VZCZCXRO9735
OO RUEHBZ RUEHDU RUEHGI RUEHJO RUEHMR RUEHRN
DE RUEHKI #0236/01 0691928
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 091928Z MAR 08
FM AMEMBASSY KINSHASA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7643
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 000236 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV KPKO CG UN
SUBJECT: GOMA NOTES 03/06/08 - GOMA PROCESS: BACK TO WRANGLING 
 
 
¶1.  Summary:  The CNDP rejoined Goma process talks March 6 following 
meetings between AF Senior Adviser Tim Shortly and Nkunda in 
Kirolirwe.  However, its delegation had not been briefed on the 
Shortly-Nkunda talks, and Vice Admiral Etumba, the GRDC delegation 
head, apparently presumed their return signaled their acquiesence to 
his previous proposals.  The talks were jerked back into wrangling 
over the same points that had been in contention before. 
Discussions ground to an inevitable halt as it became clear that the 
CNDP reps were not in a position to make concessions or to negotiate 
on behalf of their principals.  Participants agreed to a U.S. 
suggestion to adjourn the meeting until the CNDP delegation had had 
a chance to confer internally and return with an authoritative 
position and be prepared to negotiate, as Nkunda had promised 
Shortley.  End summary. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Immediately following the visit by Assistant Secretary 
Frazer's Senior Adviser Tim Shortley and the International 
Facilitation to CNDP leader Laurent Nkunda in Kirolirwe on March 5 
(septel), a meeting was held at MONUC-Goma between the Facilitation, 
the GDRC delegation to the Goma process (led by Vice Admiral Didier 
Etumba) and MONUC (including SRSG Chief of Staff John Almstrom and 
Eastern Division Commander General Bikram Singh) to brief them on 
the Shortley-Nkunda talks and to urge the GDRC to move forward on 
setting up the Joint Peace and Security Committee (JC) envisioned by 
the Kivu conference Acte d'Engagement.  Etumba agreed, and a meeting 
was called for the following morning to which the CNDP delegation 
would be invited. 
 
¶3. (SBU) This meeting between CNDP, GDRC, MONUC and the Facilitation 
(Jay Nash and Willet Weeks for the U.S.) convened at MONUC with only 
the military component of the CNDP delegation, led by Major Seraphin 
Mirindi, present.  Its three members were in town to attend the 
ILCCE leadership seminar (co-sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Center) 
at the Karibu Hotel.  It became clear as the discussions progressed 
that this CNDP group had not been briefed on the Shortley-Nkunda 
talks, which had been attended by the political component of the 
CNDP delegation to the Goma process.  The latter had not returned 
from Kirolirwe despite Nkunda's promise that a full CNDP delegation 
with powers to negotiate would be in Goma from the morning of March 
6 onward, prepared to participate in the talks. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Etumba opened the discussion by expressing satisfaction 
that the CNDP had rejoined the talks after its recent decision to 
suspend any dealings with the Goma process or with MONUC.  He stated 
that the GDRC and CNDP were Congolese brothers who needed to fulfill 
the expectations that had been placed upon them following the Acte 
d'Engagement.  "I will not accept the CNDP's leaving us again: we 
need to end this war - we are partners for peace."  He invoked the 
International Facilitation ("they are watching us") and the IDPs, 
"the Congolese refugees who are anxious to return home", and the 
suffering masses of Kivu. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Etumba then proceeded to outline the steps on which he 
expected to get swift agreement from the CNDP.  These issues were 
presented largely on a take-or-leave-it basis, with the strong 
implication that, since CNDP had returned to the talks, they would 
of course be also prepared to take accept what the GDRC was putting 
forward.  The points raised included proposed quotas for 
representation within each of the Goma process subcommittees in 
North and South Kivu and whether the immediate level of 
subcommittees below the JC should be sectoral or geographic:  both 
issues that had been the subject of intense wrangling between the 
GDRC and the CNDP before the talks broke off.  Etumba now forwarded 
his views on these as faits accomplis to which the CNDP would 
naturally acquiesce. 
 
¶6. (SBU) The CNDP of course did not do so.  Having no knowledge of 
the substance or tone of the discussions in Kirolirwe, they 
announced that they were delighted to be back in the talks and that 
they were there to stay unless the GDRC "violated the agreement." 
But, Mirindi said, there was still disagreement on some of the 
points raised by Etumba. 
 
¶7. (SBU) The talks then were jerked back into wrangling over the 
same points that had been in contention before they had been broken 
off.  Principal among these was the issue of division of JC 
subcomittees by sector (military and humanitarian/social) at the 
provincial level (per the GDRC and the Facilitation); respective 
seat allocation within the North Kivu subcomittee(s) (CNDP wanted 40 
per cent, the GDRC has gone to up to 30 per cent plus); the CNDP's 
notion that the GRDC and the Mayi-Mayi groups are a single unit 
(always guaranteed to get a rise out of the GDRC, and Col. Delphin 
Kahimbi, the FARDC's 8th Military Region Deputy Commander, duly rose 
to the occasion); and how decisions will be taken within the Joint 
Committee (by consensus, per GDRC, or by a three-quarters vote, per 
 
KINSHASA 00000236  002 OF 002 
 
 
CNDP). 
 
¶8. (SBU) All of this had been rehearsed and left unresolved during 
earlier discussions, though the CNDP advanced a new argument for its 
position on the geographic vs. sectoral division of the joint 
sub-committees:  that there had in fact  been two Actes, though 
identical in content, signed respectively by the North and South 
Kivu parties.  The discussions ground to an inevitable halt, and 
during the break, Almstrom approached the Facilitation with an 
ingenious proposal for dealing with the sectoral-vs.-geographic 
committees issue:  that a new function be created alongside the 
top-level secretariat to coordinate the two sectors at the 
provincial level. 
 
¶9. (SBU) In the version of this compromise presented to the CNDP 
when the talks resumed, the EU's Jean-Michel Dumont, speaking for 
the Facilitation, recommended that six representatives be assigned 
to this unit, one per province for each of the GDRC, CNDP or FRF (in 
North or South Kivu respectively), and the Mayi-Mayi.  The 
provincial coordinators would facilitate discussions between the 
provincial-level Military and Humanitarian/Social subcommittees in 
each province, thereby responding to the CNDP's concern that the 
work of the subcommittees at the provincial level would otherwise 
not be coordinated.  The coordinating function would rotate monthly 
between each group in the two provinces.  The CNDP seemed intrigued 
by this idea, and Etumba stated more or less peremptorily that the 
CNDP had accepted it, which the CNDP said it in fact could not do at 
this stage and without consultations with its headquarters. 
 
¶10. (SBU) By this point it was clearer than ever that the CNDP 
military reps were not in a position to make concessions or to 
negotiate on behalf of their principals, and that it had been a 
mistake to let the meeting start or to go on at such futile length. 
Speaking for the Facilitation, Weeks suggested that this meeting was 
vexed by a communications problem, that those members of the CNDP 
delegation who were present in Goma on March 6 had not been at the 
meetings in Kirolirwe on March 5, that those who had been in 
Kirolirwe were not in Goma, and that the two groups had not talked. 
Wouldn't it be better to adjourn the meeting until the CNDP 
delegation had had a chance to confer internally and return with an 
authoritative position and prepared to negotiate, as had been 
promised to Shortley? 
 
¶11. (SBU) This was seized upon and, after some further bluster from 
Etumba and expressions of victimized incredulity from CNDP, the 
meeting was adjourned until 1800, and then once again until 0900 the 
following day, with the possibility of further postponement in the 
event that communications problems had still prevented CNDP from 
firming up its position. 
 
GARVELINK