VZCZCXRO7776
RR RUEHGI RUEHMA RUEHROV
DE RUEHNJ #0357/01 1160935
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 260935Z APR 07
FM AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 5185
RUEHGI/AMEMBASSY BANGUI 1347
RUEHYD/AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE 1513
RUEHRN/USMISSION UN ROME 0026
INFO RUCNFUR/DARFUR COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 NDJAMENA 000357 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS, SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR AF/C, PRM/AFR:MLANGE,S/CRS:PNELSON-DOUVELIS/JVANCE/ JBEIK 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF PGOV KCRS SU CD
SUBJECT: REFUGEE PROTECTION IN EASTERN CHAD - Part 1 
 
REF: NDJAMENA 257 
 
NDJAMENA 00000357  001.2 OF 004 
 
 
¶1. (U)  Summary: A team from the DepartmentQs Bureau of 
Population, Refugees, and Migration/Africa Office (PRM/AFR) 
and the office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and 
Stabilization (S/CRS)  visited Sudanese refugee camps in 
eastern Chad from March 20-28 to monitor USG-funded protection 
and assistance programs for refugees and conflict victims and to 
focus particularly on concerns about camp security/neutrality. 
This message focuses on the current status of the various elements 
that constitute refugee protection Q to include non-refoulement, 
physical security, registration/documentation, protection of women 
and of children, gender-based violence (GBV) prevention, and 
civilian character of camps.  A summary of recommendations is in 
the last paragraph. 
 
¶2.  (U)  The cornerstone of refugee protection Q first asylum 
is still firmly in place despite Chadian weariness with hosting 
refugees.  Registration and documentation of refugees is 
progressing well but the Government of Chad (GOC) is holding 
up the issuance of ID cards.   Physical ecurity of the camps 
is primarily in the hands o gendarmes whose numbers have finally 
been incresed by about 100 as was foreseen in a special PRM 
contribution to UNHCR.  However, with an average four weapons 
per detachment of 18, the gendarmes woefully under-equipped. 
And they have not been paid since the beginning of 2007 as UNHCR 
and the GOC have been negotiating a new contract.  Concerning the 
need to arm the gendarmes, we were informed that only President 
Deby has the authority to rectify their lack of weapons. 
Thankfully, the gendarmes have stayed on the job.  Physical 
security of refugees inside the camps is generally not an issue; 
security outside the camps is, particularly as refugees seek fire- 
wood.  Depletion of firewood in the vicinity of the camps is both 
an environmental and protection concern and UNHCR needs to more 
aggressively address the need for alternatives to traditional wood 
stoves.  While alternatives are costly, UNHCR must level with 
donors that it is a pay-now-or-pay-more-later situation. 
 
¶3.  (U)  Insecurity in eastern Chad requires humanitarians to 
travel by convoy and observe strict curfews, limiting both the 
number of staff and the contact hours that humanitarians have 
with refugees.    The resulting negative impact on protecting 
children, maintaining the strictly civilian character of the 
camps, and fulfilling the High CommissionerQs five commitments 
to refugee women is becoming more evident.   Probably the most 
difficult challenge to child protection in terms of girls is the 
custom of early marriage in a polygamous setting where the 
economics of survival favor the custom.   The most difficult 
challenge with respect to boys Q as ever Q is to avoid their 
recruitment into fighting forces.  Education (formal and informal) 
remains the primary point of entry for protection of refugee 
children.  However, due to insufficient funding, standards in 
primary education are not being met, and refugee leaders pleaded 
for secondary education and other activities for youth. 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  Maintaining the exclusively civilian character of the 
refugee camps is becoming increasingly challenging as the Darfur 
crisis drags on, with increased refugee frustration and hence 
susceptibility to recruitment, the emergence of the Chadian rebels 
as another factor, and increased Chadian government boldness in 
using/seeing the refugees used in the Chad-Sudan confrontation. 
Problems identified to date are recruiting, including forced 
recruiting, in some camps and the presence of weapons and 
sometimes combatants in camps.  Potential camp security/neutrality 
risks that have NOT/NOT been clearly identified/verified to date, 
but to the possibility of which UNHCR and partners should be alert 
include diversion of supplies and food to combatants; rebel 
training within camp boundaries; taxing of refugees to fund arms 
procurement; intimidation of refugees to provide support for 
military activities; and use of refugee camps to shelter combatants 
 
from conflict.  Routine rebel visits to family members who are in 
refugee camps are generally not too problematic provided that 
weapons are left outside of camps and no military activities are 
undertaken inside the camps.  UNHCR continues to deliver the non- 
militarization message in all of it dealings with the GOC and with 
refugee leadership.  Speaking to refugees and townspeople in 
Kounoungo Camp on March 25, President Deby said all of the right 
things about no weapons/recruitment, but the GOC commitment on 
enforcement does not appear to be strong.   The USG and other 
donors should redouble efforts to press the GOC to fulfill its 
responsibilities.  Strategies to pursue include camp relocation, 
empowerment of refugees to resist militarization (e.g. 
strengthening womenQs decision-making in the camps and providing 
alternative educational/ vocational activities for youth) and the 
fielding of a UN police-type force that would help protect the 
refugee camps in part by keeping rebels out.  End Summary. 
 
