GOMA DEMOBILIZATION OFFICER: NO EVIDENCE OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L KIGALI 001077

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/01/2017
TAGS: PREL MOPS PINR PINS RW
SUBJECT: GOMA DEMOBILIZATION OFFICER: NO EVIDENCE OF
RWANDANS IN CONGO


Classified By: Ambassador Michael R. Arietti, reason 1.4 (B/D)


1. (C) Embassy officers met November 10 in Kigali with
Harald Hinkel, who works for the World Bank's Multi-Country
Demobilization and Reintegration Program (MDRP) office in
Goma. Hinkel, who had working in Goma since January 2005,
spends his work weeks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(DRC) and many weekends in Kigali, where his family lives.
Hinkel described in detail his years-long inability to
document alleged Rwandan military (RDF) intervention in
eastern Goma, despite continual requests to Congolese Armed
Forces (FARDC) commanders to do so, and many trips thoughout
North and South Kivu trying to do so himself.


2. (C) Hinkel said that he had investigated "many, many"
accounts of Rwandan military intervention in the course of
his work, but had never seen any proof -- merely "stories,
rumors," and never any documentation. On only one occasion,
he said, in his extensive travels across North and South
Kivu, a Mai-Mai commander named Jackson claimed to have
concrete proof -- the identity cards of two Rwandan soldiers
the commander claimed to have killed in battle. When Hinkel
came to see the commander and look at the cards, the Mai-Mai
commander proudly showed him two Rwandan civilian identity
cards. Informing the general that RDF solders carried
special military IDs, he told the commander, "congratuations,
you have killed two Rwandan civilians." (Note: emboffs
confirmed with RDF sources that soldiers turn in their
civilian ID cards when they join the force, and are issued
military IDs).


3. (C) Hinkel suggested that if RDF forces were routinely
intervening in the Kivus, their presence would ultimately be
known by the mistakes the RDF would likely make: the RDF was
not infallible, and not every operation went according to
plan in any military organization. Troops would be captured,
left behind, left for dead; in some manner the RDF would be
exposed. The absence of any such concrete failure was one
more indication, said Hinkel, that no Rwandan forces had
intervened in the Kivus for some time. Noting the propensity
for Congolese of all stripes to autmatically assume that any
Kinyarwanda speaker in uniform was a Rwandan soldier, troops
of rebel Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda were routinely labelled
"Rwandan," he said, feeding the wide-spread belief among
local populations that RDF troops were present in eastern
Congo.


4. (C) As a side note, Hinkel said that FDLR contacts had
told him that Islamic militants (unidentified) from outside
the region had recently offered to equip the FDLR if they
would make common cause with them. The FDLR officers told
Hinkel that they had rejected the offer.


5. (C) Comment. Hinkel offers the experience of just one
observer in eastern Congo, but one whose job is to track the
presence of negative forces, and be intimately aware of just
who is in contact with whom among the many armed groups
present in the Kivus. He observations strikes us as well
worth noting, particularly when the next round of rumors
begins. End comment.


ARIETTI