PKSOI Lessons Learned Report January 2019 | Page 24

4. DDR LESSONS – LAKE CHAD BASIN REGION (MNJTF)
Multinational Military Forces Operating across National Boundaries
in the Absence of Agreed Regional Policy
(Lesson #2706)
Observation:
Multinational (MN) forces need to be backed by international organizations and enabling
agreements. Where a MN force has been sponsored and deployed without adequate
underpinning cross-border legislation, then the ability of the force to operate effectively is
limited. Surrender policies, the handling of Prisoners of War/Captured Persons (PW/CPERS),
rehabilitation of prisoners, and the treatment of 'cooperative victims' must be the same across
the MN Area of Responsibility (AOR). In terms of the challenge represented by Disarmament,
Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR), getting pan-nation agreement on procedures and
associated training to respond appropriately and consistently to defections is significant.
Discussion:
This insight is based on the operations of the anti-Boko Haram Multinational Joint Task
Force (MNJTF) in the first half of 2018, but the authors are confident that the issue extends
across the mandate of the MNJTF and is likely to endure. The discussion is the require-
ment for mirrored legislation in the affected states to ensure that treatment is equal across
the MNJTF AOR and the force can adhere to a pan-Lake Chad policy. Messaging must be
coherent to ensure that the surrender policy is clear and that Surrendered Personnel (SEP)
are not 'advantaged' or 'disadvantaged' in different states. The tension lies with the fact that
not all the Lake Chad Basin (LCB) nations are equal in the fight or willing members of the
coalition. Boko Haram is a Nigerian problem which has been exported to the other LCB
nations. To this end, the requirement for equal burden sharing is not evident, especially as
Nigeria is the regional hegemon. The absence of a single pan-DDR policy and the lack of
an MNJTF police component to bridge the gap between the military task force and national
security agencies limit the actions of the MNJTF to military operations and a shallow infor-
mation operational footprint rather than giving the Force Commander and Head of Mission
the full range of levers to underwrite the campaign.
The African Union and MNJTF hosted a DDR/Regional Stabilization Conference in N'Djamena,
Chad in November 2017 and aimed at being the first of three to deliver a comprehensive DDR
plan for the Lake Chad Basin. The conference was planned for about 50 participants with
real DDR experience and from the target communities. However, as the span of invitees
expanded, the efficiency of the conference degraded and the result was simply a list of goals.
A much smaller group of DDR experts (including a representative from the U.S. Department
of State) was created to draft the regional DDR plan, but by September 2018 had still not
concluded. One of the biggest blocks involved the law of each participating country and each
country’s approach to DDR – i.e., different national approaches and inevitable inconsistency.
Recommendations:
There is always a challenge between 'doing something' and setting the force. The danger is
that the two are never reconciled because for some nations, simply sending troops is enough
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