 Good afternoon. Welcome to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. My name is Andrew Schwartz. I'm Senior Vice President for External Relations here. I see a bunch of familiar faces. I see some new faces. I see some extremely new faces in the front row for CSIS. But I can assure you this is going to be a true, this is an extraordinary event we have here. And I think it offers everybody an opportunity to learn more about what's going on in the Congo. We're very pleased to be hosting this, co-hosting this with our partner, the Holocaust Museum, and of course with the Eastern Congo Initiative. Ben, thank you for putting this together. I also want to recognize Secretary Carson, who's here. Thank you for being here. And we are expecting Senator-elect Boosman later and Senator Kerry. Thank you for being here today. And with that, I'd like to offer my colleague from the Holocaust Museum, Sarah Bloomfield, to deliver some remarks. Thank you. And thank you all for coming today to this important program. Let's hope it's talk and more than talk. I wanted just to say a few brief words about why the Holocaust Museum is part of this event today. As I think most of you know, after the guns of World War II fell silent, the magnitude of the atrocities against civilians in Nazi-occupied territories were eventually revealed. And the systematic murder of 6 million Jews became an undeniable scar on humanity's conscience. The Holocaust teaches us that the unthinkable is indeed thinkable. It was a failure of imagination and a failure of responsibility. Like all genocide, the Holocaust was the result of choices made by individuals, choices by the perpetrators to plan and implement the assaults, and by those who might have helped, but did not. And then there were other kinds of decisions, like the ones to hide a Jew, even on penalty to death, or to stand between an orphanage of Rwandan Tutsi children and advancing genocidaires. These choices, these moments when individuals resisted the tide of deliberate violence proved that there's nothing inevitable about genocide or mass atrocities. As it's often said, silence always aids the perpetrators and harms the victims. Here today we're facing a new challenge, this time for the present and the future, halting mass violence in Congo, in eastern Congo. This is violence that we know is due, in large part, to our failure to respond adequately to genocide in Rwanda. In November 2007, I traveled to eastern Congo with museum colleagues, and I saw the ravages of destruction everywhere. I met a group of very young boys, some of them barely teenagers, who were in a child demobilization center, having been forcibly abducted to serve in the various militias wrecking havoc throughout the region. I also spoke with several women who shared with me one horrific story of rape and terror after another. At a women for women center in Walingu, I met a young woman named Lucienne, whom I shall never forget. She had been enslaved, raped, and beaten by rebels when she was just 20 years old, and she lived every day in perpetual fear. She was desperate that we should hear her story, and she was desperate that we should tell her story to the world. It's been estimated that over five million people have died as a result of the conflict in the Congo. But this is not a crisis already assigned to history, but an ongoing and perilous reality. For some, there's a perception that the complicated issues are just unsolvable, but with so many civilians, so painfully vulnerable, we must continue to raise awareness of the crisis and encourage those who can to seek ways to resolve it. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which honors the victims of the Holocaust by trying to prevent such crimes from happening today, welcomes the opportunity to co-host this prestigious panel, organize with the belief that we can find better answers to the ongoing challenges and suffering in the Congo. And now, it's my pleasure to turn it over to Jennifer Cook, the director of the Africa program at CSIS. Thanks so much, Sarah, and good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to CSIS and Echo, Andrew, and Sarah in saying how pleased we are to co-sponsor this event with the Holocaust Museum and with the Eastern Congo Initiative, represented here today by its founder, Ben Affleck. Ben and Sarah, thanks so much. We're here today to talk about US policy towards the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a particular focus on the enduring conflict and crisis in eastern Congo, the eastern region of the country. While public awareness is increasing, this is still a conflict that has not galvanized the kind of attention that a crisis of this magnitude warrants. It takes place in a region that is vast, remote, difficult to access, a region that has been plagued by decades of insecurity and marginalization. It's a complicated conflict with multiple local, regional, and international actors that have really filled a vacuum created by a national government that has been unable and unwilling, in many cases, to exert any of the legitimate functions of a state in delivering justice in providing security or developmental resources. The principal axis of the conflict has been the DRC Armed Forces, known as the FRDC. You'll probably hear a lot of acronyms today. And the FDLR, a former which had their origin in the perpetrators of the genocide in Rwanda who fled into eastern Congo after 1994. But in addition to these two groups, there have been a proliferation of armed groups, many of whom benefit from what is essentially a free-for-all with the region's rich mineral resources providing both motive and means for continuing conflict. Throughout this, civilian populations have borne the brunt, not simply as collateral damage but also directly targeted by all sides in the conflict including the armed forces of the DRC. They've been subject to systematic killing, rape, and sexual violence on appalling levels displacement and intimidation. Secretary of State Clinton has spoken out forcefully and frequently about the need to end this culture of impunity to strengthen civilian protection particularly against gender-based violence and to cut the ties between the mineral trade and the conflict. But I think there is a sense right now that from multiple reports from the region that current trend lines are not good and with the national election in the coming year the potential for renewed spikes in violence are very real. So we're here today to talk about U.S. policy. ECI has just released a policy report with recommendations for the U.S. government and that's serving as a bit of a platform here but what is the vision for U.S. policy and what are the priorities that we can and should take going forward. Just one note before concluding in these kinds of discussions I think we really need to keep in mind that fundamentally peace and development in DRC is the responsibility of the government in DRC. This government has often claimed the mantle of sovereignty but has not always shown the essential commitment to protect and serve its citizens. So how is it that we move this government towards accountability and what can we do in the interim with the toll on civilian populations that have really suffered so much. We have just a terrific panel here today. Senator Bozeman has a vote and so we'll be joining us late. Senator Kerry will be joining us late to give the wrap up remarks. I'm not going to go into detailed introductions but just to say we have Ben Affleck actor, director, activist, founder of the Eastern Congo initiative really who has thrown his personal dedication and energy behind this region of the world with a very tight focus on Eastern Congo. We have assistant secretary Johnny Carson, the administration's top diplomat on Africa and a very seasoned Africa hand. We have Tony Gambino, former USAID mission director in Kinshasa a Congo analyst, he's written many reports on it. And Vembe Dizalale, we call him our go-to man on Congo with Congoli's origin, a really respected analyst on the internal dynamics of Congo. So welcome to you all. I'm going to start out turning to you Ben, to ask first kind of what got you into this, what compelled you to this issue and perhaps talk a little bit about the report why is now an important moment that's outlined in the report? Basically what got me into it was a kind of, you know, at one point in my life I sort of came across in the course of reading actually about Sudan in a kind of offhand dimension of the scale and scope of what was going on in Congo in DRC in Eastern Congo. And I was stunned that not only was it so tragic but that I had no idea that it had happened. And I thought if there's something that someone with some profile has to legitimately offer an issue like this it's to raise awareness. And so I started off with the relatively modest goal of just trying to get people to listen to me talking about this issue. And as I got involved I just was overwhelmed with the extraordinary people in Eastern Congo who were and in Congo as a whole who are working to make their country better. And I was also shocked by the extent to which there was a kind of lack of focus of cohesion on the