<html><body><P>American Enterprise Institute</P> <P>December 3, 2008</P> <P>[Edited transcript from audio tapes]</P> <P><BR> <TABLE cellSpacing=1 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0> <TBODY> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>11:30 a.m.</DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>Registration and Luncheon</DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>12:00 p.m.</DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText><EM>Panelists: </EM></DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText><A class=eResources href="http://www.aei.org/scholars/scholarID.118/scholar.asp">Mauro De Lorenzo</A>, AEI</DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>Tony Gambino, independent consultant</DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>Colin Thomas-Jensen, ENOUGH Project</DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText> </DIV></TD></TR> <TR> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>1:00</DIV></TD> <TD> <DIV class=BodyText>Adjournment</DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></P> <P> </P> <P>Proceedings:</P> <P>Mauro De Lorenzo:  Good afternoon.  Keep eating but we re going to get started because as you may have noticed, this is an effort in quick impact policy wonkery of one hour in-the-door, out-the-door event.  So to make sure that we have enough time for discussion and questions, I d like to get started.  We re going to limit ourselves to about ten minutes each, or try to, so that we have enough time to discuss.</P> <P>I m Mauro De Lorenzo.  I m a fellow here at AEI.  To my right is Colin Thomas-Jensen, who heads some of the research on Congo at the ENOUGH Project at the Center for American Progress.  This is, as you may have noticed, a joint event.  Even though you re physically in AEI, you re actually in both institutions at the same time.  To my left is Tony Gambino, known to many people who have been following Congo policy over the past ten years, former USAID Mission Director in the Congo, and the author of the Council on Foreign Relations recent report, a very timely report, on how the United States can better engage in Congo.</P> <P>Colin is going to start us off.  He s been to the region most recently.  Then I ll speak and then we ll turn to Tony and then we ll take some questions and comments.</P> <P>Colin Thomas-Jensen:  Great.  I wanted to start by just thanking AEI.  Mauro and I have been talking about doing something jointly for a while and we thought Congo would be the perfect subject because it s one that I think not only we can all agree that something has to be done but I think there is general agreement between AEI and CAP and others working on this about what to do about it, demonstrated again by the resolution passed in Congress a couple of weeks ago that Brownback and Feingold sponsored.</P> <P>As Mauro said, I just got back from Eastern Congo.  I was there last week.  So what I m going to do is just very quickly give an update on the state of play, as I see it, as we see it, a bit on the calculations of the parties involved in the conflict, a quick overview of the international response, or lack thereof, and then offer a few thoughts on ways forward, kind of broad strokes, and then we ll leave specifics to Q&A because that s more fun anyway.</P> <P>So calculations of the parties, what s going on out there?  I spent -- well, let s start with the guy in the group that s really driving the current crisis, that s Nkunda.  My colleague, Rebecca, and I spent Thanksgiving Day with CNDP, with Nkunda in his territory.  We met with him for about 45 minutes.  It was a good meeting.  He s got to be the most accessible rebel leader in Africa.  I mean you can just literally get in a car and drive up there and schedule a meeting.</P> <P>His position is quite good.  He s in control, militarily, of about 99 percent of Rutshuru territory, between 30 and 40 percent of Masisi.  He s got a firm military grip on the region and he s expanding his territory northward.  Militarily, nobody in the region can challenge him right now.  The Congolese Army does not pose a credible threat, nor does MONUC.  His decision to unilaterally call a ceasefire on October 29th before taking Goma, and for the record, I think he could have taken Goma.  The question is could he have taken Goma and held all the other territory he has?  I think that s a question that I don t have an answer to and I ll leave that to the military strategists who understand that better.  But I think he certainly has the ability to take Goma at any time.</P> <P>His decision to announce a ceasefire, I think, really threw the choice back on the Congolese government.  You re either going to negotiate politically with Nkunda or he s going to keep doing what he s doing militarily.  It also put the burden on the international community to do more than simply negotiate a new ceasefire.  Ceasefires come and go and Nkunda has the ability he s demonstrating to -- he can declare a ceasefire and for all intents and purposes, the area between Goma and up to Rutshuru is pretty safe, pretty easy to drive.</P> <P>What does he want?  He wants direct talks with the government.  He was very clear about this.  It s not clear exactly to what end.  He was a bit inconsistent.  And early on in the conversation, he said he wanted Obasanjo to mediate talks between the CNDP and other opposition parties, and he mentioned the UPDS and the MLC, with Kinshasa on a power sharing agreement.  And then he backed off that later in the conversation.  So I think he s in a good position but he hasn t quite figured out what he s gaming for.  He is setting up an administration in the areas he controls.</P> <P>And I think what s important to note that despite the war crimes that CNDP is committing, and I think we ll see soon pretty public evidence of a number of targeted killings of civilians in Kiwanja, that Nkunda and CNDP, they have a center of gravity in North Kivu that is really undeniable because there are people who, when the chips are down and when the fighting starts, they feel safer behind CNDP lines.  And this is what we have to start eroding and chipping away at if we re going to deal with this insurgency.</P> <P>Also, and just for the record, there had been discussions that CNDP was splitting and fracturing.  I don t think that s the case.  Bosco Ntaganda, who s indicted by the ICC for war crimes in Ituri, was present with Nkunda at our meeting.  I don t think that there is a -- there didn t seem to be a Hydra Effect going on at CNDP.  I think they re quite unified at this point.</P> <P>The government, I think in a word, the Congolese government is still pursuing a military solution.  They want SADC to send a force.  They ve requested Angolan troops.  They re delighted that the U.N. is sending more peacekeepers although they rejected Indian peacekeepers.  