[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 6 (Tuesday, January 14, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S286-S287]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           SITUATION IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to call my colleagues' attention 
to a situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Last month, the 
parties to the bloody conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 
signed an accord intended to end the country's 4-year civil war. But 
central Africans may not have much reason to celebrate yet, because 
unless this step is accompanied by meaningful new initiatives, the 
agreement promises little change from the insecurity and repression 
that have killed millions of their countrymen and dominated their lives 
throughout the conflict.
  As the outgoing chairman and incoming ranking Democratic member of 
the Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs, I have monitored events in 
the Congo in recent years, and I must share some of this skepticism. 
The international community has been eager to certify a withdrawal of 
foreign forces so that it could move the Congo file out of the 
international crisis bin and into the overstuffed stack of civil 
collapses. Consequently, the world has demanded very little of the 
signatories to this new accord. Meanwhile, the demands of the Congolese 
people appear to have not been taken into account at all.
  The agreement provides for Joseph Kabila, who was installed as 
President in Kinshasa after his father's assassination, to remain in 
the Presidency, and establishes four Vice-Presidential positions to 
accommodate his own party, the two major armed rebel groups, and the 
unarmed political opposition. But neither the President nor this bevy 
of Vice-Presidents can boast of any real political legitimacy, and thus 
far plans to ensure an eventual democratic transition have a feeble, 
wishful quality that suggests no one takes them terribly seriously.
  Intercommunal tensions in Eastern Congo continue to simmer violently 
in the context of atrocious governance, but this is treated as an 
extraneous and inconvenient detail. Violence continues to rage in the 
Ituri region, displacing tens of thousands, it is clear,

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killing many civilians caught in a brutal struggle for power between 
factions uninterested in any aspect of governance save the accumulation 
of power and riches.
  Evidence that virtually all parties now ensconced in an 
internationally sanctioned government have participated in rapacious 
exploitation of Congo's natural resources merited ambitious reports 
from a U.N. commission, but the United States appears to have largely 
ignored the commission's recommendations. Mr. President, I want to 
stress how important the commission's work truly is, in exposing the 
motives of the actors involved and revealing the extent to which the 
country's resources and future have been sold out to the highest 
bidder, leaving little for rebuilding the Congolese state and providing 
for the needs of the Congolese people. The commission's work should 
continue, and the U.S. should work with our partners in the 
international community to make its recommendations reality.
  But I want to underscore an important fact. Our failure to hold 
actors within Congo and within the Governments of Rwanda, Uganda, and 
Zimbabwe accountable for looting the country is a lesser crime than our 
failure to address the killing, rape, and deprivation that these forces 
inflicted on the Congolese. Despite the fanfare accompanying recent 
agreements, no one has meaningfully addressed the need to hold those 
responsible accountable for the horrific human rights abuses that have 
characterized this conflict. In fact, the international community has 
countenanced the slaughter of innocents with impunity throughout the 
region for years, and appears to have even lost its taste for making 
the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, established in the wake 
of the 1994 genocide, an effective and impartial body.
  To consider the history of the Congo is to confront an appalling 
litany of exploitation and manipulation--first orchestrated by 
Belgium's rapacious King Leopold, then by the American-backed 
kleptocrat, Mobutu Sese Seko. The Congolese people deserve finally to 
have a voice in decisions about their political leadership and some 
degree of control over their own destiny. But I fear that they are 
about to get more of the same--more harassment of civil society and the 
free press, more underdevelopment, and more thuggery disguised as 
authority. The hundreds of millions of dollars that the U.S. is 
devoting to peacekeeping in the Congo must be accompanied by real 
political leadership that underscores the need for accountability, 
improved governance, grassroots participation, and focused 
reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts. Without that leadership, the 
American people will have simply made a costly investment in continued 
injustice.
  The current approach is not merely morally reprehensible and fiscally 
irresponsible, it is also dangerous. In hearings I convened earlier 
this year, I tried to draw out the links between unstable and lawless 
swathes of Africa and international criminal networks--including 
terrorist networks. Experts have warned about the potential for 
terrorists to acquire uranium from central African sources. A free-for-
all of corruption and instability is appealing to money-launderers, 
arms and mineral traffickers, and others who would prefer to keep their 
activities in the shadows. The spillover effects of sustained chaos in 
Congo are simply too serious to be ignored. The U.S. needs a coherent, 
long-term policy aimed at building stability and strengthening 
institutions.

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