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PP RUEHBZ RUEHDU RUEHGI RUEHJO RUEHMR RUEHRN
DE RUEHKI #0560/01 1781507
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 261507Z JUN 08
FM AMEMBASSY KINSHASA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8168
INFO RUEHXR/RWANDA COLLECTIVE
RUCNSAD/SOUTHERN AF DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY COLLECTIVE
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC
RHMFISS/HQ USEUCOM VAIHINGEN GE
RUZEJAA/JAC MOLESWORTH RAF MOLESWORTH UK

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 KINSHASA 000560 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OREP PREL PGOV EAID ECON MARR PHUM CG
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR CODEL PRICE JULY 01-02 2008 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is 
slowly grappling with fundamental governance, security and 
development challenges following historic 2006 national elections. 
The promise of peace and democratization and the importance of the 
DRC as the linchpin of central Africa and beyond have made it one of 
the Department's top seven priority assistance countries in Africa. 
The January 2008 Goma accords between the government and armed 
groups, facilitated by the U.S., UN and EU, created a process aimed 
at achieving peace, security and development in the country's 
eastern provinces.  Widespread insecurity only amplifies a political 
and judicial vacuum throughout the country, contributing to a 
pervasive climate of impunity in which armed men routinely abuse 
civilians, particularly women and children.  There are clear signs 
the population is growing impatient with the pace of the 
government's efforts and skeptical that democracy can solve the 
country's problems.  This visit will reaffirm U.S. commitment to a 
long partnership with the Congolese people to develop democratic 
institutions and reinforce our shared objective of a peaceful and 
prosperous DRC.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) CODEL Price's visit to the DRC is a reaffirmation of U.S. 
support for the country and its fledgling democracy.  It comes in 
the second year following the historic presidential and 
parliamentary elections of December, 2006 in which Joseph Kabila was 
elected president and representative institutions were installed at 
the national and provincial levels.  Kabila had initially gained 
power in 2001 after his father, Laurent Desire Kabila, was 
assassinated.  He led the DRC during a difficult transition from 
dictatorship, mismanagement and devastating wars, which are believed 
to have taken the lives of as many as five million people between 
1996 and 2002.  The electoral process produced a government that has 
been confronting the challenges of developing democratic 
institutions amid popular expectations of change.  This situation 
calls for continued and sustained U.S. engagement. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) The DRC, a country as vast as the United States east of 
the Mississippi River, has the economic potential to drive the 
development of all of central Africa.  The Department's 2006 
decision to identify it as one of seven priority assistance 
countries in Africa reflected achievements to date, the promise of 
the peace and democratization processes, and the country's 
importance to regional stability and development. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) The Mission's overriding goals focus on reinforcing 
Congolese political will and capacity for robust and effective 
leadership and oversight at all levels of government, while 
promoting broad economic development. Together with Washington and 
other diplomatic missions, we will identify and engage key 
decision-makers and implement results-oriented initiatives to 
support transparent governance, legislative accountability, judicial 
independence, political pluralism and provincial and local autonomy. 
 Our assistance program fully supports and reflects the 
transformational diplomacy goals laid out by Secretary Rice. 
USAID's FY 2006 bilateral foreign assistance budget for DRC programs 
totaled $68 million, including funds received from central accounts 
but excluding humanitarian assistance.  Amounts for FY 2007 rose to 
$71 million (with supplemental funding), and rose again in FY 2008 
to over $100 million, including increases for peace and security, 
governing justly and democratically, health, education, and economic 
growth programs. 
 
Security challenges in the east 
------------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (SBU) The Congolese military (FARDC) suffers from low morale, 
weak command and control, widespread corruption, haphazard 
administration, poor operational planning, limited training and 
equipment, and questionable military capability.  State and 
irregular military forces are responsible for many of the worst 
human rights abuses in the country.  North and South Kivu provinces 
merit particular attention.  Following a failed FARDC offensive in 
early December 2007 against a renegade militia led by dissident 
General Laurent Nkunda, a self-proclaimed champion of the Congo's 
small Tutsi population, the government agreed to launch a peace 
process.  The process brought together the government with armed 
groups from both provinces in the Kivu Peace, Security and 
Development Conference of January 2008.  As a direct result of U.S., 
UN, and EU engagement, the Conference produced an agreement now 
known as the Goma accords. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Implementation of the agreement has proven to be more 
problematic and will require continued commitment by the U.S., UN 
and European Union.  A series of government decrees established the 
structure and composition of the National Program for Security, 
Pacification, Stabilization and Reconstruction in North and South 
Kivu (the "Amani" program) set up to implement the Goma accords. 
 
