[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 100 (Wednesday, July 9, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9111-S9113]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LIBERIA
Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to comment on the urgent crisis
in Liberia, and on my conviction that the United States has a role to
play in its resolution. I also rise to call for the kind of information
and clarity that we need if we are to take effective action.
In recent days the newspapers have reminded Americans of the special
relationship that exists between America and the west African Republic
of Liberia, a country founded by freed slaves from the United States in
1820. But it is important to note the more recent historical links
between our countries as well.
During the cold war, eager for reliable client states in Africa, the
United States supported Samuel Doe when he seized control of Liberia in
a 1980 coup, and kept supporting him even when he stole the 1985
elections. In fact, in the first five years of the Doe regime, the
United States contributed nearly $500 million in economic and military
aid--effectively bolstering the government's staying power. The Doe
regime was an extraordinarily brutal one that not only disenfranchised
many Liberians, it also effectively erased the boundaries between
legitimate and illegitimate political action. When the cold war was
over and Charles Taylor's band of rebels--some of them children--
clashed with government forces and other ethnic militias in the
streets, the resulting conflict was so frighteningly gruesome that for
many it was almost impossible to understand.
And the United States, no longer concerned about Communist influences
in Monrovia, simply evacuated American citizens and then watched the
country tear itself apart from the sidelines. In the end, Taylor
essentially held the country hostage to his desire for power, and war-
weary Liberians elected him President in the hopes of avoiding
conflict. Taylor's desire for power and wealth turned out to extend
beyond his own borders, however, and he became a primary patron of the
brutal Revolutionary United Front, or RUF, force in Sierra Leone, which
provided his regime with riches from Sierra Leone's diamond mines in
exchange for military support and protection.
On November 2, 2001 the Washington Post ran a front-page article
about alleged connections between al-Qaida's financing and the illicit
sale of diamonds mined by Liberian-backed rebels in Sierra Leone--
rebels who, you may recall, are best known for cutting off the limbs of
civilians, including children, to make a political statement. Reports
have also linked illicit diamond sales to Hezbollah. Additional
articles focused on notorious arms dealer Victor Bout, whose deliveries
to the region may have been paid for in diamonds. Law enforcement
officials have suggested that Bout has been involved in arming
international terrorists and the forces that harbor them worldwide.
These reports have been the subject of controversy, and the connections
and relationships involved are murky at best, but the issue that they
expose--the vulnerability of weak states to exploitation by
international criminals--is not in doubt.
Meanwhile, Taylor's criminal enterprise has proved the rule that
order, when imposed through injustice and repression, tends to crumble,
and the forces currently challenging the regime for power--the LURD and
MODEL--appear to be have learned their abusive tactics from their
enemies. Criminality rules, chaos threatens, and the civilians of
Liberia--the people with a real interest in building a stable future,
the people who simply want a chance to send their children to school,
are once again likely to be caught in the crossfire.
It is time for the international community to stand up and say, ``no
more'' to this cycle of chaos in west Africa. No more deals with thugs,
no standing by as observers to cycles of slaughter, no more watching
the predictable fomenting of instability across borders, no more
standing by as organized crime expands its reach from the very seat of
government, no more opportunities for terrorists. Enough--because more
of the same threatens our interests and denies our basic humanity.
The United States should take a leadership role in responding to the
Liberian crisis. And that means that we need to clarify the costs and
commitments entailed in a response now, so that we can take informed
and responsible action.
Recently the distinguished chair and ranking member of the Armed
Services Committee indicated that they believe Congress should vote on
any commitment of substantial forces in the region. I believe that they
are right, and that United States troops must always be deployed in a
manner consistent with the War Powers Act of 1973. But I also know that
watching and waiting is not an option that will serve United States
interests.
In Liberia, we can and should act in concert with the international
community. In 2000, the British made a courageous decision and helped
to bolster peacekeeping efforts in Sierra Leone, bringing an end to a
violent spectacle that had outraged the world without provoking an
effective response for years.
The French deployed to Cote d'Ivoire when it fell victim to the
forces of disorder, are trying to reverse the trend toward violence and
chaos that recently gripped that once-stable place. African states have
mobilized as well, and they continue to work feverishly to resist the
spread of misery, deprivation, and violence that has spread throughout
this region. For historical reasons, most in the international
community looks to the United States for commitment and leadership in
stabilizing Liberia, which is the country that is at the heart of this
regional decline in West Africa. In fact, unlike the situation we
recently faced in Iraq, virtually the entire international community is
urging the United States to act: from our closest allies in Britain to
the Secretary General of the United Nations. And most importantly, west
Africans themselves are asking for our help. Liberians are frantically
waving U.S. flags, hoping to get our attention, praying we will come to
their aid. This is a not a situation that involves antagonizing allies
in the fight against
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terrorism--instead, it calls for cooperating with the diverse actors
around the world who are already committed to fighting for stability in
the region.
And make no mistake, the United States is already among those actors.
This is not some new issue that just emerged over the last month, and
we are not at the precipice of deciding whether or not to get involved.
Let us take just one example:
As of January 1 of this year, the United States had spent over $515
million on the peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone and on Operation
Focus Relief, which was devised to support that mission. Hundreds of
millions more have been appropriated and requested for this purpose in
2003 and 2004. From the point of view of the United States taxpayer, we
are already in quite deep.
There is no denying that Sierra Leone's long-term stability depends
upon resolving the problem in Liberia. Over the July 4 recess, I sent a
member of my staff to Sierra Leone, and to the region in the east that
borders Liberia and which was formerly a RUF stronghold, to assess the
situation. And I can tell you, from her report, that senior military
experts in the region have recently underscored this point.
