Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
00KINSHASA8554
2000-12-26 14:35:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Kinshasa
how-toThis record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KINSHASA 008554
SIPDIS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/26/2010
TAGS: EAID ECON PGOV CG
SUBJECT: VIEWS OF GOMA UN WORKERS
Classified by Economic Officer Katherine Simonds. Reason:
1.5(d).
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KINSHASA 008554
SIPDIS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/26/2010
TAGS: EAID ECON PGOV CG
SUBJECT: VIEWS OF GOMA UN WORKERS
Classified by Economic Officer Katherine Simonds. Reason:
1.5(d).
1. (C) Summary: Representatives of UN agencies in Goma
believe the international community in general and the UN in
particular are overly focused on the Congo war instead of on
the deeper rooted problems of the Congo. While their
analysis may in part reflect their own tunnel vision, it
strongly suggests that ending the war will not end the need
for continued intense international involvement in the Congo.
On the other hand, in our view, unless the war is ended,
even unlimited international engagement will not be able to
solve the sub-region's problems. End summary.
2. (C) Econoff's five day visit to Goma provided ample
opportunity for conversations with a wide range of officers
representing UN agencies in Goma. Econoff found them to be
dedicated, professional, well-informed and well-coordinated.
They form a close-knit community that has developed its own
analysis of the crisis in the Kivus based on their day-to-day
experience and they feel alienated from their head offices in
Kinshasa. Not surprisingly, they believe the resources they
have are inadequate to the task they face (a situation which
the UN acknowledges in its Consolidated Appeal for the DRC).
More disturbingly, however, they also feel hobbled by their
head offices in their ability to fulfill their basic
humanitarian mission. This "malaise" (which caused the
resignation of OCHA's respected Goma coordinator) is shared
in different degrees by many UN officers working in Goma.
--------------
Clashes with Kinshasa Home Offices
--------------
3. (C) Charles Petrie, the departing OCHA coordinator,
devoted a significant amount of time over his last few days
in Goma to briefing Econoff on the complicated humanitarian
crisis in the Kivus. Although he did not volunteer the
information, he responded frankly when asked why he was
leaving the UN. He told Econoff he was tired of being
considered the enemy by Kinshasa. (Asked what he meant by
Kinshasa, Petrie specified the UN system. Petrie said that
his criticism of the UN in Kinshasa did not, however, extend
to MONUC or the SRSG.) He said he and his colleagues had
been arguing for more than a year that a concerted effort to
promote reconciliation at the grassroots level in the Kivus
was crucial to avoid an escalation of violence. Their advice
had been ignored, and they had been forced to watch as the
number of internally displaced in North Kivu rose by 700,000
in the last year and 3-400,000 in the last few months.
Petrie said that the final straw motivating him to resign was
the accusation by UN colleagues in Kinshasa that he had
ghost-written the USG non-paper on the humanitarian crisis in
the DRC.
--------------
"Pacification"--A Question of Definition
--------------
4. (C) A Goma-based UNHCR officer told Econoff that, in
recognition of the need to promote tolerance, the UN had
finally adopted a policy requiring that all development
projects contain a human rights component. He referred to
this as a pacification campaign, and was surprised to be told
that, for an American, "pacification" implied encouraging the
population to accept the RCD/Rwandan administration. For him
pacification referred to relations within the community of
Congolese civilians.
5. (C) Conflicting interpretations of the word pacification
symbolize the gulf between the UN's Goma officers and their
colleagues in Kinshasa. Officers in Goma generally agree
that the current war is fundamentally a Rwandan invasion, and
that the RCD is a largely incompetent and extremely unpopular
puppet regime. They believe, however, that there are ethnic
differences (such as the Hema-Lendu conflict) which, though
they may have been aggravated by the war, long predate it.
They believe that a combination of development projects and
"pacification" can help communities of Congolese to live
together peacefully, both in the current context and longer
term.
--------------
NGOs and Politics
--------------
6. (C) Bukavu civil society is a prime candidate for this
human rights training, according to most UN officers in Goma.
They repeatedly told econoff that the RCD's ban on political
parties has turned politicians into NGO leaders. Purported
human rights NGOs in Bukavu really pursue political agendas,
and these often include ethnically divisive policies. Petrie
noted that the Swedes and the Dutch have stopped funding
Bukavu's civil society organizations for this reason. The
UNHCR representative said he was trying to convince Human
Rights NGO's that they should preserve their credibility and
stop publishing undocumented and often wildly inflated
accounts of violations, such as the Katagota massacre. (He
said that he believed a serious massacre of perhaps 40
civilians had indeed occurred at Katagota, but that civil
society undermined its own interests by publishing accounts
claiming up to 400 victims.) UN officers also believe that
political activism in Bukavu is exacerbating the economic
deprivation of residents of South Kivu by, for example,
declaring lengthy general strikes (villes mortes) which close
the markets in which many of the poor earn their daily living.
--------------
A Plea for Roads
--------------
7. (C) Many of Econoffs Goma interlocutors, including UN
officers, said they believe the international community
should put more resources into road reconstruction in the
Kivus. They believe better roads will immediately improve
the economic situation of rural communities by providing
access to markets, and that reducing economic deprivation
will reduce ethnic rivalry for scarce resources. They also
believe that reducing the isolation of ethnically homogeneous
communities will promote tolerance.
--------------
Comment
--------------
8. (C) From a distance, and with the cultural baggage of a
typical American, the resistance of Bukavu's civil society is
an admirable and appropriate response to occupation. Calls
for road-building and pacification campaigns sound like
collaboration. The near-unanimous and sincere arguments put
forward by UN officers in Goma, however, merit attention.