part of the various actors who were meant to be involved with this and making it better. It wasn't for a lack of effort but it just seemed quite disparate. And I'm not going to, I've been instructed not to go on for very long or make speeches but I have to say and I'm mindful of the minds here who are more extraordinary and more experienced than my own but when you work on something like this for so long there are a few things that I do really want to get into and then I'll move right on. Basically I'm here today because I believe in the Congolese people and I believe in the power of the American people to effect change when we kind of put our mind to it. And after traveling throughout the region and intensive study and discussions with international and Congolese experts I really came to recognize and believe that Congolese can rebuild their own country and not only that but that they can prosper. And that's important because it really runs counter to a lot of things you hear about Congo, a lot of things you are and that you see in a lot of the ways that some people feel who are in positions of influence. And my visits I've witnessed people doing this themselves but as was pointed out I really do feel that time is running out. We have this window of opportunity that's very important both here in terms of United States government and also in terms of what's happening in the next year before the election in Congo and it goes on this tipping point right now. It could very easily fall back into chaos or it could move forward into recovery and that gives me and others I think a sense of real urgency about this. You know in the United States I think it have a critical leadership role to play that would have a great deal to do with changing the lines of tens if not hundreds of millions of people for generations to come. And I founded the Eastern Congo initiative as an effort to work with the Congolese. People doing grant making and advocacy and as grant makers we work to support civil society. We kind of seek out and vet and fund folks who are working to protect vulnerable civilians both you know survivors of sexual based violence or child soldiers. We also work with individuals looking for economic opportunity working in education, capacity building and legal reform you know and in terms of you know this paper it's hard to sort of try to define it quickly but I think you know it's basically about our belief that we need to refocus on urgent priorities. Harmonize the efforts in which the US is poised to take a real leadership role and to synchronize and synergize the efforts of governments NGOs and the Congolese. You know it's a big deal you'll hear more about these elections and how important it is you know there's a lot of rancor and anger around elections and what we like to think of as stable democracies like our own so imagine what it's like you know in a nascent democracy that's still recovering from ongoing humanitarian conflict atrocities, political crises you know DRC is the eighth poorest country in the world. It is the fifth on the failed state index worse than Afghanistan and Iraq and Haiti and failure here really genuinely honestly could be catastrophic you know so yeah I mean I'm looking forward to hearing what the other panelists have to say and you know I'm really grateful to be here and I want to extend my thanks to Jennifer Cooke and Michael Abramowitz and Bridget Collins and my fellow panelists who I'll also thank at the end. Thank you Ben and we'll come back I think to the idea of civil society and the eastern Congo. Johnny I wondered if you might say a word about the priorities going ahead obviously we've been engaged for a long time in eastern Congo there is this kind of critical moment with the elections coming up what may be new will we see and kind of how do you assess the trend lines in eastern Congo at this point what will be our priorities going forward in the coming years. Jennifer thank you very much for allowing me to be a part of this panel this afternoon and I want to start by thanking Ben for his contribution to raising the international and public profile on the traumas and dangers and civil unrest that continues to persist in the eastern Congo. I think it is extraordinarily important that the international community our own community in the United States be aware of what is happening out there and every voice that sends a message of concern helps to awaken those who need to take action to address those challenges. Let me first of all say that the Congo is an extraordinarily important place. Am I not resonating very clearly? The Congo is an extraordinarily important place. It is a large complex and difficult political and economic environment that defies easy quick solutions. It is a country that we have to constantly engage. The trend lines in the Congo are neither up or down. They are decidedly mixed. Over the last year we have in fact seen some good progress in various things in the Congo. We've seen a country achieve status. We've seen it achieve Paris Club status. We've seen it agree to the mixed courts that have been suggested by the international community that would bring in international lawyers to work along Congolese lawyers. We've seen the arrest of women who have perpetrated violence against civil society leaders and women. We've seen a successful transition from Monuch to Manusku and seen a commitment by the government of the Congo to hold national elections in November of 2011. We represent signs of progress but in the face of those signs of progress we still see very disturbing trend lines. Over the last three years we have seen a continuing rise in the number of rapes of women in the eastern Congo. Last year that number was approximately 17,000 which is in itself an enormously disturbing number in any kind of a context. We have seen the continued activities of the FDLR and rebel groups operating in the east. We have seen continued bad by the fardic members of the Congolese armed forces. We've seen the newspaper accounts of dozens and dozens of women in a single village being raped over a single weekend and we've seen the continued deprivation carried out by the Lord's Resistance Army in the North Kiwus and in the Garamba Forest all of these things are very disturbing. What are we doing? We are as a government deeply deeply concerned, remain deeply engaged. Last year directly, bilaterally and multilaterally, the United States government put something in the neighborhood of 900 million dollars into humanitarian and development assistance for the Congo to support not only efforts to improve human rights but also to jumpstart the economy and to carry out economic development projects. We put millions of dollars into HIV and AIDS prevention into child survival programs to malaria prevention efforts. We have also aggressively worked on human rights issues working with international NGOs to help to both prevent, treat and reintegrate the large number of women who have been the object of sexual and gender-based violence. We have worked on the medical side with NGOs but we've also worked on the governance, justice and security side. We've trained more Congolese women as police officers. We've increased the number of judges within the armed forces of the Congo. We have instituted with the help of the government mandatory training for soldiers coming into the military to receive educational and awareness training on gender-based violence and human rights, making this a part of their standard training. We continue to work with the government of the Congo to introduce mixed courts in which we would bring in outside international judges to work along Congolese judges to try people for crimes. We continue to press hard for the government to arrest and try, prosecute and imprison those individuals responsible for human rights violence. We take this issue very seriously. Many of you know that Senator Secretary of State Clinton on her first trip to Africa in August 2009 not only went to the Congo to Kinshasha to Goma itself to underscore her deep concern about the violence occurring in the eastern part of that area. I myself have been to the Congo twice in the last 15 months and have met with President Kabila on three separate occasions within the last 16 months. Each of those conversations and meetings with him the issues of the eastern Congo the continued unrest and the continued deprivations against women and children has been a part of that conversation. We will continue to focus on this country. It is indeed one of Africa's resource rich country. A country which has enormous potential and promise much of it has not even begun to be realized. Thank you Assistant Secretary Carson. I'd like to come back in a bit to the election issue and election preparation but I'm going to turn to Mvembe to talk a little bit about the responsibility of the government of DRC in this process, their progress and their commitment to resolution in the east and empowering the citizens of eastern Congo. Mvembe? Thank you Jennifer for hosting this and thank you Ben and thank you for the Holocaust Museum for organizing this. The challenge first and foremost I think for the DRC at this point we just spoke about