Peace Enforcers - Dan Harvey

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Peace Enforcers

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Peace Enforcers

The EU Military Intervention in Chad

Dan Harvey


Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of material reproduced in this book. In cases where these efforts have been unsuccessful, the copyright holders are asked to contact the publishers directly.

PublIshEd In 2010 by book rEPublIc.office 19, dunboyne business Park, dunboyne, co. Meath, Ireland.http://www.bookrepublic.ie

Isbn: 978-1-907221-03-3

copyright for text © 2010 dan harvey

5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this book comes from wood pulp of managed forests. For every tree felled, at least one tree is planted, thereby renewing natural resources.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved.no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for insertion in a newspaper, magazine or broadcast.

A cIP catalogue record for this book is available from the british library.


Note: The opinions offered in this book are those of the author only and do not reflect those of the Defence Forces.

To Hugo


“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

Plato


Contents

Foreword by Mary Fitzgerald 11Acknowledgements 19Abbreviations 22Maps 25Prologue 271. Devils on Horseback 29

Phase One: Orientation (Planning)2. The Dead Heart of Africa 333. Threat Assessment – The Darfur Complex 374.“The Cowboys of the Sands” 455.The French Connection and Outside Intervention 496. The City of Light and a Battle Rhythm 557. The Events 63

Phase Two: Deployment8. So Much, So Far, So Fast: A Logistical Everest 779. “The Three Borders” 8710. Rangers and Rebels 94

Phase Three: Execution11. The Commander’s Intent 10512. War on the Move – The Rebels Return 11313. The Humanitarian Space and Prisoners of Place 12314. Peace by Piece: Planning, Performance, Perception 13715. No Enemy, No End-State 14716. End Date 154

Phase Four: Handover & Recovery17. Handover and Headache 16518. Recovery and Rebel Re-engagement 17519. Challenge and Change: From Chad to Worse 180

Postscript: Keeping the Blue Flags Flying 186Afterword by Lt. Gen retd. Pat Nash 193Appendices: EUFOR Chad/CAR: Chronology of Significant Events 199


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They came to Sheikh Ali Yahya Omar’s village at dawn, their faces obscured with scarves, and when they left hours later, dozens lay dead. Like everyone in Darfur,

Sheikh Omar had heard stories of the feared militias known as the Janjaweed, but nothing could have prepared him for the terror of that day. The air rang with the sound of gunfire and screaming. In the havoc that followed, his family scattered in every direction. Some fled to nearby camps; others sought sanctuary over the border in Chad. When I met him in Gaga, a sprawling refugee camp in eastern Chad, in November 2008, Sheikh Omar’s resolve was slowly turning to fatalism. As the days spent as a refugee turned into months and then years, the prospect of returning home had become ever more remote. “We will go back when the problem in Darfur is solved,” he sighed. “But only God knows when that will be.”

Countless such stories were to be found among the interrupted lives that played out within the perimeters of Gaga. The camp, less than 100 km from where Chad ends and Sudan begins, is home to more than twenty thousand Darfuris who crossed over the border to escape the violence that has roiled their homeland since 2003. People like Noor Rasham Hasabullah, a woman haunted by what she witnessed before she left Darfur—marauding militiamen pitching children into fires or pots of boiling water, and the crumpled bodies of her dead neighbours lying on sand darkened with blood. Or Hawa Abdullah Omar, who pulled up her sleeve to reveal the puckered

- Foreword -


Peace Enforcers: The EU Military Intervention in Chad

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scar that has remained on her upper arm since she was shot the day her village was attacked. Mothers told me how the sound of a plane overhead prompts the children of Gaga to run and hide because it reminds them of the terrifying roar of an approaching Antonov, the aircraft used by the Sudanese government to carry out bombing raids on the villages of Darfur.

Gaga is one of 12 refugee camps strung along Chad’s eastern flank. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than two hundred and fifty thousand Darfuri refugees languish in the region. All are survivors of a conflict that erupted in early 2003, when rebels took up arms against the government in Khartoum, accusing it of marginalising the western regions of Sudan. Since then, fighting between rebels, government forces and allied militia groups has forced more than two and a half million Darfuris from their homes. The UN estimates that over three hundred thousand people have died since the conflict started, most of these as a result of starvation and disease.

