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INSIGHT

Sudanese Refugees in Chad

Aired May 17, 2006 - 18:00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JONATHAN MANN, CNN HOST: Kidnapping kids for the war in Sudan. The conflict in Darfur has spilled into the refugee camps and villages of Chad and children are being forced into the fighting.
Hello and welcome.

On paper, there is a peace agreement that could end the civil war in Darfur. On paper, the United Nations is preparing to assemble a peacekeeping mission to enforce it. But somebody is not reading the paper. More than 2 million people have been displaced and more than 200,000 of them have sought shelter outside of Darfur to the west in neighboring Chad. They aren't getting it.

Our own correspondent Nic Robertson was told of a Janjaweed attack on the village of Cucu (ph) about 65 kilometers from the border with Sudan Tuesday morning. That is to say, more than a week after the peace deal was signed. The militiamen had apparently planned to steal cattle. The villagers fought back. Two of them were said to have been killed, six wounded.

Cattle are valuable, but they don't compare to the other prize catch from the camps and villages of Chad: children.

On our program today, senior international correspondent Nic Robertson on the stolen children of Sudan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTL. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We've been traveling across Chad, covering the plight of refugees from over the border in the Darfur region of Sudan. We've been told about deteriorating security and of a new and troubling development inside the refugee camps here in Chad.

We're on our way towards the border with Sudan. We're chasing a story about young boys being recruited, forcibly recruited from refugee camps, taken back to Sudan and forced to fight in the war there.

We get to our first camp. Almost 20,000 people live here, all refugees from Darfur. That's about 40 miles, 60 kilometers from the border. It is here we meet Abdul. He's 16, and as we begin talking, I can see Abdul is scared. We agree to hide his face, because what he says could cost him his life.

He and his friends reveal how about 100 Sudanese rebels came into this refugee camp about two months ago. They say they had no choice, had to go along.

"When I saw them beating some of the people, I was afraid. That's why I couldn't refuse to go," he says. "I'm not a volunteer. I was forced."

Forced into military training at a camp close to the border with Sudan, a camp with little food or water. Before they escaped the harsh conditions, they were given political indoctrination and training with automatic weapons. They were told they would have to go fight for their homeland against the Janjaweed militia, backed by the Sudanese government. The same militia that had forced them to flee Darfur.

(on camera): This is the marketplace where the Sudanese rebels began their three-day recruitment. It was the weekend. It was busy and there were very few aid officials around to see what was going on.

(voice-over): But it's not until I meet the refugee camp leader that I learn the full scale of the Sudanese rebels' activities.

"They talk about 4,000, some as young as 13," he says. "He shows me where he was beaten for refusing to help the rebels. He told me he feared that militarizing the camp would lead the refugees here open to Janjaweed attack."

CLAIRE BOURGEOIS, UNHCR: It is something really, really serious for us. As I mentioned earlier, we are really afraid that today the camp might become a target.

ROBERTSON: As I piece together the details, it is clear that the Sudanese rebels are operating well inside Chad. It also becomes clear the rebels aren't working alone.

(on camera): One of the darkest details I've learned here is so sensitive, no one will speak about it publicly. They say behind closed doors that not only did the Chadian authorities know that the recruitment was going on, that they supported it. And even now, people here say it is common knowledge the recruitment continues.

(voice-over): I go to meet the local top Chadian official who by international law is responsible for the security of the refugees. His office is on the edge of the camp. Outside, miliary police sit passing the time. The official refuses an on camera interview but agrees to talk with me off camera.

(on camera): In the camp, people say more than 4,000 people were recruited. This is a big thing. And they didn't see anything here?

(voice-over): The official explains his men saw nothing out of the ordinary. UNHCR says reality is very different.

BOURGEOIS: We have interviewed a lot of refugees who came back from that, so it is a fact. It has happened and no one has tried to stop it. It means that also due to reaching news that it is what happened and for any reason to let them go.

ROBERTSON: The next day in Chad's capital, I track down the elusive Sudanese rebel commander who recently signed a peace deal with Sudan's government. I ask him point blank if his SLA, Sudanese Liberation Army Rebels, were involved in the forced recruitment of young men. He denies it, but confirms other rebel groups are recruiting inside refugee camps.

MINNI MINNAWI, SLA COMMANDER: Since yesterday they are there.

ROBERTSON (on camera): Yesterday still.

