SE WOLPE HAS PRODUCTIVE TALKS WITH GON AND NGOS IN

C O N F I D E N T I A L OSLO 000572 SIPDIS FOR SPECIAL ENVOY WOLPE E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/16/2019 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREF PREL KPKO KWMN SOCI NO SUBJECT: SE WOLPE HAS PRODUCTIVE TALKS WITH GON AND NGOS IN OSLO Classified By: Political and Economic Counselor Cherrie Daniels for rea sons 1.4(b) and (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: Special Envoy Howard Wolpe had a day of productive meetings on September 4 in Oslo with representatives of the Norwegian government (GON),the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC),Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). The GON agreed that the forces of MONUC, the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC),have not been helpful in the ongoing conflict, and hailed Norwegian-U.S. collaboration on the Heal Africa hospital initiative. The Secretary General of the NRC said it was unhelpful for MONUC to have a protection mandate that it cannot effectively implement, and stressed the difficulty of getting donors to understand the gravity of the situation. The NCA suggested the possibility of a Special Rapporteur for gender-based violence in the region. Jan Egeland, the director of NUPI and a former UN official who worked in the region, said that DRC President Laurent Kabila needed to be firmly incentivized to take a strong stand on gender-based violence. End Summary. ¶2. (C) During an hourlong meeting, Wolpe met with State Secretary for International Development (deputy minister) Haakon Gulbrandsen, MFA State Secretary for International Affairs Gry Larsen, Director of the Southern and Western Africa Section of MFA Kaare Stormark, and personnel from the Humanitarian, and Peace and Reconciliation Sections of the MFA. During the meeting, SE Wolpe laid out U.S. priorities in eastern DRC and the surrounding region, and was met with full agreement by the GON representatives. "ENVOY CLUB" A BRILLIANT IDEA -------------- ¶3. (C) Larsen said that she was happy that mitigating sexual violence in the region "will be a priority for both of us," and said she believed the U.S. could push the issue in the Security Council. SE Wolpe said that he wished to revitalize the relationships between countries concerned about eastern DRC issues, and pointed to successful past collaboration with Norwegian Special Envoy Arild Oyen. SE Wolpe said that the contact group currently lacked key players, and the Norwegians responded that an "envoy club" is a brilliant idea. GON: MONUC HAS NOT BEEN HELPFUL -------------- ¶4. (C) Several times, the Norwegians came back to the issue of looking into what is fueling the conflict today. Gulbrandsen said that economics were key to understanding the problems of the region and noted that Rwanda is keen on Oil for Development and Burundi is "on the right track." As for the military players, Gulbrandsen said that the relationship between MONUC, the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) and FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) is complicated. Furthermore, "it's not clear that MONUC's action has been helpful." SE Wolpe pointed out that some military experts say that, rather than adding more troops to MONUC, a better alternative would be to add a special forces capacity which could extract problematic leadership elements, thereby minimizing civilian deaths and creating political space. The Norwegians were positive but noncommittal to this suggestion. ¶5. (C) Stormark mentioned that, on the Heal Africa hospital initiative, a Norwegian team would be sent within the week to Goma, to meet with staff at Heal Africa and the nearby Panzi hospital in Bukavu. Stormark emphasized the importance of drawing on Panzi's experience in the new Heal partnership. SE Wolpe, while hailing the agreement, made clear that the exact amount of the U.S. contribution to the partnership was still to be worked out. IMPUNITY A KEY CONCERN OF GON AND U.S. -------------- ¶6. (C) Larsen raised the issue of impunity, as this was one issue that Secretary Clinton and Foreign Minister (FM) Stoere had discussed. The Norwegians suggested a program by which girls who had been raped would be given money, via a fund set up with MONUC, to help finance a legal case (a suggestion ridiculed by the NRC--see paragraph 9). Larsen also suggested a possible regional conference on the issue of sexual violence. Gulbrandsen said that getting Kabila's government fully on board was key, and engagement had been lacking so far. NRC OVERWHELMED BY THE SCALE OF HUMANITARIAN NEED -------------- -------------- ¶7. (C) At the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) SE Wolpe met with Elizabeth Rasmusson, Secretary General. The NRC's main activity in the DRC is camp management and it employs 320 international and 50 national staff. It has operations in North and South Kivu and does not maintain a headquarters in Kinshasa. The NRC also does emergency education for children in the camps, and distributes non-food