They think that over time, they can simply win this thing militarily and erode Nkunda away.  I don t think that can happen.  I think we ll see again, there s a meeting of the CEEAC this week in Kinshasa.  I think we ll see yet again a call by Kinshasa for military action.  And that, in terms of what diplomatically needs to be done, we ve got to start really hammering the point home with Kinshasa that there is simply no military solution to Nkunda.  They ve got to come to the table.</P> <P>The other party in this, directly or indirectly, depending on who you talk to, are the Rwandans.  Rwanda s role, it s always ambiguous, it s always hard to put a finger on.  But we do know a few things.  We know, one, the Rwandan government has admitted that there are demobilized Rwandan soldiers fighting with CNDP.  There have been reports of recruitment on Rwandan territory.  And again, the center of gravity, we know that there are Rwandan business interests in North Kivu and there is incentive to support Nkunda because they feel he s protecting those interests.</P> <P>As far as their calculations, I think they re the same as they ve been for a long time.  I mean we re still dealing with the FDLR and the presence of the FDLR in Eastern Congo and it s our contention that until you deal with the FDLR, until that militia is dismantled or at least until the Congolese government, rather than siding with the FDLR, demonstrates some credible movement towards dismantling that militia, there s simply going to be no room for negotiations or a lasting d�tente between Kigali and Kinshasa.</P> <P>I m probably going over my time so I ll move very quickly.  Okay, international response, I mean, from the perspective of people on the ground, this is classic parachute diplomacy.  The fighting is intense.  It rages for two months.  Nobody pays any attention.  And then as soon as Goma is about to fall, you have every foreign minister, and Assistant Secretary of State for Africa went out there, dropping in on Kinshasa to kind of survey the suffering, take stock of what s going on, mouth a few platitudes about recurring with the ceasefire, and then they head back to their capitals.  I mean that s basically it.</P> <P>The UN and the AU, I think sent the right message by appointing Obasanjo and Ngcaba as negotiators, as mediators, both former presidents, both bringing a level of gravitas to a process that desperately needs an injection of a little more muscle behind it.  But again, I don t think this new mediation effort is going to succeed absent high level support from external actors, countries with leverage, specifically the U.S., the U.K., the European Union, the Belgians.  And that s not there right now.  There is an EU envoy.  The U.S. does have an office established in Goma now that s a permanent presence and I think they deserve credit for that.  But again, the level of engagement is just not there at this point, in my opinion, to really drive a peace process forward.</P> <P>MONUC, how did MONUC react?  MONUC really didn t react and I think this is a huge problem that we re dealing with.  MONUC provides neither -- they neither protect civilians effectively nor do they provide a credible deterrent to attacks by the CNDP, the Congolese government, or the FDLR or other armed groups on civilians.  People are angry because they see a presence, an international presence but they don t see much action.</P> <P>And I think the issue is not sending out more peacekeepers, I think, because you have, at this point, the mandate.  I think it s fine.  There is a mandate to protect civilians despite what some and MONUC will tell you.  Apparently, they haven t read it.  But the political will to actually use deadly force to protect civilians from harm is just not there.  And when you talk to MONUC political, not MONUC military, they re very clear that that this their biggest problem right now is that there is simply no will on the part of the peacekeepers to protect civilians.</P> <P>USG, just because we are in the United States, I ll just note very quickly, I think Tim Shortley, who was the senior adviser on conflict resolution to the Assistant Secretary of State, I think the U.S. and Tim specifically deserve a lot of credit for driving an initial process that began late last year at about this time to get an agreement, again, on dealing with the FDLR, as well as a ceasefire between CNDP and the other armed groups in North Kivu.</P> <P>However, after the ceasefire was signed, there was this, again, a question of diplomats patting themselves on the back and moving on to the next issue.  And we watched and if you -- this isn t -- if you read Mauro s testimony from the Senate hearing last year, I mean, what has happened in North Kivu basically played out as he predicted in that testimony.  I mean we ve seen the signs.  We know it s going on.  And I think that points to my final two points, what do we do know?</P> <P>And rather than get into specifics, I think what I want to do is just say generally, in terms of policy, I think the international community broadly has to make two massive shifts in the way that it deals with the conflict in Eastern Congo and the Great Lakes.  One is it has to move away from this reactive posture and start getting out, predicting when crises are going to erupt, and getting out in front of them.  We saw, with this latest round of fighting, again, a classic example of waiting until the last possible minute until things are so bad that you absolutely have to do something, rather than understanding, based on the ways things are going, that this was not a process that was going to -- this Goma process was not going to happen.  It was not going to lead to a lasting peace without high level engagement.  It wasn t going to collapse.  Nkunda is strong militarily.  We re going to see this fighting.  That wasn t seen and dealt with beforehand.</P> <P>And I have one more minute or 30 seconds.  So moving away from the reactive posture and trying to get on the front of conflict.  The last thing I ll say is we have to have a policy that puts the needs of the Congolese people first.  Right now, our policies are designed, essentially, not to upset to corrupt government officials, thuggish rebel leaders.  We re dancing around the edges instead of dealing with the real issues, which are how do you make Congolese people feel safe?  How do you provide security?  How do you eliminate threats?  How do you provide economic and political guarantees to minority populations in the East?  Until you start pressing on those issues and putting Congolese people before the agendas of the military actors, I don t think we re going to see much progress.  Thanks.</P> <P>Mauro De Lorenzo:  Thank you.  In that spirit of quickness, I m going to run through a series of points which I won t have time to develop fully.  