KINSHASA 00000560  002 OF 006 
 
 
Father ("Abbe" in French) Apollinaire Malumalu, a Catholic priest 
who served as conference president, leads the program as national 
coordinator.  Interior Minister Denis Kalume heads a steering 
committee including international facilitators that met for the 
first time in March.  The key Joint Technical Commission on Peace 
and Security, under FARDC and MONUC co-chairmanship, held its 
opening session in April.  Intermittent participation by various 
armed groups hinders the overall progress towards disarmament and 
integration of former combatants into the national army or civilian 
life.  Ensuring the long-term success of this agreement will clearly 
require the continued and unflagging commitment of the U.S. and our 
European and UN partners, including the funding of demobilization 
centers. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) In a parallel process, the DRC and Rwanda signed a 
landmark joint statement in November 2007 in Nairobi to end the 
threat posed by Rwandan Hutu rebel groups known collectively as the 
Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR per its French 
acronym).  They agreed to act through peaceful means if possible, 
principally by encouraging FDLR fighters and their families to 
return to Rwanda.  The statement does not, however, exclude the use 
of force.  The FDLR, formed largely from the remnants of the former 
Rwandan army and Interahamwe militia, remains the largest of several 
foreign armed groups operating in the DRC, with approximately 
6,000-8,000 combatants in North and South Kivu.  Its leaders include 
a number of individuals implicated in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.  The 
FDLR poses a threat to the country's overall security and stability 
while remaining a continuing source of friction between Congo and 
its neighbors. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) The U.S. has been actively involved in assisting efforts 
by the DRC and the United Nations Mission in the Congo (MONUC) to 
end the threat posed by the FDLR, most recently by the announcement 
of a renewed Rewards for Justice Program targeting several of its 
top leaders present in the DRC.  This program provides for rewards 
of up to $5 million for information leading to the capture of named 
individuals wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda 
for their involvement in the 1994 genocide.  Their apprehension will 
not only serve the cause of justice but could help break the 
cohesion of the FDLR. 
 
U.S. leadership 
--------------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU) The United States has played a key role in efforts to 
re-establish peace in eastern Congo.  In 2004, the U.S. launched the 
Tripartite (now Tripartite Plus) process, a forum bringing together 
senior officials from the DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, plus Burundi, to 
promote cooperation and regional dialogue.  A special Tripartite 
Plus summit chaired by Secretary Rice December 5, 2007 in Addis 
Ababa brought together three of the four Tripartite Plus heads of 
state.  Although Kabila was the only head of state who did not 
attend, the three ministers representing him were active 
participants in decisions to strengthen commitment to resolving 
conflict in eastern Congo and increasing regional cooperation. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Current active U.S. peacemaking efforts date to late 
¶2007.  Eastern Congo was a major topic of Kabila's White House 
meeting with the President in October 2007.  They discussed USG 
assistance to the DRC, including increased funding to combat malaria 
and AIDS, and the war on terrorism.  The President confirmed that 
the U.S. would open an Embassy office in Goma in response to 
Kabila's request; the office has been staffed since early November 
2007 by Foreign Service Officers on detail from Washington or 
Embassy Kinshasa.  A new position to staff the office on a full-time 
basis with someone living in Goma has been approved; the officer 
will arrive in Goma in October.  USAID now also maintains a regular 
presence in Goma. 
 
¶11.  (SBU) Tim Shortley, Senior Advisor to Assistant Secretary 
Jendayi Frazer, continues to play a major role in consolidating the 
processes aimed at ending the threat posed by the FDLR, Nkunda's 
fighters and other armed groups.  Working closely with UN, EU and 
South African special envoys, he helped broker the Congo-Rwanda 
Nairobi communique.  After President Kabila asked him to return to 
the DRC in December following the failure of his Masisi offensive 
against Nkunda, Shortley negotiated the withdrawal of Nkunda's 
forces from territory abandoned by the FARDC during its retreat.  He 
was a key player at the Kivu conference, and he and the EU special 
envoy continue to play active roles in pushing signatories to 
implement the Goma accords. 
 
