[Zaire] Message to the Netherlands

[JJSmithJr]

Private and Encrypted

From the Zairian Minister of Foreign Affairs: Laurent-Désiré Kabila
To the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs: Maximiliaan Theunissen

Mr. Theunissen,

I am reaching out to you on behalf of the people of Zaire, while my government has finally brought about a level of peace and stability within the nation, there is still much work to be done, the Dutch nation has a long history has great humanitarians and traders, your people have brought prosperity across the globe, and in turn you have brought prosperity home with you as well. My government is committed to the expansion of prosperity and peace within the Congo, however we are in urgent need of technical experts, professors, educators, and many other professional fields. It is my governments work that we may work with your government to negotiate an agreement by which Dutch technical experts and other experts we are in need of will be sent to Zaire to help train the next generation of Zairian experts, so that we may take the steps towards becoming a self sufficient and first class nation state.

We are hopeful that fruitful negotiations will take place and we look forward to hearing back from your ministry on the best way to move forward to reach such an agreement.

Dutchy

 

[Dutchy]

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Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Kingdom of the Netherlands​

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Recipient: Laurent-Désiré Kabila, Minister of Foreign Affairs, United State of Zaire (JJSmithJr)
Cc: Maximiliaan Theunissen, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of the Netherlands
Subject: International Development
Classification: SECURE

Minister,

We welcome the return of the United State of Zaire to the international community and is pleased to see the return of peace and stability within your nation. The Netherlands is always eager to support developing nations and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a sizeable international aid and development budget at its disposal. If you wish, we can arrange a meeting between yourself and the Dutch Ambassador to Zaire to discuss possible points of cooperation.

Another point I wish to discuss is that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs currently has no record of any accredited embassy of the United State of Zaire within the Netherlands. Unless our information is incorrect or out of date, we are willing to assist your government in the process of establishing a fully accredited embassy within the Netherlands.

Yours Sincerely,

Noor Alink
Secretary of State for Trade & International Development

 

[JJSmithJr]

Private and Encrypted

From the Zairian Minister of Foreign Affairs: Laurent-Désiré Kabila
To the Dutch Secretary of State for Trade and International Development: Noor Alink
CC to the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs: Maximiliaan Theunissen

Thank you for the warm message, we are very happy to hear of your willingness to work with us, and I would most welcome a meeting with the Dutch Ambassador in Kinshasa, I am available at his earliest convenience, our plan is obviously multifaceted and constantly evolving as the situation within Zaire and the Congo changes often. Our current focus is around securing clean water, transit, and education, both technical experts and educators to help bring up to speed our own population on how to manage these systems, but also investment and direct implementation of infrastructure improvement within Zaire.

As for the establishment of an official embassy within the Netherlands, My government would most urgently and most gracious accept your assistance in the establishment of a fully accredited embassy within the Netherlands.

Further, my government has just received confirmation that we have negotiated the delivery of clean water bottles and other foodstuffs from Belgium, this will be delivered to Kinshasa, and then distributed to the areas of most need, however, our own security forces are going through a rather major overhaul following the Second Congo War, and as such, we worry that simply dumping a billion gallons of clean water into the system a month without taking steps to ensure it is secure could cause rioting, and the rise of war lords, we would also like to include in the upcoming negotiations the possibility of a tri nation security force consisting of Dutch, Belgian, and Zairian security forces to ensure the safe distribution of water to those who need it most.

Dutchy

 

[Dutchy]

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Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Kingdom of the Netherlands​

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Recipient: Laurent-Désiré Kabila, Minister of Foreign Affairs, United State of Zaire (JJSmithJr)
Cc: Maximiliaan Theunissen, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of the Netherlands
Subject: International Development
Classification: SECURE

Minister,

I'll ensure that the Ambassador Tim Smits is dispatched to your office as soon as he is brought up to speed on the situation. He is fully authorised to discuss any points of negotiation, though he will have to relay any draft plan or agreement back to The Hague for verification from the government.

Minister Theunissen is currently hosting a peace summit between the Kingdom of Belgium and the High Kingdom of France, therefore any Dutch participation will have to be conducted on a bilateral basis, as it is essential my government maintains its position as a neutral mediator in the conflict. The Netherlands is of course however willing to assist with the deployment of a security force to assist in a humanitarian and peacekeeping capacity. This is something that may be further discussed between yourself and the Ambassador.

