FRANCE/DRC/RWANDA: FOREIGN MINISTER'S VISIT

C O N F I D E N T I A L PARIS 000188

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/01/2018
TAGS: PREL PHUM CG RW FR
SUBJECT: FRANCE/DRC/RWANDA: FOREIGN MINISTER'S VISIT

REF: KIGALI 75

Classified By: Political Minister-Counselor Josiah Rosenblatt,
1.4 (b/d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: Rwanda and its troubled relations with
France emerged as the key element of French Foreign Minister
Bernard Kouchner's January 25-26 to the DRC and Rwanda,
according to Laurent Chevallier, the MFA desk officer for
both. Kouchner made a sincere, good-faith effort to display
to Rwandans that the GOF wanted to normalize relations,
although he was obliged to warn them that the French
judiciary, and not the GOF, controlled the disposition of the
warrants issued in connection with the 1994 genocide. The
Rwandans, who generally respect Kouchner, appreciated his
gesture but remained wary of the warrants and skeptical of
Kouchner's claim that the GOF's powers were limited regarding
the French judiciary. In the DRC, Kouchner lauded the
signing of the Goma Accords, which the GOF considers a
valuable advance but which should be accompanied by parallel
movement with the FDLR (Forces Democratiques de la Liberation
du Rwanda). END SUMMARY.

Rwanda
--------------

2. (C) Laurent Chevallier, MFA desk officer for the DRC and
Rwanda, on January 31 briefed on FM Kouchner's January 25 and
26 visits to the DRC and Rwanda (reftel). Chevallier said
that the most part of the visit took place in Kigali, where
Kouchner wanted to make clear to President Kagame that France
hoped that the two sides could normalize relations. Kouchner
wanted to convey this message to Kagame personally, as the
two had known each other over many years and liked and
respected each other, Chevallier said.


3. (C) The obstacle remains, of course, the arrest
warrants/indictments that resulted from then-anti-terrorism
Judge Bruguiere's November 2006 report, which also suggested
that Kagame be investigated for a possible role in the events
leading to the 1994 genocide. Kouchner, as have other GOF
officials, explained that the case was now in the judiciary's
hands and that the GOF had little power to control the
outcome of whatever the judiciary might do, including
quashing the investigation or the warrants Bruguiere's report
had generated. Chevallier said the Rwandans remained
skeptical, arguing that there had been "political"
involvement, if not tacit approval, for what Bruguiere did,
considering that a French procureur (prosecutor),a member of
the executive branch, had signed off on the report.
Chevallier said that, technically, the Rwandans were correct
in asserting "political" involvement. However, the procureur
who signed the report was doing so in his professional
functional and was not making a "political" act. The
Rwandans, he said, remained unconvinced. Kouchner told them
that neither side could undo the past (i.e., make Bruguiere's
report go away, or undo the procureur's signature). What
both sides needed to do was move forward.


4. (C) Chevallier said that the Rwandans absorbed what
Kouchner said but that they were not willing to move very
far. "The ball is in their court. They know where we stand
and they know our limits, as imposed by the judiciary. It's
up to them to take advantage of our willingness to move
forward," Chevallier commented.


5. (C) Break in relations or not, Chevallier said that the
two sides were managing to communicate directly. He said
that Kouchner had phoned Kagame several times, President
Sarkozy had met, albeit not at length, with Kagame at the
UNGA in September and then again at the EU-Africa Summit in
Lisbon. France had sent an A/S-level delegation to Kigali as
well. He affirmed the presence reported reftel, para 4, of a
Rwandan delegation to France, and said that this was another
step in the series of contacts between the two sides since
the rupture of relations in November 2006. Chevallier
indicated that such contacts were becoming routine and that
when the two sides really had something to discuss, they
could do so without friction He noted, however, that these
irregular contacts did not constitute a type of "de facto"
normalization. Full normalization would take time, he said,
and much would depend on how Rwanda responded to French
overtures and succeeded in overcoming reservations about the
warrants and France's judiciary.


6. (C) Chevallier commented briefly on Kouchner's public
statement that France had committed "errors" with respect to
the 1994 genocide, although Kouchner did so without
specifying what those "errors" were or who committed them.
Chevallier said that Kouchner meant that France, along with
many others, had misjudged over a period of years the forces
at work in Rwanda that were eventually responsible for the
genocide. Chevallier said it was unfair to criticize
Kouchner for not being more specific about who did what --
"The whole world shared in the responsibility of what
happened in Rwanda, or in not responding fast enough to it.
It is this sense of shared responsibility in a tragic event
that Kouchner was talking about when he made his remarks,"
Chevallier said.

DRC
---

7. (C) Chevallier said that Kouchner's stop in the DRC
before going to Rwanda was much more straightforward. He
went in order to express France's continuing interest in the
DRC ("for us, it is THE strategic country in that part of
Africa") and in strengthening relations. He also wanted to
see the situation for himself in eastern DRC, which he was
able to do (with an eye on the Rwandan aspect as well),both
with respect to today's situation but also concerning the
still-present effects of the 1994 genocide.


8. (C) Kouchner's timing was good, arriving in the DRC just
after the signing of the Goma Accords, for which he offered
firm French support during his visit. Chevallier said that
there was some criticism of the Accords, some of it valid,
but that they were a step in the right direction, even if
they were not a universal solution to the conflicts in the
region. Chevallier noted that the FDLR problem continued,
and he said that having the Goma Accords was good but it
would be most helpful to see movement as well on FDLR-related
problems, in parallel with the Goma Accords.


9. (U) Septel reports on Kouchner's post-Rwanda January 27
stop in Burkina Faso.


Please visit Paris' Classified Website at:
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/paris/index.c fm


PEKALA