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76–030PDF 2012

EXAMINING THE ROLE OF RWANDA IN THE

DRC INSURGENCY

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

AND HUMAN RIGHTS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

Serial No. 112–187

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

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

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(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 

ROBERT TURNER, New York 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

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 

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 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

ROBERT TURNER, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Bishop Ntambo Nkulu Ntanda, United Methodist Church of North Katanga, 

Democratic Republic of the Congo ...................................................................... 5

Mr. Mark Schneider, senior vice president, International Crisis Group ............ 9

Mr. Jason Stearns, director, Usalama Project, Rift Valley Institute .................. 21

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Bishop Ntambo Nkulu Ntanda: Prepared statement ........................................... 6

Mr. Mark Schneider: Prepared statement ............................................................. 13

Mr. Jason Stearns: Prepared statement ................................................................ 24

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 46

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 47

The Honorable Ann Marie Buerkle, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of New York: Prepared statement ............................................................ 48

Written response from Mr. Mark Schneider to question submitted for the 

record by the Honorable Ann Marie Buerkle ..................................................... 49

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Health, and Human Rights: 

Statement from the Government of Rwanda ..................................................... 50

Statement from United to End Genocide ........................................................... 55

(1)

EXAMINING THE ROLE OF RWANDA IN THE 

DRC INSURGENCY 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, AND HUMAN RIGHTS, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o’clock a.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. 

And good morning to all of you, and thank you for being here. 

Today’s hearing will examine U.S. policy toward Rwanda following the release on June 26th of a United Nations report confirming Rwanda’s support of rebels who have ravaged the provinces 

of North and South Kivu in neighboring Democratic Republic of the 

Congo. In the aftermath of the 1994 genocide until the issuance of 

this report, the international community declined to comment on 

Rwanda’s interventions in the DRC. We need to better understand 

the devastation caused by these interventions and gauge how the 

United States can play a more meaningful role in bringing this crisis to an end. 

Unfortunately, our previously scheduled administration witnesses—Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie 

Carson and USAID Assistant Administrator for the bureau of Africa Earl Gast—are unable to testify this morning due to events in 

the world involving heightened security for U.S. Embassies and aid 

missions. This would have been an opportunity to present a full 

statement of the administration’s position on what has happened 

in the DRC and what needs to be done to more effectively address 

the root causes of the ongoing conflict there. We do expect that 

they will be available soon to speak, and they have an open invitation to come before our subcommittee to do just that. 

Meanwhile, we have a distinguished private panel that will be 

more than able to shed light on the crisis in the DRC, as well as 

Rwanda’s involvement in the ongoing rebellion in Eastern DRC. 

The crisis in the DRC is both tragic and complex, and the ethnic 

cleavages have developed over more than a century, although they 

have been heightened in recent decades. The first significant recorded influx into the DRC of Rwandan Tutsis and Hutus dates 

back to the 1880s. Other ethnic groups in DRC, then known as 

Zaire, began to fear the influences of the Rwandans, especially in 

the East. 

2

The Hutu-Tutsi conflict in Rwanda led to the 1994 genocide 

there, but the Hutu-Tutsi animosity also spilled over into the DRC. 

Hutu militiamen who fled Rwanda after the genocide have repeatedly attacked Rwanda. And fighting involving Tutsis and Hutus, 

including inside the DRC, have terrorized the inhabitants of the 

Eastern part of the country. As one of our witnesses today, Congolese Bishop Ntambo Ntanda will tell us some 6 million people have 

lost their lives in the DRC as a result of the recurring conflict. 

Far from resolving ethnic disputes, the interventions by Rwanda 

in the DRC have exacerbated tensions among the ethnic groups 

who live there. In the wake of activity by Rwandan troops or militias that they create or support, Tutsi and Hutu people living in 

the DRC have become targets as a result. 

Rwanda has been engaged in armed intervention in the DRC for 

at least 17 years. If this is the most successful method to halt 

cross-border attacks into Rwanda by Hutu rebels operating from 

DRC territory, why is there continued devastation in the region? 

Why do Tutsis and Hutus living in the DRC seem more hated 

today than they have been previously? 

During the summer of 2008, the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or the CNDP, a Congolese rebel group, reportedly was backed secretly by Rwanda. It was initially led by Tutsi 

General Laurent Nkunda, an indicted war criminal. A March 23, 

2009, agreement between the DRC and Rwanda led to the arrest 

of Nkunda but replaced him with Bosco Ntaganda, even then a suspected war criminal for whom the International Criminal Court, or 

the ICC, had issued an arrest warrant in 2006. When the CNDP 

judged that President Joseph Kabila had broken the 2009 accord, 

Ntaganda led a mutiny that named itself M23 for the date of the 

broken agreement, and began a reign of terror in the DRC. 

In June of this year, a United Nations Group of Experts report 

confirmed that Rwandan Defense Minister James Kabarebe and 

other top Rwandan military officers played a central role in organizing, funding, and arming the mutineers in Eastern DRC. The report also stated that Rwandan military officers engaged in efforts 

to convince Congolese businessmen, politicians, and former rebels 

that had joined the Congolese Army to join the M23 mutiny in 

order to wage ‘‘a new war to obtain a secession of both Kivus.’’ The 

report further charged that Rwanda was protecting Ntaganda from 

arrest. Meanwhile, Nkunda remains in Rwanda, immune from 

prosecution for his crimes. 

Aside from ethnic divisions and allegations of a breach of faith 

in agreements, another source of conflict has been the abundant 

mineral wealth in the DRC, including 70 percent of the world’s 

coltan, used to make vital components of cell phones and other 

electronic equipment; 30 percent of the world’s diamond reserves; 

and vast deposits of cobalt, copper, and bauxite. The U.N. report 

stated that rebels in the East export precious minerals for profit 

to fund their continuing mayhem and that the Rwandan officials 

were also benefiting from DRC’s mineral wealth. 

I would note parenthetically that I have visited this area. I was 

shocked and dismayed by the abuse, especially of women, in this 

area, where sexual violence is an everyday occurrence. And in visits to Goma, in visits to meetings with the U.N. deployment of 

3

peacekeepers, it became very clear that the people in the villages 

continue to be at extreme risk of violence. And that has got to stop, 

and we need to do more. 

Again, as the Bishop pointed out, 6 million people have died. 

That is numbing. And we need to do more. 

I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague, Ms. Bass, 

for any comments she would like to make. 

Ms. BASS. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding today’s hearing. 

The continued and seemingly growing tension between the two 

nations is deeply concerning and raises a host of questions that 

must be actively addressed. As we are well aware, instability in the 

region and numerous accounts of human rights violations reminds 

us that there is still much to do to protect civilians, including 

women and children who have too often endured the unspeakable 

burden of rape, violence, and injustice. 

As the chairman has indicated, the U.N. Group of Experts’ report 

to the U.N. Security Council includes clear evidence that elements 

of the Rwandan Government have been involved in various military activities in the DRC. These activities include Rwanda’s direct 

engagement and support of the armed group M23. 

On several occasions, the State Department has expressed its 

deep concern and the need to end violence in Eastern DRC and to 

put an immediate and permanent end to any and all outside support. State has gone on to express its support for regional cooperation against armed groups, including joint military operations. 

Since the Rwandan genocide, which took the lives of nearly 1 

million people, the international community has worked diligently 

to promote lasting peace and stability, not only in Rwanda, but 

across the Great Lakes region. This is perhaps exemplified most 

clearly in the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in 

the DRC and its expanded mandate. 

We held a hearing last week on peacekeeping in Africa, and, certainly, we must continue our Nation’s support of such operations 

that support sustainable peace. The gravity of the U.N.’s finding 

attests to deeply troubling operations and human rights violations 

that have endangered or killed countless people. One of our witnesses today, I believe, will estimate that these killings may well 

have exceeded 0.5 million lives. That is just an unbelievable number. There is no question in my mind that these activities must be 

brought to an end and those responsible should be held accountable. 

The U.N. report is but one of a growing number of reports on 

this very issue. Human Rights Watch has conducted extensive research, including having witness accounts that speak to human 

rights violations and probable war crimes. The witness testimonies 

of the Human Rights Watch research leaves little doubt that innocent people have been unable to defend themselves. In a recent report, it is my understanding that Human Rights Watch has documented the forced recruitment of over 100 young men and boys by 

M23 over just the last 6 weeks. Some have been as young as 15 

years old. 

Over the last several months and in light of the U.N. report, a 

number of governments, including our own, have either suspended 

or delayed financial commitments. Other governments include SweVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:24 Dec 11, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\091912\76030 HFA PsN: SHIRL
4

den, Germany, the UK, and the Netherlands. While at least one 

government ultimately released funds for disbursement, donor nations appear to be taking a tougher look at Rwanda’s involvement 

in these matters. 

While there is still much to learn about the full extent of 

Rwanda’s involvement in these matters, I want to repeat my deep 

concern. More can and must be done to end support of M23 and 

other rogue elements operating in the DRC. 

I, number one, want to thank the presenters for coming today 

and giving your testimony. And before you give your presentation, 

I just wanted to offer a few questions in your testimony: What can 

be understood by reports that M23 aims to cause greater instability 

and conflict? Is there the belief that this crisis can only be solved 

through military action, such as the international neutral force recommended by the International Conference on the Great Lakes? 

And finally, what, in your opinion, are the nonmilitary options that 

the U.S. and others can employ that can result in a peaceful and 

sustained end to this crisis? 

Thank you, and I look forward to today’s testimony. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ranking Member Bass. 

It is now our committee’s high honor and privilege to welcome 

Ntambo Ntanda, the Bishop of the United Methodists in the North 

Katanga Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. 

As a leader in the church in the Democratic Republic of the 

Congo, he has led the community in responding to the needs of 

some 30,000 displaced people during ‘‘Africa’s World War’’ from 

1998 to 2001, and he negotiated the peace in the Mayi-Mayi militias in North Katanga in 2004. He has served as chancellor of a 

university and as an interim bishop in Zimbabwe. Bishop Ntanda 

has also accepted an appointment as senator in the Parliament of 

the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

We will then welcome back to our committee a man who is no 

stranger, Mr. Mark Schneider, who joined the International Crisis 

Group in the spring of 2001 as senior vice president and special adviser on Latin America. He directs the Washington advocacy office, 

conveying Crisis Group analyses and recommendations to the 

White House, the State Department, the Department of Defense, 

and of course the United States Congress, as well as the World 

Bank and other international organizations. He has also served as 

special adviser on HIV/AIDS and security. Before joining the International Crisis Group, he served as director of the Peace Corps and 

as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights. And, 

just recently, last fall, he testified before our subcommittee, but, 

again, that friendship and relationship goes back many, many 

years. 

