VZCZCXRO1524
RR RUEHDU RUEHGI RUEHJO RUEHMR RUEHPA RUEHROV
DE RUEHNJ #0590/01 1130815
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 230815Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3607
INFO RUEHZO/AFRICAN UNION COLLECTIVE
RUCNFUR/DARFUR COLLECTIVE
RUEHBP/AMEMBASSY BAMAKO 0600
RUEHGI/AMEMBASSY BANGUI 1153
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 1321
RUEHNM/AMEMBASSY NIAMEY 2624
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 1709
RUEHYD/AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE 1108
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0709
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0688

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 NDJAMENA 000590 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR AF, AF/C, AF/SPG, D, DRL, DS/IP/ITA, 
DS/IP/AF, H, INR, INR/GGI, PRM, USAID/OTI AND USAID/W FOR 
DAFURRMT; LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICAWATCHERS; GENEVA FOR 
CAMPBELL, ADDIS/NAIROBI/KAMPALA FOR REFCOORDS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREF ASEC CD SU
SUBJECT: CHAD: REFUGEE PROTECTION AND IDP PULL 
 
REF: A. NDJAMENA 547 
 
     ¶B. NDJAMENA 576 
 
NDJAMENA 00000590  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  Ideas for immediate refugee protection 
are few and far between, according to those working the issue 
in Ndjamena.  UNHCR will explore devoting more resources to 
paying and equipping gendarmes.  The AU could be pressed to 
send more AMIS missions across the border.  Chadian Foreign 
Minister says if Sudan opposes blue hats, send them to Chad. 
Meanwhile, ICRC worries that insecurity east of Goz Beida is 
prompting the UN agencies to move to providing IDP assistance 
in Goz Beida, where it safer for international personnel but 
far from the border area.  Having come out strongly in our 
recent press guidance on our commitment to protection of 
refugees, we need a plan for how to follow through.  End 
Summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) ICRC and UNHCR representatives called on Ambassador 
Wall April 20 and 21.  All agreed that whatever else 
President Deby accomplished with his combative announcement 
April 15 (rupture with Sudan, oil deadline, refugees deadline 
-- the latter two since modified), he had gotten attention 
and, in particular, drawn international attention to the 
problem of protection for the refugees strung out in 12 camps 
along the eastern border. 
 
UNHCR 
----- 
¶3.  (SBU) The Ambassador asked UNHCR representatives Ana 
Liria-Frach and Rufin-Gilbert Loubaki, in view of recent 
press statements committing the United States to protecting 
the refugees, what were we actually able to do?  He had seen 
Chadian Foreign Minister Allam-mi earlier in the day, April 
21, and Allam-mi had said that, if Sudan was reluctant to 
have UN forces in Darfur, Chad would be happy to welcome UN 
forces to Chad.  UN forces could take care of protecting the 
refugees, which Allam-mi readily said Chad was not able to 
do.  Liria-Franch said this idea should be considered, but it 
had two flaws, first that it would take a long time and the 
need was immediate, and second that it would not address 
protecting the refugees in Darfur. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Liria-Franch said that the AU two days earlier had 
sent a mission by helicopter from Nyala to the refugee camps 
in Chad for a brief monitoring exercise.  She suggested that 
the AU could be requested to regularize such (now-infrequent) 
visits and make them more numerous, say twice a week, 
dedicating a helicopter to Goz Beida. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) The Ambassador asked whether UNHCR could provide 
significantly more assistance to Chadian gendarmes in the 
camps.  Liria-Franch said that UNHCR already paid for 235 
unarmed gendarmes (between 15 and 20 per camp), who 
supplemented the refugee surveillance committees in each 
camp.  They mainly provided security within the camps and 
within a five-kilometer belt around the camps, settling 
intra-camp strife and handling grievances with the local 
population.  Now they were going to be used also to escort 
convoys between cities, especially following the increase in 
carjackings (two cars of MSF and CARE had been taken the 
previous day in the Iriba area).  The Minister of Territorial 
Administration had repeatedly pressed for a doubling of this 
gendarme assistance, in answer to every plea for greater 
protection of the camps. Liria-Franch said that she had been 
reluctant to accede to this request as it was open-ended, was 
a diversion of limited resources away from direct 
humanitarian assistance, and was not an attractive use of 
funds from the donor standpoint.  However, she said, it now 
appeared necessary. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Liria-Franch said UNHCR had been giving 
consideration to moving the Goz Amer camp -- the most exposed 
from the standpoint of attack from the east -- north to Gaga. 
 However, moving 15,000 people at a time of heightened 
insecurity posed a daunting challenge.  Meanwhile, the large 
stocks of food at Goz Amer (built up in anticipation of the 
coming rainy season) comprised a tempting target for Arab 
 
