 Please, Mr. President, thank you all. Please have a seat, and thank you all for coming. On a rainy day in Washington, it, but it does not diminish the high energy in this room when we're so glad that you can all come. And this is a very exciting day and an important day. I think it was maybe nine months ago, six months ago when we, we hosted, he was not quite President Oduar at the time. We hosted him on a telephone conference call. He, he called in, he was under duress, held up in a hotel room, and, but he was here with us virtually, and of course he ignited an excitement in the room and in Washington that still is here. And it's thrilling, really, to welcome him personally. And we're just so delighted that the President is with us. This has been a historic and monumental trajectory for Côte d'Ivoire, and not always certain, but filled with hope, and today we are celebrating the hope. And it's wonderful that we have this opportunity. My name is John Hamry. I'm the President of CSIS, and we are fortunate to be the one of the hosts. We are using our space, but we have four other colleagues that are deeply involved in the, in bringing the President here. I would like to especially say thank you to our friends at the National Democratic Institute at the Center for American Progress at the National Endowment for Democracy and for Côte d'Ivoire Watch. These are important friends that have made this possible. We're delighted that you are all here, and we look forward to hearing from the President. I would like to turn this over now to Jennifer Cook. She heads the Africa program, done a tremendous job with us, and her commitment to the success of this day and the success of your presidency coming to Washington is unparalleled. Jennifer, why don't you get us started for real? Thank you, Dr. Hamry, and I just want to echo Dr. Hamry's, in welcoming you to CSIS and our co-sponsoring institutions, which he listed. I also want to say a big thanks to Farha Tahir and the Africa program team and others at CSIS for pulling this together and working so hard. Let me turn now briefly to our guest of honor, President Alessandro Manuatara. You heard the cries of Ado out in the hallway there. Mr. President, on behalf of CSIS, we'd really like to welcome you warmly here to Washington. This time in person, as Dr. Hamry said last time, it was just a big picture of you up here and your voice. It was a very tense and uncertain moment. At that time, obviously, the priority was to resolve that immediate electoral standoff. Resolution took, I think, a lot longer than many people anticipated, probably much longer than you would have wished. But I think in retrospect that the forging of that strong international consensus on Côte d'Ivoire, the gradual layering on of regional and international pressures and ultimately the exhaustion of really every diplomatic avenue before the resort to forceful resolution. I think that was very important in principle, in legitimation, and also, I think, practically, in averting what could have been, I think, a much more protracted and bloody confrontation. We should keep in mind that the Ivoire in crisis didn't begin with the election standoff, nor did it end with the election standoff. Social, economic, and political divisions have longstanding roots. These divisions have deepened over time through economic decline, malgovernance, manipulation by self-serving elites, and ultimately civil war. And the standoff and the post-election violence that left 3,000 Ivorians dead have only served to deepen distrust and animosity. President Huatara and his government face enormous challenges going forward. In reestablishing security, perhaps first and foremost, integrating, demobilizing security forces, working with regional partners on cross-border violence. The greatest challenge, though, I think will be that of reconciliation, rebuilding trust, restoring confidence in the social compact that binds citizens, communities, and the government to one another. Rebuilding faith in a government that works transparently and accountably to serve the interests of the Ivorian people, that's gonna be at the work, I think, of many decades, in fact. More immediately, the questions of accountability and ending impunity for all those involved in the political violence is gonna be paramount importance. Upcoming parliamentary elections are critically important in rebuilding truly national institutions that give Ivorians a voice. And these elections are gonna require the goodwill of Ivorians of all political affiliation and the good faith effort, and I think the support and attention of international community, as well. And, finally, this major challenge of rebuilding security and trust at the local level among communities and civilians that have really borne the brunt of violence, economic hardship, and insecurity for so long now. So, there's a long list of priority challenges. Interesting in the talk before, you're also thinking about the big opportunities ahead for Cote d'Ivoire, rebuilding regional relationships, regional economy, rebuilding the Ivorian economy, but integrated with that much broader strength of the region. So, Mr. President, we