VZCZCXYZ0663
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHJB #0531/01 2790618
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 060618Z OCT 09
FM AMEMBASSY BUJUMBURA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1761
INFO RUEHXR/RWANDA COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS BUJUMBURA 000531 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
AF/C PLEASE PASS SE WOLPE AND AMB SLUTZ 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL BY CG KE RW TZ UG ZA
SUBJECT: THE ICGLR TAKES STOCK, AND SEEKS ITS NICHE 
 
¶1. (SBU) (Summary)  The International Conference of the Great 
Lakes Region (ICGLR) is preparing a November 5-6 Roundtable 
and Summit in Bujumbura, to be preceded by a November 4 
"Friends of ICGLR" for donor countries.  At an October 3 
preparatory meeting, ICGLR Ambassador Liberata Mulamula said 
that the upcoming Roundtable would take stock, and assess the 
developing capacity of the three year old Secretariat. 
Diplomats in attendance urged the ICGLR to focus on a few key 
priorities and find its niche among the plethora of other 
regional organizations in eastern Africa.   (End summary.) 
 
¶2. (U) Ambassador Mulamula hosted the October 3 breakfast 
meeting to outline preparations for the Roundtable for the 
Bujumbura diplomatic  corps, the World Bank and the African 
Development Bank (which manages the ICGLR's funding.)  She 
delivered an overview of the ICGLR's history, reminding the 
diplomats that the organization grew out of the 1996 
Conference on Great Lakes, mandated in the wake of the 
Rwandan Genocide and the ongoing conflict in eastern DRC, to 
develop a mechanism for the region's states to resolve their 
own proliferating and intertwined conflicts.  The ICGLR now 
includes eleven member states:  an organization map shows a 
wide swath of contiguous countries spanning the continent 
from Sudan to Angola.  An additional seven "coopted" 
countries, including some as far afield as Egypt and 
Mozambique, provide additional support.  A "Pact" ratified by 
ICGLR member states in 2008, articulates four programs of 
action for the region:  peace and security; democracy and 
good governance, economic development and regional 
integration; and humanitarian social and environmental 
issues.  Ambassador Mulamula turned the floor over to Peace 
and Security Program Officer Stephen Singo who describe these 
ambitious programs in greater detail.  Singo said that 
ultimately their success would be measured not just by 
savings of UN peacekeeping costs, but also the use of natural 
resource revenues for human development, and the 
transformation of fragile states into effective states. 
Singo also took note of the three operating principles of the 
ICGLR, which he described as "international partnership, 
regional ownership, and national stewardship." 
 
¶3. (SBU) Ambassador Mulamula said that among its activities, 
the November 5-6 Roundtable would take stock of how the ICGLR 
had developed to date, and assess the effectiveness of the 
ICGLR Secretariat, established in 2007 to manage ICGLR 
activities on a daily basis.  She recognized that the ICGLR 
needed to focus on a few key priorities.  Ambassador Mulamula 
hoped that partner countries would pledge increased support 
at the November 4 session of the "Friends of the ICGLR" just 
prior to the roundtable.  She noted that the ICGLR was 
working closely with the World Bank to identify "bankable" 
projects. 
 
¶4. (SBU) The diplomatic corps was supportive of the ICGLR's 
aspirations, but not entirely without reservations. 
Beginning with the Charge d'Affairs from the Netherlands 
(which co-chairs the Friends group with Canada) a series of 
diplomatic speakers took note of the ICGLR's ambitious 
agenda, but urged the ICGLR to find its niche and identify 
its value added in a field that was already crowded with 
overlapping regional organizations. The German Ambassador 
said that natural resources management, primarily the control 
of illegal minerals, was a reasonable area for ICGLR 
endeavor.  The Norwegian representative suggested that the 
regional integration was not an appropriate venue of activity 
since other organizations such as the EAC and COMESA have 
already made significant advances in this area.  The 
strongest words came from the top ranking UN official, the 
Executive Representative of the Secretary General Youssef 
Mahmoud, who heads the United Nations Integrated Office in 
Burundi, BINUB.  Mr. Mahmoud suggested that the regional 
transformation the ICGLR sought needed to come from within. 
He said the organization should therefore reverse the order 
of its three principles:  only if its member states first 
demonstrated competent national stewardship and the ICGLR 
assumed regional ownership would partner states have the 
confidence to provide the organization additional financial 
support.  The ICGLR, Mr. Mahmoud said, needed to demonstrate 
to the partners that it could put its money where its mouth 
was.  He noted that some member states such as Angola and DRC 
were capable of providing the resources for the ICGLR's 
operation, and should do so. 
 
¶5. (SBU) The representatives of the ICGLR who were present 
put up a vigorous defense of the organization.  Ambassador 
Mulamula noted that the member states had themselves offered 
up the initial "seed money" to establish the ICGLR. 
Furthermore, the member states continued to pay all of the 
Secretariat's operational costs through a system of 
proportional assessments.  Program Officer for Peace and 
Security Singo made an eloquent defense of the organization's 
priorities.  He emphasized that resolution of the region's 
conflicts could not be taken in isolation from issues such as 
border management, food security, government corruption, or 
illicit trafficking in minerals.   All of these cross-border 
issues had to be dealt with, in order to establish the 
conditions for a sustainable peace in the region.  Singo 
reminded his interlocutors that, unlike other organizations 
in the region, the ICGLR did not implement projects.  Rather, 
the role of the ICGLR was to identify a course of action, 
facilitate member states activities in implementing it, and 
hold member states accountable for doing so through the ICGLR 
Pact.  The Ambassador from ICGLR member state Tanzania was 
somewhat less helpful with an intervention that suggested 
that the international community owed the ICGLR its support, 
and should pay fully on its pledges, in order to compensate 
for Western colonial exploitation of Africa over the past 
century. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Comment: The ICGLR, still a young organization, 
appears to have a clear understanding of the region's deeply 
intertwined conflicts, and a clear vision of the end state of 
regional stability and human development it aspires to 
achieve.  The evidence suggests that ICGLR has not yet fully 
developed a workable mechanism that can take the region to 
there from here. The November 5-6 Roundtable could provide 
the push the ICGLR needs to set it on the right path. End 
Comment. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Twining