MONUC 
----- 
 
¶12.  (SBU) MONUC includes a 17,000-strong peacekeeping operation 
 
KINSHASA 00000560  003 OF 006 
 
 
with military contingents in all provinces and major cities and more 
than 3,000 civilian employees.  Now led by SRSG Alan Doss of the 
U.K., who previously headed the UN mission in Liberia, MONUC was 
created in 1999 pursuant to the Lusaka accords and a UN Security 
Council mandate.  With an annual budget of over $1 billion, it is 
the largest and most expensive UN peacekeeping operation in history. 
 The U.S., as the largest contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget, 
funds 27 percent of its expenditures, i.e. approximately $300 
million per year.  India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa, 
Uruguay and Nepal are the leading contributors of peacekeeping 
troops, each with contingents of more than 1,000.  Much more than a 
simple peacekeeping operation, it provides military, transportation, 
communications and administrative services in the absence of a 
meaningful GDRC presence outside Kinshasa and some provincial 
capitals.  MONUC's Radio Okapi is the only FM station broadcasting 
throughout the DRC in the country's five main languages.  MONUC also 
maintains regular flights to all major Congolese cities. 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Another current key aspect of MONUC's activities in the 
DRC involves what is known as the "stabilization plan," the purpose 
of which is to lay the groundwork for the mission's eventual and 
orderly withdrawal from particularly the eastern part of the 
country.  The plan is supported by an assistance package for 
implementation, and consists of four principal components: a 
security component, by which armed groups are disbanded through a 
combination of political and military means; a political component 
which involves GDRC political actors in advancing the peace 
processes; a state authority component by which institutions such as 
the police, judiciary, and other elements of public administration 
are strengthened; and a return and reintegration component, which 
aims to aid and resettle ex-combatants, refugees, and internally 
displaced persons in local communities. 
 
 
Peace and security 
------------------ 
 
¶14.  (SBU) Reform of the DRC's security services has achieved little 
success to date.  DRC plans for reform of the military, police, and 
justice sectors presented at a late-February international 
conference on security sector reform (SSR) lacked a sense of 
priorities and appeared little more than laundry lists to which 
donors were expected to pledge.  The EU has long had significant 
involvement in the Congolese security sector, including European 
Security (EUSEC) and European Police (EUPOL) missions.  France, 
Belgium and other EU member states have provided substantial funding 
for military reform and training programs.  South Africa and Angola 
have also played major roles, including training and equipping of 
integrated military brigades. 
 
¶15.  (SBU) USG assistance to DRC security services is set to 
increase.  New funding from International Narcotics and Law 
Enforcement (INCLE) and Peacekeeping Operations (PKO) budget lines 
has been proposed.  We are currently utilizing $5 million in FY 2006 
PKO funds to rehabilitate the officer training institute and provide 
training for staff officers and military magistrates and 
investigators.  The International Military and Education Training 
Program (IMET) funds U.S.-based courses that include 
English-language training.  INCLE (International Law Enforcement and 
Control) funds from the Department of State's Bureau of 
International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) 
are being allocated to stand up the Congolese border police in Ituri 
District. The Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism, Demining and Related 
Projects appropriation - "NADR" -pays for the destruction of 
obsolete ordnance.  In addition, the $300 million in U.S. funding 
for MONUC now also supports its new FARDC training program. 
 
Democracy and governance 
------------------------ 
 
¶16.  (SBU) The Congolese people had high expectations that the 
democratic process will improve their lives.  The relatively large 
turnout in the July and October 2006 presidential and parliamentary 
elections demonstrated their hopes for a democratic system of 
government.  New institutions, however, have been slow to generate 
momentum.  The 500-member National Assembly counts only a small 
number of members with legislative or government experience.  The 
Assembly and the 106-member Senate have only begun to consider a 
heavy agenda of major legislation.  Provincial officials are 
unfamiliar with decentralized authority and lack resources, money 
and experience.  Elections for local and municipal officials are 
tentatively scheduled for mid 2009 at the earliest. 
 
¶17.  (SBU) Parties and candidates aligned with Kabila's electoral 
coalition, the Alliance for the Presidential 
Majority (AMP), won working majorities in the National 
 
KINSHASA 00000560  004 OF 006 
 
 
Assembly and Senate, as well as eight of 11 provincial assemblies 
and ten of 11 governorships -- leaving the opposition with little 
apparent political clout.  Prominent opposition figure Jean-Pierre 
Bemba departed for Portugal in April 2007, following fighting in 
Kinshasa the month before between his forces and government troops. 
He was arrested in Belgium on May 24 on an ICC warrant for war 
crimes allegedly committed by his forces in the Central African 
Republic from 2002-2003. 
 