And whichever ones of them people think are interesting, we can think more about in discussion.</P> <P>The first is that the issue in North Kivu, the issue in Eastern Congo is not a bilateral issue between two countries.  It s not an issue between Rwanda and Congo.  Much of the diplomatic strategy for resolving the crisis now, over the past two months of crisis and previously, is built on the assumption that this is a problem that s going to be solved by discussions between the two presidents.  And people have run around trying hard to get the two presidents to talk, often not knowing that those two presidents, President Kagame and President Kabila talk quite often to each other on the phone without anyone asking for help or without them needing anyone s help to put it together.</P> <P>Just a few days after this outbreak of violence started, the Rwandan Foreign Minister was in Kinshasa to discuss longstanding bilateral issues about restoring diplomatic relations.  I think a week or two ago, the Congolese Foreign Minister paid a return visit to Kigali, again, without any help needed or mediation.  So that s one part of it.</P> <P>Nkunda himself, despite assumptions, is not actually a proxy of Rwanda.  There s a lot of -- I understand why that s a natural assumption.  They share, Nkunda and the Rwandan leadership share ethnic characteristics.  Nkunda used to be in the Rwandan Army in the early 1990 s.  They obviously worked very closely together during the RCD rebellion.  But since 2004, Nkunda decided to go off in a different direction and was told very clearly that that wasn t the direction that the rest of the former rebel movement wanted to go in and it wasn t the direction that Rwanda decided to go in.  Rwanda had decided, in a sense, to bet on Kabila and to try and achieve some of its objectives, for example, new objectives that didn t exist in the 1990 s related to the need for cooperation so that energy resources in Lake Kivu can be tapped and utilized.  Rwanda has calculus has changed and they tried to make it work with Kabila and the Congolese also tried.</P> <P>Nkunda represents something about North Kivu.  And he s able to sustain himself without substantial external contributions precisely because he does or is seen to represent something about North Kivu, something which is often obscured by the other issues which are better known since 94, about the refugees, about the two rebellions.  What Nkunda represents is a problem that is longstanding and was there before the refugees arrived in 1994 and the militias which are still present, remnants of them.</P> <P>In the early 1960 s, there was fighting in North Kivu and it was related to an election and it was related to who s a citizen and who s not and it had characteristics not unsimilar to the ones we find today.  There was a bout a fighting in 1993, 92- 93 related to the democratization process in Congo.  That was resolved, ironically, through a lot of local efforts -- not resolved it, a settlement had been arrived at about a month before the genocide began in 1994.</P> <P>This is just to say a few things where I ll draw conclusions, I ll draw from that.  There is no successful diplomatic -- there s no successful strategy for resolving this, which is premised only on relations between the two states.  Removing the FDLR from Eastern Congo, no matter how important that is, will not end the conflict in Eastern Congo.  Conflict exists for other reasons and will continue to exist even if those people have been removed.  And the war did not -- because the war didn t begin with the arrival of the refugees in 94.</P> <P>So I think any strategy, if it s to succeed, has to refocus on some of the Congolese aspects of this conflict.  Again, there s a lot the Rwandan government can do, is doing, along with other neighbors.  And if you notice Senator Feingold, Senator Brownback s statement refers to Rwanda in the same sentence as it refers to Angola and other states in the region.  They all have a role to play and all have been involved in various ways for 15 years.</P> <P>Kabila, as Colin noted, does not have the power either to deal militarily or otherwise with the FDLR, nor with Nkunda.  His forces have been, and continue to be, to work in tandem with FDLR units.  Not all of that is because someone in Kinshasa directs them to do it.  Many of the midlevel officers you find in the Congolese forces in the East have worked with those people with their FDLR counterparts on the other side of their frontline during the second war.  They know each other from those times.</P> <P>And so when the Defense Minister, or the now former Defense Minister and the now former Chief of Staff of the Congolese Army tell you, as I ve heard that, they ve told me, that We re not recruiting them.  We re not doing anything in tandem with the FDLR , they re not.  It s not that they re lying to you.  Often, they may not know.  They may not know how it operates.  And when they go and visit, they may not be able to tell, just as the UN often can t tell who is Congolese and who isn t.</P> <P>But the capacity of those forces is sometimes the only capacity that the Congolese government has.  That was true during the second war and it s true now.  And it s extremely difficult for them to continue to function as a military deterrent, as a military force without relying on that militia and on other militias.  They are there for their own purpose.  If you read them in today s Washington Post, talking about their objectives, which are, We have to go and remove Tutsi from power in Kigali , and they say it bluntly as that and sometimes in more stark terms, they have an agenda.  And if anyone is controlled by anyone in this situation, Kabila is held hostage by some of these FDLR commanders.  So that is, dealing with the security aspect, in that sense, is a priority.</P> <P>This is not just about natural resources.  That s the most visible and evident diagnosis and many very constructive proposals have been made.  A lot of things have been put in path.  Clearly, it is related to the war.  It s related to the longevity of it.  But for example, the second war began about a year before the price spike, in the now famous coltan mineral, started.  The war is not about the resources.  The resources play a role in it.  Stopping the flow of resources, first of all, is impossible.  The pathways that are used are brilliantly documented in a book written by Janet McGathy [phonetic] which was published in the early 1980 s.  Idi Amin, some people may remember, almost got, it s a shame it didn t succeed, almost got removed from his position as Chief of Staff of the Army in Uganda in the 1960 s because he was involved, guess what, in smuggling of Congolese natural resources during the rebellion in Congo in the 1960 s.  