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