So thank you for being here again. 

We then welcome Mr. Jason Stearns, who is currently with the 

Rift Valley Institute and is pursuing a Ph.D. at Yale. He has extensive knowledge of working on human rights issues in Central and 

East Africa. He has spent time in the DRC working as a coordinator for a U.N. panel that researched rebel groups there and as 

an analyst for the International Crisis Group in Kenya. Mr. 

Stearns has also written a well-received book, ‘‘Dancing in the 

Glory of Monsters,’’ a history of the Congo Wars of 1996 to 2003 

5

based on extensive interviews with leading protagonists of that 

conflict. 

Bishop, the floor is yours. 

STATEMENT OF BISHOP NTAMBO NKULU NTANDA, UNITED 

METHODIST CHURCH OF NORTH KATANGA, DEMOCRATIC 

REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO 

Bishop NTANDA. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the subcommittee. 

For the first time we Congolese we feel be accepted by Americans. Why did we come? We came to seek for your assistance because we know who you are. You have power, you have strong 

word, and you have all the means to stop the war in Congo. 

Rwanda is attacking the Congo and still attacking Congo. More 

than 6 million have been killed and are still being killed. We came 

to seek justice because everybody is looking, has a lot of guilty to 

feel guilty about the 800,000 who have been killed in 1994, but no 

compassion to Congolese at all, 6 million. No one is paying attention, even have the compassion to ask. 

We have come to let you know that we are not against Rwanda. 

We have no mean at all to hurt, to harm. We have no mean to try 

to do revenge to Rwandese or to spread hatred between the 

Rwandese and Congolese. But the point we are bringing to you is 

that Rwanda is killing our people. 

We want you to make peace, knowing that peace in Congo will 

be the peace in Rwanda. Yes, America, you have been so blessed 

to become a blessing to us, as to many nations. Can you stop this 

war, that we can have peace? 

Can you imagine your own wife having sexual relationship before 

a person you don’t know? Can you imagine your children, boy and 

girl, asked to make sexual relationship in your front? Can you 

imagine taking knives and so on, putting in the body of a woman 

or to cut her? 

Yes, this is enough. Congo has come to cry. We are facing 9/11 

every day going on. Many cries, many tears, many death, many destructions. This is enough. America, you have the power. America, 

we know you are the strong voice. And, America, we accept you 

have all the means to stop that war. Let the justice prevail. 

God bless you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Bishop, for that very impassioned appeal to the United States and other countries to step in. 

Thank you so much. 

[The prepared statement of Bishop Ntanda follows:]

6


76030a-1.eps

Name: Ntambo Nkulu Ntanda 

Title: Resident Bishop of United Methodist Chnrch in North Katanga Episcopal Area. 

Kamina/DR Congo 

Date: 19 September 2012 

"Honse Committee on Foreign Affairs, Snbcommittee on Africa, Global Health and 

Human Rights." 

Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, 

It is a privilege and honor for me to be invited to your distinguished House to witness on 

the situation of war going on in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on its Eastern border with 

Rwanda, on which we need your prompt implication to help stop it and save the lives of millions 

of people being exposed to the death spell days and nights. 32 interfaith religious leaders and 

leaders from civil society, we are bearers of a petition of70 million Congolese that received 

signatures of at least a million people to urge the General Secretary of the UN in New York, and 

the member countries, that is, the US, Canada, the UK, France, Russia, Germany and so forth, to 

stop this war orchestrated unjustly by Rwandan government as attested by the report of the 

Experts of the UN. 

We did not come to represent the Congolese government nor did we come to declare war 

to Rwanda. Our approach does not seek to harm Rwanda in any fonn of action but to denounce 

its wrongdoings reflected in its constant killings and rapes of our people. For two decades, 

Rwanda has been attacking the DR Congo, by fabricating all sorts of rebels and militia groups, 

changing one name to another. The Rwandan regime must stop attacking our country, the DR 

Congo and our people, especially women, children and young men who are victimized and 

inflicted any kinds of debasement. 

We have come to you Americans because we know who you are: you have power; you 

have strong voice and have all means to stop this war. You love us as we love you. 

Just to remind you how hard it is; we can picture the tragic 9111 event in New York. It 

was atrocity, terror, cries and tears, death, fear and destruction. Many children lost their parents 

and spouses lost their beloved ones. This situation brought Americans to be united as one to 

fight the enemy and all acts of terrorism. Seemingly, 09111 and terrorism are going on every day 

in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

Our people are in tears; there are cries, killing, atrocities of all kinds and poverty leaving 

behind orphans, widows, children without education. The situation of the women is catastrophic, 

no respect of the women who have become the battle field: women are systematically raped and 

infected with HIV/AIDS. Some are mutilated, buried alive or inflicted fissures. Knives and rifle 

cannons are introduced for pleasure in the genitals of the women just as acts of sabotage and 

debasement of the woman. Pregnant women have their womb opened wide with any kind of 

knife or machete to see the fetus inside. Raped women are rejected by their spouses and by 

society, they become victim twice: in their body and in the community. 

We strongly denounce this situation and call for justice. lffor 800.000 people killed 

during the genocide in Rwanda, the international community, including America, feels guilty and 
7


76030a-2.eps

has given all the means of the world to Rwanda and its leadership, but for the 6.000.000 that 

Rwanda has killed in Congo there is not even a compassion from the international community, 

including America. Where isjustice? We come to ask America to stop this war and to do justice 

to the DRC and to the Congolese people. We ask America to stop barbarisms of Rwanda in the 

DRC, by telling Rwanda to stop. The problem of Rwanda is not the Congo, it is within Rwanda 

itself. Rwanda should solve its contradictions within and not by crossing the border of the 

neighbor to maintain killings and massacres and call it democracy and governance the Rwandan 

way. The hitlerian and Nazism terror and practices orchestrated by Rwandan leadership in Congo 

and in the Region put us in the remote era of humankind development. They are very retrograde 

acts and debasing leadership. 

Peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will also be peace in Rwanda and in the 

region. The people of Congo and the people of Rwanda live together, marry mutually, school 

together and do shopping together trom one side to another of our border. The evil comes trom 

Rwandan Leadership for the reason of evil. 

In the name of" The responsibility to protect" we demand America to stop this war 

because it is a nonsense war. If it is for minerals that the multinationals want, we invite them to 

address the Congolese government rather than treating with the rebels or Rwanda on the minerals 

that it does not produce on its territory. It is disturbing that most of these US companies which 

buy the minerals are dealing directly with the Rwandan regime, knowing that most of the 

minerals do not have any trace in Rwanda but in the DR Congo. Accordingly, the smart phones 

are helping fund wars in the DR Congo and contribute to the killing and raping innocent children 

and Congolese women. 

As for the genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994, it was a result of an internal 

conflict between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda. It did not come from Congo. We wonder why 

Congo should pay this heavy tribute simply because of hosting Rwandan refugees on demand of 

the UN. So instead of the UN repatriating the Rwandan refugees for national reconciliation or 

dialog in Rwanda, in the contrary Rwanda attacks Congo and the International community closes 

the eyes. Congo needs justice as we believe in America and its institutions being defenders and 

advocacy of justice. 

Mr. Chair, as established, the current war that Rwanda is fighting in the Congo is not 

ethnic-based as suggested before but resource-based. 

On this token, we would like to take you back to the bill you passed in this house in 2006 

known as" Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act 

of 2006" Through this bill you reiterated the important geo-strategic position of the DR Congo, 

not only in Africa but the world. You committed yourselves to support the post-conflict DR 

Congo into a peaceful and prosperous country with strong institutions. We are so grateful for the 

support you provided and continue to provide in the organizations of our first ever democratic 

elections and the ongoing peacekeeping etJorts through the United Nations Mission for the 

stabilization of the DR Congo, which mission we request that it be not only limited to observing 

but also mandated to intervene any time to protect the population and eradicate the armed bands 

that bring disasters in the region and help arrest the criminals who find refuge in Rwanda (Bosco 

Ntanganda, Nkunda Batware, Mutebushi, Mal<enga, etc). 

We are grateful for your efforts directed at strengthening governmental institutions and 

building a strong military in the DR Congo, and for the many American mission programs which 
8


76030a-3.eps

are working in the DR Congo in the area of health, education, poverty eradication and capacity 

building programs thanks to USAlD. 

Certainly, such progress cannot be sustainable if the Rwandese regime continues to 

destabilize the DR Congo and exploit minerals such as Coltan, gold and killing the rare animal 

species that the DR Congo has protected (Gorillas, Okapi). 

In reference to the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy 

Act of2006 in its section 105, it is indicated: 

"The Secretary of State is authorized to withhold assistance made available under the 

Foreign Assistance Act of 1961(22 U.S.C.21S1 et seq.), other than humanitarian, peacekeeping, 

and counterterrorism assistance, for a foreign country if the Secretary determines that the 

government of the foreign country is taking actions to destabilize the Democratic Republic of the 

Congo." 

All evidences corroborate the fact that Rwanda is indeed working for the destabilization 

of the DR Congo, so why is this provision of the bill not being implemented? This is the cry of 

the Congolese people; we strongly believe that such a move will push the Rwandan regime to 

stop fabricating and anning the rebel groups and engage dialog for deep reconciliation within 

Rwanda. 

As religious leaders and civil society, we live at the grassroots level; we see the sutfering 

of the people. The US and the world have the responsibility to protect Congolese people. 

Rwanda should cease to behave as a spoilt child. We believe in the US justice. 

God bless America, God Bless the people of Congo. 

Washington, September lih, 2012 

Reporting for Church Leaders and Civil Society 

Mgr NTAMBO NKULU NTANDA 

Record Keeping 

Prof. MANDE MUTOMBO MULUMlASHlMBA 
9

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Schneider? 