The pathways have always moved across the East.  So good luck if you want to try and plug those holes.  It s good to raise the cost of it.  But just as some of the other things I ve listed, dealing with natural resources or a strategy built only around dealing with the natural resource problem will not end the conflict in Eastern Congo.</P> <P>The elections of 2006, rightly celebrated as a landmark in democracy in Congo, are, in fact, part of the problem, part of the cause of this intractable situation we re dealing with now.  And maybe the hardest thing to convince you of in 20 seconds, but in brief, this is, again, every time the issue of who s a foreigner and who isn t, are Congolese Tutsi, Congolese Hutu, is there such a thing as a Congolese of Rwandan origin, a genuine Congolese, the formation of militias, the slide towards using ethnic extremism as a tool of political mobilization, that is not something which is happening for the first time now, nor is it something that began in 1994 after the refugees arrived in Rwanda.  It has happened every single time that there has been a competition, an open competition through elections for power in Congo.  The violence in the early 1960 s was produced by an electoral process.</P> <P>In 1982, the first elections to -- or maybe it was 81 -- the first elections to, sort of, advisory council in Congo.  Not coincidentally, that s the year in which the Congolese citizenship law was revised to exclude everyone of Rwandan origin.  In 1993, when you had an outbreak of violence, there were elections to participate in the CNS, which was this attempt by Mobutu to control the democratization process.</P> <P>It is the very need to compete for power in elections which forces politicians in the Congo because of the Congo s -- because of the way in which elections are done and the boundaries in which you have to compete which forces them to organize ethnically.  The Belgians, oftentimes, the local government units you find today are the same ones that were drawn in the 1930 s and 40s, not for purposes of that this was the best thing to do but for purposes of dividing and ruling, all sorts of other reasons that had nothing -- that make no sense today.</P> <P>And if I guess the global primarily, as I turn now very briefly to talking about what the U.S. posture should be, some of these older structural issues are what we need to add into the mix when we re trying to -- as we try and push the Congolese into new forms of negotiations.  If we continue to negotiate on the same old terms as before and assume that certain issues are the only ones that matter, it will fail again and again and again and again, no matter which personalities are there, because the forms of conflict and the way the form that it takes every time, it s like a weed growing out of a crack.  It will always happen in that way no matter which personalities are in place.  And not because anyone is bad or not bad but because the structure of electoral competition in Congo will inevitably produce the result until you fix it.  That, to me, is actually a hopeful thing to say because it gives us a way of thinking about how to resolve the conflict, which can actually be fixed and changed.  You don t have to assume that there s something about Congolese or about Congo which is intractable and impervious to reason and can never be changed.</P> <P>But because we tend to focus on what s most visible, whether it is a specific outbreak of violence which produces human suffering, or whether it s the natural resource issue, we ve ignored other things which were never built in to the negotiations from 99 up until now.  People talk about the Nairobi Communiqu� as some kind of basis for something.  Nairobi Communiqu� has been issued, more or less, in that exact same form for more than ten years.  There s nothing new about the Nairobi Communiqu� we found -- everything in there is great and the two governments accept it.  It s partial.  And the problem is not knowing what to do.  The problem is finding a way to do it and also dealing with some of the other causes of the conflict.</P> <P>Similarly, I ll just say a word about the Goma peace process.  First of all, it s not a peace process and it never was.  There s no Goma peace agreement.  There s no such document.  If you read, it s called an act of engagement and they were very specific about that.  Even I see in U.S. State Department things now, they talk about the Goma peace agreement and we have to return to it.  It was an agreement to do two things; to stop shooting and to sit in committees to decide things.  It was the beginning of a process to get to a peace agreement.  Someone forgot that along the way.  They assumed that since they d agreed on those steps, we had a peace agreement.  No.  And it is a good framework to go back to but it is the start of that kind of a process.</P> <P>And I guess the last thing I ll say about the United States, what we can do, we demonstrated, by leading on the Goma peace agreement -- see, it affects even me -- this active engagement, what a concerted, focused, U.S. attention can achieve.  I think the purpose should be to get a -- to go back to -- have a pathway of negotiations and talks based on that, which builds in some of the structural issues that I highlighted.  So I ll turn over to Tony now.</P> <P>Tony Gambino:  Thank you, Mauro.  And thank you to both of you for organizing this, an incredibly important topic, amazing, just to start with a point that Colin made, that as people perceive that somehow, that Congo has calmed, the number of stories you find on Congo has dropped down to basically nine.  You have one in the Washington Post today.  But if you compare it to the flurry of stories that you had, as Colin correctly said, when it appeared that Goma was in danger, there is a conclusion not just among the general population but even among some policymakers that Congo has kind of calmed down again, which is completely incorrect.  So can we start with that?  Congo is still a huge problem and requires a lot of attention.  So it s great that this and other fora have been organized.</P> <P>I m going to particularly focus on what the international community should do.  But before doing that, I want to give my own brief analysis of how we arrived at this situation in Eastern Congo and it s very similar to what you ve just heard from the other two speakers.  But I want to put it through a strict chain of logic.  Why is Eastern Congo insecure?  It s insecure, number one, because the group that should keep it secure, in a sovereign state, the Congolese Army, the Congolese police, are incapable, and in some instances, unwilling to exert control over the territory.</P> <P>Now, since the force that s responsible, in the sovereign state, to take care of it, can t do it, the next point is that no other legally mandated force has taken on this task.  