VZCZCXRO4199
RR RUEHTRO
DE RUEHNJ #0968/01 2001423
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 191423Z JUL 06
FM AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4113
INFO RUEHUJA/AMEMBASSY ABUJA 1211
RUEHDS/AMEMBASSY ADDIS ABABA 0829
RUEHBP/AMEMBASSY BAMAKO 0693
RUEHDK/AMEMBASSY DAKAR 1135
RUEHKH/AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM 0276
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 1478
RUEHNM/AMEMBASSY NIAMEY 2746
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 1883
RUEHYD/AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE 1275
RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI 0607
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0775
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0838
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS
RUEHTRO/AMEMBASSY TRIPOLI 0270

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NDJAMENA 000968 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT. FOR AF, AFC, DRL, PRM, S/CRS 
LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHER 
NAIROBI FOR OFDA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/19/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM KCRS PHUM CD SU
SUBJECT: CHAD/DARFUR: NMRD CLAIMS CHADIAN PRESSURE TO JOIN 
JEM AGAINST SLA/MM 
 
 
Classified By: POL/ECON OFFICER MICHAEL P. ZORICK, REASONS 1.4 (B) AND 
(D). 
 
--------- 
SUMMARY: 
--------- 
 
¶1. (C) The Darfur rebel group National Movement for Reform 
and Development (NMRD) has indicated a desire to revisit its 
objections to the DPA, and implied a readiness to support DPA 
implementation.  The group's General Secretary has stated 
that the group must be recognized as a valid interlocutor and 
participant in all future discussions of DPA implementation, 
and sanctions lifted against its current Revolutionary 
Council Chairman, Gibril Abdel-Karim Bari.  The NMRD is under 
heavy pressure from some Chadian sauthorities to join the 
Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in active opposition to 
DPA implementation and DPA signatory Minni Minawi's Sudan 
Liberation Army faction (SLA/MM).  END SUMMARY. 
 
-------------------------- 
WE WANT TO BE COOPERATIVE 
-------------------------- 
 
¶2. (C) National Movement for Reform and Development (NRMD) 
General Secretary Khalil Abdullah met July 18 with 
Ambassador, at the former's request.  Abdullah recalled that 
NMRD leaders had had extensive conversations with Embassy's 
POL/ECON officer after the May 5 signing of the Darfur Peace 
Agreement (DPA).  He said they had made clear that their 
principal objections to the DPA were (a) that they had not 
been participants in its negotiation, and (b) that there were 
inadequate individual compensation provisions in the 
agreement. 
 
¶3. (C) Abdullah pointed out that he must be able to sell the 
agreement in the refugee camps where NMRD followers are 
living.  He said this is a very difficult task when he has no 
individual compensation to offer people who have been denied 
access to their homeland for several years, and have 
essentially lost everything. 
 
¶4. (C) More generally, Abdullah stressed that the issue of 
individual compensation had become Dr. Khalil Ibrahim's 
Justice and Equality Movement's (JEM -- from which the NMRD 
had split in march 2004) only talking point in opposing the 
DPA in the camps.  According to Abdullah, JEM leaders tell 
refugees and IDPs that Minni Minawi's Sudan Liberation Army 
faction (SLA/MM) has taken all the money that should have 
gone to the people, and that the JEM is under fire from the 
USG and UN because of its Islamic roots.  Abdullah suggested 
that Abdel Wahid Mohamed el-Nur's SLA faction (SLA/AW) is 
using the same approach, in coordination with the JEM. 
 
¶5. (C) Abdullah's message was that the NMRD leadership, which 
he said was essentially composed of himself and former 
Chadian army officer Gibril Abdel-Karim Bari, would prefer to 
be seen as cooperative toward the DPA; as ready to discuss 
their difficulties with the agreement, without necessarily 
re-opening it; and as prepared to sign on to agreement 
implementation.  What the NMRD needed to allow for this was 
recognition from the UN, AU, and USG as a viable movement in 
all further Darfur discussions, and the lifting of sanctions 
against Gibril Abdel-Karim. 
 
------------------------- 
CAUGHT IN THE CROSS-FIRE 
------------------------- 
 
¶6. (C) Abdullah set out some of the NMRD's current realities 
as an explanation for the difficult position in which the 
movement finds itself.  He pointed out that NMRD forces were 
camped in the area of the Chadian border town of Adde on July 
 
NDJAMENA 00000968  002 OF 003 
 
 
3, 2006 when the area came under Chadian rebel attack.  He 
said Chadian rebels also fired on NMRD forces en route to the 
attack against the Chadian army.  He suggested that, despite 
NMRD attempts to maintain relations of non-interference with 
Chadian rebel groups, these are receiving Sudanese financial 
and material support, and so are under Khartoum's pressure to 
strike at both Darfur rebels and Chad's government forces. 
 