STATEMENT OF MR. MARK SCHNEIDER, SENIOR VICE 

PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank 

you and the ranking minority member, Representative Bass, and 

members of the committee for continuing to focus attention on the 

cross-border conflict that once again is destroying lives and devastating communities in Eastern Congo. 

The International Crisis Group has been reporting on the situation on the ground in the Congo and the Great Lakes for more than 

a decade. And I am pleased to share the panel with Jason Stearns, 

who led our research for many of those years in the DRC. And, obviously, I am honored to share the panel with Bishop Ntambo and 

his eloquent and emotional expression of concern for his people. 

Crisis Group is working on a new report that will call for a series 

of steps that, to some degree, attempt to respond to Representative 

Bass’s questions—the steps that should be taken at the September 

27th summit meeting next week convened by the U.N. SecretaryGeneral and at the planned October 8th International Conference 

on Great Lakes Region to bring an immediate end to the violence, 

to prevent the M23 and other illegal militias from consolidating 

their territorial control based on their lawlessness and atrocities 

that began in April, and to sanction Rwanda for its support of the 

M23 violence. 

And let’s be clear: That violence is essentially motivated by greed 

and power. It has already produced, since April, nearly 0.5 million 

displaced persons and refugees from the Eastern Congo provinces. 

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees only a few 

days ago put out a special appeal for $40 million to try and provide 

assistance to those displaced persons and refugees. One of the first 

responses that could be made would be to bring together a group 

to provide relief through the UNHCR to those individuals—humanitarian relief. And I would hope that the administration would take 

a lead and that the committee could press the administration to 

take a lead in providing that kind of assistance. 

Tragically, the M23 militia has been armed, advised, supplied, 

and supported by elements of the Government of Rwanda and 

Rwandan Defense Forces. According to U.N. experts, NGOs, diplomats, and including, as the committee has noted, the representatives of the U.S. Government who have made that same appeal, 

this support must end, once and for all. 

We believe the following steps should be taken: An immediate 

ceasefire, to be monitored by MONUSCO, by the United Nations 

Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of 

the Congo. 

A full end to foreign support to armed groups, particularly an 

end to Rwandan support of M23. As you have noted, there have 

been some sanctions on assistance, but, if necessary, expanding 

those sanctions. That would include adding names to the U.N. 

sanctions list of any individuals and entities responsible for supporting the M23, including Rwandan officials if they are found to 

be supporting the M23. 

10

Third, the arrest of Bosco Ntaganda and his transfer to the 

International Criminal Court. 

Fourth, a request to the ICC to investigate the M23 and other 

armed groups, especially regarding war crimes, violations, child soldiers recruitment, what you have heard, rapes and other violations. 

Fifth, the full disarmament and demobilization of M23. 

Sixth, something that was called for several years ago—that is, 

a joint mechanism for border verification, to end the incursions 

across the border. 

And, finally, an assessment of what has been done and what has 

not been done by both sides in terms of implementing the March 

23, 2009, agreement. 

Mr. Chairman, if it sounds to you like de ́ja` vu, you are unfortunately correct. The only difference from what has gone on in the 

recent past is that the United States, other governments, and the 

U.N. have finally gone public in telling the Rwandan Government 

that it must end its support for militias in the Congo. 

If we had a time machine, we could go back to 2008 when the 

CNDP led a rebellion against the government in North Kivu, defeated the Congolese Army, and made a mockery of a force of 

peacekeepers with the support of Rwanda. During that Goma crisis, Laurent Nkunda was running the CNDP. But, in fact, we don’t 

need a time machine because it is happening again, and many of 

the same characteristics are in evidence this time around. 

What sparked the events since April appears to be that, in 

March, President Kabila ordered the arrest of General Bosco 

Ntaganda, who had replaced Nkunda as head of the CNDP. 

Ntaganda had been integrated into the Congolese Armed Forces despite his being indicted for war crimes by the ICC. In fact, it was 

never a real integration. It was a fraudulent integration because 

Ntaganda kept both command and control of the CNDP as a full 

unit within the FARDC, and the CNDP kept control of illicit mineral exploitation. 

Once the word leaked that Kabila wanted him arrested, 

Ntaganda defected from the army and took to the bush with several hundred soldiers. He then joined another renegade CNDP 

army officer, and the group took the name M23 in reference to the 

March 23, 2009, agreement, as you have noted. 

However, it wasn’t the lack of respect for the March 23 agreement; it was the threat of arrest for Ntaganda, as well as their desire to maintain control over illicit economic operations in Eastern 

Congo, defending the business interests and networks established 

by the CNDP and perpetuated even after they had integrated into 

the Congolese Armed Forces. The failure to dismantle the CNDP 

command structure when the troops were incorporated into the 

FARDC allowed them to fester and allowed them to continue illicit 

control over local resources. 

Since April, they have conquered large chunks of territory in 

North Kivu and is now administering them. The rebel group is financing itself through coercive taxation of supply trucks going to 

Goma. The government’s weak response to the challenge has resulted in FARDC officers defecting in South Kivu but also in Province Oriental and Kasai Occidental. 

11

And deep in rural areas, other armed groups are taking advantage of the tactical situation and expanding their own control and 

committing their own abuses. 

Unfortunately, despite calls in the past from the European 

Union, Belgium, the United States, and others, Kinshasa simply 

remains unwilling to reform its own army and, in the most recent 

incidents, has again begun to forge an alliance with its own militias. 

And, as in the past, Rwanda is denying any allegations of involvement. And I think it is important to stress, Mr. Chairman, 

that the evidence of Rwandan official support for the M23 is overwhelming. And I am going to quote just a couple of statements 

from the U.N. Group of Experts’ addendum that was released in 

June, in which it said, and I quote,

‘‘The Group has gathered overwhelming evidence demonstrating that senior RDF officers, in their official capacities, 

have been backstopping the rebels through providing weapons, 

military supplies, and new recruits.’’

It goes on to say,

‘‘Through such arms-embargo violations, Rwandan officials 

have also been in contravention of the sanctions regime’s travel 

ban and assets-freeze measures by including three designated 

individuals among their direct allies. Since the earliest stages 

of its inception, the Group documented a systematic pattern of 

military and political support provided to the M23 rebellion by 

Rwandan authorities.’’

And let me add that the rapes, the extrajudicial executions, and 

forced recruitment by the M23 over recent months have been documented in a series of reports, most recently, as you noted, by 

Human Rights Watch. Continued support for M23 by Rwandan authorities raises questions, clearly, of their complicity in those international law violations. 

And I think it is also, unfortunately, important to be clear that 

one element in the current crisis is the blatant military ineffectiveness of the Congolese Armed Forces. Internal infighting, corruption, delinquency, the total lack of professionalism essentially allowed 700 poorly armed and trained rebels to defeat, now for more 

than 5 months, a government army of thousands of troops trained 

by several countries, including the U.S. And an 18,000-member 

U.N. force charged with backing up the DRC Army and helping 

them prevent violations of civilian rights has simply failed to carry 

out that obligation. 

The measures that I outlined earlier can be seen as a conflict 

management approach to deal with the current crisis. However, 

these are stopgap actions. What has to occur is the implementation 

of the 2009 agreement, an end to Rwandan Government support for 

proxies in Eastern Congo, and key governance reforms in the DRC 

that simply have not occurred, starting with the holding of credible 

provincial and local elections, decentralization, and action in the 

fight against corruption. They obviously are critical. 

And if the Western nations, including the U.S., want to move 

from crisis management to conflict resolution in the Great Lakes 

12

region, they have to speak with a single, clear voice and exert direct political pressure on both Kinshasa and Kigali to take the immediate steps that I have outlined as well as to commit to longterm governance reforms that are essential. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Schneider, thank you so very much for your testimony, for your very specific recommendations and analyses. And, 

hopefully, the administration and the Congress are listening. We 

certainly are, and we will do our level best to follow up with very 

specific recommendations. So thank you so much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schneider follows:]

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Testimony by Mark L. Schneider, Senior Vice President, International Crisis Group to the House 

Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights on 

"Examining the Role of Rwanda in the DRC Insurgency" 

19 September, 2012 

I want to express my appreciation to Chainnml Smith, Ranking Member Bass, mld the House Committee 

on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health. and Human Rights for the opportunity to 

testify this morning. I want to commend the subcommittee for focusing its attention during this critical 

time. 

Crisis Group is an independent non-partisan. non-governmental organization that provides field-based 

analysis, policy advice and advocacy to governments, the United Nations, and other multilateral 

organizations on the prevention mld resolution of deadly conflict. Crisis Group was founded in 1995 as ml 

international non-govemment.:'11 organisation by distinguished diplomats_ Sk'1tesmen and opinion leaders 

including Career Ambassador Mort Abrmnowitz, Nobel Prize wiffiler and former Finland president Martti 

Ahtisaari, the late Congressman Stephen Solarz, and fonner UN and British diplomat Mark Malloch 

Brown who were deeply concerned at the international community' s failure to anticipate and respond 

effectively to mass atrocities in Rwanda and Bosnia. Senator George Mitchell was our first chairman: 

Ambassador Thomas Pickering is our CUITent chairnlml. Louise Arbour, fonner chief prosecutor at the 

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda mld at the International Criminal Tribunal for the fomler 

Yugoslavia and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, is our current president. In 2011. 

Crisis Group was awarded the Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service. 

Crisis Group publishes mmually around 90 reports and briefing papers, as well as the monthly 

('riSi'.\\0Ici1 bulletin. Our stafTare located on the ground in ten regional offices and sixteen other locations 

covering bet\veen them over 60 countries focused on conflict prevention and post-conflict 

stabilization. We maintain advocacy and research ofTiccs in Brussels (the global headquarters), 

Washington mld New York mld liaison and research presences in London, Moscow, mld Beijing. 

Crisis Group's Africa progrmn oversees four projects covering Central, Southern. and West Africa, and 

the Horn of Africa. reporting on 22 difTerent countries within these regions. We have produced 35 

reportslbriefmgs on the ORe. 