The question before us now is whether or not we will protect our
investment and our interests by addressing the foremost underlying
cause of instability in the region; and that is, the criminal
enterprise currently governing Liberia, and the violent and abusive
movements that have sprung up in resistance to it.
I have been to Liberia, and I have been to Cote d'Ivoire, and I have
been to Sierra Leone. I have served on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee's Subcommittee on African Affairs since I came to the Senate
in 1993. For over 7 years now I have served as either the chairman or
ranking member of the subcommittee. In this role, and in Africa, I have
met with amputees, refugees, widows and orphans. I have spoken with
west African heads of state and west African civil society leaders
about Liberia's influence on the region. I have no doubt in my mind
that the humanitarian catastrophe and the dangerous instability in the
region will not be resolved until Liberia is stabilized--and that means
more than replacing one thug with another.
During my chairmanship of the subcommittee last year, we held a
series of hearings focusing on the very real security threats that are
posed by weak or failed states in Africa, including criminal networks
like those in Somalia or west Africa which can provide a safe haven for
terrorist activities. After the horror of September 11, 2001, consensus
built across the political spectrum, acknowledging that the United
States was shortsighted when we disengaged from Afghanistan and
Pakistan once we no longer had cold war-related interests in those
countries. So what happened? What happened was that America left a
vacuum in its wake, and some of the forces that moved to fill that
vacuum came to threaten our security in ways we could not have
imagined.
The very same thing is true in sub-Saharan Africa. Manifestations of
lawlessness such as piracy, illicit air transport networks, and
trafficking in arms, drugs, gems and people simply beckon to those who
would operate in the shadows, beyond the reach of the law.
It only takes one look at the war-ravaged state of Congo today, or
the porous borders of west Africa, to see opportunities for those who
would do us harm. In 1998, al-Qaida seized that opportunity,
perpetrating attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
that killed 223 people--Kenyans, Tanzanians, and Americans--and wounded
thousands more. And unless we take action to make African societies
less vulnerable to this kind of lawlessness rather than continuing our
post-cold-war pattern of neglect, we may well reap the terrible
consequences here at home.
But a word of caution and a clarification are in order here. It is
difficult to verify links between west African chaos and international
terrorism, in part because illicit diamonds are such effective money-
laundering instruments. And I am not saying that al-Qaida is in league
with Charles Taylor or the LURD or MODEL, and therefore we should go
marching into Monrovia for that reason. I have not seen any information
that would lead me to believe that to be true, and, frankly, I am not
interested in harnessing the power and the emotion bound up in the
fight against terrorism to every other policy issue for the sake of
political convenience. My goal here is to protect the American people
and to ensure that our international action is responsible.
And I am not saying that the United States military should stand
poised to intervene throughout the continent wherever disorder reigns.
Of course not. But just as Australia, backed up by the international
community, responded to crisis in East Timor; just as Britain, backed
up by the international community, responded to crisis in Sierra Leone;
so too, sometimes, it falls to the United States to take a leadership
role.
Unlike the issue of Iraq that came before us last year, I am not
talking about starting a war with anyone in the face of widespread
international opposition. Instead, I am talking about working with the
international community to help stabilize a country that has fallen
into the hands of undisciplined bands of thugs. For unilateral action
in the face of massive global opposition, I set the bar very high. For
action in concert with others that will be widely welcomed, I still set
a high bar. It must be in our interest. And there are questions that
must be answered to my satisfaction before any intervention can meet
with my approval. And I remain very, very concerned about our
overextension militarily around the world. I am neither a promilitary
intervention Senator nor an antimilitary intervention Senator.
Attaching ourselves to such labels is a mistake. I simply try to look
at each situation and exercise my judgement. After years of studying
this situation, my judgement tells me that the United States has a
meaningful role to play here in Liberia.
And let us not forget that we are also talking about a human tragedy
unfolding before our eyes. Tens of thousands are already displaced;
hundreds died in fighting in Monrovia a few days ago. The quality of
life of civilians in Liberia contends for the title of worst in the
world. At some point, this has to matter. Common decency suggests that
the international community should act to stop the downward spiral.
It is time to say: no more. After visiting the region, I called
Charles Taylor a war criminal here on the Senate floor in 2001, saying
publicly what many had said privately for a long time. The Special
Court for Sierra Leone unsealed an indictment to this effect just last
month. Like many of my colleagues, I strongly support the court. West
Africa must break the cycle of violence and impunity, and all of us in
the international community have a role to play in that effort. And I
support President Bush, who is right to call on Charles Taylor to step
down, just as the Special Court for Sierra Leone was right to indict
him. But, let us be clear. Taylor should have no veto over
internationally backed U.S. action. His days of dictating the destiny
of the west African people are over.
U.S. action may involve sending American troops. But before making
that decision, we need answers to several critical questions.
I have not seen the scenarios or projections for any kind of action
or intervention that have surely been worked up by the administration.
I should see them. We should all see them. And we should see them
sooner rather than later. And we need answers to the questions: Will
United States participation and leadership overstretch our resources?
What are the costs? What commitments are we making? What is our exit
strategy? And, what are our plans for the coordination of long-term
stabilization efforts?
Of course the answers should inform any decision about what we should
and should not do. No one should understand my remarks today as some
sort of ``anything goes'' endorsement of any and all proposals that may
emerge. But I do believe that we must do something, and that we need to
confront these questions quickly. As I have noted, American inaction
and indifference is not an option. We are already deeply involved. The
success of any action we take cannot be guaranteed, but we know that
the costs of inaction are very high and very dangerous.
I urge the administration to begin undertaking consultations urgently
so
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that we can move forward with an informed, effective, and timely
response.
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