SAHEL AND GREAT LAKES: FRENCH OFFICIALS DISCUSS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 PARIS 000657

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/15/2019
TAGS: PREL PINR PGOV PTER EAID XY ZF ML MR NG CG
RW, FR
SUBJECT: SAHEL AND GREAT LAKES: FRENCH OFFICIALS DISCUSS
FRENCH POLICY WITH INR/AF

REF: A. PARIS 223

B. PARIS 399

Classified By: Acting Political Counselor Greg D'Elia, 1.4 (b/d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: French officials at the MFA and Presidency
stressed the importance France is placing on the Sahel and
the GOF's efforts to promote stability in the region, during
meetings on May 7 with INR/AF Director Don Koran and analyst
Rick Ehrenreich. The MFA is leading a GOF-wide effort to
coordinate security and economic assistance programs on a
regional rather than bilateral basis. Romain Serman at the
Presidency also reviewed French policy towards the Great
Lakes and France's efforts to encourage cooperation between
the DRC and Rwanda. He indicated that France-Rwanda
communications were good despite the break in diplomatic
relations, with Rose Kabuye serving as a test case that could
render France's arrest warrants against her and other senior
Rwandans moot. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) INR/AF Director Don Koran met on May 7 with MFA
DAS-equivalent Christine Fages and Sahel desk officer Marie
Audouard to discuss the Sahel, and, separately, with Romain
Serman, AF-advisor at the French Presidency, to discuss the
Great Lakes. INR/AF analyst Rick Ehrenreich attended the
meeting with Serman.
SAHEL

3. (C) Fages outlined GOF concerns centered on increasing
levels of terrorism, trafficking in arms and narcotics, and
illegal immigration associated with the Sahel region. These
combined to threaten directly French interests -- "the Sahel
is in some ways our southern border," she remarked. (Serman,
at the Presidency, later commented when asked about the Sahel
that defeating terrorism and securing access to natural
resource markets were France's top priorities in Africa.)
For the French, the term "Sahel" encompassed Mauritania,
Mali, and Niger. Fages said that France began looking at the
Sahel on a regional and not simply bilateral basis a few
years previously. The GOF conducted a threat assessment in
2007 and in 2008 began devising a regional strategy.

4. (C) Fages said that the GOF's regional approach was now
in the process of being implemented. As she described it,
this strategy would seek to coordinate French assistance,
mainly in the security and economic assistance areas, by
treating Mauritania, Mali, and Niger more as a unit than as
separate bilateral partners, as had previously been the case.
Fages said that Audouard was now "Ms. Sahel," responsible
for Mauritania, Mali, and Niger; previously, two and
sometimes three different desk officers handled the three
countries. Audouard would be the first desk officer
responsible for all three. Fages said the French hoped to
identify common needs in each country and then tailor GOF
programs so that the three could move forward at roughly the
same pace, taking into account the different situations and
points of departure in the three countries.

5. (C) Fages noted that France would keep Algeria and Libya
apprised of its activities in the Sahel, but would not invite
their participation. She said that both had obvious strong
interests in the Sahel region but she cautioned that France
did not want to give either the impression that France
welcomed their cooperation or sought their support. Both
could create problems in the region and France would be
content with informing them of French policy without
encouraging their active engagement.

6. (C) According to Fages, the GOF was also considering the
possible development of a maritime program aimed at providing
better control over the West Africa region's coasts and
waterways, as a means of discouraging traffickers, pirates,
and kidnappers operating at present on several stretches of
Africa's Atlantic coast. She suggested that the French had
been giving considerable thought to this problem and might
soon be ready to trade ideas with others concerned about the
security of the oceans off Africa's west coast.

7. (C) Although relatively small in numbers, AQIM's
influence across the Sahel seemed to be growing, Fages noted.
Several troubling new developments were emerging, such as
the apparent decision to pay ransom for certain AQIM
hostages. Fages commented on the correlation between AQIM's
success in recruiting new followers and worsening economic
and social conditions where AQIM was seeking new followers.
She commented that disaffected Afro-Mauritanian youths were
as vulnerable, if not more so, to AQIM's recruitment efforts
than were "traditional" Mauritanian Arabs.

8. (C) Serman later commented that what was missing from
the "Sahel Plan" was a military strategy. In particular, the

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GOF needed to define its goal -- was it to contain or destroy
AQIM? Having defined a goal, the GOF could consider the
means to achieve it.
GREAT LAKES

9. (C) Serman outlined France's approach to the Great Lakes
much as he had in reftels. Serman said that when the Great
Lakes region plunged into violence in the second half of
2008, advocates of sending more troops to the region,
including within an EU context, failed to convince President
Sarkozy. Instead Serman said that the GOF decided to
approach the issue from the Rwandan side, trying to determine
"what Kagame really wants and needs" to shift from a
war-oriented stance to one of peace. Serman said the French
signaled to Kagame that continued Rwandan support for the
"war option" -- aiding Congolese rebels -- would only
perpetuate the conflict at ever greater political and
economic cost to Rwanda, especially as international sympathy
for Rwanda as genocide victim would gradually recede in the
coming years.