Congo but we pretty much spoke about eastern Congo. So in many ways the narrative has been so screwed over time that you think if you talk about the DRC it means eastern Congo. It's almost thinking like you're talking about Kashmir and then you equate that to India or to Pakistan. So we need to reverse that because we need a new perspective in looking at this conflict because misdiagnosing a problem will never lead to a solution unless we stumble into the solution. So to go back to that, what does that mean in terms of the government? Eastern Congo represents roughly, depending on what you consider east if you're considering only the Kiwis maybe 10% of the country, maybe 15 or 20 it might be exact but it's not half of the country, it's maybe at best a code of the country. So if we're going to base our policies based on the code of the country there's a chunk of the country that is not at war which often is actually in the worst condition than the part that is at war. This doesn't mean that I'm minimizing the sexual violence. I've covered sexual violence, I've covered the war. It's pretty gruesome. But when we miss the story that's happening in 80% of the country then we miss the picture because what's happening in the east is happening exactly because of what is not happening in the rest of the country. I.e. the government. So the government has not I think if we go back to 2006 or 2003 even when we all had a lot of hope we thought okay we'll settle for the lesser evil of the transition. We're going to have 1 plus 4 which meant President Kabila would come to power after his father's death working with four vice presidents and they will somehow rise to the occasion and shepherd this country awaiting it to be. The elections came the hope were dashed very quickly because we legitimize a regime that is still there today which is not attentive to the needs of the people security being one of them and of course security tip of that spear is the east but it's not only eastern problem across the country. Especially when you consider the basic needs the basic services that the government needs to provide namely civil and human rights that are not provided so when police is not rightly integrated you know law enforcement and security apparatuses so let's take the military I heard the assistant secretary mention the far DC part of the screwed narrative when we talk about the far DC as the Congolese army what does that mean there's no such thing as the Congolese army there is a conglomerate if you will a consortium a patchwork or former militia groups that call themselves the far DC so if we go back to the Kiwus and you find people should be held in the international criminal court in Kinshasa, people like Bosco Taganda, people are wanted people like Kunda and others who are allowed to wear the Congolese uniform we keep them in the same place we don't push for security reform the government doesn't push for it that seriously because the government feels that they have to make all these deals to keep peace if these people were raping yesterday when they were calling themselves CNDP or whatever my group they call themselves and then tomorrow they will give them a rank up and they become the far DC but you keep them in the same place no indoctrination to change their view what you get you get the same result except now when the press covers it they will say it's the far DC but that's a joke really a tragic comedy that we need to stop the elections you know Congolese are eager to move forward they work hard they come true when you read the reports we got to the elections in 2006 because the Congolese wanted the elections it's not because the international community the Congolese forced the international community to hold the elections now we're going to the next cycle of elections so we've had about four years of observing what we thought could be and what has been and what is and it's not a pretty picture so we have human rights activists being killed we have journalists being killed women continue to be raped the government is happy to deal with NGOs so if ECI, Oxfam, just to name a few come and say who feed these people if you're in Kansas you say fine be my guest so they're not doing their job that's on one side so the government has failed but the other side that is more even dangerous I'll just close here and we come back to it is that what's critical point at this time is the elections that are supposed to take place next year if we screw up this election again then Congo is set for tremendous calamities that we've not even been able to imagine because the danger is that in international community the government for some reason has managed to convince people they are the only alternative so you hear people tell you that we don't see another alternative, Kabila because BS that there is because it's not about finding the alternative it's about creating a system that will set the democratic process moving, thank you thanks and Vemba I think we will come back to the election and how to empower the Congolese people to make those choices Tony I want to turn to you what's missing from this you've heard the presentations how would you place the priorities I know you've talked a lot about the elections and you've done a lot of work on the security sector as well which Tony and Vemba brought up as well you want to talk about what's how would you rank the priorities going forward thank you very much Jennifer I will indeed talk about both those points first of course I'm going to thank you and thank Ben Affleck and the Holocaust Museum for holding this event it's great to see a full house of people thinking about the Congo it should happen more than it does I was very struck by what Sarah said at the beginning that the Congo is a crisis not yet consigned to history so we can look right now in real time and think about what we are doing what we can be doing what we should be doing about the situation so let me talk about two issues sexual violence in eastern Congo and the elections first on sexual violence I don't think there can be any question that Secretary Clinton was deeply moved during her trip to Congo last year and is committed to doing something about it she said as recently as just a few months ago in August that the United States will do everything we can to create a safe environment for women girls and all civilians living in eastern Congo everything we can Secretary said in late August and Assistant Secretary Carson just sketched out some of the many programs that the United States has in place to try to deal with this horror of violence against civilians in eastern Congo yet observers agree that the situation today is no better might be worse than when Secretary Clinton visited over a year ago so something is going badly wrong what is the problem I think the problem comes from some of the points that Wembley just made there's a new report out by the United Nations a group of experts just released and that report details compellingly that what is called the Congolese Army is actually as the report states a mafia-like network of individuals who are looking to exploit the riches of the various mines and minerals that are everywhere in eastern Congo and based on that competition they then go forward and commit horrible abuses against civilians including the rapes the gender-based violence and all the other things that people know about for the last couple of years the United Nations through its mission MONUC decided that it would try to make things better by collaborating with this so-called army I think even with my short description you can imagine what the results were the results were terrible the abuses didn't get better they actually got worse luckily the new UN mission now renamed MONUSCO is under the leadership of a distinguished American diplomat named Roger Meese who knows the Congo very well now the head of the UN mission and under his leadership over the last few months MONUSCO has started to take unilateral action against abusers in particular places in the regions of eastern Congo where the violence is occurring it is this step-by-step action to ultimately break the back of this mafia network that will get us to the position where we get the result that we have to have which is a reduction in the scale of violence it's important of course to have all the programs that the US and others have put into place to respond to the needs of victims but we have to stop the violence and this is what I hope Roger Meese in his new role is now working on now a few sentences on elections in 2006 the Congolese people and the international community really came together to organize what were reasonably free and fair elections and Vemba and I were both observers of those elections 2011 will require a similar effort preparations are underway but so far they're halting and as others have said the preparation so far do not bode well and here the United States they really hasn't stepped up yet even in the context of a $900 million program the US intends to provide roughly $5 million for elections in the Congo it is estimated that the international community needs to provide $300 million for these elections a reasonable contribution by