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The Sunday Times, 24th February 2008
The deployment of Irish troops to Chad may be our most dangerous peacekeeping quest yet, find Stephanie Hancock in N'Djamena and Richard Oakley
As the charter plane taxied to a halt at Abeche's airport on Thursday night, a peculiar orange haze settled outside.
The result of sand-fuelled winds that have choked the Chad city for the past few days, it was an eerie welcome for the 50 Irish Army Rangers onboard.
The elite soldiers are "pathfinders" whose job is to scout the region, report back and prepare the way for the full deployment of 400 soldiers taking part in the 3,700-strong, United Nations-mandated mission in Chad and the Central African Republic.
Abeche is underdeveloped, even by African standards.
There are no paved roads and travelling along its maze of dirt tracks you are just as likely to bump into a donkey carrying firewood as a white UN vehicle whipping up dust.
Few buildings are more than one-storey.
Many are built from mud and straw with ramshackle corrugated iron roofs.
The city's main market is a crazy jumble of tiny stalls.
Everything from ballpoint pens and mobile phones to watches engraved with the face of Saddam Hussein are on sale along with basic food items. Foreign goods, such as sardines and Laughing Cow cheese, are ludicrously expensive.
This is because Abeche is packed with western UN workers and staff from other aid organisations.
They have come for the same reason as the Irish army. Outside the city are refugee camps that are home to the 440,000 people often referred to as the "spillover of the Darfur crisis".
The original plan was that the Rangers would stay in N'Djamena, where they landed on Thursday morning.
Heavylift planes carrying special reconnaissance vehicles, armoured personnel carriers and other equipment are landing daily in the capital's airport.
The Rangers were to organise all this, before driving 900km across arid land to Abeche with their Swedish, Austrian and Belgian counterparts.
Instead a few men stayed in the capital while the rest flew to Abeche, where a military base is being built.
Some will travel back to collect vehicles, but detailed information on their future movements is limited.
Feargal Purcell, a spokesman for the defence forces, said:
"These men are members of an elite special force.
The SAS don't tell the media where they are. We are talking about a very real security issue."
The Irish role in Chad should be uncomplicated. As the second-largest contributor of 14 EU nations to European Union Forces (Eufor), Ireland will spend at least EUR57m helping to protect refugees and UN personnel, and facilitating the delivery of aid.
Lieutenant General Pat Nash, a Limerick man based in Paris, is operation commander, and he has told Willie O'Dea, the defence minister, that he is happy with the situation.
Although the soldiers are mandated to use force if necessary, the hope is they won't need to.
But that could change. Africa's "dark heart" is witnessing the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The country is struggling to deal with the aftermath of genocide in Sudan and along its own border.
Bandits and rebels operate in a region where the political situation is extremely complex.
In the Dail last Tuesday, as the Rangers were packing to go, O'Dea, summed up what the Irish army faced. "Chaotic hardly begins to describe the situation," he said.
The army promises its soldiers a "life less ordinary" and has a record of successful, humanitarian and low-fatality peacekeeping work. This time, however, there are real concerns about the dangers.
O'Dea said:
"While this is a dangerous mission, we do not wish to emphasise it too much out of consideration for the families of those going abroad into a very hostile environment."
"I HEAR people comparing this mission to what the Irish did in Lebanon.
But there the army was behind walls and knew what was on the outside," said John O'Shea of the charity Goal, which has staff in Sudan.
"In Chad there are no walls and they are not going to know friend from foe.
Goal looked at putting staff in Chad, but it was too dangerous. The Irish soldiers are going into the great unknown."
Chad is unstable and, according to Roland Marchal, an expert based at the Centre for International Studies and Research in Paris, President Idriss Deby is not in full control of the country.
The Rangers currently in Abeche were due to leave for Chad on January 31, but their flight was cancelled due to an attack on N'Djamena.
Sudanese-backed rebels in pick-ups attacked the city, accusing Deby of withholding oil revenues. Calm was restored after intense fighting, but there is no guarantee this won't happen again.
The Irish army will be based far from the capital in the east, but in an area of constant unrest. So far this month 12,000 refugees have fled to Chad to escape bombings and other violence in Sudan.
The UN has been on a mission in Darfur since January, but the UN-African Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) force lacks most of the 26,000 peacekeepers it needs to be effective.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN general secretary, was "extremely concerned by the renewed violence" last week, which included Sudanese air strikes near the Chad border.
"We have made conditions as safe as possible under the circumstances," said O'Dea.
"This is a very troubled African country in a more or less constant state of rebellion.
The rebellion is supported by Chad's powerful neighbour, Sudan, whose regime in turn is supported by the government of China."
