VZCZCXRO8883
PP RUEHBZ RUEHDU RUEHGI RUEHJO RUEHMR RUEHRN
DE RUEHKI #0701/01 2391447
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 261447Z AUG 08
FM AMEMBASSY KINSHASA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8340
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 02 KINSHASA 000701 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL MOPS KPKO CG
SUBJECT:    GOMA ROUND UP FOR AUGUST 24, 2008 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  A glitch with the CNDP, which would have 
forestalled the August 26 plenary of the Joint Commission, appears 
to have been resolved.  The International Facilitation team will 
meet CNDP and Etumba August 25 to try to ensure the parties stick to 
script.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) CNDP's Rene Abandi, who serves as the permanent secretary 
of the Joint Technical Commission on Peace and Security, left Goma 
for Kirolirwe August 21 without having signed off on the invitations 
to the August 26 plenary.  Without his signature 48 hours in 
advance, the agreed rules would have prevented the plenary from 
occurring.  He was unreachable by telephone.  Amani and MONUC 
officials feared a negative political signal, i.e., while CNDP Goma 
officers had appeared to agree to the plenary and had themselves 
proposed a disengagement working group as a way out of the on-going 
impasse, they might have received a counter-order from the CNDP 
leadership.  However, on August 23 Abandi turned up in Goma and 
signed off on the invitations. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) The International Facilitation team met August 23 to 
discuss the upcoming plenary.  MONUC political officer M'hand 
Ladjouzi (deputy to Alpha Sow as coordinator of Amani process 
issues) said that Abandi had agreed to a meeting of the Facilitation 
with the full CNDP delegation in Goma on August 25.  He expected 
that the government chairman of the commission, Rear Admiral Didier 
Etumba, and national coordinator Abbe Malu Malu would return to Goma 
on August 25 in time also to meet the team.  They had, however, 
signaled to Ladjouzi extreme frustration with the CNDP over the 
invitations flare-up and unwillingness to return if the problem was 
not resolved in time.  The team will also meet August 25 with OCHA 
to discuss any humanitarian implications of further pull-back. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) The team agreed that it was essential to have Etumba on 
board for the working group.  It would be best if he, or Malu Malu, 
presented the idea to the plenary.  Etumba would have to rein in the 
sundry armed groups that would otherwise complain at not being 
represented in the working group.  Meanwhile, the CNDP would have to 
agree not to raise other issues, such as refugees and political 
prisoners, which would likely sour and derail the meeting.  The CNDP 
should be warned that doing so would be taken as a signal of lack of 
seriousness. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) Issues of concern in establishing this group would be its 
composition (military experts from contending factions and concerned 
groups, i.e. CNDP, PARECO, FARDC, MONUC military - and also 
OCHA/UNHCR and provincial government), mandate (to produce agreed 
maps), and duration (perhaps three weeks).  The team recognized that 
CNDP might take the position that, because of topography, it would 
not be in a position to do much pull-back - i.e., PARECO and FARDC 
would need to do the pulling back.  The team noted MONUC military's 
limited capability to secure a wider pull-back zone, and it pointed 
to the return of IDP's to any secured areas as the key measure of 
success of the effort. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Goma poloff separately met Alpha Sow, who said he had just 
moved full-time into the Amani coordinator position for MONUC, 
leaving behind his duties as Head of Office in Goma.  However, both 
he and the incoming Head of Office will be interim.  Sow confirmed 
that he remained MONUC's point man for contact with Nkunda, but he 
emphasized that MONUC remained reticent about contact with Nkunda, 
believing that too much contact plays to his illusions of grandeur. 
(Note:  Sow and Ladjouzi both have long familiarity with Nkunda. 
Sow was Head of Office in Kisangani, with Ladjouzi as his deputy, 
when Nkunda was active there.  Sow was then Head of Office in 
Bukavu, with Ladjouzi as his deputy, when Nkunda pillaged the town 
in 2004.  End note.)  Sow viewed Etumba as generally inflexible 
(Etumba had stormed away a few months ago when Sow had contradicted 
him on the relative importance of dealing with FDLR versus Nkunda), 
although Sow said that Etumba seemed to have become more amenable in 
recent weeks.  Sow said that MONUC's military capacity for securing 
wider pull-back zones was highly limited but there appeared to be no 
other way forward. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) On August 21, bandits held up MSF-France at gun point on 
the road to Masisi, taking cash and cell phones in a common 
operation.  MSF-France erred by passing through the two-and-a-half 
kilometer no-man's land at 7:00, before MONUC had started its 
patrols.  MONUC had previously notified the NGO community that it 
would patrol the road only from 8:00-10:00 and 15:00-17:00.  ICRC 
was similarly held up on August 22. 
 
¶8.  (SBU) Comment:  The difficulty that MONUC has in securing the 
single major road traversing CNDP territory across a relatively 
narrow disengagement area is indicative of the greater difficulty it 
will face in securing a pull-back territory stretching a hundred 
kilometers with indeterminate width.  End comment. 
 
KINSHASA 00000701  002 OF 002 
 
 
 
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