look forward to hearing from you on progress and plans and addressing these challenges. Opportunities ahead, we're honored to have you here, and I'd like to welcome you to the podium. Thanks very much. Well, actually, Madame Jennifer made my work easy. You said everything, so. I can't move on to taking questions, actually. Well, thank you very much, and of course, I remember it was in February, wasn't it, when you had me on a telephone conversation with people here, and it was a very tense moment, as you said, because we were at the Gulf Hotel, and I remember the day before you called my junior's chief of staff told me that there would be, we did not have food the previous day, and on that day, we should not have had electricity. So, finally, we got electricity, and we were able to move on to the discussion. Well, thanks all, and I'm happy to be here. Côte d'Ivoire has gone through very difficult times. I think not only over the past six months of the post-electrical crisis, but nearly for a decade, because the country was under poor leadership, and unfortunately, we did not have democratic elections in 2000, and this led to a rebellion and to discussions which actually, agreements which were never fully implemented until we finally got to the presidential election. And then, we thought things had ended. Unfortunately, the post-electrical crisis was worse. As Madame Cooke said, about 3,000 people were killed, a lot of destruction, both in Abidjan and inside the country. So, the morale of the people very low, and clearly, many people had fled the country. Refugees, I've already had refugees, about 200,000 in neighboring countries. For us, this was so painful because when I was Prime Minister, Côte d'Ivoire was receiving refugees from Liberia. We had received half a million Liberian refugees, so it took a lot of money to feed them, to help them, and so, in a way, it was our turn. One million people were displaced domestically, especially in Abidjan, in specific districts, where you had a large concentration of people from the center and the northern part of the country. So, when President Babo was caught, the situation was quite difficult because we needed to install security, peace, and at the same time, we had to embark on reconciliation and, of course, reconstruction. And on getting security, there's took quite a bit of time. The major reason was that when the first novel came to Abidjan, in our view, when we invited them in, we thought they would be coming for a week and then they would leave. But having discovered Abidjan with the lights, big streets, and the movie theaters, maquis, the bars, you know, so they said, well, after all, it will be a good thing to stay a few months. And so, getting them to return to the northern part of the country has not been easy, and an additional problem was that actually when they came to Abidjan, many people of the regular army really did not want to fight for various reasons either. They did not share what Babo was doing or they were afraid. So they just got rid of their uniform and boots and then went home. And the prison was broken, and so 6,000 prisoners left the prisons and some of them, many of them took the clothes of the military. You have young people also in Abidjan, about 20,000 of them got hold of guns and uniforms. So when you hear that the Republican army is doing this or that, it's not the army, but it's essentially all these people who took the uniforms. So getting them to under control was not easy. But I think now it's almost done. We have incidents here and there from time to time. Every morning, the Minister of Interior, the Prime Minister, gives me the number of hold ups or problems. So this morning I was told that we only had one hold up in Abidjan last night. So for a city of 6 million people, so that's not too bad. I don't think you do that better in Washington. So when different radios talk about this, of course it's helpful to us and we try to see how we can improve the situation. So now Abidjan is peaceful. The country is peaceful. We have removed mercenaries and militias from the Côte d'Ivoire, but they're in Liberia. They're in Liberia and are at the border. And this is an original issue to us. We had a meeting with Sir Liv Johnson and Jonathan Atamil's compaurean wad 10 days ago, 2 weeks ago in Abuja to try to develop a system of making sure that elections in Liberia would be peaceful and that the mercenaries would be controlled. So on the security front, I think the border with Liberia is still a problem, but we're dealing with it. The other element on security is with our neighbor Ghana, where a lot of many refugees are from former ministers, former high-ranking officials in the army or in the administration, and they felt that they probably could organize some type of rebellion from Ghana, but they probably did not realize that Atamil is a very wise person and he's been very cooperative. I think he's the president I talked most over the past four months. We talked to each other every week, twice a week, three times a week. So he's been dealing with this properly. He's the one who sent in Côte d'Ivoire, the members of the Constitutional Court, to proceed