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O 151755Z FEB 10 ZDK ZUI RUEHTO 4258 SVC. VOL ALL OTHERS
FM AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7700
INFO RUEHZO/AFRICAN UNION COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHEE/ARAB LEAGUE COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUCNFUR/DARFUR COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 NDJAMENA 000097 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR AF/C, S/USSES 
NSC FOR GAVIN 
OSD FOR HUDLESTON 
LONDON FOR POL - LORD 
PARIS FOR POL - BAIN AND KANEDA 
ADDIS ABABA ALSO FOR AU 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/15/2015 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM CD
SUBJECT: CHAD MINISTERS BRIEF S/USSES GRATION ON DEBY VISIT 
TO KHARTOUM, MINURCAT WITHDRAWAL RATIONALE 
 
REF: A. KHARTOUM 103 
     ¶B. N'DJAMENA 35 
     ¶C. NDJAMENA 96 
     ¶D. PARIS 172 
 
NDJAMENA 00000097  001.4 OF 004 
 
 
Classified By: Charge d'affaires a.i. Sue Bremner, for reasons 1.4 (b) 
and (d). 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1.  (C)  S/USSES General Scott Gration met February 15 with 
Chadian FM Moussa Faki Mahamat, NSA Mahamat Ismail Chaibo, 
and DefMin Wadal Kamougue Abdelkader to offer congratulations 
on Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno's February 8-9 
breakthrough visit to Khartoum (Ref A) in pursuit of fully 
normalized bilateral relations between Chad and Sudan, 
consistent with the two nations' January 15 agreement. 
Gration's interlocutors stressed that although Deby had 
indeed made a dramatic and courageous gesture in traveling to 
Sudan, Darfur's problems were not yet resolved.  FM Faki 
reported that he was currently trying to bring Sudan 
Presidential Envoy Ghazi Salahuddin and Sudan JEM leader 
Khalil Ibrahim to N'Djamena, perhaps later this week, for 
talks aimed at getting the JEM to the negotiating table in 
Doha, if possible before Sudan's April elections.  Also on 
hand to facilitate Gration's visit was Chadian Ambassador to 
the U.S. Adoum Bechir, with whom Gration had a conversation 
on potential follow-on processes to the current Doha 
arrangement.  Gration delivered talking points on the 
advisability of full MINURCAT mandate renewal to FM Faki, who 
stressed that Chad wanted to be flexible on military 
draw-down modalities, but that it did regard the military 
side of MINURCAT as a disappointment.  Gration sees Deby on 
February 16, and will deliver the MINURCAT points to him 
also.  END SUMMARY. 
 
---------------------------------------- 
APPRECIATION FOR GRATION'S ROLE IN SUDAN 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  All of General Gration's interlocutors stressed 
Chad's gratitude for U.S. efforts on the Sudan electoral 
process, facilitating NCP-SPLM relations to address 
outstanding elements of the CPA, and helping South Sudan 
define a political course of its choice.  All pointed out 
that they hoped the U.S. would continue to call for parallel 
initiatives to resolve the problems of South Sudan and at the 
same time address Darfur's problems.  Faki noted that 
Chadians sometimes had the impression that the U.S. had found 
Darfur more difficult than South Sudan to grapple with.  It 
was true that Southerners were relatively clear on how they 
wanted to move ahead, in part because after 20 years, the 
SPLM had come to know the negoatiating tactics of the NSC and 
had become pragmatic.  The Darfuri, in contrast, sometimes 
felt passionate to the point where possible ways forward were 
obscured by impractical demands.  Bilateral problems between 
Chad and Sudan were the result of the Darfur crisis, and 
would not go away until it was settled, said Faki, Chaibo and 
Kamougue. 
 
----------------------- 
DARFUR AT TURNING POINT 
----------------------- 
 
¶3.  (C)  Faki offered that Darfur and indeed Sudan seemed to 
be at a turning point.  Each actor on the ground was still 
trying to prove its reasons for existence, but most rebel 
groups were weakened militarily.  A Chadian delegation would 
meet Sudan counterparts in El Genneina February 18 to close 
the border and consult on progress with respect to the 
February 21 deadline for expelling across the border, 
deporting to third countries or granting refugee status to 
remaining rebels.  The border monitoring protocol signed 
January 15 promised to usher in a useful arrangement, but 
closing and patrolling the border would be difficult absent 
resolution of Darfur's underlying social, political and 
economic problems, Faki continued.  There had been fighting 
in Darfur even the previous week between the SLM and Minni 
 
