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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

54321

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.

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All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
 To Hugo

Note: The opinions offered in this book are those of the author only
and do not reflect those of the Defence Forces.
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

Plato
 Contents

Foreword by Mary Fitzgerald 11

Acknowledgements 19
Abbreviations 22
Maps 25
Prologue 27
1. Devils on Horseback 29
Phase One: Orientation (Planning)
2. The Dead Heart of Africa  33
3. Threat Assessment – The Darfur Complex 37
4.“The Cowboys of the Sands” 45
5.The French Connection and Outside Intervention 49
6. The City of Light and a Battle Rhythm 55
7. The Events 63
Phase Two: Deployment
8. So Much, So Far, So Fast: A Logistical Everest 77
9. “The Three Borders”  87
10. Rangers and Rebels 94
Phase Three: Execution
11. The Commander’s Intent 105
12. War on the Move – The Rebels Return 113
13. The Humanitarian Space and Prisoners of Place 123
14. Peace by Piece: Planning, Performance, Perception 137
15. No Enemy, No End-State  147
16. End Date  154
Phase Four: Handover & Recovery
17. Handover and Headache  165
18. Recovery and Rebel Re-engagement  175
19. Challenge and Change: From Chad to Worse  180
Postscript: Keeping the Blue Flags Flying  186
Afterword by Lt. Gen retd. Pat Nash 193
Appendices: EUFOR Chad/CAR: Chronology of Significant
Events  199
 - Foreword -

T
hey 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

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 Peace Enforcers: The EU Military Intervention in Chad

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

12
 Dan Harvey

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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 Peace Enforcers: The EU Military Intervention in Chad

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

14
 Dan Harvey

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

15
 Peace Enforcers: The EU Military Intervention in Chad

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

16
 Dan Harvey

we call the European Union? This book marks a first step in

divining answers to those questions.

Mary Fitzgerald
Foreign Affairs Correspondent, The Irish Times, July 2010.

17
 - Acknowledgements -

A
s 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.

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 Peace Enforcers: The EU Military Intervention in Chad

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).

20
 Dan Harvey

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.

21
 - Abbreviations -

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

22
 Dan Harvey

HMG Heavy Machine-Gun

IDP Internally Displaced Persons
JEM Justice and Equality Movement
JOC Joint Operations Centre
KIA Killed in Action
MEDEVAC Medical Evacuation
MIA Missing in Action
MINURCAT United Nations Mission in the Central African
Republic and Chad (policing force)
MOU Memorandum of Understanding
MSF Médecins sans Frontières
NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
OCHA Office for Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs
OHQ Operational Headquarters (Paris, France)
OP Observation Post/Patrol
OP CMDR Operation Commander
PSC Political and Security Committee (EU
Council, Brussels)
QRF Quick Reaction Force
RECCE Reconnaissance
RPG Rocket-Propelled Grenade
RV Rendezvous
SLA/M Sudan Liberation Army/Movement
SOFA Status of Forces Agreement
SPOD Sea Port of Disembarkation
SRV Special Reconnaissance Vehicles
SRAAW Short Range Anti-Armour Weapon
TA Technical Agreement
UN United Nations
UNAMID United Nations African Mission in Darfur
UNHCR United Nations High Commission for Refugees

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 Peace Enforcers: The EU Military Intervention in Chad

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)

24
 - Prologue -

08 November 1960 Niemba, Congo

S
uddenly, 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.

27
 Peace Enforcers: The EU Military Intervention in Chad

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.

28
 Chapter One
- Devils on Horseback -

Darfur, Western Sudan, 2003

I
t 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

29
 Peace Enforcers: The EU Military Intervention in Chad

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.

30