with the swearing-in. He encouraged many of the colonel's generals to return because he said that he would not allow a rebellion to be organized from Ghana. He still has about 15,000 refugees in Ghana. In fact, my security minister is in Ghana today to prepare my visit there next week. On October 6th, I will be in Ghana to continue these discussions with President Atamil. So that all this leads to a question of reconciliation. We need to go forward with that. For me, this is important. I think it's a priority. My responsibility is fully engaged. I think in a society like that of Côte d'Ivoire, what the President says is important. That's why I've been really preaching reconciliation, unity, solidarity. And I think this is taking hold. Unfortunately, for 10 years or more, my predecessor really just gave in division, hatred. And this has had some impact. So the process will be long, but will determine. And I believe we will get there. The commission has been formed. The members have been appointed. I can give you details in a few minutes if you're interested. And we will inaugurate the commission on September 28th in Yamsokro. And from there, they will start working formally. But they have been working already. Now, of course, you have the commission for dialogue, reconciliation, truth and reconciliation. But at the same time, I tell everyone that the rule of law should be respected. You cannot have a country where you don't have justice on the rule of law. Trials have been going on. Those who have been found guilty have been condemned, including Laurent Babot and his wife for corruption, for what we call economic crimes. They have been indicted. So they should be in prison, but for humanitarian reasons in consideration with their previous status and for dignity of the functional president. They have been in a large, comfortable house, both for them. So until the process continues, because for whatever concerns human crime, assassinations and so forth, we prefer the ICC to deal with that. We don't know what the results will be. Because if we were to do it in Kodiwa, I think it will create a lot of patience and it will be a passionate trial. It could divide further Ivorians. So I think also whatever the result is to get Babot in jail, people will think it's not fair. So I prefer to have a transparent trial with the International Criminal Court. So this process is going on. And we do hope that they'll accept to move ahead with that. On the question of balance and partiality, this is obvious to me that no one is above the law or any cold treatment is not acceptable. So it will be, the justice is the same for all. We have disarmed many of the FRCE, the true ones that we have found. The military tribunal is dealing with them. And so there is no problem. But what is difficult to move on is some of the killings which have had a lot of publicity. Like in the western part of the country, in Djokwe, where a hundred people were killed, or in Yopugo. There, of course, association like human rights, amnesty, say, well, you have to condemn people of FRC. You have to condemn this and that group. I have no problem with that. But I think it would be unfair to also go on trial without knowing the facts. So that's why I've set up National Commission of Inquiry to look at all these issues. We have six months to do this. And we'll come with the results of the investigation. On that basis, people who should face trial will face trial. And those who are condemned will go to jail. So I wanted to assure you that we're for justice, free unfair for all as well. On the army, we've made a lot of progress. We've been able to integrate the two forces, the new forces and the regular army. But it's a lot of people. So we have to go on with a demobilization program, which costs a lot of money, because Godiwara, with 22 million people, cannot have an army of 60,000 people. So we need to cut it by half. And so that means the other half have to be demobilized and this costs money. But at least in terms of hierarchy and the appointments I've been very, very vigilant and very keen on making sure that when you have number one from the new forces, number two is from the regular army. This is the same in the Marine, in the Air Force, in the paramilitary, in the police, all the way down. So we make sure that you have a balance, you have integration. And I think this has worked well. We're working together. It's difficult because a few months ago we were fighting each other. Sometimes we fight each other during exercises in the barracks. But that's better than having guns to shoot at each other. So we're making progress there too. And finally on the economic front, the situation has improved substantially during my inauguration in May. The IMF mission had thought that the decline in GDP would have been close to 10%. Last week they said the projection is a decline of about 5%. But most importantly they have a projection of, for next year, 2012, projection of a growth of 8% to 9%. So that's really a rebound which shows the efficiency of the economic management. We have very, very early put up a social program to help with providing water, electricity, medication, free