the United States would be more on the order of $50 million rather than 5 and frankly today at this low level it will undercut the ability of skill diplomats like Assistant Secretary Carson and others to push for the kinds of free and fair elections that the Congolese people must have to get to the kind of progress that is necessary thank you Tony Assistant Secretary Carson I wonder if you might say something about the UN role and the broader international community Ben talked a little bit about the disparate nature of efforts and I wonder if you might say a bit on the security and again the elections coming up how the international community is coordinating or coming together or focus on other global problems no thanks Jennifer it seems counterintuitive to say that indeed if you look back a year ago to the Congo that you would then be looking forward today and saying that in fact on the issue of elections and UN presence that things are a lot more stable and a lot more optimistic than they were just a year ago let me just recall for all of you how difficult a situation we were in just one year ago when I traveled out to the Congo at that point we were very deeply concerned that President Kabila in the run up to the 50th anniversary of the Congo independence was not talking about a renewal of the UN mandate he was talking about a withdrawal of the entire UN apparatus 50 years of independence he said to me as he had said to others that after 50 years it was time for the UN to leave and that he wanted that process to begin as a part of the country's 50th anniversary many people thought that we were in for a major clash between the Congo's desire to see an essential UN presence leave and the UN Security Council's desire and our desire Washington's desire to see the UN remain in place equally a year ago there was some concern that the elections for November 2011 would not in fact happen at all the number one challenger to Kabila was now in the Hague under a warrant an indictment from the ICC and that in fact elections might not be held in 2011 or for that matter might not be held at all and there was a concern that 2011 would come and we would see no national elections no presidential elections no legislative elections as we all sit here today talking about how bad the situation in the Congo is and it is genuinely bad and the eastern Congo is indeed a hugely difficult problem today we see a transformed UN presence that is absolutely essential for the security that exists in parts of the eastern Congo absolutely essential if we were to have elections in 2011 we've seen Monuch become Manusku we've seen a declining level of anti-UN rhetoric from the capital and we've seen the insertion as has been noted of a very talented and skilled diplomat who has been inserted as the special representative and we've seen some new initiatives out of that UN presence and we also have and see a commitment a commitment that President Kabila has made privately to a number of people including myself and also publicly to people in his own country that he is committed to holding the elections one last thought Tony is absolutely right about the need for us in the United States to put money behind our most important principle and that is the support for the strengthening of democratic institutions including the holding of elections but we also have to realize that this is an issue that requires a commitment on the part of the political leadership of the Congo, President Kabila the people of the Congo but also the tremendous international support that's required. The elections in 2006 in the Congo would not have occurred if in fact the UN had not played such an overwhelming and dominant role there were some in 70 or more air sorties moving a fixed wing and rotary equipment across the country to provide the ballot boxes the election officials and the observers to make that happen. People also forget that there was not only a monuque force on the ground but the European community led by the Germans also had a special military mission there during that election. The Congo is an enormously large and complex place and while the problems of the east are dramatic are in dramatic relief because of the sexual and gender based violence and the continued hostility this is a country this is a country that has fewer roads today than it had in 1960. It has fewer regional airports that are functioning today than it had in 1960. This is a country that generates less electricity today than it did in 1960 and while there is no doubt that interconnectivity because of the cell phone dramatically shortens the distance digitally in many ways the infrastructure that is required for the country to move ahead politically and economically and to have the kind of strong democratic institutions that we all want to see is still far far far behind what it is. It is important but we also must ensure that there is the kind of commitment in and among the leadership there and in the international community and again I think this is why again a program like this is so important. I think again Ben and the Holocaust Museum and others have to be applauded because it does elevate the level of concern and the level of attention and it shows that it is not just the people who are suffering in the Congo who are concerned but the international community and a large group of people in the United States share that concern as well. Thank you, Johnny. I think it is important to point out the progress that is made and in fact the ECI report makes fairly clear there is something to build on here and there is certain hopefulness in that report and I think in the creation of ECI itself maybe you want to say word on that. I think it is a really important point and I hope it gets across because it is relevant to this whole notion that things can be improved and can be supported and most importantly that improvements are ultimately at this point I believe are led by the Congolese. It cannot happen without the people who have been supporting this process since the elections and in 2006 and they developed a framework for reintegration of the two million internally displaced persons and refugees. You see the peace process happening actively, some of the groups talked about C&DP, FDLR, Route, Perico, there were 22 recognized armed groups at the GOMA Peace of Courts. Granted GOMA wasn't particularly successful but March 23 was I mean, you have these folks out there, they're warring, and this goes back to the Heman-Lendu conflict, where you say, well, these are brutal, terrible guys, Cobra, Matata, and others like them. But in order to get them to stop fighting, we're going to make them colonels in the FRDC. And it's like the worst possible thing you could do except leave them fighting. And so they're facing tough choices. Now, in terms of Kinshasa's relationship to these, I think it's an incredibly salient point to recognize the difference between the East and the rest of the country. It's, oh, Kinshasa is unrecognizable from parts of the East, and it's very politically complicated. And others at this panel are better suited to talk about that. But I do think that one of the relationships between Kinshasa and the East has to do with the way the peace process is managed and has to do with the Bosco and Tanganda is going to be incorporated to CNDP and how they're going to cooperate with the Rwandans in terms of this joint military exercise. And as those decisions get made, I think we have a place in terms of levering our interests and exercising influence on President Cabello, which it sounds like Secretary Carson has been involved with doing. I think the FRDC speaks, that issue and the concern about them speak to what the paper speaks to, which is this notion that you have to do systemic change. You have to address, everybody will tell you, well, the FRDC guys have to be garrisoned. They have to be paid. Many of them travel, they walk, sometimes 800 miles to where they're being assigned. It's like Rome, like legionnaires, except uniforms don't look as good because oftentimes they're just throwing them on over the old CNDP uniforms or whatever. And this, having them be unpaid, having them be not garrisoned means that they're basically sustaining themselves on the back of the population, which is why you see statistics like 40% of the sexual-based violence comes from FRDC. A large part also comes from FDLR, granted, and the cooperation between the FRDC and the UN or trying to root out the FDLR is tricky and complicated is it's created a lot of ancillary human costs. I think the thing that's really hopeful about this is that you've seen progress happen in the past and that we contend, and I believe that the vast majority of what can be done from outside the country, particularly from the US government, doesn't require a huge amount of new funding. You brought up some of the gaps and funding that exists now that's already allocated is $8 million supposed to go to an IDP, $80 million supposed to go to a program for resettling IDPs. Only eight has actually arrived. There's some of those issues going and there is some underfunding, but for the most part, the United States government can do more because the