¶18.  (SBU) USG governance and institutional reform programs, 
budgeted at $10.2 million for FY 2007 and a proposed $19 million for 
FY 2008, focus on combating corruption and human rights abuses, 
developing independent judicial and legislative institutions, 
facilitating decentralization of state authority, and supporting 
local elections.  Their objectives include long-term transformation 
as well as direct citizen access to services.  We have provided 
assistance to National Assembly deputies drafting key legislative 
proposals, including laws relating to the financing of political 
parties, decentralization, the establishment of a national election 
commission and the protection of human rights.  We have also 
conducted capacity-building seminars for National Assembly deputies 
and staffers, supported the creation of provincial watchdog and 
advocacy groups to encourage citizen participation in democratic 
processes, and worked to develop skills of political party members, 
foster grassroots anti-corruption initiatives, and establish mobile 
courts and legal aid clinics. 
 
Human rights and gender based violence 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶19.  (SBU) Security forces and armed groups remain responsible for 
most human rights violations in the DRC, including unlawful 
killings, disappearances, torture, rape and arbitrary arrest and 
detention.  Human rights advocates have extensively documented the 
involvement of these elements in such abuses. 
Constitutionally-protected freedoms of association, speech, and 
protest are increasingly disregarded by security and administrative 
authorities using vague Mobutu-and colonial-era laws to arrest and 
detain perceived critics.  The Embassy is working with NGOs and 
other diplomatic missions to encourage Parliament to bring these 
laws into line with the 2006 constitution. 
 
¶20.  (SBU) Sexual violence against women and girls in eastern DRC is 
pervasive.  While most of the recorded attacks have been by armed 
groups and the FARDC, reports of rape by civilians is increasingly 
prevalent.  A general climate of impunity does nothing to discourage 
these acts.  In a recent report, the UN Human Rights Integrated 
Office in the DRC (UNHRO) stated that despite strengthened laws on 
sexual violence "law enforcement personnel and magistrates continue 
to treat rape and sexual violence in general with a marked lack of 
seriousness. Consequently, men accused of rape are often granted 
bail or given relatively light sentences, and out-of-court 
settlements of sexual violence cases are widespread."  In fact, 
relatively few cases are reported to the police, and fewer still 
result in prosecution. 
 
¶21.  (SBU) USAID, OFDA and the Departments of State and Defense 
support activities to respond to and prevent sexual violence through 
a variety of interventions in the eastern provinces.  Since 2002, 
USAID has allocated more than $10,000,000 for Gender-Based Violence 
activities in Eastern DRC and will program $1,500,000 in FY 2008 to 
continue its holistic program of care and support for rape survivors 
and other victims of sexual abuse.  The Defense Institute for 
International Legal Studies (DIILS) taught two three-week training 
sessions on the investigation of sex crimes in 2008 to nearly all 
350 of the FARDC military magistrates and police investigators with 
investigatory and adjudicatory roles.  The program, funded through 
PKO monies, sponsored sessions in eight different sites across the 
country, and received laudatory comments from the international 
community.  A follow up proposal has been submitted for additional 
DIILS training and is currently under review. 
 
Economic growth 
--------------- 
 
¶22.  (SBU) Most of the estimated 60 million Congolese, have not 
benefited from the country's vast natural resources, including 
minerals, forests and rivers.  With over 90 per cent unemployment 
and an informal sector that rivals the formal economy in size, most 
people survive on less than one dollar a day.  Despite annual GDP 
growth of nearly six per cent in 2007, per capita GDP is only around 
$120.  At the current growth rate, per capita income will not reach 
pre-independence levels until the middle of the 21st century. 
Economic growth, spurred largely by the mining sector in Katanga 
province, is estimated to be slightly higher for 2008, but this must 
be weighed along with a possible doubling of inflation, from under 
 
KINSHASA 00000560  005 OF 006 
 
 
10 percent in 2007 to a projected 20 percent or higher in 2008. 
 
¶23.  (SBU) Despite some progress on macroeconomic and 
financial reforms since 2003, the IMF Poverty Reduction and 
Growth Facility (PRGF) lapsed, in March 2007 due to continued 
government overspending and failure to meet structural reform 
targets.  The DRC received little or no direct outside assistance to 
support a USD 2.5 billion budget for 2007 and USD 3.6 billion for 
¶2008.  The DRC has been granted Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) 
status, but without a PRGF program in place, and little prospect for 
renegotiating one before the end of 2008, is not making progress 
toward achieving the nearly complete debt forgiveness it badly 
needs. 
 
