Identifier | Created | Classification | Origin |
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08KINSHASA701 | 2008-08-26 14:47:00 | UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY | Embassy Kinshasa |
1. (SBU) Summary: A glitch with the CNDP, which would have forestalled the August 26 plenary of the Joint Commission, appears to have been resolved. The International Facilitation team will meet CNDP and Etumba August 25 to try to ensure the parties stick to script. End Summary. 2. (SBU) CNDP's Rene Abandi, who serves as the permanent secretary of the Joint Technical Commission on Peace and Security, left Goma for Kirolirwe August 21 without having signed off on the invitations to the August 26 plenary. Without his signature 48 hours in advance, the agreed rules would have prevented the plenary from occurring. He was unreachable by telephone. Amani and MONUC officials feared a negative political signal, i.e., while CNDP Goma officers had appeared to agree to the plenary and had themselves proposed a disengagement working group as a way out of the on-going impasse, they might have received a counter-order from the CNDP leadership. However, on August 23 Abandi turned up in Goma and signed off on the invitations. 3. (SBU) The International Facilitation team met August 23 to discuss the upcoming plenary. MONUC political officer M'hand Ladjouzi (deputy to Alpha Sow as coordinator of Amani process issues) said that Abandi had agreed to a meeting of the Facilitation with the full CNDP delegation in Goma on August 25. He expected that the government chairman of the commission, Rear Admiral Didier Etumba, and national coordinator Abbe Malu Malu would return to Goma on August 25 in time also to meet the team. They had, however, signaled to Ladjouzi extreme frustration with the CNDP over the invitations flare-up and unwillingness to return if the problem was not resolved in time. The team will also meet August 25 with OCHA to discuss any humanitarian implications of further pull-back. 4. (SBU) The team agreed that it was essential to have Etumba on board for the working group. It would be best if he, or Malu Malu, presented the idea to the plenary. Etumba would have to rein in the sundry armed groups that would otherwise complain at not being represented in the working group. Meanwhile, the CNDP would have to agree not to raise other issues, such as refugees and political prisoners, which would likely sour and derail the meeting. The CNDP should be warned that doing so would be taken as a signal of lack of seriousness. 5. (SBU) Issues of concern in establishing this group would be its composition (military experts from contending factions and concerned groups, i.e. CNDP, PARECO, FARDC, MONUC military - and also OCHA/UNHCR and provincial government), mandate (to produce agreed maps), and duration (perhaps three weeks). The team recognized that CNDP might take the position that, because of topography, it would not be in a position to do much pull-back - i.e., PARECO and FARDC would need to do the pulling back. The team noted MONUC military's limited capability to secure a wider pull-back zone, and it pointed to the return of IDP's to any secured areas as the key measure of success of the effort. 6. (SBU) Goma poloff separately met Alpha Sow, who said he had just moved full-time into the Amani coordinator position for MONUC, leaving behind his duties as Head of Office in Goma. However, both he and the incoming Head of Office will be interim. Sow confirmed that he remained MONUC's point man for contact with Nkunda, but he emphasized that MONUC remained reticent about contact with Nkunda, believing that too much contact plays to his illusions of grandeur. (Note: Sow and Ladjouzi both have long familiarity with Nkunda. Sow was Head of Office in Kisangani, with Ladjouzi as his deputy, when Nkunda was active there. Sow was then Head of Office in Bukavu, with Ladjouzi as his deputy, when Nkunda pillaged the town in 2004. End note.) Sow viewed Etumba as generally inflexible (Etumba had stormed away a few months ago when Sow had contradicted him on the relative importance of dealing with FDLR versus Nkunda), although Sow said that Etumba seemed to have become more amenable in recent weeks. Sow said that MONUC's military capacity for securing wider pull-back zones was highly limited but there appeared to be no other way forward. 7. (SBU) On August 21, bandits held up MSF-France at gun point on the road to Masisi, taking cash and cell phones in a common operation. MSF-France erred by passing through the two-and-a-half kilometer no-man's land at 7:00, before MONUC had started its patrols. MONUC had previously notified the NGO community that it would patrol the road only from 8:00-10:00 and 15:00-17:00. ICRC was similarly held up on August 22. 8. (SBU) Comment: The difficulty that MONUC has in securing the single major road traversing CNDP territory across a relatively narrow disengagement area is indicative of the greater difficulty it will face in securing a pull-back territory stretching a hundred kilometers with indeterminate width. End comment. KINSHASA 00000701 002 OF 002 GARVELINK |