medicine to the poorest in the public health centers, repairing roads. We have started on large projects like building the Fairbridge, starting highway programs. We're ambitious in having a highway from Yamsokro to Ouagadougou. The railroad continuing on to Niger, hydroelectric plant in Soubra in the western part of the country. The railroad to connect us with Guinea and Mali. So all these projects will have an important impact on the growth rate and also on employment because employing youth is a priority for us. The youth have been manipulated by the previous regime because of the lack of employment. So we have to make sure that they're better educated and they get jobs. So, Madame Cougvis, there are some of the elements I wanted to give you on the security, the military, the reconciliation and the economic front. On the diplomatic developments, we have really embarked on an aggressive diplomacy to get Côte d'Ivoire accepted by our neighbors because of the division within the country that we had, the problems, the violence. This touched on Africans who lived in Côte d'Ivoire and you have about 20% of the population of Côte d'Ivoire are from countries Mali, Burkina, Faso, Senegal, Ghana, Nigeria, Mauritania. So the relationship with the neighboring countries, it was quite tough, tense and mistrust, but we worked very hard on that. I visited several countries, Senegal, Burkina. My first official visit after inauguration was in Nigeria. And next week, as I said, I'm going to Ghana, thereafter I'll be going to Mali and then to Togo, Benin and so forth. So we want to, and I have a state visit in France in May, December. In July here, we were invited by President Obama and I have invitations from a series of several countries, Lebanon, Morocco, Israel, China. So we want to show that we're open to the world and that we want Côte d'Ivoire to play the role it played 20 years ago. Because 20 years ago, Côte d'Ivoire was not only at peace, it was preaching peace and it was participating in getting peace to other countries and regions of the world. People forget sometimes the role we played during the time of apartheid. Côte d'Ivoire finance gave scholarship to mostly all the young South Africans during the time of apartheid. I saw that in the files of the presidency, we paid hospital bills for many of them and so forth during the time of apartheid. We played an important role between Israel and Palestine and so the country had a prestige and a contribution 20, 30 years ago which had disappeared. So our objective is to get Côte d'Ivoire back again and so we'd be counting on the U.S. and all our friends to help us in this process and so I'm ready for your questions. Thank you. Chris from Munoz who is director of African programs at the National Democratic Institute and together with Sophia Mostrup who is kind of the mover and shaker behind this event is going to facilitate and offer remarks. Thank you very much Jennifer, thank you very much for your excellency for those very enlightening and very informative remarks. President Watera has graciously accepted to take a few questions for the time that we have left. We don't have much time but we're going to try to accommodate as many people as we can. We will ask that you be very brief in your questions, probably keep it to one question per person, introduce yourself and your affiliation as well. To set the ball rolling on this Mr. President I probably should ask the first question. Take my opportunity before the audience takes it off because I remember in early December when the NDI Contradictor in Côte d'Ivoire and myself came to visit with you at the Gulf Hotel and the crisis had just begun and we were very concerned about your personal safety and we were worrying for you but in that conversation I was very struck by the fact that you didn't even think about yourself. All you talked to us about that evening was laying out your vision for Côte d'Ivoire and a very positive vision of that and I noticed that this morning in your remarks you laid out the same very positive message and you made it look so simple to have accomplished what you've accomplished in the past four months in all of the sectors that you've listed. Security sector reform, the economy, peace and reconciliation and diplomacy on the continent and even beyond. So my question to you is what is it about you in person and about Ivorian society that gives you reason to be very confident about the vision that you have for the country based on what you've experienced in the past four months of being in office? Thank you. Well, I think clearly I agree with all modesty that we have achieved a lot over the past four months because the government was put in place on July 1, on June 1, so that's four months now. The basic tribute is ready to the Ivorian people because after so much suffering the violence could have continued. But what I discovered, well, not discovered but I was confirmed in my vision that Ivorians are peaceful people and that really the lack of peace, the berth of violence was something intolerable and once this came people got back to work, really. I think I was told that when my predecessor was in office people used