 Good afternoon, and welcome to the United States Institute of Peace. Today is my pleasure to welcome you to this discussion on recent developments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Great Lakes region. And to introduce our distinguished guest speaker, the U.S. Special Envoy on the Great Lakes, Senator Russ Finego. This is the second in a series of events hosted by USIP on the Great Lakes region of Africa. In mid-December, Ambassador Roger Meese, the former UN Special Representative to the Congo, shared his views on developments in the region based on his many years of service in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Today, we will hear from America's senior diplomat and envoy on the Great Lakes, Senator Russ Finego. As an institution, the United States Institute of Peace is dedicated to helping to prevent, mitigate, and resolve conflicts. And we are focused on the Great Lakes region of Africa because it has been one of the continent's most troubled and unsettled regions for the past two decades. During that time, over five million people have been killed. Tens of thousands have been uprooted and driven from their homes and thousands of innocent civilians have suffered unspeakable human rights violations. Prolonged instability has stopped economic development, contributed to the proliferation of conflict minerals, and turned one of Africa's most rich and bountiful agricultural areas into a permanent battleground. In the summer of 2013, the international community responded to a new round of destructive fighting in the Eastern Congo by strengthening the existing UN mandate, introducing a special UN intervention force, and stepping up its diplomatic engagement in the region. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, named Mary Robinson, the former Irish president, to lead the UN's diplomatic activities in the region, and Secretary of State Kerry appointed Senator Russ Fongo to represent the United States. The appointment of these two skillful and dedicated political leaders to work on the problems in the Great Lakes represents a significant new development, and it has already made a difference. It has raised the profile of the issues in the Eastern Congo and given a new burst of energy to not only stopping the violence and fighting in the region, but also defining a durable and long-lasting solution to the region's problems. This afternoon, I am extremely pleased to be able to introduce Senator Russell Fongo. I certainly can think of no better, no stronger, and no more effective envoy than the senator. Senator Fongo is one of the most principled and courageous figures in American political life today. He has always stood up for human rights and civil liberties and been willing to speak out when others have remained silent. Senator Fongo also brings a deep knowledge and understanding to his current position. Senator Fongo served on the African Subcommittee in the Senate for 18 years, six of which he chaired the committee. During that time, he successfully introduced the legislation that has allowed the U.S. to assist Uganda in tracking down LRA leader Joseph Coney, supported the full implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement that ended the conflict between South and North Sudan, and he has constantly spoken out against the systematic violence against women and girls in conflicts around the world and especially in the eastern Congo. He has also traveled to Africa on numerous occasions, and he has just recently returned from his seventh trip to the region since being appointed in June of last year. That sounds like more than one a month. We are eager to hear Senator Fongo's views on the current situation in the Great Lakes, and it is with great pleasure that I welcome Senator Fongo to the podium. Thank you. First let me congratulate USIP for its work, and I'm delighted to be able to appear here for the first time, even though I'm across the street. It's actually a thrill to see this from the inside, and I look forward to many other occasions here. It's an honor to be introduced by Ambassador Carson. He is easily one of our most distinguished diplomats in general and in particular with regard to Africa, and many, many good experiences working with the ambassador in many roles in his career, and I distinctly remember when Senator Clinton became Secretary of State. Clinton, she called me. She does not call me all the time, but it was a call, and we got along fine in the Senate, but she actually was calling me for my advice, and the advice was who should she pick as he assisted Secretary, now that she was Secretary of State, and it was the easiest agreement I ever had with Hillary Clinton, but it should be this man who should be chosen and his record in that position, of course, lived up to that, and he played a very serious role raising issues sometimes that were not easy, even in the context of the Great Lakes, and you are frequently referred to in very positive terms, and I learned a great deal from your work and your experience. He was just advising me on one aspect of the Great Lakes in a way that was enormously helpful, so the introduction was lovely, but I really hope you realize how much we appreciate your service to our country. I was called last year when I was roughing it out at Stanford Law School by the Secretary of State, and I was not eager to leave Stanford at the time. It's not a bad place in the winter, but I got a call from the Secretary of State, and of course I had served with the Secretary and also with the current President on the Foreign Relations Committee, and they knew of my interest in Africa, and I was asked whether I would consider getting involved with a position as a special envoy. We clarified later on that it was specifically about the Great Lakes, and it's something that, you know, of course when you get a call from Secretary of State, you kind of want to do what they ask, but naturally I had to feel that this was something that not only would I be interested in, but that it was a time when something could happen positively, and I had to feel that it was something I really cared about. Well in this case, neither of those things were terribly difficult. First of all, it just happens, even though I knew relatively little about Africa, even when I came to the United States Senate at age 39. I knew relatively little about Africa, in fact maybe embarrassingly little. I turned that around, but I did realize when I started thinking about this job that the countries that were most directly involved, are places that I was aware of mostly for tragic reasons because of the history, but they were not interrelated tragedies. First one I remember was nine years old when a news alert came on TV, Black and White TV, which we were happy to have. We had no color TV, but in those days the news alerts were real. It wasn't because they had to fill 24 hours of time, and the news alert was somebody, and of course as a kid you hear the name, Patrice LaMumba had been assassinated, and that kind of put something in my head that caused me to become interested and to learn of course later that we played an unfortunate role in the demise of Mr. LaMumba, and in the subsequent tragedy that has occurred so often in the denial of the ability of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to be the country it should be. So that was one aspect. In the 70s, when I was an undergraduate in law school, country that maybe we focused on all the time in international context was as being a huge problem and a disaster was Uganda because of Idi Amin. Everybody knew who Idi Amin was and everybody knew about Uganda, and naturally this was a horrendous situation that had to be resolved and it was. So I knew about Uganda, and then as when I became a new senator I would have been hard pressed to tell you in 1993 and really 1994 where Rwanda was. When you get old enough just to admit you didn't know stuff and it doesn't matter. I couldn't have told you for sure where it was, but we sure found out where it was a few months later with one of the most unspeakable