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THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO:

SECURING PEACE IN THE MIDST OF TRAGEDY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

AND HUMAN RIGHTS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 8, 2011

Serial No. 112–46

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

RON PAUL, Texas 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

DAVID RIVERA, Florida 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina 

VACANT 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

DENNIS CARDOZA, California 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

FREDERICA WILSON, Florida 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

YLEEM D.S. POBLETE, Staff Director 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, AND HUMAN RIGHTS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

KAREN BASS, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. Donald Y. Yamamoto, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of 

African Affairs, U.S. Department of State ......................................................... 9

Ms. Rajakumari Jandhyala, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Africa, U.S. Agency for International Development ................................................ 25

Mr. Ben Affleck, actor, writer, director, & advocate ............................................. 50

Ms. Francisca Vigaud-Walsh, sexual and gender-based violence advisor, 

Catholic Relief Services ....................................................................................... 68

Mr. John Prendergast, co-founder, The Enough Project ...................................... 79

Mrs. Cindy McCain, philanthropist ....................................................................... 88

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Mr. Donald Y. Yamamoto: Prepared statement .................................................... 12

Ms. Rajakumari Jandhyala: Prepared statement ................................................. 28

Mr. Ben Affleck: Prepared statement .................................................................... 55

Ms. Francisca Vigaud-Walsh: Prepared statement ............................................... 71

Mr. John Prendergast: Prepared statement .......................................................... 82

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 108

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 110

The Honorable Russ Carnahan, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Missouri: Prepared statement ......................................................................... 111

Mr. Ben Affleck: Material submitted for the record ............................................. 112

The Honorable Donald M. Payne, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of New Jersey: Material submitted for the record ................................... 119

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THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO: 

SECURING PEACE IN THE MIDST OF TRAGEDY 

TUESDAY, MARCH 8, 2011

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,

AND HUMAN RIGHTS

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:10 p.m., in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The subcommittee will come to order. Good afternoon, everyone. I want to thank you all for joining us on this very 

important hearing on the Democratic Republic of the Congo at this 

critical juncture in its history. As one might conclude from the significant media interest evident in the room, we do have a special 

guest witness joining us today to spotlight attention on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I am grateful to Ben Affleck for agreeing to be here to share his perspectives and that of the Eastern 

Congo Initiative that he founded. He is to be highly commended for 

contributing his time, finances, and fame to bring the world’s attention to the needs of the people who have suffered far too long 

and in a great deal of obscurity. 

I would also like to recognize Ms. Cindy McCain, who is also 

with us today. Ms. McCain is a founding member of and investor 

in the Eastern Congo Initiative and shares Mr. Affleck’s dedication 

to ending the suffering in this region. She also has dedicated her 

time and energy to a number of other very worthwhile projects. For 

example, she serves on the boards of directors of several nonprofit 

philanthropies, including Operation Smile, which provides reconstructive surgery to children with facial deformities, and the landmine removal group, The HALO Trust. 

Mr. Affleck and his organization are making a major contribution 

in focusing political will on resolving the crises in the DRC and 

bringing constructive recommendations to the table. But just as importantly, he is setting an example for all of us as to the need to 

direct whatever resources and influence we may have to help those 

who are less fortunate and without a voice to help themselves. And 

for his presence, perspective and example, the subcommittee is 

most appreciative. 

I am also grateful for our distinguished witnesses who are here 

as well. We look forward to examining the administration’s current 

2

strategy for and involvement in the DRC with the Principal Deputy 

Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of African Affairs, Ambassador 

Donald Yamamoto, and USAID’s Deputy Assistant Administrator 

for the Bureau for Africa, Rajakumari Jandhyala. We will hear 

about the Catholic Relief Services’ experience in the DRC as well, 

particularly in addressing the abhorrent and widespread practice of 

sexual violence as a weapon of war from their sexual and genderbased violence advisor, Francisca Vigaud-Walsh. 

And finally, the subcommittee again welcomes John Prendergast 

of the Enough Project to learn from his extraordinary expertise in 

the region, particularly on the issues of conflict minerals. Mr. 

Prendergast reminds us boldly in his testimony that the conflict 

minerals provision, Section 1502, requires the administration to develop a strategy for addressing linkages between the trade in conflict minerals, armed groups and human rights abusers in eastern 

Congo by January 17th. This strategy has not yet been submitted; 

however, I hope it is coming soon, and that will be an obvious question for Ambassador Yamamoto. 

An individual from the DRC was invited to testify at this hearing, but fortunately arrangements could not be made in time. I can 

assure you the DRC will be an ongoing focus of our subcommittee, 

and I am certain that we will hear from DRC’s citizens and indigenous activists at a future hearing. 

My friends, I had the privilege of traveling to the DRC back in 

2008, and I still have vivid memories of both the suffering and the 

courage of the Congolese people. A highlight of my visit was meeting Dr. Jo and Lyn Lusi, founders of HEAL Africa Hospital in 

Goma. I met with several women who had been subjected to severe 

sexual violence, including rape, and spoke to many women who 

were in the process of healing and recovery. The courage, the resilience, and the resolve of these victims to overcome all that had affected them was truly astonishing, and the meticulous care and 

compassion of the hospital staff was absolutely remarkable. 

I am pleased to know that USAID has supported fistula prevention and treatment in the DRC since 2005, including 1,000 repairs 

at the HEAL Africa and Panzi Hospitals in Fiscal Year 2010. In 

2005, I would note, I sponsored legislation that included authorization of assistance to establish centers for the treatment of obstetric 

fistula in developing countries. This legislation passed the House 

but did not get through the Senate for unrelated reasons. However, 

Mr. Kent Hill, the USAID Assistant Administrator for Global 

Health, agreed to significantly bolster USAID’s funding for fistula 

programming. The women of the DRC, together with thousands of 

other women around the world, have benefited as a result. 

As the prime sponsor of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 

2000, I am especially interested, and I hope the administration witnesses will address this, in the DRC’s Tier III ranking as an egregious violator when it comes to human trafficking. Has it improved 

since the Trafficking in Persons Report was submitted and what 

has and can be done to reintegrate former child soldiers? 

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has an abundance, as we 

all know, of valuable natural resources, water, arable land and people, making the DRC a potential leader in terms of prosperity and 

3

development on the continent. But like too many of its neighbors, 

it faces enormous challenges. 

The people in the DRC have endured ongoing violence and bloodshed for decades and often have not been paid attention to, again 

why I think Ben Affleck, in the appearance today, finally brings us 

much needed, often neglected attention to the DRC. 

The country has been the scene of one of the longest and deadliest manmade humanitarian crises in the world, characterized by 

two major civil wars involving seven neighboring countries; multiple cross-border conflicts; fighting by and among foreign proxies, 

militia groups and rebel movements; the illicit activities, including 

the illegal exploitation of mineral resources; an absence of governance; human rights atrocities directed against civilians by all parties, including the predatory Congolese military; and an unreliable 

U.N. peacekeeping force, which I am told is getting better. Millions 

of people in the DRC have died from wars and war-related malnutrition and disease since 1998 and nearly 2 million are displaced. 

The sufferings of war have been compounded by horrific human 

rights abuses committed against innocent women and children. 

The country as a whole faces enormous challenges. The DRC is 

one of the five poorest countries in the world, with 80 percent of 

its people living on just $2 a day. Corruption is rampant, as evidenced by the DRC’s ranking 164 out of 178 countries surveyed by 

Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index. 

The country is tenth among the world’s 22 high-burden tuberculosis countries, and malaria accounts for 35 percent of the deaths 

of children under the age of 5. Life expectancy is only about 51 

years. An estimated 8.2 million, or one out of every eight people in 

the DRC, are orphans and vulnerable children. 

Clearly, this country and the surrounding region are in desperate 

need of peace and the coordinated efforts of the world community 

to prevent a complete loss of its people’s hope for the future. 

The upcoming Presidential and parliamentary elections in November render this a particularly critical time to focus our attention on the U.S. strategy for addressing the many issues confronting the Congolese people and government. And given that 

today is International Women’s Day, this is a particularly appropriate occasion to recognize the courageous women of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In addition to the hardships that unduly impact women in situations of conflict and under development, the women in the DRC have had to endure years of brutal 

victimization of rape and other forms of sexual violence used as a 

weapon of war. An estimated 200,000 women have been raped 

there since 1998. Their physical and psychological suffering has 

been compounded by the ongoing absence of measures to prevent 

future attacks, the impunity with which the perpetrators continue 

in their communities or the military, and the stigma wrongly 

placed on the victims by Congolese society. 

A recent report by a U.N. panel detailed interviews held with victims of sexual violence in the DRC. While the plight of all the victims is heart wrenching, the interviews with those in the Kivus 

who are still experiencing ongoing armed conflict are worth emphasizing. These women are desperately in need of the most basic necessities—medical care, housing and a means of supporting themVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:57 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\030811\65058 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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selves and their children. But when asked what they would like to 

have done to restore their lives and regain their dignity, virtually 

every one responded that peace and security is their first and most 

immediate need. They pleaded with the panel to convey this message to the world because without peace and security, anything 

else they might acquire could be lost again at any time. Our primary goal of this hearing is to answer these women’s plea. 

I would like to turn to my good friend and colleague, Mr. Payne, 

for any opening comments he might have. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. And let me congratulate you, 

Mr. Smith, on assuming chairmanship of this subcommittee, and I 

certainly look forward to our continued working together on these 

issues of mutual interest and concern that we have had over the 

years. I certainly want to also welcome the new Democratic members to the committee. He is not here right now, but Mr. Carnahan 

is a former chair of the subcommittee that in the last Congress had 

jurisdiction over human rights, which, as you know, our subcommittee has expanded that, so he will certainly bring in experience there, and is a dedicated advocate for the rights and the needs 

of refugees and displaced persons, women, and is passionate about 

assisting child soldiers, as well as empowering women as peace 

builders. Mr. Carnahan’s commitment to Africa runs in his veins. 

His grandfather, A.S.J. Carnahan, became the first United States 

Ambassador to the newly independent Sierra Leone in 1961, and 

so he has a very strong interest and has had a number of conversations with me about Africa. 

We also are pleased to be joined by Ms. Karen Bass, who is not 

only new to the committee but she is new to Congress; however, 

a former Speaker of the California Assembly, the first AfricanAmerican woman to hold a Speaker’s gavel in the history of this 

Nation. And so we are very pleased and honored to have her as a 

member of our committee. And so she is no strange to legislating. 

I welcome the opportunity to help Ms. Bass turn her experience 

and interest in health, women’s rights, and economic empowerment 

into policies that can benefit the enterprising women of Africa and 

their children. 

I am excited to have this small but powerful team with us here 

on our subcommittee. I want to also recognize Representative 

McDermott, author of the bipartisan Conflict Minerals Act, which 

is an important tool for accomplishing long-term stability and economic growth, and he is also the author of the AGOA Act. We have 

called him the father, but he has gotten older so we call him the 

grandfather now of the AGOA Act. So it is good to have my classmate Mr. McDermott here today. 

It is fitting, Mr. Chairman, that we begin our subcommittee business for the 112th Congress by highlighting a foreign policy challenge that resonates in the hearts and minds of so many Members 

of Congress, Democrats and Republicans. The humanitarian crisis 

in eastern Congo has captured the attention of thousands of Americans from all walks of life. Our commitment to solving this problem 

exemplifies that Americans care deeply about these issues and 

really want to see a resolution. As a former teacher, I know that 

we must understand a problem before we begin to tackle it. We 

5

must understand the history of the Congo and the Great Lakes region, perhaps the richest, most fertile area on the continent. 

Many here today will talk about the ravaged militias that continue to terrorize the eastern part of the country. I want you to understand that the ravaging began in the late 1880s when King 

Leopold of Belgium savagely and gruesomely sought out to strip 

the Congo of its vast natural resources, which continued to be a 

source of conflict in that country back then and continues on today. 

Leopold’s nightmare reign in the Congo left 58 million Congolese 

dead and even more maimed. The atrocities that we witness today 

are the vestiges of Leopold’s bloody enterprise. For decades this region’s wealth washed ashore in ships at ports in Antwerp and Congo’s loss became Leopold and Belgium’s gain. As destructive as 

their rape of the Congo was on the country’s natural resources, the 

impact on its people is immeasurable and still plays out today, yet 

its impact is still misunderstood and underestimated. 

As we contextualize the gruesome violence in Congo, we know 

that this gruesome history is no excuse for the ugly reign of terror 

that armed groups such as the FDLR and the LRA have perpetrated against the people of the Congo. There is no excuse for impunity. The humanitarian crisis in eastern Congo has captured the 

attention of thousands of Americans across this country. Rape and 

sexual violence are used as a weapon of war in numbers that are 

simply unimaginable. In addition to the Lord’s Resistance Army, 

led by Joseph Kony, continues to havoc on parts of the DRC. 

The DRC continues to face insurgency from armed major groups 

and a major humanitarian crisis continues, especially in the eastern Congo, fueled by a resource grab. The integration of many 

former domestic rebels from the CNDP into the Congolese Army 

has presented serious challenges with professionalizing the security 

sector. The current reconfiguration of the Congolese Army units in 

the Kivus, in an apparent effort to eventually draw down the 

U.N.’s Amani Leo peacekeeping operations, have the potential to 

leave civilians in some areas of the east at the mercy of the FDLR 

and other non-state armed groups. All of this is compounded by the 

troubling political developments and turmoil in Kinshasa and the 

lack of overall preparedness for the upcoming elections scheduled 

for November. 

The American people and indeed the world are not willing to 

watch idly by as women and children in the DRC are victimized 

time after time, time and again, year after year. They have advocated over the last few years, and we have advocated bipartisan 

legislation such as the conflict minerals bill and the LRA legislation. Americans from red, blue and purple districts come together 

for the people of the Congo. That is a united effort. The people of 

the Congo deserve to see firsthand the resounding impact that our 

relatively small foreign aid investment can have on the world’s 

most vulnerable population. Indeed, while the human needs are 

enormous, the required economic commitment is miniscule when 

compared to the $100 billion yearly committed in Afghanistan and 

trillions of dollars we spent in Iraq during our course of time there, 

and the potential impact is monumental. The United States must 

leverage the good will that the American people have for the people 

of eastern Congo by devising—and having a coherent and a focused 

6

policy toward the Congo, and that is what I hope we can have as 

a conclusion of these hearings as we move forward. 

I must close by saying it is fitting, as Mr. Smith mentioned, that 

this hearing is on the 100th anniversary of International Women’s 

Day. Ending sexual violence as a weapon remains one of the greatest challenges to the protection of women’s human rights. While 

the survivors can be as young as a girl or her grandmother, we 

must do all we can to end this scourge. The White House, the State 

Department, Capitol Hill and the American people all understand 

the importance of reducing violence in eastern Congo. This means 

regulating trade and conflict minerals that act as an economic fuel 

to the conflict, creating the political will to reform the Congolese 

National Army from predators or making them from predator to 

protector and tackling impunity for war criminals and illegal actors 

that continue to enable those most responsible for mass atrocities. 

The United States in its role on the U.N. Security Council recently demonstrated strong leadership on the passage of U.N. Resolution 1960, which requires the Council and member states to 

honor commitments to combat sexual violence and conflict, investigate abuses, and hold perpetrators to account. I encourage the 

United States to continue to lead on this issue by developing a 

strategy to tackle the root causes of sexual violence and other 

human rights crimes in eastern Congo. 

The United States is the largest contributor to the United Nations Mission in Congo, or MONUSCO, and the first country to 

pass the law monitoring publicly traded companies using minerals 

mined in the Congo or its neighbors in an effort to reduce the direct or indirect financing of illegal groups. The Departments of Defense and State are engaged in initiatives to build capacity through 

military professionalization and justice training. We must also ensure that we continue strong programs and policies that give 

women in the Congo back their dignity. We all want to see a day 

when the women of eastern Congo are able to feed their families, 

earn a decent living, protect and defend their communities, and sit 

at the peace building table with the men. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate this meeting and 

look forward to our very distinguished panel of experts. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Payne. The Chair recognizes the vice chairman of the subcommittee, Jeff Fortenberry. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for convening 

this very important hearing, and I think it is important to note 

that it is especially poignant that today is International Women’s 

Day, as we hold the hearing for the more than 200,000 women in 

the Democratic Republic of the Congo who have been heinously victimized in recent years. Last year alone nearly 15,000 new cases 

of sexual violence were reported in the country, thousands of which 

involve children, and those numbers don’t reflect the many women 

who must remain silent. But this hearing today breaks that silence. 

The intense human tragedy in the Democratic Republic of the 

Congo continues to weigh heavily upon all of us. While numerous 

signs of democratic progress have been seen in recent years, civil 

strife has reached an unfathomable high in some areas, particularly in the eastern part of the country. The social emergency is 

7

seen quite clearly in a recent study that revealed rape has increased 17-fold within the country. 

In the last Congress we made two significant strides toward mitigating two sources of the conflict by passing the Lord’s Resistance 

Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009, as 

well as the conflict minerals provisions in another law. We also directed millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance to the victims 

of sexual and gender-based violence. But aid can hardly keep pace 

with the staggering numbers of new rape victims each year. 

Sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the 

worst in the world in both its pernicious scope and unrelenting brutality. The scourge of rape is especially prevalent in the Kivu provinces where we saw last year a particularly monstrous series of 

systematic rapes by rebel fighters. As we later learned, these vicious attacks were committed less than 20 miles from a U.N. peacekeeping base, which only learned of the month-long attack a week 

after their end. Since that inexcusable lapse, the U.N., with the 

Congolese Government and other nongovernmental organizations, 

successfully brought to trial and convicted nine FARDC soldiers, 

including their commanding officers, for crimes of mass rape last 

month. I join with the United States Government in commending 

this conviction. The rule of law did prevail, but there are many, 

many more perpetrators who not only elude justice, but flout the 

most basic notions of humanity through their brutal acts of extreme violence toward the daughters of the Congo. 

But our human rights concerns lie not only with the scourge of 

gender and sexual-based violence in the DRC, child conscription by 

rebel forces, but purportedly by the Congolese military itself, continues. UNICEF released a new report this past Friday warning 

that despite the reintegration of as many as 5,000 former child soldiers in the DRC, forcible child recruitment is an ongoing problem. 

As we give attention to the victimized women and girls of the 

DRC, we must also give special consideration to the plight of girl 

soldiers who are often victims of grotesque sexual slavery and violence as well. These girls, stripped of innocence and dignity, face 

heartbreaking stigma and challenges as they seek to reintegrate 

into their families and their community. 

So today, Mr. Chairman, I do look forward to hearing the U.S. 

State Department and USAID’s efforts to help bring peace to this 

tragedy worn country, as well as the unique on-the-ground perspectives from the Eastern Congo Initiative, Catholic Relief Services, 

and the Enough Project. Thank you all for coming today, thank you 

for your important work, and I look toward to our hearing. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Fortenberry. I now yield to Ms. Bass. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Ranking 

Member Payne. Since this is our first subcommittee meeting, I 

wanted to start by expressing my sincere enthusiasm about serving 

on this committee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights. It 

is also an honor to serve with Chairman Smith. I know that you 

are committed to improving lives around the world and are particularly passionate about preventing sex trafficking. I look forward to 

learning about your legislation and working with you. 

And to Ranking Member Payne, Representative Payne is well 

known in my district in Los Angeles. And I represent a section of 

8

my district as Little Ethiopia, and I have a number of African residents who live in the district. And Representative Payne is well 

known there, as he is throughout the country, for his effective leadership and ability to move policy that makes a significant difference around the world. 

I would like to thank our witnesses for your dedication and to establishing peace and prosperity in the DRC. Your work truly keeps 

people alive and contributes to global security. 

The State Department and the USAID have played an important 

role in generating progress toward stability in the DRC, but the 

United States must continue to increase our strategic leadership in 

the Congo. Secretary Clinton’s visit in 2009 was a great start, but 

the severity of the violence and instability requires heightened and 

focused U.S. engagement. In fact, U.S. leadership is needed now 

more than ever as we approach the November elections, and we expect President Kabila to lift the ban on conflict minerals in the east 

as early as March 10th. 

I want to join my colleagues in acknowledging International 

Women’s Day. It has been referenced several times, the consequences of the rape of women and girls, but one of those consequences is that women make up a significant majority of HIV infections in the country with little access to basic health services. 

USAID has led the effort to provide health care and services to 

Congolese women and children. UNICEF coordinates effective programs for women and girls that reduce infant, child and maternal 

mortality rates and improve access to clean water and sanitation 

and increase primary school enrollment, particularly for girls, who 

are often denied equal access. In the face of grave atrocities in the 

DRC, we must ensure ongoing investment in these programs. 

I look forward to hearing the testimony of our witnesses today 

to learn more about how we can best support the Congolese people 

in addressing these hardships and ultimately transform their potential into prosperity. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. SMITH. Anybody else on the subcommittee that would like to 

be heard? Mr. McDermott is with us, and I know it is a little bit 

of a breach of rules, but I would like to yield to him if he would 

like to make some opening comments. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In 1987–1988, I 

lived in Kinshasa and was a regional medical officer with the State 

Department and saw the beginning of the AIDS epidemic as well 

as the conflict that ultimately led to Mobutu Sese Seko leaving and 

followed by Kabila and all of what has followed. I have many 

friends out there. The Lucis are people I have known. A friend of 

mine from Los Angeles that I went to college with has been one 

of the big supporters of that organization, and I have been there 

several times. I really came to listen today. So thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. McDermott, thank you very much. I would like 

to now introduce our two distinguished witnesses, leaders in the 

field, who have done much. Ambassador Yamamoto is no stranger 

to this subcommittee, having been before us many times in the 

past. He has served since 2009, though, as the Principal Deputy 

Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs of the U.S. 

Department of State. His prior assignments included serving as 

9

U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia from November 2006 to July 2009, 

and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of African Affairs from 2003 to 2006. We are also joined by Ms. 

Jandhyala, who has served as USAID’s Deputy Assistant Administrator for Africa since October 2010. In this capacity she oversees 

the Offices of Sudan Programs and East Africa Affairs and also has 

a great deal of experience at the Department. And I would, without 

objection, include both of your full bios in the record. 

Ambassador Yamamoto. 

STATEMENT OF MR. DONALD Y. YAMAMOTO, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF AFRICAN AFFAIRS, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Ambassador YAMAMOTO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It 

is indeed a great honor to appear here before the subcommittee and 

I wish to express my congratulations to you, Mr. Chairman, on 

your appointment, and also to the great work of your predecessor, 

Congressman Payne, and also before the distinguished members of 

the subcommittee. 

President Obama, Secretary Clinton and this administration 

have demonstrated a firm commitment to the challenges in this region. The violence, the human rights abuse, the suffering of the 

people in the Congo, exploitation of minerals and resources are unacceptable, and none of us should tolerate it and we will not accept 

it. The work raised by the good works by your main witnesses, Mr. 

Ben Affleck and by others, by Cindy McCain, really are a testament to what the power of what individuals can do in the Great 

Lakes area, and I also notice that my good friend John Prendergast 

and the other NGO groups who are here whose work has helped 

a great deal in moving this process along. 

Let me tell you, Mr. Chairman, that the United States continues 

to play a very significant role to make a difference in the lives of 

the people in the DRC and wherever there is suffering and tragedy. 

In the tense years following 2003, we led an international effort 

through our Tripartite Plus peace process to address the causes of 

violence and to end the tragedies that promote violence. I was 

greatly honored to help lead the process for nearly 4 years, making 

some two dozen trips to the region. Secretary Clinton traveled to 

the DRC in 2009, as have other senior administration officials in 

the last 2 years. 

Our overarching goals and objectives in the DRC to resolve it lies 

in governance and security. You need to have a government that 

is accountable to the people. You need a security which is reliable 

and dependable and not part of the problem. The U.S. has focused 

first and foremost on the complex security challenges facing the 

DRC. The shocking incidences of mass rape and other human 

rights abuses that continue in these areas are symptoms of several 

factors that fuel or enable violence, each of which requires its own 

responses. 

One key factor is the continued presence of violent armed groups. 

Among the most notorious are the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or the FDLR, and the Lord’s Resistance Army, 

or the LRA, retain a violent and committed corps fully capable of 

carrying out brutal attacks on civilians. The U.S. Government has 

10

provided significant diplomatic and programmatic support to disarm and demobilize these groups. Defined capacity of many of 

these groups has been significantly reduced in the last few years, 

but much more slowly than we wished it to happen. The forces of 

the former National Congress for the Defense of the People, or the 

CNDP, remain only partly integrated into the Congolese Army 

serving under the effective command of known human rights abusers and retaining in their ranks significant numbers of children soldiers. 

The DRC security forces often compound the threat to civilians. 

Developing and reforming these forces is a massive undertaking 

that will require years of persistent support. Our assistance in this 

effort is aimed at both short-term and long-term progress and includes training of a vetted Congolese battalions, capacity building 

assistance for the DRC’s military justice institutions, training to officers on the principles of leadership, civil-military relations, 

human rights and command responsibility. 

The illicit trade and minerals and other natural resources also 

encourages violence, and the effective Congolese response and regional international responses by governments and industries will 

be key to resolving these problems. The United States is focused 

on helping develop civilian regulatory capacity, helping to end the 

role of illegal armed groups, criminal networks within the security 

forces, and promoting corporate due diligence and supporting the 

development of regional and national mechanisms to certify and 

trace the minerals trade. 

We appreciate the support of the Congress that has provided 

these efforts, and we are consulting with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as you have directed, Mr. Chairman, as they 

develop regulations to promote rigorous corporate due diligence. 

Underlying every element of the international community’s response to the DRC security challenges is MONUSCO, the U.N. 

peacekeeping operation in the DRC. Under the leadership of the 

former U.S. Ambassador Roger Meece, MONUSCO has taken welcome steps to improve its effectiveness in civilian protection. We 

are also encouraged by the improved relations between MONUSCO 

and the DRC Government. 

A second theme is governance. The national elections scheduled 

for November of this year are an essential step in determining Congo’s democratic future. We are watching closely to encourage elections that are well and transparently administered and that are 

conducted in an environment conducive to free political expression. 

Our other preoccupation in the area of governance is human 

rights. The lack of adequate state capacity and discipline of existing state forces continues to fuel existing abuses against civilians. 

We are undertaking substantial programmatic efforts, expanding 

on the Secretary’s 2009 pledge, $17 million in assistance to respond 

to and prevent sexual and gender-based violence. We are also supportive of modest but encouraging recent developments in a few 

key areas, including the arrest and conviction of a handful of high 

profile alleged abusers and the DRC Government’s proposal to develop specialized judicial chambers to prosecute those who committed atrocities. The general situation, however, remains one of 

11

impunity, and many more positive developments will be required 

to reverse this trend. 

The third theme is economic recovery, which is essential in providing alternatives to enlistment and armed groups and laying a 

foundation for development. We are encouraging the DRC Government to take the necessary steps to improve the investment climate 

and to enhance transparency in the mining sector. With soliciting 

a ban on mining the DRC’s eastern provinces expected on March 

10th, we encourage all stakeholders to work to ensure that minerals leaving the DRC can be traced to their origin and that abusive armed forces are cut out of the trade. 

Finally, it is worth emphasizing that the renewed cooperation 

among the DRC and its neighbors is a cornerstone of this region’s 

future progress. The cooperation, while vastly improved over the 

last 2 years, will need to deepen further in the face of new developments, such as the emergence of an independent southern Sudan. 

Helping empower the Congolese people and their government to 

address the challenges they face will take time and persistence. 

The U.S. Government intends to remain a strong partner over the 

long-term. 

The DRC has focused attention of the United States Government 

and the activities that are directed onto the Assistant Secretary of 

African affairs, Johnnie Carson, and coordinated with our ambassadors in the field, the interagency and our NGO community partners, and also the donor community. 

Mr. Chairman and members of this subcommittee, thank you for 

giving me an opportunity to speak to you today, and I will submit 

a longer version for the record. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Yamamoto follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much for your testimony. I would like to yield to our second distinguished witness. 

STATEMENT OF MS. RAJAKUMARI JANDHYALA, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR AFRICA, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Ms. JANDHYALA. Good afternoon, Chairman Smith, Ranking 

Member Payne, members of the subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to discuss the foreign assistance activities of USAID in the 

Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is particularly relevant in 

recognition of the International Women’s Day today. 

My name is Rajakumari Jandhyala. I am the Deputy Assistant 

Administrator for Africa Bureau since October 2010, and prior to 

joining the government I had an opportunity to work on the continent for 17 years, including the Congo, in the months after the 

Global Accords that were signed in 2003. 

My testimony adds to the themes that Ambassador Yamamoto 

has raised about peace and security, progress toward governance, 

economic development, health and well-being of the population. 

As part of the Presidential Policy Directive on Development 

which was issued recently and in support of our foreign policy toward the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Administrator 

Shah’s efforts to look at our review and look at our approaches to 

assistance on the continent, we really have taken an effort to look 

at Congo as a very complex challenge in terms of like Sudan and 

in Somalia. So we really have a strategy review that is going on 

to look at our complex operations on the continent. 

DRC is yet another example of a place where diplomacy and development are critical to assisting the Congolese in finding solutions to their current challenges, lay the groundwork for meeting 

the aspirations of its population at the end of the day, and build 

a nation that contributes to regional stability. And in that effort we 

work with both regional organizations, international partners and 

national institutions, both in the short term and in the long term. 

The U.S. recognizes the enormous challenges and financial resources required to improve conditions, and in that regard the U.S. 

Government continues to be the largest donor in DRC, providing 

$306 million in bilateral assistance in Fiscal Year 2010, plus support to the U.N. peacekeeping operations, MONUSCO, multi-lateral institutions like the UNDP and U.N. agencies. U.S. foreign assistance is coordinated among agencies through a country assistance strategy that outlines our plans for U.S.-Congolese cooperation in addressing the immediate needs as well as long-term development needs. 

In addition, we are one of 19 bilateral and multilateral donors 

participating in the common assistance framework established in 

2007 with the Government of the Democratic Republic of the 

Congo. This gives us the opportunity as the international community to really leverage our assets and how we bring pressure and 

establish a dialogue with the Congolese on development objectives 

in the Congo. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to now review the major development 

challenges in DRC and current summary of USAID activities to address them. A written testimony has been submitted. 

26

The DRC, and in particular in the east, continues to experience 

instability, violent conflict, and widespread population displacement. A key area of concern remains the Lord’s Resistance Army. 

USAID promotes stability through community reconciliation, infrastructure, livelihood recovery and ex-combatant reintegration. Our 

Offices of Foreign Disaster Assistance and Food for Peace have ongoing commitments to provide emergency humanitarian and food 

relief where LRA are active. We are currently working on a regional strategy in support of LRA issues, as part of our northern 

Uganda strategy as well, to find the linkages in CAR, Northern 

Uganda, and Congo. 

With regards to conflict minerals, our activities are in support of 

the 2010 Dodd-Frank legislation, which includes reporting requirements for mineral origin. In DRC the legal mineral trade fuels 

armed groups and undermines legitimate economic activity. To reduce the security and governance problems relating to conflict, and 

the trade in conflict minerals which results in the violence, USAID 

seeks to improve enforcement of the DRC mining code through regulatory support and rehabilitation of roads, and build capacity for 

better monitoring and transparency, including certification. 

Addressing human rights abuses and sexual and gender-based 

violence is a high priority for USAID. USAID activities provide access to support services for rape and abuse survivors and their 

families, including medical care, counseling and legal aid where 

women are afraid to report to local authorities, and how we deal 

with the local justice to support their efforts. More importantly, we 

also support women survivors and livelihoods. Many times they are 

not participating in the community recovery activities that are taking place. 

In addition to addressing the immediate needs of survivors, 

USAID has supported drafting critical legislation and subsequent 

prosecution related to sexual violence, and this continues to be an 

ongoing challenge given the weakness in the justice institutions 

and sectors. And we are trying to work with both at the national 

level at the community justice mechanisms at the moment. 

Turning to democracy and governance, USAID focuses on capacity building among legislators, civil society organizations, and 

media. We also work to improve the independence of the judicial 

sectors and bring legal services to remote populations such as mobile courts where they are possible. 

In preparation of the DRC’s Presidential and legislative elections 

plan for this fall, USAID continues to build on our strengths and 

citizen outreach and mobilization. More than 8.2 million voters 

across the DRC’s 11 provinces are expected to be reached by civic 

education programs, and we are attracting and leveraging other resources to enhance the participation of the population in a transparent manner. 

In terms of social services, the health sector is our largest priority at the moment, given the violence and in terms of preventing 

a lot of the health-related epidemics we find in the Congo. USAID 

seeks to strengthen primary health care. In addition to our continued support to HIV and AIDS programs, we also support malaria 

programs. 

27

As Chairman Smith mentioned, we support two important fistula 

hospitals which have treated over 1,000 women who received repair 

surgeries in 2010, and we hope to expand the outreach of those 

services. We have also brought together 12 providers of these services to ensure there is a network that they learn and exchange 

ideas on these issues. And we also contributed to the national fistula strategy in the Congo. 

Lastly, in alignment with the Feed the Future Initiative that 

USAID is investing in Africa, promoting the agriculture sector as 

a means of economic growth is a high priority for USAID. In Fiscal 

Year 2010, programs assisted nearly 40,000 households and more 

than 500 producers’ associations in improving agricultural management practices and use of technology. 

In conclusion, despite many of the complex challenges to development, U.S. foreign assistance is making a difference with children 

being reunited with their families after being abducted, trafficked 

or abused. Low income women are accessing the judicial system for 

the first time and we are encouraging the expansion of that program. Health care workers are gaining skills necessary both for 

preventive as well as curative measures, and farmers are learning 

better ways to grow and process and distribute their crops. Across 

many areas where foreign assistance is needed we are promoting 

an approach DRC that addresses short-term, medium-term, and 

long-term sustainable development. 