lion's share of the work necessary to engage in the region to prevent a collapse and to ensure that real change happens is about priority, cohesion in the focus of existing manpower diplomacy and dollars, and I think that that is something that's really possible. I think we've seen that it's possible to effect change because the Congolese are doing it as we point out they have been doing it, so it's certainly not hopeless. Going to this question of empowering civilians, Vembe, do you want to say something about how Eastern Congo will fare in the election process and perhaps Tony or Secretary Carson come back and do they get a voice in the national framework? Thanks, thank you. Eastern Congo has been for the last few years very critical in the electoral process, in the democratic process. Often Eastern Congo, it's about what's, it's like the book, What's Wrong with Kansas, in many ways when you try to understand Eastern Congo. So on one level, you say, if we go back to 2006, when I was covering the conflict and the election, I remember interviewing people in the West and nobody could stand Kabila. They hated the guy, they saw me as a militia leader, incompetent and all that. I arrived in the East and everybody said, this is our savior, it's great, we love him, he's our son. And I said, well, what do you say to your fellow men or your countrymen in Bandungdu in the West? They say, well, they don't quite understand. And then I say, so how is he your savior if your women are being raped? These are really your cousins. They are my fellow countrymen, but they are your sisters and your cousins. If you cannot go to the field and until the land so you can feed yourself. Yeah, but you need to understand. Anyway, they give you long stories that to a lot of us didn't make any sense. In the end, it's the East that carried Kabila to power, not the West. Now, so you have this urban flow where they say it's not popular anymore. We don't like him because he's not kept his word, he brought the rundowns for Omoja One, Amanileo and all these operations that cause more chaos. But in the end, it's very hard to predict. It's very hard to predict because the people in the East are the most, unfortunately, I don't know if the word manipulate, easy to manipulate is right, but I think they've been caught in this war economy with the various layers. And that's what I was saying, Congo is a political issue, we need to solve that to untangle the crisis in the East, which is a humanitarian crisis as a consequence of the larger political crisis. So if you're in war, if you're in Bukavu, literally in Bukavu, the economy in Bukavu is much better than the economy in Bandaka. So in many ways, the person who lives in Bukavu doesn't feel the sting of the war. If you live in Walungu in the villages, you feel it. In Bukavu, a hotel room costs as much as the holiday end. There's economic boom, people are building, people have jobs because of the grant and all these things. So it's good, they're helping these people. These people also get confused in that circle. When one level they say we don't want, we hate these UN people. But on the other hand, if the UN left Congo, people in Bandungu don't give a damn, it doesn't affect their life. It affects the life in Bukavu. And that's how they see Kabila. I really don't know what's gonna happen during the election because the East is very fickle. Yeah, I'll say something about that too. The first thing is how will we know if elections in November 2011 are good or not? What's the standard? It seems to be there are two clear things to watch. The first is, are they at least as free and fair as the elections were in 2006? This is Secretary Carson has already talked a little bit about how hard it was to even make that happen. That sort of sets the floor. We have to do at least that well, arguably better. The second is that elections have to be about a choice. And so at the presidential level, that implies that there's at least one other credible national candidate to compete against President Kabila who is, President Kabila is clearly running. We have one other stated challenger. We'll have to see whether there are more to see whether it adds up to a clear choice for the Congolese people. Then in that context, particularly talking about Eastern Congo, there are gonna be two huge things to worry about. One which extends to the whole country are the logistical problems. This is Secretary Carson talked about. They're just as bad in 2011 as they were in 2006. And there's no other plausible actor to do things like transporting ballots and things like that than the UN mission. Monusco, so they're going to have to play some important role in that. And I hope that planning has already begun because now's the time to do that. The second and more complex one is security. And that might seem hopeless, but now think back to 2006. In 2006, there was a very fragile agreement among people who had been warring. And the various groups weren't even integrated into a national army, even in the loose way that Mbemba talked about earlier. There were warlords running all around Eastern Congo in the way that they're doing today. Yet, the UN, because it was so serious about the elections, went in. And village by village, militia by militia had a good talk with some of those leaders and about how important it was that they left their space for campaigning, for civilian action, and ultimately for voting. And on election day, in some of the most violent parts of Eastern Congo, where I was an observer, there was not a single act of violence committed against civilians in 2006, not a single one. That will require in 2011, again, an enormous effort led by the United Nations mission with strong diplomacy from the United States and others to think about how does this unruly group of mafia-like warlords calm down so that people can compete peacefully in an electoral context? It won't be easy. But for those of you who think it's impossible, I want to stress, it worked in 2006 with a similar effort. It can happen again in 2011. Assistant Secretary Carson, do you see an appetite for that same kind of international effort, German-led, the EU mission, African Union playing a role, the UN, which is already coming under some constraints? I think that it's important not to step back from our responsibilities and obligations, and those responsibilities and obligations are to do as much as we possibly can in association and collaboration with the government of the Congo and the international community to support elections. We all have to recognize that this is a different economic environment. It's a different political environment, and it's a different international environment than it was five years ago. And in all of those areas, it's a little bit more difficult, harsh, and complicated. But it is still an obligation and a responsibility to do as much as we can to support the democratic institutions, nascent, fledgling as they are, and to push ahead to try and do this. It is going to take an enormous effort. But we do start at one place, which I think is absolutely critical, and I think we need to constantly get reaffirmation and support for it, and that is the commitment of President Kabila and his government to hold the elections in November of 2011. We have to not only make that a stated commitment, but one that he is committed to fulfilling. We have to make the Congolese who are part of it believe it and believe in it, and we have to find the international support to help realize it, including the enormous international commitment that's absolutely essential to make it work. But it starts with at least that commitment, and I go back to a year ago, a year and a half ago, when there was a deep concern across the international community that we would in fact see no elections at all. I'd like to say, but you talked about the economic crisis. I think the US and the incoming Congress is gonna have deep preoccupations with domestic issues, major global challenges. I know you've been advocating, I think you're having conversations with congressional staff. I mean, do you see this is traditionally not being an issue that has fallen prey to partisan differences? I think there's really been bipartisan support for peacekeeping initiatives and support for the Congo. Congress people have responded. Senator, like Boozman, I think was going to be here to say his piece has gotten caught up in votes. But I wonder, going forward... We have a Republican Senator and a Democratic Senator that are not here. So that's bipartisanship for you, right there. But they're meant to be here. No, take the wrong way, yes. Senator Kerry's coming and Boozman's isn't above. Just a joke. Yeah, be careful what you joke about in this town. I know, I know. It's worse than Hollywood. But you have seen congressional action, particularly for example on the conflict minerals and the State Department's initiative and congressional interest in that. I wonder, in your conversations with Congolese, that conflict minerals issue has currently, Kabila has responded in a way with a ban on production, which is causing hardships. Yeah, I think it's a really tricky issue. It's not one that I am completely expert