 
NDJAMENA 00000357  002.2 OF 004 
 
 
Introduction 
 
¶5.  (U)  State Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration/Africa 
 
team of Margaret McKelvey and Geoff Parker, accompanied by S/CRS 
detailee to Embassy Ndjamena Charles Wintermeyer, visited Sudanese 
refugee camps in the areas of Bahai, Guereda, Iriba, and Farchana 
from March 20-28 to monitor USG-funded protection and assistance 
programs for refugees and conflict victims and to focus 
particularly on concerns about camp security/neutrality.  Parker 
also visited the Goz Beida area refugee camps as a participant in 
the annual UNHCR Country Operations Planning exercise March 11-18. 
 
(Wintermeyer had also previously visited Goz Beida with USAID/OFDA 
TDYer Victor Bushamuka to review the situation of internally 
displaced Chadians.)   This message focuses on the current status 
of the various elements that constitute refugee protection Q to 
include non-refoulement, physical security, registration/ 
documentation, protection of women and of children, gender-based 
violence (GBV) prevention, and civilian character of camps. 
 
First principle Q first asylum 
 
¶6.  (U)   The cornerstone of refugee protection Q no forced 
repatriation and the right to seek and enjoy asylum Q is judged 
to be still firmly in place in Chad despite growing Chadian 
weariness with the presence of over 230,000 refugees from Darfur. 
Of potential concern, however, is the inability of UNHCR field 
officers in Guereda to conduct border monitoring missions to verify 
 
that all is well since late November 2006 when ethnic tensions and 
Chadian rebel attacks led to increased UN security restrictions on 
staff movements. 
 
Physical Security 
 
¶7.  (U)  The camps continue to be essentially open to anyone who 
wants to enter despite the presence of an official entry point 
staffed by Chadian gendarmes.  Gendarmes do patrol around, and 
more recently even inside, the camps.  The PRM QS/CRS team observed 
 
one incident where a commercial vehicle (i.e., a pickup truck 
filled to overflowing with various sacks, kettles, and other 
items dangling) was being unloaded for inspection by the gendarmes 
after having been apprehended in the camp without authorization. 
 
¶8.  (SBU)  With the exception of Kounoungo Camp, physical 
security of refugees inside the camps is not currently a great 
concern.  Kounoungo presents a special case as non-integrated/ 
non-reconciled Chadian rebel members of the FUC 
(United Front for Change) have entered the camp via their 
association with some Chadian Tama who managed to fraudulently 
register as refugees.  These FUC personnel have been the 
perpetrators of several attacks on Zaghawa refugees (see reftel). 
 
¶9.  (U)  Obviously, the physical security of refugees outside of 
the camps, notably of refugee women/girls going to collect 
firewood and/or tend to animals, is an ongoing concern.  This 
threat stems primarily from the conflict with the local population 
over natural resources.  In some cases, gendarmes accompany those 
who go on the UNHCR-organized collection of firewood. 
 
¶10.  (U)  The firewood issue is both an environmental as well as 
a protection issue.  UNHCR has attempted to address the issue by 
distributing and promoting the use of the QSave 80Q fuel efficient 
stove that is supposed to use only some 20% of the firewood 
consumed by traditional cooking methods.  The stoves are also 
safer and at Breidjing Camp, refugee women leaders reported that 
they had banished families that refused to use the new stoves to 
the outskirts of the camp in order to minimize the danger of fire. 
 
But financial considerations are limiting the number of stoves that 
 
UNHCR can distribute so only the largest families have received 
stoves so far.  Moreover, since UNHCR-provided firewood represents 
only about 30% of what refugees need, the use of the stoves will 
not necessarily result in a dramatic cost savings or an immediate 
answer to the essential depletion of firewood in the vicinity of 
camps.  For the Guereda camps, in 2005 gendarmes accompanied women 
up to 20 kilometers outside the camps to collect firewood; now in 
2007, they must go 80 kms to find sufficient wood.   Clearly a 
fuel crunch point is coming more quickly than it would appear a 
solution to the Darfur crisis is coming.  UNHCR worries that 
trying to introduce alternative cooking methods such as kerosene 
and/or rapid distribution of QSave 80Q stoves to every refugee 
family would be prohibitively costly. But not coming to grips with 
the impending firewood crisis could engender even greater costs in 
the not too distant future.  Unfortunately, solar power has not 
 
NDJAMENA 00000357  003.2 OF 004 
 
 
been a successful alternative in the camps owing to the dust and/or 
 
to the length of time required to cook food.  Recommendation:  The 
PRM team urged UNHCR at the Abeche and Ndjamena levels to address 
the firewood depletion issue much more aggressively from a 
business-minded perspective of pay now or pay more later. 
Pressure to follow up and to explain the financial equirements 
to donors sould continue.] 
 
