[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 181 (Tuesday, November 7, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7056-S7058]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, today I wish to shine a spotlight on the 
increasingly dire political, security, and humanitarian crisis in the 
Democratic Republic of the Congo. Senator Booker and I, along with 
Senators Durbin, Coons, Warren, Markey, and Brown, recently sent a 
letter to President Trump urging the administration to take immediate 
action to ensure that the United States is prepared to do our part to 
help stave off further violence and human suffering.
  The Democratic Republic of the Congo, or the DRC as it is known, is a 
country of vast natural resource wealth. It is the largest country in 
sub-Saharan Africa by land mass, with ample arable land, a variety of 
precious minerals, and the world's second-largest river, the Congo, 
which possesses substantial hydroelectric potential; yet, despite an 
abundance of natural resources--indeed, because of it--the people of 
the DRC have endured centuries of exploitation and atrocities. In the 
postcolonial era, the country has struggled with decades of conflict, 
endemic corruption, and extreme poverty. The DRC ranks 176th out of 188 
countries on the Human Development Index. Life expectancy is 59 years. 
An estimated 77 percent of the people live on less than $2 a day. More 
than 12 percent of children do not live to see their fifth birthday. 
Mothers die in childbirth in more than 7 out of every 1,000 live 
births. The statistics are truly alarming.
  The 1997 to 2003 civil war involved at least seven countries in the 
region and, by some estimates, caused 5.4 million deaths from war and 
war-related causes. The conflict was characterized by massive human 
rights violations and introduced the world to the brutal consequences 
of the mining of conflict minerals. Eastern Congo has been referred to 
as the rape capital of the world, and sexual violence continues to be 
used as a weapon to traumatize and terrorize the population.
  Despite the establishment of truth and reconciliation committees by 
the Sun City Accords in 2002, the installation of a unity government in 
2003, and the deployment of the largest United Nations peacekeeping 
force in the world, the country remains unstable. The peacekeeping 
mission in DRC plays a critical role in protecting civilians in 
conflict areas and promoting stability; yet its capabilities are 
limited, and it is not a substitute for a political agreement respected 
and adhered to by all relevant stakeholders. Let me be clear: I fully 
support MONUSCO peacekeepers who seek to uphold their mandate. Though 
the mission has come under criticism over the years for not doing 
enough to protect civilians and for controversies regarding its own 
abuses, we must ask ourselves what would have happened--and what might 
still happen--if the UN were not present--or if the United States 
forces such significant troop reductions that the mission is rendered 
ineffective, which I fear we may be perilously close to doing.