NDJAMENA 00000097  002.5 OF 004 
 
 
Minnnawi's units, Kamougue pointed out.  Military solutions 
alone would not work.  Chaibo credited Deby with taking the 
first steps toward fully normalized relations with Sudan.  He 
avowed that the GoC was now waiting to see if Khartoum were 
able to meet the February 21 deadline.  Minor disputes within 
Darfur, mismanaged by Sudan, had escalated into the present 
crisis there, said Chaibo.  He requested that General Gration 
press the GoS to take action on the ground to engage the 
people of Darfur so that their grievances would be addressed 
through action rather than rhetoric. 
 
----------------- 
BORDER MONITORING 
----------------- 
 
¶4.  (C)  Asked about planned border monitoring modalities, 
Kamougue noted that a force of 3000 troops, 1500 from Chad 
and 1500 from Sudan, was envisioned, deployed as joint units 
and reporting to one common military headquarters whose 
command would rotate every six months.  The current plan, 
which had been discussed with a Sudan technical team in Chad 
immediately following Deby's return on February 9, tracked 
closely with arrangements agreed provisionally between the 
two sides in 2006 (but never implemented).  Chaibo pointed 
out that with 18 different ethic groups living in areas that 
spanned the Chad-Sudan border, monitoring and closure would 
be challenging.  Kamougue reiterated that actually getting 
the border monitoring arrangement off the ground would be 
hardest aspect of the process -- the Sudan technical team was 
coming back to Chad February 28 for further legal and 
logistic consultations. 
 
-------------------------- 
JEM AND OTHER SUDAN REBELS 
-------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (C)  Faki advised that he had been trying to bring Sudan 
Presidential Adviser Ghazi Salahuddin and JEM rebel leader 
Khalil Ibrahim to N'Djamena from Sudan in the coming days to 
pressure the JEM to work with the GoS and others, and 
ultimately to go to Doha and negotiate.  Faki, Chaibo, 
Kamougue, and Bechir, all of whom took part in the 
mid-January GoC mission of Am Jarras (Ref B) to advise the 
JEM to choose between negotiation and "going it alone," 
recounted their experiences in trying to reason with the JEM 
and convictions that Khalil now "got the point."   The 
line-up of Ministers and other influential advisers to Deby 
had been impossible for Khalil to dismiss, said Chaibo. 
There would be "no more coming and going across the border -- 
this is what the border monitoring arrangement is for," he 
continued. 
 
¶6.  (C)  Asked whether JEM had the wherewithal to become a 
political movement, Chaibo made clear that "they are bad, 
they are beginning to understand the seriousness of what they 
have done, but they do have an option:  they can go to Doha, 
forswear fighting, and rejoin the Sudanese fold," as Minni 
Minnawi had done.  Sudanese President Bashir had told Deby 
that he was prepared to make the JEM "Sudan's 78th political 
party," said Chaibo.  Ambassador Bechir offered that Khalil 
knew he had no option but to negotiate.  As for other Sudan 
rebel factions, they were disfunctional and unpredictable. 
What Abdul Wahid was doing in Juba was hard to imagine unless 
he intended to join the SPLM. 
 
----------- 
CHAD REBELS 
----------- 
 
¶7.  (C)  Faki asked for Gration's help in convincing Sudan to 
expel, deport or grant refugee status to remaining Chadian 
rebels in Sudan.  Their return to Chad would greatly 
facilitate normalization of relations and normalization of 
Chadian internal political processes.  Gration asked whether 
Chad was prepared to welcoming returning Chad rebels.  Chaibo 
recalled the welcome afforded former rebel commander 
Soubiane, adding that other rebels could be pardoned whether 
or not they had "done wrong things."  "They are Chadians, 
after all," he concluded.  In Chaibo's and Kamougue's views, 
the Chadian rebels differed from the JEM in that they had no 
 
NDJAMENA 00000097  003.6 OF 004 
 
 
political aims or organizational structures that would 
militate in favor of their becoming political parties in the 
near term.  Kamougue, pointing out his own status as an 
opposition party member of the Deby government, stressed that 
Chadian structures were integrated in terms of political 
affiliation and aimed to become more so over time. 
 