It was stories like that of Sheikh Omar, Noor and Hawa that helped give impetus to what was to later prove the most ambitious deployment of troops under the banner of the European Union—the mission known as EUFOR. The UN-mandated force, which would eventually have 26 countries (including Ireland) represented within its ranks, was tasked with creating a secure local environment in eastern Chad to protect civilians and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Those fleeing Darfur did not find the peace they sought across the border. The conflict in Darfur had only exacerbated neighbouring Chad’s multiple woes. In the months leading up to EUFOR’s deployment, the situation had become particularly acute. Clashes between local ethnic and tribal groups in eastern Chad ran in tandem with guerrilla attacks by rebel factions battling to oust the country’s president, Idriss Déby. Militias



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and bandits swept back and forth across the porous border with Sudan. The ensuing violence had driven almost two hundred thousand Chadians from their homes and into hastily erected IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps. The instability had also severely hampered the ability of humanitarian agencies to reach those in need. Camps were raided and aid workers were attacked. Scores of vehicles belonging to aid agencies were stolen in desert car-jackings.

I made several reporting trips to the region, both in advance of and during EUFOR’s deployment. It is fair to say that news of the proposed mission was initially greeted with much scepticism. Apart from the logistical challenge of rolling out such a force in the remote terrain of eastern Chad, this was a complex theatre of conflict. Multiple actors and ever-shifting loyalties combined to produce a deadly effect. As Lieutenant General Pat Nash (the Irishman who served as EUFOR’s operational commander) was to put it half-way through the deployment: “We’re somebody’s friend today and enemy tomorrow.”

In Chad, as in some of the contributing nations, there was much muttering about hidden agendas, given that French soldiers were to make up the backbone of the mission. Chad’s former colonial power retains a significant military presence in the country, and French troops stationed there had, on several occasions, assisted Déby in his battle against rebel factions. There was concern that this could compromise EUFOR’s neutrality and provoke rebel attacks. In the weeks leading up to the deployment, representatives of the Chadian rebel alliance, their voices crackling on satellite phones, told me that Irish soldiers would be considered a hostile force if they served alongside French troops as part of EUFOR. Some months later, however, the rebels had changed their minds, telling me EUFOR had demonstrated its neutrality and relations of “mutual respect” had been established.



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The fact that Ireland, with its 450 participating troops, constituted the second largest contingent after the French, helped bolster the notion that EUFOR would not take sides, as did the appointment of Pat Nash, then deputy chief-of-staff of the Irish Defence Forces, as operational commander. In October 2007, as the mission began to gradually take shape, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, the UN’s then head of peacekeeping, applauded Ireland’s role. “Ireland has consistently shown it supports peacekeeping for peacekeeping’s sake,” he told me as we discussed the deployment in his office on the 37th floor of UN headquarters in New York. “The success [of EUFOR] depends a lot on the perception of its impartiality—the fact that it is not there for any particular agenda, but to support the peace. The mandate is essentially humanitarian. It’s good that Ireland is part of that, because I think it will add to the legitimacy of the force and, therefore, its effectiveness.”

Apart from questions related to EUFOR’s impartiality, there were other criticisms before the troops set foot in Chad’s eastern borderlands. Many observers complained that the 3,700-strong force was too small to be truly effective, given that it was being deployed to such a vast and inhospitable terrain. One aid worker compared it to a flimsy Band-Aid plaster applied to a long-festering wound. Others wondered what EUFOR could possibly hope to achieve when its mandate ran to just 12 months.

“Maybe a year is enough to begin to understand the problems,” Yaldet Begoto Oulatar, the editor of a newspaper in the Chadian capital N’Djamena, told me. “However, it is not enough to resolve them.”

But, as Dan Harvey outlines in this book, the EU mission was never about trying to unpick the complex tangle of factors that contributed to the arc of instability stretching from Sudan to the outer reaches of eastern Chad. “EUFOR could only



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address the consequences, not the causes of the insecurity,” he writes.