horrors in human history, almost exactly 20 years ago being perpetrated within Rwanda in May, April and May of 1994. Again, a huge event that the international community knew about, but not directly related to these other countries. This situation, as I'm sure so many of you know, has to do not with ancient issues, but with issues that occurred principally as a result of that genocide, of the leaving of Rwanda, of millions of people, who too, people who left after this disaster, who including the leaders of the genocide, the Genesee dares, but also many others who created one of the biggest refugee situations of all time, but also some of the most disturbing aspects because much of the operation that had been going on in Rwanda was in some ways continued in the context of the refugee camps. It was hard to distinguish between the refugees and those who had been involved in the crimes. Well, I won't go through the whole history, but this was the beginning of somehow interrelating these tragedies and in time others sought to exploit the inability of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to govern its eastern part. The decline of Mobutu in some ways is destroying his ability, his own ability to govern the east, invited others to exploit the region. People that certainly did not want President Museveni and his regime to continue have a group in the region. The FDLR, of course, is the one that I was just, the FDLR is a successor group to the Genesee dares, is still functioning there and is still a great problem for the people of eastern Congo and considered to be a huge problem by Rwanda. In addition, as you know, a group called the M23 was only a successor group of those who were feeling that the FDLR and others had to be contained and also very unhappy with the Democratic Republic of Congo. So that group became a huge military threat. And as we were talking with Ambassador Carson, you know, it got to the point where they actually a couple of years ago were able to take over Goma in eastern Congo and it became such a serious problem that many of the events you talked about last year where appointments were made and actions were taken were as a result of the concern about the M23. So there are actually dozens of arms group in eastern Congo. Yes, well over five million people probably died. Sexual violence of almost an unprecedented kind against millions of women. The constriction of children in a way that is exceedingly bad and just one of the most serious humanitarian disasters in history. When I was working in the Senate to try to get attention raised with regard to Darfur, where I worked with Republicans as well as with now President Obama and others, you know, I did point out from time to time that as awful as that was, the human loss in the eastern Congo was even much greater. And yet there was very little attention to it. So for all these reasons, I realize this is something that needed more attention. And the fact that the President and the Secretary of State were willing to ask me to do this full time, that's a major commitment for the United States. Given our budgetary constraints and so on, you don't appoint a special envoy all the time just to work on one region, but they showed leadership and a desire to make sure that this administration shows a very serious concern about this. What also persuaded me was that the international community was clearly showing that it was not going to tolerate this anymore, that there was a possibility of a combination of efforts, what I like to call sustained attention. Not just responding to a crisis, whether it's Ukraine or car or whatever it is, but sustained attention over time because that's the only way that this incredibly complex Rubik's Cube situation in the eastern Congo can be resolved. So yes, the fact that the framework for peace security cooperation was signed last a year ago, February, I guess you almost exactly a year ago, by 11 of the nations, all of the nations I've mentioned, as well as others in the region, was a major step forward because they all committed and signed a document said that they would give no support to any of these armed groups as well as many other commitments, having to do with stopping gender-based violence, having to do with domestic reforms within the Democratic Republic of Congo. In addition, as Ambassador Carson pointed out, the appointment of one of the most distinguished persons in the world, Mary Robinson, the first woman president in the history of Ireland as the United Nations special envoy. There are special envoys appointed as well by the African Union and by the European Union, and we operate together as a team, something we decided to do last September, where we email each other constantly, almost every day. They're always ahead of me, so it's pretty early in the morning and I see the messages coming in, but we have formed ourselves as a group to exert international attention and we're appropriate international pressure. Not only did Ban Ki-moon appoint Mrs. Robinson to the position, he also came with Jim Kim of the World Bank, and they went to the region and pledged a billion dollars of help to the region of a positive economic development nature and others if these issues could be resolved. And yes, not only is the Monusco continuing as one of the largest United Nations forces in history, but it is a very important addition is the Intervention Brigade. The Intervention Brigade is given certain authorities that are rare by the UN that allow action in the name of protecting civilians, but also action to take direct steps to disarm these groups, to not simply be passive. And so this was an important military aspect, adding to all of this. So you put together all of these things and there are more, and I thought to myself, this is a going concern if we take the moment seriously, that this is one of the rare times where perhaps the stars are aligned where we can make a difference. Now, nobody should be kidding that this is anything that's going to be resolved easily, but I think I can say happily that we have accomplished more in these first seven months that I would have thought possible. As I said, the M23 was considered the immediate sort of conventional military threat to the Eastern Congo and was causing great concern and the Monusco and Intervention Brigade were able to perform admirably in a military operation against the M23 that succeeded and cause them to abandon their rebellion, but I don't know that it would have succeeded had it not been for the concomitant and joined a diplomatic pressure that the Special Envoys and I want to say specifically the U.S. government through our Secretary of State and others constantly put on the leaders of the region. We went to Kampala repeatedly. We were directly involved in observing and even in some cases in effect negotiating between the Democratic Republic of Congo and the M23 to try to get an agreement that worked. Notice I said the military was good, but it wasn't enough by itself and that's because in the past when the predecessor groups of the M23 were able to be stopped or there was a peace agreement, the peace agreements were flawed. They were secret. They involved reintegrating these units as whole groups under the leaders, some of whom had committed war crimes and crimes against the humanity back into the Democratic Republic of Congo military and it provided amnesty for those people. Amnesty for people that had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, but we said from the beginning and the Congolese government agreed with us that wasn't going to happen this time. Those were the red lines. Maybe some people could come back in the military after being vetted and after they individually pledged that they would be loyal to their country would not lead a rebellion, but as to those that had committed war crimes or crimes against humanity, no amnesty. And I'm proud to say that last week the Congolese government passed and promulgated an amnesty law that is consistent with those conditions. So if anybody says to you, well, they did it again, they'll just