GOMA NOTES 03/09/08 - GOMA PRCESS: BACK ON TRACK

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KINSHASA 000240 SIPDIS SIPDIS SENSITIVE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL KPKO CG UN SUBJECT: GOMA NOTES 03/09/08 - GOMA PRCESS: BACK ON TRACK REF: Kinshasa 238 ¶1. (SBU) Summary. Abbe Malumalu worked late into the night of March 8 with both the Mayi-mayi and CNDP to ensure agreement on his proposals for a revised structure of the Joint Commission to implement the Goma accords. Agreement was formalized March 9 at a meeting attended by most of the signatories; groups which failed to appear at the meeting had been contacted and were on board. The Abbe admonished the armed groups that the displaced people of the two provinces expected them to move forward effectively and collaboratively. Privately, he told us that the past weekend had been make-or-break for the Goma process. He will need to convince President Kabila to promulgate a new decree incorporating the proposals, but he seemed confident that this could be done. End summary. ¶2. (SBU) The National Coordinator for the Amani program, the Abbe Muholongu Malumalu, presented his proposals for a revised structure of the Joint Technical Commission on Peace and Security (JC) at a meeting March 9 at MONUC-Goma. The proposals will incorporate into a new presidential decree the agreements reach by Abbe Malumalu with the CNDP in discussions held March 8 in Kirolirwe and on into the night in Goma. ¶3. (SBU) The meeting was held under the joint chairmanship of MONUC (Jean-Michel Dumont of the EU, sitting in for John Almstrom, who was absent) and the GDRC (Vice Admiral Didier Etumba) and with others of the international Facilitation (U.S., UK, EU including France) present. The participants were representatives of almost all of the signatories of the Goma Acte d'engagement, including the full CNDP negotiating team and almost all North and South Kivu Mayi-mayi groups, including PARECO North and South Kivu. Three North Kivu Mayi-mayi splinter factions were missing, as was the FRF, which rarely ventures out of its High Plains redoubt in South Kivu. ¶4. (SBU) The meeting itself was brief and to the point: Abbe Malumalu handed out the new organizational chart, as finalized earlier in the morning and incorporating the changes described in Goma notes 03/08/08 (reftel). In about ten minutes, he outlined the structures of the Commission and its various subsidiary bodies and placed it in the broader context of the national-level Amani program (with no objections from CNDP or anyone else). ¶5. (SBU) Abbe Malumalu skillfully elided some of what could have been serious stumbling blocks (e.g.. the creation of a new post of executive secretary of the Commission, which is to be attributed to the CNDP, though this was left unstated). He further stated that he had received nominations for all the positions to be filled at the decision-making levels of the Commission by the various signatories (with the CNDP by implication included, since theirs had been the only nominations still outstanding),and that lower-level posts would only be filled once job descriptions had been completed by the Commission itself through the adoption of its internal regulations. ¶6. (SBU) It was time to move forward, the Abbe said. He would obtain a new decree endorsing the proposed organizational chart and appointing the various groups' nominees (who, if necessary, may be replaced by their respective sponsors without recourse to a further decree - this was how things had been done, Abbe Malumalu said, at the electoral commission). The Commission would thereby be established and would be required to move quickly to establish its internal regulations, to revise the assembly plan for the various groups' fighters, and to update the now badly out-of-date calendar of tasks that had been established by the Goma accords. ¶7. (SBU) The Abbe went on to admonish the armed groups that the displaced people of the two provinces expected them to move forward effectively and collaboratively. "The moment the Commission is established, we must be out there in the field, and in the [IDP] camps," he said. The Commission's watchwords were to be "collaboration, efficiency, and sharing of positions." "No group's capacity to create trouble in the field should allow it to assume it has any special importance within the Commission, nor will your ability to make trouble be allowed to impede the Commission's work," he concluded. ¶8. (SBU) The draft minutes of the meeting, which merely endorse the new organizational chart and state that all nominations have been submitted, were handed out, as was the old Acte d'engagement calendar, which was also to be an appendix to the minutes, though it was made clear that updating this would be one of the first orders of business of the new Commission. Abbe Malumalu asked for applause for today's success. KINSHASA 00000240 002 OF 002 ¶9. (SBU) Everyone applauded with the conspicuous exception of CNDP. Rene Abandi of its delegation (and the new Commission's likely executive secretary) raised his hand and said, as he and his colleagues have done so many times in the past few weeks, that his delegation had "a small problem," whereupon everyone in the room, primed for success, held their breath. ¶10. (SBU) The CNDP's problem was the inclusion of the Acte d'engagement calendar, which had apparently not been cleared in advance, giving CNDP (which is always fearful that someone is, somehow, putting something over on it) the opportunity to raise one last objection. The provisional nature of the calendar was explained, and the (already clear) expectation that the JC was to revise it as one of its first orders of business. This explanation was eventually accepted, and the draft minutes disappeared back into the MONUC secretarial pool for correction of the many errors that had been made in typing up the official and confusing designations of the Mayimayi factions. ¶11. (SBU) The group reconvened once this had been done, and one by one, starting with CNDP, each group initialed each page of the minutes. Vice Admiral Etumba then made a brief statement, as did Dumont (speaking both for the MONUC cochairmanship and for the Facilitation),congratulating the group and urging future constructiveness. Speeches from the floor were, mercifully, not requested, nor did Abbe Malumalu speak again. He nodded and swept out of the room, and the meeting ended in slightly dazed confusion, as everyone else drifted away. ¶12. (SBU) In a private meeting that evening, Abbe Malumalu told acting USG liaison officer that the past weekend had been make-or-break for the Goma process, as unspecified forces (but one can guess) in Kinshasa had tired of the whole business, which as far as they could see was going nowhere, and they were getting ready to shut it down. He further said that he had worked late into the previous night with both the Mayi-mayi and CNDP to ensure that things would go smoothly the following day. The North Kivu factions which had failed to appear at the meeting had been contacted and have agreed to sign a statement supporting the minutes. He reconfirmed that, as he had stated at the meeting, the FRF, though absent, were on board. ¶13. (SBU) Comment: The Abbe planned to return to Kinshasa March 10 with his minutes and organizational chart in hand. He will need to convince the President to promulgate the new decree, but he seems confident that this can be done. Now, perhaps, the real work of the Goma process can at last begin. End comment. GARVELINK