Goma Report for January 19 - Kabila

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KINSHASA 000054 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV KDEM PHUM MOPS PREL CG SUBJECT: Goma Report for January 19 - Kabila Meeting with Foreign Observers ¶1. (SBU) Summary: With forty-eight hours left in the Kivus Conference, President Kabila summoned diplomats present in Goma January 19 to outline the peace process that would be established by the conference. The government and all internal armed forces and ethnic communities in the Kivus would sign, with the international community as witness. He was still pondering the structure of follow-up mechanisms and whether he would issue a decree to support the conference's pronouncements. He did not want to offer amnesty, as it would reward those who taken up arms against the state. The diplomats urged him to share the conference's final documents prior to the conference's conclusion January 21, if possible. End summary. ¶2. (SBU) President Kabila received eighteen international representatives present in Goma in the garden of the governor's office (former Mobutu mansion on the shore of Lake Kivu) for an hour and forty-five minutes January 19 (EU/EC with three; Belgium, Germany, Uganda, and U.S. with two each; and one each from African Development Bank, AU, France, MONUC, Tanzania, UK, and Zambia). Presidential advisers Tshibanda and Chissambo were also present. ¶3. (SBU) EU Special Envoy Roeland van de Geer opened with the observation that the international representatives present in Goma had worked closely and intensely over the past two weeks with each other and with the leaders of the Kivus Conference and had talked openly and sometimes bluntly with leaders of armed groups and ethnic communities. He was optimistic that the conference would produce a "Goma Process" for ending conflict among internal armed groups, paralleling and reinforcing the "Nairobi Process" now underway, with its focus on FDLR. He summarized for Kabila the preliminary recommendations that the international representatives had presented to the conference leaders, viz.: durable peace with formal ceasefire, disengagement, and reintegration of armed groups (DDR); effective stabilization through enhanced state capacity and improved governance; social cohesion through return of IDP's, truth and reconciliation, inclusivity, land tenure, and action to stop sexual violence; security sector reform; and regional cooperation. ¶4. (SBU) Kabila described the objectives of the conference as being an end of war in the Kivus, construction and consolidation of peace, relieving the humanitarian crisis and ensuring development. He was confident that all the armed groups and ethnic communities in the Kivus were now determined to make and consolidate peace and begin to live in harmony. The conference would have to come to a conclusion on January 21, with a signature of an undertaking by all participants, to include the armed groups and ethnic communities and the government, witnessed by the international community. After the signing, follow-up mechanisms would be established. Kabila said that he had not yet decided (but would make the decision by end of the day on) how many follow-up structures would be established and whether the document would be supported by a presidential decree. He said that the disengagement of forces would be a process involving integration (brassage) of all armed groups without exception. Signing the document and setting up follow-up mechanisms would be important, but it would be even more important for the people to see quick progress on the ground. In this, the international community, through MONUC, would have a great role. It would be necessary to define exactly where forces would be relocated, where they would be placed in cantonment, and where brassage would occur. Such technical questions would involve a huge amount of work. ¶5. (SBU) Kabila said that there were a couple of "small contradictions" that would need to be dealt with. The CNDP sought to be accepted as a political party, but there were legal requirements that the CNDP would have to fulfill. Formerly, RCD and other such groups had had to meet the same requirements. There was also the issue of amnesty. Kabila recalled that there had been earlier demands for amnesty for perpetrators of massacres in North Katanga and Ituri. The government had accepted demobilization of most combatants in those conflicts, but it had pursued and arrested the minority who had refused to demobilize. Only in the Kivus, for the past couple of decades, every time there had been a "little rebellion," its leaders had been given impunity, giving rise to further rebellions and massacres. It was time to apply the law of the land in the Kivus and bring those responsible for crimes of war to justice. On the other hand, Kabila said, he realized that it would not be wise to pursue rebels to such an extent as to ruin the conference -- a way needed to be found to preserve both the conference and justice. ¶6. (SBU) Van de Geer said that a distinction should be made between amnesty for war crimes (a matter of international justice) and amnesty for rebellion, which was a political affair in the hands of KINSHASA 00000054 002 OF 003 a sovereign state. Belgian Special Envoy Jozef Smets said that he appreciated that the president had raised the issue of amnesty, a matter of great concern to the international community. He noted that members of the National Assembly from North Kivu had earlier in the day made accusations against the CNDP for very recent mass killings. Such acts, if confirmed, would fit in the category of war crimes, and would not be appropriate for DRC amnesty and, moreover, could tempt FDLR genocidaires to ask for similar amnesty. Smets noted that all conference participants had underlined the importance of dealing with the FDLR, and the