go back and do it again, this is different. It's different because of the commitment of the DRC. It's different because it was agreed to by others in the region and it's different because it comports with the standards of international law and principles that we have to abide by in order to really have peace in this area. So this was a surprising success. I don't want to kid anybody that there's no possibility the M23 couldn't come back. If those that are in Uganda and Rwanda are not properly brought back into the Democratic Republic of Congo and we have the DDR program work so they're actually reintegrated into society, this could go bad again. But it was the right first step. Now we need to move on and we need to move on against the FDLR and against the ADF, the group that is oppositional to the Ugandan government in the hopes that if we can get these other big militaries to either be defeated or to get them to surrender, that some of the smaller armed groups will be able to be handled. So this is a process that where I think the regional aspect is going pretty well, much better than I thought. And in fact, one of the things I noticed from the beginning was it's not enough just to have a framework agreement. I thought we needed a broader political dialogue and I've sort of pushed for this, trying to get the countries to say we need to actually have high political leaders negotiating on a regular basis about other issues, such as border security, what to do about these armed groups, economic opportunities, and in particular the discomfort that many ethnic groups feel in eastern Congo about whether they are fully accepted, that these root causes of the conflict have to be addressed. We can't just paper that over. And happily, and this is what we were just discussing before, somewhat surprisingly, as Angola took over the leadership of the ICGLR, the International Conference on the Great Lakes, President Osantos, who is now I believe the most senior African president, has chosen to take the lead in trying to get the leaders of these countries and he's actually had a meeting with them and he's following up with his foreign minister to try to keep a political process going to resolve these issues in a way that would be meaningful and of course with the support of the international community. So that to me is the area of largely good news. I know we want to get to the questions, but let me give the area that I'm a little less sanguine about, but that we have to succeed at if this is going to work. And that is as important as regional issues are. And as important as it is that the other countries in the region don't interfere and that these armed groups not be supported. Unless the Democratic Republic of Congo has the will and the capacity and the resources to reform itself so it can govern itself and in particular govern the east in an incredible way, it will continue to be a window of opportunity. Not only for those who have abused in the past, but I fear possibly for groups that wish us ill in other parts of the world. Unexplored places like that that are ungovernable are, as we know, failed and failing states are golden opportunities for those who want to do damage to the United States as well as the countries in that area. So for many reasons and in particular so that there can be a belief in the part of the Congolese people that for the first time the resources will be for them, that the military will be for them, that elections will be legitimate and be for them, these reforms have to occur now. So this is what the principal focus of my last trip was on the non-regional side was nine days in Congo, but primarily in the east in North Kivu and South Kivu and Katanga, all of which have difficulties in this regard. And what we are trying to do is persuade the Democratic Republic of Congo, but also the donor countries who can help make these things happen to come together to make sure that the military is properly reformed and that abuses are not allowed, that Democratic elections are successful. When I was the chairman of the committee in 2006 we were pleasantly surprised that the Congolese elections were better than the international community expected they would be, but in 2011 they were much worse and it greatly undercut the credibility of the Kabila government. So now local, provincial and national elections up through 2016 have got to have that quality. And I am a believer that this is paramount. Other things are very important, obviously stopping the exploitation of minerals, reforming the military, stopping violence against women. These are all critical, but without a belief that this is a going legitimate concern as a government that the people can believe in, I think it's very hard for the other things to occur. So these are the issues as well as the, I mentioned before, the disarmament demobilization and reintegration program has got to work so that those who are combatants are properly reintegrated into the Congolese society. This is an open question of whether we can get this action to happen. We are all working extremely hard. Mary Robinson and Kuhn Vrvaka who is the European Union Special Envoy as well as Martin Kobler who is the Special Representative of the Secretary General. We were all over the place in Congo trying to tell everyone we could that this is the moment when these things have to occur. So that is a huge challenge. I want to suggest for a minute that the regional part is all taken care of. I'm just more optimistic at the moment that that is moving in the right direction, but we've got a huge amount to do to make sure that the DRC can make the changes it needs to make so we can move forward. So with that, let me make that as an introduction and I assume sit down, take questions. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Senator Feingold has agreed to take questions from our audience here as well as our audience online. This speech is being telecasted around to a number of places in the United States as well. Let me again thank you enormously for the work that you've done, Senator, and I think your presence and the presence of Mary Robinson has made a difference and a significant difference. But there are, as you point out, a number of challenges. I'd like to start off by asking just two questions and they won't be complex and compound questions like the ones that you occasionally ask me. True. Not at each other. But let me ask about the DDR process, which has in fact been flawed and failed over the past. There are currently some 14 or 1500 M23 rebels who are in Uganda today and the disposition of those rebels has not yet been resolved. How is this going to work out? And do you think that they will be brought into the DDR process and whether Museveni is going to do the right thing in turning them over? Well, first of all, just to make it clear that the DDR issue is not limited to the M23 by any means as you well know, I asked my staff yesterday how many people potentially are we talking about here if you literally are able to demobilize tens of thousands of people. How many are there now that are in the DRC who are in this position? Might be as many as 10,000. And then of course, there are the very serious issues of the people in Rwanda and Uganda who are M23. Well, you know, this is one where it's unfortunate to report that it doesn't feel like it's completely ready yet by any means. It's a good start. They have a plan. They have a concept of some $80 million I think for the overall program. The question is how much can the donors provide? But is it a comprehensive program that A will work when you have somebody in the DRC and B will it be something that will allow us to tell Uganda and Rwanda that it's really time for you to send these people over in the proper way? We visited one of the facilities for the for the DDR and it was impressive in some ways. It was an old Belgian pilot school you've probably been to where they had made a lot of the work and done a lot of the work. You can see the mattresses and the food and things were set up in a way that made it believable that