An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir June 2020 www.dfmagazine.ie 20 | EUFOR TCHAD/RCA The European Union's 2008-2009 military operation in Chad was the Union's largest and most complex ever undertaken in Africa and remains exceptional in several respects (Seibert 2010). First, EUFOR Tchad/RCA was the first autonomous military operation of the EU. Second, the sheer geographic size of the operation's mandate was extraordinary, covering an area roughly the size of continental France. Third – and significantly – the operation arrived 'cold' to theatre. In other words there had been no associated mission from which EU forces were adding or taking over (as, for example, in the case of Bos- nia). The EU therefore had to build, insert and maintain over a period of just 12-18 months, a substantial military force of over 3,500 from scratch in a uniquely challenging environment. Fourth, the operation was designed to hand over to an unspecified replacement UN force – the first of a so-called 'bridging'-type operation, which was argued to offer a new and useful model for constructing international security operations in partnership between the UN and other multilateral organisations. CONTEXT AND SET UP The Union's operation in Chad was the direct result of the crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Darfur had been a longstand- ing flashpoint of tribal conflict, sporadic and contested government intervention, weapons proliferation, Arab-African tension, porous borders, regional power struggles and shifting loyalties, creating a multi-dimensional regional conflict (Flint and De Waal 2008). The Darfur crisis was also interwoven within a geopolitical contest engaging France, Chad, Sudan and Libya. In 2003 new rebel coali- tions emerged and long-standing, low grade conflict escalated as a political modus vivendi between Chad's Idriss Déby and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir collapsed. By 2004/2005 the conflict had emerged as a major humanitarian crisis with hundreds of thousands fleeing Darfur for neighbouring countries and up to one million reli- ant on food aid for survival. This humanitarian crisis also worsened the interstate security crisis, directly engaging Sudan and Chad (and at the margins the Central African Republic and Libya). Rebels, based in Sudan, attacked the Chadian capital, N'Djamena in April 2006 and the President, Idriss Déby, only narrowly – and with active French sup- port – managed to maintain control. The combination of a massive humanitarian conflict and the threat to the security of people and states in the region, put the Darfur conflict close to the top of the international agenda. In Europe, the French Government was anxious to seal Chad off from the Darfur conflict in Sudan and the associated rebel pressures. Popular opinion in several European states was effectively mobilised by NGOs to ad- dress the associated humanitarian crisis. For its part the UN Security Council, in June 2006, sent a fact finding mission to the region and recommended a security mission. Subsequent peace negotiations in Abuja collapsed and the Sudanese Government rejected the idea of any UN intervention, frustrating efforts to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1706 which proposed a dedi- cated UN peacekeeping mission to the region. With no prospect of addressing the Darfur conflict directly – due to Sudanese objections – the only possibility was a humanitarian effort directed to address its destabilising consequences in neighbouring Chad. In November 2006, the UN's Department of Peacekeeping BY PROFESSOR BEN TONRA

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