VII. Failure to Protect the Internally Displaced

As set forth in the UN Guiding Principles on internal displacement, the protection and assistance of internally displaced persons is the primary responsibility of the government.[33]The Chadian government’s commitment to fulfilling this responsibility has been weak. Meanwhile, the threat to civilians posed by insecurity in eastern Chad and Darfur was recognized in UN Security Council resolution 1778, which mandates MINURCAT to help create the security conditions conducive to a voluntary, secure, and sustainable return of refugees and displaced persons. Resolution 1778 authorizes the operation, acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, to use all necessary means (in other words, up to and including the use of force) to contribute to protecting civilians in danger, particularly refugees and internally displaced persons.[34]

The Chadian Government

The Chadian government’s decision to withdraw army units from border positions in Dar Sila in late 2005 allowed militia violence to proceed virtually unchecked, resulting in numerous preventable civilian deaths and injuries.[35] The departure of 35 ANT soldiers from the town of Koloye, northeast of Goz Beida, left a single 22-year-old gendarme in charge of protecting an estimated 10,000 IDPs. When the town came under attack by Chadian Janjaweed militias on November 11, 2006, at least 67 civilians were killed.[36]

Civilians responded to the security vacuum by organizing Tora Bora self-defense groups that received varying levels of support from the authorities and in many cases participated in joint operations with ANT units. Arab and Ouaddaïen civilians in Dar Sila complained of numerous abuses at the hands of a Tora Bora unit based in the adjacent villages of Tiero and Marena, kilometers east of Goz Beida, including during joint operations with the ANT. [37] A Tora Bora unit was responsible for protecting an estimated 6,000 IDPs in the adjacent towns of Marena and Tiero when Chadian rebels and Chadian Janjaweed militias attacked on March 31, 2007, leaving at least 200 dead. A Chadian Arab tribal leader told Human Rights Watch the Tora Bora unit based in Tiero was the target of the attack because it had committed abuses against Arab civilians. He said: “We were not going to just stand with our arms crossed.” [38]

The massacres at Koloye and Tiero-Marena in 2006 and 2007 represent failures by the government to protect IDPs that were directly related to policy decisions, either to reduce protection for vulnerable communities or to delegate protection to community-based militias. Government security forces continue to demonstrate limited commitment to civilian protection. The border town of Daguessa fell into the hands of an otherwise dormant rebel group in September 2008, shortly after the ANT unit stationed there redeployed to Modoyna; while the ex-rebels used death threats to extort money from the town’s inhabitants, including 600 IDPs, nearly four months passed before the ANT returned to restore state authority.[39]

The Chadian government’s plan to stabilize Dar Sila, announced in early 2008, appears to amount to the establishment of a national police post in Koukou-Angarana.[40] Though MINURCAT deployed 120 troops to Koukou-Angarana in May 2009, the government has yet to follow through on its promise.[41] The government’s commitment to fulfilling its responsibilities is far from adequate.In addition to restoring security to the border zone, the government must discipline and reform local civil and military officials who in many cases constitute a threat to civilians they should be protecting. International humanitarian workers have told Human Rights Watch, for example, that basic administrative tasks such as hiring and firing have occasioned threats and acts of violence by local government officials seeking to influence the decision. One humanitarian worker said:

The [local government official] wanted me to rehire someone I had just fired. I told him that I couldn’t do that. That was when he told me that he could no longer guarantee my safety.[42]

The aid worker’s compound was subsequently subjected to violent attack.[43] The impunity that prevails in eastern Chad functions as patronage by allowing officials to feed off the humanitarian aid agencies and the local population. A series of attacks on the offices of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders, MSF) in Koukou-Angarana is reported to have been the work of the resident sous-préfet, Mahamat Mousa, an ethnic Zaghawa who is reportedly related to senior government officials.[44] ANT soldiers were responsible for simultaneous raids on MSF compounds in Adé and Goz Beida on December 4, 2008, according to international aid workers and local sources.[45]

Due to the fear of retaliation at the hands of government officials, many aid workers are reluctant to file official complaints with Chadian authorities following threats and attacks. Ironically, by feeding impunity, such accommodation helps entrench the system of predation that puts humanitarians at risk.