In regards to the establishment of an embassy, we are aware that your government maintains a contact embassy in The Hague at Koninginnegracht 60. We are willing to grant this establishment to authorisation to become a fully accredited embassy and for your government to appoint an Ambassador to the Netherlands.

Yours Sincerely,

Noor Alink
Secretary of State for Trade & International Development

 

[JJSmithJr]

Private and Encrypted

From the Zairian Minister of Foreign Affairs: Laurent-Désiré Kabila
To the Dutch Secretary of State for Trade and International Development: Noor Alink
CC to the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs: Maximiliaan Theunissen

Excellent, I look forward to fruitful discussions with Ambassador Tim Smits, and I certainly am grateful at the rapid nature of the response of your government to our requests.

We certainly understand your position and desire to remain as neutral mediators, and as such will ensure that any security operation to ensure that the water is conducted on a bilateral basis, I am certain that the details can be ironed out at the meeting as well.

As for the Embassy in the Netherlands, we eagerly accept the credentials offered for accreditation of the facility at Koninginnegracht 60, and my Ministry offers Ambard Balalahe as the official Ambassador for the United State of Zaire to the Kingdom of the Netherlands


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At the Zairian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a private meeting room would be prepared, assistance would ensure it was secured and would prepare snacks and beverages for the Dutch Ambassador for when he arrived. The Guards at the door and gate would be alerted to the impending arrival of the Dutch Ambassador and would be ordered to quickly and politely show him inside. A Secretary would then guide him to the Private Room when he arrived as well as alert Laurent Kabila that his guest was here.

Dutchy

 

[Dutchy]

All the diplomatic correspondence had been forwarded to the Office of the Ambassador, who quickly brought himself up to speed on the range of issues he was most likely to discuss with the Foreign Minister. Once he had finished reading and his staff had gathered all the documents which he might require during the talks, he headed out the front of the embassy and stepped into the waiting diplomatic vehicle.

The vehicle made its way to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and upon arriving at the gate both the ambassador and the driver offered their identification for verification. When led into the private meeting room the Ambassador would wait patiently for the arrival of the Minister. Upon his entry, the Ambassador would extend his hand in a formal greeting, "Minister, I am Ambassador Tim Smits, it is a true pleasure to meeting with you today to discuss future cooperation between our two nations."

JJSmithJr

 

[JJSmithJr]

Minister Kabila, upon notification of the Dutch Ambassador's arrival, would leave his office for the prepared private meeting room, arriving shortly after the Ambassador he would shut the door behind them and shake the man's hand.

"Ambassador Smits, I am Laurent-Désiré Kabila, Vice President of Zaire, and Foreign Minister, it is a pleasure to meet with you today, and I am most hopeful that our discussion begin a noble and mutually beneficial bilateral relationship. Please sit."

Kabila would gesture to a seat at the table before taking his own seat, opposite of the Ambassador. He would pour himself a cup of Kivu Congo Coffee, the aroma's filling the room.

"May I get you some coffee, sir? I assure you it is the best in the world, sourced locally from the Kivu province, a proud industry, which is in desperate need of stabilization. If you are settled in and prepared, I can lay out the first phase of my government's ambitious plans to bring Zaire into modernity, and you can then lay out the areas you see as the greatest concern and the areas where you believe your government could lend the most fruitful aid."

Dutchy

 

[Dutchy]

After greeting the Vice President, Ambassador Smits took his place at the table and graciously accepted the offered beverage, "Yes, please. I must admit one of the many positives of being posted here in Kinshasa is the great coffee."

After taking a careful sip of the wonderful coffee the Ambassador looked up, "Please proceed Mr Vice President, I am most eager to come to understand your government's plans and policies."

JJSmithJr

 

[JJSmithJr]

Kabila would smile graciously, reaching into his briefcase, he would pull out a folder and open it, displaying several photographs between the two men.

"Thank you very much sir, we take much pride in our products in Zaire, and we hope that you have enjoyed your time so far in Kinshasa. Things have been very difficult in Zaire as of late, the Second Congo War, having only recently concluded devastated this nation. The unification of the government and the return to stability under the rule of the party, has been the only anti corruption force in the nation. While many foreign observers may find our political situation less than ideal, stability is what the people of the Congo need, and of that we can all agree.

Our new government already has established a record of anti-corruption within the nation, and we intend to keep up our crusade against corruption at all levels, I myself oversaw the prosecution of the former Finance Minister for embezzlement, a move that largely stabilized Zaire, and allowed for the ushering in of this new Era in the Mobutu government. This peaceful and anti corruption based revolution must be protected, lest Zaire descend into the dictatorial and kleptocratic chaos we now see from Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

To this end my government is not foolish, we know that we cannot isolate and create skeptics of the outside world, we must work with the world powers and we must seek aid from those who are willing to give it.

