VZCZCXRO6925
RR RUEHBC RUEHBZ RUEHDE RUEHDH RUEHDU RUEHGI RUEHJO RUEHKUK RUEHMA
RUEHMR RUEHPA RUEHRN RUEHROV RUEHTRO
DE RUEHNJ #0447/01 2890930
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 160930Z OCT 09 ZDK
FM AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 7310
INFO RUEHZO/AFRICAN UNION COLLECTIVE
RUEHEE/ARAB LEAGUE COLLECTIVE
RUCNFUR/DARFUR COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RHMFISS/HQ USAFRICOM STUTTGART GE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 NDJAMENA 000447 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR AF/C, S/USSES, PRM/AFR 
NSC FOR GAVIN 
LONDON FOR POL - LORD 
PARIS FOR POL - BAIN AND KANEDA 
ADDIS ABABA ALSO FOR AU 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF EAID PGOV PHUM SOCI PREL SO CD
SUBJECT: STATUS OF OURE CASSONI REFUGEE CAMP -- MOVE SEEMS 
INEVITABLE 
 
REF: A. NDJAMENA 403 
     ¶B. NDJAMENA 446 
 
NDJAMENA 00000447  001.4 OF 004 
 
 
-------- 
SUMMARY 
-------- 
 
¶1.  (SBU) The refugee camp in northeastern Chad on the 
Chad-Sudan border known as Oure Cassoni appears slated to be 
moved away from the border.  The GoC announced on 14 
September that the camp had to move (reported Ref A), and has 
designated a new site for its location.  The United Nations 
High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has not yet declared the 
proposed site to be viable for human habitation.  Whether it 
does will depend on multiple factors, but the critical one is 
water availability from a sustainable hydrological formation 
sufficient to provide at least 15 liters per day per person 
for some 28,000 people in a harsh desert environment.  Oure 
Cassoni's location only 5 kms from the border has been 
problematic since the camp's  establishment in 2005.  The 
site is highly politicized and militarized, and has long 
provided a rear base for Sudanese rebels.  It is not at all 
certain that moving it to the  location selected by the GoC 
will do much to improve the situation, although MINURCAT SRSG 
Victor Angelo has insisted that UN agencies will do what they 
can to ensure that a move does not exacerbate existing 
problems or provoke new ones.  There is considerable 
speculation among humanitarians as to the motivations for 
making tens of thousands of people destroy what little they 
have built for themselves, in order to move 45 kms and start 
all over again.  END SUMMARY. 
 
----------- 
THE PROBLEM 
----------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Oure Cassoni camp was originally established as a 
temporary transit camp for refugees, predominantly of the 
Zaghawa ethnic group, fleeing conflict in Darfur in 2004-05. 
Its location only 5 kms from the Chad-Sudan border was 
instantly problematic: UNHCR norms are to push for camp 
locations at least 50 kms from borders to avoid camps 
becoming militarized, acting as rear bases for armed groups, 
and providing a source for recruits into the conflict on the 
other side of the border.  The transit camp filled rapidly, 
in a desert area of extreme climactic harshness, leading 
humanitarian organizations to rush to provide necessary life 
support systems that exceeded what would likely have 
developed in the location in other circumstances.  The small 
settlement of some hundreds of inhabitants at Bahai, 25 kms 
south of the camp, was quickly dwarfed by the arrival of tens 
of thousands of refugees in the camp.  The ethnic homogeneity 
of the camp population - virtually 100% from the Zaghawa 
group that lives in the area on both sides of the border - 
and the relationships between camp residents and members of 
the armed group Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) meant 
that very quickly the camp became everything the humanitarian 
community generally seeks to avoid - politicized, 
militarized, and a place of recruitment, including of child 
soldiers. 
 
--------------------- 
ATTEMPTS AT SOLUTION 
--------------------- 
 
¶3.  (SBU) UNHCR has sought the camp's relocation from the 
early days of its existence.  At each suggestion that it 
move, the residents made clear that they had no intention of 
cooperating with such plans.  The longer the move was 
resisted, the more camp structures and services were 
established to ensure the survival of the refugees - health 
clinics for each of the three camp blocs, a hospital at Bahai 
to take referrals of illnesses and injuries too serious for 
the clinics, a system of referral and transport to the 
surgical hospital in Iriba, primary school systems, food and 
non-food item distributions, and most critically a relatively 
complex water pumping and treatment plant supplying large 
volumes of potable water.  State/PRM is currently managing 
funding for some two-thirds of all camp costs, through the 
USG contribution to UNHCR and annual cooperative agreements 
with the NGO International Rescue Committee (IRC) - over $3 
 
NDJAMENA 00000447  002.5 OF 004 
 
 
million per year. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Residents began to construct more durable shelters 
as the original tents and plastic sheeting structures wore 
out.  Residents opposed more and more strenuously the 
repeated attempts to identify a new site far from the border 
to relocate the camp as it became more and more entrenched at 
the Oure Cassoni site.  Most importantly, although the GoC 
offered a number of suggestions for where the camp should 
move, UNHCR found each of them untenable: there was no water 
to sustain the large camp population.  At no time did the GoC 
throw its weight and authority behind a move; at no time did 
the residents or the JEM fighters believe that they would be 
pressured to move by anyone other than the humanitarian 
community. 
 