in, except for the people that I've talked to. Kabila's approach, well, I should say that, I've got a different impression on this issue from being here and from being in DRC. There's a sense from outside that this is like, this is DFDLR and they're sitting on these minerals and they're taking them and that's fueling a lot of what's happening there. And I think that's part of it. But one of the things that people told me, including people in the administration and in the government and in the military said, well, this is really a lot of this minerals are being used by sort of quasi-mafia army group of elite guys, I guess you call them elite, who are controlling a huge amount of this resource extraction. And you can drive through Goma and they say, okay, there's some mansion over here and you go, that's a colonel's house, that's a so-and-so's house. So it's even more complicated than just bad guys controlling mines and it's teenagers, AK-47s. It's an institutional issue as well. And that awareness extends to Kinshasa and I think it's one of the things that makes it more complicated even in the recent joint operations with the UN and the Faraday Sea. Some of these guys were moved off mines. So one wonders, what was the real goal of this operation? The resources are obviously, it's not making it better, it's fueling this war economy. These resources belong to the people of the DRC. I mean, this is a country with spectacular, you know, the tin, casseterite, coltan, gold, copper. These things are worth a enormous amount of money and in some of these areas they have the world's largest reserves of them. They have a lot in lumber. I mean the charcoal trade is actually a big deal. So one of the biggest crimes to me about the resources that they're being taken away from the country, from the people themselves who should be sustaining themselves and their economy on this, that's who the theft is from. It's not unlike the sort of tragic fact that the Congo River's got enough hydroponic power to light up all of sub-Saharan Africa and it's woefully, obviously, it's not hardly utilized at all. So in conflict minerals there's a lot of approaches to it. It's a very tricky thing to figure out how to solve because I think there are a lot of places that influence needs to be applied but to my eye it speaks to, again, let's talk about in this paper which is like deep systemic problems that need to be addressed at the root to make the biggest difference. Although it doesn't mean that addressing it in other ways won't help, it will. I totally agree. Let me say that the Congress in the last year and a half has passed two pieces of significant legislation that have direct impact on the insecurity and the theft of resources from the Congo. One is the Dodd-Frank legislation which addresses the issue of conflict minerals. The other piece of legislation is related to the efforts of Senator Feingold and Congressman McDermott and others to ensure that the U.S. government have a strategy to deal with the LRA, the Lord's Resistance Army, which has now been operating most of the last two or three years in the Eastern Congo and not in Uganda from its original home. Both of these pieces of legislation were passed with enormous bipartisan support and they both speak to a need that can be addressed by some things we do. We have taken the concern about conflict minerals seriously and while we have not been able to do as much on the ground as we would like, we certainly have called the attention of this problem to the supply chain and to the end users. This is an issue that Secretary Clinton has taken a personal concern about and we in the department have convened on at least two occasions in the last six months. Most of the major importers of materials from the Eastern Congo that go into our computers and our cell phones. Some of the industry representatives who attended this meeting and they represented a large spectrum of the well-known consumer brand companies probably could not have identified North or South Kivu, Goma or Bukavu and in fact probably did not know where all the minerals had been just talked about came from. But they do know and we have made them aware that they have to know the origin of their materials and that they are coming from conflict zones and that there will be increasing pressure placed on them as a result of the law and public scrutiny about where they are sourcing their materials. This was a wake up call for many of them but we're committed to working with industry with their supply chains to make them aware that much of what they're using in cell phones and computers is coming from conflict areas and coming from areas that are under the control of both mafia soldiers and rebel groups. The other is the LRA. Just last week President Obama signed and sent to the Congress a administration strategy document on the U.S. effort to help capture and eliminate the threat that the LRA poses to the Eastern Congo. That is quite an elaborate strategy and I suspect that at some point it will be made public by the committee that received it. And it in fact outlines clearly what we are doing. We take it very seriously. I can say just even today, again participating in a meeting in which we outline new initiatives to help deal with this problem. We are committed to working with the Ugandan government to track down the LRA in the Congo and in the Central African Republic. We have been one of that country's largest financial and technical supporters. We will continue to support the Ugandan effort as long as it remains serious and robust as long as their troops continue to do as they have over the last two and a half years. Behave and protect the civil liberties of the communities in which they're operating. And as long as they have done, receive the support of the governments in which their troops are operating. We have also indicated that we are prepared to increase and augment our support not only to the Ugandans, but also to help the regional states to build their capacity to deal with the LRA. So in both of these two pieces of legislation, bipartisan in nature are critical in helping to shape the strategy that we're using to go forward and to assist in a problem which is significant, but we're committed to working on it. Can I just say one quick thing which is that in all truth that I have found that it's a tremendous amount of bipartisan support for this issue and I'm grateful for it. And in a probably and unfortunately a rancorous time, maybe this is something that folks can agree on and perhaps that will help us. And I also wanna highlight there has been a lot of really good work. John Prendergast, the enough project working around conflict minerals who are doing an extraordinary job on that. So I just wanted to point them out. Well, speaking of bipartisan congressional support, our keynote speaker, Senator Kerry has arrived. So I'm going to wrap up the panel. I think the panel has conveyed, A, the complexity of the issue. I tend to think we come away from panels on DRC somewhat gloomy, but I think we've highlighted also the progress that has been made, the opportunities that there are moving forward, the size of the audience today, I think speaks volumes to the attention. Ben, the ECI initiative bringing additional attention, congressional support and really an investment in the resilience of the people of Eastern Congo who I hope will remain a central focus for us as we move forward into the coming election year. We're gonna leave it to a fellow Massachusetts to introduce the Senator. The panel will step down and thank you again to Zembe, Tony and Assistant Secretary Carson. Thanks very much. Thank you. Could I ask you to do some more, Tony? Okay, this is very exciting for me and something I've actually had the honor to do once before, but it's always lovely. It's my great pleasure to introduce a man who has fought physically and intellectually for the causes he believes in. He has defended America abroad. He has worked within the US government for decades to make her policies smarter and more effective. He's an extraordinary guy. I've seen him face adversity up close. I admire him. I believe he's an exquisite example of who we might aspire to be in public service in this country. He also happens to be from the great state of Massachusetts which does not hurt. We welcome his thoughts on Congo, Africa and America's interest in the stability of the region. Please help me in welcoming the Senator from the great state of Massachusetts, my home state. Well, Ben, thank you very much. We took it on the road in 04. We should do it again sometime. I waddle that gets tweeted around. I'll carry your announces. I accept the nomination. Anyway, let's not get carried away, right? Or let's, who knows? But it's great to be here and it's especially nice to be introduced by my fellow member of Red Sox Nation. A great fellow traveler on this journey of what I call accountability and of hope and of possibilities. And I really appreciate and have enormous respect personally for Ben's contributions. The witness, the number of folks who are here today, the important dialogue that you've just had, and the focus that he has been able to bring to a place