Goma Report October 4: Nkunda on Okapi;

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KINSHASA 000840 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL MOPS KPKO PHUM PREF CG SUBJECT: Goma Report October 4: Nkunda on Okapi; Acting SRSG in Goma ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Nkunda gave an interview to MONUC's radio Okapi October 4 which was even more truculent than his BBC interview, and complained when Okapi refused to air it. Acting SRSG Mountain came to Goma and assured Abbe Malu Malu that MONUC would continue with the Amani program, with a focus on disarmament in South Kivu and the Grand Nord of North Kivu. EU Special Envoy van de Geer regretted that there seemed to be little role at present for the international facilitation with CNDP. The ceasefire on the ground held for the fifth day, but CNDP may be building up on its western front. End Summary. Nkunda's Okapi Interview -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Following MONUC's October 3 statement condemning Nkunda's October 2 interview with BBC, Nkunda gave an interview October 4 to MONUC's Radio Okapi. Given its bellicose tone, MONUC did not air the interview. According to a summary provided by MONUC, Nkunda's main points were: -- Over the past three years, none of CNDP's claims has been met by the government. CNDP has tried every negotiation path and none has succeeded. Now CNDP has decided to accelerate the pace and to use force. -- Actions by FARDC killed the Amani program. MONUC has lost its neutrality and joined the FARDC/proxies/FDLR coalition. MONUC shot at CNDP, but when FARDC committed ceasefire violations, MONUC did nothing. The Nairobi process has similarly gone nowhere. -- MONUC should not present a disengagement plan. Only the conflicting groups can do so, with MONUC there to execute it. -- The Amani program was the government's plan, and that government has resigned. CNDP wants a new and neutral framework, to be discussed in a secure and neutral place, with a neutral mediator. -- The international facilitation failed. MONUC failed. MONUC cannot give CNDP security. It cannot even secure itself any longer. It has been stoned and shot at, not only in North Kivu but also in Ituri, where it was recently fired on by a militia and was unable to react. -- If MONUC has received the order to use military force against CNDP, then CNDP will react militarily. (To the interviewer's question whether this was a declaration of war, Nkunda responded, "Indeed.") -- We urge all Congolese who are suffering all over the country to stand up. The President has betrayed his people. He should be tried for high treason. If we need to use arms, we shall. ¶3. (SBU) Deputy Eastern Coordinator M'hand Ladjouzi received a telephone call from Nkunda a few hours after the interview (the first call he had received from Nkunda since August). Nkunda complained that the interview had not yet been aired, and Ladjouzi told him that it would not be. Nkunda responded angrily, when the line was cut. Military Review -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Acting SRSG Ross Mountain brought a large delegation to Goma for the day, for the purpose of engaging Amani National Coordinator Abbe Malu Malu in a discussion of ways to go forward with Amani in the absence of CNDP, with a particular focus on DDR of armed groups in South Kivu and the northern part of North Kivu. EU Special Envoy Roland van de Geer arrived with him and will remain several days in the region. U.S. Charge Brock also made the trip, returning to Kinshasa the same day. The visit began with a military overview by North Kivu brigade commander Brigadier General Bipin Rawat and an internal discussion among MONUC and the facilitation team. ¶5. (SBU) Rawat said that the ceasefire was being maintained, now into its fifth day. The disengagement plan accepted by the government September 18 was to have been completed October 4. In fact, there had been some progress, despite numerous ceasefire violations especially on the part of the FARDC, with the worst being at Tongo in the northern sector. In the eastern sector, FARDC had fully withdrawn from Mutabo, partially withdrawn from Ntamugenga, but not withdrawn from Kisherero and Rugarama. CNDP had withdrawn from Kanombe and Himbi Height, but refused to pull back in other KINSHASA 00000840 002 OF 003 areas envisioned in the disengagement plan so long as FARDC continued to occupy Tongo. In the southern zone, a small number of CNDP were present in Ngungu but would probably leave when North Kivu moves its base there nearer to the now-abandoned town. In the western zone, CNDP had agreed to pull back from the proposed expanded zone of separation, but only if FARDC withdraws from Tongo. ¶6. (SBU) To FARDC's claims in recent days that CNDP was building up its forces for attacks in the north, east, and west, Rawat said that North Kivu brigade was now observing a possible CNDP build-up in the west, near the Masisi road at Mema. He assessed that the FARDC force present there, buttressed recently by elements of battalions trained to combat FDLR, was in a good defensive position to ward off any CNDP attack. Rawat had advised FARDC to stay in a defensive mode. ¶7. (SBU) Mountain asked Rawat about the adequacy of MONUC's military capacity, how to ensure that the zones of separation promoted civilian