30 September 1999
Text: Special Envoy Briefs Congress on Congo Peace Efforts
(Amb. Howard Wolpe testifies before House Afr. Subc.) (3990) Ambassador Howard Wolpe, U.S. special envoy to the Great Lakes region, briefed Congress September 21 about ongoing peace efforts to stop the war in Congo/Kinshasa. He told the House Africa Subcommittee that the U.S. government wants to remain fully engaged in helping implement a peace agreement that the parties in the conflict, centered in eastern Congo, signed recently in Lusaka. Part of that engagement, he told the lawmakers, includes support for a possible "regional multinational force" that would disarm and neutralize insurgent forces using Congo as a platform to invade neighboring Uganda and Rwanda. Following is the text of Ambassador Wolpe's House Africa Subcommittee remarks, as prepared for delivery: (begin text) HOWARD WOLPE SPECIAL ENVOY U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE TESTIMONY BEFORE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA SEPTEMBER 28, 1999 Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, Thank you. It is good to be back before the Subcommittee. Given the recent cease-fire agreement reached at Lusaka among the various parties at war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and the deployment of the first United Nations liaison officers to the region, this hearing provides a timely opportunity to take stock -- both of recent developments in the Great Lakes crisis and of American policy toward the region. The Great Lakes Crisis: The Importance Of Lusaka It bears repeating that the war in the DRC is the widest interstate war in modern African history and has significant consequences not only for 50 million Congolese, but for the peoples of all nine countries on the Democratic Republic of the Congo's periphery. As Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Susan Rice observed last June, the continuation of this conflict "... threatens to roll back recent economic and political gains across much of Africa. It constitutes a massive drain on resources urgently needed for development. Continued instability is scaring away foreign investment and could spark secondary economic and/or political crises from Zimbabwe to Uganda." The United States has been deeply engaged in the search for a diplomatic resolution of the Great Lakes crisis because of our recognition of the enormous dangers posed, for Africa and for American interests, by a widening of the war and of the zone of political instability. Ethnic violence has been a feature of recent conflicts in central Africa, and this most recent Congo crisis is no exception. Thousands of innocent civilians have been killed in the DRC, and inter-ethnic killings and even the resurgence of genocide are ever-present dangers. Conversely, with its strategic location at the heart of Sub-Saharan Africa, and its vast mineral, agricultural and water resources, a DRC at peace with itself and its neighbors has the potential, in Assistant Secretary Rice's words, "to serve as an economic powerhouse" for the entire central African region. A peaceful, stable DRC can help consolidate and enlarge the economic and political transformation already well under way in a number of regional states. That is why so much is riding on the successful implementation of the recently finalized Lusaka cease-fire agreement. This agreement provides the first regionally authored and internationally sanctioned road map for the region's political future -- a coherent, principled and comprehensive framework that addresses the principal causes of the Great Lakes crisis. Given the complexity of the issues, the multiplicity of actors, and the deep mutual mistrust and suspicion among the principal antagonists, the implementation of the Lusaka accord will inevitably be a messy process. Few if any deadlines will be met, and every phase will encounter a number of serious obstacles. Yet, it is hard to imagine any alternative framework that would stand a better chance of resolving the underlying fundamental issues. It would be tragic if the Lusaka signatories were to walk away from their agreement, or if Lusaka would fail to attract the international political support and concrete economic and technical assistance that its implementation will require. The Lusaka Elements The significance of Lusaka lies in its identification of four core elements that, from our perspective, are key to a sustainable resolution of the Great Lakes crisis: 1. The Lusaka agreement takes as its starting point the affirmation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the DRC and of all of the surrounding states. All of Lusaka's signatories accept that, at the end of the day, all foreign troops will be withdrawn from Congolese soil, the authority of the central government will be restored throughout the country, and the belligerent Congolese armed forces will be combined into "a national, restructured and integrated army." There will be no partition of the DRC. 2. Lusaka recognizes the imperative of a credible, neutrally facilitated, inclusive political process to resolve the internal Congolese crisis. One of the most important elements of the