where much of what is happening that is so bad and so difficult happens because it doesn't get the kind of focus that it deserves and needs. So Ben's intervention, frankly, and the intervention of others, John Prendergast and others, is just a godsend in a place where there's a kind of daily hell for too many people, which the world doesn't notice going on at all. Or too little, I suppose I should say, particularly after the comments we just heard on the panel. So I'm grateful for this opportunity to share some thoughts. And I noticed in the introduction that Ben mentioned not just the Eastern Congo, but sort of Africa and the region. And the region obviously also includes a place called Darfur in Sudan, where Johnny Carson knows we are deeply involved right now in trying to live up to the promise of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the CPA, and avoid yet another catastrophe where another two million people died in the longest war in Africa's history. A little-known fact, most people think exclusively of Darfur, where we lost 300 to 450,000, but two million people were lost in that longest war. And the capacity for difficulties over a place called Abiyah, 60 miles squared of territory, to reignite that kind of conflict are unfortunately all too real. The efforts of the administration of Special Envoy Gratian and Ambassador Princeton Lyman, who is on the ground there now, and of President Tabo and Becky, all laboring hard to try to find the magic threading of the needle that will successfully bring about a referendum on January 9th. And whatever those results bring, and hopefully the completion of all of the other issues that are outstanding with respect to the Comprehensive Agreement are critical. So I just wanted to mention that in the context of this gathering, as you think about this Eastern Congo initiative that has come forward here, then you couldn't have found a cause more in need of attention, and more in need of public discussion, and where more lives can be saved perhaps faster than in a lot of other places, if there is just that decent amount of international focus and attention. I want to thank each of the other panelists as well for their work on this issue. Assistant Secretary Johnny Carson has been just an indefatigable, long time committed leader on these issues. His career in shaping U.S. policy in Africa to promote peace and security, to improve governance, create economic opportunities is well known, and so well known that's exactly why he's doing what he's doing now, and we're lucky to have him there doing that. And Vembe, and Tony, thank you so much for being here, and I wish I'd been able to hear your comments earlier. There is nothing like coming in as a keynote speaker at the end of a panel that you have no idea what was said. If you want to challenge folks, this is it. So obviously I have the risk of being completely and totally irrelevant, but it's a risk I'm willing to take on obviously, either out of sheer witsba or stupidity. And John Boseman, it's great to be here with you and look forward to hearing your comments, too, and look forward to welcoming you and working with you in the Senate as we all engage next year. Incidentally, one of the reasons, I just total aside, one of the reasons I'm only just arriving here now is that Chris Dodd, Senior Senator from Connecticut, just gave his farewell address. He's an old pal of mine, and I thought, and I think it was very important to be there to hear what he said, but I will tell you, you gotta go read it every single one of you. Mitch McConnell stood up afterwards and said it may have been one of the most important speeches in the Senate in a long, long time, and I think it was, because it really talked about the dysfunctionality and the awe and power of the Senate when people apply themselves appropriately to the challenges, and it was full of possibilities and full of, I think, appropriate admonitions to all of us. Those who've been there a while and those who are just coming in, it is a great institution when it works properly, which it isn't now, but can. And mostly, that depends not on rules and not on either party, but it depends on the individuals who are elected there and the choices they make. So this is one of those kinds of choices. It really is. And I think that one of the things that must have been expressed here, I hope it was expressed here, and I'm sure it's what brings Ben and many of you to this CSIS meeting, and I thank them for sponsoring this gathering, is really the possibilities of what can happen with a de minimis amount of appropriate capacity applied to this challenge rather than the indifference that has too often characterized our approaches. The truth is that each year, Doctors Without Borders releases a list of the world's most neglected humanitarian crises, and each year, folks, the DRC is on that list. That says something about us, all of us. It says something about the international community, and it says something about our current humanitarian responsibilities of common sense and justice and conscience. Millions of people have died. Nearly two million people are now living in displacement camps, driven from their homes by the LRA, the Lord's Resistance Army, or by the FDLR, or the My My, or the Congolese Army itself, or some combination of them, or some combination of lawless gangs, often young people just running around armed to the teeth and raised on violence, even in areas where there is no conflict. Basic services don't exist, and that gives the Congo some of the highest mortality rates in the world. And yet, despite all of this, if you asked most people in the world, they wouldn't have a clue that anything bad is happening. As Ben wrote in the Washington Post this morning, most people don't know that the Congo was the site of the deadliest conflict since World War II, and that people are still suffering and dying in the wake of that conflict. That's why the Eastern Congo initiative is so important, because frankly, it's the first time those nine proposals have sort of collected a specific public sense of mission and of what the possibilities are. So that's why the work that the ECI and CSIS and others are doing here is so important right now in this context. Here in this room today, we all need to leave here with a better understanding of what our mission is over the course of these next months and of how achievable it is, and I hope that's come out of these comments. I think Johnny Carson was talking about some of the things we are doing. You know, there are some positives. There is sign of where you can make a difference and how you can make a difference. And the administration is already doing a lot to help, and on Capitol Hill, we've done a few small things, not as much as I'd like to see happen, but as you know, earlier this year, we passed the conflict minerals provision as part of the Wall Street reform, and that is very important. I was talking with John Prendegast earlier today, and we were sort of talking about how you meet the needs, and I think we both came to the conclusion that even if you upped the intervention of forces, you wouldn't really make that much difference. And in the end, the really biggest kick of accountability is probably gonna come through those people who have an economic interest that is conditioning behavior today. And so creating the ties between those valuable minerals that are in all of our cell phones and blackberries and other electronic devices and the armed groups that profit from them, creating that nexus is critical to beginning to create the accountability that we need. I mentioned to John that I think, and Ben I think we ought to take this to campuses all across America, every kid who picks up a cell phone ought to automatically be thinking, as they thought about a blood diamond, they ought to think about a blood phone. They ought to think about the connection. And that is an instant capacity to communicate. We ought to be able to get Verizon and AT&T and those people to help put the messaging out that links people to this. So everybody, that's the best communication in the country today, because a lot of people aren't gonna see it on TV, completely self-selective nowadays. And so this is a way that we may be able to really instill in people the kind of accountability and response that spreads very rapidly through corporate America who suddenly becomes aware that the people who consume are demanding a certain standard of behavior. And that standard of behavior means there is not going to be a casual looking of the other way with respect to responsibility for the linkage to the minerals. I think every time you get a text, every time you tweet, every time you take a photo, whatever happens, people ought to have that kind of consciousness. And I think that will change the behavior of some of the folks who have facilitated the violence. On Thursday, we were gonna take up in the Foreign Relations Committee, but I think because of the Senate schedule, we'll probably have to delay it to next week, but we will take it up, the International Violence Against Women Act. Now, as all of you know, and I'm sure it was discussed here, the Eastern DRC has