AP News, September 7th, 2007
The U.N. chief won Chad's backing for a Darfur peace conference during a visit Friday to this poverty-stricken central African nation that has become home to tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the conflict in neighboring Sudan.
President Idriss Deby, speaking to reporters after his talks with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, added he had discussed hosting a preliminary meeting for Darfur rebels before the peace conference set to start Oct. 27 in Libya. The failure of Darfur's fractured rebel movements to act in concert has stymied previous efforts to end the four-year war in Sudan's Darfur.
"We have a long experience dealing with the Sudanese rebels, we know them personally," Chad's foreign affairs minister, Ahmat Allam-mi, told reporters.
Ban said he expected the proposed rebel gathering to occur and welcomed Chad's "kind offer and flexibility" to hold it.
"Chad is one of the important regional players in addressing (the) situation in Darfur," Ban had said before going into his meeting with Deby.
More than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been uprooted since ethnic African rebels in Darfur took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in 2003, accusing it of decades of neglect. Sudan's government is accused of retaliating by unleashing a militia of Arab nomads known as the janjaweed _ a charge it denies.
The fighting in Sudan has sent tens of thousands of refugees into Chad and neighboring Central African Republic. In addition, raiders from Sudan have attacked refugees and Chadian villagers in Chad, and Chadian rebels have taken advantage of the instability to use the Chad region bordering Darfur as a staging ground for their own war on Deby's government.
"We talk about a spillover of the Darfur crisis into Chad. It's not just a spillover," said Kingsley Amaning, the U.N. humanitarian chief in Chad. "Instability from Darfur provided a haven for all sorts of armed groups."
A yearlong, 3,000-strong U.N.-mandated European Union mission has been proposed to protect Sudanese refugees and other civilians in the affected parts of Chad and Central African Republic. France is expected to contribute most of the soldiers for the mission, Belgium has pledged 80-100 personnel, and others including Sweden and Britain have backed the mission but have yet to say if they will send troops.
The force planned for Chad and Central African Republic is in addition to 26,000 African Union-U.N. peacekeepers for Darfur.
Chad's Deby rejected an initial proposal for a 10,900-member U.N. force to patrol the Darfur-Chad border and help protect about 238,000 Sudanese refugees in a dozen camps in eastern Chad and 180,000 Chadians uprooted by the fighting _ a huge increase from 50,000 internally displaced Chadians just a year ago.
Ban also met with humanitarian workers in Chad Friday. In a separate meeting with reporters, Thomas Merkelbach, the International Committee of the Red Cross representative in Chad, said the EU force "has to act and be perceived as being neutral." In that light, he said, France "might become a problem."
France has lent Deby military support against the Chadian rebels active in the border region.
Ban's Chad stop comes after a four-day visit to Sudan, including a visit to a camp for displaced people in Darfur. This weekend, Ban goes on to Libya, a visit that takes on added importance with the announcement that Libya will host Darfur peace talks.
