SENIOR ADVISOR SHORTLEY'S MEETINGS IN NORTH KIVU

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SUBJECT: SENIOR ADVISOR SHORTLEY'S MEETINGS IN NORTH KIVU
DECEMBER 14-16, 2007

Classified By: DCM Samuel Brock. Reasons 1.4 (b/d).

Subject: Senior Advisor Shortley's meetings in North Kivu
December 14-16, 2007


1. (C) Summary: Senior Adviser to Assistant Secretary
Frazer for Conflict Resolution, Tim Shortley, met Laurent
Nkunda at his headquarters near Kirolirwe late December 14.
Shortley found Nkunda amenable to compromise, apparently
worried that his sweeping military victory had within it the
seeds of political defeat. Nkunda,s objective was to have
himself and his forces accepted and integrated into the
military and have a principal onward role in combating the
FDLR. He refused exile, claiming it was against the
constitution (Article 30). He accepted immediate pullback of
his forces from a few recently-seized territories, including
the strategic heights over Sake. He also agreed to pull-out
from other areas, including from Mushaki once a disengagement
plan for Nkunda and other armed militia groups is made under
the auspices of a technical commission facilitated by the
U.S. As agreed with President Kabila in advance of
Shortley's meeting with Nkunda, the technical commission will
be facilitated by the U.S. and made up of GDRC/FARDC,
Nkunda/CNDP, U.S., and MONUC. He agreed that MONUC would
produce a plan for disengagement of all forces in the area
and that MONUC would have a significantly increased presence
within and around areas presently under his control,
protecting the population from FDLR and Mai-Mai incursions
while he prepared to send his men to brassage. President
Kabila's Chief of Staff Raymond Tshibanda, in a subsequent
telephone conversation with Shortley, demanded more territory
up front, a declared deadline for disengagement and brassage,
and assurances that the technical commission would have only
an implementation role. MONUC,s Eastern Division Commander
General Bikram Singh was enthusiastic about the plan and said
he had just spent two hours hammering FARDC Chief of Staff
General Dieudonne Kayembe, who he said was now urging
President Kabila to abandon further use of force for at least
six months. UN Assistant Secretary General Haile Menkerios
told Shortley that FARDC,s defeat was a blessing in
disguise, aiding fulfillment of the Nairobi communique.
Menkerios said that Kabila should never have focused on
Nkunda but rather on a vision of freeing up territory for the
return of displaced populations without regard to any
particular negative force. Foreign Minister Mbusa Nyamwisi
waxed especially enthusiastic, except that he wanted Nkunda
to forego up-front the vital border crossing at Bunagana, to
which Shortley explained that, under the unfolding agreement,
MONUC would protect the main roads so that Bunagana would be
freed up. End Summary.


2. (C) A/S Frazer's Senior Adviser for Conflict Resolution
Tim Shortley arrived in Goma midday December 14 hoping to
travel immediately by helicopter to Nkunda,s headquarters
near Kirolirwe. However, due to heavy rain, Shortley was
forced to make the several-hour trek, with MONUC escort,
overland instead. He met Nkunda for four hours late into the
night, using a draft of an agreement already worked out with
President Kabila and SRSG Swing as a basis for discussion.
Kabila,s demand that Nkunda go into exile was, Nkunda said,
a deal-breaker, so he agreed with Shortley to defer that
issue for later discussion. He said he would announce
immediately his unilateral hand-back of a few areas that his
forces had taken in the recent fighting, to include the
strategic heights overlooking and dominating Sake. He agreed
to participate in a technical commission, composed of
GDRC/FARDC, Nkunda/CNDP, the U.S., and MONUC, that would
elaborate disengagement of all forces in the area and
increased presence of MONUC, both within and around Nkunda,s
territory (and including Nkunda,s two strongholds in Masisi
and Rutshuru Territories),to fill in security voids and
assure protection of returning populations. Nkunda said that
he would announce within days that he would relinquish
further areas through discussion at the technical commission,
specifically, Mushaki, Ngungu, Kingi, Kimoka, and Karuba.
His priority was combating FDLR, and he embraced brassage as
a means for him to be able to deal with the FDLR.


3. (C) Upon return to Goma December 15, Shortley spoke at
length by telephone with Kabila,s Chief of Staff Raymond
Tshibanda, and in person with MONUC,s Eastern Division

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military command, with UN Assistant Secretary General Haile
Menkerios, and with Foreign Minister Mbusa Nyamwisi.
Tshibanda said he wanted three more things from Nkunda: a

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timeline (end-February) in which disengagement and brassage
will have occurred; more territory relinquished up front
(Mushaki in particular); and assurance that the technical
commission would be only an implementing and not a
negotiating mechanism. (In a later telephone conversation,
Nkunda agreed that he would announce he would invite an
immediate MONUC presence in Mushaki, but not the handover of
Mushaki to FARDC until a disengagement plan was agreed.
(Note: MONUC already has a military operating base in
Mushaki, which moved out briefly when FARDC attacked but
moved quickly back in and remained in place when Nkunda
retook Mushaki. End Note.)


