Yesterday I recorded that Chadian rebels had congratulated Irish EU troops on their “courageous” and “neutral” (i.e. defensive) response to a firefight in the east of the country. But not everyone in Chad is quite so happy with their performance. The rebels are pushing ahead with a big offensive against the government, and President Idriss Deby is getting edgy. According to the BBC, he’s decided to blame the EU Force (Eufor):
In a televised address, President Deby accused Eufor of failing to prevent the killings of civilians and refugees by the rebels. “We’ve been surprised to see that, in its first hostile test, this force has rather cooperated with the invaders, allowing humanitarian workers’ vehicles to be stolen and their food and fuel stocks burned and closing its eyes before the systematic massacre of civilians and refugees,” he said. “We have the right to ask ourselves about the effectiveness of such a force, of the usefulness of its presence in Chad.”
Now this is a tough one. Although Eufor’s primary task is to provide security for UN police and humanitarian workers in the refugee camps on Chad’s border with Darfur, it is also meant “to contribute to protecting civilians in danger, particularly refugees and displaced persons”.
This is actually pretty standard stuff. Virtually all UN peacekeepers have similar “protection of civilians” clauses in their mandates, part of a broader trend towards “robust peacekeeping” explored in this 2006 article by Ian Johnstone (who did all the hard thinking), Ben Tortolani and me. The EU’s just catching up.
But what happens when, as now in Chad, protecting civilians would mean taking sides in a civil war? That’s definitely not in Eufor’s mandate, but it has been a lurking problem ever since the mission started to deploy in February.
As I noted back then, the French (who, I need hardly remind you, provide most of the troops and political impetus for this mission) were somewhat ambiguous on this point. In Paris, the foreign minister underlined that Eufor was neutral, but that it would complicate the Chadian rebels’ plans by limiting their freedom of movement through its presence on the ground… but now the rebels seem to be toddling around unobstructed, and Mr Deby may feel he deserves a refund.