Members of the subcommittee, thank you for your attention to 

development issues in DRC, and I look forward to answering your 

questions and providing additional information. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jandhyala follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much for your testimony. And without objection, both of your full statements will be made a part of 

the record. 

Let me start off by saying that Mr. Affleck in his testimony with 

regards to the elections, and I know, Ms. Jandhyala, you made the 

point as well, says that there is a $350 million gap as it relates to 

the upcoming elections, and I would ask you if you could address 

whether or not you think that gap will be bridged and by whom. 

And in his testimony Mr. Affleck says he requests that the U.S. 

Government take a hard look at its current commitment to support 

the elections and asks if offering the assistance needed to truly 

support a free and fair election is actually there. He asks a number 

of questions and he says, the time for decision is upon us. With national elections only 8 months away, the U.S. is not focused on the 

Congo. 

How will that gap be bridged, if you could, Mr. Ambassador? And 

secondly, with regard to the conflict minerals strategy, which was 

due in mid-January, is that going to be forthcoming soon or perhaps has it been sent up today? If you could give us a timeline for 

that and maybe give us an idea about what will be included. 

The issue of army reform remains a very serious issue, and I 

wonder if you could update us on how military reform is proceeding. On trafficking, Congo obviously is a Tier III country now. 

It has dropped. In the recommendations made in the TIP Report, 

one of the key recommendations is to investigate and punish military and other law enforcement personnel accused of unlawfully 

conscripting child soldiers, and then it goes on from there. And I 

am wondering if you could tell us, because obviously this report 

was issued last year in the beginning of summer, whether or not 

any progress has been made in the area of trafficking both for sex 

and labor and for child soldiering. If you could address that. 

On the fistula repair, congratulations and kudos to the USAID 

for the work you are doing on repair. At 1,000, do you anticipate 

that the numbers will go up in terms of actual repair of fistulas, 

and by how many? Do you have a glide slope as to how you will 

build out the capacity for fistula? 

And on the issue of faith-based organizations, we will be hearing 

from Catholic Relief Services in our second panel, and they make 

a very cogent argument as to why faith-based organizations are 

critical in Congo, and I would argue for all of sub-Saharan Africa, 

if we want to mitigate HIV/AIDS, if we want to combat all health 

issues. The estimates are that up to 70 percent, as you know, of 

health care in Africa is provided by faith-based organizations or 

churches and seemingly we would want to more faithfully utilize 

that mechanism. And if you could speak to whether or not that is 

where you think we go in the future as well as in the present. 

And then on MONUSCO, during my trip part of what caused me 

to go there was the ongoing problem, you know it is bad enough 

that soldiers in the Congolese Army and militia groups are committing heinous crimes against women, but to our shock and dismay 

we discovered that the peacekeepers in like manner, but in a much 

smaller number, were committing these kinds of crimes against 

young children. Mr. Payne will remember that I actually had three 

hearings on the abuse by peacekeepers. We heard from Jane Holl 

38

Lute from the U.N., who was then heading up the office. She is 

now over at Homeland Security as number two. But she was emphatic that there needs to be a zero tolerance policy vis-a`-vis peacekeepers and women and children. At the time we were talking 

about zero compliance, and I know that has changed. But we are 

told that there are some 33 allegations of sexual misconduct since 

January 2010 to February of this year, and one of my arguments 

has been you need investigators to make sure that if there is an 

allegation it is followed up on. There are now only two OIOS investigators in Goma, which I think enables, however unwittingly, 

these crimes that are committed. So if you could address that as 

well. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. In terms of the elections that are being held in 

November, USAID sees it as part of a broader international strategy required to build a coalition on democratic transformation in 

Congo, and we have multiple challenges. One is a partner in terms 

of financial resources. We are contributing to a basket fund at the 

moment, and we are working with the European donors to see how 

that gap can be filled and how rapidly it can be filled in the coming 

months. The second issue we are facing is the capacity of the national institutions to actually take international support and technical assistance with some degree of support from our regional organizations. 

So in terms of funding we have contributed $5 million to voter 

education and we are working with our other partners to see how 

we can fill the gap at the moment. 

Mr. SMITH. Could I ask during the last elections how much we 

contributed? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. I would have to get back to you. 

Mr. SMITH. It was significantly higher, I know that. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. It was well over, I think, $80 million. 

[The information referred to follows:]

WRITTEN RESPONSE RECEIVED FROM MS. RAJAKUMARI JANDHYALA TO QUESTION

ASKED DURING THE HEARING BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

USAID provided $12.0 million in support of DRC’s 2006 elections.

Ambassador YAMAMOTO. Just to follow up on the elections, during the 2006 elections I was an observer with the U.S. Government 

observers. And also the Ambassador was Roger Meece, who is now 

head of MONUSCO. And as you know, Mr. Chairman, it was a 

very difficult, it was a very challenging process to register and just 

to identify who the voters are. And we used a variety of resources; 

the Catholic Church, who registered the parishioners, faith-based 

groups who were working throughout the area. And so we used 

very innovative and creative ways to do it. And in going to the 

criticisms of the electoral process, we try to make it as transparent 

as possible in each successive election to be better than the last 

one. And we have a country with so many challenges as the DRC. 

And more importantly is the lack of capacity and institutions. 

Those are challenges that we work with our partners and also with 

the DRC to overcome, in order to ensure that these elections are 

better than the ones before and that there is a system of progress. 

I guess we should go to your other questions? 

Mr. SMITH. If you could. 

39

Ambassador YAMAMOTO. On the conflict minerals legislation that 

has been completed, these should be submitted to the Congress. 

And as you and the Congress have directed, we have addressed the 

issue on Securities and Exchange regulatory process. And just to 

kind of briefly, oversight. On the conflict minerals we are really enhancing how to protect those areas in conflict, enhance civilian regulation of the resource trade, protect artisan miners in local communities, strengthen regional and international efforts to monitor 

and protect civilians, and then to promote responsible trader resources. 

And as you know, Mr. Chairman, the DRC is perhaps one of the 

richest countries in the world. It is extraordinary lush, it is green, 

it could be the breadbasket. I want to give you one story that, you 

know we have been talking to other donors in other countries who 

are benefiting from these minerals and resources, the Chinese. One 

thing that the Chinese told us we found fascinating. There is more 

arable land in the Congo than all of China, yet China is able to 

meet the basic needs of a population that is 20 times greater than 

the DRC. Why is that? What is it that we need to do more with 

our Congolese partners to ensure that we have a rich country that 

meets the benefits of its people and also the region? And the water 

productivity in that area can fuel energy for half of the African continent. And so these are things that are really dramatic and things 

that we are trying to work on, and we are very excited about. 

The other issues, too, that I want to get to is on the TIP Report. 

On the TIP the DRC is classified in Tier III. We have of course removed the DRC reluctantly from AGOA benefits. But it came after 

2 years of consistently asking the DRC Government to address certain human rights abuses. And we offered assistance and help and 

support, and we will continue to do so. We wanted to see that to 

the benefit of the people it has to be part of AGOA, but it also has 

to address the needs of its people. And those are some of the things 

that I know you are very passionate about, Mr. Chairman, and we 

have addressed those issues. 

The next thing that you address is the efforts of faith-based 

groups such as CRS and other groups. You are absolutely correct, 

you know, we provide right now on the continent anywhere from 

$6.4 billion, about $6.8 billion in total assistance to the African continent. Of that, 85 percent is administered through NGO groups. 

Most of them are faith-based. And what we have learned on the 

faith-based is that it has tremendous accuracy, low overhead cost, 

and they have very creative and innovative approaches. This is a 

lot of the other groups that we have worked with. And we must 

commend a lot of the work that they have done to address some 

basic problems that are facing Africa today. And let me just highlight one thing that addresses what my colleague Raja and what 

we in the United States Government is trying to address, is how 

do you address the violence against women. 

And one of the things that we have worked with on the faithbased groups is some innovative programs which try to elevate the 

status of women. Without the elevating of status of women, to show 

girls that their moms are really the heroes in the family, then we 

are going to have problems. And one of the creative programs that 

we have is we have community-based development, in others we 

40

have kids who are going to community schools. Then we have 

moms who we give loans. And we now know that women on average will repay loans at a rate of 95 percent, much higher than men. 

And then for the men, looking at agricultural techniques and technologies. And then have that community strengthen and bonded 

and sustainable. And what happens we have found is that it raises 

the status of women, helps girls’ education and expands to other 

communities. And so those are things that we have learned in 

working with our NGO and faith-based groups to expand. 

The next thing is, and I want to turn to Raja, is on the FARDC and on the MONUSCO problems. In our approach, our $306 million 

area, we are looking at security sector reform. Without the security 

sector reform, you are not going to have a security force which is 

reliable, dependable, and accountable to the people. You want 

forces that are going to protect you, not be a problem and a source 

of crime and violence against the people. What we are doing right 

now on one area is to promote accountability through training and 

prosecution. You need to have accountability and to hold people responsible for their actions. 

The other issue is advocating demilitarization and strengthening 

payment systems to ensure that the security forces are going to be 

paid. We are looking at mobile banking services to ensure that 

money gets into the accounts so that, let’s say the commanders are 

not pilfering the money of their NCOs or the other military trainees. The other thing is to train police forces to serve as a basis to 

help protect civilians and protect the rights of civilians. 

The other issue is on MONUSCO. As you remember, Mr. Chairman, and of course when Congressman Payne was also there, we 

looked at the abuse of MONUC. And at that time the SSRG was 

Ambassador Bill Swain and the Ambassador was Roger Meece. We 

worked extremely hard to look at how we can do training and advancement programs. So right now we are looking at our programs 

and projects on how we can advance and promote the 

professionalization within the FARDC troops but also within 

MONUSCO now to ensure that you have the highest quality. 

In that context let me just tell you, in the State Department we 

have over the last decade trained 120,000 troops. That is 36 battalions in 24 partner countries. And what they are doing now is to address African problems through African solutions. Of those 120,000, 

77,000 remain in peacekeeping operations. We monitor them, we 

keep track of them. And of those, 33,000 are in U.N. operations. 

And we know that their quality is good and that they are attracted 

and maintain a high quality. And that is what we need to do, not 

only in the DRC, but in other parts of Africa where we see instability. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

On the issue regarding trafficking in persons, we are approaching it as a human rights issue; and, in that regard, we have spent 

approximately $3 million in anti-trafficking projects in DRC, working with UNICEF in Ituri district to reintegrate former soldiers, 

help them put in systems to monitor families and communities 

where this is taking place. 

In addition, we are working with the International Organization 

for Migration to build awareness and capacity in the Government 

41

of the DRC to stop this and to address the issues raised in the Tier 

III status that they have been given. 

On the issue of fistula repairs, we are finding in our assessment 

of our current activities that, so far, we have dealt with repairs as 

part of the violence generated in the war, in the conflict situation. 

But we think there are also fistula issues regarding the domestic 

violence and frequency of birth and the population increases that 

are happening in communities. So we are approaching it both as 

a treatment for gender-based violence as well as domestic violence 

and sort of population issues regarding young girls who are having 

children at a young age as well as the number of children that they 

are having, which is also another reason for the fistula situation 

in the Congo. 

On the issue regarding faith-based organizations and working 

with communities, we believe the fundamental issue of community 

reconciliation has to be done through local organizations. Promoting community reconciliation can’t be done at the state organizations or at the level of national institutions. So we are at the moment working with our colleagues in OTI and other places in the 

east to see what organizational networks, social networks that 

exist currently and how we tap into those social networks, including churches and mosques and other institutions on the ground. 

In terms of elections, that is another challenge we are facing. As 

my colleague Ambassador Yamamoto said, we view this as a transformation. How do we set benchmarks for assessing progress in 

that process? 

In 2006, I also was in Congo with Ambassador Swing’s office at 

that time and we see that each election is an opportunity for us 

not only to fund the event, the idea of an election, but all of the 

consequences that we would have to deal with on the parliamentary level. What institutions do we have to build for the next election? So we are managing our resources between the immediate 

event investments as well as what it requires for state building and 

capacity on the parliamentary level. 

We are also preparing for the state-level elections that have been 

postponed to see how we can encourage and revive that strategy 

with the government a little bit more. 

And, lastly, in terms of all of these issues, Mr. Chairman, that 

we are dealing with ungoverned spaces. So development in 

ungoverned spaces means currently we are dealing with the consequences of ungoverned spaces. So of the 11 provinces in Congo, 

seven are viewed in the eastern areas which are considered sort of 

ungoverned on many levels. But there are 40 million other people 

in the rest of the Congo that we are balancing the immediate interventions for conflicts and crises but also continuing to invest in the 

other parts that are stable. 

So those are the issues that we are managing at the moment. 

In terms of the budget, Administrator Shah is coming up to the 

Hill next week, and I would leave that to him to talk about Congo 

as part of the broader budget issues. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. I thank you both. 

Just a note, not a question, I want to thank you for including in 

your written submission some of the very laudatory and outstanding accomplishments, especially in the area of mitigating maVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:57 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGH\030811\65058 HFA PsN: SHIRL
42

ternal mortality. As you point out, we have enabled over 351,000 

deliveries. And, as we know, the greatest way of mitigating maternal mortality is by having a skilled birth attendant available to 

deal with complications, especially if a caesarean section might be 

needed. So that is very good news contained in your testimony. 

Mr. Payne. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. 

As has been mentioned, Secretary Clinton visited the eastern 

Congo, and she really was very moved and gave a very strong report about what was going on there. I was on that trip, although 

I left before she visited the Congo. 

My assessment, the U.S. needs to refocus all parts of our Government on achieving clear results in two critical issues which were 

actually mentioned on her trip. The first priority should be to bring 

greater stability and to reduce civilian suffering in the eastern 

Congo, and the second priority will be to ensure next year’s elections that will take place will be fair and free. So I just wonder if 

you could just comment very quickly on those two. 

I have a series of questions. 

Ambassador YAMAMOTO. You are absolutely correct, Mr. Congressman. Stability is key, and that is really part of our security 

sector reform approach which I just explained in the testimony. 

And the other issue is on the elections. Yes, the elections are a 

key indicator for the progress; and, yes, there are going to be problems. Yes, there are going to be areas that we need greater improvement on; and, yes, there will be questions on it. But as long 

as we can continue to make the progress and development we have 

since 2006, we should be in good shape as we head to the next elections as well. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. In terms of the elections, after USAID’s experience in Sudan recently and the enormous international lift that it 

took to make the referendum happen, I think we are working toward what institutions we can lay the groundwork for now as we 

set the tone for both the subnational elections that we hope will 

take place. And I think it is a commitment to the democratic transformation of Congo. It is a critical element of our aid strategy at 

the moment. 

Mr. PAYNE. And you didn’t have the dollar amount that we contributed to the 2006 elections and what is in the budget for the 

2011 elections. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. Right. The 2006, I can come back to you with 

that. I am sorry about that. 

[The information referred to follows:]

WRITTEN RESPONSE RECEIVED FROM MS. RAJAKUMARI JANDHYALA TO QUESTION

ASKED DURING THE HEARING BY THE HONORABLE DONALD M. PAYNE

USAID provided $12.0 million in support of DRC’s 2006 elections.

Ms. JANDHYALA. On the 2011, it is part of the budget discussions 

that Administrator Shah would like to talk with as part of the 

overall DG budgets we are looking for within the agency, both for 

Africa and for the agency. 

Mr. PAYNE. Because, of course, we can almost guarantee failure 

if we do not supply the appropriate—it was daunting at the last 

election, which I attended, also. And simply the logistics of getting 

43

ballots to remote places, you had to use helicopters; and I was 

thankful, as I mentioned, that South Africa was able to bring in 

aircraft to deliver ballots and then pick them up after the election. 

Congo was so important. 

And we could almost, like I say, guarantee a failure if we don’t 

have the proper amount of—which, of course, comes to the Congress. You all don’t appropriate. That is something that we need 

to perhaps have a discussion with us on this side of Washington. 

Could you give me a definition of the difference between MONUC 

and MONUSCO? It tends to get gray sometimes. 

So would anyone want to try to take a shot at that? I don’t want 

either one of you to jump at it, but——

Ambassador YAMAMOTO. The issue was—the progress between 

MONUC and MONUSCO was on the mandate. In other words, to 

articulate exactly what the precise mandate would be for the U.N. 

operation. And one of the things that was additional or added to 

that was, in what circumstances will these forces address, you 

know, the FDLR, the LRA process? And one of the additions to the 

MONUSCO mandate was looking much more at the LRA problem. 

But I would have to go back to you and refer to other experts 

who know the precise technical and legal distinction between the 

two. 

[The information referred to follows:]

WRITTEN RESPONSE RECEIVED FROM MR. DONALD Y. YAMAMOTO TO QUESTION

ASKED DURING THE HEARING BY THE HONORABLE DONALD M. PAYNE

Following the signing of the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement in July 1999 between 

the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and five regional states, the UN Security Council established the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic 

Republic of the Congo (MONUC) by its resolution 1279 of November 30, 1999. 