A rebellion in the Eastern Congo has exploded again with new reports of lives lost. anned violence against 

communities and threats to regional security. The seriously flawed 20 II presidential and legislative 

elections constituted a major step backward on the ORC path toward stability and democracy. We 

collectively deplored that situation. Today conditions arc even worse. 
14


76030b-2.eps

Briefly are the following steps needed to be taken immediately: 

an immediate ceasciire to be monitored by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Congo 

(MONUSCO): 

the end of foreign support to anned groups, particularly an end to Rwandan support ofM23 by 

expanding aid suspension ifneeded: 

the arrest of Bosco Ntaganda and his appearance before the International Criminal Court; 

implementation of the joint mechanism for border verification; 

the disannament and demobilization ofM23: 

assessment of the 23 March 2009 agreement between the CNDP and the govermnent; 

include on the UN sanctions list all individuals and entities responsible for supporting the M23: 

request the ICC to start investigating the M23 and other arnled groups, especially regarding child 

soldiers recmitment. 

These measures are part of a eonnict management approach but if only these immediate stop-gap actions 

are taken. it will not prevent the repetition of another Kivu crisis in one or two years. The only ;\ay to 

prevent it is to force the Congolese government to implement the peace framework defined in 2008 and to 

force the Rwanda government to end its policy of control by proxies in Eastern Congo. For a long-term 

contlict resolution, there is already a peace framework - the problem being the non-implementation ofthis 

peace framev;;ork. Only pressure on the stakeholders ,vill force them to Implement th1s peace framc,,,-ork. 

In addition, I will discuss brieny four other key issues that remain crucial to stability in the Democratic 

Republic of the Congo: post-eleetoral dynamics; Security Sector Refonn: eonniet minerals and oil and 

natural resources; and the role of MONUSCO. 

But first, let me return to describe Crisis Group's assessment of the Crisis in North Kivu-it is De;"! VI< all 

()veragain? 

Tfwe had a time machine, we could go back to 2008 when the CNDP (the National Congress for the 

Defense of the People) led a rebellion against the government in North Kivu, defeated the Congolese army 

and made a mockery of a force of peace keepers with the support of a close neighbor. During that Goma 

crisis, Laurent Nkunda was nmning the CNDP. But in fact. we do not need a time machine because it is 

happening again in 2012. TI,e current fighting in North Kivu bears many of the ethnic. political 

economical and structural characteristics of the 2008 crisis. 

In March 2012. Joseph Kabila ordered the arrest of General Bosco Ntaganda and wants to judge him in the 

Congolese justice system. TI,e fornler CNDP rebcl, who had been integrated into the Congolese armed 

forces (FARDC), defected from the am,y and took to the bush with several hundreds of his soldiers. TI,e 

FARDC launched an offensive to capture Ntaganda. However, surprisingly, while they had surrounded 

him and were close to victory, President Kabila ordered his troops to halt their attack. 11,is unexplained 

event al10vved Bosco Ntaganda to flee and join renegade anny officer colonel Suhani Makenga and 

reorganize in North Kivu's volcano area. The group took the name "M23" in reference to the March 23, 

2 
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76030b-3.eps

2009 agreement between the govemment and the CNOP amled group, which they claimed was not 

respected by Kinshasa. According to this agreement, the rebels were supposed to integrate the FAROC 

and end their struggle. However, the real motivations of M23 arc more complex. 

The group is ml offshoot ofa faction of the CNOP ffild is mainly Tutsi-based. However, it is not fighting 

to protect the interest of its community as the CNOP argued it in the past. RatheL its members defected 

from the FAROC in order to defend the business interests and networks established under the CNOP and 

perpetuated even after they integrated into the Congolese army. The failure to dismffiltle the CNOP 

eommmld stmcture when the troops were incorporated into the FAROC allowed them to fester within the 

FAROC stmeture and also allowed them to continue illicit control over local resources. TI,is pattem of 

exploitation ffild control of natural resources by armed groups, including the FAROC, is recurrent in the 

eastem ORC mld very often one ofthe main sources of conflict. Rwmlda is once more directly involved 

with the recent mutiny. According to the UN experts report annex. Kigali has supported the M23 not only 

because of the common ethnic identity, but also because it allows the country to ireely exploit the ORC' s 

natural riches through illegal mineral exploitation networks. 

RWffilda has been more strongly condemned by the international community in 2012 thffil in 2008. In 

Junc. the UN group of expert issued a report accusing RWffilda of supporting the rebels on ORCs soiL 

TI,e UK, the US, Holland. Gennany and Sweden then cut or delayed aid to the central African nation, 

even though this will not do major damage to the Rwandan economy directly since that aid represents only 

3% of state budget Afterthose sanctions on Rwanda, there were 1'epo115 that new millta1'Y attacks hy M23 

\vere stopped tcmpomrily although they continue as a dangerous mllitary force occupying key areas and 

ha\re been accused of a range of serious human rights Y1olations as \velL Even more important is that the 

diplomatic message is strong, especially since it includes the US, Rwmlda's strongest westem ally. that 

continued cross-border support of illegal anned groups that threaten human life and regional security must 

cease. 

Key sections from the addendum to the Group of Experts Interim Report (pages three and four) 

state: 

"3. Over the course of its investigation since late 2011, the Group has found 

substantial evidence attesting to support from Rwandan officials to armed groups 

operating in ti,e eastcm Democratic Republic ofthe Congo. Initially the ROF 

appeared to establish these alliances to facilitate a wave of targeted assassinations 

against key oilicers ofthe Forces democratique pour la liberation du Rwanda (FDLR) 

thus Sib'llificantly weakening the rebel movement (see S/20 12/348, paras. 37 and 38). 

However. these activities quickly extended to support for a series of post-electoral 

mutinies within the FAROC and eventmlly included the direct facilitation, through 

the use of RWffildml territory, of ti,e creation of ti,e M23 rebellion. The latter is 

comprised of ex-CNOP officers integrated into the Congolese anny (FAROC) in 

Jffiluary 2009. Since M23 established itself in strategic positions along the RWffildffil 

border in May 2012, the Gronp has gathered overwhelming evidence demonstrating 

that senior RDF officers, in their official capacities, have been backstopping the 

3 
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76030b-4.eps

rebels through providiug weapous, military supplies, and new recruits. 

4. In turn, M23 continues to solidify alliances with many other armed groups and 

mutineer movements, including those previously benefiting from RDF support. This 

has created enormous security challenges, extending from Tturi district in the north 

to Fizi territory in the south, for the already overstretched Congolese army 

(F ARDC). Through such arms embargo violations, Rwandan officials have also been 

in contravention of the sanctions regime's travel ban and assets freeze measures, by 

including three designated individuals among their direct allies. 

5. In an attempt to solve the crisis which this Rwandan support to anned groups 

had exacerbated. the Governments of the Democmtic Republic ofthe Congo and 

Rwanda have held a series of high-level bilateral meetings since early in April 2012. 

During these discussions, Rwandan officials have insisted on impunity for their armed 

group and mutineer allies, including ex-CNDP General Bosco Ntaganda, and the 

deployment of additional RDF units to the Kivus to conduct large-scale joint 

operations against the FDLR. 

7. Since the earliest stages of its inception, the Group documented a systematic 

pattern of military and political support provided to the M23 rebellion by Rwandan 

authorities. Upon taking control over the strategic position of Runyoni, along the 

Rwandan border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, M23 officers opened 

two supply routes going from Runyoni to Kinigi or Njerima in Rwanda, which RDF 

officers used to deliver such support as troops, recruits and weapons. The Group 

also found evidence that Rwandan officials mobilized ex-CNDP cadres and officers, 

North Kivu politicians, business leaders and youth in support of M23. 

A. Direct assistance in the creation of M23 through 

Rwandan territory 

8. Colonel Sultani Makenga deserted the FARDC in order to create the M23 

rebellion using Rwandan territory and benefiting directly from RDF facilitation (see 

S/2012/348, para. 104). On 4 May, Makenga crossed the border from Goma into 

Cisenyi, Rwanda, and waited for his soldiers to join him from Coma and Bukavu." 

Another import.:'111t and unfortunately repetitive element of the current crisis is the blatant mihtary 

ineffectiveness ofthe Congolese army. Intemal infighting, cormption, delinquency and the total lack of 

professionalism of the FARDC allowcd 700 poorly armed and trained rebcls to defeat for more than five 

months a government anny of thousands of troops trained by seveml eonntries, including the US, and with 

a I g,OOO UN force charged with backing the DRC anny. Defections, human rights abuses and cormption 

4 
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76030b-5.eps

all too often have characterized FARDC behaviour, undemlining the many who want to see a professional 

military capable of defending the population 

MONUSCO has been totally incapable of engaging the rebels or defending civilian areas where 

interethnic tighting has broken out. MON USCO has clear and adequate rules of engagement and the 

authority under its mandate to protect ci vilians. It has thousands of troops in the Ki vus and the Indian 

amlY component that leads it is a professional force equipped with helicopters and amled vehicles. Tn the 

DRC peoplc cannot undcrstand why the most capablc military forcc in thcir country is unwilling to usc its 

firepower to implement its mandate. Far more active engagement by MONUSCO is required. 

Sincc April, the M23 has conqucrcd large chunk of territory in North Kivu and is now 

administrating them. The fall of Bunagana on 5 July, 2012 was a serious waming. 

Following the Addis Ababa conference, the M23 rebellion increased its territorial 

control on 25 July by defeating FARDC in Rumangabo, 30 km north tram Goma, the 

provincial capitaL It has formed its own government and is now busy installing its 

administration in the Rutshum area. As usual, the rebel mmement is financing itself 

through coercive taxation of on any supply trucks going into Goma, which has sent food 

prices sky-rocketing. Like the CNDP in the past. the M23 wants talks with the 

gmernment, which would be humiliating for Kinshasa. 

Given the government's weal, response to the M23 challenge, FARDC ofticcrs arc 

defecting in South Ki Vll but also in Province Oricntal and Kasai OccidentaL In the 

absence of a political response from DRC govenlment~ increasing its lack of legitimacy 

mld weal,en even more the institutions. 

Dcep in thc rural areas. other anned groups are taking advantage ofthe tactical situation 

and are expanding their tenitorial control by committing abuses against the civilian 

population and recruiting child soldiers. According to very credible sources. the Rayia 

Mutomboki group has committed killings in the \Valikale and Kalehe territories mld 

launched a policy of ethnic cleansing against the Kinyarwanda-speaking people. 