How does one measure the success or otherwise of such a mission? Perhaps something close to an answer can be found in communities like La Butike, a small village which fell within the Irish troops’ area of responsibility. In late 2008, its inhabitants, who had fled after bandits laid waste to the village, killing dozens, had tentatively begun making the journey home to rebuild their squat mud-and-thatch huts.

“We heard there was no longer any trouble, so we decided to come back,” Fatima Zacharia, a mother of ten, told me. At the time, some humanitarian agencies estimated that about five thousand displaced families had returned to their villages in areas deemed relatively safe though the trickling back had begun before the deployment of EUFOR. That figure amounted to a fraction of the number of Chadians uprooted from their homes in recent years. Everyone knew that given the volatile environment in eastern Chad, these were fragile gains which could all too easily be reversed.

But it was enough for French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner to declare EUFOR a success. The mission, the first of its kind by the EU, was considered something of a test case and many were watching anxiously from Brussels. Kouchner, on a short visit to Chad in late 2008, claimed the deployment represented “the best face” of Europe.

“EUFOR is a very positive operation and, beyond that, it is a formidable European experience,” he told me over the noise of aircraft engines as we stood on the runway in Abéché, a town which acted as the main humanitarian hub in eastern Chad. “It gives us an idea of what the EU Common Security and Defence Policy could look like.”

But while Kouchner and his counterparts in various European capitals were congratulating themselves over another step taken towards further EU integration, aid workers in Chad



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were more concerned with assessing EUFOR’s impact on the ground in terms of improving security.

As the mission’s year-long mandate drew to a close in March 2009, the verdict of many humanitarian actors in the region was that the European troops were doing what they could in the circumstances. “There is only so much EUFOR can do,” one UNHCR spokesperson told me. “If you look at their numbers in a country this size, then we have to say they are doing their best, but there is a natural limit to what they can achieve.” She went on to explain that the threats faced by aid workers in the region were exacerbated by Chad’s endemic culture of impunity, and that was something its government alone could tackle.

“EUFOR cannot replace what the state should be doing … As long as humanitarians are exposed to car-jackings, kidnappings, even assassinations, and nobody is ever brought to court, then it is very difficult to implement programmes and to feel safe,” she said.

Philippe Rougier, who was then overseeing operations in Chad for the Irish aid agency Concern, acknowledged that EUFOR had achieved “some results” on certain issues, but concluded that the humanitarian community had not witnessed a dramatic change in terms of their working environment and overall security.

More than a year has passed since EUFOR handed over responsibility to a UN force known as MINURCAT in March 2009. Eastern Chad remains a troubled place. Refugees continue to stream over the border from Darfur. Locals continue to be displaced by ethnic unrest and banditry. In N’Djamena and Khartoum, the political machinations rumble on, as opaque and intrigue-filled as ever. Looking back from this distance, did EUFOR succeed in what it set out to achieve? What legacy did it leave in Chad? And what did it mean for the great experiment



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we call the European Union? This book marks a first step in divining answers to those questions.

Mary FitzgeraldForeign Affairs Correspondent, The Irish Times, July 2010.


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As a young boy with three brothers and a sister, I remember once innocently asking a sometimes stern maiden aunt whether life on her own was a little sad.

Perhaps touched by my earnestness, she replied kindly but matter-of-factly to my concerned enquiry, “Once you can read a book, you need never be lonely.” Her forthright response both surprised and comforted me, and a lifelong love of reading ensued. To this day, I relish the thrill of opening a book and accessing a whole other world, becoming absorbed by a story’s energy and emotion, living the characters’ experiences and endings and suffering the anxiety of simultaneously wanting and not wanting a story to end. As the years passed, I progressed professionally and personally. I experienced all of life’s associated challenges and compromises, but my love of reading remained throughout it all. Later in my life, I began to reverse the process, and instead of merely reading, I began putting words on paper.

In my duty as a soldier in the Irish Defence Forces, I found myself involved with a bloody and brutal conflict in Chad. I witnessed much human suffering. I was part of the European Union’s peace-enforcement mission to the region, and it was an extraordinary expedition, undertaken against all the odds, in a far away region. Our mission was extremely dangerous, and the chances of success were very far from certain.