to go to work between 10 and 11 and that today you have roadblocks at around 7.30 because everyone knows the president goes to work at 7.30. So people are really happy to be at work and to be working and we've had also of course a lot of support from our friends from the international community. So basically it's important for each one of us to think that for a limited period you can have the honor to make a contribution to your country. I tell my staff here, especially these two young people sitting there, CD and Maseré, that my philosophy is that every day, sometimes they're even very, very young, they tell me, President, you work too hard. I said, well, you know, my philosophy is that every day I work as if it will be my last day of work. And in my thinking, this term is the term in which I want to put Codival back on track. So the rest is not very important. So I think it's work, work, work, and work. Thank you very much, Mr. President. We'll take two questions at a time and we'll start with the middle role and I see Benedict as the hand up. Thank you. My name is Benedict Paolo and I'm from the Africa Society and a member of Cote d'Ivoire Watch. I want to add my congratulations to that of everyone in this audience for all that you've achieved in the past four months. My question goes to the heart of the statement that you made about security and its correlation with investment. I would just like to know if all the foreign entities who were previously in Cote d'Ivoire have resumed their operations at full tilt. And whether the call that you have made when you were in the United States now, your second time to the United States, investors in the United States, if you're seeing some response to that call and opening up new sectors with new investors. Thank you. Thank you, Benedict. Dave, did I see your hand up? Okay. The National Endowment for Democracy. We're very proud to have supported the work of NDI and many civil society organizations for human rights and democracy in Cote d'Ivoire. I have a fairly simple question, I think. Could you comment on the concept of Ivorite, the role it played in the Ivorian crisis and its future? Thank you, David. Mr. President, you would respond to those two before we take two more. Yes. Well, first, on the security and development. Actually, this morning I had the opportunity to deliver a speech on security and economic development at the think tank of the Congressional Black Caucus. And I appealed to the American companies to come to invest in Cote d'Ivoire. And I think many have returned, of course, in the oil field, in mining. In fact, I met one chairman of a big company. They were having a lot of problems before for various reasons, corruption, ideology, and part of the previous regime and the like, suspicion. But I think now they realize that the government officials are completely available and at work. So I'm confident that more companies will be coming. Also in the agricultural sector, we had representatives of big chocolate companies. We're going to meet this afternoon, Secretary of Labor, to talk about this problem of child labor, to indicate that these are problems of the past. So they should look at the progress we're making in tackling these issues. So I'm confident on the private sector side of the U.S. involvement, the problem is because of various reasons and problems. The contribution of the U.S. government. Of course, the contribution was immense in terms of diplomacy, politics, support. President Obama talked to me twice during this crisis and his ambassador came to see us at the Gulf Hotel two, three times a week. Sometimes by road, sometimes by air, sometimes by boat. He used all means to really very close to us and supportive. But on the financial side, the amounts have been small. I think there is an amount on HIV fighting HIV which has been enlarged a bit from 100 million to 130 million. But we're hoping with the admission and eligibility of Codivar and Agoa and also on the MCC that the U.S. will have an important contribution financially. Obviously, the U.S. is a member of the IMF, World Bank, African Development Bank. I know they have given very positive messages to these institutions and they have been helping. The IMF has moved very fast to the World Bank also, the African Development Bank. So basically, we'd like the U.S., we thank the U.S. for what is being done but of course we'd like them to do more, like them to do more. But the private sector is coming very big and we're very happy about that. Now on the question of citizenship, again this morning I addressed this issue. It's a fundamental issue in Codivar. It's not easy. As I said, about 20% of people living in Codivar are from over-African countries. So that's 5 million people, 5 million over-Africans. And many of them don't know any other country. They have never gone to Mali or to Burkina or to Senegal or to Mauritania. So during the previous regime, the problem of division among Ivorians really slapped over them, splashed over them. And so we need to address the citizenship question and we hope to have parliamentary elections on December 11th. So I hope next year in parliament we'll have a debate