Despite calls tram the EU and Belgium for dialogue and army reform, Kinshasa remains 

unwilling to refonn the anny mld instead has sought to forge an allimlce with some antiTutsi anl1ed groups_ has asked for more training and is busy recnliting youths to 

reinforce its troops in the Kivus. The government is already unable to manage and pay 

about 80.000 soldiers but it is presently recruiting ne" ones. 

Rwanda is denying any allegations of involvement and is trying to divert international 

community attention from mineral cross border illegal trade by elevating the threat of 

FDLR as the principal issue. 

At the regional level, the hltemational Conterenee on Great Lal,e Region (ICGLR) initiated talks between 

Rwanda and DRC but this initiative is not going to provide a rapid solution to the on-going upsurge of 

anned groups' activity in the Kivus. TI,e TCGLR met several times in July. AUb"Jst and September 

(Khartoum 30 July-l August. Kampala 6-S August, Goma 16 August. Kmnpala 7-S September) but failed 

to come up with innovative solution, except for a "neutral force" whose mandate would be 1) border 

control and 2) neutralizing the amled groups, but whose fonnation remains uncertain. TCGLR agreed to 

reaeth'ate old mechmlisms (mediation teanl, border verification mechanism, etc.) but failed to reach ml 

agreement about the composition of a "neutral" force of 4,000 during the heads of state conference in 

Kampala. 

TI,ese troops will add to IS,OOO UN peacekeepers mld about 30,000 Congolese soldiers. At best, this 

neutral TCGLR deploy1nent is expected in December 20 12 but the heads of state have not been able yet to 

agree on the composition and deployment of this Atrican force. In addition to the fact that it is difticult to 

5 
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76030b-6.eps

understand what difference 4.000 untested additional soldiers will make. the ICGLR already made clear 

that it docs not have the implementation capacity for such a plan and will tum to the AU and UN for 

support The secretary gencral ofthe lCGLR has been taskcd to contact donors to fund such a force. TI,e 

people ofthe Kivlls cannot afford a diplomatic ping-pong game between international organisations in the 

coming months. Unless Kinshasa and Kigali chmlge thcir positions. prospects for a chmlge in the status 

quo arc slim. One can expect the current threat to civiliml safety mld public security to persist LL11.less 

military operations change the reality on the ground. 

The fact that the intenlational community has for once taken measures against the rebel's foreign backer. 

Rwanda. is a good sign (but still not enough). However, the repetition of the Kivu crisis shows that the 

root causes of the contlict have not been addressed. Without significant security sector reform, public 

administration delivering basic services to the people. violators ofh,mlml rights held accountable mld 

serious regulation and control of natural resource exploitation, peace and stability will continue to elude 

the Eastern Congo. A clear frmnework for peace in the Kivu has existed since 2008: it is a peace package 

made of the Acts of engagement (JmllLary 2008), the 23 March 2009 agreement with the CNOP mld the 

stabilization program called STAREC. This framework for peace needs to be implemented in order to 

move beyond contliet management to contlict resolution. It needs to be implemented. 

Now let me turn briefly to other issues of governance that affect ORC stability. 

Post-electoral Dynamics: The failure to see legitimate. credible goyeming institutions in place 

throughout the Eastern Congo and the country as a while remains a core source of continued instability 

and lack of deYelopment. Our reports starting in 2010 documented the flaws leading up to presidential mld 

legislative elections at the end of2011. We cited the consequences ofa hasty constitutional change in 

January 2011, flawed voter registration and yoterroll issues. minimal outreach by Congo's Independent 

National Election Commission (CENl) to the political parties, lack of transparency, a sharp increase of 

political tension. incidents of violence. the general inadequate preparation ofthe elections. and the late 

design of an integrated electoral security plan. And we especially pressed unsuccessfi.dly. given all of 

these suspect issues, on the CENl, the goyemment, opposition parties, MONUSCO and the larger 

international community, including the U.S. mld the EU, to develop a consensual Plml B i( despite all 

good faith efforts, the outlook for decent elections on 28 November appeared grim. Otherwise, we 

warned that without concerted and unified action by the ORC and committed international diplomacy, the 

November general elections, the second since the end to the Congo eontlict, could result in massi ve 

irregularities ifnot massive fraud with the potential for widespread violence and the undermining of the 

legitimacy of any pronounced elections winner. We know the results. 

l1,e lack of credibility of the results sparked opposition protests that in tum, prompted heavy-handed 

repression by Congolese security forces in Kinshasa. After refusing mly external assessment ofthe 

electoral process, the electoral commission blamed the international eonnnunity for the errors in its post 

elections eV<llu<ltion report. 

Congo's electoral woes retleeted the country's broader lack of democratic and institutional development 

since 2006. But they also stem from weak international and continental engagement, from MONUSCO 

and the AU to donors- especially the EU and the UK, who partly funded the polls, and the U.S. All haye 

been largely inciIeetive in preventing Kabila's consolidation of power and stacking the decks. 

Despite the record offailed elections last year, the ORC gOYemment still has been unwilling to change 

CEN!'s members. The prospect of the proyincial election is now yery remote (2013 at best) and local 

elections remain very yague in the CEN!' 5 plarming, thus demonstrating the lack of govelllment' s 

willingness to organize them. 

6 
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76030b-7.eps

Donors should condition support on fimdamental electoral refonns. including the replacement of the CEN! 

president and choose nc\,\ members who reflect a consensus of parties and civil society. 

Security Sector Reform: 

For five years now. several countries, including the US. have provided support to the so-called anny 

reform in the DRC. TI,e result of this effort is the fact that the Congolese anny has once again been easily 

defeated by a far less important force. For instance one brigade trained by Bclgium fled to Uganda when 

the M23 launched its offensive. The training provided to an "anny" that is not paid and not disciplined and 

does not have a decent logistical organization is a mere waste of money. The situation of the army is so 

bad that the Nortb Kivu civil society suggested that it would pay for it and there are more and more voices 

in the DRC raising the essential issue of corruption within the anny. In itself, training cannot lead to 

significant change in the army. Security sector reform (SSR) is vital to stability in the DRC, but the 

Congolese govcrnment just paid lip-service to it for five years and a corruption network has blocked 

virtually every serious reform effort. If the donors rcally think that SSR is vital for the stability ofthe 

DRC, they should put significant pressure on the authorities or stop wasting their money in ineffective 

training programs. 

Conflict minerals and soon conflict oil: 

On 22 August, the SEC voted (3-2) to adopt the rules regarding disclosurc and reporting obligations 

required by the Dodd-Frank financial refonn law (Section 1502) concerning conflict minerals. It is 

unfortunate that vote was delayed. even more that more specific penalties were not imposed and that 

companies. including the globe' s largest. were given a two-year grace period for reporting and allowed to 

assert an "undctcnl1inablc" origin option. As the new Kivu crisis demonstrates and unlike what opponents 

of this law said. the problem is not to impose new standards (origin certification) to the industry and the 

Congolese artisanal miners: the problem is the lawlessness of the mining sector in this part ofthe world. 

TI,e present crisis in the Kivu is strongly related to the minerals wealth ofthe Kivus. But other natural 

resources arc being explored in the region and, if discoveries were confirmed, its impact on the Kivu 

conflict could be far greater. Oil companies are starting prospecting the Great Lakes region while borders 

are vaguely demarcated_ natural resources il1egal exploik'1tion is rampant and distnlst among the 

governments of the region is high. And as ICG has just wamed in the report we issued last month, the rush 

for DRC oil and gas almost assuredly guarantees both future corruption and future violence. 

On the oil issue, Crisis Group' s II July report warned that new oil reserves could create new centers of 

power and could exacerbate the conflict in Eastenl Congo. Preventive action is needed to tun1 a real threat 

to stability into a genuine development opportunity. Donors should provide technical and financial 

assistance to the Congolese authorities for the border demarcation, the framework agreement for the 

exploration and development of cross-border reserves and oil govemance rcionn. and support the 

Congolese civil society efforts to build a monitoring capacity in the oil sector. TI,is challenge follows ongoing unhappiness with the success of the Kimberley Process and with conflict minerals. 

On 22 August the SEC voted (3-2) to adopt the rules regarding disclosure and reporting obligations 

required by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law (Section 1502) concerning conflict minerals. It is 

unfortunate that vote was delayed. even more that more specific penalties were not imposed and that 

companies. including the globe's largest. were given a two-year grace period for reporting and allowed to 

assert an "undeterminable" origin option. 

The role of MONUSCO: 

7 
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76030b-8.eps

In Crisis Group's 11 June letter, we stated that the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Congo 

(MONUSCO) was failing in its core mandate of stabilization and protection of civilians. 

MONUSCO tcchnical and logistical support to dccply tlawed clcctions in 2011 and the inability to 

successfully promote dialogue between the parties has altered perceptions about the Mission's impartiality. 

Neither the Security Council nor MONUSCO articulated clear red lines for the credibility ofthe process, 

and the good offices role of the Mission appeared undemtilized. \Vith the failed decentralization agenda, 

constitutional rcforms that furthcr expanded thc power of the Prcsidency and little accountability for 

violence and massive fraud associated with the elections, the evidence continues to mount of the potential 

for authoritarian drift. If not corrected, international involvement in the DRC, including through 

MONUSCO, risks entrenching an unaccountable govermuent and undermining its own eventual rule of 

law and peacebuilding efforts. 

Closing 

A lack of clarity about thc overall military stratcgy and articulation of an cnd state to the military 

operations against illegal anned groups also exists. \Vhat is required is actual implementation of the 

comprehensive strategy that exists as I have indicated with its strong political component, to address 

pervasive insecurity and the threat of illegal armed groups in eastern Congo. Key governance refonnssuch as the holding credible provincial and local elections decentralization and progress in the fight 

against eomlption-by updating operative paragraph four of Security Council resolution 1991 (20 II) to 

include their achievement as one of the core objectives is essential. Clearly there is a need to address both 

local drivers of conflict bchvccn communities and the interplay \'lith regional dynmnics_ including 

relations with Rwanda, and to break the cycle of impunity in this part of the world. If the western 

countries, including the US, want to move from crisis management to contlict resolution in the Great 

Lal(es region, they should speak with a single clear voice and exert direct political pressure on both 

Kinshasa and Kigali. 

8 
21

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Stearns? 

STATEMENT OF MR. JASON STEARNS, DIRECTOR, USALAMA 

PROJECT, RIFT VALLEY INSTITUTE 

Mr. STEARNS. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass, thank 

you very much for this opportunity today. 