¶7. (C) Abdullah stressed that one of the reasons the NMRD was 
located inside Chad was to avoid being accused of actively 
acting as DPA spoilers inside Darfur.  This went hand in hand 
with NMRD's continued rejection of JEM and SLA/AW requests to 
join forces against the SLA/MM and DPA implementation. 
 
---------------- 
CHADIAN THREATS 
---------------- 
 
¶8. (C) Abdullah described what the NMRD saw as the current 
state of play in Chad's relations to the Darfur conflict.  He 
said that the Chadian President's half-brother, Daoussa Deby, 
is a driving force behind JEM's harassment of and attacks 
against the SLA/MM.  He supported the consistently-heard -- 
but also consistently denied -- rumors that Daoussa, 
operating on behalf of the Deby regime, is funneling 
resources to JEM so that JEM will behave as a proxy or 
mercenary force against Chadian rebels in the Sudan/Chad 
border area.  That JEM also has a more "national" (read: 
anti-Khartoum) agenda is a bonus for Chad's President. 
 
¶9. (C) Daoussa Deby had also been the conduit for Chadian 
government support to NMRD, but according to Abdullah, that 
support has dwindled to nearly nothing.  This is because 
Daoussa has made it contingent upon NMRD cooperation with JEM 
against Khartoum, which implied NMRD military action against 
the SLA/MM, as the later had signed on to the DPA, and thus 
was in league with Khartoum.  Daoussa sees NMRD as militarily 
capable and wants those capabilities to reinforce JEM. 
Abdullah also believed that Daoussa's support for JEM actions 
against the SLA/MM was linked to Daoussa Deby's personal 
animosities in regard to Minni Minawi.  While NMRD still has 
contact with the Chadian authorities through the recently 
promoted Brigadier General Mahamat Ismail Chaibo (who is a 
direct family relation to NMRD leaders), Daoussa has become 
the only channel for money, and he is now openly hostile to 
the NMRD.  "He tells us, to join JEM, or be destroyed." 
 
-------------------- 
TIME IS RUNNING OUT 
-------------------- 
 
¶10. (C) Abdullah stated point-blank that time is running out 
for DPA implementation.  He said that there are declining 
numbers of Darfur rebel or political leaders willing to 
support the DPA among the people.  The SLA/MM's increasing 
isolation as the only group fully backing the DPA puts it 
into a class by itself -- the Khartoum collaborators.  JEM 
and the SLA/AW are spoiling in Darfur, with Chadian 
government support, including attacks on SLA/MM.  The NMRD is 
vulnerable now on all fronts -- from Chadian rebels in the 
pay of Khartoum; from JEM, for continued refusal to join 
forces; from Daoussa Deby and Chadian government forces, for 
continued refusal to join JEM.  The NMRD has no interest in 
JEM's "national" agenda, having only a Darfur focus. 
Abdullah repeated that the NMRD's objections to the DPA could 
be worked out, but only if NMRD could get a seat at the 
table, and sanctions could be lifted.  He implied that NMRD 
had the credibility needed in Darfur to be a positive player 
in shifting the balance in favor of DPA implementation. 
 
-------- 
COMMENT 
-------- 
 
NDJAMENA 00000968  003 OF 003 
 
 
 
¶11. (C) NMRD's otives for seeking us out at this time may be 
may, and not especially tied to a sudden desire to suport 
the DPA.  Not least among them may be persoal difficulties 
NMRD leadership has with Daoussa Deby.  The fact that the 
movement appears to have no allies inside Darfur cannot be a 
comfortable position, and now it seems its Chadian 
benefactors have issued an ultimatum: prove useful to us in 
our conflict with Khartoum, or get out.  We believe key 
members of the Deby regime remain determined to buy allies 
against the regime's enemies, but we are not clear that they 
have made the connection between the friends they pay and 
those friends' attitudes toward the DPA -- and ultimately, 
the probability that they will be seen as engaged in 
sanctionable opposition to the DPA.  Regardless of where one 
comes out in analyzing their motivations, we still do not 
have verifiable information as to their actions.  We hope 
that those international allies of the DPA operating inside 
both Sudan and Chad, especially the AMIS forces, will be 
energized to clear some of the doubt surrounding the many 
accusations leveled against DPA spoilers and their probable 
financial benefactors.  END COMMENT. 
 
¶13. (U) Tripoli Minimize Considered. 
WALL