Impunity remains one of the greatest obstacles to improving the protection of IDPs. The government should take steps to hold those responsible for committing gross abuses of human rights accountable for their crimes, and must do more to ensure that justice and law enforcement systems are in place to hold those who commit lesser crimes accountable. Despite allegations of serious crimes against civilians in Dar Sila, Chadian rebel leader Hassan al-Djinnedi was named Chad’sSecretary of State for National Defense in Charge of War Veterans and Victims following a December 2007 peace agreement with the Chadian government.

The United Nations Mission in Chad

EUFOR began to deploy troops to Chad in February 2008, seven months behind schedule but well ahead of MINURCAT, which did not reach operational capability until late in the year.[46]

EUFOR’s deployment may have had deterred a continuation of militia violence in Dar Sila. A Chadian Arab leader with family links to Janjaweed groups in both Chad and Sudan told Human Rights Watch that attacks against civilians that would have taken place in late 2007 became impossible with the mission’s pending arrival. He said: “La Guerre Ethnique is over.”[47]In Dar Sila, EUFOR patrols brought a generalized sense of security to large towns such as Goz Beida and Koukou-Angarana.[48]

However, EUFOR was unable to fill the security vacuum left by the lack of a functioning state security apparatus. Indeed, according to IDPs, EUFOR patrolling in agricultural areas compared unfavorably to the protection provided by FUC rebels after they joined forces with the Chadian government in late 2006. One IDP in Gassire said:

The UN should patrol out where we’re working. If they don’t come close enough, it doesn’t help. Some fields are far from the road, and what happens away from the road, no one will ever hear about.[49]

In 2008 EUFOR officials told Human Rights Watch that their civilian protection efforts were constrained by resources, specifically a shortage of personnel.[50] The mission was also constrained by concessions made to the Chadian government by the UN over the area of operations, which were deemed necessary to secure President Déby’s approval of the deployment.[51]The August 10, 2007 report of Secretary-General Bank Ki-Moon, which was a blueprint for the UN mission in Chad, stated that the force would not have any “direct involvement” in the Chad-Sudan border area,[52] a revised concept for the mission’s area of operations to that originally proposed.[53] IDPs frequently move back and forth across the Chad-Sudan border in attempts to escape shifting insecurity, however, and vulnerable civilians were consequently left outside of EUFOR’s area of operations.[54]

UN Security Council resolution 1861, passed in January 2009, allows for more leeway in the protection of civilians in border areas,[55] but it remains difficult for international forces to operate in the border area. On February 9, 2009 GNNT units fired on a EUFOR patrol near Birak, in the Ouadi Fira region northeast of Abéché, forcing it to turn back from conducting patrols along the border. Two days later, soldiers with the National and Nomadic Guard of Chad (Garde Nationale et Nomade du Tchad, GNNT) fired warning shots at a EUFOR patrol in the Dogdoré area east of Goz Beida, also preventing it from approaching the border.[56]

During a June 14, 2008 Chadian rebel attack on Goz Beida, EUFOR took up a defensive position around refugee and IDP camps and evacuated 250 humanitarian workers,[57] but EUFOR did not attempt to prevent retaliatory violence against the citizens of Goz Beida. Rebels who entered the town shot Aboubakar Mahamat, 30, in the stomach, suspecting him of being a government soldier because of his black restaurant uniform.[58] Two sisters, 15-year-old Habi Sharif and 17-year-old Zene Baissa, were shot when they tried to prevent a boy from joining the rebels.[59] The attack also exposed serious intelligence shortcomings: the invasion column of more than 100 rebel vehicles descended on Goz Beida only hours after EUFOR advised humanitarians that rebel forces reported in the area two days earlier had moved on and that it was safe to return to work in refugee and IDP camps.[60] The rebel column originated in the Modoyna pocket, an area that is off limits to EUFOR’s Mi-8 helicopters due to the risk of anti-aircraft fire from both sides of the border.[61]

On March 15, 2009, the United Nations took control of the military component of MINURCAT, replacing EU soldiers with UN peacekeepers following the expirations of EUFOR’s one-year mandate.[62] As of May 2009, MINURCAT was operating at less than half strength, with 2,115 out of 5,200 troops deployed to the field.[63] The force is expected to reach its full troop strength by the end of 2009.