I am based in the Eastern DRC, so I have been following the situation very closely there. The current crisis, beginning with the 

rise of the new M23 rebellion, is the result of the failure of the 

Congolese peace process to deal with the persistent causes of conflict in the region. While there are no easy fixes to these deep-rooted challenges—and this is very much along the lines of what my 

two colleagues here said before—a lasting solution will require a 

significant change in how the U.S. Government engages with 

Rwanda, but also for Kinshasa to initiate a political process to get 

out of the present impasse. 

As you know, in early April, a mutiny spread across army camps 

in the Eastern Congo, led by former officers of the CNDP rebellion 

who had been integrated into the national army in 2009. This mutiny draws on three main sources of instability: Its officers’ claims, 

first of all, that they suffered from ethnic discrimination, that the 

Tutsi community, from which most of them come, was the victim 

of persecution. 

Now, there is no doubting the prevalence and, unfortunately, the 

vitriol of anti-Tutsi sentiment in parts of the Congo. However, this 

legitimate grievance has also been manipulated. From the beginning, the mutineers have received support from the Rwandan Government and local politicians, who worry that the dismantling of 

CNDP networks in the Eastern Congo would jeopardize their businesses, their personal security, and control of over local politics. 

This is the second factor fueling the current morass: Elites employing armed force to preserve their interests. 

The final source of insecurity is the Congolese state itself. Its 

crippling weakness reinforces the belief that the only way of protecting property and individual freedoms is through armed force. 

The Congolese state has neither the rule of law to guarantee property rights nor the force of law to suppress armed rivals. These 

weak institutions are perhaps the most intractable part of the current conundrum. 

While the mutiny initially failed, with a majority of those having 

defected from the national army returning within days and over a 

dozen of the ringleaders arrested, the remaining mutineers fled to 

a small stretch of hills bordering Rwanda. That was around midApril. It was then that the Rwandan Government’s interference 

and involvement became acute. They intervened to prevent 

Kinshasa from crushing this mutiny. 

Over the following months, Rwanda supplied weapons, equipment, helped M23 recruit hundreds of soldiers, and on several occasions sent whole Rwandan Army units across the border in support. Let me be clear: As Mark said just before me, there is no 

doubt about Rwandan involvement. It has been documented by a 

United Nations report released in June, by Human Rights Watch, 

and by our own researchers. 

22

In response to this evidence, donors have suspended around $90 million in aid to Rwanda as well as $200,000 from the U.S. Government, as you know. Despite this, the situation has not improved. 

Rwanda has continued to support the M23 even after the suspension of aid and even after the U.N. report, including by sending 

troops to Rutshuru, to take the town of Rutshuru, which is near 

the Ugandan border, in early July. 

So what is the way out of this impasse? And I am going to start 

perhaps addressing some of the questions you raised, but I will finish that probably in the question-and-answer period. The neutral 

force that you mentioned, unfortunately, I don’t think has much of 

a future. And I think, actually, it could be a waste of time, in the 

sense that we are pursuing a track that is not going to go anywhere. 

So far, the U.S. Government, along with other major donors, has 

reprimanded Kigali and condemned the mutiny. That has been the 

main response. But I would like to highlight that such criticism of 

Rwanda is, on its own, not a solution and will only enhance the defiant rhetoric coming out of Kigali. So while pressure on Rwanda 

must be increased, as it continues to play a pivotal role in supporting the mutiny, it will not be effective unless it is part of a 

larger peace plan. In other words, pushing Rwanda, in itself, bashing Rwanda is not a solution in itself. 

This political deal that must be initiated should strike a tricky 

balance—and it really is a tricky balance—between giving Kigali a 

way out and allowing Kinshasa to significantly dilute, if not completely dismantle, the CNDP networks in the Eastern Congo. 

Why is this? Why must there be a political deal? Well, the Congolese Army, as Mark pointed out before me, cannot defeat the 

M23 with military might alone. And, unfortunately, that has been 

clear in the battles that have been fought so far. Sooner or later, 

a deal will have to be struck with the mutineers. An acceptable 

outcome of this deal would include the arrest of the worst offenders 

within the M23, including Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted for war 

crimes by the International Criminal Court, and the reintegration 

of other officers and troops into the army but redeployed elsewhere 

in the country. 

At the same time, the Congolese Government should reach out 

to reassure its rivals. This includes helping refugees in neighboring 

Rwanda return home—there are around 50,000 Congolese Tutsi 

refugees in neighboring Rwanda—and setting an inquiry up on 

abuses committed by all sides since the mutiny began in April. A 

more difficult compromise could be to consider allowing Rwandan 

troops to continue to deploy small units in joint operations in the 

Eastern Congo against the FDLR, albeit with significant safeguards. 

Now, the only way this kind of deal can work is if Rwanda plays 

a part. This means reformulating the kind of pressure we put on 

Kigali from asking them to stop providing support to the M23, an 

outcome that is very difficult to measure—you are measuring an 

absence of something—to become an active part of the solution. 

The Rwandan Government could, for example, allow the Congolese Government and the United Nations to deploy troops along 

this border with M23 territory—it has a long stretch of border 

23

through which the support passes—as well as arrest key leaders of 

the mutiny, many of whom are based in Rwanda. You can just 

cross the border from where I live in the Eastern Congo to Rwanda 

and visit many of these people in their houses in Rwanda. 

This kind of deal will require strong and sustained pressure on 

Kigali. Donors, chief amongst them the United States, will have 

some hard choices to make. They can no longer see Rwanda’s admirable successes in health care, education, and peacekeeping—and 

they are admirable successes—as separate from its interference in 

the Eastern Congo. Different kinds of pressure, including sanctions 

against individuals, suspension of military training, should be considered. 

I would also like to note that the United States Government does 

not present a united front on this account. And this has also allowed, I think, the Rwandan Government to take advantage of 

these internal differences within the U.S. Government. 

The measures I have outlined are a short-term fix. In order to 

address root causes and prevent future violence, there will need to 

be much more far-reaching reforms. How can Rwanda and 

Rwanda’s local allies in the Eastern Congo be persuaded that they 

do not need to support armed groups in order to protect their interests? How can the Congolese state overcome inertia and vested interests to reform its decrepit state apparatus? These are the most 

fundamental questions policymakers need to address for the long 

term. 

These are not solutions, however, that should be imposed by outsiders like us. An African option would be, for example, a high-level 

expert panel, like the Mbeki panel on Sudan, with an African 

Union mandate to pursue both short- and long-term solutions. This 

is part of the political process that I mentioned before that needs 

to be revived. This could revive the international community’s political engagement with the conflict, which has lacked coherence 

and focus since the end of the transition in 2006. 

To conclude, the situation in Eastern Congo is, indeed, bleak. But 

this latest crisis is also an opportunity to change the way the outside world engages with this region and to address some of the 

structural problems that have caused these crises to recur with 

tragic regularity. 

As a matter of moral consistency, the United States Government 

cannot continue to help fund the Rwandan national budget on the 

one hand and at the same time continue to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to stabilize Eastern Congo. 

Thank you for your time and opportunity to present today. I am 

happy to answer your questions. 

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

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stearns follows:]

24


76030c-1.eps

Examining the Role of Rwanda in the DRC Insurgency 

House Committee on Foreign Affairs 

Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights 

Testimony 

Jason K. Stearns 

Director, Usalama Project, Rift Valley Institute 

Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Bass, and Members of the Subcommittee on 

Mrica, Global Health and Human Rights: Thank you for the invitation to testify. 

I have been working on the eastern Congo for the past eleven years. In 2008, I was 

the coordinator of the United Nations Group of Experts on the Congo, and I have also 

worked on the country for the United Nations peacekeeping mission, as a senior analyst 

for the International Crisis Group, and as journalist and writer. 

I currently work for the Rift Yalley Institute (RYI), a non-profit research organization 

working in Eastern and Central Africa. I am the director of the RYl's Usalama Project, 

whose team of researchers is in the middle of a fifteen-month investigation of anned 

groups in the eastern Congo as part of an effort to promote solutions to ongoing violence 

there. 

Background to the current crisis 

The current crisis, beginning with the to rise of the new M23 rebellion, is the result of 

the failure of the Congolese peace process to deal with the persistent causes of conflict in 

the region. A potent mix of ethnic tensions, state weakness, and Rwandan involvementlocated at local, national and regional levels -lie at the heart of the violence. While there 
25


76030c-2.eps

are no easy fixes to these deep-rooted challenges, the United States government can help 

avert a further escalation by helping to broker a settlement. This will require a significant 

change in how the US engages with Rwanda, but also for Kinshasa to provide the 

political vision necessary for a solution. 

The origins of the current cont1ict can be traced back to 2003, when the country was 

being unified after years of civil war, and all belligerents were obliged to integrate their 

troops into a national army. A group of officers, who hailed from the Rwandan-backed 

Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), refused to join this new army. They eventually 

launched a rebellion, called the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) 

- the predecessor to today' s M23. 

The CNDP officers, led by the charismatic Laurent Nkunda, claimed that they 

suffered from ethnic discrimination, that the Tutsi community, from which most of them 

came, was the victim of persecution. Their apologists point out, correctly, that over 

50,000 Congolese Tutsi refugees still live in Rwanda, unable to return home due to the 

lack of security and land. The officers also argued that they themselves were at risksince 1996, hundreds of Tutsi had been massacred by fellow soldiers in anny camps 

across the country, accused of being Rwandan proxies. 

There is no doubting the prevalence and vitriol of anti -Tutsi sentiment in the Congo. 

However, this legitimate grievance has also been manipulated. From the beginning, the 

CNDP received support from the Rwandan government and local politicians, who ruled 

over much of the eastern Congo between 1996 and 2003, and who worried that the 

unification of the country would jeopardize their businesses, personal security, and 

2 
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76030c-3.eps

control over local politics. This is the second factor fueling the current morass - elites 

employing armed force to preserve their interests. 

The final source of insecurity is the Congolese state itself. Its crippling weakness 

reinforces the belief that the only way of protecting property and individual freedoms is 

through armed force. The Congolese state has neither the rule oflaw to guarantee 

property rights, nor the force of law to suppress armed rivals. This lack of faith in 

Congolese institutions is perhaps the most intractable part of the current conundrum. 