on this issue and try to take experience of what is being done elsewhere, especially in the United States. Because if someone's father and grandfather have been in Codivar since the 19th century, I've never gone anywhere else, does not know any other country. And continuing to treat that person as a foreigner is completely stupid in my view. But I cannot be the only one to decide. I do think it's important to review this matter and also to have a consensus on it, because there have been such a misuse of this concept that it brings fear among citizens, which is not good. Because in the western part of the country, sometimes if someone is from the center of Codivar, they consider that that person is a foreigner. Or if it's on the north, that's even farther, then he's really a foreigner in their mind. So we have to really address these issues and we have to do it squarely. And once we have that behind us, I mentioned earlier that this will also be a solution to the land issue, which is very important. Obviously ownership depends on citizenship. So once we can address these two issues in the next years, Codivar will be a very, very peaceful place in my view, because these were the reasons of turmoil and the violence. Thank you very much, Your Excellency. Let me take the lady right here on the third row. Excellent. You're welcome. Ado. My name is Deirdre Le Pen. I'm at the University of Pennsylvania and visited Codivar very frequently many years ago. You mentioned youth and unemployment and the need to pay attention to the demobilized youth in particular. This, of course, is an issue in many parts of Africa and Codivar may offer some examples to other countries. I wondered if you had been thinking about developing any particular strategies or programs to meet this challenge. Thank you, Deirdre. Anyone else from the left? Viviane Derek, right here. Good afternoon. My name is Viviane Lowry Derek. I'm at Codivar Watch, which is a project of the Bridges Institute. First of all, just thank you so much, Mr. President, for coming and meeting with Civil Society because it's truly an acknowledgement of the partnership that we feel with Codivar. Secondly, I want to thank you for the leadership that you are modeling in post-conflict situations, such as Codivar. My question is, again, one of security, particularly in the southwestern part of the country. We were all disheartened by the recent deaths there. And the Liberian election is coming up in almost three weeks in October. So I'm wondering what the specific thoughts that you have on how to really ameliorate the situation in that area. Thank you. Well, thank you very much. On youth unemployment, I think this is a crucial issue because the youth have been manipulated into violence and, in fact, the universities were closed for several years, both in the north and the south. As a result, really, the quality of training of education is very poor. So even when companies try to recruit, they do see that there is need for additional training before they can even employ the young people. We have, in our program, we have objectives, we have targets, but that's not enough. We have to have specific projects which will be used to absorb unemployment, youth unemployment. And these are some of the major projects now being implemented in the question of having a clean city in Abidjan and elsewhere. This has a lot of employment impact, the Third Bridge, the highways. So these are major projects. But we have to make also the life in the agricultural sector more attractive. This will help in getting people to stay in the regions, especially the cocoa rice production areas. And in that, we have decided to restructure the country into 12 major districts. Now we had, I don't know how many regions and so forth, 50 or so. But we want to, we have last week we had a ministerial meeting to look at this. And the objective is to have a big, a major project in each of these so-called district super regions, which will create employment and then each region will have a university, will have a hospital. So the population will be attracted to remain in that region because they have the same opportunities as coming to Abidjan. As I said, the young soldiers, when they arrive in Abidjan, they did not want to go back to the region. So this will cost quite a lot of money. On top of the demobilization efforts, which is certainly something important for everyone. But we're working on this. We have to have a full package. I've asked the prime minister to do the annualization of some of these major projects for us to know how much it will cost, the time, the lag for implementation, the amount of employment creation, what proportion for young youth employment, what proportion for women employment and so forth. So we do take this seriously. And so I'm confident that we will not be able to do everything we want, but we certainly have a strategy. We have original distribution. And so we'll see after two, three years what we have achieved. Now, on the question of security, yes, the problems of insecurity started actually in Liberia 25 years ago. And then from Liberia it spread to other countries, to Sierra Leone, to Guinea, then to