Therefore, Eastern Congo is lawless.  This is a fundamental point, it seems to me.  Today, Eastern Congo is lawless.  Therefore, because of the lawlessness, the easy availability of high value resources permit armed groups to become self-sustaining.  I agree very much about the way Mauro talked about it, that these resources though are critical and that if they were not there, the ability of all these militias to self-fund would be that much more difficult.</P> <P>What are the consequences?  We all know what they are but I think important to list them.  They include a longstanding humanitarian disaster.  It got worse over the last few months.  But there were already a million displaced people in North and South Kivu.  Over a million.  Now we ve added another 250,000 in the last few months.</P> <P>There is a longstanding, not a new, a longstanding human rights catastrophe.  The worst sexual violence in the world, unspeakable acts committed, particularly against girls and women, but generalized violence against civilians.  Multiple militia groups, most of them are Congolese.  But as both speakers have said, one, the FDLR, with some Rwandan Hutu elements, deserve special attention.</P> <P>So let me emphasize two points.  First, the Congolese Army, often known by its initials, the FARDC in French, the FARDC is part of the problem.  They are not part of the solution in the short term.  Second, since late 2004, the UN force, MONUC, has only been able to stop this disaster from spilling into major urban centers.  Before 2004, they didn t even succeed in that in particular parts of Eastern Congo.  And as Colin just went through, they barely succeeded in the case of Goma and even using the word succeeded depends on certain actions taken by Nkunda and his troops.  But that s all that they have been able to do.  They have not been able to protect the civilian population and rural dwellers, in particular, which make up the majority of the population, continue to live in terror.</P> <P>We in the international community are at a critical point on this.  A few things have happened over the last month that are encouraging.  Let s think about two.  It was not at all clear when the Secretary General made his request for 3,000 additional troops and police the Security Council would support it.  The Security Council did.  That s a good thing.  That will bring MONUC s total force level to over 20,000.</P> <P>Second, as already been mentioned, the Secretary General s appointment of Former President of Nigeria Obasanjo as a special envoy for the Congolese crisis is also a good thing.  They re good steps.  They re insufficient.</P> <P>Let s call everyone s attention to a very important document just released about a week and a half ago.  It s called the Fourth Special Report of the Secretary General on the Situation in the Congo.  And it is the framework document for a critical discussion that is going on now in the Security Council.  The mandate of the UN mission in the Congo expires on December 31st of this year.  That mandate will be renewed for another year.  There s no doubt about that, so no one needs to worry about that.  But the question is what will the Security Council tell MONUC that it should be doing?  How might the mandate be changed?  What issues will they ask that MONUC focus on?</P> <P>I want to talk about two issues very briefly.  In the international community, we have to focus on, but strictly separate, two types of solutions, what s needed immediately and what s needed in the longer term.  Immediately, as I ve already said, steps need to be taken so that the Congolese Army stops being part of the problem.  This, by the way, is not accomplished by short-term military training.  It is only accomplished if the Congolese Army is restricted to its barracks in Eastern Congo for the foreseeable future.</P> <P>Second, the UN force really should be strengthened by some kind of multinational force.  Discussions in Europe go up and down about this.  There have been some discussions in Africa, particularly in SADC, and there is certainly no clarity whatsoever about whether there will or whether there will not be a multinational force, an MNF.  It would be awfully useful if that would happen.  Any MNF should be authorized via a Security Council resolution as the European-led one, called Artemis, which went into Northeastern Congo a few years ago, was.</P> <P>The long-term solution is creating at least a nucleus of capable Congolese soldiers and police.  But that s going to take some time.  Now what s stopping a solution to the immediate problem?  Number one, that the Congolese Army is still deploying and still fighting.  Number two, how MONUC interprets its mandates.  In the mandate, as Colin talked about but I want to be a little more specific, it states very clearly that MONUC has the ability to, and I m reading from it, MONUC is authorized to use all necessary means, within the limits of its capacity and in areas where its units are deployed, to do a series of things.   But the first one listed is this: Ensure the protection of civilians.   That s the first thing listed.</P> <P>But the same clause says, Ensure the protection of civilians under imminent threat of physical violence.   Also, the mandate says that MONUC has the mandate to assist the government of the Congo in establishing a stable security environment in the country, which would seem like anodyne language, except, in my view, MONUC has, perhaps willfully, misinterpreted this language.  It has interpreted assist the government of the Congo to mean assist the Army of the Congo.  Those two things are not necessarily the same, I hope you see.</P> <P>Second, it has very narrowly interpreted this sub-clause about imminent threat of physical violence to really imply only reactive.  How do you know when someone is under imminent threat?  Well, if someone is shooting at him or her.  But since there aren t people all over the place, the fact of the armed people doesn t, in MONUC s interpretation, necessarily put people under imminent threat.</P> <P>Third, within the limits of its capacity has been used, sometimes legitimately, as a reason that MONUC can t respond fully as it should.  These flaws need to be clarified.  And in particular, MONUC s job must be to do two things.  Number one, establish and maintain a stable security environment in North and South Kivu provinces.  Number two, ensure the protection of civilians.</P> <P>In this report that I referred to, I particularly call your attention to most of the closing paragraphs, paragraphs 85 to 91.  These paragraphs are incredibly disappointing because they come down to MONUC saying that somehow, they are going to take care of the problem in Eastern Congo by doing more of the same.  