Lusaka agreement is the commitment of the Congolese parties to the conflict to enter into political negotiations that have as their goal national reconciliation and "a new political dispensation." Most important, the Lusaka agreement stipulates that these negotiations are to be fully inclusive, involving not only the government and the rebel groups, but also the unarmed political opposition and civil society. Significantly, too, all of the participants shall enjoy equal status. Mobutu's legacy to the DRC is an institutional and political black hole. There is an urgent need in the DRC to reconstitute a national political system -- and this will be possible only under conditions of security and an inclusive, democratic, internal dialogue. The principal political formations in the DRC must all be at the table, able to speak and advocate freely. All efforts at coerced unity -- either by armed rebel movements or by the Kabila government -- are doomed to fail, and will invite only more conflict and violence. 3. The Lusaka agreement commits its signatories to cooperate in addressing the common security concerns that underlie the Great Lakes crisis. Specifically, the signatories undertake "to put an immediate halt to any assistance, collaboration or giving of sanctuary to negative forces bent on destabilizing neighboring countries." They pledge to "take all necessary measures" to secure normalization along their borders, including the control of illicit trafficking of arms and the infiltration of armed groups." We welcome this collective commitment because it goes to the heart of both the war in the DRC and the broader regional crisis. As long as insurgent groups are able to use Congolese soil for launching attacks against the countries that border the DRC, regional peace and stability will be unattainable. It is in the interest of all regional states to make a serious and combined effort to secure their common borders. 4. The Lusaka cease-fire agreement commits its signatories to work jointly to address the security problems posed by the continuing activities of forces identified with the 1994 Rwandan genocide. No Great Lakes conflict has been more intractable and more destabilizing than the bloody confrontation between Tutsi and Hutu in Burundi and in Rwanda. In 1972, an estimated 150,000 Burundian Hutus were the victims of a genocide executed by Tutsis; then, in 1994, well over half a million Rwandans (mostly Tutsi but also including Hutu moderates) were slaughtered in a genocide organized by the Hutu government then in power. It is difficult to overstate the continuing traumatic impact of that event for Rwanda and for the region. The failure of the international community to respond at the time of the genocide meant that its survivors were literally left to their own devices -- a conclusion only strengthened by the international community's subsequent refusal to act against the genocidal killers who took effective control of the internationally financed refugee camps in the DRC. That is why the language of the Lusaka agreement, affirming the determination of the regional signatories "to ensure the respect ... for the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide of 1948, as reiterated at the Entebbe regional summit of 25 March, 1998," is so important. It was at the Entebbe summit that regional leaders joined with President Clinton in committing to a number of specific initiatives designed to prevent a resurgence of genocide. In the Lusaka agreement, the signatories go beyond a rhetorical condemnation of genocide to stipulate that "there shall be a mechanism for disarming militias and armed groups, including the genocidal forces." A regional Joint Military Commission (JMC), made up of the belligerent parties themselves, is empowered to "work out mechanisms for the tracking, disarming, cantoning and documenting of all armed groups in the DRC," and for putting in place appropriate enforcement measures. Clearly, the disarmament of the various insurgent forces operating within the DRC is easier said than done. There was no subject more hotly debated in Lusaka, and there remain a great number of unanswered questions about precisely how and by whom this process will be organized and executed. But one should not discount the political significance of this first collective regional commitment to mount such an effort. All the parties to Lusaka recognized that the ultimate withdrawal of all foreign forces from the DRC would hinge upon the region's ability to neutralize the security threat posed by the various insurgencies and, particularly, by the Rwandan ex-FAR/Interahamwe. The more effective the regional effort, the less justification there will be for unilateral intervention by any of the states bordering the DRC. Significantly, the Lusaka agreement combines the threat of coercive measures for those who would refuse to lay down their arms with incentives for voluntary disarmament and repatriation. Recognizing that lasting stability in the Great Lakes region requires democratization and reconciliation not only in the DRC but also in its neighboring countries, Lusaka calls upon the countries of origin of the insurgent fighters to