---------- 
VOLTE FACE 
---------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) The GoC on 14 September convoked UNHCR, MINURCAT, 
and a group of key humanitarian organization representatives 
to announce to them that the Oure Cassoni camp must be 
relocated without further delay, to an area around the 
settlement of Bir Douan.  The area is just barely 45 kms west 
from Bahai and Oure Cassoni.  UNHCR has expressed resentment 
at the implication that they had somehow not been 
sufficiently enthusiastic in the past when suggestions for 
moving the camp had been made, and callsattention to the 
refusals of camp residents to coperate while the GoC 
presented both untenable rlocation sites, while not making 
it clear to cam rsidents that they must distance themselves 
frm the border.  Longtime observers note that in factUNHCR 
never seemed to press the issue hard enoug, and suggest that 
if indeed best practices militate for not creating camps 
within 50 km of the border, UNHCR both failed to adhere to 
this guideline, and should have exerted a lot more pressure 
subsequently to get it moved. 
 
---------------- 
WATER IS THE KEY 
---------------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU) RefCoord joined UNHCR, United Nations Children's 
Fund (UNICEF), and the World Food Program's (WFP) 
representatives, accompanied by MINURCAT'S UN POL Chief of 
Police and General Adoum of the GoC's "CONAFIT" (National 
Coordination for the Support of the International Force in 
Eastern Chad) on 09 October for a site visit to Bir Douan. 
IO and NGO representatives working in Oure Cassoni met the 
team at the site and briefed on its viability.  Water is, as 
always, the critical factor.  Bir Douan (geocoords: 
 15.501160,  022.433783 as determined by RefCoord on a 
hand-held satellite phone), population 405 souls according to 
the settlement's elders, accesses water through deep - 
sometimes tens of meters - hand-dug catchments in dried 
stream beds, as well as from two deep boreholes served by 
hand pumps.  The boreholes are 120 ms deep, roughly 0.5 kms 
apart, with a static water depth of 15 ms.  Water quality is 
good, according to NGO hydrologists. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Water clearly exists, but significant questions 
remain: 
 
-- Do the existing boreholes access a water pocket (non 
refilling) or an aquifer (potentially a sustainable source 
for tens of thousands of camp dwellers)? 
-- Can boreholes access water supplies in the areas where the 
camp blocs can be physically located? 
-- If yes, what is the potential output capacity of what 
would be a system of new boreholes in the areas considered 
for the three camp blocs? 
 
¶8.  (SBU) UNHCR has committed to answering these questions by 
Friday, 16 October.  The agency believes that if the answers 
are not favorable to relocating the camp to Bir Douan, the 
GoC will find another area for the move: it is now 
conventional wisdom that the GoC has decided that Oure 
Cassoni must move, no matter what. 
 
------------- 
 
NDJAMENA 00000447  003.4 OF 004 
 
 
WILL THEY GO? 
------------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  RefCoord's discussions with NGO and IO staff 
working in Oure Cassoni indicate that camp resident 
opposition to relocation is weaker than at previous times 
when the subject has arisen.  There appears to be a certain 
resignation to the move, despite strong discomfort expressed 
particularly among women with the prospect of up-rooting, 
given the expectation that they will leave the durable 
shelters they have built over the years for more months under 
tents and plastic sheeting, and more hard labor constructing 
new shelters. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) IO and NGO staff report that camp residents react 
in different manners depending upon the group context in 
which questions on the move are posed.  Camp leaders in 
particular express strong resistance to the move when in the 
company of their constituencies, but in private sometimes 
state that they are in favor of the move and will work to 
convince constituencies to cooperate.  IO and NGO staff have 
noted this behavior especially in discussions with camp 
leaders believed to be closely allied to the JEM.  In 
general, it appears that residents are quite clear that for 
the first time, the GoC has determined to push ahead with the 
move; they state that they expect that the GoC will 
eventually take action to destroy the Oure Cassoni camp 
infrastructure, making a move essentially non-voluntary on 
their part if they intend to continue to enjoy the status of 
refugee in Chad. 
 
