An Honourable Exit for MINURCAT?
In a new Policy Brief, NUPI researchers Randi Solhjell and John Karlsrud discuss how Chad and the international community can address the major challenges they face to provide physical protection in eastern Chad. The urgency of this task is evident after the exit of the UN Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT) .
After only two years of deployment, the UN Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT) will, at the request of the Chadian government, start its drawdown and exit by 31 December this year. MINURCAT will hand over its main tasks to Chad and the UN agencies present. These responsibilities include security of refugees, IDPs and humanitarian workers in eastern Chad, and continued support to the 850-strong Chadian police/gendarme force, the Détachement Intégré de Securité (DIS). The latter was established to provide physical protection in eastern Chad, so far trained and mentored by MINURCAT.
- Will Chad be able to provide necessary security and take on the wider responsibility of protection, to prevent relapse into conflict and, most crucially, enable IDPs to return? ask Randi Solhjell and John Karlsrud.
- On the whole, the new mandate would seem to be a bad deal for the international community. It will continue to finance MINURCAT with 1900 troops in Chad, who mostly stay in their camps and civilian sections without access to IDP returnee areas, due to the limited capacity for escorts and patrols of the host government.
- There is a high risk that eastern Chad, which was on its way to early recovery, may again become a humanitarian crisis, write Solhjell and Karlsrud. The key benchmark – the return of a critical mass of IDPs – had been within striking distance. It now seems an elusive goal.
An honourable exit?
There is little that Chad and the international community can do to change the predicted drop in humanitarian and early recovery activities in the short term, but some steps can be taken:
- Persuade the Government of Chad to produce a detailed plan for the provision of area security, sector by sector (in addition to an increase in escort capacity), as well as other forms of protection measures.
- Put equal pressure on MINURCAT, UN agencies, and the Government of Chad to present, without further delay, their handover plan of MINURCAT tasks, including the activities undertaken by all civilian sections, such as human rights, justice, corrections, political and civil affairs, gender, and mine action. Here the early recovery activities led by UNDP will be of the essence.
- Immediately initiate a close dialogue between the UN Department of Safety and Security (DSS) and the Government of Chad to agree on local-level security classification of zones in eastern Chad. This can make it easier to focus on areas where the need is greatest, thus increasing the escort and patrol capacity of DIS, Gendarmerie and GNNT.
- Urgent establishment of a High-Level Working Group and a Forum for dialogue on the protection of civilians, humanitarian access, safety and security arrangements, to ensure common understanding among all parties aboutroles and responsibilities, with special emphasis on the inclusion of humanitarian-sector actors.
- Develop an SSR programme for Chad, including demilitarization of camps, in close cooperation with the Government of Chad, the EU and UN agencies.
- Urgent deployment of staff by UN agencies to eastern Chad, to ensure the handover of key tasks.
- Resource mobilization for UN agencies, to enable them to implement an early recovery programme for eastern Chad. An Early Recovery Donor Roundtable should be held in the third quarter of 2010. Here, it should be noted that the Judicial Affairs and Corrections units of MINURCAT could be transferred in its entirety to the UNDP.
Reference:
Karlsrud, John and Randi Solhjell (2010) An Honourable Exit for MINURCAT?, NUPI Policy Brief No. 3