They at least suggest that, while currently focusing on
initiatives to end the Congo war, the international community
needs to prepare itself for a long and deep involvement in
the reconstruction of the Congo once the war is over. In the
short term, however, ending the war remains the sine qua non
for resolving the Congo crisis.
SWING
SIPDIS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/26/2010
TAGS: EAID ECON PGOV CG
SUBJECT: VIEWS OF GOMA UN WORKERS
Classified by Economic Officer Katherine Simonds. Reason:
1.5(d).
1. (C) Summary: Representatives of UN agencies in Goma
believe the international community in general and the UN in
particular are overly focused on the Congo war instead of on
the deeper rooted problems of the Congo. While their
analysis may in part reflect their own tunnel vision, it
strongly suggests that ending the war will not end the need
for continued intense international involvement in the Congo.
On the other hand, in our view, unless the war is ended,
even unlimited international engagement will not be able to
solve the sub-region's problems. End summary.
2. (C) Econoff's five day visit to Goma provided ample
opportunity for conversations with a wide range of officers
representing UN agencies in Goma. Econoff found them to be
dedicated, professional, well-informed and well-coordinated.
They form a close-knit community that has developed its own
analysis of the crisis in the Kivus based on their day-to-day
experience and they feel alienated from their head offices in
Kinshasa. Not surprisingly, they believe the resources they
have are inadequate to the task they face (a situation which
the UN acknowledges in its Consolidated Appeal for the DRC).
More disturbingly, however, they also feel hobbled by their
head offices in their ability to fulfill their basic
humanitarian mission. This "malaise" (which caused the
resignation of OCHA's respected Goma coordinator) is shared
in different degrees by many UN officers working in Goma.
--------------
Clashes with Kinshasa Home Offices
--------------
3. (C) Charles Petrie, the departing OCHA coordinator,
devoted a significant amount of time over his last few days
in Goma to briefing Econoff on the complicated humanitarian
crisis in the Kivus. Although he did not volunteer the
information, he responded frankly when asked why he was
leaving the UN. He told Econoff he was tired of being
considered the enemy by Kinshasa. (Asked what he meant by
Kinshasa, Petrie specified the UN system. Petrie said that
his criticism of the UN in Kinshasa did not, however, extend
to MONUC or the SRSG.) He said he and his colleagues had
been arguing for more than a year that a concerted effort to
promote reconciliation at the grassroots level in the Kivus
was crucial to avoid an escalation of violence. Their advice
had been ignored, and they had been forced to watch as the
number of internally displaced in North Kivu rose by 700,000
in the last year and 3-400,000 in the last few months.
Petrie said that the final straw motivating him to resign was
the accusation by UN colleagues in Kinshasa that he had
ghost-written the USG non-paper on the humanitarian crisis in
the DRC.
--------------
"Pacification"--A Question of Definition
--------------
4. (C) A Goma-based UNHCR officer told Econoff that, in
recognition of the need to promote tolerance, the UN had
finally adopted a policy requiring that all development
projects contain a human rights component. He referred to
this as a pacification campaign, and was surprised to be told
that, for an American, "pacification" implied encouraging the
population to accept the RCD/Rwandan administration. For him
pacification referred to relations within the community of
Congolese civilians.
5. (C) Conflicting interpretations of the word pacification
symbolize the gulf between the UN's Goma officers and their
colleagues in Kinshasa. Officers in Goma generally agree
that the current war is fundamentally a Rwandan invasion, and
that the RCD is a largely incompetent and extremely unpopular
puppet regime. They believe, however, that there are ethnic
differences (such as the Hema-Lendu conflict) which, though
they may have been aggravated by the war, long predate it.
They believe that a combination of development projects and
"pacification" can help communities of Congolese to live
together peacefully, both in the current context and longer
term.
--------------
NGOs and Politics
--------------
6. (C) Bukavu civil society is a prime candidate for this
human rights training, according to most UN officers in Goma.
They repeatedly told econoff that the RCD's ban on political
parties has turned politicians into NGO leaders. Purported
human rights NGOs in Bukavu really pursue political agendas,
and these often include ethnically divisive policies. Petrie
noted that the Swedes and the Dutch have stopped funding
Bukavu's civil society organizations for this reason. The
UNHCR representative said he was trying to convince Human
Rights NGO's that they should preserve their credibility and
stop publishing undocumented and often wildly inflated
accounts of violations, such as the Katagota massacre. (He
said that he believed a serious massacre of perhaps 40
civilians had indeed occurred at Katagota, but that civil
society undermined its own interests by publishing accounts
claiming up to 400 victims.) UN officers also believe that
political activism in Bukavu is exacerbating the economic
deprivation of residents of South Kivu by, for example,
declaring lengthy general strikes (villes mortes) which close
the markets in which many of the poor earn their daily living.
--------------
A Plea for Roads
--------------
7. (C) Many of Econoffs Goma interlocutors, including UN
officers, said they believe the international community
should put more resources into road reconstruction in the
Kivus. They believe better roads will immediately improve
the economic situation of rural communities by providing
access to markets, and that reducing economic deprivation
will reduce ethnic rivalry for scarce resources. They also
believe that reducing the isolation of ethnically homogeneous
communities will promote tolerance.
--------------
Comment
--------------
8. (C) From a distance, and with the cultural baggage of a
typical American, the resistance of Bukavu's civil society is
an admirable and appropriate response to occupation. Calls
for road-building and pacification campaigns sound like
collaboration. The near-unanimous and sincere arguments put
forward by UN officers in Goma, however, merit attention.
They at least suggest that, while currently focusing on
initiatives to end the Congo war, the international community
needs to prepare itself for a long and deep involvement in
the reconstruction of the Congo once the war is over. In the
short term, however, ending the war remains the sine qua non
for resolving the Congo crisis.
SWING