been seen of some of the most horrific crimes of violence against women and girls imaginable. Rape has been used as a consistent weapon of war. An intimidation in a region where there is neither basic security or rule of law is rampant. As social institutions have broken down, rape has become a simply commonplace horror. And the International Violence Against Women Act is not a cure-all to it, but it will require us to develop a comprehensive, individualized strategy for countries with significant violence against women and girls. And the strategy is to prevent that violence and to end the impunity for the perpetrators of it and to safely treat victims. Under IWAWA as its nickname, the State Department is also gonna have to determine what actions it can take immediately in response to credible reports of widespread violence against women and girls, such as the horrific violence we heard of in Lavungi in August. And I fully expect that the DRC is gonna be one of the very first countries that the IWAWA strategy is gonna wind up having a positive impact on. So these are crucial efforts, but ultimately, folks, the violence that characterizes Eastern Congo is a symptom. It's a symptom caused by the weakness of local governance, by the absence of security, and by the absence of rule of law. So you're really beginning at some pretty basic fundamentals here. And if we continue to approach the problems of Congo in a piecemeal fashion, I guarantee you, nothing will change. You cannot ignore armed groups such as the FDLR but you also gotta figure out why they flourish. It's not that complicated. We all know this. We learned some of this in the Rwandan experience, one that President Clinton today says, my God, I wish we'd moved on it sooner. Well, same thing here. I don't wanna wind up, and you don't wanna wind up, particularly after having a conference like this where we're acknowledging the realities, and then come back next year and have it be the same realities and the same level of inactivity. We also have to be mindful of the fact that government forces have almost consistently been labeled the worst actors in this violence, and they have increasingly, the government forces, profited from the trade in minerals. The Congolese government simply has to, and we obviously have to work with them to do this, develop a justice system that ends the impunity for those who commit vicious crimes, and we've got to ensure in the effort to do that that the troops are paid, that the fundamentals of governance are occurring, and that they have basics like food and shelter so they're not motivated to add to the problems that they're supposed to be solving. Now, already, we are engaged in this. I don't know if Johnny talked about it, but we're helping to professionalize the Congolese military. We have a training facility in Kisangani, where we're preparing what we hope will be a model light infantry battalion that can quickly deploy, particularly to the Kivus north and south, and we need to do more than that. We need to coordinate with other members of the international community, and we need to ensure that the UN mission in the Congo has the means as well to help protect civilians. Obviously, that's been a little bit complicated from President Kabila's sort of downsizing to some degree, but I don't think it's still one of the largest emissions in the world at something, I think 18,000 or something like that, and so we ought to have that capacity, and we need to expand our humanitarian and development assistance both in the investment as well as in the breadth of territory that we are addressing, and that's one reason why I very strongly support ECIs called to reappoint a U.S. special advisor for the Great Lakes region, because it will significantly aid us in their ability to do that. So, folks, we've seen how successful a regional approach can be. The U.S. supported Congo Basin Forest Partnership, for example, is defined by a watershed rather than defined by geographic lines, specifically, on a map, and the six African countries that make up the partnership are home to the second largest tropical forest of its kind left anywhere in the world. That's an enormous resource that everybody has a stake in, because the bottom line is the ecological future of Africa and our global efforts to combat climate change, something near and dear to my heart, hang in that balance, and I highlight this, not just because I do have a specific interest in that global effort, but because it really shows that many of the Congo's challenges are, in fact, regional challenges, and we have to see them as such and engage those regions in them accordingly. We also know that Congo's wars have been fueled by its neighbors, and its future prosperity is going to depend on those neighbors as well. Now, next year's elections are the first step in the big path forward. The DRC, as we know, just celebrated 50 years of independence, but for almost all of that half a century, folks, it has been torn by war, by oppression, and development has actually gone in reverse with infrastructure disappearing and governance contracting. The next 50 years are up to us to define, to some degree. In the end, I think if we're going to have a future that benefits communities, not just warlords, and in which institutions of law and medicine and education are established, in which the DRC is not the world's most neglected crisis, but we've transformed it into the most dramatic place of change, that's what we have the opportunity to try to do. What's interesting about it is, I think Johnny would agree with me, you know, we're putting $106 billion a year into Afghanistan, more than a trillion went into Iraq. This is so small in terms of the monetary requirement and what would make a difference. So stunningly small, but so huge in terms of the dramatic impact it would have on the lives of fellow human beings. And frankly, it would do America so much good to be able to say to the world that it's not just the war on terror and other kinds of things we care about, but it's this kind of humanitarian challenge that motivates us and excites us and challenges us and brings a whole generation into a new level of engagement that can transform in the end a whole continent. There aren't many places left on this planet where you can say that. And where it matters as much. So I thank you for being here today. It is still one of the most neglected tragedies in the world. It has never received the global attention and proportion to the scale of its suffering that it demands. And obviously, the complex ever shifting ethnic conflicts that are hard to understand make it easy for a lot of Americans to turn in the other direction. Life is already easy enough in America for people to turn in the other direction. We have to fight back against that kind of pre-election. I'm confident that we can do it. I think the arguments that the ECI has made here today are common sense, achievable, and they are the best path forward for us to be able to make the kind of difference that I've just described. So thank you for the privilege of sharing some thoughts with you. Most importantly, thank you all for being here today and for caring about this enormous challenge and mission that we have to engage in. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Senator Kerry. I just so moved and touched and impressed. Guy does not need to be here and lending his powerful voice to this issue is amazingly important and very impressive to me. I also want to thank Senator Bozeman, and it's also very important that Senator has shown up, like I said, I believe this is an issue that transcends partisanship. It's an issue about being a human being, who we are. What are our values as Americans? What do we want to leave behind? What do we want to say that our government does on our behalf? And I'm extremely grateful to the Senator and I look forward to seeing you in the future and bending your ear about this endlessly. I want to thank my fellow panelists. I want to thank the Assistant Secretary, there he is. Johnny Carson, thank you so much again. Somebody who's taken time from a very busy and important schedule and it's so important, thank you. It's been an honor truly to sit on a panel with you. I keep reading about you in books and now I know what you look like. Tony Gambino, thank you. He's been a tremendous asset in putting stuff together, worked tirelessly on this issue, very smart guy and someone who really cares and an inspiration to me. And remember, thank you. I mean, you know, the voice of truth and insight and a wonderful guy and always looks better than I do. Everywhere we go, which is starting to become annoying. And to meet you in Salama, I want to thank you for authoring this paper, that a defined job. For those of you, real policy wonks, I expect it written, read in the next couple of days. There'll be a test. Thank you very, very much. Please do look it over. This has been an honor, you know, CSIS. I'm incredibly grateful and thank all of you, as the Senator said, for showing up. It means a lot. It turns out, you know, we're very grateful for showing up. It means a lot. It turns out, you know, where you show up for. So thank you.