Word: missioners
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...France is also keen to stress the E.U.'s mission neutrality. "It is a reconstruction mission, a development mission and a humanitarian one," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said, adding that that the aim was solely to protect displaced refugees, not to help Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno. Some Chadian rebels have expressed fears that the E.U. force is meant to help prop up Deby, a longtime ally of Paris, and have even threatened to attack the mission if it interferes with their rumbling insurgency...
...mandate is more robust in the new mission than it has been in any previous ones. Though there are provisions meant to keep the European troops from intervening in Chad's internal conflict, on this mission the military has "an appropriate mandate allowing the use of armed force if necessary." That makes this the most ambitious mission since the E.U.'s 7,000-strong Operation Althea in Bosnia, which took over from NATO mission in 2004. "It's very significant, and about as big as it gets," said Tomas Valasek, a director at London-based think-tank the Centre...
...More than 200,000 refugees from Darfur are in camps in the region, along with 178,000 displaced Chadians and 43,000 Central Africans. A one-year budget of $176 million has been earmarked for the mission, although officials say it could cost five times that sum. The troops are meant to support a joint 26,000-member U.N.-African Union (AU) peacekeeping effort in Darfur...
...France's role is critical. It already has around 5,000 soldiers in three permanent bases in Africa: Senegal, Gabon and Djibouti, along with 2,600 soldiers on a peacekeeping mission in Ivory Coast, and 1,100 already on the ground in Chad...
...France to rejoin the NATO integrated military command that President Charles De Gaulle pulled out of in 1966. "Europeanizing" France's military presence in Africa is seen as helping Paris towards both those goals. Sarkozy says he wants to beef up the E.U. defense capacities, and having an E.U. mission in Chad is one way of encouraging that. He also says an independent E.U. defense capability is the price for France rejoining NATO command...