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  Despite the deployment of peacekeepers and despite the Sun City 
Accords, conflict, instability, and meddling by other countries in DRC 
persisted. It took another 10 years and the efforts of the UN and the 
African Union to put the Congo on a path towards true stability in 2013 
through what became known as the Framework of Hope, in which other 
governments pledged noninterference; yet, instead of building on this 
landmark agreement over the past 4 years to achieve reconciliation, 
stabilization, and development, the country has become subsumed in new 
conflicts and instability due to political leaders' self-interested and 
shortsighted calculations.
  DRC's long and as yet incomplete road to peace is a classic example 
of how pernicious longstanding conflicts require persistent, high-level 
diplomatic engagement to untangle and address root causes. 
International diplomacy often isn't swift or easy, and sometimes the 
parties take two steps forward and one step back. It is often 
frustrating. It is often exhausting, but it is always essential. The 
work of former Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Russ Feingold, who was 
constantly in the region engaging with heads of state, was instrumental 
in holding neighboring countries to their commitments under the 
Framework of Hope, which reduced violence and insecurity. The work of 
Senator Feingold's successor, Tom Perriello, was instrumental in 
helping obtain a political agreement in the DRC in 2016 that held the 
promise of achieving democratic elections and an end to sweeping 
government abuses against unarmed civilian protesters.
  The current spread of violence within the DRC serves as a painful 
reminder of how critical it is that we continue to work not only to 
maintain the gains we have made on the international front, but also 
the fragile respect for democracy and good governance inside DRC. 
According to the constitution adopted in 2005, elections should have 
taken place in November of last year, and President Joseph Kabila, 
having served two terms, should have stepped down. Instead, President 
Kabila first tried to change the constitution and then, when that 
effort failed, he threw up obstacles--slow-rolling voter registration, 
underfunding the electoral commission, and insisting on a unilateral 
and hurried process for the creation of new provinces--all of which 
precipitated a political crisis late last year when it became clear 
that the polls would not be open. While the opposition engaged in good-
faith negotiations with the government to come to agreement on a new 
election timeline, Kabila has once again refused to abide by the terms. 
In fact, elections planned for the end of this year per that December 
31 agreement--duly signed by the ruling party and the opposition--will 
not take place until December 2018. President Kabila's decision to 
remain in power beyond his mandate and to walk away from last year's 
political deal has caused instability and upheaval that, if not 
directly responsible, appears to be feeding growing violence and unrest 
in various parts of the country, this time including in areas of the 
country that had been largely been stable.
  Government forces and progovernment militia are accused of gross 
human rights violations in the Kasai region. Two UN investigators, 
including an American, were killed in the region in March as they 
attempted to look into allegations of human rights abuses by security 
forces, and multiple researchers have uncovered evidence of potential 
involvement by state actors in their murder. The UN has not ruled out 
involvement by government forces, but more investigation is needed. At 
least 80 mass graves have been discovered. Over 5,000 people have been 
killed since 2016, according to some reports. The lives of hundreds of 
thousands of children and their families in Greater Kasai have been 
turned upside down by this brutal violence, with nearly a million and a 
half people internally displaced in the Kasai alone, including 850,000 
children. Just last week, the head of the World Food Program warned 
that, if WFP did not receive funding and access to the area, hundreds 
of thousands of children would die over the next couple of months. All 
told, nearly 4 million Congolese are internally displaced--over a 
million newly displaced in Kasai alone just over the last 12 months--
giving DRC the dubious distinction of having the most internally 
displaced people in Africa.
  We have a moral obligation to pursue peace. We cannot stand by and 
allow conflict in DRC or anywhere else spiral so far out of control 
that an untold number of women are victims of sexual violence, and 
millions die from conflict, starvation, and preventable disease.
  We have a moral obligation to try to halt mass atrocities wherever 
they occur. The scale of violence perpetrated against civilians in 
Congo has been staggering.
  We should care because the world is supporting a massive peacekeeping 
operation in the country to the tune of $1.14 billion a year, of which 
the U.S. will pay an estimated $325 million this year. We need the 
MONUSCO mission to be efficient, we need it to be effective, and we 
need to create conditions for it to end, but the only way for the 
mission to draw down in a responsible fashion is as peace and stability 
are progressively achieved. Therefore, the United States, a leader in 
the international community, must do more to help facilitate a 
political process that will lead to a durable peace.
  The problems in the Congo are not insurmountable, and our voice and 
diplomatic influence could help bring about a solution if the Trump 
administration is willing to make an effort to do so. There are several 
easy steps it could take immediately.
  No. 1, the administration could fill critical vacancies. The 
President should immediately nominate an accredited Ambassador to 
Kinshasa. Our last Ambassador, a highly capable career foreign service 
officer, left his post in December. The President should nominate an 
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs for Senate 
confirmation. The position has remained vacant for 9 months, with 
Ambassador Donald Yamamoto serving in the role in an acting capacity.
  Second, on the heels of UN Ambassador Nikki Haley's visit to DRC last 
month--one of the first visits to the continent by a senior member of 
the Trump administration--I urge the delegation to capitalize on the 
momentum from that trip to push for the following: No. 1, 
implementation of the December 31 agreement; No. 2, broader cooperation 
with and support for the investigation into human rights abuses in 
Kasai; No. 3, ensuring there is a credible international investigation 
into the murder of the two UN investigators; and No. 4, sharing the 
assessment of the humanitarian emergency in the Kasais.
  I understand that Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, head of U.S. Africa 
Command, accompanied Ambassador Haley. I hope that he will share his 
assessment and any recommendations he has related to MONUSCO's 
deployment. I urge Ambassador Haley to ask that the Security Council 
convene an emergency meeting to discuss the findings of her trip. 
Finally, the administration should reexamine the decision in March of 
this year to lower MONUSCO's troop ceiling, given conditions in the 
country and the observations of the returning delegation.
  We must use all the tools at our disposal, such as the Atrocities 
Prevention Board, to devise concrete actions our diplomats can take to 
stave off further violence. The White House should consider tightening 
sanctions on the regime. So far, we have sanctioned six sitting or 
former senior government and security officials, as well as a private 
company owned by one of them, under Executive Order 13671 issued in 
2014. Sanctions have proven effective at getting Kinshasa's attention 
and should be applied in an ever-tightening manner aimed at the highest 
levels of government until we see demonstrable progress towards 
implementing the December 31 agreement. The Global Magnitsky Act is 
another tool that the administration could use to further pressure the 
regime.
  The last conflict in DRC caused a regional conflagration that I 
consider among the worst in the continent's recent history in terms of 
the toll on human lives. It should never be repeated. The 
administration can and should take the steps I have just outlined 
immediately. While simple and straightforward, they could prevent 
further bloodshed. A repetition of the war is not inevitable, and I 
hope the President will take action to forestall

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an increasingly dire humanitarian and political crisis in the region.
  (At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered 
to be printed in the Record.)

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