US embassy cable - 03DJIBOUTI1639

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 DJIBOUTI 001639 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/04/2013 
TAGS: MARR, PREL, DJ, EAID 
SUBJECT: DJIBOUTI:  ASSISTANCE CONFUSION 
 
REF: DJIBOUTI 1633 
 
Classified By: ADCM Haywood Rankin for reason 1.5 (b,d). 
 
1.  (C) Summary:  Chief of Armed Forces Fathi conveyed to 
Charge September 3 President Guelleh's confusion and vexation 
-- directed mainly at Djibouti's ambassador in Washington -- 
about assistance from the United States.  He said, perhaps 
too frankly, that Guelleh was nervous because he needed to 
begin his election campaign for 2005.  Guelleh is supposed to 
return September 5 to Djibouti, after more than a month away, 
and Charge has requested an appointment.  The fundamental 
problem is that the Djiboutians are accustomed to the simpler 
French way of handling assistance and have a steep learning 
curve with the Americans (and vice versa).  End Summary. 
 
2.  (C) Chief of Staff of the Djibouti Armed Forces General 
Fathi Ahmed Houssein summoned Charge September 3.  The final 
third of the conversation, which concerned Djibouti's ongoing 
expulsion of undocumented foreigners, is treated in reftel. 
Prior to the meeting, the embassy learned that the subject on 
Fathi's mind was a 1.7 million dollar bill for paving the 
ramp at the hangar for the presidential aircraft, for which 
the Djiboutian military expected to be reimbursed by the 
United States. 
 
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Presidential Plane and Olhaye 
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3.  (C) Fathi opened the meeting saying he had hoped to get 
clarity on an issue of great importance to President Guelleh, 
relating to the presidential aircraft, but he realized he 
needed General Robeson and the Minister of Foreign Affairs to 
be present.  CJTF-HOA Djibouti desk officer Michael dell' 
Amico presented General Robeson's apologies for "not being 
able to attend."  Fathi said that President Guelleh was keen 
to get the presidential aircraft up from South Africa, where 
it resided at present, and to do so it was necessary that the 
work at the presidential hangar be finished. 
 
4.  (C) Fathi said that Djiboutians were having a very 
difficult time, in general, understanding what was agreed and 
not agreed on the part of the United States -- the 
presidential ramp and hangar being one example.  President 
Guelleh, he said, was deeply agitated by the reporting that 
had come in from Ambassador Olhaye in Washington about U.S. 
assistance to Djibouti.  Charge recalled the meeting which he 
had earlier attended in Washington with Ambassador Olhaye, 
concerning the East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative, and 
believed that the explanation given Olhaye had been 
relatively straightforward and that Olhaye had grasped it. 
However, Charge explained, there was no doubt that U.S. 
funding processes, whether civilian or military, were 
complex.  Charge offered several examples of how different 
types of funding processes worked. 
 
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We are not the French 
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5.  (C) Fathi said that at the military level Djiboutians 
were beginning to understand how the American system worked. 
He cited an example of military equipment that had been 
ordered in the year 2002 but which, it now appeared, would 
not arrive until 2005.  USLO Major Anderson reminded Fathi 
that he, Fathi, had only signed the contract for this 
equipment three months ago.  Fathi said, yes, now he was 
beginning to understand, and in general the Djiboutian 
military was beginning to get the picture.  But President 
Guelleh was totally confused and completely troubled. 
Guelleh now told him that he understood nothing that had been 
reported by Ambassador Olhaye on the subject of U.S. 
assistance.  Guelleh wanted to start all over.  He wanted a 
clear, practical, down-to-earth, simple piece of paper that 
told him what Djibouti was going to get and when.  The 
problem was, Fathi explained, that President Guelleh would 
begin next year his campaign for reelection in 2005.  He 
needed already, now, to expedite payment of pensions and 
salaries, in preparation for that campaign.  To do that he 
needed to know what money he was going to have in hand and 
when.  When Guelleh had received the payment for the lease of 
Camp Lemonier, he had immediately used a portion of that cash 
to pay arrears of pensions and salaries.  Djiboutians were 
now being paid promptly at the end of the month and knew to 
thank the United States. 
 
6.  (C) Charge said that he hoped to be seeing President 
Guelleh soon and would offer as good an explanation as he 
could.  However, it was necessary to realize that the U.S. 
had a completely different system of providing assistance 
from France's.  In the Charge's consultations in Paris the 
previous week, he had learned that France had promised 
Djibouti a total package of military and civilian expenditure 
in Djibouti of 55 million dollars annually; part of that 
package was an agreement that if the military component went 
down, the civilian component would go up in equal measure. 
It was a nice, clean system, but it bore no resemblance to 
the way the United States did business. 
 
7.  (C) Fathi said he did not ask the Americans to be French. 
 Djibouti only asked for clarity.  It did not need to know 
what assistance would cost the U.S. government (which, Charge 
pointed out, was what the U.S. government announces) but what 
Djibouti would receive.  Fathi said that it would be 
preferable if the U.S. took out all expenses for overhead and 
administration that would reduce the net amount of assistance 
dollars realized in Djibouti, prior to giving Guelleh the 
monetary value of U.S. assistance.  President Guelleh would 
be returning to Djibouti in a couple of days and he would 
need a firm list of what Djibouti would get, how much cash, 
how much in the way of projects, their value to Djibouti, and 
their execution dates. 
 
8.  (C) Fathi said that Djibouti had asked for nothing from 
the United States.  It had gone through many lean years, and 
its nomadic populace could survive off of dates and water. 
It was the United States that had offered help, which was 
indeed desperately needed, and Djibouti just wanted to know 
what to expect.  He realized that there was extremely good 
will on both sides, and that these were only the unavoidable 
problems of adaptation to each other's ways. 
 
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Comment 
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9.  (C) Fathi enjoys a close relationship with Guelleh.  He 
is one of Guelleh's four or five closest qat-chewers, which 
may explain why he was nominated -- or nominated himself -- 
to venture into the non-military assistance zone.  In fact, 
there should not be much "lack of clarity" about non-military 
assistance.  Djiboutian ministries on the receiving end of 
ESF handled by USAID are not complaining about lack of 
clarity.  In the military field, Fathi has signed -- with 
Guelleh's consent -- a letter of request that obligates 
virtually all of the 25 million dollar East African 
Counterterrorism Initiative projects.  But there is, indeed, 
a steep learning curve.  Moreover, Djiboutians are tough 
negotiators and not averse to crying confusion as a 
negotiating ploy.  Olhaye may be an impediment, as he appears 
to embellish his reports to Guelleh. 
 
10.  (C) Although elections in Djibouti are far from what 
they are in the west, Guelleh may well harbor election 
anxieties.  The advent of the Americans has raised public 
expectations of American largesse.  As the people do not see 
much immediate evidence of this supposed largesse, they 
suspect that their leader has pocketed or misspent it. 
Guelleh would like to deflect these suspicions.  Fathi's 
other striking assertion -- that Guelleh used the lease money 
in part to pay salary and pension arrearages -- raises the 
question of what happened to the money budgeted for those 
salaries and underlines the lack of transparency in 
Djiboutian financial management. 
SMITH