Marchal said decades of tribal clashes over land and water erupted in 2003.
African tribes took up arms against Sudan's Arab-dominated government, accusing it of neglect.
The Sudanese government is accused of responding by unleashing the Janjaweed, Arab militias, to murder and rape civilians. Sudan denies this, but the violence led to large-scale displacement of refugees into Chad.
Relations between Chad and Sudan are fraught, with both countries accusing the other of supporting rebels.
Some of the camps where the Irish will be based are suspected by the Sudanese of housing rebels who cross the border to attack its troops.
Chad's border with Sudan is 1,000km of sand and acacia trees.
Because it is so porous, both Chadian rebels, who have rear bases in Darfur, and Sudanese rebels, who use Chad as a safe haven, can cross freely.
Irish troops patrolling the area could meet Arab-led militia seeking to attack civilians, members of Chad's national army, and Chadian or Sudanese rebels. Bandits could also attack troops.
"They use 4x4 trucks and operate opportunistically," said O'Dea.
"They are mainly active along the border and tend to come together and dissipate fairly quickly. This is the main threat at the moment."
One of the biggest challenges for the Irish will be telling the groups apart because they dress is a similar fashion.
Conditions on the ground will also be difficult. For much of the year, eastern Chad is unbearably hot and arid.
Everything grinds to a halt for the summer's rainy season, when vast swathes of the country turn into giant mud bowls. Eufor troops will have to rely on helicopters to move soldiers and equipment.
Despite the hardships and dangers, Declan Power, a security analyst, said Irish troops will be looking forward to serving in Chad. He said: "Joining the army is no longer an economic necessity.
People do it because they want to and they are anxious to serve in Chad.
They will have been well briefed on what to expect and have been in training for it."
BY mid-May, 400 Irish troops are expected to be in Chad.
A permanent camp will be established in Goz Beida, a small town in the southeast.
Unlike much of eastern Chad, which is barren, dust-blown and inhospitable, Goz Beida is relatively lush and set amid rolling hills.
It has been home to two camps of Darfur refugees since 2004, but in late 2006 Arab Chadians began to attack their neighbours on horse and camelback — shooting, raping, burning and killing.
About 180,000 Chadians have been displaced and moved further into Chad, where they live now alongside up to 260,000 Sudanese refugees.
Aid workers in Goz Beida say they fear the ultimate nightmare scenario: a full-scale attack on a camp.
Tom Cloonan, a security analyst, told RTE last week that the Irish will have to operate more actively than on other peacekeeping missions.
"This isn't peacekeeping as it was in Lebanon.
This is peace enforcement and the Irish are not going to be static," he said.
"They're going to be getting in the way of rebel groups who are interfering with aid and carrying out crimes."
This is why Eufor is anxious to get across the message that it has no intention of getting involved in Chad's dispute with rebel groups and will not directly support Deby's regime.
Radio ads will be broadcast in Chad stressing the multinational nature of the force and its role.
"Eufor is contributing to the protection of civilians in danger and facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid," the ads will say.
"The EU operation is conducted with full independence, impartiality and neutrality."
The Irish Anti-War Movement last week accused Ireland of helping to support "a French colonial adventure to prop up Deby's corrupt undemocratic regime".
The army was accused of putting lives at risks by taking sides in a proxy war raging between Sudan and Chad, a former French colony.
Marchal said it is likely that Irish collaboration with French troops, the largest contributor to Eufor, will be seen as supporting Deby.
Abderaman Koulamallah, a spokesman for rebel forces in Chad, has already said the Irish will be regarded as a hostile force.
Power doesn't see this as a problem. "These rebel groups are big on rhetoric, but when faced with a well-armed, co-ordinated force they tend to back down.
Eufor forces may be attacked, but they will have the necessary fire power to give the rebels a bloody nose," he said.
O'Dea has pointed out that the rebels prefer "soft targets". He said they were "decisively defeated" and that "military intelligence" suggested they would not be capable of mounting another operation "this side of the rainy season".
But O'Shea expressed fears that if Sudanese-backed rebels were to overthrow the current Chadian government, the country's new administration would be even more reluctant to continue hosting refugee camps and this could cause difficulties for the Irish.
In the refugee camps in Chad, aid workers and UN personnel arc hoping that the Irish and Eufor forces will reach them soon.
"We are pleased that the deployment has begun," said Serge Male, head of the UN refugee agency in Chad.
O'Dea points out that fears were expressed in advance of Ireland's humanitarian mission in Liberia, but that "it ultimately worked out well".
Speaking to The Sunday Times this weekend, however, one diplomat in D'Njamena warned:
"The destabilisation of Chad is complete. There is a real risk that Eufor will become trapped in something they cannot get out of."
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