-------- 
WHY NOW? 
-------- 
 
¶11.  (SBU) Much speculation has circulated among the IO and 
NGO community as to why, this time, the GoC has put its 
weight and political prestige behind the relocation of this 
camp.  The GoC has stated (Ref B and previous) that its goals 
include moving the JEM from the immediate border area, as a 
signal to Khartoum that the GoC is acting in good faith to 
hinder JEM operations in Sudan.  Still, the Bir Douan 
relocation site does not meet best practices in terms of 
distance from a border to provide for a buffer from 
militarization of the camp; IO and NGO staff report that it 
is a relatively easy one-hour drive from Bir Douan to the 
border, insufficient to impose much operational hardship on 
the JEM with their machinegun-mounted "technical" 4X4 
pick-ups.  IO and NGO staff note that, in any case, the Oure 
Cassoni population is seen to be already heavily politicized 
and militarized, so moving the camp now would not address 
these problems. 
 
¶12.  (SBU) SRSG Victor Angelo, in his September briefing to 
the diplomatic corps, answered questions about the 
possibility that moving the camp as proposed by the GoC would 
in fact play into the hands of the JEM, given that Bir Douan 
is a short 20 kms from Am Jarras, a suspected JEM base and 
President Idriss Deby Itno's home town.  Angelo asserted that 
the UN would do what it could to make sure than any move of 
the Oure Cassoni camp did not have unintended consequences, 
particularly with respect to JEM strength.  But it remains 
the case that Bir Douan would offer good cell phone coverage 
from the towers of Am Jarras, the only town of significant 
size for many kilometers around.  Indeed, CONAFIT's General 
Adoum has repeatedly drawn attention to this fact, telling 
RefCoord, IOs and NGOs that there would be no possible 
logistical or security problems associated with the move, 
because the President himself had insisted on it, as well as 
on the Bir Douan location. 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Thus international humanitarians and others also 
speculate that the Bir Douan location has been chosen to 
maximize the economic benefits that would accrue to the 
populations living in close proximity to the camp, which 
include Deby relatives.  (NOTE: The President spent 
considerable time "on family business" in the vicinity of Am 
Jarras at the end of Ramadan last month, during which he 
reportedly "resolved disputes" and "arranged prizes" among 
members of his tribe.  END NOTE.) The WFP representative 
reports that the GoC has been in regular contact with him and 
 
NDJAMENA 00000447  004.4 OF 004 
 
 
his predecessor, seeking to convince him to construct a major 
logistics and freight transit center in Am Jarras, in order 
to re-direct humanitarian food deliveries away from the 
southern route from Douala through Cameroon, and toward the 
Benghazi, Libya route into northeastern Chad and passing 
through Am Jarras.  The WFP representative states that the 
GoC believes large convoys should come into Chad on Libyan 
trucks, which would transfer cargos to Chadian carriers at 
the new logistics center for onward delivery to refugee and 
IDP camps throughout the east. 
 
¶14.  (SBU) IO and NGO staffs residing in Bahai and working in 
Oure Cassoni state that they have also been approached about 
moving their offices and resdences to Am Jarras in order to 
serve the new cap location at Bir Douan.  Staffs note that 
whilerelocation of offices is not strictly necessary fo 
effective access to the Bir Douan location, and ould 
certainly impose significant expenses on thir organizations, 
moving to Am Jarras would givetheir operations somewhat 
better infrastructure, and provide for a slightly shorter 
drive to access the camp. 
 
------------------- 
BUDGET AND TIMELINE 
------------------- 
 
¶15.  (SBU) UNHCR posits the following tentative sequence of 
events, should the Bir Douan site be determined to be viable: 
 
-- Multi-sectoral studies (water, sanitation, agriculture, 
security, telecoms) - Present through mid-October -- 
Senstization of camp residents - Present through end-December 
-- Boreholes and water point development - mid-October 
through mid-December -- Site Planning - beginning November - 
end-December -- Site development - Beginning November - 
end-December -- MOVE - mid-December until complete 
(approximately 1,000 persons per day, for roughly 28,000 
people) 
 
UNHCR's current cost estimate for the move: $ 9.4 million, 
although some ongoing contracts for services in Oure Cassoni 
can be transferred to the new site, and non-food items in 
stock would likely reduce the need for entirely new funds. 
 
-------- 
COMMENT 
-------- 
 
¶16.  (SBU)  No one but the GoC appears wedded to the Bir 
Douan relocation site at present, although the GoC's desire 
to move the camp here and not somewhere else may in the end 
prevail should the site prove viable for life support.  The 
diplomatic community is generally supportive of a move that 
would achieve the objective of disrupting JEM operations, 
although far from persuaded that Bir Douan is the right site 
for that.  As noted, refugees themselves have strong views, 
but these do not appear to have entered into the political 
calculus of anyone planning the camp move. 
NIGRO