The M23 mutiny 

When in April a new rebellion emerged in army camps across the eastern Congo, it 

drew on these same three sources of instabilty. It is the direct successor to the CNDP, 

which had been integrated into the Congolese anny in January 2009, after Kinshasa 

struck a peace deal with Kigali. The Congolese government calculated that, by 

integrating the CNDP into the army, it would be able to co-opt their officers one-by-one, 

dismantling the organization. But the deal in fact strengthened the CNDP, which 

maintained parallel chains of command within the anny, and profited from trade in 

minerals and other goods. 

It was this stand-off between the CNDP and the Kinshasa government that resulted in 

this most recent wave of violence. In early April, CNDP officers, led by General Bosco 

Ntaganda and Colonel Sultani Makenga, staged a mutiny as a pre-emptive move, to 

prevent their leaders from being dispersed across the country. The mutiny initially failed, 

with a majority of those having defected from the national army returning within days 

3 
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76030c-4.eps

and over a dozen of the ringleaders arrested. The remaining mutineers ±1ed to a small 

stretch of hills bordering Rwanda. 

The Rwandan government intervened to prevent Kinshasa from crushing the mutiny. 

Over the following months, it supplied weapons and equipment, helped the M23 recruit 

hundreds of soldiers, and on several occasions sent whole Rwandan army units across the 

border as reinforcement. Thus, the M23 was able to push back the Congolese army's 

offensive, and seize several important towns 

There is no doubt about Rwanda's involvement. It has been documented by a United 

Nations report released in June, by Human Rights Watch, and by the Rift Valley 

Institute's own researchers. In response to this evidence, donors suspended around $90 

million in aid to Rwanda, including $200,000 from the US government. 

Despite this, the situation has not improved. Rwanda has continued to support the 

M23, including by sending in troops to Rutshuru near the Ugandan border in early July. 

Other armed groups, largely ethnically based, have also gained in strength, in part due to 

their links to the M23 and the Congolese army's focus on the mutiny, and have engaged 

in tit-for-tat massacres of the local population. 

Pitfalls and solutions 

Perhaps the most sobering prospect is the lack of potential solutions on the table. 

Kinshasa continues to refuse to talk with the M23, while Congolese army commanders 

insist on a battlefield solution despite past military failures, sending thousands of troops 

to the Kivus, setting the stage for the next round of fighting. 

4 
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76030c-5.eps

The diplomatic etIorts of countries in the region have focused on the creation of a 

neutral military force to carry out offensive operations against the M23 and the FDLR, an 

initiative coordinated by the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region 

(ICGLR). But would this happen? The latest deal between the countries would have 

Kenya, Tanzania, Angola and the Congo statT such a mission, but it is difficult to imagine 

these countries sending troops to conduct risky counterinsurgency operations in the 

Congo. 

Also, none of the major donors seems eager to foot the bill. They are already 

spending $1,4 billion each year on MONUSCO, and have little appetite for another 

military mission in the region. In the meantime, the M23 has taken advantage of the 

break in fighting to train new troops, perhaps up to a thousand men. 

What it is the way out of this impasse, and how can the United States help? So far, the 

US - along with other major donors - has reprimanded Kigali and condemned the mutiny. 

But such criticism of Rwanda is, on its own, not a solution and will only enhance the 

defiant rhetoric coming out of Kigali. While pressure on Rwanda must be increased, as it 

continues to playa pivotal role in supporting the mutiny, it will not be effective unless it 

is part of a larger peace plan that includes Kigali. 

The Congolese army cannot defeat the M23 with military might alone; sooner or later, 

a deal will have to be struck with the mutineers. An acceptable outcome would include 

the arrest of the worst offenders within the M23, including Bosco Ntaganda, who is 

wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, and the reintegration of other 

officers and troops in the army, but redeployed elsewhere in the country. This would 

achieve the dismantling of CNDP structures in the eastern DRC. 

5 
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76030c-6.eps

At the same time, the Congolese government should reach out to reassure its rivals. 

This includes helping some refugees in neighboring Rwanda return home, and setting up 

an inquiry on abuses committed by all sides since the mutiny began. It should also 

consider allowing Rwandan troops to deploy small units in joint operations in the eastern 

Congo against the Rwandan FDLR rebels, albeit with significant safeguards. In the 

absence of etJective state power, compromise of this kind is the only way forward. 

The only way this kind of deal can work is if Rwanda plays a part. This means 

refonnulating the kind of pressure put on Kigali, from asking them to stop providing 

support to the M23 - an outcome that is hard to measure, given the clandestine nature of 

the backing - to becoming an active part of the solution. It would have to allow the 

Congolese government or the United Nations to deploy troops along its border with M23 

territory, as well as arrest key leaders of the mutiny, some of whom are based in Rwanda. 

This kind of deal will require strong and sustained pressure on Kigali. Donors, chief 

among them the United States and the international financial institutions where 

Washington has influence, have some hard choices to make. They can no longer see 

Rwanda's admirable successes in health care, education and peacekeeping as separate 

from its interference in the Congo. 

The measures I have outlined are a short-tenn fix. In order to address root causes, and 

prevent future violence, there will need to be more far-reaching reforms. How can 

Rwanda - and Rwanda's local clients in the Congo - be persuaded that they do not need 

to support anned groups in order to protect their interests? How can the Congolese state 

overcome inertia and vested interests to refonn its decrepit state apparatus? These are the 

most fundamental questions policy-makers inside and outside of the region need to 

6 
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76030c-7.eps

address. There is a range of possibilities to consider, including cross-border economic 

projects, legal guarantees for minorities, a new pact on security sector reform, and greater 

decentralization of power within the Congo. 

But these should not be solutions imposed by outsiders. An African option would be a 

high-level expert panel, like the Mbeki Panel on Sudan, with an African Union mandate 

to pursue both short and long-term solutions. This could revive the international 

community's political engagement with the conflict, which has lacked coherence and 

focus since the end of the transition in 2006. While the UN peacekeeping mission still 

fulfills a vital role in terms of humanitarian access and reporting, it has been utterly 

marginalized politically in recent years. 

To conclude, the situation in the eastern Congo is bleak. But this latest crisis is also 

an opportunity to change the way the outside world engages with this region, and to 

address some of the structural problems that have caused these crises to recur with tragic 

regularity. It is time to act. As a matter of moral consistency, the United States cannot 

continue to help fund the Rwandan national budget and at the same time continue to 

spend hundreds of millions of dollars on programs to stabilize the eastern Congo. 

Thank you for your time and the opportunity to present today. I am happy to answer 

questions. 

7 
31

Mr. SMITH. Just to begin the questioning, let me begin with 

Bishop Ntanda. 

When you presented your petition to the United Nations, could 

you tell us what the response was from U.N. officials? 

And especially since, obviously, our Government is what we need 

to be focused even more on, your delegation met with the U.S. officials during your visit, and what was their response? Did they give 

any feedback as to what they might do to mitigate this violence? 

Bishop NTANDA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

First, I want to say that this initiative is not Ntambo’s. This was 

the initiative of all church leaders in the Democratic Republic of 

the Congo in creating civil society. 

And, second, we didn’t come to defend Congolese Government. 

We are not Congolese Government agents. This is totally in freedom of church initiative, church leaders, as well as civil society. 

Well, we have chance to come as a church, to express our cries, 

to express our deep depression. When you hear me, my point is, 

people are dying every day going. Even September 11th past, I got 

a telephone call from one girl from Goma; I want you to say hello 

when I was here in America. She just expressed her feelings. She 

said, well, Bishop, they just shot my uncle. I can give you the 

name. I can give you the telephone number. They just shot my 

uncle this last September 11th. 

Yes, we visited United Nations. Their response was, you need to 

go to talk to great powers—I mean United States, Great Britain, 

France, Russia, and all the members of United Nations—to focus 

to stop this war. They are the one who have the power in their 

hands and who can solve this problem. United Nations SecretaryGeneral, by himself, he can’t really solve the problem. It needs to 

be united. It needs the voice from the members of United Nations. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

If you could, Bishop, you testified that women who have been 

raped in Eastern Congo are rejected by their husbands and society——

Bishop NTANDA. Oh, excuse me. Excuse me, Chair. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes? 

Bishop NTANDA. Yes, we visited United States, we visited Canada. Some of them, we were 32 delegates—sorry, sorry to take you 

back. 

Mr. SMITH. No, please. 

Bishop NTANDA. All the European countries, I mean Belgium, 

France, Germany, Britain, all over the world, including African 

countries, the church leaders went to express their same feeling 

and asking for some assistance: Stop the war in Congo. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. What was the response from the U.S. Government? 

What did they say they would do? 

Bishop NTANDA. Yes, when we met at State Department—I wish 

that he was here——

Mr. SMITH. I know. 

Bishop NTANDA [continuing]. They really regret it. They really 

regret it. And they expressed their feelings, but they are going to 

work through. 

32

But why we have come to you is, the Congress has the voice. The 

Congress can listen to us. It is all—we don’t like to put in words 

in the political side. Congo Government has done what it can do. 

Can you imagine you are asked to assist someone, the United 

Nations is asked to assist them when the war started in 1994. 

Congo opened the door. Now, instead of United Nations fulfilling 

its responsibility to take out refugees, this problem is Rwanda’s 

problem. 

Once Rwanda stops the war in Congo, once the Rwandans are required to maintain democracy in their own country, once Rwanda 

will accept these people who fled to Congo to bring them so they 

can have dialogue, we will end this war. 

The international community can put everything they want to 

Congolese. We did all we could do. We have compassion to 800,000 

who died. We cried. We opened the door. But today Rwanda is giving back—we loved—I mean, we showed love, but they showed 

crime to us. It is so deep. 

International community, we ask to stop this war. We didn’t 

come to do politics here. We come to share the truth that the war 

is going still today. Can you stop this war so peace can prevail between Rwanda and the Congolese? 

Rwandans are not our enemies. Every day going on our border, 

you see children of Rwanda crossing coming into Congo. You see 

Congolese crossing going to Rwandan to buy food and so on. But 

it is where? The top. 

So this is the way we need to say, please, can you stop this war? 