help create conditions that would encourage their voluntary repatriation. Implementing Lusaka: the Congolese Must Make Their Own Decisions The Lusaka cease-fire agreement is a complex document, leaving open as many questions as it answers. It is clear that implementation will be neither neat nor swift. Nonetheless, the Lusaka accord is a vitally important beginning, embracing all of the critical elements of a sustainable resolution of the Great Lakes crisis: respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all of the regional states; the establishment of credible and inclusive transitional institutions and processes within the DRC; a commitment on the part of all regional states to work cooperatively to secure their common borders and to insure that the DRC is no longer used as a base for launching insurgent attacks; and a regional determination to join in neutralizing the genocidal threat of the Rwandan ex-FAR and Interahamwe. The region needs a stable DRC -- a DRC that has sufficient administrative and military capacity to insure that insurgent groups will not operate with impunity on Congolese soil. That stability can not be imposed from without. No Congolese rebellion that is clearly understood to be dependent upon its external patrons will acquire political legitimacy among the Congolese people. Continued occupation of Congolese soil will lead to heightened hostility and inter-ethnic conflict, threaten to widen rather than contain cross-border attacks and regional warfare, and invite the animus of a broad swath of Africa and of the international community. A stable DRC will emerge only from a credibly inclusive political process -- such as that prescribed by the Lusaka agreement -- that will enable the Congolese to claim control of their own destiny and political future. The Government Also Must Do Its Part In Lusaka, the Kinshasa government made a number of difficult but important concessions. But the Kinshasa government is currently sending very mixed messages. On the one hand, Kinshasa continues to affirm its interest in moving forward on the internal dialogue, explicitly welcoming the proposed neutral facilitation of the national dialogue. On the other hand, continuing arrests and harassment of party and human rights activists, and a new decree that appears to permit open political activity only within the framework of the government-sponsored "people's power committees," suggest a continued effort to restrict open debate and to manipulate the negotiating framework. The United States will continue to appeal to Kinshasa to abide by both the spirit and the letter of the Lusaka accord. Arbitrary actions by Kinshasa authorities only exacerbate political tensions and make more difficult the flexibility and compromises that will be required on all sides. Immediate Next Steps Now that all the belligerent parties have signed the Lusaka agreement, implementation can begin. Among the critical next steps are the following: 1. Finalizing the membership of the Joint Military Commission. Once again, internal divisions within the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) have prevented agreement on rebel representation on the Joint Military Commission. We are continuing to press the RCD, Uganda and Rwanda for a quick resolution of this issue: it would be dangerously irresponsible to permit the implementation of the Lusaka agreement to become hostage to an internal leadership dispute within the rebellion. 2. Identifying a neutral facilitator for the Congolese internal dialogue. Lusaka specifies that the internal Congolese dialogue shall, with the assistance of the OAU, be conducted under a neutral facilitator chosen by the Congolese parties. There is as yet no yet final consensus in support of the Rome-based Catholic lay organization, Sant' Egidio, that played a crucial role in the Mozambican peace process. One suggestion that is currently under consideration by the various parties would have Sant' Egidio handle the day-to-day facilitation, working under the umbrella of a triumvirate of African eminent personalities that would serve as co-convenors or co-guarantors of the process. 3. Completing the initial UN deployment. The United Nations Security Council has authorized the deployment of up to ninety Military Liaison Officers to the DRC, to Lusaka, and to the capitals of the warring countries. Their mission will be to determine how the UN might most effectively assist the Lusaka signatories with the implementation of the Lusaka cease-fire agreement. Now that all the parties are formally signed on to the cease-fire, and the cease-fire generally appears to be holding, UN military liaison officers are being deployed, as planned, to the belligerent capitals, to Lusaka, and to fifteen locations within the DRC itself. Their neutrality and expertise, we believe, will strengthen the peace process, and will help the JMC build its capabilities and confidence for its day-to-day management of the cease-fire. 4. Deciding on how, and by whom, both peacekeeping and peace enforcement tasks will be executed. Any firm conclusions on the appropriate size and mandate of a follow-on peacekeeping presence must await the report of these liaison officers and of a related assessment mission that Secretary-General Annan intends to send. But it is virtually certain that the Security Council will reject the Lusaka signatories' urging that a UN peacekeeping force be empowered not only to monitor the cease-fire and withdrawal of foreign troops, but also to engage militarily insurgent fighters that refuse to lay down their arms. While the Security Council may support a Secretary-General's recommendation for the deployment of UN observers, under Chapter VI of the UN Charter, it most probably will insist that the Joint Military Commission (i.e., the belligerent parties themselves) retain the enforcement responsibility. 