VZCZCXRO1004
PP RUEHBZ RUEHGI
DE RUEHGI #0171/01 2120910
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P R 310910Z JUL 09
FM AMEMBASSY BANGUI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0997
INFO RHMFISS/AFRICOM
RUEHBZ/AMEMBASSY BRAZZAVILLE 0185
RUEHKH/AMEMBASSY KHARTOUM 0290
RUEHKI/AMEMBASSY KINSHASA 0300
RUEHLC/AMEMBASSY LIBREVILLE 0201
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 0145
RUEHNJ/AMEMBASSY NDJAMENA 0489
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 0476
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0132
RUEHYD/AMEMBASSY YAOUNDE 0462
RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI 0143
RUEHGI/AMEMBASSY BANGUI 1259

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BANGUI 000171 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR AF/C 
USUN FOR DMUERS 
PARIS FOR RKANEDA 
LONDON FOR PLORD 
NAIROBI  FOR AKARAS 
AFRICOM FOR JKUGEL 
INR FOR CNEARY 
DRL FOR SCRAMPTON 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM PINR CT
SUBJECT: CARG CONTINUES TO IMPEDE THE TRAVEL OF EMBASSY PERSONNEL 
 
REF: A. (09 BANGUI 85) 
     ¶B. (09 BANGUI 86) 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: On Wednesday, July 29, 2009, Management 
Officer and Locally Engaged Staff were stopped for two hours by 
Central African gendarmes outside Grimari, Central African 
Republic. They were on their way to the town of Alindao to 
deliver tools to a Self-Help Project. This is the fifth time 
that members of the Embassy have been stopped from traveling and 
the fourth time since Post has started formally notifying the 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of all travel. Following an 
intervention by the Foreign Minister, the group was allowed to 
continue. The Ambassador will seek a meeting with President 
Bozize in the coming days to protest and discuss the state of 
the relationship. END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Starting in late March, 2009 (09 BANGUI 85), the CARG 
has required that all missions notify the MFA of any travel to 
``sensitive'' areas outside of Bangui (09 BANGUI 86). Though 
Post disagrees with the CARG's interpretation of article 27 of 
the Vienna Convention and has yet to received a definition of 
what constitutes a ``sensitive'' area, it has dutifully notified 
the MFA of all subsequent travel outside Bangui, stating clearly 
the purpose of travel and membership of the delegation. Despite 
this, mission personnel are still stopped at checkpoints outside 
Bangui, this latest event being the fourth in as many months. 
Though all of the incidents have been cleared up and sometimes 
appear to be the result of a lack of communication between the 
MFA, the Ministry of Defense and the police, yesterday's 
incident was the result of direct orders by the Minister of 
Public Security, Jules-Bernard Ouande; orders that he issued 
only after learning that the delegation had left Bangui. 
Elements close to President Bozize continue to view AmEmbassy 
Bangui, and the Ambassador in particular, as hostile to the 
CARG. 
 
¶3. (SBU) Ironically, the Ambassador was at a lunch for the 
incoming Central African ambassador to the US, Stanislas 
Moussa-Kembe, when the delegation was stopped. At the beginning 
of the lunch, the Ambassador discussed the trip with the Foreign 
Minister, General Antoine Gambi, who expressed pleasure that the 
embassy had a Self-Help project in his home district. He was 
thus very surprised when the Ambassador later took him aside 
privately to tell him that the delegation had been stopped. He 
promised to take action upon his return to his office. In the 
interim, POLOFF learned from the traveling party that they had 
been stopped on the direct orders of Minister Ouande. When asked 
by telephone for an explanation for the hold up, Minister Ouande 
told POLOFF that American diplomats, ``cannot presume to travel 
were they wish in the country. In no other country are diplomats 
allowed to travel freely without permission.'' When POLOFF 
replied that the MFA had been notified of the specifics of the 
trip, Ouande angrily suggested that Post check with the MFA and 
then proceeded to hang up the phone without further discussion 
(Widely known to drink heavily, the Minister sounded very 
inebriated on the phone). 
 
¶4. (SBU) The Ambassador was told by Mousa-Kembe that he, 
Mousa-Kembe, had recently been called from the airport at 0630 
by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as the 
airport authorities were reluctant to allow the Ambassador to 
board a UN flight to Obo, CAR. The Ambassador was travelling 
with various UN officials and the French military attache to Obo 
to meet with Congolese refugees and assess the threat from 
incursions by the Lord's Resistance Army (It is not exactly 
clear why Moussa-Kembe was called, as he was the Chief of 
Protocol at the time, but it is interesting that the Ambassador 
was unaware of the difficulties). 
 
¶5. (SBU) COMMENT: AmEmbassy Bangui has made it a point to travel 
widely in the CAR so as to be as informed as possible in a 
little understood country with few reliable media outlets. It is 
clear that GARG dislikes this, especially following the 
 
BANGUI 00000171  002 OF 002 
 
 
Ambassador's visit to Ndele which found evidence that suggests 
that the CARG forces had executed some twenty people in the 
village of Sokumba. It is clear that Minister Ouande and other 
close advisors to the president do not think it appropriate/do 
not want the U.S. Embassy to look too closely at state of the 
CAR and this is hindering the work of the Embassy.  (Note: 
Minister Ouande, who is extremely close to the Bozize, is the 
president's known hatchet man and is notorious for his 
indiscriminant and impulsive arrests of innocents. Posted as a 
junior diplomat for some six years in the former Yugoslavia, 
Ouande is evidently still an adherent to the old communist 
belief that diplomats are not supposed to look too deeply into 
the affairs of host nations [Interestingly, Mousa-Kembe was 
First Secretary at the CAR embassy in Belgrade at the time]). 
Continued efforts to restrict embassy travel will be a major 
issue as the CAR moves towards elections. Therefore, the 
Ambassador will seek a meeting with President Bozize to 
reiterate the range of U.S. assistance and engagement in the 
CAR, outline our efforts in support of the upcoming elections, 
and protest the harassment of Embassy staff. END COMMENT. 
COOK