The most pressing physical issue facing our nation is actually a two fold issue. The fresh water crisis in Zaire currently keeps 40% of our population without easy access to clean drinking water. This is obviously a massive health and humanitarian crisis, and one our government is most motivated to alleviate immediately, however in researching how best to fix this problem for the long term, we came across a major roadblock that must be addressed first.

The installation of wells, and water infrastructure, the upgrading of the water piping system and the water sanitation system, the maintenance of these systems, all of this requires access to the places that these systems need to be built by the technicians that must build and maintain them. We lack the transit infrastructure to adequately ensure the movement of technicians to areas of need should a failure in our new water system occur. We lack the transit infrastructure to reliably get to the places that need these water systems the most. We lack the technicians to train technicians to maintain and build them, and we lack the technicians and experts needed to build the transit system needed to create a water system that actually functions for the long term.

We therefore have decided that our first priority, alongside the retraining and reorganization of the Zairian National Police, is to be the renovation and construction of a modern rail and road system within Zaire. Currently Zaire possesses just 35 kilometres of paved road for every 1,000,000 citizens, this is the lowest ratio in Africa, we would like to invite Dutch transit experts to meet with our own transit experts to complete a rail and road system that would see this ratio changed to 3,500-4,500 kilometres of paved road for every 1,000,000 citizens."

Dutchy

 

[Dutchy]

"I have followed the affairs of your nation with a close eye since my appointment as Ambassador. My government can understand the short-term need for a one-party system of government while your nations attempts to rebuild. Though, it is of course our wish to witness your nation slowly transform to a beacon of prosperity on the African continent, hopefully including the guarantee of human rights and a strong and stable democratic system of government. Once again, we understand this cannot simply be done in the blink of an eye which is why we hope that close bilateral cooperation between our nations will pave the path to that goal."

"The Dutch transit system is explicitly designed for a large population within a small territory, with transit designs prioritising public transportation, cyclist and pedestrians rather than motor vehicles. I believe that your nation requires the exact opposite, as your nation has a much smaller population density. While we are willing to support the idea of cooperation between transit experts, I am unsure how effective this partnership would be."

"However, I believe the Netherlands would be able to assist this endeavour through different means. The Dutch tertiary educational system is world renowned for being at the top of their fields. I would like to propose the creation of an educational institution in Kinshasa that will work closely with universities back in the Netherlands, we could look at promoting the exchange professors and students and have them conduct semesters abroad here in Zaire. This should promote bilateral culture exchange, scientific knowledge and hopefully educate the next generation of Zairian experts to lead this country to greatness."

JJSmithJr

 

[JJSmithJr]

"We are happy to hear this sir, and we are eager to work towards a more Western styled system as our infrastructure, and especially our education system improves, the large scale ending of prosecutions based on religion and political activism have been big steps recently within Zaire to move us towards a much more open and reasonable system of government. This mixed with the anti corruption focus of the party is achieving results.

Such small network, high population density transit systems will be useful in Zaire in certain areas, especially here in the capitol of Kinshasa. Kinshasa could do with much city planning, as it lacks basically any reasonable public transit. We would be most interested in the construction of a metro system for Kinshasa, either above or below ground, as well as to hear your plans especially around how we can encourage bicycle commuting within our urban areas.

When it comes to the tertiary educational system, we would be honored to receive support from the Netherlands. At our three largest Public Universities; The University of Kinshasa, The University of Kisangani, and The University of Lubumbashi, we would be eager to organize an active exchange system, bringing Dutch educators to our universities and sending Zairian students to Dutch Universities would indeed have a profound impact on our nation. To this end how many students would your system be willing to accept?"

Dutchy

 

[JJSmithJr]

Dutchy

 

[Dutchy]

"I will inform the Ministry of Economic Affairs to begin attempting to form a delegation of experts from all the sectors of interest."

"In regards to international students, admission to Dutch that will truly depend on their academic scores. However, conducting a semester abroad will be easier and can be discussed on a bilateral level between the universities, I will ensure that any deal will result in support from the Immigration and Naturalisation Service when it comes to requesting visas. Another way to encourage education is with the construction of a new university in Kinshasa. This university could then host Dutch and other international academic professors who could teach Zairian students in their own nation."

JJSmithJr