UN chief seeks OK for Intl military, police operations in Chad
August 16, 2007 (UNITED NATIONS) — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the U.N. Security Council to give a green light to a new international mission that would deploy European troops and U.N. police to improve security for thousands of civilians trying to escape violence in Chad and the Central African Republic.
In a report to the council circulated Thursday, Ban said the proposed mission would provide “a unique opportunity” to help refugees and internally displaced civilians caught in local fighting and the spillover of the Darfur conflict in neighboring Sudan and create an environment “where humanitarian organizations can carry out their critical work.”
The newly revised proposal would also address the misgivings of Chadian President Idriss Deby, who opposed Ban’s original proposal for deployment of a U.N. military force but agreed to a European Union force after meeting French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in June, the secretary-general said.
Since the Security Council visited Darfur and Chad in June 2006, the United Nations has been talking about deploying international police and troops to the two impoverished countries on the volatile border with Darfur. With Deby’s approval and the EU’s agreement last month to start planning for a possible 3,000-strong peacekeeping mission, the pieces finally appear to be finally falling into place.
Ban’s proposal envisions three main components in the U.N.-mandated mission:
– a military force made up of EU troops capable of long-range patrols and equipped to respond robustly to hostile action;
– a new unit of Chad’s police and gendarmerie to maintain law and order in refugee camps, key towns and areas with large numbers of displaced civilians in eastern Chad;
– and a broad U.N. presence including up to 300 international police who would train and advise the new Chadian police unit, military liaison officers, and experts in human rights, civil affairs and the rule of law.
The secretary-general recommended that the Security Council “signal its intention to authorize the establishment” of the proposed international mission, which would enable coordination between the EU, U.N. and Chad, which has already started, to intensify.
He said deployment of the 26,000-strong joint African Union-United Nations force, which the council has already authorized to help quell the violence in Darfur, and deployment of troops and police in Chad and the Central African Republic “would have a material impact on the security situation in the region.”
“Progress on the political track in Darfur will also have an impact, since it would likely lead to increased stability in Darfur and the possibility of an eventual return home of Sudanese refugees currently in Chad and the Central African Republic,” he said.
The U.N. and AU are hoping to get all the rebel groups in Darfur and the Sudanese government to the peace table in September to try to end the four-year conflict that has claimed over 200,000 lives and uprooted 2.5 million people.
Ban said in the report that while the number of Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad has stabilized at about 236,000, the number of internally displaced Chadians now exceeds 170,000 – an increase of nearly 80,000 since December.
The main cause of insecurity is not clashes between government troops and rebel forces, which have occurred only sporadically in recent months, but “widespread criminality and banditry and an associated breakdown in law and order,” he said.
In the Central African Republic, Ban said, there are currently 30,000 internally displaced people in the northeast and 2,500 Sudanese refugees who fled across the border in late May trying to escape an attack by armed men whom they described as janjaweed “and who were allegedly supported by Sudanese military aircraft.”
Sudan’s government is accused of unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed against civilians in Darfur – a charge it denies.
The secretary-general said “the security situation in the northwestern Central African Republic, where 180,000 people are internally displaced, also continues to be a cause for serious concern.”
The Central African Republic’s President Francois Bozize has requested peacekeepers in the northeast to secure the border with Chad and Darfur, and appealed for a strong international commitment to bring peace and stability to the country, Ban said.
Under Ban’s proposal, there would be no direct involvement of the international mission in the border area.
The EU force in eastern Chad “would assist in protecting civilians at risk, facilitate the delivery of humanitarian relief and seek through its presence to reduce tension and deter conflict,” the secretary-general said.
“In the Central African Republic, the military component would also play a significant role in deterring the movement of armed groups between the Sudan and Chad through the Central African Republic,” he said.
(AP)