¶11.  (BU)  The long-awaited increase of the Chadian gendrme 
force (with funding from State/PRM to UNHCR)is reported by UNHCR 
Security Officers to finall be in place with the addition of six 
patrols of fifteen gendarmes each (located in the five Field 
Offices in the east Q Bahai, Iriba, Guereda, Farchana, and Goz 
Beida -- and in Abeche) along with five liaison officers and 
three coordinators.  Along with the 18 gendarmes stationed in 
each of the twelve camps in the east and the 16 gendarmes spread 
across the southern camps, there should be a total of some 330. 
Whether all of the assigned gendarmes are in place at any given 
time is another issue.  Despite an earlier expectation that 
gendarmes would rotate among camps, most of those to whom the PRM 
QS/CRS team spoke had been in place since 2004.   A critical 
concern with respect to the gendarmes is their lack of weaponry 
to accomplish their protection/law and order mission.  In at least 
some camps, there is not an arm for each gendarme (leading to the 
wry moniker of Qgens sans armesQ).  Apparently only President Deby 
himself can order that arms be given to gendarmes; at least at 
Kounoungou Camp (reftel) the gendarmes had an opportunity to 
inform Deby of their lack of weapons.   Recommendation: 
Protecting our current investment in the gendarme force, ensuring 
that gendarmes charged with protecting refugees/camps and 
humanitarian operations have adequate weaponry to discharge their 
duties should be part of the bilateral USG-Chadian dialogue. 
 
¶12.  (SBU)  Another issue with respect to the effectiveness of the 
gendarmes is the fact that none had been paid since the beginning 
of 2007 owing first to delays in signing the annual UNHCR-GOC 
memorandum of understanding on the gendarmes because of UNHCR 
reluctance to pay increased costs (which UNHCR feared would go not 
to the gendarmes but into the pockets of GOC officials) and second 
to delays in the movement of funds from UNHCR to GOC accounts. 
Perhaps remarkably, the gendarmes have stayed on the job while 
running up IOUs with local merchants for food and other 
necessities.  UNHCR planned to give some direct payments to the 
gendarmes so as not to prolong the delay in providing stipends 
into April.   Recommendation:  Embassy/Ndjamena should track the 
stipend issue to ensure that it is resolved favorably and that 
gendarmes are paid as quickly as possible. 
 
¶13.  (U)  Physical security of humanitarian workers themselves is 
also a factor in whether they can provide the requisite 
protection for refugees.  Targeted for their vehicles, radios, 
and money, humanitarians have been traveling in convoys under 
gendarme escort since the Chadian rebel assault on Ndjamena in 
April 2006.   This diminishes the number of contact hours that 
humanitarians have with refugees and takes gendarmes away from 
their primary camp protection role.  Even if Eastern Chad were to 
be re-designated as Qphase 3Q security vice Qphase 4Q, as some such 
 
as new OCHA coordinator Daniel Augstberger have suggested would be 
appropriate, the need for security escorts would not likely 
diminish.  Going from four to three could be very helpful, however, 
 
in terms of increasing the number of humanitarian staff allowed 
in the field. 
 
Registration/Documentation 
 
¶14.  (U)  All of the current camp populations are registered in 
UNHCRQs ProGress system.  In Oure Cassoni and Am Nabak Camps, 
however, the individual pictures to go along with the data entries 
have not yet been taken.  Each married female is registered along 
with her children as a family unit while the men are registered 
separately with their various wives cross referenced.  While 
refugees do have their individual copies of the ProGress 
registration, they do not yet have individual identification 
cards that UNHCR funded owing to the GOCQs indecision on 
authorizing their issuance.   Babies, whether born in a camp 
health facility or at home, are given birth certificates using a 
Chadian double coupon system; the mother receives one copy which 
could eventually be used to seek Chadian nationality for a child 
that might want it.  In Briedjing, the PRM team saw relatively new 
babies having their pictures taken to be added to the familyQs 
ProGress file.    Recommendation:  The USG should weigh in with 
the GOC (in consultation with UNHCR) in getting the individual ID 
cards distributed as soon as possible. 
 
Child Protection 
 
NDJAMENA 00000357  004.2 OF 004 
 
 
 
¶15.  (U)  As with many activities in the community services area, 
insecurity that limits humanitarian contact hours with the refugee 
communities also hinders full implementation of child protection 
measures.  Christian ChildrenQs Fund, for example, withdrew from 
Kounoungou and Mile Camps following multiple Guereda security 
incidents and is behind schedule in implementing PRM-funded efforts 
 
in Touloum and Iridimi Camps. 
 
¶16. (U) Tripoli minimize considered. 
TAMLYN