MONUC initially observed the ceasefire and disengagement of forces and maintained liaison with all parties to the Ceasefire Agreement. Later, in a series of resolutions, the Council expanded the mandate of MONUC to the supervision of the implementation of the Ceasefire Agreement and assigned multiple related additional 

tasks. In accordance with the Security Council’s May 28, 2010 resolution 1925, 

MONUC was renamed the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the 

Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) to reflect the transformation of 

MONUSCO into a stabilization force. UNSC resolution 1925 also permitted a reduction of up to 2,000 of the Mission’s 19,815 uniformed personnel in areas where security has improved. The MONUSCO mandate emphasizes civilian protection.

Mr. PAYNE. Initially, they were criticized—I guess it was early 

on—about their lack of aggressiveness in their Chapter 7 mandate. 

There had been a reaffirmation of Chapter 7. Is there a more aggressive stance on a part of the forces? 

Ambassador YAMAMOTO. The problem with the definitions is this 

ability to respond. I know that Roger Meece has requested more air 

assets, in other words, to address the ability to rapidly deploy his 

troops to areas of instability. And he gave the example of ecoterror, 

where you had disarmed groups coming in and taking over the airport temporarily, killing some of the U.N. peacekeepers as well as 

civilians. 

But those are some of the major challenges that are facing 

MONUSCO today. It is not only the budget but also the capacity 

to respond quickly. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. We have also made a commitment. We have reinforced our message with the U.N. agencies that we are committed 

to a peacekeeping mission, and we wouldn’t be able to do a lot of 

44

our work without the environment being created by the peacekeeping mission in the east at the moment. And we have made 

that message clear to the Government of the Democratic Republic 

of the Congo who have come around to establishing a better relationship and improving their relationship with the peacekeeping 

mission. 

Mr. PAYNE. And about the FDLR, initially, they were very involved with the government in Kinshasa. However, there seemed 

to be a position where the Kabila government have been working 

toward the infiltration of the FDLR. In other words, the agreement 

between Rwanda and the DRC, is there an effort? At one time, it 

seemed FDLR were even a part of the Congolese forces. Has all of 

that changed? And is the—into harm’s way—and the ex-FAR that 

still roam around the eastern Congo, is that still a problem? 

Ambassador YAMAMOTO. Yes, Mr. Congressman. The FDLR, you 

know, remains a continued issue. From our tripartite-plus process 

to today, we continue to work with the Rwandan groups as well as 

the Congolese, because the FDLR is a threat to both countries and 

to the regional stability and also to the violence against the civilians and really is a major block and obstacle to peace and stability 

in the region. So that continues to be a top priority. 

Mr. PAYNE. I had a chance to speak to Mr. Meece earlier in regard to even the CNDP. Now Nkunda is under house arrest in 

Rwanda. Has that therefore lessened the tension there in the area 

or are his forces still roaming and doing destructive work? 

Ambassador YAMAMOTO. No. Nkunda’s detention or house arrest 

in Rwanda is one area, but you still have continued members of the 

FDLR who continue to roam, and then you also have other highprofile individuals who are creating havoc. And one of them, of 

course, is Bosco Ntaganda, who is an ICC-indicted war criminal 

and part of the groups. As you know, he fought with Kabila’s 

forces, and he is extremely well armed. So that remains a problem. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. And, also, I think one of the issues we are facing 

with the FDLR in terms of community development and reconciliation issues is that command and control is not clear on different 

parts of the east, of where they have impact and where they don’t 

in terms of command and control. So I think both the bilateral 

agreement between Rwanda and Congo gives one framework, but 

I think we will have to work as an international community at 

many levels both at the political level but also within communities 

who have reached out under the DDR program and other reconciliation efforts to see how we can minimize the damage that they do 

to the communities. 

Mr. PAYNE. Okay. My time has just about expired, but I just 

wonder, what is the prospect of a special envoy being appointed? 

We wrote a letter back several months ago asking that a special 

envoy be considered once again. Mr. Swing was very effective. And 

what is the status now? 

Ambassador YAMAMOTO. We are continuing to take that under 

advisement. After the departure of Howard Wolpe last year, we 

will continue to do the work that he has started through our ambassadors and through Johnnie Carson who has made trips as well 

as the Secretary and other senior officials. 

45

But, again, depending on the budget and other objectives, et 

cetera, we continue to take that under advisement, Mr. Congressman. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member. 

Mr. Fortenberry. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you again for coming, and thank you for your testimony. 

The United States is constantly called upon to clean up messes 

throughout the world. And now that is a testament to the generosity of the American people as well as to the philosophical ideals 

that guide us and perhaps as well our unique position as an exceptional world power. But, with that said, what is the relative nature 

of our assistance compared to European assistance, particularly 

France and Belgium, given the colonial legacy here? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. In terms of the United States, we are still the 

largest donor in terms of our support in bilateral assistance, but 

our support through the peacekeeping agencies, in terms of our 

support through the U.N., service agencies like UNICEF; and we 

continue to lead on this. 

It depends also on certain sectors where our European partners 

have taken the lead in terms of the security sector where the EU 

is in the lead. But in other areas and other sectors we continue to 

lead in regards to this. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Do you feel this is disproportionate in terms 

of the responsibility? 

Ms. JANDHYALA. We are working with our partners to continuously find ways, because we partner with them on a number of 

other countries that are a priority for the U.S. Government. So it 

is a balancing act between Congo, Sudan, Liberia, and many other 

countries. So we are in constant discussions with our British partners, our Norwegian partners, the EU, the World Bank, both on 

the bilateral to see where we bring our relative expertise, we lead, 

and where they bring their relative expertise and political will. So 

it is a constant negotiation between us and our partners. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. All right. The second question—and perhaps, 

Mr. Ambassador, you could answer this. It is against the law in the 

United States to provide military assistance to countries who use 

child soldiers. Now we have exceptions for that in terms of national 

security waivers, and this country has received one. But, with that 

said, that doesn’t absolve our responsibility from continuing to 

push at the highest possible diplomatic levels to end this pernicious 

practice. What specifically is being done in this regard? 

Ambassador YAMAMOTO. You know, overall, on the child soldiers, 

it is not just in the Congo but it is throughout the continent and, 

of course, around the world as we establish on our GTIP rankings 

and address—to work with these countries to address those problems and to ensure that they understand those problems and that 

they address them and that we work together to find the solution. 

And throughout Africa and other parts of Africa, from Chad and 

to other countries where there are reports of child soldiers, we have 

worked with those troops that we have helped, let’s say, train not 

only on vetting but to ensure that they observe all the precepts and 

46

legal aspects that we have under our laws in distribution of funding and assistance. 

In the Congo area, it remains a challenge, but we remain committed to ensuring and to working hard so that the battalions that 

we train and also those that we work with are meeting the legal 

notes established by you in the Congress on the distribution of the 

assistance. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. That perhaps is certainly an appropriate response for those areas that are under our direct influence, such as 

military assistance, direct military assistance and training. But in 

terms of a robust diplomatic push at the highest levels, what are 

we doing? 

Ambassador YAMAMOTO. Right now, we are working with the 

FARDC troops, which is a major challenge, to work on military justice and also to ensure that they develop the justice systems to 

bring to justice those individuals who are in violation, not only 

those who have violated the law in participation in rape and 

human rights abuse but also those who have conscripted and 

trained child soldiers. That becomes an accountability issue under 

the judicial and legal system that we are trying to develop within 

the DRC, and that is something that our USAID colleague is working on. And our part is working to ensure the professionalization 

of the military as well as the police to follow up and to work with 

the communities and sectors so that these abuses do not occur. 

But, again, it is going to be a long-term process, but we are making 

those efforts. 

Mr. SMITH. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Carnahan. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and congratulations 

again on your chairmanship and leadership of this subcommittee. 

It is great to be here with the ranking member, Mr. Payne. We 

notice a slight New Jersey tilt to the leadership here, but we do 

appreciate you being here and really bringing attention to this 

topic today. 

I just wanted to say a personal welcome to Ambassador 

Yamamoto for his leadership and for the time we spent with him 

in Ethiopia and for the great work that you did there. 

This topic is very timely in terms of assessing our effectiveness 

and the international community’s efforts to address these challenges from ethnic conflict, government corruption, extreme poverty, and widespread human rights abuses. And, in particular, the 

sexual and gender-based violence against women and children here 

on this day I think it is especially important being International 

Women’s Day. 

Also, we have heard many talk about the high risk of relapse 

there. When there was a concerted effort around the elections in 

2006, many believe that we mistakenly scaled down our efforts 

there in terms of democracy assistance and political engagement. 

So certainly as we lead up to this next national election, I think 

it is important that we have a robust international engagement 

there. 

I have seen some statistics with regard to there being over 

14,000 new cases of sexual violence reported in the DRC, including 

47

thousands of child victims. And my question is, how is USAID and 

its bilateral assistance working to specifically address the needs of 

children in the eastern Congo? And how is the U.S. assisting 

UNICEF in their efforts to address these challenges? 

And I would like to start with Ambassador Yamamoto. 

Ambassador YAMAMOTO. Thank you, sir. 

We continue to look at—you know, when I was traveling 

throughout the DRC before my Ambassadorship to Ethiopia and 

now here—is the issue of the high rate of violence not only against 

women but civilian areas and the high rate of death. You are talking anywhere from 800 to 1,100 deaths from violence each and 

every day in the Congo. It is unacceptable and prohibitively high. 

What we tried to do through our budgeting and assistance—and 

not only us but also in coordination with our donor community and 

with other groups—is to look at how we can address the needs of 

the communities to ensure not only security sector reforms but also 

to look at how we can bring strength and dynamism to these communities to protect themselves against the violence. And that encourages not only security sector reforms to address the training of 

forces but also on the other side on the justice system to hold people accountable and that they go through a course in procedures 

and processes. 

I want to turn to my colleague, Raja, who can kind of go into the 

details on the programs that we have implemented. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. In terms of the sexual- and gender-based violence, we work on three levels. One is, survivors have access to 

critical care and treatment and that both women and children come 

through our service providers. Second is to expand the current—we 

have got 5,000 local service providers that we want to expand, the 

number of those providers that provide services to children. And 

then, lastly, we deal with 250 local organizations to deal with psychological counseling and treatment. 

And in terms of UNICEF, we have worked with them in Ituri in 

eastern Congo on protection, on medical services, on psychosocial 

services; and about 1,000 children have gone through all three of 

them. They come in in waves, and we support UNICEF and fund 

them for these services throughout eastern Congo, and they then 

use those services to deal with the community. Issues of women 

and children—at least in the USAID portfolio—we deal with in 

terms of reconciliation at the community level, livelihoods. We have 

youth issues. A large part of it is youth. And then we also deal with 

them through health care and then local administration issues. 

So we kind of view it as a cross-cutting issue, where we have opportunities to support women and children. It should be something 

that goes across all of our interventions in addition to the targeted 

interventions we provide for specific treatments. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Ms. Bass. 

Ms. BASS. Both of you have made several references to the upcoming elections. And I just wanted to ask you, if you could, to specifically talk about what specific steps you think the United States 

could or should take immediately and in the upcoming months to 

48

assist in helping to prevent a fraudulent election. If there is hope 

that it could be done in a way—given the decision that was made 

to revise the constitution in January to reduce the number of election rounds from two to one, is there hope that it could be viewed 

legitimately? 

And then what contingency plans are the U.S. and international 

community discussing should violence occur? I know it is not an 

automatic that because they made that constitutional change that 

it is going to be viewed fraudulently, but——

Ambassador YAMAMOTO. Very important on the violence is, obviously, the MONUSCO plays a critical role as far as on the security 

but also on the electoral processes. In 2006, they were very key in 

getting the ballots out and bringing the ballots back. Right now, 

USAID has provided $5 million for training, voter registration, and 

voter education, which remains key, and also to continue to reach 

out through educational processes to bring in as many of the people 

who are eligible to vote, to vote, to be a participant in the electoral 

process. 

The other issue, too, is on the ballot counting as well. What we 

have done is to ensure that all the opposition groups do have members at the areas where the ballots are being counted. 

We have met very rigorously with all the opposition leaders who 

are potential candidates for the presidency as well as many of the 

local candidates—on the Presidential level, that is Mobutu and 

Kamerhe, the former speaker, the parliamentary speaker, as well 

as President Kabila himself—and to understand and not only to 

have a dialogue among all the groups and parties but to work out 

systems and mechanisms and measures to work together to ensure 

that the ballot counting and the vote, there is a process in place 

which can be lived by and lived with by all the parties who are contesting the election. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. USAID looks at this in terms of what institutions are critical to ensure that it is transparent, limits fraud and 

really addresses the systemic changes that we need to do. So we 

are providing technical assistance to the independent elections 

commission in the country. We are working with the Parliament to 

ensure that whatever elections legislation that is coming through 

is viewed through a critical eye; and, lastly, working with provincial administration at local levels to see how they can participate 

in this elections process to prevent it. 

The other critical element for us is the population. How do we 

get the population involved in ensuring that the fraud doesn’t take 

place? How do they get information out there? How do we educate 

voters so they report on the instances where they do find weaknesses in the process as it goes? And lastly is we were in discussions with the other donors about elections observation teams from 

the international community and how to organize that in the coming months so that we, as an international partnership, are able 

to provide some views on what is going on in this process. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Bass. 

Mr. McDermott. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just have a question for both of you. To what extent do you 

think the legislation that Senator Durbin and I got into the bill in 

49

terms of conflict mineral is actually going to have a positive effect 

in reducing the amount of money available to the rebels to carry 

on the chaos that has gone on in Kivu for the last 5, 6, 7 years? 

Ambassador YAMAMOTO. Well, Mr. Congressman, we worked very 

closely with your staff members on that legislation. And let me say 

that that has remained a key aspect in our dealings with the DRC 

since the last several years and not only monitoring the conflict 

minerals but also tracking it and also how it is being utilized and 

denying those illegal traders from benefiting from those conflict 

minerals. 

What I think the legislation does is strengthen and support what 

we have been doing over the last several years which is to—the 

people and the civilians, in areas where you have tungsten, titanium, and timber, have them benefit from the resources that are 

being mined. And I think that legislation helps us in this regard, 

and it strengthened those communities. 

And then the other issue, too, is to hold not only traders but also 

smelters and end users accountable to ensure that those moneys 

and funds will benefit the people as well as those who are trading. 

Ms. JANDHYALA. I think the impact of the legislation has been 

that the due diligence that the companies are taking, are taking 

this seriously. We see a lot of companies that we are working with 

the government to say, How do we establish a due diligence in this 

regard? 

The second area of impact is our ability to have them look at it 

as part of a broader extractive framework, that we are providing 

technical assistance. 

And largely at the community level, again, is what role do they 

play in monitoring and tracking? And, in that regard, we have invested in infrastructure to access these remote sites; and by preventing people from traveling in between these sites they have 

been able to keep this process going. So we are also investing in 

rural infrastructure to access these areas where we think that 

there is a high instance of trafficking in conflict minerals. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. McDermott. 

I would like to thank our distinguished panel for your testimony. 

I would just echo the words of my good friend, the ranking member, Mr. Payne, both he and I strongly hope that you will consider 

a special envoy or a special representative. 

Mr. Affleck makes a very strong and impassioned appeal for that 

in his testimony. I hope you stick around to hear it. 

And Mr. Prendergast does the same. As a matter of fact, he even 

says, why is U.S. policy failing and what could be done about it? 

And that is one of his chief recommendations. 

So the sooner the better. Please name that special envoy so we 

have a truly coordinated strategy. 

I would like to now welcome our next panel, panel number two, 

beginning with Mr. Ben Affleck, who is the founder of the Eastern 

Congo Initiative in addition to a successful career as an actor, writer, and director. Mr. Affleck is also a passionate advocate and philanthropist. 

In March 2010, he founded the Eastern Congo Initiative, or ECI, 

an advocacy and grant-making initiative with the mission of helpVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:57 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGH\030811\65058 HFA PsN: SHIRL
50

ing the Congolese people support local, community-based approaches that create a sustainable and successful society in the 

long-troubled region. ECI is the first U.S.-based advocacy and 

grant-making initiative wholly focused on working with and for the 

people of eastern Congo. 

Since 2007, Mr. Affleck has made multiple trips to Africa, with 

a focus on eastern Congo. He is focused on understanding the 

causes and consequences of conflict on the continent and learning 

about African solutions to the problems affecting the DRC. 

We will then hear from Ms. Francisca Vigaud-Walsh, who is with 

Catholic Relief Services as a sexual and gender-based violence advisor, spearheading the effort to incorporate SGBV prevention and 

response into CRS programming in conflict and disaster-affected 

communities worldwide. 

Ms. Vigaud-Walsh has nearly a decade of refugee camp management and protection experience with the U.N. and various NGOs, 

working with displaced communities in the Balkans, Latin America, and Africa, and has spent a considerable amount of time in 

eastern Congo helping CRS and its local partners design effective 

responses to psychosocial, medical, and economic needs of survivors 

of sexual violence. 

