Policing Criminality in Chad
blurb:isstoday:10022009chad
10 February 2009: Policing Criminality in Chad
Recent media reports of the inability of EUFOR (European Union Force) and MINURCAT (UN Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad) to protect civilians and curb bourgeoning criminality in Chad raise some serious concerns. In late 2008, humanitarian agencies reported a series of beatings, banditry, theft of livestock and robbery in refugee camps and rape of women and children in Eastern Chad. More so, Oxfam warned that the 3,700 strong Eufor has not been able to guarantee the safety of over 290,000 Sudanese refugees from the Darfur war, more than 180,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and a further 700,000 individuals from local communities around the county.
Due to the inability of these two formations to deal with spiralling insecurity in the Eastern and Northern regions of the country, more than half a million people are now left vulnerable to cross-border attacks and abuse by Janjaweed militia and other rebel groupings. One year on from the start of the mission, the police force is not yet operational and the European troops are struggling with growing lawlessness and banditry. Every day people face the theft of livestock, attacks, robbery and rape. Observably, all these and other shortcomings have shown that the Eufor and Minurcat lack the capacity to protect civilians, police criminality and satisfy the country's policing needs. In fact, it could be reasonably argued that, after one year on the ground, Eufor has indeed been unable to meet the security challenges in the country.
Like other conflicts on the continent, the Chadian conflict also stems from the unstable political climate that characterised many African post colonies in early 60s. Shortly after independence, Chad fell into civil war and has been involved in intermittent internal and regional conflicts since then. Nonetheless, the recent conflict has been shaped and fuelled by ruthless geopolitics. It has been centred on the deteriorating relationship between Sudan and Chad and the massive cross-border population movements caused by the violence in Darfur. In 2005, the Chadian rebels based in Darfur embarked on a series of terror attacks in Eastern Chad. Inevitably, tensions between Sudan and Chad reached a peak amid mutual accusations of arming, supporting, and harbouring the respective rebel groups. As reported in the Centre for International Cooperation’s Global Peace Operations Review (2008), ‘ The Front Uni pour le Changement (FUC) engaged in increasingly bold raids against Chadian government positions, including a failed attempt to seize the capital city of N’Djamena in April 2006’. The Tripoli Agreement in 2006 made some provisions for deployment of an international force to monitor the borders between the two countries. Not surprisingly, this agreement was not honoured and on 31 March 2007 Janjaweed militiamen killed nearly 400 people in eastern Chad.
The humanitarian catastrophe that followed led to an international outcry and calls for a ‘robust’ peacekeeping force in the region. However, efforts to deploy a strong UN mandated peace support operation were delayed when President Idriss Deby’s government agreed to the deployment of UN civilian police, but objected to the presence of UN troops (Centre for International Cooperation 2008). Eventually, the Security Council adopted resolution 1778, authorising the establishment of Minurcat, on 25 September 2007. Pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1778 (2007), the EU decided to deploy a 3,700 strong European Military Operation (Eufor) in Eastern Chad and the North-East of the Central African Republic on 28 January 2008. The European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) framework largely informed this decision. The EU’s overarching aim was to contain the violence and instability, which the international community fears might negatively affect the rest of the region, in particular Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic. Although authorised on 28 January 2008, Eufor reached Initial Operating Capability (IOC) on 15 March 2008.
While it could be reasonably argued that Eufor and Minurcat (the former is a military force and the later a multi-dimensional peacekeeping mission) have managed to carry out certain aspects of their respective mandates, the same cannot be said about their ability to protect civilians and IDPs. They have failed to prevent, guard against or police criminality. One could argue that since their mandates are not executive mandates, they do not have policing powers such as search, seizure and arrest that would enable them to thwart banditry and other forms of criminality. However, on the flipside of the same coin, it is argued here that, although not directly so, by extension their mandates also require them to police criminality in their areas of operation. For instance, Minucart was mandated to ‘liaise with other security services such as the army, the gendarmerie and judicial officials, with the aim of fostering an improved security atmosphere’. In addition, the EU mandated Eufor to ‘contribute to protecting civilians in danger, and help to improve security ’.
A question then is how does one foster an improved security atmosphere? Clearly, by engaging in a ‘guard labour’ or regulatory activity. It is evident that helping to create and foster an improved security atmosphere presupposes that Eufor and Minurcat would have to engage in such regulatory or policing activities that could deter rebel groups and bandits from committing crime. These include daily patrols, monitoring of crime trends (crime analysis) and joint crime awareness campaigns with local law enforcement agencies. These ad-hoc regulatory or preventative activities, which fall under the broader ambit of policing, are equally important in containing or policing criminality. Unfortunately, Eufor and Minurcat have failed to do so. As a result, they have not been of assistance in creating an improved security atmosphere, free of crime and victimisation as expected.
As to why Eufor and Minurcat have failed to protect civilians and police criminality in the country, the complex internal and external challenges that they have to grapple with in their line of duty can help us to better explicate that failure. These challenges limit their capacity to effectively execute their mandates, more particularly in relation to protection of vulnerable groups from violence and banditry. Of particular interests here is the convergence of internal and external challenges that renders Eufor and Minurcat otiose. On the one hand, Eufor and Minurcat have to deal with intricate geopolitics and regional matters, logistics problems, paucity of troop deployment and lack of funding. On the other they have to deal with a plethora of rebel groups and political spoilers, lack of political will to solve the political imbroglio and corrupted government and rebel leaders, not up to the task of protecting civilians and bringing about expected peace dividend.
To this end, there is a growing appreciation within the EU and the UN that these challenges and other conceptual flaws have limited their capacity to protect civilians against rebels and bandits. Firstly, it is imperative then to immediately beef-up the capacity of Minurcat so that it can be able to perform its support and monitoring duties such as speeding up training of local police. This will not only help to build the capacity of the ill-equipped and corrupt Chadian police, but also to fill the security vacuum created by the absence of functioning security apparatus.
Secondly, due to their mandates, there two forces are powerless to address some of the most pressing problems of the region like criminality. As pointed out by humanitarian workers on the ground, to a very larger extent, Eufor’s mandate is not adapted to the problems on the ground. It is therefore recommended that the EU and the UN review the mandates of the two forces. More importantly, the UN will need to revisit and strengthen Minurcat’s original mandate so as to deploy UN police squads to camps to help police rising criminality. It is of utmost importance to also extend Minurcat’s mandate to the whole country, not just the East, to assist with judicial and administrative capacity building, as well as promote human rights and gender equity. The mandate of the Eufor is ending on 15 March 2009. It is necessary for EU to start planning for a follow-on military mission so as to ensure that civilians will not be left without protection when the EU force is due to leave on 15 March 2009.
Thembani Mbadlanyana, Junior Researcher, APSTA Addis Ababa