- ACknowledgements -



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My motivation to write this book arose from my desire to capture the true essence of the mission. It is an important, often complex story, and one I feared might become misrepresented over time if it were not properly recorded. My challenge, therefore, was to present an honest and concise account of a series of extremely complex and difficult events which comprised our time in Chad. The result of my labour, I leave to you to judge.

That this story was placed on paper at all is the result of the efforts of many of my close friends and acquaintances, and I gratefully acknowledge the encouragement, co-operation and wisdom of all those who gave freely of that which in today’s world is most scarce, their time.

Curtailed foremost were my family and, for their immense patience and understanding, I wish to sincerely thank my wife Mary, my daughters Eva, Lynn and Mary-Claire and my son Hugo.

My thanks also must go to Daniel Keohane of the EU Institute for Security Studies and to Alexander Mattalaer of the Institute of European Studies; Colonels Con McNamara (now retired) and Seamus O’Giolláin; Lieutenant Colonels Paddy Mc Daniels, Kieran Brennan, Joe McDonagh, Peter Marron, Dermot Igoe, Michael Meehan and Kiernan McDaid; Commandants John O’Loghlen, Brian Cleary, Earnan Naughton, Garry McKeon, Edna De Bruin, John Kilmartin, Caimin Keogh, Louise Flynn, Mark Brownen, Neill Nolan, Gavin Young, Tom Mc Guinness, Kiernan Doyle; Lieutenant Commander Paddy Harkin; Captains John Tynan and Pat O’Connor; Sergeant Major Joe Murray; Company Sergeants Ray Hill and Ronnie Burke and Flight Sergeants James Perkins and Paddy Dempsey. Thanks also to Cyril Brennan of the Department of Foreign Affairs in the Irish Embassy in Paris (seconded as political advisor to Lieutenant General Nash at the OHQ for the duration of the operation).



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There were also those whose roles were central in bringing this project to fruition, and they include Jean Harrington, John Mooney and Jennifer Thompson of Book Republic. I wish to thank them for their faith in the manuscript and the importance of the story that it tells.

I also wish to thank Ralph Riegel for his encouragement, Declan Power for his guidance and Maeve O’Connell for her unstinting support.

My gratitude also goes to Christina Gallach and Celine Reiz of the Council of the European Union; Lieutenant Colonel Philippe de Cussac and Colonels (now Generals) Philippe Bras and Philippe Benny of the French Army for their comradeship.

Finally, I wish to say thank you to Kiernan Kelly, Sergeant David Nagle of An Cosantóir and the EUFOR photo-teams for the use of photographs.

A sincere “thank you” to you all.


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AMIS African Union Mission in Sudan

AN National Alliance

ANT Armée Nationale du Tchad (National Chad

Army)

APC Armoured Personnel Carrier

APOD Airport of Disembarkation

CAR Central African Republic

COMMS Communications

COP Common Operational Picture

CONAFIT Coordination of Support to the International

Force in eastern-Chad

COY Company

DIS Détachment Intégré de Sécurité (Integrated

Security Detachment): Local Chadian UN

Trained Police

EU European Union

EUFOR European Union Force in Chad and Central

African Republic

FACA Forces Armées Centrafricaines (Central

African Republic Armed Forces)

FHQ Force Headquarters (Abéché, Chad)

FN Fabrique Nationale d’Herstal, known as FN,

is a firearms manufacturer located in Herstal,

Belgium. The company brand is FN.

GPMG General Purpose Machine-Gun

- AbbreviAtions -


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HMG Heavy Machine-GunIDP Internally Displaced PersonsJEM Justice and Equality MovementJOC Joint Operations CentreKIA Killed in ActionMEDEVAC Medical EvacuationMIA Missing in ActionMINURCAT United Nations Mission in the Central African

Republic and Chad (policing force)MOU Memorandum of UnderstandingMSF Médecins sans FrontièresNGO Non-Governmental OrganisationOCHA Office for Coordination of Humanitarian AffairsOHQ Operational Headquarters (Paris, France)OP Observation Post/PatrolOP CMDR Operation CommanderPSC Political and Security Committee (EU Council, Brussels)QRF Quick Reaction ForceRECCE ReconnaissanceRPG Rocket-Propelled GrenadeRV RendezvousSLA/M Sudan Liberation Army/Movement SOFA Status of Forces AgreementSPOD Sea Port of DisembarkationSRV Special Reconnaissance VehiclesSRAAW Short Range Anti-Armour WeaponTA Technical AgreementUN United NationsUNAMID United Nations African Mission in DarfurUNHCR United Nations High Commission for Refugees