MINNAWI: Since just yesterday they are there, yes. Of course I have all of the information. One of the ex-SLA commanders, he fled from the SLA. He came here.

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Fears the rebel recruiting will bring reprisal raids against the refugee camps as the Sudanese government sponsored Janjaweed militias raid deeper and deeper into Chad.

For the next journey, we hitch a ride on a U.N. plane. We fly south, still near the border, just 50 miles, 80 kilometers from Sudan.

(on camera): We've come to the hospital in Dospieta (ph). The doctor here has told us that there are a lot of people here, sick, who have been injured by the Janjaweed.

(voice-over): He leads me into a ward that is conspicuously devoid of medical equipment.

(on camera): Who shot him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably Janjaweed.

ROBERTSON: The Janjaweed did this.

(voice-over): On a rusting bed, he shows me a Chadian man he says was shot twice in the thigh a week ago by men of the Sudanese government sponsored Janjaweed militia.

The wounded man explains the Janjaweed surrounded him and his three friends as they herded their cattle, then opened fire. His three friends were killed.

This is the field where the attack happened, well inside Chad. The local Chadian security official shows me where the men died. He tells me he has asked his government for help with security, but so far has received nothing.

(on camera): This is where the herders were living, and right after the attack villagers say the Janjaweed made off with the cattle to the border with Sudan. It struck a fresh wave of fear in the people living around here. It is the 12th such attack in the last two months.

(voice-over): On the dirt streets of his village, the official explains they've had to organize their own defense from what little resources they have. They have no cars or pickup trucks, just six motorcycles. He tells me they have no guns. As we talk, his point is emphasized when we meet villagers carrying bows and arrows.

(on camera): This is what they have to defend themselves with. Bows and arrows. Quite literally, bows and arrows and a really beaten up old knife here.

Can you show me how this works?

(on camera): The local policeman introduces himself and explains the problem isn't only with Sudanese rebels. All his government issued guns were stolen by Chadian rebels during a coup attempt a month ago. I am quickly learning that Chadians can't even secure themselves, never mind protect the thousands of refugees the are sheltering.

(voice-over): Inside the nearby Gosamire (ph) refugee camp, rebel recruitment is sparking fear. Tribal leader Yaqoub Abu explains in the past three weeks Sudanese SLA rebels have started brazenly entering the camp in uniform.

YAQOUB ABU, TRIBAL LEADER: If everyone discovers that we have a relationship between SLA and the refugee camps, we must be attacked and nobody can protect us. For this reason, we explain to them, no, don't try this operation again.

ROBERTSON: But under a tree on the other side of the camp, Khatuma Osman (ph) tells me her son was recruited by the Sudanese rebels with her blessing, and she is encouraging other young men to go.

"We lost everything in Darfur," she explains. "My parents, brothers and sisters. We have to defend Sudan."

The United Nations is fighting recruitment on two fronts, telling the refugees not to take part, and telling the Chadian government they must keep the rebels away from the refugees.

HELENE CAUX, UNHCR: We have been reminding the governments of the character of the camps, of the refugee camps. The refugee camps shouldn't be reservoirs for troops.

ROBERTSON: But even those calls may now be too late for some. At the first camp we visited, Abdul and his two friends seemed to have accepted the rebels calling. If the rebels have food and guns, they say, they will go back to fight.

Nic Robertson, CNN, Eastern Chad.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MANN: We take a break now. When we come back, more of Nic's conversation with the leader of the Sudan Liberation Army. Minni Minnawi says he knows who is taking the kids and why they're not stopping them.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MANN: The Sudan Liberation Army is the one rebel group that supports the peace deal with Khartoum. Two others oppose it. The African Union had threatened those groups with sanctions if they didn't approve the pact by this week. The deadline passed, the AU has extended it and the holdouts say they still will not sign.

Welcome back.

The peace agreement doesn't look perfect to anyone, and judging from clear evidence of continuing attacks it hasn't taken hold, at least not yet. As we saw a moment ago, our Nic Robertson spoke with the leader of the SLA faction that supports the agreement, Minni Minnawi. Even he says that it will take a while, and in the meantime, he says the groups that are kidnapping children are outside his organization and beyond anyone's control.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: Can the peace deal be successful as Jem (ph) and one of the other SLA factions haven't actually signed up?