people could be brought there safely and be there for that part, the demobilization. What doesn't seem to be clear in any way was what happens after this? Where do they go? How do they get reintegrated into the community? What about their families? This isn't just important because you have to have this vision for these individuals, but in order to get people to desert or surrender, it has to be credible to them that that will happen. That it's not just a situation where they're going to be brought in here and shipped off to some part of the country where they've never been or some part of the military and be cut off from their rights as citizens once they've renounced rebellion or whatever is expected of them. So we saw a lot of concerns in that regard and that has to be resolved by the Congolese government with our help and with donors and and as that is being resolved we have to ask the Rwandan and Ugandan governments to do everything they can to facilitate the return of these individuals to a proper DDR program. But this is something that I think can be fixed, but frankly Ambassador, it has to be. It's not a it's not a voluntary or a frill. Without this we're not going to make it with this thing. So there will be requests of the Ugandans or Rwandans and we're just laying the groundwork for that but you've got to have a credible program for them to go to. The reason I focused on the M-23 soldiers who were in Uganda is the fact that they have been the most serious of the fighters in the last organized fighters in the in the in the last few years. But I also wonder whether President Museveni has been distracted away from the issues in the Great Lakes by the situation in the southern Sudan and his commitment of both political and military resources there. Do you sense that he is now showing disinterest in this and is lowered it as a priority? You know I'm not ready to say that and I'll tell you why. Because President Museveni just got done making an enormous commitment to this peace process. When he put together the Kampala talks, which were the ones that led to this M-23 agreement, it was December of 2012 and he was supposed to last two weeks. His defense minister was the facilitator and Minister Kyonga and I gotta tell you this guy worked. It was incredible. As you probably know, negotiations are supposed to start at 10 in the morning. They more typically start at 5 and go until 5 in the morning. It's a little different pattern and we experience this personally. His country and his staff were there every step of the way and it took a whole year. So they were very involved as the president will tell you he's feeding these people and he's eager to have others make it so that he doesn't have to do that anymore. And I will say this, although certainly he's involved in other things, you know he just had a very good meeting with Mary Robinson yesterday where they discussed the Great Lakes. So I'm not ready to say, especially given the commitment he's made, that he's not interested in this. I've heard him speak on several occasions about being part of the people of the Great Lakes. I've heard him say and give that speech several times. He was very passionate in his discussions that I witnessed in closed session in Luanda. He's not happy about everything but he was surely engaged in the subject. So I'm hoping that continues despite the many challenges and naturally I cannot let the moment pass without expressing my deep regret of what it sounds like he will sign this horrible legislation, anti-gay legislation that is a big mistake for him and for Uganda because we have a series of important relationships with that country. They are critical to this process. They are critical to peacekeeping. We have economic relationships and this is just a moment I really hope and I know the President of the United States hopes somehow he will go back to his original instincts which was to not sign such a piece of legislation but I can't let the moment pass without mentioning that at best. You're absolutely right. I think everyone is deeply concerned about the Bahati legislation which criminalizes homosexual activity and punishes it with prison sentences, very damaging. Let me ask about the other key regional leader and that is the commitment of President Paul Kagami to this process. Many felt that he was quietly or those in his administration were quietly supporting the M23 where does he fall within your assessment as he is committed as the other regional leaders? As long as we include President Kabila as one of the key leaders as well. Absolutely. I have to say that the access that I and others have had to President Kagami and his top leaders has been exceptional. We have had many opportunities to discuss this. Not all the conversations were easy. Most people regard the success in stopping the M23 to be in part related to the successful pressure that was put on other countries to not support the M23. This was conveyed face to face. That does not mean it was agreed to but we believe that in a significant way the support was greatly reduced and that it made a difference. While we certainly have concerns and we are constantly watching this situation, President Kagami was supportive of the Kampala process. We made a special trip as envoys to go down and see him when the talks were right on the verge of succeeding or not succeeding and he sent out the right message, sent out a press release, sent out statements, asked his people to help engage on it. Our eyes are open on this but the fact is in many ways he played a constructive role in helping us at least move the Kampala talks to a successful conclusion. Now he has a request which I believe is reasonable and it was part of our discussions and that was he wanted to be sure that this sort of I won't say completely unprecedented but largely unprecedented intervention brigade was going to go after all the armed groups. Not just those that were more associated with his side if you will. So during these tough discussions he said what are you going to do about the FDLR and he was given solemn assurances not only by the United Nations officials but with my agreement that yes the FDLR should have been the first priority and if the M23 hadn't done what it did it was clear that we had to deal with the M23 but there can be no excuse for not being serious about the FDLR. For many reasons one is remember these are still Genesee dares many of them not the majority these are war criminals who are just over the border from Rwanda and here is the 20th anniversary of this genocide you can imagine that he might feel that maybe this intervention brigade should do something about that but there's an even more important diplomatic reason ambassador you would know better than I I'm trying to create confidence building here between these countries and between the international community. I want Rwanda to see that we can be just as tough with this organization while protecting civilians as we were with M23 otherwise where's the credibility where's the confidence building where's the effort to cause the various countries in the region to start trusting each other a little bit and to trust the international community so this is the nature of the conversation we're having with Rwandans and it will continue to balance those things where we feel we need to ask them questions about what might what they might be doing and at the same time acknowledging when they've made a legitimate argument. Senator thank you let me open this up to our audience I notice that we have a number of individuals I see Mark Snyder here we'll start with him would I ask you please to identify yourself name an organization if you're going to ask a question thank you Mark. Thank you very much Senator Feingold Johnny and and the crisis group Mark Snyder international crisis group as you know we and many of the other NGOs are quite pleased about the progress that's been made and we do support the efforts that are underway particularly the close relationship with Mary Robinson and moving forward on a common diplomatic agenda one of the things