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DE RUEHNJ #0894/01 1800844
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 290844Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3994
INFO RUEHUJA/AMEMBASSY ABUJA 1194
RUEHDS/AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA 0809
RUEHBP/AMEMBASSY BAMAKO 0676
RUEHDK/AMEMBASSY DAKAR 1111
RUEHKH/AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM 0259
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 1461
RUEHNM/AMEMBASSY NIAMEY 2731
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 1855
RUEHYD/AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE 1253
RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI 0590
RUEHLC/AMEMBASSY LIBREVILLE 0872
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0752
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0815
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS
RUEHTRO/AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI 0255

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NDJAMENA 000894 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT. FOR AF, AFC, DRL, PRM, S/CRS 
LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHER 
NAIROBI FOR OFDA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/28/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM KCRS CD
SUBJECT: CHAD: FRENCH AMBASSADOR BLAMES POLITICAL 
OPPOSITION FOR LACK OF DIALOGUE 
 
REF: NDJAMENA 
 
Classified By: POL/ECON OFFICER MICHAEL P. ZORICK, REASONS 1.4 (B) AND 
(D). 
 
--------- 
SUMMARY: 
--------- 
 
¶1. (C) The French Ambassador to Chad believes that none of 
the actors in Chad's political-military conflicts are willing 
to use dialogue to reach a peaceful solution to the country's 
succession problem.  Although he believes that the 
international community must keep up the pressure on all 
parties to pursue a political compromise, he seemed ready to 
admit defeat -- not just for his own efforts, but for 
France's formula for a unity government, electoral and 
judicial reforms, and eventual opposition exercise of power. 
He seems to fear that President Deby's manipulations of his 
political opposition and rebellious countrymen will certainly 
not solve Chad's problems, but may also feed the into the 
difficulties of implementing the Darfur Peace Agreement.  END 
SUMMARY 
 
PARIS' MESSAGES TO CHAD 
------------------------- 
 
¶2. (C) French Ambassador to Chad Jean-Pierre Bercot reported 
on the June 15-16 visit to Chad of France's Minister Delegate 
for Cooperation, Development and Francophony, Brigitte 
Girardin.  He said Girardin's messages to Deby were the same 
as those she delivered to the political opposition: (a) that 
Chad had to move forward, and the reality on the ground was 
that Idriss Deby Itno is in the President's chair; (b) 
President Deby must offer dialogue to the political 
opposition -- and the opposition must accept -- without 
pre-condition; and (c) Chad is on a slippery slope, and a 
political opening is absolutely necessary if the country is 
to avoid a much worse situation. 
 
¶3. (C) President Deby apparently responded in the negative to 
France's current suggestions for an opposition Prime Minister 
and a national unity government.  Bercot reported that his 
reason was the total incapacity to govern of the members of 
the political opposition.  Deby pointed out to the French 
that the members of the opposition umbrella group 
Coordination of the Political Parties for the Defense of the 
Constitution (CPDC) do not trust each other, do not work 
together, have no political platform, and present no leader. 
Bercot said Deby stressed that he did not know what the 
opposition wanted aside from his departure and the inclusion 
of armed rebellions in the negotiations, and could not enter 
into a dialogue with people who gave no reason for discussion. 
 
WHAT CAN THE INTERNATIONAL 
COMMMUNITY DO? 
--------------------------- 
 
¶3. (C) Bercot linked his arguments for international 
community action to the continued negative pronouncements of 
Sudan's President al-Bashir on accepting a UN peacekeeping 
operation (PKO) in Darfur.  He pointed out that Deby's 
conflict with al-Bashir encouraged armed rebels in the East, 
and intersected with the difficulties of implementing the 
Darfur Peace Agreement.  According to Bercot, this UN PKO 
would be French President Chirac's last major international 
effort before he steps down in 2007.  With the UK's Prime 
Minister losing steam, and the Germans focused on their 
involvement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, only 
Chirac and President Bush were invested in Sudan.  Pressure 
on Deby to seek a face-saving meeting with al-Bashir at the 
AU Summit in Banjul, Gambia, was in Bercot's opinion a first 
 
NDJAMENA 00000894  002 OF 003 
 
 
element to relieving pressure on Deby's eastern flank -- and 
in getting al-Bashir to move toward accepting a robust UN 
PKO.  In this regard, Bercot said France had recently 
proposed to the UN Secretary General to provide full 
logistical supply support to a 500-strong "African 
Gendarmerie" force to bring security to the refugee and IDP 
camps in Chad's east, as long as the this support was seen as 
separate from France's bilateral military engagement in Chad. 
 
