VZCZCXRO5527
OO RUEHBZ RUEHDU RUEHGI RUEHJO RUEHMR RUEHRN
DE RUEHKI #0154/01 0430629
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 120629Z FEB 08
FM AMEMBASSY KINSHASA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7528
INFO RUEHXR/RWANDA COLLECTIVE
RUCNSAD/SOUTHERN AF DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY COLLECTIVE
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUZEJAA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KINSHASA 000154
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
SENSITIVE
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL MOPS PREF CG RW
SUBJECT: Joint Monitoring Group Task Force, Goma, February 8
1. (SBU) Summary: Meeting of the Nairobi process's Joint Monitoring
Group Task Force February 8 in Goma was a bit testier than usual.
The Rwandan side leveled charges of co-location of FDLR and FARDC
forces, regretted that the Congolese government was not living up to
its timetable of actions to be taken, and took umbrage at the
leakage to FDLR of the number of genocidaires (6,400) in the list
that Rwanda had provided the previous week. The Congolese side,
weakly represented, took umbrage at the Rwandans' umbrage. End
Summary.
2. (SBU) The Task Force established at the meeting of the Joint
Monitoring Group December 22 held its eighth meeting in Goma
February 8. Rwanda fielded its usual four-member team led by Major
Franco Rutagengwa, while the DRC had only a two-member team led by
Major Ambroise Nanga. Nanga apologized that Colonel Augustin Mamba
was again taken up with post-Kivus Conference affairs in Kinshasa.
Nanga said he realized that the DRC had fallen behind in its
commitments under the FDLR plan it had provided to Rwanda December
1, including providing Rwanda an assessment of FDLR's military
capabilities and willingness to repatriate. He again promised that
Mamba would be present the following week and provide a "full
assessment."
3. (SBU) Rutagengwa said that Rwanda had fulfilled all its
commitments under the Nairobi communiqu. All that remained for it
to do was to continue to encourage ex-FAR/Interahamwe elements to
return to Rwanda and keep its border with DRC sealed. Moreover, it
had operationalized the Task Force by inviting it on January 18 to
observe first-hand all that Rwanda was doing to attract and
reintegrate ex-FAR/Interahamwe. Task Force chairman Gernot Sauer of
MONUC asked the DRC delegation when it would reciprocate, to which
Nanga responded that DRC was not yet ready to say.
4. (SBU) Rutagengwa said that, illustrative of its strict border
controls, Rwanda had arrested FDLR infiltrators in the Mururu sector
on the South Kivu border ten days earlier. These infiltrators had
confessed that they were part of FDLR's 2nd division and that it was
co-located with FARDC's 8th Integrated Brigade at its base at
Ruvungu. Rwandan delegate James Burabyo added that Rwanda would
soon be providing information to the Joint Verification Team
concerning similar co-location of FDLR's 2nd and 4th battalions with
FARDC's 9th, 6th, 2nd, and 15th Integrated Brigades near Rutshuru.
Burabyo pointed out that a close relationship between FARDC and
FDLR, even to the extent that their military units were co-located,
suggested that the DRC's sensitization campaign could only have
limited success.
5. (SBU) Rutagengwa went to a wall map of the Kivu provinces and,
pointing to it, said that the FARDC controlled the whole area, so he
failed to see why DRC could not live up to its obligation under the
December 1 plan, at least to inform Rwanda of the locations of FDLR
units. He wanted to ensure that the record showed that that plan
called for DRC to provide Rwanda with full information on FDLR order
of battle, to include, inter alia, leadership, recruitment and
training, collaborators, coordinators and liaison officers, methods
of gathering intelligence, supply routes, and modes of transport, as
well as locations of FDLR.
6. (SBU) Nanga said, in response, that this set of complaints was
difficult for DRC to accept. The Rwandan delegation was not
proceeding in a spirit of fraternal cooperation to build mutual
confidence toward a shared goal. The Congolese people had suffered
for 14 years on account of the depredations of the
ex-FAR/Interahamwe. DRC had information on infiltrations from the
Rwandan side to assist rebellion within DRC, but it had the courtesy
to refrain from airing such allegations in this Task Force but would
rather wait to place them before the Joint Verification Team. Nanga
said it would be better for Rwanda to concentrate on dissipating
persistent rumors of ill treatment of FLDR combatants upon return to
Rwanda than to call DRC's good will into question.
7. (SBU) In the absence of MONUC DDRRR chief Philip Lancaster, who
was visiting Rwanda, World Bank expert Masse Walimba gave a short
account of difficulties facing the effort to contact FDLR and
persuade cadres to return to Rwanda. He noted that FDLR elements
had said during contact the previous week that their leaders in
Europe had told them that Rwanda had now produced a list of 6,400
genocidaires. Walimba noted that since the list exceeded the 6,000
estimated FDLR combatants in DRC, the local FDLR were drawing the
conclusion that they would all be subject to arrest if they tried to
go back to Rwanda. Poloff asked what percentage of these 6,400 were
thought to be in DRC, and the EU's Jean-Michel Dumont asked what
percentage were even thought still to be alive. Walimba said he had
no idea. (In a subsequent conversation, SRSG Alan Doss -- to whom
Rwanda had sent a copy of the list -- called the list "almost
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unusable.")
8. (SBU) The Rwandan delegation expressed outrage that the number of
persons on this list, which was meant to have been confidential, had
been leaked to the European leadership of the FDLR. Rutagengwa said
that Rwanda had been extremely reluctant to provide the list. It
had wanted all along that DRC finish its sensitization campaign
before any such list was provided, but regrettably it had been
pressured into doing so. Burabyo said that not all the persons on
the list would be subject to arrest and that, in any case, there
were likely to be more than 10,000 FDLR combatants in DRC, not
6,000.
9. (SBU) Nanga urged the Rwandan delegation not to become "overly
pessimistic" about revelation of the number of persons on the list.
DRC would do all that it could to ensure that this revelation did
not destroy the process of returning FDLR to Rwanda, which both
sides so earnestly wished. He added that DRC supported Rwanda in
its call for a UNSC resolution condemning the FDLR.
10. (SBU) Sauer noted that, according to his latest information, the
Joint Monitoring Group would meet at the level of the envoys in
Brussels in one week, February 15. The Task Force would go forward
with its next meeting, even if on the same day. Looking toward the
tri-monthly revolving chairmanship, the Task Force agreed to
recommend that the envoys decide their next chairman at that
meeting, and thus the next chairman of the Task Force in Goma, from
March 22.
GARVELINK