Chad says will not accept UN troops in east

N'DJAMENA, Feb 28 (Reuters) Chad will not accept an international military presence on its eastern border with Sudan's Darfur region but wants a civil protection force of police and gendarmes, the government said today.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last week recommended peacekeeping operations for Chad and neighbouring Central African Republic, which could involve up to 11,000 troops and helicopter gunships, to stem the spillover from Darfur.

In proposals to the United Nations Security Council, he suggested deploying 260 UN police in 12 refugee camps in eastern Chad in addition to the military mission.

''For Chad, it has never been a question of receiving any military force on the eastern border but rather a civil force made up of gendarmes and police officers,'' Deputy Foreign Minister Djidda Moussa Outman told foreign ambassadors.

Outman spelled out the government's position in a meeting in Chad's capital, N'Djamena, with envoys from the United States, France, Russia and China, all permanent members of the UN Security Council.

''These civil forces could eventually be reinforced by a light observation mission bringing logistics support to humanitarian organisations,'' Outman said.

He asked the ambassadors to relay Chad's concerns to their respective governments so they would be taken into account by the Security Council.

TROOPS AND AIRCRAFT Ethnic conflict and a simmering rebellion in Chad's east have displaced tens of thousands of people and hampered efforts to aid a flood of refugees from Sudan's western Darfur region, where a four-year conflict has killed more than 200,000 people.

Aid workers say violence is blocking efforts to establish decent camps and provide such basics as clean drinking water, needed to prevent illnesses such as diarrhoea, cholera and hepatitis. They have long called for stronger security.

Ban laid out two peacekeeping options in a 27-page report to the Council last week. The first would number 6,000 troops backed by aircraft and engineering units.

The second option would number about 10,900 troops and include aircraft, and is favoured by Ban as better suited to protect civilians, although it might severely tax the overburdened UN peacekeeping department.

Sudan and Chad have been supporting each other's rebels. The Janjaweed militia, blamed for much of the killing in Darfur, chase Sudanese into refugee camps in Chad and anti-government Sudanese rebels recruit men and boys from the same camps.

The UN estimates there are more than 230,000 Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad alongside some 120,000 Chadians uprooted from their homes.

On top of cross-border raids by the Janjaweed, a variety of Chadian rebel groups are engaged in a cat-and-mouse war with President Idriss Deby's forces, meaning refugees and local civilians live in constant fear of attack.

An initial UN assessment mission sent to Chad in November said it was too dangerous to send in peacekeepers until all sides agreed to a political truce.

REUTERS SI MIR BST2130