MANAWA: In my analysis, it is successful somehow. But is better if they sign, it will be complete 100 percent. But right now the peace is 90 percent. It will be implemented. Because according of my knowledge in Darfur and the territory which we are controlling, there is two major parties supposed to be signing.

ROBERTSON: What makes you think they're actually going to sign up? What is it about what they're doing and what they're saying that gives you that confidence?

MANAWA: I completed my time. I completed everything in the Darfur situation. I did peace situation and refugee peace situation and still there is many uncontrolled groups in Darfur. They will increase. This situation jeopardized the situation until later on it may come like Somalia, which is not acceptable. That is why we say we have to put the first step of the peace and then our people they will follow us.

ROBERTSON: Some of your supporters said you signed under pressure, that you're not in a position to follow through on the deal you signed up to.

MANAWA: I will not deny that there is pressures, not only from American, not only from United Nations, not only from all the international pressures on us. Even they are pressuring the government, giving the pressure to the government, to everybody. But they have not forced us to sign.

By the end of the day, the decision is ours. The decision is mine, not decision is the international community's decision.

ROBERTSON: So, it's much harder for the United Nations now to deliver humanitarian aid. Indeed, they say your group, the SLA, is responsible for some of their problems getting to the refugees.

MANAWA: Actually, this is what the people say and this is what the people claim, all over the international world. But, actually, this is not true. That is why we are going to choose peace. There is many armed groups, there is many armed robbers, there is many, many people that are claiming they are SLA. Why? Because SLA is the more stronger force on the ground and everybody likes to say I am SLA.

ROBERTSON: So your group is not blocking any humanitarian aid getting through?

MINNAWI: Not at all, at all. Not at all.

ROBERTSON: Since you signed the deal in Abuja, has anything changed on the ground? Have your soldiers put their guns down yet?

MINNAWI: Actually, since we signed up to now there is many Janjaweed movement. Still even yesterday evening there is many Janjaweed movement and they looted some areas and burned some villages in the south of Darfur. They're reducing the activity up to now. They're reducing the activity because any peace will not, cannot take steps one day immediately when they sign it, because we need the time to educate the people. We need the time to brief the people. We need the time to create the good environment.

ROBERTSON: The SLA are practicing forced recruitment in some of the refugee camps in Chad, taking people as young as 13, 13-year-old boys, away for military training to go back and fight in Darfur.

MINNAWI: I know who are those doing this type of things in the refugee camp, in the east of Chad. I know that.

ROBERTSON: Forced recruitment?

MINNAWI: I know them. Yes, I know them.

ROBERTSON: Who is it then?

MINNAWI: I am telling you I know them, but not the original SLA. But I know them. I am not controlling them and even they are not controlling themselves. Just they are claiming SLA because SLA is powerful and because SLA is respectable movement in the war. That is why they are claiming as SLA. But also I am denying and I am condemning them. That is not the SLA behavior and they are not SLA controlled.

ROBERTSON: What do you have to say about 13-year-old boys being taken away for military training?

MINNAWI: No. Absolutely this is supposed to be condemned by international law and also this is -- I know many people they took from their refugee camps. They took some of them by force. Some of them maybe voluntarily. But it was not acceptable, and if it still is going on, we have to contribute with the Chadian authority and stop this type of thing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MANN: Minni Minnawi, leader of the Sudan Liberation Army.

We have to take a break now. When we come back, what the government of Chad could be doing to protect the children.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MANN: Chad is in the midst of its own civil war. Its rebels even staged a surprise attack on the capital in N'djamena last month. Several hundred people were killed and Chad blamed the government of Sudan, which it says is arming and supporting the uprising.

Welcome back.

The simplest say to put it is that the wars in Chad and Sudan are interlocked. We heard Nic Robertson report that authorities in Chad could be doing more to protect the Sudanese refugees.

Joining us not is Mahamoud Adam Bachir, Chad's ambassador to the United States.

Ambassador, thank you so much for being with us.

Your country is sheltering hundreds of thousands of refugees, and for that it deserves the world's gratitude. But at the same time, we've just heard our correspondent report and witnesses say that your government is allowing children of those refugees to be forced into service by the rebel army of Sudan.

Why isn't it being stopped?

MAHAMOUD ADAM BACHIR, CHADIAN AMB. TO U.S.: Jon, thank you so much for this opportunity, for this heartbreaking report about the tragedy going on in Darfur. I'm glad that the international community finally has understood what is going on, the seriousness of the situation on the ground.

