US embassy cable - 00KINSHASA8554

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KINSHASA 008554 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/26/2010 
TAGS: EAID, ECON, PGOV, CG 
SUBJECT: VIEWS OF GOMA UN WORKERS 
 
 
Classified by Economic Officer Katherine Simonds.  Reason: 
1.5(d). 
 
 
1. (C) Summary: Representatives of UN agencies in Goma 
believe the international community in general and the UN in 
particular are overly focused on the Congo war instead of on 
the deeper rooted problems of the Congo.  While their 
analysis may in part reflect their own tunnel vision, it 
strongly suggests that ending the war will not end the need 
for continued intense international involvement in the Congo. 
 On the other hand, in our view, unless the war is ended, 
even unlimited international engagement will not be able to 
solve the sub-region's problems.  End summary. 
 
 
2. (C) Econoff's five day visit to Goma provided ample 
opportunity for conversations with a wide range of officers 
representing UN agencies in Goma.  Econoff found them to be 
dedicated, professional, well-informed and well-coordinated. 
They form a close-knit community that has developed its own 
analysis of the crisis in the Kivus based on their day-to-day 
experience and they feel alienated from their head offices in 
Kinshasa.  Not surprisingly, they believe the resources they 
have are inadequate to the task they face (a situation which 
the UN acknowledges in its Consolidated Appeal for the DRC). 
More disturbingly, however, they also feel hobbled by their 
head offices in their ability to fulfill their basic 
humanitarian mission.  This "malaise" (which caused the 
resignation of OCHA's respected Goma coordinator) is shared 
in different degrees by many UN officers working in Goma. 
 
 
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Clashes with Kinshasa Home Offices 
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3. (C) Charles Petrie, the departing OCHA coordinator, 
devoted a significant amount of time over his last few days 
in Goma to briefing Econoff on the complicated humanitarian 
crisis in the Kivus.  Although he did not volunteer the 
information, he responded frankly when asked why he was 
leaving the UN.  He told Econoff he was tired of being 
considered the enemy by Kinshasa.  (Asked what he meant by 
Kinshasa, Petrie specified the UN system.  Petrie said that 
his criticism of the UN in Kinshasa did not, however, extend 
to MONUC or the SRSG.)  He said he and his colleagues had 
been arguing for more than a year that a concerted effort to 
promote reconciliation at the grassroots level in the Kivus 
was crucial to avoid an escalation of violence.  Their advice 
had been ignored, and they had been forced to watch as the 
number of internally displaced in North Kivu rose by 700,000 
in the last year and 3-400,000 in the last few months. 
Petrie said that the final straw motivating him to resign was 
the accusation by UN colleagues in Kinshasa that he had 
ghost-written the USG non-paper on the humanitarian crisis in 
the DRC. 
 
 
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"Pacification"--A Question of Definition 
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4. (C) A Goma-based UNHCR officer told Econoff that, in 
recognition of the need to promote tolerance, the UN had 
finally adopted a policy requiring that all development 
projects contain a human rights component.  He referred to 
this as a pacification campaign, and was surprised to be told 
that, for an American, "pacification" implied encouraging the 
population to accept the RCD/Rwandan administration.  For him 
pacification referred to relations within the community of 
Congolese civilians. 
 
 
5. (C) Conflicting interpretations of the word pacification 
symbolize the gulf between the UN's Goma officers and their 
colleagues in Kinshasa.  Officers in Goma generally agree 
that the current war is fundamentally a Rwandan invasion, and 
that the RCD is a largely incompetent and extremely unpopular 
puppet regime.  They believe, however, that there are ethnic 
differences (such as the Hema-Lendu conflict) which, though 
they may have been aggravated by the war, long predate it. 
They believe that a combination of development projects and 
"pacification" can help communities of Congolese to live 
together peacefully, both in the current context and longer 
term. 
 
 
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NGOs and Politics 
----------------- 
 
 
6. (C) Bukavu civil society is a prime candidate for this 
human rights training, according to most UN officers in Goma. 
 They repeatedly told econoff that the RCD's ban on political 
parties has turned politicians into NGO leaders.  Purported 
human rights NGOs in Bukavu really pursue political agendas, 
and these often include ethnically divisive policies.  Petrie 
noted that the Swedes and the Dutch have stopped funding 
Bukavu's civil society organizations for this reason.  The 
UNHCR representative said he was trying to convince Human 
Rights NGO's that they should preserve their credibility and 
stop publishing undocumented and often wildly inflated 
accounts of violations, such as the Katagota massacre.  (He 
said that he believed a serious massacre of perhaps 40 
civilians had indeed occurred at Katagota, but that civil 
society undermined its own interests by publishing accounts 
claiming up to 400 victims.)  UN officers also believe that 
political activism in Bukavu is exacerbating the economic 
deprivation of residents of South Kivu by, for example, 
declaring lengthy general strikes (villes mortes) which close 
the markets in which many of the poor earn their daily living. 
 
 
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A Plea for Roads 
---------------- 
 
 
7. (C) Many of Econoffs Goma interlocutors, including UN 
officers, said they believe the international community 
should put more resources into road reconstruction in the 
Kivus.  They believe better roads will immediately improve 
the economic situation of rural communities by providing 
access to markets, and that reducing economic deprivation 
will reduce ethnic rivalry for scarce resources.  They also 
believe that reducing the isolation of ethnically homogeneous 
communities will promote tolerance. 
 
 
 
 
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Comment 
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8. (C) From a distance, and with the cultural baggage of a 
typical American, the resistance of Bukavu's civil society is 
an admirable and appropriate response to occupation.  Calls 
for road-building and pacification campaigns sound like 
collaboration.  The near-unanimous and sincere arguments put 
forward by UN officers in Goma, however, merit attention. 
They at least suggest that, while currently focusing on 
initiatives to end the Congo war, the international community 
needs to prepare itself for a long and deep involvement in 
the reconstruction of the Congo once the war is over.  In the 
short term, however, ending the war remains the sine qua non 
for resolving the Congo crisis. 
SWING