addressed through action rather than rhetoric. -------------- BORDER MONITORING -------------- ¶4. (C) Asked about planned border monitoring modalities, Kamougue noted that a force of 3000 troops, 1500 from Chad and 1500 from Sudan, was envisioned, deployed as joint units and reporting to one common military headquarters whose command would rotate every six months. The current plan, which had been discussed with a Sudan technical team in Chad immediately following Deby's return on February 9, tracked closely with arrangements agreed provisionally between the two sides in 2006 (but never implemented). Chaibo pointed out that with 18 different ethic groups living in areas that spanned the Chad-Sudan border, monitoring and closure would be challenging. Kamougue reiterated that actually getting the border monitoring arrangement off the ground would be hardest aspect of the process -- the Sudan technical team was coming back to Chad February 28 for further legal and logistic consultations. -------------- JEM AND OTHER SUDAN REBELS -------------- ¶5. (C) Faki advised that he had been trying to bring Sudan Presidential Adviser Ghazi Salahuddin and JEM rebel leader Khalil Ibrahim to N'Djamena from Sudan in the coming days to pressure the JEM to work with the GoS and others, and ultimately to go to Doha and negotiate. Faki, Chaibo, Kamougue, and Bechir, all of whom took part in the mid-January GoC mission of Am Jarras (Ref B) to advise the JEM to choose between negotiation and "going it alone," recounted their experiences in trying to reason with the JEM and convictions that Khalil now "got the point." The line-up of Ministers and other influential advisers to Deby had been impossible for Khalil to dismiss, said Chaibo. There would be "no more coming and going across the border -- this is what the border monitoring arrangement is for," he continued. ¶6. (C) Asked whether JEM had the wherewithal to become a political movement, Chaibo made clear that "they are bad, they are beginning to understand the seriousness of what they have done, but they do have an option: they can go to Doha, forswear fighting, and rejoin the Sudanese fold," as Minni Minnawi had done. Sudanese President Bashir had told Deby that he was prepared to make the JEM "Sudan's 78th political party," said Chaibo. Ambassador Bechir offered that Khalil knew he had no option but to negotiate. As for other Sudan rebel factions, they were disfunctional and unpredictable. What Abdul Wahid was doing in Juba was hard to imagine unless he intended to join the SPLM. -------------- CHAD REBELS -------------- ¶7. (C) Faki asked for Gration's help in convincing Sudan to expel, deport or grant refugee status to remaining Chadian rebels in Sudan. Their return to Chad would greatly facilitate normalization of relations and normalization of Chadian internal political processes. Gration asked whether Chad was prepared to welcoming returning Chad rebels. Chaibo recalled the welcome afforded former rebel commander Soubiane, adding that other rebels could be pardoned whether or not they had "done wrong things." "They are Chadians, after all," he concluded. In Chaibo's and Kamougue's views, the Chadian rebels differed from the JEM in that they had no NDJAMENA 00000097 003.6 OF 004 political aims or organizational structures that would militate in favor of their becoming political parties in the near term. Kamougue, pointing out his own status as an opposition party member of the Deby government, stressed that Chadian structures were integrated in terms of political affiliation and aimed to become more so over time. -------------- PLETHORA OF PLAYERS, INITIATIVES -------------- ¶8. (C) Faki described AU Special Envoy Thabo Mbeki's visit to Chad the previous weekend to press his ideas on Darfur peace arrangements. Faki drew attention to the multiplicity of other international processes and players, including the UN's Djibrill Bassole, various Libyan interlocutors, Egyptians, Qataris, reps of the Arab League, etc. France would have to be involved, in part because it was hosting not-yet-returned rebel figures like Mohammed Nour. Each international interlocutor was pursuing his own ideas, sponsoring and fostering different Darfur actors. Sometimes rebels voiced the positions of their sponsors as well as or instead of their own positions. This created confusion and duplication of effort, and in some respects mirrored the fractured political scene in Darfur itself, where each rebel group kept saying that it was the real leader, and none would accept others in respective movements. Mbeki was right to focus on nation-building, said Faki. Darfuris needed to start feeling Sudanese. -------------- NEXT STEPS -------------- ¶9. (C) Asked whether the U.S. could help, Faki asked that General Gration tell the Sudanese and Arabs that Sudan needed nation-building, and that Khartoum should address the root causes of problems in Darfur, including inequality, injustice and lack of government accountability. Kamougue recommended that the international community try to work together and not break into blocs: for example, both the U.S. and China had good relations with Sudan and Chad and could serve in neutral capacities. Bechir asked for U.S. assistance in delivering remaining Sudan rebels to Doha. He acknowledged that the Doha process might not be long-lived beyond upcoming elections in Sudan. Although the Qataris had been generous and done a good job as facilitators, the process was slow and perceived as "too Arab" by some in Darfur. Gration indicated that perhaps a location in Darfur itself would preferable as an eventual venue for continued negotiations. Bechir pointed out that if there were consensus on this, an exit strategy would need to be found for the Doha process so as not to appear ungrateful to the Qataris or to Bassole. ¶10. (C) Speaking on the desirability of enhanced bilateral U.S. assistance for Chad, Kamougue also urged that our military training for the ANT, long on hold because of Leahy vetting concerns, resume expeditiously. -------------- MINURCAT -------------- ¶11. (C) Gration took the opportunity of his meeting with Faki to deliver the U.S. position on the need for MINURCAT's mandate to be renewed. Chad had done so many things right, and had gained international credibility as a result, Gration pointed out, that tarnishing its reputation with an uncooperative gesture toward the UN would be ill-timed and ill-advised. Faki repeated (per Refs C and D) that Chad wanted to be flexible on modalities for withdrawal of MINURCAT's military units, in part so as to allow continued training for the DIS. He lamented that the UN had still not sent a "political-level" negotiating team to N'Djamena, and that some at the UN seemed to be stuck in either/or thinking: Chad did not want to be presented with a choice of keeping MINURCAT for another year entirely intact, or alternatively, losing the civilian as well as military aspects of what the force had accomplished. Faki, and later Bechir, strongly recommended that Gration speak directly with Deby on the NDJAMENA 00000097 004.3 OF 004 matter. ¶12. (C) Charge provided French-language talking points on MINURCAT (as translated from the version e-mailed by AF/C February 13) to Faki and Bechir to ensure that our position was understood. She also offered them to local French and UK Ambassadors, both of whom have indicated that they would like to work with us further in New York to devise a realistic P3 position. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶13. (C) In private, the Chadians are less inclined to declare that Chad-Sudan differences are resolved definitively than Deby's triumphalist return from Khartoum last week suggested. It is clear, though, that they are deeply engaged at the practical level with their Sudan Sudanese counterparts. We detect a move away from standard Chadian finger-pointing and in the direction of problem-solving, although the Chadians clearly feel that they have many masters to serve in the international community. We agree with Embassy Khartoum's proposal (Ref A) for concrete U.S. support when the Chadians and Sudanese have a better idea of what they might need. Deby's pronouncements tomorrow will be definitive. ¶14. (U) Minimized considered. BREMNER