conference had rightly treated separately the issues of internal combatants and FDLR. ¶7. (SBU) Senior Adviser to the Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Tim Shortley congratulated Kabila on the conference, which he hoped would be a great success. Leaders of the conference had been wonderful to work with. Very much work remained to be done in the forty-eight hours remaining before the conclusion of the conference. Shortley recommended "test-running" the conference's documents with key armed groups and the international community. As facilitators, the international representatives needed to work closely with their home offices and prepare them for the conference results. Even more important was communication with the armed groups, who were all ready to sign but would benefit from liaison to avoid a breakdown at the closing. Shortley emphasized that it would be important to present the conference's final documents as a legal agreement. ¶8. (SBU) MONUC political director Christian Manahl said that MONUC stood ready to assist in every way possible in the follow-up of the conference's agreement. The conference, he said, must not fail. A successful result would transform the Kivus. Manahl underlined that while war crimes gave individual states no discretion, in the case of insurrection amnesty was a measure which the DRC government had often applied. ¶9. (SBU) Kabila demurred, saying that only once had the DRC resorted to amnesty. Aside from the fundamental lack of justice and disregard of law involved in amnesty, it was also a lengthy process, requiring action by the National Assembly (which would be highly resistant),and there was not time to go through that process. Most combatants in armed groups, including senior officers, would not need amnesty in order to integrate in the army. DRC had shown that it did not punish rebels who lay down their arms. The issue was one of trust. ¶10. (SBU) As for ex-FAR/FDLR, Kabila noted that that issue had persisted for many years, since before he had arrived in Kinshasa in ¶1997. "No one can say that he has done more than ourselves to solve the ex-FAR than we -- no one." Rwanda had occupied the Kivus 1998-2003 -- "ask them how many ex-FAR they took back to Rwanda then." But Kabila said he had overseen the repatriation of nearly 20,000 ex-FAR, not through military action, but via persuasion backed by military pressure. Now the number of ex-FAR was down to 5,000. Was he being asked to burn down the Kivus to get at 5,000 men? It would be senseless. Yet, with the signing of the Nairobi communiqu, DRC had decided now to deal with the ex-FAR once and for all. A plan was in place. Kabila said that he had just seen the pamphlets that had been prepared for distribution in the sensitization phase. ¶10. (SBU) Kabila said he was planning to invite most of the ex-FAR leaders for a meeting in DRC, with the international community present as witnesses in order to meet Rwandan anxieties. The message to the ex-FAR leaders would be that they had come to the end of the road in DRC. They would have to disarm and go home, or stay in Congo with refugee status far from the Kivus, or be disarmed by force. The meeting would take place by the end of January, perhaps in Kisangani, and would involve 20-30 ex-FAR leaders, including those in Europe. Internal and external armed groups needed to be dealt with separately. Ex-FAR was indeed a threat to DRC, but one which had to be handled by the national army, not by any individual who thought he had a role in fighting the ex-FAR. Dealing with the ex-FAR, as promised in Nairobi, would help undercut Nkunda's claim to that role. ¶11. (SBU) Van de Geer said that he hoped that the momentum of the conference would be maintained through its last 48 hours and that it would be the beginning of a real Goma Process. Nairobi and Goma were separate but, as the president had said, would have a significant influence on each other. Van de Geer acknowledged that the international community carried a major responsibility because of the FDLR leaders present in Europe (Netherlands, Germany, UK, Belgium, and France). In November he had asked all EU states to answer questions about these FDLR leaders and what the governments KINSHASA 00000054 003.2 OF 003 intended to do with them. All governments were investigating. The Goma Process, van de Geer said, would put him in a stronger position to the EU states to say that the DRC had moved on and it was time for them to do more. Countries with legal impediments should politically name and shame the FDLR leaders. Van de Geer said that he would also stay in close touch with the United States and Canada on the matter. ¶12. (SBU) Van de Geer said that a successful conclusion to the last forty-eight hours of the conference would require Kabila's personal leadership and political courage. Van de Geer believed that the international community had made a contribution, in its many meetings and its tough talk with armed groups and ethnic community leaders, to a more realistic and harmonious mood in the conference, but there were limits to what the international community could accomplish. The international community wanted to accompany DRC on its way forward if there were a successful result to the conference. Van de Geer underlined that it would be helpful for the international community to receive some prior indication of the documents emerging from the conference. "We wish you all the wisdom you will need at this historical juncture in the life of the country." ¶13. (SBU) Kabila remarked with a smile, in closing, "Wisdom does not grow on trees." He turned to his counselor Tshibanda and gave him instructions to share the conference documents when they were ready. (At a later meeting with the international community, conference president Father Apollinaire Malu Malu indicated that such documents were far from being finalized.) Brock