NDJAMENA 00000590  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
marauders.  The rains would cut Goz Amer off from Goz Beida 
for periods of time.  Liria-Franch wondered whether the 
Chadian rebels might also target the area. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) The Ambassador said that he had just visited the 
Goz Beida/Goz Amer area April 19 and had talked to refugees 
and IDPs.  It was evident that the IDP problem was not 
relenting.  Attacks on them were continuing, even if such 
attacks were far from being as systematic, sweeping, and 
brutal as had occurred in Darfur.  Among the IDPs, the 
overwhelming concern was security rather than humanitarian 
assistance; if they could not go back home before the rains, 
they would stay where they had arrived, plant as best they 
could, and pass the rainy season there, hoping to go home 
later.  He asked whether UN-provided assistance in the Goz 
Beida area were beginning to be a "pull factor," drawing to 
Goz Beida IDPs who would otherwise remain closer to the 
border.  Liria-Franch said she did not believe that enough 
assistance was being provided as yet to account for the flow 
of IDPs toward Goz Beida, but UN agencies were being heavily 
criticized about not doing enough to assist the IDPs. 
Assistance would therefore grow, and the pull factor would 
grow. 
 
ICRC 
---- 
¶8.  (SBU) ICRC's head of delegation, Thomas Merkelbach, told 
the Ambassador April 20 that while the number of IDP's in the 
Goz Beida area was increasing, the bulk of the IDPs still 
remained along the border or along the Wadi Kadja, 
particularly at Koloy.  The Dadjo people affected by the 
attacks since December still, by and large, wanted to stay 
close to their homes along the border.  Meetings he had had 
with the UN agencies suggested that these agencies were under 
increasing pressure to begin significant assistance programs 
for the IDPs, but since the border area was too insecure for 
UN personnel, assistance would have to be provided where it 
was deemed adequately secure, i.e., in Goz Beida.  Previous 
policy coordinated among the UN agencies and NGOs was that 
any assistance would be provided as close to the border as 
possible, to obviate the pull factor.  That policy now 
appeared to be being eroded.  Merkelbach said it was 
essential to plan for IDP assistance and bring in food and 
supplies adequate to meet the anticipated need; ICRC was 
planning for 40,000 IDPs while UNHCR for 60,000 (UNHCR opting 
for higher numbers since it typically received less than it 
asked for).  However, timing of where and how much assistance 
to provide was vital, and assistance ought not to be provided 
simply because it was necessary to be seen to be responding 
and especially to do so at a place where it was convenient 
for the UN or NGOs rather than for the IDPs.  These IDPs were 
still refreshingly keen to return home and had not been 
asking for assistance.  However, a significant program of 
assistance in Goz Beida might quickly turn them into 
"professional beneficiaries." 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Merkelbach said he had sent his staff back to 
Dogdore (between Goz Amer and the border) and he was debating 
whether it was safe enough to send them also back to Koloy. 
(He needed more assurance from contacts among janjaweed and 
rebels, as well as the Dadjos and Chadian authorities, that 
an ICRC presence would be acceptable.  He expected to send 
his staff back to Koloy soon, barring a marked security 
deterioration, while the UN agencies were not likely to be 
allowed to go to Koloy any time soon.)  His staff reported 
that the IDP population at Dogdore had jumped from 2500 to 
4000 in a relatively short period.  There had been three or 
four attacks on villages near the border north of Daguessa, 
following the April 10 rebel raid on Koukou and Goz Amer. 
These villages had not been attacked previously. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Comment:  Our press statements take a forthright 
stand on protection of refugees.  We now need to develop a 
plan for making good on that commitment. 
WALL