We will also then hear from Mr. John Prendergast, who is a 

human rights activist and best-selling author who has worked for 

peace in Africa for over 25 years. He is co-founder of The Enough 

Project, an initiative to end genocide and crimes against humanity 

affiliated with the Center for American Progress. 

Mr. Prendergast has worked with the White House under President Clinton, the State Department, two Members of Congress, the 

National Intelligence Council, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, the 

International Crisis Group, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. He has 

authored or co-authored 10 books and has appeared on numerous 

TV programs and, as I said earlier, has been here frequently before 

this subcommittee. 

And I also would like to, if she would like to come to the witness 

table, Cindy McCain who, as I said earlier, has been a leader on 

issues dealing with health care for Africa, including the American 

Voluntary Medical Team, leading several medical missions to developing and war-torn nations. She is the wife of the distinguished 

Senator from Arizona, John McCain, but she has also worked with 

CARE, Operation Smile, and the landmine removal group, the 

HALO Trust. 

Mr. Affleck, if you would proceed. 

STATEMENT OF MR. BEN AFFLECK, ACTOR, WRITER, 

DIRECTOR, & ADVOCATE 

Mr. AFFLECK. Thank you very much. I am very excited about 

this. It is a great honor. So thank you all very much for including 

me today. 

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, and members of the subcommittee, my name is Ben Affleck. I am founder of the Eastern 

Congo Initiative. ECI is the only U.S.-based grant-making and advocacy organization entirely focused on working with and for the 

people of eastern Congo, an area that carries the unwanted distincVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:57 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGH\030811\65058 HFA PsN: SHIRL
51

tion of being the deadliest and most volatile region of the country 

and one of the deadliest in the world. 

According to the United Nations, the crisis in eastern Congo has 

displaced an estimated 1.7 million Congolese and has led to over 

1,000 rapes being committed every month. The International Rescue Committee estimates that 5.4 million people have lost their 

lives in the conflict since 1998. Many of these deaths were children 

under the age of 5. Not all were killed in combat but rather perished from the ravages that accompany this horrific region: Malaria, pneumonia, malnutrition, and diarrhea. 

ECI invests in Congolese efforts that help protect the most vulnerable among the population in the Congo, including child soldiers 

and survivors of sexual violence. ECI works closely with community based groups focused on education, economic opportunity, capacity building, and legal reform. I thank you for your attention to 

Congo and for holding this important hearing. On behalf of ECI, 

I would like to submit a complete written statement for the record. 

Today’s hearing occurs on the 100th anniversary of International 

Women’s Day, which I also think is important to recognize; and I 

think it is particularly appropriate to call attention to the particular suffering of women and girls in eastern Congo as well as 

the undeniable strength they exhibit in the face of ongoing atrocities. 

I am also pleased to recognize Cindy McCain, who is with us 

here today and who recently joined ECI as a founding member and 

investor. Cindy and I just returned from eastern Congo where we 

saw firsthand the tragedy and triumph of the Congolese people. 

While large parts of eastern Congo remain under the control of 

armed groups, there are many reasons—most of them rooted in the 

strength and fortitude of their people—to be hopeful about Congo’s 

future. 

I want to share with you the story of a remarkable woman 

named Laba Kamana, who exemplifies the potential of the Congolese people to transform themselves and their society. Laba was 

captured by rebel soldiers at the age of 14 in South Kivu and held 

as a sex slave for over 2 years. She was raped virtually every day 

by her captors until she found her freedom through the thick jungle in what makes up the second-largest rainforest in the world. 

She discovered she was pregnant with the child of one of her rapists. 

The counselors of a remarkable Congolese organization called Let 

Africa Live found Laba. They took her in. They provided her with 

counseling and job training. And while caring for her new daughter 

she used her skills to start a small business and earn enough income to return to school. 

Laba is now 22 years old. I met her. She is wonderful. She is in 

her third year of studying law, and she advocates the rights of 

women using her own story. 

Since my first visit to Congo more than 5 years ago, I have witnessed remarkable efforts to improve governance, promote economic growth, and reduce conflict. Unfortunately, despite some 

positive movement, the record over these last 5 years is not promising. Congo risks heading into another deeper spiral of violence 

52

that could lead to more fighting and suffering and could risk destabilizing surrounding African countries. 

In 2006, millions of Congolese voted for the first time in a free 

and fair democratic election. Voting in more than 50,000 polling 

places around the country, the Congolese people elected Joseph 

Kabila as President. It was a period of great excitement and high 

hopes; and the United States, indeed, testified to by some of the 

other panelists, played a very important role. 

Starting in 2007, the U.S., along with others in the West, drew 

back involvement. Instead of continuing a high level of engagement 

to consolidate a new and fragile democracy, Congo was treated as 

if it was a well-functioning state from which the United Nations’ 

mission in Congo could be safely withdrawn. This notion was 

quickly dispelled when rebels waged a new battle against the government in eastern Congo in 2007 and 2008 that brought another 

terrible round of death, displacement, and destruction. 

Our Government has a long history of involvement in the Congo, 

from our shameful role in the murder of Patrice Lumumba and 

three decades’ support of Mobutu to some very admirable recent efforts. In the early 2000s, the United States Government helped to 

bring to the table various forces then fighting in Congo. The U.S. 

Government also provided key early funding for the 2006 elections 

and played a major role in helping peace and development return 

to the Congo. Of this, there is no question. 

In the past few years, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as also 

testified to by Ambassador Yamamoto, visited the region; and 

USAID has escalated its efforts in eastern Congo. Also, USAID has 

provided millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance to the 

Congo since the mid-1990s. 

This commitment has indeed paid dividends in Congo, but with 

conflict persisting and elections coming up, we must develop a cohesive strategy and be fully engaged on this issue. Today, with national elections only 8 months away, on November 27, the U.S. is 

not focused on Congo, even with events like last week’s attack on 

the President’s residence in Kinshasa. That, paired with Congo’s 

recent history, should remind everybody of the fragility of the Congo’s progress and stability. 

The United States Government can and should play an active 

role in ensuring this November’s elections are free and fair. An 

electoral outcome that is questioned could easily perpetuate another downward spiral, division, and rupture. The last time Congo 

collapsed, armies came in from across Africa. And as I said before, 

5 million people died. Five million people have died since 1998 because of the conflict in eastern Congo. We must learn from history 

and do our part to see that this never happens again. 

In this time of heightened concern over Federal spending, some 

suggest that austerity demands we turn a blind eye to the crisis 

in Congo. I believe nothing could be more misguided. It would simply be penny wise and pound foolish to allow the Congo to again 

fall into a state of crisis or further humanitarian chaos. 

If Congo were to collapse again, as members of this subcommittee know full well, the United States would respond generously with humanitarian assistance. We would try to save lives. 

53

But we have to do better. Our goal must be to avert a humanitarian disaster by proactive investment and stronger diplomacy. 

The path to stability in today’s Congo requires fostering stable 

elections and preventing another disaster that could easily require 

hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance. I humbly suggest that 

the U.S. Government take a hard look at its current commitment 

and find a way to do more. Come November, we must be able to 

look ourselves in the eye and say that we did what our principles 

demanded. We helped democracy emerge in a place where tragedy 

is the alternative. 

In November, 2010, the Eastern Congo Initiative released a 

white paper—here it is—‘‘Strengthening United States Foreign Policy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.’’ You do titles differently in DC than we do back home. This paper, commissioned 

and reviewed by experts, encourages steps the U.S. should take to 

promote progress in the Congo. 

I would like a summary of the paper to be included in the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. AFFLECK. Thank you. I have included a more detailed explanation of the steps we believe are necessary in the written testimony. 

One, the U.S. Government must do more to support a multidimensional strategy to protect civilians—women, girls, boys, and 

men—from the onslaught of violence in eastern Congo. 

Two, the U.S. Government must do more to support the 2011 

elections, which we have heard about already a little bit today. In 

addition to providing diplomatic support, the U.S. should support 

robust election monitoring by Congolese civil society and by credible international organizations. 

Three, to ensure that the United States steps up to the serious 

challenges to stability in Africa posed by the Congo, the President 

or the Secretary of State should appoint a special representative to 

the Great Lakes region of central Africa. The appointment should 

occur as soon as possible in order to coordinate the U.S. response 

to the challenges in the Congo. 

We also believe that the treatment of conflict minerals, demobilization, and security sector reform, as well as the Lord’s Resistance 

Army, are a serious concern and deserve a comprehensive approach 

and cohesive strategy. 

This is an ambitious agenda, but it can be accomplished. 

In December, 2005, then-Senator Obama introduced a bill called 

the Democratic Republic of Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy 

Promotion Act of 2006. This bill had a bipartisan list of Senate cosponsors, including then-Senator Hillary Clinton. On December 6, 

2006, it was passed by the House by voice vote. On December 22, 

2006, President Bush signed the bill into law. The majority of our 

recommendations are found in this very law. They simply need to 

be implemented. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your very strong support of this 

important legislation. We place special emphasis on full diplomatic 

support for the upcoming elections and the reappointment of a 

Great Lakes special advisor in the State Department. This special 

advisor would serve as a point of accountability and an important 

and necessary coordinating function. Maybe most relevant in these 

54

tough economic times, this appointment would inevitably ensure efficiencies are found across multiple investments and diplomatic efforts. 

We strongly believe that if we continue to place Congo on the 

back burner of U.S. policy it will indeed come back to haunt us. 

The Federal budget may indeed be a zero-sum game, but our morality, our sense of decency, our compassion for our fellow human 

beings is not. Recognizing one tragedy need not diminish understanding and empathy for another. 

Our basic humanity, our sense of compassion is not a fixed number. It expands with our vision. It can grow with our purpose. But 

our moral compass is fixed. Our sunrise, our east as a Nation, even 

when we have failed, has always pointed us toward what is right. 

Now, not what is easy, not what is cheap, but what we can live 

with and how we can sleep with ourselves at night. 

The values we hold true are priceless to us. They are the soul 

of our Nation. They are rooted in our Constitution, our Bill of 

Rights, our Declaration of Independence. We believe in being free 

from the tyranny of violence. We believe in life and liberty, and we 

believe that basic human rights are not just important, are not just 

something to be worked toward but a fundamental right to be demanded for all mankind. 

These ideas make us who we are. They make us great. But if our 

foreign policy does not reflect these ideals, it completely undermines them. 

I have seen firsthand the determination and the promise of the 

Congolese people. I hope you will consider visiting eastern Congo 

to learn and see what I have. Any of you are welcome to come with 

me. 

The Congolese people simply want to live their lives in peace, 

earn a decent living, and raise their families, just like the rest of 

us. They want a voice in their country’s governance. 

I will never give in to the naysayers who suggest Congo is hopeless or too complex. It is not. The 70 million people of Congo deserve a better tomorrow, and Eastern Congo Initiative will do our 

small part to ensure that it does. It is in the interest of all of us 

here to support the people of the Congo, move forward toward democracy and respect for human rights, and to move away from the 

multiple crises and horrors of the last 15 years. 

Thank you very much. It really is an honor to be here, and I am 

happy to expand on any of these points to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Affleck follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Affleck, thank you so very much for your very 

eloquent and passionate statement; I do hope that the White House 

and the Capitol, the Congress, is listening to your strong appeal. 

The Congo cannot be on the back burner of U.S. foreign policy. I 

think—as Mr. Payne and I have been very clear, I think every 

member of our panel, we strongly want that special envoy, that 

special representative yesterday. And so your appeal today, I think 


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could be a pivoting point for the administration to say, Now do it. 

Time is running out. So thank you so very much. 

I would like to now introduce Ms. Vigaud-Walsh and thank you 

for your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF MS. FRANCISCA VIGAUD-WALSH, SEXUAL AND 

GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE ADVISOR, CATHOLIC RELIEF 

SERVICES 

Ms. VIGAUD-WALSH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit my 

written statement for the record, and I will briefly summarize. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, so ordered. 

Ms. VIGAUD-WALSH. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for calling this 

very important hearing today and for giving Catholic Relief Services the opportunity to testify. I would also like to thank the ranking member, Mr. Payne. 

Mr. Smith, I know how passionate you are about advocating for 

the survivors of sexual- and gender-based violence in the Congo. 

And, Mr. Payne, I know that your interest in the region has led 

you to travel to the Congo several times, even dating back to when 

it was still called Zaire. 

Let me also thank Mr. McDermott for his role as one of the original authors of the Congo Conflict Minerals provision that recently 

became law. This provision will help to curb sexual violence in the 

Congo. 

This morning in Bukavu, over 180,000 women marched in the 

streets advocating for their own rights, today being their day, 

International Women’s Day. They marched behind a banner that 

stated, we can stop violence against women. And they chanted slogans that included two key demands, the first being impunity for 

rapists must cease, and the second being that women must be included in all the political processes. 

As the sexual- and gender-based violence advisor for Catholic Relief Services, I focus a lot of my efforts on the Congo just because 

of the sheer magnitude of the problem there; and in this capacity 

I have had the privilege of working for and with some of the 

women that marched this morning. 

In eastern Congo, today is a cry for women to no longer be used 

as a battleground, and here it is a call for us to even make greater 

efforts to help them. CRS, which has been working in the DRC 

since 1961, partners with the local Catholic Church to address the 

scourge of sexual violence. The Church has an extensive network 

throughout the most remote networks of the country. This network 

allows us to reach the most isolated of rape survivors. 

Also, in the absence of an effective and functioning government 

administration, the Catholic Church has provided most of the basic 

services, such as health care and education for decades. It has thus 

gained the trust of the population. 

In eastern Congo, I have repeatedly come across rape survivors 

who have walked many kilometers from their displacement camps 

to seek support at the nearest parish. The fear of stigmatization by 

their fellow camp dwellers, coupled with the trust in the Church, 

drives them to seek assistance there. 

Together, we have implemented numerous activities to respond 

to this crisis. We have provided access to life-changing fistula reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:57 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGH\030811\65058 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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pair surgeries, psychosocial training for counselors, and trauma 

healing for thousands of survivors in four provinces, income-generating and entrepreneurial skills for at least 1,500 rape survivors, 

community training to mobilize military, police, and traditional justice leaders and, most recently, an innovative, community-based 

early warning and protection project in three provinces. 

The funding for these projects do come from a variety of sources, 

but the great majority of it comes from the United States Government. This partnership between the United States Government, 

CRS, and the Church in Congo extends the reach and magnifies 

the impact of U.S. Government assistance into remote areas with 

needy, vulnerable populations that could not be reached otherwise. 

It is critically important that the U.S. Government maintain and 

expand the support for the essential responses I have just described as well as preserving and strengthening its partnership 

with the Church and other faith-based organizations. If the DRC 

is to have a future, the hundreds of thousands of women who have 

been raped must continue to be able to access these services; and 

even within the context of scarce resources today, the U.S. can and 

should do more to combat the conditions that foster the use of rape 

as a weapon of war. 

I would like to make these additional recommendations: One, the 

U.S. must use its leverage as a donor and as a partner to press the 

Congolese Government to fulfill its security mandate, uphold 

human rights, and genuinely work to protect its civilians. The Congolese Government has requested more military support recently, 

such as the training of more battalions. The U.S. Government has 

to link the support to measurable changes in key areas. 

Two, the U.S. should condition its assistance on progress against 

impunity and survivor access to justice. As long as ranking military 

officers who condone and perpetrate rape roam free or as long as 

civilians accused of rape can continue to pay the equivalent of 5 

U.S. dollars for a get-out-of-jail card, sexual violence will persist. 

Three, the U.S. Government should urge the Congolese Government to uphold its previous commitments to include women in the 

political and peace processes. They should be respected and included and prepared for elections. 

Indeed, violence against women in the DRC is symptomatic of 

women’s second-class status and marginalization from decision 

making. Women have been consistently excluded from previous 

peace processes and continue to be sidelined from political power. 

One of the women who led in the march in Bukavu this morning 

is the director of the Diocesan Office for Women’s Issues. When I 

telephoned her yesterday to tell her about this hearing, she was ecstatic, because she knows the political leverage the United States 

Government has with the Congolese Government. She drafted a 

declaration alongside her counterparts in the Muslim and Protestant communities and urged me to make these recommendations. 

Ultimately, in order to eradicate sexual- and gender-based violence in the DRC, we need to stop the wider, more generalized conflict. The United States Government needs to more urgently engage 

diplomatically. The United States Government can lead the process 

that will end the fighting and increase women’s participation in the 

political sphere. 

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The magnitude of the seemingly never-ending humanitarian crisis and the potential for the fragile situation to get even worse demands a proportionate response. At this critical juncture, with elections coming, the United States Government must rise to the task, 

as it did in the Sudan; and as long as violence persists the U.S. 

must continue to support the lifesaving partnership with faithbased institutions in the DRC. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Vigaud-Walsh follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Ms. Vigaud-Walsh, thank you so very much; and 

thank you for the absolutely encouraging news about the 180,000 

women marching. That is just incredible. 