4. (C) MONUC Eastern Division Commander General Bikram Singh
was enthusiastic about the understandings which Shortley had
obtained with Nkunda. He lamented that Kabila had tried to
follow a military solution, when it can only be solved
politically, and he wholeheartedly agreed that the UN system
in Congo had not allotted enough political (vice military)
energy to addressing the conflict in Eastern Congo. Singh
said that he had just spent two heated hours with FARDC Chief
of Staff General Dieudonne Kayembe, who had agreed that any
further use of force by FARDC was a nonstarter for at least
six months. Kayembe told him that Kabila &now buys into8
the idea that the military option is dead for the immediate
period. Singh urged that Nkunda, in withdrawing from
territories, do it in such a way as not to further humiliate
the FARDC, that for example he announce his need to retrench
because of being overextended, or words to that effect.
Singh liked the idea of Nkunda,s voluntarily withdrawing
from the town of Katsiru (east of Mweso) in order to allow
FARDC to claim a little victory there.


5. (C) Shortley requested Singh to have MONUC produce before
the first technical commission meeting (perhaps as early as
December 20 at Sake) a detailed disengagement plan for all
forces in the area. Singh introduced the term &buffer
zone8 (seconded by his Chief of Staff Colonel Clive Neal) as
one of the concepts that MONUC would follow in this new era
of increased and widened MONUC presence. Mushaki, for
example, would be the focus of a MONUC-controlled buffer
zone, ensuring free flow of traffic on the Masisi road,
return of displaced persons, and holding off FDLR and Mai-Mai
from penetration. Singh was pleased that Shortley had now
created conditions in which MONUC,s actions would not appear
aimed at any one party but rather focused on coping with all
the negative forces and return of all displaced populations.
North Kivu Brigade Commander General Indrajeet Narayan said
it would be reasonable to look forward to a point when
Nkunda,s forces could be employed to combat FDLR. Singh
recommended that the first meeting of the technical
commission be used to allow each side to vent its
aspirations, during which the U.S. and MONUC could be in
listening mode. Shortley agreed.


6. (C) Menkerios, in a meeting with Shortley later in the
day, told Shortley that FARDC,s military defeat was a
blessing in disguise, as it would force Kabila to do the hard
thinking that he had not been willing to do so long as he
thought he had a military option. It would help promote the
objectives of the Nairobi communique, by refocusing Kabila on
all negative forces. Menkerios regretted that Kabila had
demonized Nkunda so much; it would have been far better to
have set his vision not specifically on Nkunda but on freeing
the Kivus of all negative forces so as to permit the return
of all populations. He agreed that DRC could be assured that
the technical commission would be &only for
implementation,8 but in fact everyone would know that the
technical commission was, in fact, a forum for negotiation.
Menkerios agreed with Shortley that Foreign Minister Mbusa
would be a good man to address the press and put the most
positive face on the new understandings with Nkunda, but he
thought that Mbusa,s standing in Kinshasa had become tenuous
in the wake of Nairobi. Menkerios worried that if Kabila now
pursued a vengeful cleansing of his military leadership, his
army would be even less willing to fight in the future. The
problem of potential occupation by FDLR and Mai-Mai of
territories vacated by Nkunda was a huge problem, as was
already occurring in Lubero Territory. Menkerios agreed that
MONUC,s political presence in Goma needed to be hugely
ratcheted up; he advised stationing SRSG Swing,s deputy in
Goma.


7. (C) In a late-evening meeting with Shortley and EU

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Special Envoy Roeland van de Geer and Foreign Minister
Antipas Mbusa, Mbusa waxed enthusiastic about the commitments
Shortley had obtained from Nkunda. His only wish was that
Shortley persuade Nkunda to add Bunagana (a key border
crossing into Uganda, close to Rwanda, revenues from which
now go to Nkunda) to the list of areas soon to be discussed
for handover. Shortley explained that the plan would place
much-increased MONUC forces within and around Nkunda,s two
enclaves, including eastern Rutshuru territory, with a
particular emphasis on ensuring resumed security and flow of
traffic on main routes including the Rutshuru-Bunagana road.
Shortley said that Nkunda would be sending four of his people
to the first meeting of the technical commission in Sake, and
he urged Mbusa to find open-minded Congolese officials to
send to the meeting. Mbusa suggested Kabila adviser
Ambassador Seraphin Ngwej (already present in Goma for the
next day,s meeting of the Joint Monitoring Group) as one
such candidate. Shortley urged Mbusa to be the person who
would address the press on the agreement with Nkunda; it was
important that DRC show ownership of and positiveness toward
rapprochement with Nkunda. In a separate side conversation,
van de Geer emphasized the importance of addressing FDLR
simultaneously with Nkunda, understood the difficulties that
the U.S. would have in establishing a dialogue with FDLR, and
said that he would push for an EU lead on promoting such a
dialogue with the FDLR.
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