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UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 33 (Octubre / October 2013) ISSN 1696-2206UNAMID suffered from a lack of resources (tactical transportation, aerial reconnaissance,land transport, engineers, logistics, medical supplies and means for broadcasting), whichaffected the execution of its mandate. Its rules of engagement were limited, as was itsdeployment, including in the refugee camps.UNAMID helped Sudan to integrate former rebels into the army, set up economicgovernance and transitional justice. The obstacles it faced were, ultimately, the result of theSudanese government’s ambiguous relationships (arming militia, exploiting humanitarianassistance, etc.). UNAMID’s DDR mission (disarmament, demobilization and reintegration)led to other issues. For instance, how was it possible to disarm tribal chiefs who traditionallybore arms? Indeed, “ […] All nomads have a quasi-mystical relationship with weapons ingeneral and their own in particular, whether these are knives, assegai, bows and arrows orassault rifles. To removing a weapon is tantamount to an act of castration. These may be wornwithout munitions, since they are frequently in short supply, but the weapon is there,inalienable, by the man’s side, a symbol of his strength, courage, and virility, and a part ofhimself just as much as his right hand. To demand that he hand it over can only trigger aprocess of revolt and intolerable torment. On the other hand, a far more subtle, but also moreplausible, exercise would be to negotiate that the weapons remain in its holster and to regulatesupplies of munitions”. 37 Another issue was how to end a conflict in a state where one regimeafter another had based its legitimacy on arms, as was the case in Chad?. 38 At the intersectionof those two dimensions, another dynamic of the conflict situation in Darfur was exacerbatedby the proxy wars carried out on a regional scale.3.2. Return to the Regional Dimension of the System of Conflicts in DarfurFrom a purely political point of view, the crises in Chad and Sudan during the 2000 decadewere not connected at the outset. The situation in Darfur was the result of a Sudanese politicalcrisis, while Chad under Idriss Déby was facing an internal political conflict whose originshad no direct link with Darfur either. Indeed, Déby’s crisis of legitimacy prevented him fromcontaining ethnic solidarity with the Zaghawa engaged in the Sudanese revolt within his ownentourage. However, the changing situation and certain specific circumstances led to the twointernal conflicts overlapping. Two factors in the Sudanese crisis further regionalized theconflict: the arrival in Chad of many Sudanese refugees and the incursions of the Janjaweedmilitia into Chad territory in pursuit of the rebels who had sought refuge in camps there.Increasing episodes of violence occurred on both sides of the Chad-Sudan border with thedisplacement of populations, destruction of villages, clashes among the insurgent groups, andattacks on refugee camps.Relations between Chad and Sudan gradually deteriorated. Each country’s politicalexploitation of the events acted as a catalyst on their own domestic crises. In short, the Chadregime supported the Sudanese rebellion, which recruited in the Chad refugee camps, whilethe Khartoum government used internal rifts within Idriss Déby’s ethnic group and supportedthe Chad opponents present in Sudan. It became increasingly difficult to find any politicalagreement between the two countries because of each one’s double-dealings. Any attempt to37 Ibid., p. 49.38 Debos, Marielle: “Les limites de l’accumulation par les armes. Itinéraires d’ex-combattants au Chad”,Politique africaine, n°109 (May 2008), pp. 167-181. Debos, Marielle: “Fluid Loyalties in a Regional Crisis:Chadian combatants in the Central African Republic”, African Affairs, vol. 107, n° 427 (April 2008), pp. 225-241.118
UNISCI Discussion Papers, Nº 33 (Octubre / October 2013) ISSN 1696-2206reach cooperation agreements on law and order failed until the Doha agreement was finallysigned in July 2011.The ties between Chad, Sudan and Libya illustrate Buzan’s Regional Security ComplexTheory (RSCR) in its most limited dimension. 39 Within a RSC, states have relationshipscharacterized as much by forms of voluntary cooperation as by a growing interdependencerelated to the nature of the security issues. Security matters lead to involuntary effects thatresult in unintended costs or benefits affecting states that were not involved at the outset. 40Whereas the intra-state trade has positive consequences, the displacement of populations andrefugees are examples of repercussions with destabilizing effects in terms of the political,economic and social costs they engender. The originality of RSCT lies in the fact that it takesinto account the interdependence of actors in geographical proximity, as well as interactionswith more distant ones. 41 Furthermore, because of their regional commitment, some“external” actors can be perceived as being part of a Regional Security Complex. Forinstance, the French presence in central Africa, and notably in Chad and the Central AfricanRepublic, is generally taken into account in analyzing regional power relations.Another specificity of RSCT is that it eradicates the distinction between the internal andexternal spheres to the benefit of a logic of interlinked conflicts. When states face growingcompetition, political regimes play on several levels by re-appropriating cross-bordersolidarity, exploiting family ties between political players, and concluding alliances betweenarmed groups — all of which can serve an established regime for placing and creating aclientelistic network. The transformation of a war is therefore the result of both the actorsthemselves and their interdependent relationships.Far from being a simple established fact or a temporary situation, the instability thatreigned on Darfur’s borders was transformed into a political instrument 42 and its exploitationfuelled the formation of a war/peace continuum in which violence became commonplace.After the clashes between the center and the periphery, the break-up of factions, and the proxywar with Chad with its repercussions on the Central African Republic, a new area of conflictwas created that evolved in accordance with historic ties between populations and shifts inalliances. As in the case of Darfur, this was not disorder in the sense of anarchy, that is to saythe absence of chiefs or synonymous with chaos. Rather it was a process by which certainactors sought to maximize their interests in a context of confusion and uncertainty thatcharacterizes certain African countries. 43 The perpetuation of that state of instability was asmuch due to the implication of the political powers — as illustrated by the relations betweenChad, Sudan and Libya — as that of non-state actors. The communities located on either sideof the Chad-Sudan border, mobilized for war, helped perpetuate the insurrection. 44Independently of state strategies, the modes of action by individual groups often occurred atthe intersection of different rationales, such as the coming together of the Chad and Sudanese39 Defined as “a group of states whose prime security concerns are so closely linked that the security of any onecannot be separated from the others”, Buzan, Barry, op. cit., p. 190.40 Lake, David; Morgan, Patrick (1997): Regional orders: building security in a new world, University Park, Pa.,Pennsylvania State University Press, p. 48.41 For the purpose of this paper I have only discussed the relationships between three states, but others can alsobe considered integral to RSCT: the Central African Republic, Uganda, with the Lord’s Resistance Army, TheDemocratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea - because of its former support to the Eastern Front rebels in Sudan - andSouth Sudan. I cannot develop all these aspects here since they go beyond the scope of this paper.42 Chabal Patrick; Dalloz, Jean-Pascal (1999): Africa Works: Disorder as a Political Instrument, London,International African Institute.43 Ibid., p. xviii.44 Marchal, “Tchad/Darfour: vers un système de conflits”, op. cit., p.139.119
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Juan Emilio CheyreDirector, Center
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