security, and about the status of anti-FDLR operations. Rawat replied that MONUC had adequate military capacity to monitor the zones of separation, but he would need more troops to mount a Chapter 7 application of force. He said that ensuring civilian security within the zones of separation would be difficult. There were already reports of banditry in the zones by persons wearing FARDC uniforms. It would be advisable to deploy police in the zones. As for protecting NGOs, particularly on the Masisi road, North Kivu was now offering a heavier deployment on that road on Mondays, as an alternative to MONUC escorts which NGOs now tended to reject (for reasons of neutrality). ¶8. (SBU) Rawat said that none of the ten battalions that MONUC had trained to combat FDLR were being used for that purpose but were, rather, all now in and around the Petit Nord to deal with CNDP. He said that every FARDC and government interlocutor had made clear to him that their priority was CNDP and not FDLR. MinDef Chikez had commented, for example, that there had been no FDLR atrocities over the past five years. The agreed disengagement plan had called for getting those battalions back into action in Operation Kimia, but this had not commenced yet. He had hoped to restart training of new battalions by September 15, but such did not now seem possible before November 15. Meanwhile, he planned to pursue three small, sequential, joint anti-FDLR efforts in Walikale territory, at Nyabiondo in Masisi, and near Nyamalima in Rutshuru, where FDLR had emplaced road barriers. (The first of these small operations should already have taken place but had been deferred due to bad weather.) What to Make of Nkunda -------------- ¶9. (SBU) In the follow-on non-military internal discussion, Mountain said that MONUC in its public statement of October 3 had firmly condemned Nkunda's BBC interview (which had called for the overthrow of a democratically elected government). MONUC considers the Acte d'Engagement to be valid, and continues to support the Amani program. Moving faster in South Kivu and the Grand Nord was not an abandonment of Amani. CNDP was welcome to return to the process. One or two declarations did not mean the end of the peace process, but CNDP was not the only armed group that needed to be dealt with. MONUC would follow a robust Chapter 7 approach of convince or compel, with peaceful means preferred. MONUC could and should not be neutral between the government and a renegade military group, and yet it had put heavy political pressure on the government to make FARDC stop its attacks. There had not been a rapid response to this pressure, but at last this pressure appeared to be working. ¶10. (SBU) Van de Geer said that Nkunda had gone completely overboard. However, van de Geer still did not believe that there was a military solution. As he had told President Kabila in mid-September, the international facilitation had lost its link to Nkunda. Now even if Nkunda wanted to meet, such a meeting would need to be under the pre-condition of his re-embracing the Goma process. However, if the government wanted the international facilitation to meet Nkunda without pre-conditions, he would consider the request in the interest of promoting peace. Ladjouzi noted that Nkunda had become much more inflexible than the CNDP advisors, both political and military, with whom the facilitation and North Kivu brigade had maintained continual contact. (Privately, to poloff, Ladjouzi characterized Nkunda, with whom he has had contact for many years, as suddenly having become mentally unbalanced.) ¶11. (SBU) MONUC political advisor Christian Manahl observed that, while there might not be a military solution, it was nonetheless KINSHASA 00000840 003 OF 003 necessary for MONUC to apply military pressure to advance both the Goma and Nairobi processes. He noted that Rwanda's announcement of non-attendance at the weekly Task Force meeting had come in the midst of Nkunda's ever more intransigent statements. The Rwanda angle needed more research. It could not be excluded that there was a degree of encouragement (of Nkunda's intransigence) by Rwanda, and also by Uganda. Meeting with Malu Malu -------------- ¶12. (SBU) The afternoon meeting with Abbe Malu Malu included the governors of North and South Kivu, PNDDR head Ntumba Luaba, and General Mayala and other FARDC officers. Malu Malu did not dwell long on the CNDP and Nkunda's BBC interview, other than to say that MONUC and the international facilitators needed to show firmness toward CNDP and a complete rejection of its anti-constitutional declarations. ¶13. (SBU) The subsequent lengthy discussion revolved about how best to proceed in South Kivu and the Grand Nord to promote disarmament of armed groups. Mountain suggested that building fourteen proposed regroupment centers would be both costly and time-consuming, while nine mobile units for registering demobilizing fighters already existed and could be used. Malu Malu said that it was important, particularly in the Grand Nord, to ensure that fighters were removed from their home areas. The pre-existing brassage center at Nyaleke in the Grand Nord would not require much investment to make it ready. He urged that construction commence on all the regroupment centers, while the mobile units could be used in some areas where it made sense. BROCK