that we've noted is recently has been in fact a regrouping of M23 and the concern about that and it follows up a little bit on Johnny's question which is isn't it necessary to establish certain benchmarks for both Uganda and Rwanda in terms of returning those sanctioned M23 leaders for trial and prosecution and the failure to do that does seem to undermine the ability to say that we're going to get full cooperation from them in putting an end to the threat of the M23 but linked to that is what you said there needs to be showing that there is in fact an effective strategy for going after the FDLR and my question is whether you've gotten any kind of response from President Kabila to support efforts to have an effective strategy for dealing with the FDLR I don't have any doubt this that General Santos Cruz is willing to use resources to move in that direction but is the Congolese government willing to support that what was the first part again the first part of your question in terms of going after the repatriating for trial okay all right well let me leave it there this is why I talk so much about how the the DDR is so important so we can make the appropriate requests of Uganda and Rwanda but without addressing whether and to what extent the M23 is regrouping I'm not addressing that right now but it's actually a possibility of course if this isn't done where they regroup how they regroup would be a question but it would be a terrible mistake to not to let that happen first thing we have to make clear and I I know that Martin Kobler has made this clear the head of the Monaco operation you know if they start reappearing they will be met with force immediately that you know wasn't a one-time deal they try to come back we'll have to be stopped again militarily but it it shouldn't have to come to that for the reasons you're suggesting as to those who can be repatriated and who can be through DDR fine but yes you're right the process has to be set up so there can be a credible accountability for those who can't be given amnesty and this again is where the democratic republic of the Congo who has to step up to the plate again they did do it on the amnesty law I don't think a lot of people thought that was going to get done as it did in this last emergency legislative session but it did and it's a good amnesty law because it tracks the distinction between those who should get amnesty and who should that's not enough you have to you have to ask for the people to be extradited and for them to be properly extradited you have to be able to demonstrate under international standards your prison conditions are okay that people get due process Rwanda does not have the death penalty they don't want these and others to be potentially subjected to the death penalty so that has to happen so all of that has to be credible and in order to make this all work in the end the United States supports and is urging and we're seeing getting good feedback from the Congolese leaders on this the creation of so-called mixed chambers these are Congolese courts but they are given a combination with international judges African judges to heighten the credibility and standards legal standards of the courts so the trials of this kind which of course are complicated involve a lot of international issues international law and points of that type this is something we'd like to see them pass in their march session and this is something that I and Mary Robinson and Mark Coleman everybody is talking about Bessar Rapp from the United States just concluded a very good visit to the DRC where he was discussing this in great length we'll be taking this up with the international contact group in the Hague in a few days so so these things all have to happen but at the same time we have to request that the Uganda and Rwanda do be cooperated as in every way possible in returning these individuals not to mention individuals like this who might be anywhere else in the world who are potentially properly before these properly constituted courts so all of that has to happen on that side now with regard to the FDLR your question was how can we get at them or yeah the strategy has to be a comprehensive strategy what do I mean by that it has to include both military effective military action that protects civilians but it also has to have the alternative and the alternative is a credible scenario where people can desert or surrender and that is something that Rwanda as you probably remember Rwanda and DRC signed an agreement 2007 laying out exactly how that would be done there are aspects of it in place but not everything has been put in place that should be and again it's so that we can through various resources contacts that other people have can get the message yes your leaders are going to be prosecuted you don't have to face that you can surrender you can come in here that has to be part of the strategy so is there a military strategy yes will it be implemented well we need both Monosco and the armed forces of the Congo to be working together on this that means President Kabila has to be supportive and this is something that he certainly has said he supports but certainly I believe and would and I'm trying to message anybody I speak to in the DRC and I did speak to the Defense Minister that that has to be of the highest priority as important as the ADF is and it is it should be going after the FDLR should not be down down the list and so we need that kind of cooperation and I am urging Monosco to continue its good work to plan for what it can do and but this should be done the whole idea of Monosco is to be in conjunction with the Congolese military not on its own and so we are using all the influence we have through our countries and our organizations to urge that to happen earlier rather than later gentlemen on this side yes my name is Odess I'm a full bright home friend from Burundi and I'm a journalist back to my country Ambassador Russell I saw you last day is in Burundi you were just passing through some countries over there no no I want to meet with the president I wasn't just passing through there was a reason for that visit good so I like when people are talking about Congo without talking about Burundi yet we know that Burundi has been a key in the peace process in the region or in the conflict I mean process or so so I like when you notice the next coming elections in the region in Congo in Burundi and in Rwanda so we know some manipulations that are done by some countries including those countries if we follow what can America because now I guess the American the US embassy ambassador in Burundi is the representative of the America in the Great Lakes which which which implies 11 countries so what can America now do just to help those countries to organize I mean successful elections thank you this was the purpose of my trip to Burundi the ambassador Liberia had asked me and others to come and meet with President Kudanziza and remind him of the importance of continuing the United Nations political mission there so BNUB BNUB organization whose mandate had had to be renewed and our request and and those of some other countries was that that organization be in place through the elections next next spring unfortunately they have opposed this and have managed to prevail upon the United Nations to uh have that end at the end of this year which is too soon we need we need to have this organization functioning there in order to not lose the progress that has been made and there has been some progress people who know the history of the region know that some of the very types of tensions that I discussed with regard to Rwanda have also occurred and led to great tragedy in Burundi and it could happen again if we're not careful if political opposition is not granted the opportunity to have its voice if the elections are not properly monitored so we are going to stay engaged as I hope as much as the international community as possible to either figure out a way to continue what we already have or to create other mechanisms of observation and credibility and reporting to