VZCZCXRO5527
OO RUEHBZ RUEHDU RUEHGI RUEHJO RUEHMR RUEHRN
DE RUEHKI #0154/01 0430629
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 120629Z FEB 08
FM AMEMBASSY KINSHASA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7528
INFO RUEHXR/RWANDA COLLECTIVE
RUCNSAD/SOUTHERN AF DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY COLLECTIVE
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUZEJAA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KINSHASA 000154 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL MOPS PREF CG RW
SUBJECT:  Joint Monitoring Group Task Force, Goma, February 8 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary:  Meeting of the Nairobi process's Joint Monitoring 
Group Task Force February 8 in Goma was a bit testier than usual. 
The Rwandan side leveled charges of co-location of FDLR and FARDC 
forces, regretted that the Congolese government was not living up to 
its timetable of actions to be taken, and took umbrage at the 
leakage to FDLR of the number of genocidaires (6,400) in the list 
that Rwanda had provided the previous week.  The Congolese side, 
weakly represented, took umbrage at the Rwandans' umbrage.  End 
Summary. 
 
¶2. (SBU) The Task Force established at the meeting of the Joint 
Monitoring Group December 22 held its eighth meeting in Goma 
February 8.  Rwanda fielded its usual four-member team led by Major 
Franco Rutagengwa, while the DRC had only a two-member team led by 
Major Ambroise Nanga.  Nanga apologized that Colonel Augustin Mamba 
was again taken up with post-Kivus Conference affairs in Kinshasa. 
Nanga said he realized that the DRC had fallen behind in its 
commitments under the FDLR plan it had provided to Rwanda December 
1, including providing Rwanda an assessment of FDLR's military 
capabilities and willingness to repatriate.  He again promised that 
Mamba would be present the following week and provide a "full 
assessment." 
 
¶3. (SBU) Rutagengwa said that Rwanda had fulfilled all its 
commitments under the Nairobi communiqu.  All that remained for it 
to do was to continue to encourage ex-FAR/Interahamwe elements to 
return to Rwanda and keep its border with DRC sealed.  Moreover, it 
had operationalized the Task Force by inviting it on January 18 to 
observe first-hand all that Rwanda was doing to attract and 
reintegrate ex-FAR/Interahamwe.  Task Force chairman Gernot Sauer of 
MONUC asked the DRC delegation when it would reciprocate, to which 
Nanga responded that DRC was not yet ready to say. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Rutagengwa said that, illustrative of its strict border 
controls, Rwanda had arrested FDLR infiltrators in the Mururu sector 
on the South Kivu border ten days earlier.  These infiltrators had 
confessed that they were part of FDLR's 2nd division and that it was 
co-located with FARDC's 8th Integrated Brigade at its base at 
Ruvungu.  Rwandan delegate James Burabyo added that Rwanda would 
soon be providing information to the Joint Verification Team 
concerning similar co-location of FDLR's 2nd and 4th battalions with 
FARDC's 9th, 6th, 2nd, and 15th Integrated Brigades near Rutshuru. 
Burabyo pointed out that a close relationship between FARDC and 
FDLR, even to the extent that their military units were co-located, 
suggested that the DRC's sensitization campaign could only have 
limited success. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Rutagengwa went to a wall map of the Kivu provinces and, 
pointing to it, said that the FARDC controlled the whole area, so he 
failed to see why DRC could not live up to its obligation under the 
December 1 plan, at least to inform Rwanda of the locations of FDLR 
units.  He wanted to ensure that the record showed that that plan 
called for DRC to provide Rwanda with full information on FDLR order 
of battle, to include, inter alia, leadership, recruitment and 
training, collaborators, coordinators and liaison officers, methods 
of gathering intelligence, supply routes, and modes of transport, as 
well as locations of FDLR. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Nanga said, in response, that this set of complaints was 
difficult for DRC to accept.  The Rwandan delegation was not 
proceeding in a spirit of fraternal cooperation to build mutual 
confidence toward a shared goal.  The Congolese people had suffered 
for 14 years on account of the depredations of the 
ex-FAR/Interahamwe.  DRC had information on infiltrations from the 
Rwandan side to assist rebellion within DRC, but it had the courtesy 
to refrain from airing such allegations in this Task Force but would 
rather wait to place them before the Joint Verification Team.  Nanga 
said it would be better for Rwanda to concentrate on dissipating 
persistent rumors of ill treatment of FLDR combatants upon return to 
Rwanda than to call DRC's good will into question. 
 
¶7. (SBU) In the absence of MONUC DDRRR chief Philip Lancaster, who 
was visiting Rwanda, World Bank expert Masse Walimba gave a short 
account of difficulties facing the effort to contact FDLR and 
persuade cadres to return to Rwanda.  He noted that FDLR elements 
had said during contact the previous week that their leaders in 
Europe had told them that Rwanda had now produced a list of 6,400 
genocidaires.  Walimba noted that since the list exceeded the 6,000 
estimated FDLR combatants in DRC, the local FDLR were drawing the 
conclusion that they would all be subject to arrest if they tried to 
go back to Rwanda.  Poloff asked what percentage of these 6,400 were 
thought to be in DRC, and the EU's Jean-Michel Dumont asked what 
percentage were even thought still to be alive.  Walimba said he had 
no idea.  (In a subsequent conversation, SRSG Alan Doss -- to whom 
Rwanda had sent a copy of the list -- called the list "almost 
 
KINSHASA 00000154  002 OF 002 
 
 
unusable.") 
 
¶8. (SBU) The Rwandan delegation expressed outrage that the number of 
persons on this list, which was meant to have been confidential, had 
been leaked to the European leadership of the FDLR.  Rutagengwa said 
that Rwanda had been extremely reluctant to provide the list.  It 
had wanted all along that DRC finish its sensitization campaign 
before any such list was provided, but regrettably it had been 
pressured into doing so.  Burabyo said that not all the persons on 
the list would be subject to arrest and that, in any case, there 
were likely to be more than 10,000 FDLR combatants in DRC, not 
6,000. 
 
¶9. (SBU) Nanga urged the Rwandan delegation not to become "overly 
pessimistic" about revelation of the number of persons on the list. 
DRC would do all that it could to ensure that this revelation did 
not destroy the process of returning FDLR to Rwanda, which both 
sides so earnestly wished.  He added that DRC supported Rwanda in 
its call for a UNSC resolution condemning the FDLR. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Sauer noted that, according to his latest information, the 
Joint Monitoring Group would meet at the level of the envoys in 
Brussels in one week, February 15.  The Task Force would go forward 
with its next meeting, even if on the same day.  Looking toward the 
tri-monthly revolving chairmanship, the Task Force agreed to 
recommend that the envoys decide their next chairman at that 
meeting, and thus the next chairman of the Task Force in Goma, from 
March 22. 
 
GARVELINK