items to refugees. Working with UNICEF (the United Nations Children's Fund),the NRC provides starter kits to resettling families, rudimentary help with hut construction, and rudimentary school-building. Rasmussen said that the tasks require many, many more resources than the NRC has at its disposal. She noted that most people being resettled are going to "the middle of nowhere," where there is no police or military protection against marauders. ¶8. (C) Rasmussen said it is a "constant fight to get donors to believe that this is a humanitarian situation--that this is still a war zone." She asserted that members of the DRC army (FARDC) are the worst perpetrators of rape. Further, she stated flatly that, "it is wrong that MONUC has a protection mandate. They have no idea how to do protection. There should be a distinction between soldiers and those who do protection. The 'Civilian Protection Teams' have no impact." ¶9. (C) Rasmussen had harsh words for the Norwegian government's proposal to give money to rape victims to prosecute their cases. She said that it may well make victims less rather than more safe, and called it "a project built on lack of understanding of on-the-ground realities," given the paltry judicial architecture in the DRC. She concluded with a plea that "even if mineral resources were not, in fact, the root cause of the conflict, they are still fueling it," and it bears investigating "who is behind whom." NCA: DON'T FORGET RELIGIOUS LEADERS' INFLUENCE -------------- - ¶10. (C) At Norwegian Church Aid (NCA),SE Wolpe met with Anne Kristin Sydnes, Director of International Programs. NCA's focus is also on gender-based violence in the region. Sydnes pointed out that NCA has excellent access to religious leaders within the region--some of the only leaders perceived as legitimate by the population and who could be used to get out a message on gender based violence. NCA works through partners in the region, and Sydnes said that the biggest difficulty is that the partner NGOs have too little capacity. NCA's budget is USD 8.3 million for the Great Lakes region (much less than NCA spends in Darfur). ¶11. (C) Speaking on matters relating to the military, Sydnes commented that, as an NGO, her organization cannot give relief to military personnel in their camps, but in fact they often need it, as the conditions for them are equally terrible. She mused that perhaps it would not be possible to train the FARDC to change its behavior, and it might need to be "built from scratch." As for MONUC-FARDC joint operations, Sydnes saw the solution as putting MONUC "clearly in charge." She suggested the possibility of a special rapporteur for gender-based violence. JAN EGELAND: BE FIRM WITH KABILA, AND SEND YOUR "A TEAM" -------------- -------------- ¶12. (C) SE Wolpe had a particularly lively discussion at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs (NUPI) with Jan Egeland, the Director. Egeland was Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General for Conflict Prevention and Resolution from 2006-2008. To SE Wolpe's suggestion of having a special forces team with extractive capability, Egeland responded, "I've thought about this myself--why hasn't Kone of the LRA been caught?" He wondered why the U.S. has resources to use on the fight against terrorism in the Sahel and Algeria, but none for Congo. ¶13. (C) On the DRC government and army (FARDC),Egeland had many strong opinions. He said that "there are lots of rotten apples on the government side, and they have no clear incentive to do the right thing." At the same time, "Impunity is easy to fix--we (the U.N.) even gave Kabila a list of names of army personnel who had committed crimes," but Kabila did nothing with it. Kabila, he observed, has never been to Panzi, has made no statements on gender-based violence, and has never fired anyone because of it. Egeland's advice was, "be firm with them: 'here's your carrot, and here's your stick.'" ¶14. (C) Egeland also said that one of the greatest problems is that government soldiers are not being paid. He suggested that perhaps a trust fund could be set up out of which they could be paid, and, interestingly, mentioned that there are private companies that specialize in taking corruption out of the payment of police forces. To SE Wolpe's observation that the DRC government is one of the belligerent parties, and MONUC effectively supports that government, Egeland said, "who wants to pay for Kabila if he's part of the problem!?" ¶15. (C) To SE Wolpe's query as to whether there is any solution other than military force to work against the FDLR, Egeland said that demobilization efforts have been "a mess since 2004," and he pointed to internal problems of bureaucracy. In closing, Egeland said that his best advice to SE Wolpe was to "be a mover and shaker with some of these institutions -- send in your A team. One of the problems in DRC is that many countries have been sending their B teams or C teams. Learn the lessons of Darfur." ¶16. (U) This message has been cleared by Special Envoy Wolpe. HEG