My government, particularly with the personal involvement of President Idriss D‚by Itno since the starting of the problem has done everything he could to support the Sudanese government and the rebel group to reach a peace agreement which could help the peaceful return of the refugees, which, you know, are becoming not only a burden for the Chadian citizens and the Chadian government but also demonstrating one of the most serious genocides, if you will, or holocaust, or the recent century's human tragedy.

MANN: Ambassador, I'm going to step in on that very thought, because to end this war, to make the peace agreement stick, the fighting has to stop. The SLA has to at the very least stop recruiting young men from the camps in Chad. It is said 4,000 of them were taken under the very noses of local officials. Why is your government letting this happen?

BACHIR: That is absolutely not true. I have never heard of any forceful recruitment of the young by the rebel groups, but it could happen. That is why we have -- this is one more evidence that it is urgent and it is necessary that the international community take its responsibility. The Chadian government, we don't have that luxury of resources, we have our own problems. And the Sudanese government, in spite of the fact that they are harming their own refugees, their own citizens, mediating between them and the rebel groups that will solve the problem, they are trying to destabilize us.

The Sudanese government's history has always tried to solve the problem. There is a problem even more great or more dangerous before the problem was the problem of marginalization and a power sharing problem. Now it has turned out to be intercommunity between the Janjaweed, which was supported by the Sudanese government, and the other ethnic groups of Darfur. Now it turned out to be a problem, to be all exported altogether to Chad, the neighboring country of Chad.

MANN: For that reason, let me ask you, because you say you've never heard of this before. It should not be a secret. The United Nations high commissioner for refugees has made it clear what is going on. Inside the camps it is clear that this is going on. But what's most important is not that it's going on or that it's going on without your government being able to stop it for lack of manpower, which you alluded to, but local people in the border regions say that officials of your government, local officials of your government, encourage leaders in the refugee camps to assist in the recruiting, that your government is doing more than sitting back passively and powerlessly, it is assisting.

BACHIR: Well, it is easy to make allegations, but my governments' position is always what the president has recently said. We cannot assure the security of the refugees. We have been calling, my president actually wrote to President Bush and I delivered it to the State Department, asking for his personal involvement to stop this humanitarian crisis.

The Sudanese government continuously rejects the international forces. We don't have, as you said, we don't have the capabilities to protect the refugees. Particularly they have been victimized by their own Sudanese government soldiers and their Janjaweed, which were supported by the Sudanese government.

MANN: Well, there is something else going on. It's not just the Janjaweed or the government soldiers. There are very clear reports, and we heard them from our own correspondent, we've heard them from UNHCR, about the Sudan Liberation Army going into these camps to look for refugees. It's not the government of Sudan that's doing this, it's the rebels.

And, further, people are saying that the SLA has the support of your government in this, that in fact in the town of Cucu (ph), which our correspondent, Nic Robertson, visited, troops of the Sudan Liberation Army, the rebel movement, were deployed in tandem with Chad government troops to try to protect the local residents. These are two forces that are apparently on the ground working together.

BACHIR: Jon, this has to stop. No matter who is doing this, as I said, officially I've never heard of this, and it is wrong, and it is wrong and it is a tragedy. It is a humanitarian disaster. To stop this, I think the only solution -- we don't have the capabilities. We don't have.

MANN: Let me ask you one last question. We have just a moment. Would you welcome international forces to protect the refugees and to keep the rebels out of Chad?

BACHIR: Exactly. That is what we have been continuously saying. My president made it publicly that we need international forces today before tomorrow, because this should not be tolerated at all. And whoever is blocking the arrival of international forces should be behind this kind of experience.

We have raised our concerns. My president continues to keep calling this the international community's responsibility. Come on, protect the refugees, come take over the refugees, take care of the refugees. So I think that internationally this is one more element which it is not important who is doing it. I think we have to make investigations, and everybody who has done that should not go away with that, should be investigated and taken into justice. But before that, I think we have to stop this, and the only way to stop this is to bring international forces with the proper mandate, with proper means to stop this. This is illegal and immoral to see it happen and we have the means to stop it and let it happen.

MANN: On that note, Mahamoud Adam Bachir, Chad's ambassador to the United States, we thank you so much for talking with us.

BACHIR: You're very welcome.

MANN: And that's INSIGHT. I'm Jonathan Mann. The news continues.

END

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