-------------------------------- 
PLETHORA OF PLAYERS, INITIATIVES 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (C)  Faki described AU Special Envoy Thabo Mbeki's visit 
to Chad the previous weekend to press his ideas on Darfur 
peace arrangements.  Faki drew attention to the multiplicity 
of other international processes and players, including the 
UN's Djibrill Bassole, various Libyan interlocutors, 
Egyptians, Qataris, reps of the Arab League, etc.  France 
would have to be involved, in part because it was hosting 
not-yet-returned rebel figures like Mohammed Nour.  Each 
international interlocutor was pursuing his own ideas, 
sponsoring and fostering different Darfur actors.  Sometimes 
rebels voiced the positions of their sponsors as well as or 
instead of their own positions.  This created confusion and 
duplication of effort, and in some respects mirrored the 
fractured political scene in Darfur itself, where each rebel 
group kept saying that it was the real leader, and none would 
accept others in respective movements.  Mbeki was right to 
focus on nation-building, said Faki.  Darfuris needed to 
start feeling Sudanese. 
 
---------- 
NEXT STEPS 
---------- 
 
¶9.  (C)  Asked whether the U.S. could help, Faki asked that 
General Gration tell the Sudanese and Arabs that Sudan needed 
nation-building, and that Khartoum should address the root 
causes of problems in Darfur, including inequality, injustice 
and lack of government accountability.  Kamougue recommended 
that the international community try to work together and not 
break into blocs:  for example, both the U.S. and China had 
good relations with Sudan and Chad and could serve in neutral 
capacities.  Bechir asked for U.S. assistance in delivering 
remaining Sudan rebels to Doha.  He acknowledged that the 
Doha process might not be long-lived beyond upcoming 
elections in Sudan.  Although the Qataris had been generous 
and done a good job as facilitators, the process was slow and 
perceived as "too Arab" by some in Darfur.  Gration indicated 
that perhaps a location in Darfur itself would preferable as 
an eventual venue for continued negotiations.  Bechir pointed 
out that if there were consensus on this, an exit strategy 
would need to be found for the Doha process so as not to 
appear ungrateful to the Qataris or to Bassole. 
 
¶10.  (C)  Speaking on the desirability of enhanced bilateral 
U.S. assistance for Chad, Kamougue also urged that our 
military training for the ANT, long on hold because of Leahy 
vetting concerns, resume expeditiously. 
 
-------- 
MINURCAT 
-------- 
 
¶11.  (C)  Gration took the opportunity of his meeting with 
Faki to deliver the U.S. position on the need for MINURCAT's 
mandate to be renewed.  Chad had done so many things right, 
and had gained international credibility as a result, Gration 
pointed out, that tarnishing its reputation with an 
uncooperative gesture toward the UN would be ill-timed and 
ill-advised.  Faki repeated (per Refs C and D) that Chad 
wanted to be flexible on modalities for withdrawal of 
MINURCAT's military units, in part so as to allow continued 
training for the DIS.  He lamented that the UN had still not 
sent a "political-level" negotiating team to N'Djamena, and 
that some at the UN seemed to be stuck in either/or thinking: 
 Chad did not want to be presented with a choice of keeping 
MINURCAT for another year entirely intact, or alternatively, 
losing the civilian as well as military aspects of what the 
force had accomplished.  Faki, and later Bechir, strongly 
recommended that Gration speak directly with Deby on the 
 
NDJAMENA 00000097  004.3 OF 004 
 
 
matter. 
 
¶12.  (C)  Charge provided French-language talking points on 
MINURCAT (as translated from the version e-mailed by AF/C 
February 13) to Faki and Bechir to ensure that our position 
was understood.  She also offered them to local French and UK 
Ambassadors, both of whom have indicated that they would like 
to work with us further in New York to devise a realistic P3 
position. 
 
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COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶13.  (C)  In private, the Chadians are less inclined to 
declare that Chad-Sudan differences are resolved definitively 
than Deby's triumphalist return from Khartoum last week 
suggested.  It is clear, though, that they are deeply engaged 
at the practical level with their Sudan Sudanese 
counterparts.  We detect a move away from standard Chadian 
finger-pointing and in the direction of problem-solving, 
although the Chadians clearly feel that they have many 
masters to serve in the international community.  We agree 
with Embassy Khartoum's proposal (Ref A) for concrete U.S. 
support when the Chadians and Sudanese have a better idea of 
what they might need.  Deby's pronouncements tomorrow will be 
definitive. 
 
¶14. (U)  Minimized considered. 
BREMNER