10. (C) Serman said that the French had been encouraging
Kagame to see the benefits of the "peace option." In
occasional phone calls between Sarkozy and Kagame and more
regular communication between Deputy Diplomatic Advisor Bruno
Joubert and Serman at the Presidency with Rwandan
intelligence chief Ndahiro, the French pointed out that
Rwandan cooperation with the DRC could facilitate Kagame's
plans for economic development and eventually enable
cross-border migration that could relieve the demographic
pressure in Rwanda. Serman said the French suggested a
regional approach that could be modeled, loosely, on the
European Union, starting with relatively modest joint
ventures akin to the original European Coal and Steel
Community. Serman said that France was searching for
concrete projects to support, preferably local, that would
yield quick and visible results. Eventual larger projects
could include a telecommunications network in the region.

11. (C) After winning Rwandan support in principle for the
"peace option," Paris moved to press the DRC. Even after
Congolese military setbacks in North Kivu forced Kabila to
agree to allow Rwanda in January-February to deploy its
troops onto Congolese soil, arrest Nkunda and chase Rwandan
Hutu rebels of the FDLR, the DRC remained very reluctant to
embrace cooperation with Rwanda. "They have political and
psychological problems," Serman noted, and tend to blame
others -- especially Rwanda, France and MONUC -- for all
their setbacks. The Congolese feared that the "French plan,"
as it was originally floated towards the end of 2008,
involved a "sell-out" of DRC sovereignty or control over its
eastern regions. Sarkozy used his short March 26 stop in
Kinshasa to confront the Congolese head on and press home the
need for DRC "leadership" in building peaceful regional
cooperation.

12. (C) The French were delighted with the results of the
Sarkozy trip and believe that since then "the Congolese
clearly understand" the need for regional cooperation. Paris
was especially pleased that Sarkozy's speech -- including its
explicit praise for Kabila's move to invite Rwandan military
intervention -- was so well received by the Congolese.
Serman noted that that the popular former President of
Parliament Vital Kamerhe, who had criticized Kabila's
decision to allow Rwanda to intervene, applauded the speech,
and that subsequently local parliaments in eastern DRC had
proposed joint ventures with Rwanda (NFI).

13. (C) According to Serman, the French were pleased that
the DRC-Rwanda relationship had improved so much in recent
months but they believed that sustained, coordinated
international pressure was necessary to keep the process on
track, i.e., to keep the Congolese from back-tracking and the
Rwandans and their Congolese rebel allies from overreaching.
In order to maintain momentum, Serman said the French would
propose periodic meetings and events where the two sides
would be able to reaffirm and advance their cooperation.
This "roadmap," he hoped, would be a way to hold their feet
to the fire and discourage backsliding. Serman mentioned a
possible visit by DRC President Kabila to Paris "before
July," an international conference on the region before the
end of 2009, and G-8 focus on the Great Lakes at the 2010 G-8
meeting and the run-up to it.

14. (C) Serman said that to promote the peace process the
U.S., France, and UK needed to refocus their energies in the
P-3 context, hopefully in pursuit of a common strategy.
Serman confided that P-3 leadership in the Great Lakes had
lost impetus since the elections in the DRC.

15. (C) Serman said that both Kagame and Kabila presented
differing leadership styles. The former was a "chess player"

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who seemed to know Rwanda's national interest but was
difficult to read. Kabila was shy and uncommunicative. Part
of Sarkozy's objective during his March visit to Kinshasa was
to encourage, if not goad, increased leadership by Kabila,
and he may have succeeded to some extent. Serman noted that
immediately before the Sarkozy visit, Kabila had, most
unusually, spent more than two weeks traveling around eastern
Congo touching base with local leaders, and a week after the
visit he had given an unprecedented interview to the New York
Times. "He appears to have gotten the message," Serman said.

16. (C) On France-Rwanda relations, Serman said that the
two sides "were in no rush to normalize" and were able to
carry out productive exchanges despite the break in relations
in November 2006, caused by the Bruguiere Report, the arrest
warrants it engendered, and the Rwandan report in retaliation
with its intimations of warrants against the French. Serman
said Sarkozy came to office determined to "solve" the
judicial problems stemming from the Bruguiere Report.
Serman suggested that the case of Rose Kabuye was a de facto
test case that would enable the Rwandans to have full access
to GOF files on Kabuye. Both sides understood that this was
Bruguiere's weakest case and a failure to prosecute it
successfully could in effect derail the other warrants.

17. (U) INR/AF Don Koran and Rick Ehrenreich have cleared
this message.
PEKALA