make sure that these elections are legitimate I met with the president I congratulated him on the progress that's been made the whole reputation and progress of Burundi could be lost if this moment is not properly handled and I consider this to be one of the more serious problems in the region right now that just sort of came up since I met with him and since he made the did not really respond to our request about the BNAB organization there has been some pretty serious repression of freedom in the political process there in the last month about attitude toward the opposition parties and the vice president and this is not does not bode well uh if if if there's not a better response to these legitimate requests of the international community we'll go back gentlemen in the gray suit left hand side good to see you again it's a pleasure but I'm quite disturbed disturbed by the sense that when we speak about the FDLR it has been established that they were recycled and found in the M23 and they fought in the Congo and killed people they went to Rwanda and became recycled and brought back in the M23 why we push we have pushed Congo to the limit to have an amnesty and to negotiate with the M23 Rwanda knows the leader of the FDLR Rwanda can pinpoint who are the leader of the FDLR that they don't want to have to negotiate with and then establish a pattern to go and negotiate it seemed like when we talk about Rwanda negotiating with the FDLR everybody is criminal and it's become a very sensitive issue when we talk about it and don't even consider that that is a path to the peace process that has to take place in the the region you must do what you have done to Congo in Rwanda the second thing I would like to point out to you is that the narrative of Congo has been misrepresented in November in South Africa the African Parliament run this delegation went and claim part of Congo as their territory for years ago the vice president of the African Parliament was in Kinshasa to inquire about this situation this is an issue that is going to raise chaos in Congo as well as in Rwanda if Rwanda wants to claim part of Congo there is no ground for that Congo will be happy to annex Rwanda as a province of Congo but my question is that is the monarchy trying to move to somewhere else in the Congo or it's going to stay in Kinshasa by because if it's moving to somewhere else it's headquarters it will certify the contention that we say that there is a possibility for Balkanization of Congo please address that issue with your strongest argument so we can not get the confusion I'm going to say to the questioners in the audience please keep them short and tight and so that others can have an opportunity to raise questions thank you well I think the way to negotiate with regard to the future existence of the armed groups is to have a regional dialogue of the type that the Angolans are leading now and the President Kagami and President Kabila agree to where the leaders of those countries get together and figure out how to handle the problem I'm pleased that the DRC took the unusual step of negotiating directly the M23 but I don't think countries should be required to negotiate with groups or rebel against them as in a way it was during the negotiations the point was made because the M23 started saying well what kind of jobs are we going to get if we surrender you know foreign minister Chibanda made a pretty good point he said well you know if we start doing this then that's a great way to start a political party started armed rebellion you surrender and you get a couple of posts you know you can't have that be the modus operandi on the other hand if you have legitimate broader dialogue where military force is either threatened or used but that groups are given an opportunity to surrender as part of a broader regional framework I think that's the best way to handle the FDLR and the ADF and frankly the what's going to be happening with the M23 at this point is a regional effort that involves Uganda and Rwanda as well so I prefer that now on the second point I couldn't agree with you more there is no place for any questioning of the territorial integrity of the DRC or for so-called Balkanization this is a very sensitive issue the fact is that as difficult as the situation can be in Congo it is a proud nation people identify themselves as Congolese some people say this was one of the things that few things that that Mobutu did that was actually good was he did help create a sense of national identity that is real and there shouldn't be any suggestion that any inch of the DRC should ever be anything other than the DRC and so to me that is and I think the United States government takes the position that that is a non-starter I am not specifically familiar with your question about Manusko okay young woman here in the front my name is Irina I'm a grad student at American and peace and conflict resolution my question is specifically about women and you mentioned senator that that the the rape of women in the Congo is a huge issue and I know that it's one of the highest rape rates on the planet so I was just wondering if if you could inform us about some initiatives to address this violence and what's being done to address it and also to provide rehabilitation services for these women and girls not only is is the rape problem pandemic but it is at a level that is beyond even the crime of rape it is used as essentially ethnic violence to discredit other ethnic groups to humiliate to purposely cause women to have children from a different group and all the issues so this is it also is particularly violent exceptionally so there are a lot of different levels to handling this issue some of which are have started and one is of course the the response the treatment I just visited the Ponzi hospital Dr. Kwege's tremendous facility in Bukavu where he innovated trying to help women who had been through this awful experience I met with a group of these women in 2007 and I met with them just now and it hasn't really changed but there is this hospital where hope and healing is given the United States government and many entities are funding and helping to fund these sorts of programs and I have a list of them here I don't know the exact names of all the programs but they exist but we hope to promote more of that that's the first level the second level is prevention preventing this from happening people might think well how do you do that well of course you can try to educate people about how this is entirely inappropriate and there's no justification for it it's against international law it's against Congolese law but prevention also means putting women in a situation where they're not made to be particularly vulnerable and I learned this in a very direct way at an IDP camp in Goma on my first trip there this year last year where we met with a group of people and it was explained to us by the actually the young woman who was with the NGO she was with a French NGO but she was from Wisconsin and she said she said to me you know a lot of these incidents of rape or attack occur when women don't have enough food or fuel to feed their families and they go out you know out into the field or out near the IDP camp that's where they're attacked and this has been this was confirmed for me by a group of women I think in Kataga who who spoke about the same vulnerability so it's also making sure that they have the wherewithal to stay in their community or stay in their homes not to say they can't be attacked in their homes but it's apparently a lot of this occurs in that kind of an open setting where there's vulnerability and they only go because they're they're desperate but the third level maybe the most important level arguably is is the biggest issue here creating a credible government where the police are seen as a friend and an ally where the military is perceived as with you and not going to exploit you where the laws are clear and there's accountability not only for individual acts of sexual violence but particularly for for crimes of this magnitude of crimes against