They say that they will continue to focus on the priority task of protecting civilian population , as if they were doing a particularly effective job in that right now.  They say they ll continue to do work relating to the FDLR by, I m quoting, supporting FARDC operations against the FDLR.   This is wrong.  This is the wrong concept.</P> <P>What has to happen is that with this clear mandate and the Congolese Army out of the picture, they can begin to take more aggressive action.  Now you might say, What about the Congolese government?  Might they object to some of these for various reasons?   But then I would call your attention to critical paragraph 44 in this new document.  There s quite an important sentence in this paragraph that says, I m quoting again, Congolese government officials called for -- Congolese government officials, okay?  Not me.  Not any other government.  Congolese government officials called for the revision of MONUC s mandate to allow the mission to conduct operations against illegal armed groups independently of the Congolese Army.   So we now have the Congolese government requesting the UN, in effect, to take the Congolese Army out of the picture for certain operations to occur.  That should make it much easier to go forward.</P> <P>Also, it is very clear that the discussion that has begun at the Security Council is focused on these issues.  Just in a story from the other day, it was stated that people are thinking about how to give priority to the protection of civilians and the relationship between MONUC and the Congolese Army.  These are the right issues to focus on.  I really wish that the report had given the council more direction.  But we sometimes get into this funny dance where each player is looking to the other one to lead and then we get to kind of mediocre results.</P> <P>I m not going to say anything about the longer term solution.  That would take much more time than I have.  But there is one.  There is a way to train up Congolese Army and police so that they become, at least minimally, effective and a nucleus.  But I just want to make two points about that.  You really can t exaggerate the degree of dysfunction within the Congolese Army and police.  They re both deeply corrupt and ineffectual and training them does not happen quickly.  The training that has been tried by the U.S. and other actors has failed.  It will continue to fail if it s done in the kind of short term way.  There are no shortcuts.</P> <P>Therefore, the international community, through MONUC, and I hope, a multinational force, needs to be prepared to stabilize Eastern Congo and protect civilians through most, if not all, of next year.  The training of the Congolese military can start but they won t be ready to deploy in any serious way until, at the very earliest, the end of next year or perhaps 2010.  That is what needs to be done.  It is the critical part of helping us to go forward to some of the political actions that the other speakers talked about and there, I ll stop.  Thank you.</P> <P>Mauro De Lorenzo:  Questions?  Oh, do we have microphones?  Okay.  Paul in the back.</P> <P>Paul Wolfowitz:  Paul Wolfowitz, AEI.  It seems to me this raises some sort of very profound questions about what the international community is able to do, or maybe importantly, why it seems unable to do what it should do.  It strikes me that it s not so much a matter of preferring to help corrupt leaders.  Maybe there s some of that going on against the Congolese people as much as it is a matter of not wanting to [audio glitch] example, accept the idea that the Congolese Army is a problem rather than a solution.  [Audio glitch] garrison.  That s not what the international community does very well.  [Audio glitch] general tendency to defer to formalities of, more than formalities, but there are the various legalisms that surround sovereignty.</P> <P>But if you think about it, there are a large number of cases around the world where for one reason or another, people are the victims of horrendous violence and human [audio glitch] what s supposed to be the [audio glitch] country, whether it s [audio glitch] war or whether it was [audio glitch] Northern Iraq in the 90s under Saddam or whether it [audio glitch].  There are also large numbers of places around the world where countries are the victims of lawless areas on their border, whether it s Northern Iraq to Turkey or Pakistan to Afghanistan or Pakistan to India.  The list is extremely long and [audio glitch] in fact, the other day, I think Bob Kagan suggested that maybe the solution to [audio glitch] lawlessness in Northern Pakistan is some kind of [audio glitch].</P> <P>And I mean the problem is so general and the desirability of doing something in national and imminent [sounds like] way seems so strong.  Yet the only things that kind of seem to work is when the U.S. takes in its own hands to bomb targets in Northern Pakistan, Turkey bombs in Northern Iraq sort of with the Iraqi [audio glitch].  Or maybe, although this doesn t seem very promising, Ethiopia goes into Somalia.  And we have a range of this problem in many forms, a range of solutions, none of which are terribly good.  But the international one, which seems like intrinsically the one you d most [audio glitch] useless and certainly, part of President Kagame s complaint that [audio glitch] Kabila can t govern in his own country and the international community is incapable of doing [audio glitch].</P> <P>So when [audio glitch] I don t know what we re supposed to do but it strikes me as be helpful, especially now that it seems as though we re going to [audio glitch] the new administration put more emphasis on [audio glitch] what are the constraints that need to [audio glitch].</P> <P>Mauro De Lorenzo:  Obviously, I think that s right and in fact, I think in this case, it may be even worse than usual.  And I think, to add to my -- what I said before about the U.S. focusing on some of these older structural issues, the other thing it has to do is focus on, in a sense, saving the UN from itself in this case.  This is the largest UN Peacekeeping Operation in the world, I think, maybe in history.  These elections were -- it s the international process which gave birth to them and there s a tremendous feeling of ownership on the part of the international community for that process.  The government that was produced is, in a sense, our government and it s rendered MONUC, and the international community in general, incapable of applying the same standards, for example, on the conduct of the elections or on general human rights issues to this government as they would to other places.</P> <P>And as you saw, there s a certain quality of surreality to the way the language is written, where the UN is charged with supporting the very force, which, in many cases, has primary responsibility for the humanitarian crisis.  