¶24.  (SBU) The 2008 budget, signed into law by President 
Kabila in January, calls for expenditures of $3.6 billion, much of 
it for government salaries (including civil servants, public school 
teachers and military personnel) and the security sector.  Without 
outside budget support in 2008, the GDRC may again face large 
deficits, to which it has historically reacted with large amounts of 
currency issuance.  The GDRC is making a concerted effort to raise 
state revenue levels, but this may not solve the budget shortfall 
problem.  Since January 2008, GDRC spending has been apparently 
contained within budgetary limits, but many of its expenses will 
come due only during the last quarter of the year.  Military 
expenditures in eastern Congo appear to be the cause of much of the 
recent overspending. 
 
¶25.  (SBU) The GDRC is working to implement the Poverty 
Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) approved in mid-2006 by the IMF and 
World Bank boards.  The government's five-year program, approved by 
the National Assembly in February 2007, is based on the PRSP and 
focuses heavily on President 
Kabila's five priority areas:  infrastructure; employment; 
education; water/electricity; and health.  Economic growth will 
depend on progress in these areas.  In early 2008 the GDRC concluded 
an agreement with the Chinese government.  Though not all details 
have been made public, the GDRC announced that it will exchange over 
8 million tons of copper and over 200,000 tons of cobalt for an 
estimated $6 billion in Chinese-funded infrastructure projects, 
including roads, railway, universities, hospitals, housing and 
clinics.  China will also spend an estimated $3 billion in the 
mining sector on as-yet-unnamed mining concessions.  China is 
exploring other possible "infrastructure for natural resources" 
deals with the DRC. 
 
¶26.  (SBU) The USG is an active participant in international donors' 
Country Assistance Framework (CAF) process for 2007-10, designed to 
align assistance strategies and support GDRC efforts to implement 
the PRSP.  Bilateral USG foreign assistance funding for economic 
growth is modest, with only $8 million designated for activities to 
increase agricultural productivity, although this is supplemented by 
a $30 million, three-year Food for Peace program to help spur rural 
development.  USAID has active global development alliances with 
mining, agro-business and health partners. 
 
¶27.  (SBU) U.S. commercial interests in the DRC are small but 
growing, with a U.S. company (Seaboard Corporation) running the 
largest flour mill in the country and an American mining company 
(Freeport McMoRan) gearing up to produce an estimated 100,000 tons 
of copper metal by early 2009.  USAID and the British Department for 
International Development (DFID) are collaborating on efforts to 
help the GDRC implement the Extractive Industries Transparency 
Initiative (EITI).  USAID, through the Central African Regional 
Program for the Environment (CARPE) and the Congo Basin Forestry 
Partnership (CBFP) is working to promote better management of the 
forestry sector. The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) has 
granted $500,000 for a hydroelectric sector pre-feasibility study, 
and is looking at the transportation (river and rail) sector for 
further opportunities for U.S. investments in DRC infrastructure. 
 
The scene today 
--------------- 
 
¶28.  (SBU) CODEL Price's arrival comes at a moment of both tensions 
as well as continued hope.  The Congolese people look to their 
government, and the international community, for help to bring an 
end to conflicts that have cost billions of dollars, uprooted 
hundreds of thousands of people and resulted in millions of deaths. 
These conflicts have also created an atmosphere of widespread 
insecurity, contributing to a political and judicial vacuum in which 
women and children are routinely abused, and in which the 
perpetrators go unpunished.  There are clear signs the population is 
growing impatient with the pace of the government's efforts and 
skeptical that democracy can solve its problems.  In this 
environment, we ask you to help us to reinforce the following 
 
KINSHASA 00000560  006 OF 006 
 
 
messages: 
 
-- The Congolese people rightly expect responsible leadership at 
home as well as supportive international partners.  We will continue 
to support the new leadership to develop transparent practices, 
establish good governance for the well-being of the Congolese 
people, and improve the 
stewardship of its abundant natural resources. 
 
-- They are eager to realize tangible benefits from their 
investment in democracy.  They must cease being made victims of 
violence.  Human rights must be respected and violators punished. 
 
-- Congo has taken remarkable strides to replace war with 
peaceful democratic change.  The successful elections were a 
tangible demonstration of the people's desire for peaceful 
governance.  The United States is eager to see that momentum 
continue. 
 
-- We encourage political and military authorities to pursue a 
peaceful resolution of the security problems which persist in 
Congo. 
 
-- The United States will continue to support and work closely with 
the GDRC and MONUC to bring about political reconciliation and to 
prevent further conflict in the DRC and the region. 
 
-- We strongly support the Nairobi and Goma processes and are 
contributing funds and expertise to ensure their success will bring 
lasting peace and stability to the region. 
 
GARVELINK