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UNICEF United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund

UXO Unexploded Ordnance

other terms

Clan A group of families with a common ancestor. Tribe A community (of clans) in a traditional society

sharing customs and beliefs, led by a chief. Darfur The Land of the Fur (Tribe)


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08 November 1960 Niemba, Congo

Suddenly, stepping out onto the track from the dense

head-high elephant grass, the Baluba tribesmen quickly

formed into a war party. They were carrying bows and

arrows whose tips had been dipped in the fatal venom of black

mamba snakes, as well as spears, hatchets, knives and clubs.

They strode forward six abreast; there were perhaps forty in

all, with as many more in the thick undergrowth. Without

warning, they started screaming and shouting wildly as they

flung themselves at the hapless 11-man Irish patrol. Firing a

hail of arrows, they set upon the Irish, roaring raucously and

yelling. The overwhelming number of their opponents shocked

the Irishmen, but they fought for their lives, desperately

defending themselves from being bludgeoned and hacked to

death. They tried valiantly to stay alive, but sadly their efforts

were in vain. Only two survived.

The “Niemba Ambush” was a seminal moment for Ireland

and the Defence Forces. Occurring only three months after

the first Irish contingent was deployed—it was a stark reality

check. The dead Irish peacekeepers were given a state funeral,

and over half a million people turned out in Dublin to witness

the funeral cortege as it made its way through the capital to

Glasnevin cemetery.

- Prologue -



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Now, 50 years later, responding to one of the worst humanitarian disasters the world had yet witnessed in Sudan’s Darfur region, eastern Chad was their destination.


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Darfur, Western Sudan, 2003

It was pitch black; the sun had not yet risen. The clattering of hooves went unheard by the village inhabitants, still fast asleep in their beds. They were happily unaware they were

about to be violently awoken to a nightmare, propelled from tranquillity to turmoil in a split second. A turbulence of torture and torment was about to be unleashed by the marauding militiamen, riding hard through the rocks and scrubland over the arid, red sands of the Sahel region of Darfur. Murder, mutilation and rape ensued. The sounds of gunshots and the screams and shrieks of terror-stricken women and children filled the early morning air. It was a cacophony of chaos, a maelstrom of madness, and it wasn’t over yet.

Two young girls, hiding in a hut in the midst of the mayhem, had failed to make it out of the village in time and were now the focus of the militiamen’s attention. The attackers were the Janjaweed, the “Devils on Horseback”. They circled the hut on their mounts, laughing and jeering, enjoying their game. Unable to bear the baiting any longer, the elder of the distraught girls made a desperate dash for freedom, attempting to draw the tormentors away from her younger sister. The men were momentarily wrong-footed by her agility and taken aback at her sudden escape.

The girl ran quickly, driven by terror and the innate instinct to survive and protect her younger sibling. Her will and agility

Chapter One

- devils on horsebACk -



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succeeded in getting her through the crude cordon, but the leader of the raiding party recovered quickly from his surprise. He spurred his mount into action, roughly digging in his heels, and gave chase. The pursuit was on. It was life or death and she knew it, but she was no match for the devil’s horse. The raider quickly overtook her. Turning his mount around, he swept her up at a gallop and returned to the village. He unceremoniously dumped her down the village well, to the roar of approval from the turbaned riders of his mob.

The younger girl, still in the hut, had been transfixed by the chase. Her older sister, her protector, was dead. She decided to take a chance rather than wait for the inevitable, but it was too late. She paid dearly for her hesitation; they burned her alive.

This type of incident was sadly all too common in western Darfur and was at the root of the crisis the EU was working to address. Terrorised villagers kept streaming across the border into Chad, further destabilising the already unstable country, and making the job of peace-enforcement increasingly crucial, and increasingly difficult. EUFOR Chad/CAR, the UN-mandated force sent to combat the worst effects of Chad’s and the Central African Republic’s many conflicts, was in for a tough time.


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