This was, I think, and you find decisions and options being considered which are more about the UN reestablishing its credibility, recovering from, say, [indiscernible], recovering from the first Rwanda thing, reestablishing, proving that it can deal with these kinds of situations and trying really hard to make it a success or to make it seem like a success up to, and including not just standing by while the Congolese Army undertakes the kinds of offensive operations which have recreated or intensified or crisis in the East, but actively supports it.  Fire support, in the words of a UN spokesman, were provided in the December offensive and in the one now, logistical support.  None of these operations would have been possible without the active participation of MONUC, of the UN.  Helicopter gun ships engaged in battle on the same side as FDLR units.  I mean, it s really almost incomprehensible when you see it and think about it.</P> <P>So stepping away from the specifics of the Congo, obviously, we need the UN to be able to undertake missions of this sort on what they re good at.  And if this fails in a catastrophic way with the kinds of associations that I ve been describing, I think the consequences for the system could be pretty bad, not to mention the consequences for Congolese.  That s how we solve the wider issues.  I m as bereft of ideas as anyone else.</P> <P>Tony Gambino:  This is a critical question but I m going to try to convince you to be a little bit more optimistic about it, actually.  First, just in terms of size, until MONUC received its recent authorization, MONUC was actually smaller than the first UN Peacekeeping Mission that went into the Congo in 1960 that was called ONUC.  ONUC ended up with about 20,000 troops for a country with a population one quarter the population of the Congo today.  MONUC now, at about 20,000, would be roughly the same size as ONUC was nearly 50 years ago.  And I actually think we have to hope that the Secretary General knew what he was doing when he requested these 3,000 additional forces because the number is to permit them to implement the mandate, which they re not able to do.  So I think the number is about right.</P> <P>Next point, this situation of, for example, the FARDC retreating to their barracks, in addition to the Congolese government largely accepting this concept already, as I talked about in this new UN report, in 2006, when the Congo held elections, we went through very similar issues.  People were very worried about how were civilians going to move all around the Congo, including Eastern Congo, this was the whole country, and be able to vote and who s going to protect them and what s going to go on?  And there was great concern particularly about Eastern Congo.  The same forces were roaming around.  And at that time, in 2006, the international community told the Congolese Army, Stay in your barracks.   MONUC will take care of security.  There was heavy political pressure put on various actors and it worked.</P> <P>I was in this exact area where Colin just was last week and where Nkunda dominates today.  And in that area, on Election Day in 2006, there was not a single incident of violence, not a single one.  There was no accident to that.  The situation has become somewhat more complicated today but it is not so complex that it can t be done.</P> <P>Final point, MONUC is already there.  They have 17,000 troops and police deployed in the country now.  So it s not like it s a situation where the country exploded and we were trying to authorize some new force, be it a multinational force or a UN force to go in.  They re there.  They re going to get the extra troops.  There may even be a multinational force.  I think we have a good chance, if pressure is put on, to get an insistence on the Security Council and MONUC that there be an actionable concept to protect the civilians of Eastern Congo.  If one comes up with such a concept and such a concept can be designed and can be implemented, in my opinion, then we can really start to move forward.</P> <P>Colin Thomas-Jensen:  Very quickly, just to marry up something that the way Mauro has framed his argument and the way I talked about mine, he talked about dealing with structural issues as the way forward politically and I framed it as taking measures to make Congolese feel safer.  And I think those are the same thing, essentially.</P> <P>And when I said that we ve got a policy of figuring out how to placate warring parties, as opposed to dealing with the needs of citizens, I think if you look at the peace deal, if you look at the Goma L Acte D engagement, the ceasefire, this was essentially, and a former colleague of mine at Crisis Group uses this phrase and I use it again and again because it happens all the time, this was men forgiving other men for crimes against women and children.   And the interests of Congolese were not represented in those talks.  The process that was set into place, the Amani process that never really got off the ground, was established to address those needs and to start to deal with some of these structural issues or issues that made Congolese feel insecure.  But that was, to me, the big failure in the current process and what, if we re going to reengage politically and really gain the trust of the Congolese people, and frankly, the international community, they don t trust internationals anymore.  They re sick and tired of being told that we have the solution.  If we re going to move beyond that, it s going to require dealing with those structural issues or those issues that make people feel insecure economically or physically.</P> <P>Mauro De Lorenzo:  Now there was a question here in the corner and then we ll see what.</P> <P>David Smith:  I m David Smith from the United Nations office here in Washington D.C.  And sometimes, I come to meetings like this and feel that we forget one of two things, gentlemen.  That UN Peacekeepers go where others can t or won t go and probably deserve a little bit more support than we sometimes give them.  Let s be quite fair about this.  We asked for more troops quite a way a while back and it s taken this process to get us a Security Council resolution.</P> <P>I also, I should tell you, was in Congo in June.  I saw UN Peacekeepers protecting civilians.  I saw UN Peacekeepers getting women who had been attacked, raped, in many cases, into hospitals in places like Goma.  Let us not forget what they do do day in day out.</P> <P>I d like us to throw this forward.  There is, as Tony has pointed out, a very serious debate in the Security Council right now on not just looking back on the events of the past few weeks in Goma but also looking forward at how this mandate is reworked to reflect the realities on the ground.  