5. Appointing a UN Special Representative. Appropriately, it has been the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and especially Zambian President Chiluba, that have taken the lead in facilitating a cease-fire agreement. But the OAU, the UN, the European Union, the United States and other countries have all been deeply involved in supporting the Lusaka diplomacy, encouraging the belligerent parties to be flexible, and working to narrow differences in perception and understanding. Now that a cease-fire agreement has been reached, sustained international engagement with the Great Lakes peace process will be more important than ever. The pending appointment of a UN Special Representative for the Congo will provide a means of coordinating both the international diplomatic support and the technical and financial assistance that effective implementation of the Lusaka accord will require. The Role of the International Community Under the terms of the Lusaka agreement, the Joint Military Commission will oversee the implementation of its various provisions. But the OAU and UN are also asked to assume significant responsibilities, and there will be a continuing requirement for material and technical support, delivered both bilaterally and through multilateral financial institutions. At least seven distinct areas requiring international support and assistance are distinguishable: 1. Continued diplomatic engagement with the parties to the conflict. The deep suspicions and mutual distrust that characterize inter-state relations within the Great Lakes will require continuing third-party assistance and encouragement to overcome. The good news is that the states that found themselves at war with one another in the DRC were actually friends and allies in the not too distant past. Rwandan soldiers, for example, were actually being trained in Harare, Zimbabwe, when the most recent war broke out. Likewise, Uganda and Rwanda have a history of harmonious relations with both Angola and Namibia. But it will take time to reclaim that sense of earlier partnership. This has been a principal goal of American diplomacy since the outbreak of hostilities in the DRC. Secretary Albright, Under Secretary Pickering, Assistant Secretary Rice, NSC Africa Director Gayle Smith, and I have been constantly engaged with all of the belligerent parties, pressing for a cease-fire, bridging differences, searching for areas of agreement, offering suggestions, and reminding them all of their common interest in securing a comprehensive negotiated settlement. Most recently, we were in contact with the rebels directly and with their supporters to stress strongly the need for signature and implementation of the cease-fire agreement, and the urgency of halting the fighting that had erupted in Kisangani. 2. Deploying UN observers. Determination of the appropriate UN role in the implementation of the Lusaka cease-fire agreement must await the report of the Assessment Mission that is being deployed by the Secretary-General, and on the findings of the UN Military Liaison Officers who have been dispatched to the region. But it is virtually certain that the Secretary-General will recommend the deployment of UN observers under Chapter VI of the UN Charter. While final decisions must await the pending UN reports, and close consultations with the Congress, as the President has indicated, the United States is inclined to support an appropriately sized and mandated mission. 3. Establishing an Enforcement Mechanism. A sustainable resolution of the Great Lakes crisis will require a concerted regional effort to disarm and neutralize the various insurgent forces that have been using the DRC as the base for launching attacks into neighboring countries. As indicated above, this enforcement responsibility will almost certainly remain with the Joint Military Commission and a contemplated military task force that will be established under its aegis. This regional multinational force, to be comprised of troops from belligerent (and possibly non-belligerent) countries, may seek a UN mandate. While we would consider supporting a UN mandate for a multinational force, any such force would have to be funded through a mechanism such as voluntary contributions to a trust fund rather than through expenditure of UN funds. The Lusaka signatories will be counting on international financial and logistical support. 