Hopefully, in a small way, this hearing and the follow-up that we 

will do, it is all ongoing, but I think this is an important venue to 

say, Now is the time for the administration to do much more, and 

that goes for us as well. So thank you for that wonderful news. 

Mr. Prendergast. 

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN PRENDERGAST, CO-FOUNDER, THE 

ENOUGH PROJECT 

Mr. PRENDERGAST. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Ranking 

Member Payne, for your ongoing commitment to Congo and human 

rights throughout Africa. 

I would like to ask that my testimony be submitted into the 

record and to People magazine—a hat tip to Mr. Affleck. 

I would also like to set aside my written testimony to say a few 

things this afternoon about this unique moment that the Congo is 

facing. 

While women from marching in Congo in Bukavu this morning, 

the 180,000, two of my colleagues from Enough were in Goma this 

morning and talked with one of the leading women’s rights advocates in the country, Justine Masika, who everyone probably on 

this panel knows and some of you know and Secretary Clinton met 

when she was in Congo in 2009. 

For this hearing, Justine wanted to say the following: ‘‘The link 

between conflict minerals and mass rape here in Congo is crystal 

clear. So the first and foremost priority for ending the war here in 

Congo is to set up a system to regulate the minerals trade.’’ And 

the upcoming election, she said, ‘‘is the critical window to push the 

Government of Congo on this issue since it will try harder to please 

the population before the vote.’’

Now I was in Congo twice in the last 6 months, and I would 

strongly concur with Justine’s assessment that this is an unparalleled moment of opportunity to make real changes in Congo. The 

election is the primary internal factor, no question. But the U.S. 

Congress’ conflict minerals legislation, spearheaded by Congressman McDermott, is the primary external factor; and it has created 

a moment full of uncertainties and anxieties but also of huge opportunities in the country. 

Now before we get to these opportunities, I wanted to make one 

commercial time-out on why we focus so much on the economics of 

Congo’s war. Of course, we believe the conflict there is about more 

than conflict minerals, but let’s take a look at the broader agenda 

and how it is compromised by the Mafia-like economy there. 

Now everyone wants to reform, for example, the military. However, the military officer corps is the primary beneficiary of mining 

in the country. President Kabila stays in power by allowing these 

officers free reign to make as much money as they can and 

cratering the rule of law throughout the eastern third of the country. 

Number two, everyone wants to reform the justice system, of 

course. However, the military and civilian beneficiaries in government of this conflict minerals trade do not want a strong, efficient 

80

government. The rule of law will subvert this illegal economy, and 

the money now going into their pockets will go to the Treasury. 

And that is simply unacceptable to this Mafia. 

The third thing I want to bring up is everyone, of course, wants 

to stop the FDLR and the other militias. However, they sustain 

themselves through mineral profits and everyone knows that and 

they often trade increasingly with the military itself, the Congolese 

military. 

Fourth, everyone wants clean elections. However, who in power 

would give up this gravy train? You lose, and you are out. It is winner take all. They can’t take that chance, and they will fix it. 

Everyone supports peace agreements, no question. However, even 

the peace deals in Congo can make matters worse if we don’t deal 

with the economic fuel for war. One-and-a-half million Congolese 

people have been displaced since Presidents Kagame and Kabila 

signed their agreement 11⁄2 years ago. That is a tragic record. 

Back to the people of Congo. Ryan Gosling and I went there over 

Thanksgiving. We met an extraordinary Congolese woman named 

Marie. Marie is a rape survivor twice over, and she has overcome 

her own trauma to found a women’s organization that helps other 

women who survive sexual crimes. 

We asked her what she recommends, and she said the following: 

‘‘Please stop this bloody business. You are fueling conflict. Families 

are being torn apart, women are being raped, communities are 

being destroyed so armed groups can profit from the mines. Companies should stop supporting this and do ethical business.’’

Well, the good news is that because of the congressional legislation, because of your legislation, every one of you champion this, 

companies have to start trying now to do this ethical business. And 

some companies are already moving ahead even beyond what the 

legislation is requiring them to do. But they need help from the 

United States Government. And the key, I believe, as it has been 

on so many critical foreign policy issues in Africa, the key is the 

United States Congress. Two critical processes are coming to fruition now that this subcommittee and the wider Congress can influence. 

First, the Securities and Exchange Commission is going to issue 

very soon implementing regulations for your conflict minerals legislation. We need to ensure that these regulations have serious teeth 

and do not delay the implementation of the bill. We have a letter 

that we are releasing today from Congolese Civil Society Organizations making this very point, that we cannot countenance a delay 

in the implementation of the bill. Strong regulations will send a 

major signal to the actors in the supply chain that foment violence, 

that subvert the rule of law, that undermine good governance, that 

they have to clean up their act. 

The second major opportunity we have now is that the conflict 

minerals legislation as it was discussed requires the executive 

branch to develop a strategy for dealing with conflict minerals and 

ending the violence. That is a first the executive branch hasn’t 

been required by Congress to have a strategy to actually end this 

thing. We have always wanted to deal with the symptoms. The bill 

says, how are you going to end it? Well, that strategy was due over 

a month ago, but it is still being debated inside the administration. 

81

That is a good thing. That means you can have influence over what 

the Obama administration comes out with. This is a huge opportunity for the United States to make a critical difference in the 

Congo. 

We think Secretary Clinton should lead in putting together a 

stakeholders meeting that involves the regional governments, with 

the Congo at the center, the companies that matter, the United 

States and the European Union, all together to launch a process 

that would result in an international certification system to end 

the conflict minerals trade in central Africa. And we need a senior 

envoy to help spearhead this and all the other efforts that my fellow panelists and you have all spoken about and written to the administration about so passionately in the country and throughout 

the region. 

U.S. leadership has helped do this with diamonds. We have done 

it with forestry. We have done it with fisheries. We have done it 

with a number of other products where, when the United States 

helped lead in bringing the companies and governments in question 

together, standards were changed, and this positively has impacted 

the lives of millions and millions of people. Well, now it is Congo’s 

turn. 

So if we act on the deadly minerals trade, it is not a magic wand, 

but it is a catalyst, and it is a domino that will help topple the edifice of greed and militarization that kills and rapes people in Congo 

at a higher rate than anywhere else in the world. Thank you for 

your leadership. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Prendergast follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Prendergast, thank you so very much for your 

passion and for your insights and counsel which you have provided 

to this subcommittee and in Congress for many years. Thank you 

so much. As previously discussed and agreed by my friend Mr. 

Payne, the ranking member, and I, I would ask unanimous consent 

to welcome Ms. Cindy McCain to speak and participate as a witness on this panel, even though we had not prior noticed it. 

STATEMENT OF MRS. CINDY MCCAIN, PHILANTHROPIST 

Mrs. MCCAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I don’t intended to take long at all. But I would like to thank you 

and the committee members for taking your time in hearing what 

we have to say with regards to such a critical issue that is facing 

our world. 

My first trip to the Congo was in 1994 during the Rwandan genocide. And so my history with Congo is dicey at best. But what I 

have learned through these years is that what is most important 

are organizations just like this, particularly organizations like ECI 

that go in and take not only a strong look at what is going on but 

become active on a community-based level. These NGOs, organizations like this are the most important for what we are doing, but 

we can’t do it alone. We are here today to ask all of you, and I 

know some of you in this room right now have been to Congo and 

have taken an active interest in Congo, to please come. But most 

importantly, we are depending on your voice to spread the word. 

We are going to lose a generation of women and children in 

Congo unless we do something now. I am only a humanitarian relief worker. That is the only thing I have ever done. It is the only 

thing I know with regards to this region. But I also know what is 

right. And we can’t leave behind these women and children. So we 


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rely on you when we talk to you today with great hope that you 

will lead this charge and not forget about these wonderful human 

beings in a rich culture that has so much to offer to this world. 

I leave it to the experts to tell you today what is most important, 

but I would hope that you would ask those people who are on the 

ground to not only help you but for you to let them know that you 

are behind them and most importantly to let the women and children know that they are not forgotten. 

I particularly want to thank Ben Affleck for allowing me to be 

a part of this today and for allowing me to be a part of ECI. We 

are strange political bedfellows. We are the odd couple perhaps in 

politics. But that is the beauty of this, because this transcends political parties. 

So thank you so much for what you are doing. Most importantly, 

thank you for listening to what they have to say. And thank you 

for many, many NGO workers that are on the ground that need 

your help. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. McCain, the thank goes to you and to the three 

other distinguished witnesses for leading and leading so well by 

pouring yourselves into these humanitarian efforts. I would like to 

ask Mr. Affleck, I know that you have been to HEAL Africa and 

that ECI actually aids them. Could you just provide some additional insights into the work of HEAL Africa and other like-minded 

NGOs and hospitals that you have supported? 

Mr. AFFLECK. Sure. Unfortunately, there are not very many hospitals in that part of the country. We were initially attracted to 

them because, of course, they are Congolese-run and based, and 

that is the kind of organization that we want to be supporting. 

Sometimes we support grass roots organizations that don’t have 

that level of infrastructure and high level education. But these people are—they are a Congolese-run hospital that started out very 

small, primarily of course doing fistula repair, because the need for 

fistulas was so urgent there. And they have grown. They have 

grown because of their skill, their talent, what they are providing 

and who is doing the work. And it is one of the few that actually 

has attracted a decent amount of attention from people. And they 

provide just top level—I mean, obviously, there is emergency care. 

I visited them and met soldiers who were recovering from gunshot wounds. One guy showed me that he had his wallet in his 

pocket, and he had been in the war. He took the wallet out and 

the bullet had gone into his pocket and hit the wallet and saved 

his life. He had some other wounds that he was being treated for, 

but they were on the front lines of the war, and they are on the 

front lines of building the peace. And I don’t know what people 

would do without this kind of hospital there. And they are receiving more. We are working with them, and others are as well, and 

they are really pretty exceptional. 

The other, of course, a really well known hospital is Panzi Hospital that Dr. Mukwege works at, which is in Bukavu in South 

Kivu, and he also is just doing exceptional work. He is the guy who 

is himself personally, early on, doing 10 fistula surgeries a day at 

the height of this epidemic. And it still goes on, but he doesn’t have 

to do all the surgeries. Then they started training other doctors 

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and became sustainable. And those two organizations are spectacular. 

There are many others that we are working with. Part of what 

we try to do at ECI is to recalibrate people’s perceptions about Africa and about who is doing what. If people go, oh, we were going 

to throw money down there, it is money down a rat hole; it is not 

the case at all. Really, in our experience, people who are doing it 

and solving these problems, maybe it was Congressman Payne who 

was talking about this earlier, it is Congolese solving Congolese 

problems. And that is what is so inspiring to me. And both those 

hospitals are really emblematic of that. And I have other stories, 

but I will spare you. 

Mr. SMITH. In your testimony, you, and Mr. Prendergast in his, 

make a very strong appeal for the special envoy. 

And Mr. Prendergast, you actually point out that Howard Wolpe, 

who used to be chairman of the subcommittee years back, actually 

had his capability diminished, his resources and influence cut at a 

time when, of course he has been ill recently, but even when he 

had the position. It seems to me that the message we need to send 

to the White House, because they need to do this, like I said before, 

yesterday, is to name that special envoy and properly resource that 

individual. 

If you both, and perhaps any of you who would like to speak to 

that issue, it seems to me that we don’t have a point person who 

can in a rapid way with the ear of the President and the Secretary 

of State, you know a phone call away, this window of opportunity, 

as one of you said in your testimony, could quickly evaporate. 

Mr. Payne and I were talking about this in between testimonies, you know $5 million expended so far on the election. Last time it 

was about $80 million, and when the administration testifies that 

there is a $350 million gap, that may doom this election unless 

quick corrective action is taken. And the special envoy would have 

that ability to say, you know, ‘‘We are going to make this happen.’’ 

So if you could speak to that. 

Mr. AFFLECK. I will just give a quick answer and then John can 

go into the nuance policy detail stuff. There is a lot going on. We 

have heard other people talking about what the U.S. Government 

is doing, what other folks are doing. A big part of this is about synthesizing all this stuff, of taking all these strands. And as many 

of you know working in the private sector, you can have a lot of 

people doing stuff and maybe doing their jobs well, but if they are 

not working together and they don’t know what the other hand is 

doing, frankly, you just have a lot of waste. So we have got resources dedicated that are now being frittered away because they 

are not working collectively; they are not working cohesively. You 

know, somebody is supposed to be doing elections. Somebody is 

supposed to be doing gender-based violence. There are people designated to liaise with regional governments, like Burundi, Rwanda, 

Uganda and others. But without somebody sort of taking a lead 

and being able to do that kind of shuttle diplomacy where they 

move across those folks, it just really isn’t going to be successful. 

In fact, we are under utilizing what we are already deploying in 

effect. And I have talked about the stakes a little bit, and I will 

let John. 

91

Mr. PRENDERGAST. Just a footnote. What Ben is saying there is, 

when I worked at the White House and the State Department, I 

just found it to be endlessly frustrating because so much issues and 

countries were stovepiped and kept in their categories. And what 

a special envoy—and you got—you know, in Central Africa, you 

have got cross border issues; you have got multiple issues that 

bring equities in from all kinds of different departments throughout the U.S. Government. So you need someone to be able to break 

through this stovepiping. And it can’t be a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State who gets dual-hatted to be doing something else besides their regular job, which is 20 hours a day anyway, with the 

beeper going off every 30 minutes in the other 4 hours. You just 

got to have someone whose full-time job is focused. And it is someone with influence, someone who can pick up the phone and say, 

Secretary Clinton, it is actually time for you to say or do something 

now, and someone who can actually move the system, move the 

needle away from the inertia that just pervades government. 

You know, this is just where it is. People are well meaning, but 

the system is systemically tilted toward the status quo. To be able 

to move that needle away from the status quo toward action, that 

is what you need a special envoy for. And you should collectively, 

civil society and the legislative branch, press the executive branch 

to do this as soon as possible. We know President Obama moved 

on the special envoy in Sudan because of George Clooney. Maybe 

he will move it in Congo because of Ben. 

Mr. AFFLECK. Well, I don’t think it will have much to do with 

me. But from what I have heard, and we spent a lot of time asking 

people around this town, I know that if we had the support of Ambassador Yamamoto and Assistant Secretary Carson, we would go 

a long way. So I urge, Yamamoto, you are still here, and Carson, 

wherever you are, help us out. This can be a collective effort and 

I know we can get there. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

And I couldn’t agree more. Ms. Vigaud-Walsh, in your testimony, 

you reference a CRS project that aims to prevent sexual violence 

against women by sensitizing communities and mobilizing local 

leaders, that is done through training transitional justice leaders, 

military and police officials who then become community sensitization leaders. Can you tell us how successful that program has 

been? 

And secondly, and Mrs. McCain, you might want to speak to this 

as well, the issue of microcredit financing is huge in Africa. And 

dollar for dollar, I can’t think of a better way of helping to empower 

women, especially because most of those grants or loans, I should 

say, go to women. And with a small amount of money, someone can 

not only get gainfully employed, but they end up hiring four, five, 

six people in many cases. For those women who have been so sexually abused and traumatized, do you find that microcredit financing 

and job skills training helps them mend, not only helping to provide for themselves and perhaps their families, but also is part of 

the healing process? 

Ms. VIGAUD-WALSH. Thank you, Chairman. 

With regards to our project with the Catholic Church, we train 

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fective, because we have to step back for a moment and look at the 

context. We are talking about a country where there is no rule of 

law. The justice system is in shambles. So there is nothing but traditional leadership in justice. So the fact of the matter is we are 

working in communities where the view of justice still is embedded 

in cultural ideas that are attached to the stigma, how to overcome 

the stigma or how to reduce stigma. 

And what I mean by that is a girl that is perhaps as young as 

14 years old, in order to avoid that stigma, she is forced to marry 

her rapist. And that is the traditional justice system. 

So we have been working with hundreds and hundreds of justice 

leaders, traditional justice leaders, in order to work with them on 

making their policies, shall we say, more gender-sensitive and more 

sensitive to the needs and protection of the women and girls. That 

is on the first point. 

And with regards to the microcredit financing, absolutely, absolutely critical. And I am glad that you noted that it is part of the 

healing process, in fact. Through our savings and lending schemes, 

we have helped rape survivors that had been ostracized from their 

communities and, therefore, lost their breadwinners once their husbands abandoned them. And one particular case that I am thinking 

of right now, she was actually able to save the equivalent of $600—

U.S. dollars—to build her own house. This is a woman who would 

have been living in the street, quite literally, after having been ostracized by her community. 

Those kinds of programs work so much on the self-esteem. And 

the self-esteem after rape is so critical to being able to move on and 

to be able to remake one’s life, even in the face of having been ostracized by the community. So these programs are critical, and I 

strongly suggest that they continue to be supported. And I do 

thank the U.S. Government for all the support that we have received for these programs thus far. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mrs. McCain, did you want to comment? 

Mrs. MCCAIN. The only thing I would add to that, you are exactly 

right. Microfinancing is, in my opinion, key to this. So are free and 

fair elections. And unless we can do both, we are never going to 

have a society of women that will have any kind of rights at all. 