And I d like to hear from each of you what you think should be in this mandate.  MONUC, I can assure you and the folks on the ground in Congo, do not, for a moment, claim monopoly on wisdom on what is an incredibly complex situation.  </P> <P>One specific that I d like to hear from you all is that if we re in the process of trying to rebuild the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa, where I think seven million have been displaced, five million have died, close to two million have HIV, I mean, think about those numbers.  If we re in the process of trying to rebuild that country and we hold an astonishingly free and fair election in 2006 with 53,000 polling stations, I seem to remember, quite an achievement, if we go that route, do we then legitimately say that we will have nothing to do with the army that is positioned, the Congolese Army that is positioned as the centerpiece of a nation in such conflict?  Think about it, gentlemen.  Please go forward for me.  Tell me what you think should be in the mandate.  But don t underestimate the challenge of saying Hold an election.  Elect a government.   And then, in effect, say, The army cannot be rebuilt to do the job.   Thank you.</P> <P>Colin Thomas-Jenkins:  I ll kick it off and then I ll -- I mean, on that question, the election was the culmination of a transition, a transition that was supposed to have accomplished multiple tasks.  It did not accomplish any of those tasks.  The transition was, again, it was of a president and vice presidents from rebel groups who basically used the transition time to further the looting.  And so to then, for the Congolese government to then turn after the elections and say, We re a sovereign state now , when in fact, they re being propped up by the international community, in fact, I don t think it is fair to ask something from the Congolese government in exchange for the extraordinary effort that the international community has put in to trying to rebuild that state.</P> <P>With respect to the Congolese Army, it is, and I won t belabor the point, it s completely broken.  And when overrun by CNDP, rather than -- what did the Congolese Army do?  Well, they looted Goma and attacked MONUC.  And MONUC did nothing to push back.  And I think if, my one answer on the mandate question, if there s going to be an issue that the Security Council needs to look very seriously at, it is what is precisely MONUC s relationship to the Congolese Army, particularly when the Congolese Army is threatening, or in many cases, attacking civilians.  Because all armed groups in the East are committing horrific atrocities but the reporting that we often see and the stories I m hearing from when I m on the ground are that the part they see is often, in terms of numbers and scale, the worst perpetrator.  And so how does MONUC address that?</P> <P>Mauro De Lorenzo:  And not much to add except it could begin by talking about it and not refusing to sort of talk to document it and to denounce it.</P> <P>Tony Gambino:  Thank you, David.  I won t take all the time that I could to talk through that but that s part two of what I want to focus on.  I tried to say in my remarks I think there are some immediate actions, which I focused on, but then there are longer-term actions.  Just a sentence about the immediate, because I really focused on how to clarify the mandate in my previous remarks, but we need to recognize, I just want to hammer this point home, that the present concept puts MONUC in an impossible position.</P> <P>If MONUC is supposed to be, if they interpret the mandate to mean that they should be fighting in support of the Congolese Army and the Congolese Army functions in the ways that already have been destroyed, what should they do?  Try to support them with military action?  Well, they did try that, as Mauro said.  That failed when they -- you can see films.  You can see other things.  What should -- if you re in support of an army and they start to lose or they start to commit violations against the civilian population that you re supposed to protect -- that you re supposed to protect in support of that army, what do you do?  Do you fight them?  Well, in general, MONUC has chosen to do nothing because they don t have clarity on what to do.  That clarity must be provided.</P> <P>In the longer term, effective training must occur.  But I m really quite disappointed, David, that the previous report, the July report, the Secretary General laid out in great detail problems with military training that had occurred.  It was a very candid discussion actually, for what has gone wrong with military training by various actors, including MONUC, and talked about some necessary changes.  All that we have in the present report is this astonishing sentence, Currently, there are no coherent security sector reform plans relating to the Congo.   None.</P> <P>Now if you think that security sector reform is fundamental, as your question implied, compare that to the sentence.  No coherent security sector reform plans.   I actually think that one can come up with one.  I won t take the time to go through it.  But that is an urgent task.  And then, just a final point I ll make, we need to recognize that the previous actions undertaken by various actors from the Angolans to the United States, including MONUC, to try to do effective military training have failed.  I spoke to two observers, very close observers of the Congolese military just the other day and I asked them both, Is there ANY effective unit in the Congolese Army today, any unit?   And they both said, No.   So that s what we re stuck with today.</P> <P>Mauro De Lorenzo:  We ve arrived at the end of the hour and I think all of us are able to stay for a little bit and chat and take up some of the other questions that we had.  I m sorry we didn t get to -- so I m going to stop so people who need to go can go and then we ll mingle and talk.  I ll just, I think the last thing I want to say, as a general point, is that discussions about Congo have a tendency to leave everyone depressed when they leave, feeling like there s nothing at all you can do and their problems are so intractable, and they are.  But I think they re also less intractable than they seem.</P> <P>And if you just look at the enormity of it, it s like, Oh, my God.  What can we do?   Well, all we can hope to do is maybe bind some wounds and prevent it and help it be less deadly and less terrible.  We can be more ambitious as the United States, as an international community, and Congolese themselves.  There are many Congolese who are ready to be more ambitious and do things.  But the causes of these problems are known and there are a lot of creative things that have never been tried and that we can support and push for.  Thanks very much.</P> <P>[Applause]</P> <P>[End of transcript]</P></body></html>