Côte d'Ivoire. And now that you've had democratic elections in Sierra Leone, in Guinea, in Côte d'Ivoire, and that the mercenaries have been pushed out of Côte d'Ivoire, they will return to Liberia for most of them. So we're quite worried about this. And we met with the overhead of states under the leadership of President Jonathan of Nigeria on September 10th in Abuja to work on a scheme of protecting the electoral process in Liberia. The elections are scheduled for October 11th. So we're providing police and paramilitary surveillance of the elections. For example, Côte d'Ivoire, volunteer Côte d'Ivoire is providing the largest contingent. We're providing 280 paramilitary, 140 police. So that's 320. Nigeria is providing 280, Ghana, 300. So all the countries I've mentioned are really in to make sure that these elections are not only transparent and fair, but that they're peaceful, especially when the results come out. We will not tolerate any type of situation as in Côte d'Ivoire from either side. I think we made that clear. And now on top of that, Côte d'Ivoire has a specific problem. It's a border with Liberia. The border is 780 kilometers long. I think that's what, 500 miles. And it's an area of dense forest. So the mercenaries, sometimes they come into Côte d'Ivoire, they kill people, and then they disappear into the forest. So this requires a lot of investment in trucks, in motorbikes, of course, in all types of devices to track them. And I've just talked to the Secretary General of the UN yesterday and said that for this emergency plan for three months, we need $40 million, which we did not have in our budget. So clearly it's very costly. But since you have October, you have the election in Liberia, December 11 in Côte d'Ivoire, we need to be particularly present during these three months. And Nigeria also will send troops. So when we make a total package of this, we'll see how various countries can help us for refinancing. So obviously, Madame Derek, I count on your efforts to really tell President Obama and others that we need their support quickly. You know, if you don't have security, you will not have stability. And now, if these four countries of the Mano River are able to get democratic governments to have security and stability, it will make quite a difference in West Africa because the four countries have quite a lot of potential whether in agriculture, in mining, hydroelectric plant, iron ore, and so forth. So we're working very hard to get all the benefits of these natural resources. Thank you very much, your Excellency. Unfortunately, we've run out of time and we realize the President has got a very tight schedule. But if you don't mind, we probably can take one or two. Yes, two questions. Well, we're going to take two questions. I see Professor Tungara here and the gentleman on the third row. And then one Ivorian, Mr. President. He's Ivorian. Okay. So we have three questions and that will be it for today. So Professor Tungara. Yes, welcome to you. Good morning, Mr. President. Congratulations and thank you for coming. Jeannie Tungara, Howard University, and Côte d'Ivoire Watch. My question has to do with education. You didn't mention educational reform in your initial remarks. I'd like to know if it's business as usual for the universities, for the secondary school systems and primary, or is there something new underway? What is the new curriculum going to look like in order to create the peaceful country that we want going forward? And what opportunities will we have, certainly, to engage with Ivorian educators? And I don't know if you know it, but there have been a lot of initiatives from the White House, bilateral initiatives that are leading to a great deal of exchange between U.S. universities and countries abroad. China and Brazil, an example. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. President. My name is Pascal Fletcher. I work for Reuters News Agency. I understand the cocoa harvest this year was a particularly major factor, a successful cocoa harvest in the rebound of growth of Côte d'Ivoire, but it's been a sector that's been under some criticism the last few years. I just wonder if you could very briefly outline what you propose for that sector in terms of reform and restructuring. I understand there is a plan. And if you could give us some detail on that, I'd be grateful. Thank you. Thank you, Pascal, and the lady right here. Second row, yes. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm Kadi Turu from U.S. Pacifica Group. I just want to make a brief statement to one more question left, please. Okay. My question was, most government-organized forum on the Congress will do a very tough moment in certainty. I just want to say today we're very pleased to see the President to congratulate him. And also, this is very proud of his achievements. I'm from Côte d'Ivoire. Thank you. One more question. Well, I think we can use this opportunity to... Oh, okay. The President has graciously asked a very good question. