Evangelical bishop's meeting with Nkunda February 6

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KINSHASA 000144 SIPDIS SIPDIS SENSITIVE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL MOPS CG SUBJECT: Evangelical bishop's meeting with Nkunda February 6 ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Evangelical Bishop J. M. Runiga, an informal intermediary with Nkunda, reported that Nkunda may, for the time being, be willing to stay the course but will not accept several elements of the "Amani" decree of February 2, particularly what he sees as inadequate representation of the international community and CNDP in the structures. End Summary. ¶2. (SBU) Bishop Apostle J. M. Runiga Lugerero, National President of the Association of Churches of the Awakening, President of the Church Jesus Christ the Only Savior, and National Coordinator of the National Conference of Evangelical Churches, met Laurent Nkunda for four hours on the evening of February 6. MONUC flew him from Kinshasa to Goma February 5 and helicoptered him to and from Kirolirwe February 6. He provided a read-out to Chief of Staff John Almstrom and Steven Jackson of MONUC and to Poloff upon his return to Goma February 7. ¶3. (SBU) Runiga said that this time, unlike his several previous meetings with Nkunda from September until January, he had had no mandate from President Kabila or his counselors. No one had asked him to come, but he felt that it was his mission to continue the intermediation process he had begun. Runiga is originally from South Kivu, although he now has churches all over DRC. Apparently, Nkunda, himself an evangelical preacher, attended Runiga's church in Kisingani in past years. ¶4. (SBU) Runiga said that Nkunda affirmed his support for the Acte d'Engagement but had grave doubts about the willingness of the government to fulfill the letter or spirit of the Acte. Nkunda cited what he called repeated attacks on CNDP by PARECO, which he saw as under the control of the government. (Note: Another view is that PARECO serves as a front for FDLR, but Nkunda did not express this view. End note.) ¶5. (SBU) Nkunda also cited the communique of the recent meeting of the defense ministers of DRC and Uganda in Beni, which he said referred to the CNDP as a negative force that had to be eliminated. Nkunda said that this was a very serious provocation. MONUC's copy of the communique, which is provided to the CNDP delegation which met Etumba February 6, refers to negative forces but does not mention CNDP. However, that delegation had not yet debriefed Nkunda, as it only returned to his headquarters in Kirolirwe as Runiga was finishing his meeting with Nkunda. ¶6. (SBU) Runiga said that Nkunda cited a third, but less clear, reason for his conclusion that the government was not acting in good faith. Nkunda spoke of the government's "unwillingness to deal with the core political questions." Runiga interpreted this part of Nkunda's discourse to mean that he objected to the government's refusal to speak to him directly and to address, in particular, his own status. ¶7. (SBU) Nkunda had several objections to Kabila's decree of February 2 establishing the "Peace Program" for the Kivus). Overall, he told Runiga that it did not respect the spirit of the Kivus Conference. In particular -- and these were points that Runiga said Nkunda came back to repeatedly -- the decree did not adequately involve the international community or the CNDP. This criticism applied across the board, but Nkunda focused especially on the Steering Committee, the highest organ of the Peace Program, composed of the interior, foreign, defense, justice, finance, budget, and social affairs ministers and an -- as yet unnamed -- National Coordinator of the Peace Program. Nowhere was the international community or CNDP mentioned in this most powerful organ of the program. Most of these ministers, in Nkunda's view, were "extremists" opposed to the Acte d'Engagement. He particularly questioned why Vital Kamerhe was not included, both in his role as National Assembly President and as key leader of the Kivus Conference. Nkunda saw Kamerhe as having been shunted aside and took this as a bad omen. ¶8. (SBU) Regarding the Technical Committee on Peace and Security, Nkunda scoffed at the idea of two delegates each for CNDP and FRF and one each for other armed groups. According to Runiga's account, it was not clear whether Nkunda was more annoyed at being put on the same level with FRF ("how can a force of 7,000 men be compared to one with a few hundred?") or at what he perceived as too much representation for the Mai Mai (most of which he deemed insignificant and fabricated by the government). Nkunda said that he would refuse CNDP participation in any forums that included a significant presence of "these little groups." Nkunda suggested that an appropriate formula would be fifty percent participation for the government, forty percent for CNDP, and ten percent for the others, in all commissions established by the program. KINSHASA 00000144 002 OF 002 ¶9. (SBU) Runiga said that, in the meeting, Nkunda was accompanied by key political (rather than key military) figures: CNDP Secretary General Deogratias Nzabarinda, Head of Delegation to the Kivus Conference Kambasu Ngeve, Head of Humanitarian and Health Affairs Dr. Alexis Kasanzu, and one military officer, Colonel Mucho. Nkunda said that he had met earlier in the day with his high military command and would do so again the following day to brief them on his meeting with Runiga. Runiga said that the other participants in the meeting appeared to take a harder line than Nkunda on all the key issues, including the inadequacies of the Peace Program structure, the Beni communique, and PARECO attacks, and it appeared that Nkunda sought the meeting with Runiga as a way to convince the others to be less negative. For his part, Runiga said that he stressed repeatedly to Nkunda that it was essential for Nkunda to stay the course, not to be deterred by Mai Mai activity or acts or statements by extremists in the government. ¶10. (SBU) Runiga said that he had no plan to meet anyone in the government. He would have sought to debrief Naval Force chief of staff Vice-Admiral Didier Etumba, who had led meetings with armed groups over the past two weeks, but Etumba had departed for Kinshasa February 7 and Runiga did not plan to return to Kinshasa until February 12. He said might try to see Kamerhe if Kamerhe were still inspecting earthquake damage in South Kivu, where one of Runiga's churches had collapsed on its congregation. GARVELINK