So that would be the only thing I would add to that. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. Payne. 

Mr. PAYNE. Well, let me certainly thank all of you for your testimony. And I think that the interest of all of you in this issue really 

assists us in Congress to try to highlight the problems without people like you, Mrs. McCain and Mr. Affleck, and of course 

Prendergast is the agitator behind all of this stuff, and of course 

the work that Catholic Relief Services does. We probably would 

have a difficult time filling the room, probably only have a third 

of it covered. So I think that people don’t realize the importance 

of people in your categories that you can bring attention to issues. 

And I think it is important. 

Once we get the attention, we know what to do, you know, Congressman Smith and myself and the other Members of Congress. 

But you do help us highlight the problems. And I really, once 

again, thank you all for your interest in these issues. 

93

It seems, and it is very clear, that we definitely need to have a 

special envoy. I recall—maybe, John, you were a member—when 

we went with President Clinton to Africa. And during our time 

there, we just simply had a meeting of the Great Lakes Region 

Presidents, I mean because so much is interrelated. Uganda was 

arguing a little bit with Burundi. You had Rwanda looking over at 

what was happening in Zimbabwe. It is so interrelated that a special envoy, not only should deal with the problems of the Congo but 

to be able to coordinate. 

As a matter of fact, Uganda was the recipient of a terrorist attack because Uganda was assisting in Somalia with their troops to 

protect the government of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and the 

transitional Federal Government. And without Ugandan troops 

there, the situation would be much worse. Well, that is all connected that at the World Cup game, Uganda suffered the loss of 20-

some of their citizens by Al-Shabaab planting a bomb as people 

were simply watching the World Cup because they were Ugandan 

troops helping in Somalia. 

So it is so all connected that it seems it would certainly make 

a lot of sense that we do have an envoy, especially to deal with the 

DRC, but also to have the surrounding countries there involved. 

And the fact that so many—and the tragedy of the Congo, as I 

mentioned earlier, with King Leopold and how the country was just 

devastated, and then once they decided to move forward, the conspiracy of the West to come together and have Patrice Lumumba 

murdered, that was really—and I am glad, Mr. Affleck, that we 

can’t forget the past. We don’t need to dwell on it, but if we know 

the past, we know why we are in positions we are in. In Congo, 

with the leadership of Lumumba and those who were emerging at 

that time could have had a total difference on the way the Congo 

is today. But by us propping up Mobutu, who raped the country for 

decades and decades, we find ourselves now struggling again to try 

to get democracy moving and trying to get this whole question of 

rape, which should be despised by society, but it is something that 

people sort of shrug their shoulders and say, well, that happens. 

So I really, like I say, I really commend you for your efforts. 

I know Ms. Vigaud-Walsh, you all work with child soldiers. And 

I know that perhaps some of the abusers who are involved in rape 

now were probably child soldiers before. And so I wonder what 

your organization is doing as it relates to child soldiers in the DRC. 

Ms. VIGAUD-WALSH. To illustrate what we are doing with child 

soldiers, I can speak of a program we had in North Kivu in partnership with the Caritas Goma and Caritas Rome, as well. We 

were supporting centers through which demobilized children—or 

children were transported to after being demobilized, providing a 

trauma healing therapy, working with them to prepare them for reintegration back into society. 

The problem is that clearly these kinds of services aren’t enough. 

The number of children that were needing DDR services a few 

years ago was much, much greater than the funding, level of funding that we had. Thank you. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. 

94

Mr. Affleck, maybe you and Mr. Prendergast might be able to 

deal with the question, what do you see us needing on the ground 

in order to make these elections work? 

Mr. AFFLECK. Well, first of all, I want to go back to an earlier 

question that I don’t think I answered, that the difference between 

MONUC and MONUSCO is two letters which stand for stabilization and organization, the idea being that it has got an expanded 

mandate for, well, stabilization, among other things. And you know 

Meece, who replaced Alan Doss, seems to be doing a fine job. He 

is an American, and people are optimistic, and there have been 

some appreciative changes. 

Now that entity plays a real role, obviously, in elections. As you 

know, you were there, they played an instrumental part in elections last time. What I hear from people in this environment is, 

well, the second election is always harder. It is the one fewer people want to pay attention to. It is the one that can either cement 

democracy, or it can all fall backward and become unwound. We 

need to have monitors. We need to have, like I said, internationally 

credited monitors. We are hoping the Carter Center will up the 

ante a little bit on what they are willing to do. I think the IRI is 

going to come in. I think NDI will then follow. 

But we also need a fully committed effort, and frankly, we need 

to maintain that piece of stability. You asked about the FDLR and 

CNDP to sort of more fully address that. Where we are right now 

is that, yes, because when Nkunda got taken away by the 

Rwandese the CNDP folded up into the FARDC. However, they cut 

a deal with Bosco Ntaganda, so Bosco is now kind of the de facto 

leader of the CNDP inside the FARDC, which creates a kind of tension, and it is one that has to be managed by MONUSCO because 

if you arrest him, you may create a lot of problems, and you may 

go back to the war that you had before. It is tricky. 

When we were there recently, right after we flew out, the airport 

was the scene of a huge shooting and chase, and Bosco had brought 

in gold. They had brought in a bunch of gold that they were smuggling, and there was a big police chase up there. So this is a guy 

acting with a lot of impunity and creating a lot of instability. And 

the Kamane RDF FARDC efforts to go after the FDLR, on the flip 

side, which I think represented, to get to your question, a further 

break between the FDLR and the FARDC and Kamane and those 

guys, who really were kind of on his side during the war, but it 

got stopped a bit because the FDLR were smart, and they knew if 

there were enough civilian casualties, that they would leave, and 

then come back and kill a lot of civilians, and they knew that that 

would stamp down enthusiasm for further military actions. The 

Rwandese of course left. 

These intractable thorny issues need to be solved as well as the 

other practical electoral stuff, vis-a`-vis the elections. So you have 

a lot of logistical stuff that needs support. You need people there 

saying this is how we should do it. You need MONUSCO flying 

people around; you need MONUSCO fully dedicated. And it also 

needs increased diplomatic involvement and engagement to help to 

continue to—and this is a place where the U.S. has done a lot of 

really good work, you know Tim Shortly at the State Department, 

who was over there several years ago and working closely within 

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Nkunda and the peace accords and such, that we need to continue 

to push that toward peace. Because any of these guys, the Boscos 

and so on, that if those situations flare up, it could easily trigger 

further instability in elections. That was more than you wanted to 

hear. 

Mr. PAYNE. You are pretty up on this stuff. You are very impressive. 

J.P. 

Mr. PRENDERGAST. The only thing I would add there—and that 

was indeed a great answer. 

Mr. AFFLECK. Thank you. I paid him to say that. 

Mr. PRENDERGAST. But I would add to just actually highlight the 

diplomatic effort that you just spoke of as part and parcel the larger thing and put a little meat on those bones and say what you 

need, of course, as we do in other countries that matter to the 

United States, is you create these unified coordination mechanisms. Call them donor coordination, call them diplomatic coordinators. They then craft multilateral carrots and sticks related to electoral benchmarks. And you deploy them early enough that they can 

actually influence the process as it unfolds. Because, of course, anyone who wants to steal an election is watching to see what the 

world will do. And if the world does nothing but put out a little 

press release saying, bad, you know, slap on the wrist, of course, 

they are going to go ahead because of the reasons we have talked 

about for so long. The money, the gravy train will be lost if you lose 

the election. So we need that multilateral unified voice of the governments that have influence to develop the carrots and sticks, create the watchdog actions that will blow whistles when there are 

problems and do it early enough, create this thing early enough so 

you are not just waiting until the day of the vote to say, Wait a 

minute, there is something wrong here, but we can actually watch 

and see how it unfolds. We will know months in advance whether 

this is going to be a credible election. And if the answer is no, then 

we can deploy and say, wait a minute, we are not going to support 

this; you are going to have to change it for anyone to take this seriously. And then it is up to the Congolese Government to develop 

their own calculation about whether or not they want to reform it. 

So I think that is what we really—that is one of the elements of 

many, as Ben said, that we need to be engaged in to try to make 

a difference here. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. 

I guess my time is just about expired. I won’t ask you Mrs. 

McCain about elections. I just want to say that elections are so important. 

I just want to remind the chairman that we have the problem in 

Cote d’Ivoire, where the President who lost the elections just decided I am not going to leave. I mean, this is unbelievable with everyone saying, AU, ECOWAS, ICAD, the EU, U.S., saying you lost, 

you should step out. So I think that we really have to keep the 

pressure on Gbagbo to step down. And if we could move that legislation forward to have the Congress on record with the rest of the 

world saying, get out, because if he stays in, it is going to be a bad 

example for all of these other elections. There are about a dozen 

elections coming up in Africa this year. And if this is the principle, 

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where you lose and you stay and you say, well, I am not leaving, 

then we are going to be in a world of trouble in these elections coming up, including the Congo. So, once again, thank you all for your 

testimony. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Fortenberry. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

A question for you, Mr. Affleck and Mrs. McCain. I am curious, 

how did you choose the eastern Congo as a focus of your passion 

and interest? The reason I say that is because those of us who sit 

on this committee and others where global human rights is a concern and a deep interest and essential, the insults to humanity, the 

effrontery that comes across our desk daily in so many places 

throughout the world can almost just be exhausting. So I am curious, how did you choose this particular area? 

Mr. AFFLECK. I came to it, I won’t go into my own personal journey, because that may be inappropriate for this, but I think really 

for me it was—frankly, it was reading. I was looking at some other 

stuff, trying to cast around looking at advocacy, and I came across 

this. Well, of course it pales in comparison with the millions of 

deaths in eastern Congo, and I was, on the one hand, shocked and, 

on the other hand, really ashamed. How could I not have known 

this? You know, I read the newspaper and yet I had no idea. And 

so I thought, well, maybe this is a place where I can at least show 

up, I don’t know what. 

And I started studying, and I started learning. I took a couple 

of years. I didn’t want to be, you know, kind of a celebrity dilettante sort of person that doesn’t know what they are talking about 

and irritates everyone, because I thought that wouldn’t help any. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Well, that is very impolitic of you to say but 

very well received, I should say as well. 

Mr. AFFLECK. So I really did a lot of studying—Whitney Williams, who is here, was instrumental in helping me do that—and 

met with a lot of learned experts, John foremost among them. And 

when I ultimately got to a place where I wanted to—I wanted to 

build an organization because I kind of identified the best people 

I thought were doing the best work, the people who had some skin 

in the game, who were living in the community every day, who 

knew people, who knew the militia, who knew who the children 

were. I talked to people who were taking kids out—child soldiers 

out of the militias. And they would go to them and address them 

kind of personally and bargain; look, at least you don’t need him, 

well, give me her, and then while that was happening, already 

found a place for the child to live in the village rather than an institutional home and the like. And I thought, gosh, this is what 

happens when something bad happens in your community and you 

are dealing with it because you know the people. 

And I got struck and I wanted to help empower those folks because of course they had no money. And so we started raising 

money. And I also thought nothing changes without advocacy, 

without powerful people making up their minds, people like you. 

And the idea to ultimately sit here and address you is a real thrill 

for me. And then I wanted to surround myself with kind of smart, 

thoughtful philanthropists and people who got it. And everybody 

who knows something about this knows how long Mrs. McCain has 

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been involved. She said she was in Goma in 1994. That is a big 

deal. And since then, doing a lot of work. And so I gave her a call 

and hoped she wouldn’t think it was a prank call. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Well, clearly, your investment, time and passion is very genuine, and I think it is going to give continuity to 

this effort, and I am grateful. 

Mrs. McCain, did you want to add anything. 

Mrs. MCCAIN. Other than to say everything is always a personal 

journey. And my story is no different. I won’t go into it. 

But what I will say is that from my own personal well being, Africa has haunted me in a good way. It has kept me coming back, 

because I see such hope there. I see such possibilities. And I know 

that, with the help of people like Mr. Affleck and others around the 

world, that we can make a difference. And so it is nothing more 

than a personal journey for me as well. But it is one that has kept 

me coming back. And I love it there, and I would rather not be any 

place else. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you as well for your time and passion 

on it. I did want to raise a couple of quick issues in the limited 

time I have left. 

Mr. Prendergast, you had made a correlation between the pervasiveness of a culture of rape and the conflict regarding minerals. 

It is unclear to me what that direct correlation is. If you could 

spend 20 seconds unpacking that please. 

Mr. PRENDERGAST. Actually, it says 40 here. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. I have another question though. 

Mr. PRENDERGAST. We didn’t need a laugh line right before talking about this because it is so crushingly serious. 

What basically our assessment is, is that these militia group, 

armed groups on the ground, including the government army, we 

always talk about rebels; ‘‘rebels’’ is militias both from Rwanda and 

Congo and the government army. They have used the tactic of rape 

as a weapon to——

Mr. FORTENBERRY. I don’t think this point is very clear. And I 

appreciate you saying there is a correlation there, but go ahead. 

Mr. PRENDERGAST. To use rape as a tactic of war in order to intimidate local communities to go along with the kind of mafia economy that we are talking about all day today. I mean, in Sierra 

Leone, they used the amputations to terrorize civilian populations. 

People use what works. 

And if there is no consequence, if impunity reigns, then why not 

this? And so there are many other factors involved. 

I think you are wanting to say something in there. Can I yield 

some of my time? 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Yes, please. 

Ms. VIGAUD-WALSH. Just to clarify that also a bit more. It is a 

displacement mechanism. It moves people out of the areas where 

these resources are so they can move in and take control of the 

mines. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. So this is not just some act of depravity that 

happens in ungoverned spaces? It is deliberate. It is intentional for 

larger geopolitical purposes. 

Ms. VIGAUD-WALSH. It is a strategy, absolutely. 

98

Mr. AFFLECK. It is both. It is all of those things. What happens 

is these tactics create an environment where it seems like anything 

goes. But I do absolutely concur, at least from what I have seen 

from these two folks is that it is about armed groups saying we are 

going to go after this area and this is how we are going to attack 

them. And then it becomes kind a horrible reality where it is acceptable. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. I called it a culture of rape. I don’t know if 

that is the right description. 

Mr. PRENDERGAST. I don’t think it is actually because the vast 

majority of Congolese are absolutely devastated by what has happened to their country. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. That is why it becomes a powerful weapon. 

Mr. PRENDERGAST. Yes. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Ms. Bass. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you for your last comment about that. 

But let me just start by thanking all of you for the work that you 

do, and in particular, Mr. Affleck, for using your celebrity in this 

manner, because it is extremely powerful, and it is, as the chairman and ranking member said, one of the reasons this issue has 

received so much attention. 

And the same to you, Mrs. McCain. 

I wanted to reference some comments that Mr. Prendergast, 

when you described the deadly mineral trade and the mafia economy, I think you described it very well. But I wanted to know, in 

your opinion, what about the political leadership, is it there? I 

mean, there is an election that is getting ready to happen in November. Is there legitimate—we talked about the elections being legitimate. You know, maybe they will be; maybe they won’t. But my 

question is, is there legitimate political leadership to be elected? 

Mr. PRENDERGAST. Well, just in 30 seconds, you know, we have 

this country, which for 125, 150 years has been just pillaged by the 

international community for—going back to the turn of the century, 

the last century, ivory and rubber to help our jewelry industry and 

our auto industry, and then uranium from the Congo was critical 

in our atomic bombs and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and now cell 

phones, laptops and all the other things that we use every day are 

fueled. And what happens is you create a system where, a political 

system that basically is designed to maximize private gain and crater the public sector because the public sector, the rule of law, 

would undermine this. 

So you have internal collaborators with this international system, but it is a system that benefits us. We have cheap phones. We 

have cheap computers. We had nuclear weapons that worked. We 

had piano keys and all the rest of it at the turn of the century with 

the ivory. So, in other words, this has gone on for so long; it is hard 

to say suddenly, oh, we are going to turn this around with one election. It is a system in which the termites have absolutely devastated the political foundation of the country. And until you address that economic foundation, I don’t think it—it is just changing 

chairs on the Titanic, on the deck of the Titanic with these electoral processes. Terribly important to invest in, but you got to do 

99

both the political and economic at the same time to make a difference. 

Ms. BASS. I wanted to ask another question, too. This is about 

AFRICOM. The question is, the United States African Command or 

AFRICOM has been engaging in pilot training of one battalion focusing on human rights, and unit cohesion conditions in AFRICOM 

is controversial. So my question is, should the U.S. expand on this 

project to address other security needs? 

And then I guess just in reference to what you were saying before, you know, I remember 20, 30 years ago, when there were liberation movements in the various countries, and we can talk about 

how all those turned out, but there were independence and liberation movements. And I don’t think you have described one in the 

Congo. 

Mr. PRENDERGAST. Do you want to also say something on this, 

Ben? Jump in if you want. No, I am saying if you want to say 

something when I am done. 