¶4. (C) Second, the French Ambassador said the main 
international players in N'Djamena should seek out Deby's 
so-called Committee of Wise Men (Comite des Sages), under the 
chairmanship of the former Chadian President, General Felice 
Malloum.  Bercot said he had "sent" the head of the 
Delegation of the European Commission, Ambassador Robert 
Kremer, to talk to the Committee, as a way to "de-politicize" 
France's message that political dialogue will bring the 
necessary resources to pay for root-and-branch reform of the 
electoral and judicial systems -- reforms that could bring 
the political opposition into power behind a parliamentary 
majority in first half 2007.  Bercot specified that France 
and the EC were ready to fund these reforms right away, 
through the UN Development Programme (UNDP). 
 
------------------------ 
PRESSURE THE OPPOSITION -- 
BUT IS ANYONE LISTENING? 
--------------------------- 
 
¶5. (C) Third, the French envoy said Chad's international 
partners had to put full pressure on the political opposition 
to accept dialogue with Deby, and to present concrete 
proposals for change.  However, Bercot despaired that there 
was anyone really capable of having this dialogue with the 
President.  He reported that key members of the CPDC were 
trooping into his offices seeking visas for travel to France 
during the critical period leading up to Deby's August 8 
investiture for his third term.  He suggested the CPDC was 
falling apart, and that individual members were heading to 
Europe to talk to France's political opposition, and Europe's 
human rights organizations, with the messages that France 
supports a dictator, and the dictator has to go -- but no 
political program, and no idea of who would lead Chad. 
 
¶6. (C) In the absence of a viable political opposition, 
Bercot suggested that Deby is seeking to split up the armed 
rebellions, pulling leadership elements away and into a 
dialogue -- thus undercutting the political opposition's call 
for their inclusion at the table.  Bercot mentioned 
specifically his suspicion that Deby is in discussions with 
the FUCD's Mahamat Nour and his allies.  He said the 
political opposition was thus falling into a trap of their 
own making, allowing Deby to pick whom from the rebel groups 
he would invite to the table, and undercutting the CPDC in 
the process.  That said, Bercot did not believe that Deby 
would talk to rebel leaders coming from his own Zaghawa clan. 
 
DANGEROUS FOR DARFUR? 
---------------------- 
 
¶7. (C) Ambassador Bercot cautioned that the choices Deby 
might make in the near future could make it more difficult 
for the international community to accomplish its aims in 
Darfur.  He speculated that Deby would only reach out to 
Chadian rebels without roots in his own clan, and noted that 
at least some of these could be considered "Arab", or at 
least from northern Chadian clans such as the Tama, who could 
be seen as having Sudanese backing.  He linked them to 
spoiler groups in Darfur, opposing the DPA.  Thus, Bercot 
expressed the view that Deby's choice of whom to deal with 
from the groups or individuals involved in westward-facing 
rebellions could include people tied to eastward-looking DPA 
 
NDJAMENA 00000894  003 OF 003 
 
 
spoilers.  And, where this kind of "opening" to armed 
opponents in Chad will certainly not accomplish anything in 
terms of bringing about political dialogue, it may strengthen 
DPA opponents. 
 
IN THE END, SEEMS ALL 
WILL FAIL 
---------------------- 
 
¶8. (C) Having lined up this constellation of actors and put 
them into the current context, Bercot finished gloomily with 
the opinion that the political opposition were trapped by 
their own refusal to talk, inability to lead, and insistence 
on having rebels at the table; Deby was trapped by his 
willingness only to offer empty dialogue, rejection of an 
exit strategy through a unity government, and complex 
attempts to manipulate all sides to create for himself a 
space in which he could survive; and the international 
community was trapped in having only one game to reasonably 
play -- that of dialogue toward power-sharing -- but no 
credible Chadians with whom to play it.  He stated plainly 
that France's ideas for the structure of a transition from 
Deby rule is dead, since no one had accepted them.  "There is 
no doubt in my mind," he said, "We -- the international 
community, and especially France -- are a big part of the 
problem." 
 
¶9. (U) Tripoli Minimize Considered. 
WALL