4. The Congolese internal negotiations. The Lusaka-sanctioned internal Congolese dialogue is but the first step in an extended process that will require the promulgation of a new constitution and the eventual holding of local and national elections. The Congolese participants in this process will require the sustained encouragement and assistance and, at times, the political pressure of the international community. 5. The Congolese transition, elections, and reconstruction. Once the negotiations are concluded and the transitional institutions are in place, a massive effort will be required to launch the DRC on the path to democratization and economic reform. The DRC's World Bank trust fund will need to be reactivated, as a quick disbursing mechanism for vitally needed local development assistance; bilateral donors will have to step up to the plate to assist the DRC in addressing its long-term development challenges, and the international financial institutions will need to be fully engaged in reconstructing the Congolese national economy. At the same time, the transitional DRC government will have to do its part in upholding the rule of law, in protecting the human rights of its citizens, and in making clear its commitment to honest, transparent, democratic and accountable government. 6. An International Conference on the Great Lakes. The concept of an International Conference on the Great Lakes has been on the table for several years. However, until recently, the regional states themselves were unenthusiastic about such an initiative. That may be changing. All of the states of the region have a common interest in achieving greater security and stability; in reducing refugee flows; in building their economies and widening their respective economic markets; and in responding effectively to transnational problems such as drug trafficking, the spread of disease, and environmental degradation. Once the inter-Congolese political negotiation is concluded and reformed transitional institutions are functioning, the regional states may welcome new mechanisms, such as an International Conference on the Great Lakes, that might facilitate greater regional collaboration on issues of common concern. 7. The International Coalition Against Genocide. As noted earlier, ethnic violence, crimes against humanity and genocide have repeatedly asserted themselves in central African conflicts. And while the 1994 Rwandan genocide is probably the single most horrific episode of communal violence on the African continent, it bears repeating that it was not the region's only experience with genocide, and that Hutus as well as Tutsis have been the victims of genocide. That is why regional leaders and President Clinton, at their Entebbe meeting in March of 1998, agreed to explore the creation of an International Coalition Against Genocide -- a coalition that would seek to mobilize the resources of concerned states in a systematic effort both to enforce anti-genocide measures and to prevent a recurrence of genocide in the region. The Lusaka agreement gives the concept of an International Coalition Against Genocide immediate relevance. The Coalition could become a forum for more effective coordination of international efforts to support the anti-genocidaire provisions of the Lusaka agreement. The ICAG, for example, could explore ways of strengthening and enforcing UN Security Council sanctions against the ex-FAR/Interahamwe and their arms suppliers; improve export controls and customs enforcement throughout the region, and create mechanisms for sharing key information and intelligence about genocidaire movements, their leadership, and the financial and arms networks that sustain them. The coalition could assist the region in its efforts to arrest and transfer to the international tribunal or to the Rwandan judicial system those believed to have been the most responsible for the 1994 genocide. The United States and the Great Lakes The regional states, at Lusaka, were able to transcend the mutual suspicions and antagonisms of the moment to develop a common vision of the way forward. But Lusaka is only the beginning of a beginning. As difficult as it was to achieve agreement, the effective implementation of the Lusaka accord will pose far more formidable challenges. A rocky road lies ahead, and considerable patience, courage and creativity will be required on all sides. The United States will also have to remain fully engaged; joining with others in the international community in providing both diplomatic encouragement and material assistance as the peace process evolves. Either we are prepared to invest now in Great Lakes conflict resolution, taking advantage of the opportunity provided by the Lusaka accord, or we will be required to pay far more later in responding to much more costly humanitarian, economic and political disasters. We intend to continue working with our African partners in their collective undertaking to establish peace in the Great Lakes region. We see American engagement not only as a moral imperative, but also as in our own national interest -- as it is in the interest of the global community -- to support efforts to build stable, democratic, and economically self-reliant nations. (end text)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