The military forum issue I think is—I mean, I think ECI, if you 

look at their recommendations, if you look at what the Enough 

Project and others that have worked on this stuff, military forum, 

security sector reform is at the top of anyone’s list of what we need 

to invest. And now you go to the Congo and you spend time with 

the Congolese leadership, and what militaries do they respect, you 

know, it is not a surprise, the United States military. So when the 

U.S. comes in and says, we are going to train a battalion in 

Kisangani, this makes a difference to them. People are bumping 

each other out of line to sign up to be part of this. So the United 

States has influence; it has leverage on this one. 

And here is one where if we work more aggressively—and this 

is why you need a special envoy, because we don’t have enough diplomatic firepower with the existing system to be able to do this 

kind of full-time work, is to get the donors together that actually 

do military training like China, like South Africa, like Angola, the 

countries that actually have influence with the Congolese Government, we work together with them about a systemic reform of the 

military, and then AFRICOM becomes a major player in all of that. 

And specifically I want to highlight one element of the larger security sector reform, and that is military justice. Again, we have 

a comparative advantage there. They respect us on this front. You 

have got to get at this impunity issue. Getting at the impunity 

issue within the military is even as much or maybe more important 

than within the broader society; you start to see convictions for 

rapes and for other kinds of crimes in Congo of military officers or 

soldiers who are involved in this kind of stuff, then that sends a 

signal. So these are the building blocks to a state. And I think 

AFRICOM, for all the controversy in other fronts, can play a major 

important role in the Congo in helping to build that particular 

block of the larger foundation. 

Mr. AFFLECK. I think the relevance of AFRICOM there has to do 

with—you know, look, MONUSCO does all of the training now, the 

FARDC. They work together; they train guys. They are having difficulties. We are better at it than they are. I met some of our guys 

down there doing this work. They are obviously great guys. They 

are U.S. military. They really know what they are doing, men and 

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women. They are doing very good just training very few units. That 

is good. It needs to happen. 

And I hate to have all these answers come with caveats, because 

then I don’t want to feel like, well, you know, but you have got to 

do everything. But really that has to be accompanied by some reform in the units that they go back to. Particularly a huge, huge 

problem is that soldiers just don’t get paid. A legacy from the 

Mobutu era was you kind of went and lived off the people. Mobutu 

had destroyed all the infrastructure and eaten up all the money, 

and so he sent his army around, and it was like, well, if you want 

to get paid, take what you can take; you have got a gun. There is 

a little bit of that left. Not a little bit, a lot, unfortunately. I visited 

FARDC battalion camps. They are like tent cities. They are a little 

better than the refugee camps. In fact, they often go and loot and 

pillage those refugee camps. FARDC soldiers are responsible for 40 

percent of the rapes in the country. This is where you have a military that is deployed among the population that is feeding off of 

the population. It is unimaginable to us. Our militaries go elsewhere and secure our freedoms. This a horrible inversion of that. 

The eastern Congo would be better off, I think, if you just took 

the divisions out of there. That is not practical politically. But what 

is practical is to go around and just train troops on one side. I 

would love for us to take over a little bit more and do some training of the MONUSCO guys. But on the other side, get people paid. 

You are going to make $40 a month being a soldier in the FARDC, 

but at least it is enough to buy what you need where you are not 

compelled to go out—I mean, they walk. There are stationed in 

Kisangani. It is 800 miles to go somewhere. They walk that far. It 

is like you know, ancient Rome. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. McDermott. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like you to respond to the need for PEPFAR money being 

included for the Congo in the treatments, particularly in terms of 

maternal-infant transmission of AIDS and the fact that PEPFAR 

does not affect the Congo. That is one thing I would like. 

And the second thing is I think you get a little more humble as 

you go along in this business and you realize that passing a bill 

isn’t everything that it is cut out to be. You are going to have the 

champagne and have a good time, clap your hands and be happy. 

It really is writing the rules and regulation where it really happens. And that is going on right now. 

And I would like you, John,to talk about what the committee can 

do, because you put this up as an action item, what the committee 

should be looking for in the writing of those rules and regulations 

as to whether they are good rules and regulations or whether they 

are slippery. I have been doing this long enough to know that you 

can’t hardly write a law that somebody can’t figure out a way to 

get around. So what I am really looking for is the best set of rules 

and regulations that we can have to make this law work and what 

things we as a committee should be looking at or we as a Congress 

should be looking at. 

101

Ms. VIGAUD-WALSH. Congressman McDermott, I am sorry, I can’t 

answer that question as I don’t work in AIDS relief and I am not 

familiar with that kind of programming. 

Mr. PRENDERGAST. I don’t know the specific answer on PEPFAR, 

but I think between us, between our staffs, we can get back. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. I know it is a problem in HEAL Africa in 

Goma, because I know where they are getting their drugs or not 

getting their drugs——

Mr. AFFLECK. You are right, they are short on drugs in HEAL 

Africa. And particularly—anyway there are shortages that need to 

be addressed. PEPFAR is a great program and obviously implementation is good, and getting people access to those drugs is important, and we can furnish the committee with details of that. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. I was asking a softball so you could let the subcommittee know, but go ahead. 

The more tough question is the regulations. 

Mr. PRENDERGAST. I think the top two I would say for the SEC 

regulations, they are getting bombarded right now because the industry lost that battle on the Hill. And they are mad, and they are 

coming back with lots of lobbyists to try to press the SEC to water 

this thing down. Like you said, so keep the cork in the champagne, 

we are not done yet, you are absolutely right. 

Number one, I think that there will be stiff fines for companies 

that do not comply with the intent of the law, do not open up the 

books to demonstrate that their supply chains indeed are free of 

conflict. And if they are not, they are at least acknowledging, yes, 

we got it from there, and yes, we know where it came from, and 

now, consumers, you can make your choices. But if you try to hide 

it, you try to circumvent it, you try to subvert it, then let’s see you 

some serious fines. 

Secondly, I think then is the question of when this all should 

come into effect. And I think one of the big things that you are seeing lobbyists push for now is a significant delay in implementation. 

We haven’t yet seen the State Department make its own recommendations in this regard, but I talked to a senior member of 

the administration last night who said that they were going to not 

advocate for delay. I hope that his opinion actually ends up being 

the U.S. Government’s opinion. But right now, the SEC is hearing 

from a lot of industry sources that they simply can’t comply with 

all this. Although other companies, particularly within the electronics industry, they have been working on this now for a couple 

of years, partly as a response to the legislation, but partly also because some of them want to do the right thing. And they have 

shown very clearly that they can do what is required to do with respect to the law. 

Illustratively, Apple, 11⁄2 years ago, Apple was not much of a contributor to the Electronics Industry Association in its efforts to try 

to clean up the supply chain. Basically their argument if you talked 

to them about it was, look, we have no idea where this stuff is coming from or how can we possibly be expected to know; it is a war 

down there and where it comes from is not really something we can 

control. Well, a week ago, now we have had the legislation, we 

have had Mr. Jobs actually get personally engaged, and his wife, 

of course, with ECI. Now, a week ago, Apple put out whatever reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:57 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00105 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGH\030811\65058 HFA PsN: SHIRL
102

port that it does, and it was the most robust reporting of any company of where their materials are coming from, right down to the 

smelters, to the processors. I mean, this is something, again, the 

lobbyists said a year ago, even that were working for Apple, said 

it was impossible. 

So basically I think this is what the legislation is going to be able 

to do. It is going to urge people to actually do the right thing when 

they have said for quite a long time they can’t. They actually can, 

so the question is, how fast are they going to have to do it? And 

instead of a delay of 1 year or 2 years or whatever some of these 

guys are asking for, we would like to see the timely implementation of the regulations to come into force very quickly after the SEC 

makes its rulings. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Keep on making the publicity to keep it up 

above the radar. Thank you. 

Ms. VIGAUD-WALSH. Thank you. Just to add one note. Catholic 

Relief Services and USCCB did write the SEC to ask for the absolutely most strongest rules possible, and we hope for a timely implementation as well. Thank you. 

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Good. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. McDermott. 

Mr. Payne, do you have anything? 

Mr. PAYNE. I just wanted to say that we do have to really make 

sure that they don’t change. What was interesting years ago, I was 

able to encourage Congressman Tancredo, who was working with 

me on Sudan, to get a bill passed in the House that capital market 

sanctions were put in. In other words, if you were doing business 

with Sudan, you had to come out of Wall Street. And we passed 

it in the House. That is where it ended, when a lobbyist ran over 

to the Senate, even had the head of every top one. And Mr. 

Tancredo, who was great on Sudan, we didn’t have champagne 

when it passed, but we were very happy. And it simply died by virtue of the lobbyists saying, you can’t do that. So hopefully we will 

be able to push this through. 

I just have comments from the International Crisis Group that 

would like to add their statement for the record, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection. 

Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. I will just conclude by, again, thanking you. 

I would like to ask if—and maybe, Mr. Prendergast, you might 

want to speak to this—the administration’s LRA strategy. How 

well or poorly do you think it is being implemented? What is it 

from your perspective? Anyone else who would want to touch on it 

as well? 

Mr. PRENDERGAST. Thanks for bringing that up. I should have at 

least in my testimony. I think it is such a crucial element of overall 

security and stability in Central Africa. We battled internally within our organizations in the groups that care about the LRA. We 

were putting out this report card, and I was trying to give the administration Ds and Fs, and everybody was like, no, no, no, that 

will just demoralize everyone. Because I feel like there is one major 

thing that has to be done. 

I mean the elephant is swinging its tail around the living room. 

It is that you have to create a focused military strategy to appreVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:57 Aug 09, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00106 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 F:\WORK\AGH\030811\65058 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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hend or whatever the leadership of the Lord’s Resistance Army. As 

long as Joseph Kony continues to run around. We have presented 

him with a very, very fair peace deal, peace proposal, which he 

didn’t even bother to show up to not sign. And so there is a military option that needs to be exercised. 

What has happened now over the last 3 years is a broader 

counterinsurgency strategy, where millions and millions of dollars 

and thousands of Ugandan troops are running around Central Africa attacking LRA units, and often those are conscripted child soldiers. So I don’t think that kind of a broad counterinsurgency strategy has any chance of working. We need to target the leadership, 

use our technical assets that are superior to anyone’s in the world, 

ensure that they are out there. We robustly support a commando 

unit to be able to close and act on a hot lead and take these guys 

out. 

Hopefully, we will apprehend them and send them to Hague, and 

there will be a great trial, and the ICC will have a major success. 

If not, let’s do what we have to do to bring an end to this tragedy, 

because the attacks in the Congo are getting worse, not better. We 

have seen almost an attack every week over the last few months 

in northeastern Congo. And these are remote areas no one knows. 

Every once in a while a report trickles in and makes a little column 

in a local newspaper here in the United States. We are not even 

looking at this anymore. So we have to refocus and say, what is 

the thing that is going to end it? That is the catalyst I think that 

will end it. 

Mr. AFFLECK. I think he makes a really good point. I think absolutely I have seen people. I have seen the evidence of this stuff and 

people who are after it. There are really good people involved in 

trying to pursue some of the goals that John is talking about. And 

you do hear, every month or 2, oh, well, 400 people got killed and 

such and such. A lot of times, it will take 2 or 3 days or a week 

to even come through. I think it is equally important to maintain 

a focus on the FDLR in eastern Congo. The FDLR really are the 

people that—well, still their leadership now—committed the genocide in Rwanda, fled to what was then Zaire, created—injected this 

sort of sociopath toxic poison. It wasn’t like people weren’t raping 

one another in Zaire. You know, that is where everyone in Rwanda 

was going to party and dance when Rwanda was the uptight country in the early 1990s. And what happened was that these people 

who got pushed into that place who committed these barbaric 

crimes then sort of allowed that to be—it got contagious, and they 

further ruptured the social fabric. The subsequent two wars completely obliterated any infrastructure. 

These guys are still there, and they are still killing civilians all 

the time. They are a big part of who is committing the rapes, and 

they are the ones that we need to stay at, and we need to support 

MONUSCO’s effort to do that, despite some push back. And I think 

it is important to remember there is the CNDP, and obviously, they 

have committed a lot of crime. They are now part of the Army that 

presents—you know, Congo has openly said peace first, justice second. And they are going to testify with that kind of thing. But 

there is no question about the FDLR because they are now getting 

pulled into the army and some of them are going to fight to the 

104

death. And that part of the country will not be safe until that militia is dealt with, as well as the LRA, who is varying from Uganda 

to CAR and stuff. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

And one final statement or question. There is no doubt that if 

Senator Danforth had not initiated the work with regards to the 

Comprehensive Peace Agreement in the Congo, there probably 

would not have been a comprehensive peace agreement in Sudan. 

And in like manner, in Northern Ireland, had it not been more 

Senator Mitchell, it is unlikely that a peace agreement would have 

been hammered out there between two disparate parties that were 

at each other’s throats for decades. 

One last appeal, when Ambassador Yamamoto said he will take 

it under advisement with regards to the special representative or 

special envoy, I didn’t get a very strong sense of affirmation there. 

If you could, all of you if you would like, make one final appeal to 

the administration because time is running. And the fear is that 

if we don’t have someone who can really cobble together all the disparate elements here and really push hard, this may be an opportunity lost. 

Mr. PAYNE. I just would like to reemphasize that. It is the key 

thing if we are going to see success in the DRC, and it is vital. 

And finally, I certainly would like to commend you, Mrs. McCain, 

for, you know, when you said you had been involved since 1994, to 

continue to be way ahead of the curve, and I really commend you 

for that and for your continued interest. Thank you. 

Mr. AFFLECK. Thank you very much. 

On the special advisor, I haven’t heard any good arguments 

against it. We have been banging on it, talking about it and going 

everywhere asking about it, and no one can tell me why it is a bad 

idea. It is one appointment in the Federal Government that could 

save potentially, who knows, 100,000 lives or 500,000 lives, a lot. 

It will make a difference, a big difference. If it helps prevent another outbreak of violence and destruction—I don’t know Washington, I am not an expert. What I hear is that it is a tough place 

because you have got turf battles and bureaucracy, and fortunately, 

that is your business and not mine. But I am really pleased to be 

encouraged by you and to be empowered by you to continue to advocate for this, because I, too, think it is really important. 

And I know that Ambassador Yamamoto, were he to give us his 

full-throated support and Assistant Secretary Carson give us his 

support, it will would really help us to go to the Secretary, even 

on, if necessary, to President Obama. 

Thank you again. 

Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Smith, you have been asking probably why we 

should have it. Maybe you should just turn the question around 

and ask them why not and see if they can come up with an answer. 

Ms. VIGAUD-WALSH. Chairman, you started off speaking about 

the elections, and I think that my final appeal would regard increasing women’s political participation. As I said before, we are at 

a critical juncture, and we are not seeing women represented. In 

fact, not only are they being sidelined, but they are being cast out 

of the process. 

105

And to give you an example, after enduring sustained pressure 

by their male counterparts, three female mayors in South Kivu, the 

equivalent of mayors, but actually of a grouping of cities, quite a 

high position in fact, administrative position, were forced out of office. The bishop of Bukavu had even gone to them and tried to encourage them to carry out their political mandate and represent 

women and girls’ needs, and finally, in November, they were fired. 

It is unacceptable. 

And if women do not represent themselves and their needs, their 

health, their education needs, then who will? We are not seeing 

others in the DRC represent their needs. So that would be my final 

appeal. Thank you. 

Mr. PRENDERGAST. I think we need to understand that the system is like, We have got this. We have got this under control. The 

system doesn’t like aberrations. They don’t like these things like 

special envoys and other kind of exceptions to the rule. That is just 

the way institutions work, and the State Department is no different than any other institution. My understanding is—and this 

is what I fear, and I am glad we got our last chance to say this 

because I want to impart this to you, is my fear is that they are 

going to give this position—they are going to create the title of it 

and then give it to a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. They are 

going to dual-hat a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and say, 

Yes, that is going to our point person, our lead person. Again, no 

human being has enough time to be a Deputy Assistant Secretary 

of State of any regional bureau in the U.S. State Department and 

be a special envoy to one of the most complicated countries in the 

world, definitely the most complicated I have ever been in in 25 

years of working in Africa. So that would be a tragic mistake. 

And secondly, I think, that position needs juice—sorry to use a 

Hollywood term. You need influence, you need gravitas, you need 

somebody who can make the system respond to different ideas, new 

ideas, to doing things in a way that are actually going to get results and bring an end to something rather than manage symptoms. And that person needs to report to the Secretary of State as 

opposed to being just only in a regional bureau. I think these are 

the keys of success; and if we don’t have them, it is just going to 

be yet another little spoke in a wheel of failure. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Mrs. McCain. 

Mrs. MCCAIN. Lastly, I would just like to thank all of you again 

for paying attention to this issue, for listening to us, for allowing 

us to tell you our thoughts and where we think the most important 

parts lie and, most importantly, in championing this issue from 

here because we will be following you and we are going to watch. 

And we really encourage you to continue in such a whole-hearted 

way. As a mother—and the only thing I can say is that as a mother, doing nothing is unacceptable there. So thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. And the last word goes to Mrs. McCain. 

Thank you so very much. Truly inspiring panel. Truly inspiring individuals. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:12 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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