Joint Monitoring Group Task Force - Goma, February 1, 2008

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KINSHASA 000118 SIPDIS SIPDIS SENSITIVE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL MARR CG RW SUBJECT: Joint Monitoring Group Task Force - Goma, February 1, 2008 ¶1. (SBU) Summary: The Rwandan delegation to the Joint Monitoring Group Task Force meeting in Goma February 1 announced that Rwanda had completed its comprehensive (but never final) list of 6,400 genocidaires. It criticized the DRC for falling behind on its FDLR plan. MONUC/DDRRR reviewed its outreach to FDLR but cautioned that persuading FDLR combatants to return to Rwanda would not be a quick process. End Summary. ¶2. (SBU) Midway through a six-hour meeting of the Task Force of the Nairobi Accord's Joint Monitoring Group February 1 in Goma, half of which was devoted to wrangling over minutes, the Rwandan delegation announced that Rwanda had completed a comprehensive list of 6,400 genocidaires. It said that the list fulfilled the requirement of the Nairobi communique (genocidaires of all categories) but was not a final list, nor would there ever be a final list. It noted that Rwanda was not required, in its interpretation of the Nairobi communique, to submit this list until the DRC had placed disarmed ex-FAR/Interahamwe in cantonment, but said that the Rwandan government had nevertheless decided to take this move in the spirit of fullest implementation of Nairobi. It added that the list had been delivered two days earlier to the Congolese foreign ministry and the office of SRSG Doss. (This took the Congolese delegation by surprise.) ¶3. (SBU) The acting head of the DRC delegation, Major Ambroise Nanga, said that its usual head of delegation, Colonel Augustin Mamba, was unable to attend because he was in Kinshasa, working on follow-up to the Kivus Conference resolutions and Acte d'Engagement. He said that this Goma Process was "tightly tied" to the Nairobi Process, and he underlined that the Kivus Conference participants had been "unanimous" in their insistence that FDLR leave DRC. ¶4. (SBU) The head of the Rwandan delegation, Major Franco Rutagengwa (who has not missed a meeting of the Task Force),took the DRC to task for failing to meet the timetable it had outlined in its plan presented to Rwanda on December 1. Phase One of that plan, Rutagengwa noted, was to have been completed by January 31 and included, among other things, the undertaking by DRC to provide to Rwanda a detailed assessment of ex-FAR/Interahamwe numbers, locations, and chain of command and an assessment of the willingness of ex-FAR/Interahamwe to disarm. Nanga apologized for DRC's failure to comply. DRC's energies, he said, had been monopolized by the Kivus Conference, which was unforeseen at the time the plan was presented to Rwanda. Nanga noted that, immediately after the conference, on January 24, Foreign Minister Mbusa had traveled to Lubero Territory to meet leaders of the FDLR splinter group RUD, setting the "sensitization" phase in motion on the ground. (Note: Mbusa was accompanied by North Kivu Governor Paluku and MONUC's DDRRR chief Philip Lancaster. End note.) Nanga promised that Mamba would provide details of FDLR military capabilities at the next meeting of the Task Force. ¶5. (SBU) Rutengengwa said that he hoped that, following the previous week's Task Force visit to Rwanda's Demobilization and Reintegration Center at Mutobo, DRC would reciprocate by inviting the Task Force to see what DRC was doing on the ground to fulfill its commitments. Nanga said that DRC had foreseen this request coming; it "needed a little time" but would reciprocate. ¶6. (SBU) Lancaster, accompanied by World Bank expert Harold Hinkel, reviewed ongoing efforts to reach out to the FDLR. He said that, following Mbusa's meeting, he and Hinkel had had a second meeting with the RUD leaders. On February 2 they would join a delegation, led by North Kivu provincial assembly president Leon Bariyana, to meet leaders of its FOCA arm north of Rutshuru. Then, in a few days, they would go back to see the RUD. Lancaster said that the process of breaking down FDLR paranoia and severing the hold of the political leaders over the rank and file would take time. ¶7. (SBU) Lancaster said that some of the RUD leaders had seemed almost incapable of rationality. RUD's political leaders focused on "not being treated with dignity," which on further questioning appeared to mean not being given legal recognition as a political party, while the military leaders appeared to be more focused on physical and economic security. Lancaster and Hinkel said that they had told RUD that there was nothing they could offer on the political side -- FDLR could not expect legal recognition while behaving as outlaws -- but on physical and economic security, they felt they had made headway with RUD, by explaining the success of the Rwandan repatriation program. ¶8. (SBU) MONUC-Goma acting political chief Guillaume Lacaille, chairing the meeting, gave a resume of the events of the past week in the Goma Process, apologizing that MONUC's North Kivu Brigade could not, as scheduled, give a military briefing as it was deeply KINSHASA 00000118 002 OF 002 involved in redeployments. He said that there had been a few armed interactions between CNDP and armed groups over the previous week but these had all fallen into the category of "minor incidents" rather than "significant ceasefire violations." They involved short exchanges of fire from long distance (a kilometer or kilometer and a half) or firing into the air. Media reports of "ceasefire violations" had been exaggerated. ¶9. (SBU) Lacaille said that North Kivu armed groups, including CNDP, had met with FARDC and the international community through the week and on the previous day, January 31, MONUC had presented a proposal to the armed groups that they turn to MONUC for immediate investigation of all claims of ceasefire violations, rather than go to the media. Lacaille said that a fully constituted task force would soon be established in accord with the Acte d'Engagement. The EU observer, Jean-Michel Dumont, noted that FDLR was a signatory to neither the Nairobi communique nor the Goma Acte, and there were "strong suspicions" that the FDLR was implicated in the military incidents of the past week. Lacaille said that, even among signatories to the Acte, there remained the problem of "getting the message" to all the combatants in the field, a sensitization process that would require some time. ¶10. (SBU) Rutagengwa urged that MONUC's DDRRR unit and North Kivu Brigade give briefings at every Task Force meeting henceforward. GARVELINK