humanity basically so the broader the broader picture of creating stability and governability in eastern Congo is probably the most effective way to deal with this and you know people ask me well hasn't this been going on forever no before these communities were devastated by this the villages and the social structure I'm sure they had problems like we do but they didn't tolerate this never tolerate this this is because of sheer lawlessness and the destruction of social structures that allow people to think they can take whatever they want and do whatever they want so that that is as important as as wonderful as the work is at these hospitals this is all part of it senator before we take a couple more questions from the audience let me ask you questions several questions that have been phoned in or sent in by text messaging I have one here that says the UN special envoy Mary Robinson was just in Kinshasha last week and she expressed disappointment one year after its signing at the lack of implementation on the part of the DRC government of the commitments in the peace security and cooperation framework the questions are will the international community condition its bilateral and multilateral funding and aid on reforms on the commitment of form reforms by the DRC government and the second given the fact that the DRC government has shown little willingness to implement the peace security and cooperation framework agreement do you believe they have the will to implement the Nairobi declaration of a year ago well I'm not going to endorse the verbiage that that goes with that because I don't completely agree I think Mary Robinson I do completely agree hard that certain key aspects of the framework have not been implemented in a way that we feel they should be some things have been done the amnesty of course came out of the compilatox wasn't technically part of the framework but things I mentioned the the ddr programs the security sector reform preparing for the elections these things need to be accelerated but I do not believe that the DRC has done nothing they have to take their game up very substantially but it is not the case that that I think it's impossible and that there aren't people in their government who would very much like to do this now so that there's a significant onus on them but there's also an onus on us in the international community to yes we have to ask what the money will be used for and how it will be used to make sure that it will be used well it's the only thing the people of our countries will tolerate that means that the conglies government needs to talk to us as a group a multilateral donor commitments about elections or about ddr but we also have to come to the table with our proposal and this is something I'm talking to the donors about you can't keep saying to the conglies where's your plan they have a right to say where's your plan and so you can't have this dance where each side kind of waits because time's slipping away so I think there's a response and the donors are part of this process as well but yes of course no donor is going to give a lot of resources that they don't think there's a serious plan to do something but it has to be a two-way street second question from a twitter follower the drc military showed vast improvement in capabilities over the last several months also in discipline in action versus the m23 what changed why are they more effective now than they were a year ago they did some things internally in terms of changing the personnel who was commanders that many people believe was was helpful they interfaced effectively with monosco and the intervention brigade which uh you know that was obviously a major factor but it wasn't just the intervention brigade in monosco they performed very well the general view was that the fr8 the the armed forces of the conglies government performed well um I mentioned that that the m23 we don't think had the kind of support that they had in the past I think that was a factor so these are all reasons plus uh you know the constant diplomatic pressure on the m23 to come to an agreement on the compilot talks so I there's much more they need to do they need to find a they need to improve the logistics of this military there are a lot of things that can be done to organize it better troops should be paid directly through a mobile system rather than bags of money going up and being distributed in certain ways sometimes yes sometimes no they need to to do much of that and we need to make sure there aren't abuses by the conglies military which sadly has happened too often and and needs to they cannot be human rights by their military either but I do think those are all aspects of the improvement but there's still much more to be done a few more questions from the audience a gentleman in the brown sweater hi i'm steve weissman um for many of us who share your belief that accountability democratic reform is the key to progress in the region uh were heartened by your public statements in kinshasa recently about following the constitution in the next presidential election in which president kabila would not be eligible to run for a third term uh but there's an immediate question that's come up a few weeks ago the election commission the independent national election commission submitted to parliament to schedule for local elections and uh i was wondering whether um on your trip on your recent trip in the in the area to the congo whether you were able to have the opportunity to talk to people who might participate in these elections such as opposition parties or people in civil society who are thinking of elections and seeing what's their attitude toward these proposals um there's a couple of alternatives in the proposals one of which would probably require a constitutional change because it would mandate that a local the local counselors who were elected they would then go on and elect provincial legislators and that's not really the situation under the constitution so i'm wondering in consistent with favoring uh democratic reform in the country whether um are you are you developing a position in consultation with the people in the country who want such reforms steve um we talked about many things but this one we talked about every day all day for nine days with everybody from abe malo malo who's in charge of the city the election commission opposition parties to civil society people to governors in katanga south kibu north kibu every single conversation and you know i pose to them the two malamalu alternatives one of them is of course the one you described it involves direct local elections by next february basically a year from now indirect provincial elections in other words the local officials are the ones that choose the provincial leaders the governors and so on not the people directly and then direct election of the president in 2016 his alternative is to have the local election sooner but then to have direct provincial and presidential in 2016 most people were very opposed to the indirect approach all felt that the constitution should be respected with regard to presidential succession my feeling was people were not entirely skeptical about the elections i think there's some excitement about it i think that they feel burned by what happened in 2011 but yes we are engaging in a very specific way the united states government our embassy there i'm reviewing a range of things that we may be able to help with with others where we think maybe we can help the most last time the ballots came down to a central location they were improperly stored the results were not properly transmitted you know if we could help them with the ability to electronically transfer these results right away you know maybe that would help now whenever you go to african start telling people how to run elections they start laughing because we've had some issues and you have to be humbled about the fact that we don't always get this stuff right but there are things the capacity things that we can help with that i think that that they're eager to have there also has to be