VZCZCXRO7177
OO RUEHBZ RUEHDU RUEHGI RUEHJO RUEHMR RUEHRN
DE RUEHKI #0054/01 0210900
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 210900Z JAN 08
FM AMEMBASSY KINSHASA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7388
INFO RUEHXR/RWANDA COLLECTIVE
RUCNSAD/SOUTHERN AF DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY COLLECTIVE
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUFOADA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KINSHASA 000054 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV KDEM PHUM MOPS PREL CG
SUBJECT:    Goma Report for January 19 - Kabila 
            Meeting with Foreign Observers 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  With forty-eight hours left in the Kivus 
Conference, President Kabila summoned diplomats present in Goma 
January 19 to outline the peace process that would be established by 
the conference.  The government and all internal armed forces and 
ethnic communities in the Kivus would sign, with the international 
community as witness.  He was still pondering the structure of 
follow-up mechanisms and whether he would issue a decree to support 
the conference's pronouncements.  He did not want to offer amnesty, 
as it would reward those who taken up arms against the state.  The 
diplomats urged him to share the conference's final documents prior 
to the conference's conclusion January 21, if possible.  End 
summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) President Kabila received eighteen international 
representatives present in Goma in the garden of the governor's 
office (former Mobutu mansion on the shore of Lake Kivu) for an hour 
and forty-five minutes January 19 (EU/EC with three; Belgium, 
Germany, Uganda, and U.S. with two each; and one each from African 
Development Bank, AU, France, MONUC, Tanzania, UK, and Zambia). 
Presidential advisers Tshibanda and Chissambo were also present. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) EU Special Envoy Roeland van de Geer opened with the 
observation that the international representatives present in Goma 
had worked closely and intensely over the past two weeks with each 
other and with the leaders of the Kivus Conference and had talked 
openly and sometimes bluntly with leaders of armed groups and ethnic 
communities.  He was optimistic that the conference would produce a 
"Goma Process" for ending conflict among internal armed groups, 
paralleling and reinforcing the "Nairobi Process" now underway, with 
its focus on FDLR.  He summarized for Kabila the preliminary 
recommendations that the international representatives had presented 
to the conference leaders, viz.:  durable peace with formal 
ceasefire, disengagement, and reintegration of armed groups (DDR); 
effective stabilization through enhanced state capacity and improved 
governance; social cohesion through return of IDP's, truth and 
reconciliation, inclusivity, land tenure, and action to stop sexual 
violence; security sector reform; and regional cooperation. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Kabila described the objectives of the conference as being 
an end of war in the Kivus, construction and consolidation of peace, 
relieving the humanitarian crisis and ensuring development.  He was 
confident that all the armed groups and ethnic communities in the 
Kivus were now determined to make and consolidate peace and begin to 
live in harmony.  The conference would have to come to a conclusion 
on January 21, with a signature of an undertaking by all 
participants, to include the armed groups and ethnic communities and 
the government, witnessed by the international community.  After the 
signing, follow-up mechanisms would be established.  Kabila said 
that he had not yet decided (but would make the decision by end of 
the day on) how many follow-up structures would be established and 
whether the document would be supported by a presidential decree. 
He said that the disengagement of forces would be a process 
involving integration (brassage) of all armed groups without 
exception.  Signing the document and setting up follow-up mechanisms 
would be important, but it would be even more important for the 
people to see quick progress on the ground.  In this, the 
international community, through MONUC, would have a great role.  It 
would be necessary to define exactly where forces would be 
relocated, where they would be placed in cantonment, and where 
brassage would occur.  Such technical questions would involve a huge 
amount of work. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Kabila said that there were a couple of "small 
contradictions" that would need to be dealt with.  The CNDP sought 
to be accepted as a political party, but there were legal 
requirements that the CNDP would have to fulfill.  Formerly, RCD and 
other such groups had had to meet the same requirements.  There was 
also the issue of amnesty.  Kabila recalled that there had been 
earlier demands for amnesty for perpetrators of massacres in North 
Katanga and Ituri.  The government had accepted demobilization of 
most combatants in those conflicts, but it had pursued and arrested 
the minority who had refused to demobilize.  Only in the Kivus, for 
the past couple of decades, every time there had been a "little 
rebellion," its leaders had been given impunity, giving rise to 
further rebellions and massacres.  It was time to apply the law of 
the land in the Kivus and bring those responsible for crimes of war 
to justice.  On the other hand, Kabila said, he realized that it 
would not be wise to pursue rebels to such an extent as to ruin the 
conference -- a way needed to be found to preserve both the 
conference and justice. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Van de Geer said that a distinction should be made between 
amnesty for war crimes (a matter of international justice) and 
amnesty for rebellion, which was a political affair in the hands of 
 