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Artura. He was my former boss. First, I will congratulate you, sir, for winning the elections and congratulate you even more for being the President. I have two questions. One... I'm sorry. One... Okay. One question. Okay. This question will have to do with the original question, sir. What do you think of the... Being from Guinea, I have to ask the question. What do you think of the accusations that President Conde just labeled on Senegal and Gambia? Is this type of accusation conducive to stabilization in the region? Isn't this a return to the Secutura era where dangerously poisoned the relationship between Guinea and its neighbors? Thank you. Well, on the question of Madame Tungara on education reform, you know, this is really a big sector for us, as I said, because the system has completely collapsed. The difficulty in Côte d'Ivoire, as you know, is that the university was used as a center of political strategy for the former regime, both the professors and the students. And really, it's a total disaster. Now, what we have done, we have dealt with some of the high landmarks of the former regime, for example, La Sorbonne, which was a place where, you know, students, people who had been students, repeating the same class ten times, and they'll go and give speeches and so forth. Really, we closed the university, the campus, because some students had been on the campus for 15 years. They did not have their bachelor degree, and they had formed a syndicate, and they used to really confiscate rooms, board rooms, I mean bedrooms of the students, and sublet it to people outside who were not students, all types of things. So we closed the campuses. In my program, I have promised reconstruction of five universities in five years, but before that, what I told the minister of education and the minister of higher education to really get a proper strategy of educational reform. They're working on it, and clearly it's a priority, but we cannot open the universities until we know what we want to do for the future. We're being criticized for not opening the universities and so forth, but my position is that we have to text talk, we have to know what we want to repair, and then we will implement our strategy. So I can tell you this is a priority for us now, and if you're willing to come and help us, I'll be very happy. Now on the co-co-sector reform, well, I'd like not to really go into this because it's one of the points of conditionality for the debt relief. So I think clearly we will have to liberalize the whole sector. We'll have to give more to the farmers. We'll have to give access to all in buying co-co and so forth. So I want to go into all these technical issues here, but come to Codivari in a month, and you'll have all the details because the Prime Minister is chairing co-co-sector reform. We have to do this by October, I hope, and October for so that the IMF Board and the IMF, the World Bank Board can examine our credit request in November. So for the question about the regional re-acquisition by my friend and brother, Alfa Condé, you've worked for me, so you know my answer. It's a domestic question. I don't want to intervene with domestic affairs in Guinea, but I've been talking to Alfa, I can tell you, but he's a good friend and I can tell him what I think of this type of position. We all want Guinea to really do what we are doing, reconciliation and really the building of a nation, and it's important to concentrate on that. I think that should be the priority. So thank you very much. Your Excellency, in fact, what you see here is just a fraction of the people who really wanted to listen to you this morning. We had to move this event a couple of times to find a room that could accommodate everybody, and we're really delighted that despite the rains, everybody has showed up. We would like to use this opportunity to thank you for making the time to visit with all of us and probably also to extract from you a commitment that the next time you're in Washington, you will make time to meet with as many people as possible because people are interested in your career, in your performance, and also in developments in Côte d'Ivoire and the future of the Ivorian people. So on behalf of my colleagues at NDI and also our sister organizations that co-sponsored this event, Côte d'Ivoire Watch, which is a coalition of civil society organizations, the Center for American Progress, the National Endowment for Democracy, and of course the Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS, we want to thank you profusely for giving us this time. We thank everybody for coming, and please ask that you join me in thanking the President one more time for his very eloquent presentation. But I cannot... No, I think Chris and Jennifer thought this would be the last word. It's not. The last word I think should come from me because NDI has been really home for me with Ken Walock. I don't see where Ken went. He left. He knew that I was going to speak about him, so Jennifer, Chris, Ken, and of course Madam Albright, I really am very, very grateful to you because you gave us visibility, you gave us advice, and you gave us support. Thanks again. Thank you. Please, we'll ask that you remain seated while we escort our honored guest, the President of the United States of America.