serious messaging to the public about the openness and the welcoming of people the election i think this is something we can help with so so i actually last night i was reading extensively about about this so you know it's partly because of my background that i'm i get excited about this in my career but i also believe it's fundamental and and i felt that i was well supported by mary robinson koon bravaka and martin colbert who went right back in after i gave these messages repeated the messages we're just going to keep pushing on this and make it clear that even if you reform your military even if you get the accountability right if these elections are no good it's going to be very tough for the drc to look like it wants to look so steve i guarantee you'll be eager to get any ideas you have actually specific ideas about the elections i'm i'm an intake boat on it uh because i want to keep raising these issues got a question more questions there's a gentleman in a gray suit immediately behind steve weissman hello i'm van bad is a lady with uva institution senator nice to see you ambassador carcent and thank you for the work that you're doing in the region um so my question goes to address impunity you know we talk about all the issues we just heard about rapes we talk about amnesty we talk about ronda not having the death penalty we've pressured the drc to push forward a law on amnesty which goes back to 2006 which means all the craziness the drc has gone through since 2006 cndp and other militia groups is pretty much absorbed but what we've not really been committed to in any serious way is justice the cycle of impunity will not be broken until we have we'll commit to justice so that's ambassador rap announce or express his feelings that was very positive my question is how seriously committed is the united state to bringing forth this mixed court how far is the u.s willing to go and what level of capital is the u.s willing to put on because we saw this in Sierra Leone we saw this in Liberia we don't have to wait for the end of death penalty or better conditions in prison drc to start breaking up the cycle of impunity thank you well i can happily say the united states is apart from the african countries is in the lead on this we are the leading advocates so far the mix chamber when i was on my trip i met with the head of the national assembly and of the senate in congo and in both cases we were very pleasantly surprised that they told us that they felt that legislation was good because we weren't sure that was their view and they hoped to take it up at march so now the specifics of it have to be worked out we have to make sure that other international actors agree i know that the un is supportive but you know frankly we are putting the greatest amount of diplomatic resources into making this happen and are hoping to get more help from others because we believe exactly what you said i mean you couldn't have been more right this this cycle has to end the amnesty bill is a different approach talking about the proper extradition of people is is is pushing for this we we were determined to not have the mistakes of the past made and i believe the conglies government actually is committed to this we'll take one last question from the from the united states well i can't say for sure because i'm not in my old job i can't just you know do an amendment but i can assure you we will be trying to find a way to assist uh if if they're properly put together uh that i would recommend the united states uh help support this uh you know and other other entities help support okay we'll take another question from the uh from the audience and this gentleman the right good afternoon sir my name is jeffery galant from the department of defense thank you for speaking to us today it's good to see you ambassador carlson garmesh 2009 2010 with racial in the gang from african i'd like to ask you sir if you don't have enough challenges as it is already in your job description how are you taking into consideration such challenges or issues as um boko haram ansale din ansale sharia moving into the area that you're trying to influence thank you i can tell you drive my staff crazy on this one because after i uh left the senate i was asked to write a book and i thought what do you want me to write the book on whatever you want and i said not going to be campaign finances not going to be civil liberties and issues that i care about i said what i want to write a book about is it's called while america sleeps and this is two two and a half years ago i wrote about boko haram i wrote about a q i m i wrote about the history of algerian gspc connections in afghanistan and i am now trying to responsibly talk about the reality that elshabab is in samalia a tax nirobi threatens uh kampala we're getting pretty close to the drc now and there are potentially potentially groups in the eastern drc who could welcome such connections so i feel very strongly that as a people in a government we have not been quick enough to take terrorist and extremist threats in africa as seriously we do in other places we tend to say well that's just a local thing no if you look at what boko haram has become it has all the indices of the types of organizations that uh went after us in 2001 and so i feel very very strongly that we have to get our heads around that i know many people are but there's a tendency to discount it you also can't exaggerate because then the host countries will say oh yeah we have a serious problem with them give us more money and he has to be fact-based but we can't have a tilt either way and i think frankly the tendency generally is to discount a threat of this kind too easily senator i'm going to ask the the last the last question and uh and and we'll wrap up with that and and this one has to do with uh one of the observations you made at the very beginning and you said that uh you and secretary general uh banky moon uh and the president of the world bank jim kim had gone out i did not do the two of them no they you had mentioned it earlier they did that last man that they had gone out and that they had pledged a billion dollars in development assistance uh there uh i'd like to ask whether there is any indication that the pledges that they have made for regional economic uh reconstruction integration have begun uh to take place on the ground i had a chance to be briefed by them a few months ago and i first took the job and they they laid out some things that had already been committed some had to do with health some had to do economic some had to do with the issues of violence against women but i am eager to get frankly an update on exactly how much it has already been committed and how much is going to be put forward for economic and other pieces and i have not yet had the opportunity to get the clarity on that i would like but that's one of my priorities and you know uh frankly it sounds like a dangerous thing to say but a billion dollars isn't quite as much as it sounds in a situation like this i'm hoping that if we were able to continue to make progress here that that there'd be talk about more help very good senator let me say uh on behalf of the united states institute for peace uh on behalf of those who are here and work on the issues of trying to resolve and prevent conflicts not only in africa but around the world we appreciate your dedication and commitment to trying to resolve one of the most intractable complex and difficult problems that has confronted africa over the last two decades we appreciate your service and as i said in my opening remarks i think your leadership has made a real difference it has elevated the level of attention and interest in the u.s government on this issue it has galvanized the attention of local leaders and it has resulted in progress that has long been overdue we wish you luck as you continue to move move forward and we say from usip that we will continue to try to be sideline supporters of the efforts you and your colleagues at state are trying to make in the eastern region thank you thank you very much thank you