KINSHASA 00000054  002 OF 003 
 
 
a sovereign state.  Belgian Special Envoy Jozef Smets said that he 
appreciated that the president had raised the issue of amnesty, a 
matter of great concern to the international community.  He noted 
that members of the National Assembly from North Kivu had earlier in 
the day made accusations against the CNDP for very recent mass 
killings.  Such acts, if confirmed, would fit in the category of war 
crimes, and would not be appropriate for DRC amnesty and, moreover, 
could tempt FDLR genocidaires to ask for similar amnesty.   Smets 
noted that all conference participants had underlined the importance 
of dealing with the FDLR, and the conference had rightly treated 
separately the issues of internal combatants and FDLR. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Senior Adviser to the Assistant Secretary for African 
Affairs Tim Shortley congratulated Kabila on the conference, which 
he hoped would be a great success.  Leaders of the conference had 
been wonderful to work with.  Very much work remained to be done in 
the forty-eight hours remaining before the conclusion of the 
conference.  Shortley recommended "test-running" the conference's 
documents with key armed groups and the international community.  As 
facilitators, the international representatives needed to work 
closely with their home offices and prepare them for the conference 
results.  Even more important was communication with the armed 
groups, who were all ready to sign but would benefit from liaison to 
avoid a breakdown at the closing.  Shortley emphasized that it would 
be important to present the conference's final documents as a legal 
agreement. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) MONUC political director Christian Manahl said that MONUC 
stood ready to assist in every way possible in the follow-up of the 
conference's agreement.  The conference, he said, must not fail.  A 
successful result would transform the Kivus.  Manahl underlined that 
while war crimes gave individual states no discretion, in the case 
of insurrection amnesty was a measure which the DRC government had 
often applied. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Kabila demurred, saying that only once had the DRC 
resorted to amnesty.  Aside from the fundamental lack of justice and 
disregard of law involved in amnesty, it was also a lengthy process, 
requiring action by the National Assembly (which would be highly 
resistant), and there was not time to go through that process.  Most 
combatants in armed groups, including senior officers, would not 
need amnesty in order to integrate in the army.  DRC had shown that 
it did not punish rebels who lay down their arms.  The issue was one 
of trust. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) As for ex-FAR/FDLR, Kabila noted that that issue had 
persisted for many years, since before he had arrived in Kinshasa in 
¶1997.  "No one can say that he has done more than ourselves to solve 
the ex-FAR than we -- no one."   Rwanda had occupied the Kivus 
1998-2003 -- "ask them how many ex-FAR they took back to Rwanda 
then."  But Kabila said he had overseen the repatriation of nearly 
20,000 ex-FAR, not through military action, but via persuasion 
backed by military pressure.  Now the number of ex-FAR was down to 
5,000.  Was he being asked to burn down the Kivus to get at 5,000 
men?  It would be senseless.  Yet, with the signing of the Nairobi 
communiqu, DRC had decided now to deal with the ex-FAR once and for 
all.  A plan was in place.  Kabila said that he had just seen the 
pamphlets that had been prepared for distribution in the 
sensitization phase. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Kabila said he was planning to invite most of the ex-FAR 
leaders for a meeting in DRC, with the international community 
present as witnesses in order to meet Rwandan anxieties.  The 
message to the ex-FAR leaders would be that they had come to the end 
of the road in DRC.  They would have to disarm and go home, or stay 
in Congo with refugee status far from the Kivus, or be disarmed by 
force.  The meeting would take place by the end of January, perhaps 
in Kisangani, and would involve 20-30 ex-FAR leaders, including 
those in Europe.  Internal and external armed groups needed to be 
dealt with separately.  Ex-FAR was indeed a threat to DRC, but one 
which had to be handled by the national army, not by any individual 
who thought he had a role in fighting the ex-FAR.  Dealing with the 
ex-FAR, as promised in Nairobi, would help undercut Nkunda's claim 
to that role. 
 
¶11.  (SBU) Van de Geer said that he hoped that the momentum of the 
conference would be maintained through its last 48  hours and that 
it would be the beginning of a real Goma Process.  Nairobi and Goma 
were separate but, as the president had said, would have a 
significant influence on each other.  Van de Geer acknowledged that 
the international community carried a major responsibility because 
of the FDLR leaders present in Europe (Netherlands, Germany, UK, 
Belgium, and France).  In November he had asked all EU states to 
answer questions about these FDLR leaders and what the governments 
 
KINSHASA 00000054  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
intended to do with them.  All governments were investigating.  The 
Goma Process, van de Geer said, would put him in a stronger position 
to the EU states to say that the DRC had moved on and it was time 
for them to do more.  Countries with legal impediments should 
politically name and shame the FDLR leaders.  Van de Geer said that 
he would also stay in close touch with the United States and Canada 
on the matter. 
 
¶12.  (SBU) Van de Geer said that a successful conclusion to the last 
forty-eight hours of the conference would require Kabila's personal 
leadership and political courage.  Van de Geer believed that the 
international community had made a contribution, in its many 
meetings and its tough talk with armed groups and ethnic community 
leaders, to a more realistic and harmonious mood in the conference, 
but there were limits to what the international community could 
accomplish.  The international community wanted to accompany DRC on 
its way forward if there were a successful result to the conference. 
  Van de Geer underlined that it would be helpful for the 
international community to receive some prior indication of the 
documents emerging from the conference.  "We wish you all the wisdom 
you will need at this historical juncture in the life of the 
country." 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Kabila remarked with a smile, in closing, "Wisdom does 
not grow on trees."  He turned to his counselor Tshibanda and gave 
him instructions to share the conference documents when they were 
ready.  (At a later meeting with the international community, 
conference president Father Apollinaire Malu Malu indicated that 
such documents were far from being finalized.) 
 
Brock