Can you stop killing in our area? Human life is more important 

than minerals. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask Mr. Schneider—or Mr. Stearns might 

want to speak to this, as well. The U.S. does have a significant 

point of leverage with Rwanda through the World Bank multilateral aid, $135 million in general budget support to Rwanda; we are 

the major contributor to it. And it is a blank check because it is 

not like it is dedicated to alleviating poverty. It really goes to stabilize their government. 

Could you speak to what we need to be doing on the economic 

side, you know, to use that leverage effectively? 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. I think there is no question that the United 

States needs to make it quite clear to the Government of Rwanda 

that one of the conditions for our relationship has to be an end to 

support for the illegal armed groups in the Eastern Congo. That 

has to be clear. 

And I think that there need to be specific steps. Rwanda needs 

to accept the kind of joint verification of the border that we called 

for. It needs to remove its open troops, and it needs to allow the 

MONUSCO to, at the very least, set up mechanisms for verification 

against cross-border support. And those needs to be conditions of 

our relationship. 

And one expression of that relationship relates to budget support. I would hope that the U.S. would make it quite clear that if 

Rwanda continues this kind of support for the M23, that this is 

going to have to be reviewed and that, together with the Congress, 

33

that it is unlikely that you are going to see continued, open-ended 

support. 

Mr. STEARNS. If I could just address that, as well——

Mr. SMITH. Sure. Please. 

Mr. STEARNS [continuing]. I think a couple of different things. 

The number-one commodity the Rwandan Government cares 

about is its reputation. So symbolic pressure can actually go a long 

way with Rwandan Government. If the Rwandan Government 

today attracts Starbucks and Rick Warren and Tony Blair, it is not 

because it is such a great economic opportunity; it is because people see it as a symbolic beacon of hope in Central Africa. That story 

line needs to change, if you will, and the U.S. Government can help 

change that story line, as well. 

As I said before, the Rwandan Government has made enormous 

progress internally on development indicators, but that can’t be 

separated, as it has been so far, from its involvement in the Eastern Congo. 

The second thing I would point out, and this is really just to 

agree with Mark, is that despite the defiant rhetoric coming out of 

Kigali, they are very sensitive to financial pressures as well. In 

2002, it was the simple abstention of the U.S. Government from a 

vote in the International Monetary Fund on a credit facility—they 

didn’t even turn it down; they just abstained from voting—that put 

significant pressure on the Rwandan Government to withdraw its 

troops in 2002. And they did. They withdrew their troops immediately after that. Not to say that was the only reason, but just to 

say that things like that, I think, can go a long way. 

Now, we have yet to see what is going to happen later this year. 

The U.N. Group of Experts’ final report is going to come out in November, and all of these countries that suspended their aid are 

going to have to decide on whether they are going to disburse their 

aid or not. All they have done is suspend their aid. 

But I do think that raising those issues at the level of the World 

Bank is going to be important, especially because the U.S. Government itself provides no budgetary aid to the Rwandan Government; 

it just works through programs. And we don’t want to cut 

HIV/AIDS funding through PEPFAR and other things. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me ask you, what has——

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Mr. Chairman, could I just make one other 

point? And that is that, in the next several weeks, there is going 

to be an opportunity for President Obama to speak to President 

Kagame at the summit in New York. Secretary Clinton presumably, as well, will have the opportunity to speak with President 

Kagame at the General Assembly. It seems that this kind of demand for an end to support for the M23 needs to be made at that 

level. 

Mr. SMITH. Could I ask you, what has the administration done? 

Has it really stepped up to the plate? 

You mentioned earlier, you know, since April 0.5 million people 

displaced, and of course that is in addition to those who have been 

slaughtered or raped. But 0.5 million, that is a huge number of dislocated people, who are then vulnerable not just to the elements 

but to further bloodshed and exploitation. 

34

Mr. SCHNEIDER. I think that there is no question that there has 

been an increase in humanitarian assistance. The point, though, is 

that the U.N. in its most recent appeal has indicated that it still 

requires additional support for those displaced persons and refugees. And as I say, I think that that needs to be—the U.S. should 

take a leadership role in that. 

I should add that there is no question, as you know, that there 

have already been communications and concerns expressed by the 

U.S. Government at the highest level to the Government of Rwanda. But at this point, they need to cease assistance to the M23. 

And, to be frank, I don’t think we can wait until the end of the 

year. The kind of reports that the Bishop has just described, those 

reports are horrendous, and the violations need to cease. 

Mr. STEARNS. If I could just add to that—and this sort of, I think, 

reinforces Mark’s point that this needs to be taken to a higher 

level. The response, U.S. Government cut $200,000 in military aid, 

but that wasn’t even really a response, that was a trigger in a law. 

They had to do that; they didn’t have a choice. Otherwise, they 

haven’t done very much in terms of aid suspension or cutting because they don’t want to cut programs that go to poor people in 

Rwanda. 

There have been several phone calls been put in, but I would like 

to highlight the fact that on numerous occasions President Kagame 

has not picked up the phone when Assistant Secretary of State 

Carson has called him. There was a phone call put in by an Under 

Secretary of State, but in recent months I am not aware of the fact 

that the Secretary of State has actually had any contact with him. 

So the mood in Kigali, where I just was a couple of days ago, at 

least from some members of the Rwandan Government, is, we can 

weather this out. The British Government just disbursed at least 

part of the funding that they had suspended. And they feel the tide 

is swinging in their favor. 

So I think that, as Mark said before, the point needs to be hammered home that the eyes of the international community, and particularly the United States Government, are on them. 

Mr. SMITH. Which is precisely why we have convened this hearing. 

Bishop? 

Bishop NTANDA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This is the concern, as well, as the expression of the church leaders and church society. If you will allow me, I can read to you, 

please.

‘‘In order to prevent the situation from escalating further 

and ensure the armed groups and the militias cease, we propose the following concrete measures. 

‘‘One, condemn Rwanda for its support to the armed groups. 

In this regard, we ask to all permanent members of the U.N. 

Security Council not to accept the candidacy of Rwanda as a 

permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. 

‘‘Two, support the proposed international force necessary to 

secure the border between the DR Congo and its neighbors in 

the east, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, and to give this force a 

mandate to use force in order to eradicate all negative forces 

35

which are active in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic 

of the Congo. 

‘‘Three, support the DDR process. 

‘‘Four, engage in insisting in the prosecution of Rwanda’s 

leadership because of its insurgency in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 

‘‘And, finally, support the process of reforming the DRC’s security sector by building a strong military and police.’’

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Let me just ask a couple of final questions, and just point out 

that Ms. Bass had to leave for a family emergency. So she wanted 

me to convey to you that she is absolutely interested in what we 

are doing here; it is a matter of she had to run home. So I just 

want you to know that. 

The U.N. Group of Experts identified several individuals in the 

Rwandan Government as being directly involved in the M23, most 

notably the Rwandan Minister of Defense. 

What is being done to sanction, to hold them to account individually, not just collectively as a group, but individually, for breaching those sanctions? 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. I think that what has to happen is that that information from the U.N. Group of Experts has to be brought to the 

sanctions committee, and, actually, the report will go to the Security Council, and then they have to make a judgment——

Mr. SMITH. So that will be in November? 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. STEARNS. Yeah, I would just add on that point, because the 

U.N. Group of Experts, I think, is the key sort of fulcrum, if you 

will, of pressure on Rwanda at the moment. 

In response to the addendum that came out in June, the Rwandan Government has launched a full-scale campaign of undermining the credibility of the Group of Experts, including calling the 

coordinator of the Group of Experts a genocidal ideologue. It is a 

smear campaign. And I don’t think anybody has really bought into 

this a whole lot, but there are some signs that members of the Security Council will try to undermine the Group of Experts because 

of this. 

The Group of Experts is a key tool, not only for Rwanda, but 

around the world these Groups of Experts are a vital tool for diplomacy. So I would just also highlight the importance of the final report of the Group of Experts, who have done a very rigorous job 

in the region in terms of documenting these abuses. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Stearns, you mentioned, at least if I heard it correctly, that you didn’t think the neutral group had much of an expectation that it could do something. I would note that only Tanzania has pledged troops. 

Could you maybe elaborate on that, why you think that is a nonstarter? 

Mr. STEARNS. I think two main issues, staffing and funding, but 

also the mandate. 

It is a neutral force, so, by definition, you have to have countries 

that aren’t involved in the conflict. And they have to be African 

36

countries. So already that reduces the number of countries that can 

contribute. 

You know, I would like to note that the U.N. peacekeeping mission has always had a terrible time getting troops to participate in 

much less risky operations than this one. The mandate, at least according to the ICGLR, the regional grouping, would have to be offensive military operations against the M23 and the FDLR in extremely difficult terrain. 

So who would staff this? You pointed out only Tanzania has come forward. Who would fund this? Donors are already funding a $1.4 

billion annual budget for the U.N. peacekeeping mission. According 

to the donors at least I spoke to, including the U.S. Government, 

there is no real will to fund another military mission that would 

cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year, there is no doubt. And 

would they get the mandate to do this? 

I am sure you could find African countries to deploy troops to do 

very little, to do observation, but that is what the U.N. peacekeeping mission does. So I think for various reasons I am skeptical. 

I would also add that, because of these negotiations, there has 

been a lull in the fighting, which is great, but this has also offered 

the opportunity for the M23 that just started off with 700 troops, 

so they had a serious manpower problem, to continue recruiting. 

Their main challenge was manpower. Over the last 3 or 4 months, 

they have been able to recruit probably over 1,000 new troops. So 

this lull in the fighting not only may not lead anywhere, it may actually further M23’s aims. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me just ask about MONUSCO’s rules of engagement. When I was in Goma in January 2008, I had extensive talks 

with the commanders and talked to a lot of the troops, as well as 

those who were investigating sexual crimes committed by the 

peacekeepers themselves, and held a number of hearings about 

that terrible, terrible, ugly exploitation of little 12- and 13-year-old 

girls. 

But, that said, what about the rules of engagement? Why is a 

relatively small but seemingly agile and highly intense group of 

people, M23, able to thwart government troops and MONUSCO? 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. I think that is one of the questions that we 

have, as well, Mr. Chairman. 

It appears to be, at the very least, more a question of political 

will than of legal authority, in our view. That is, that the mandate 

to protect civilians and support the FARDC troops in doing that 

would seem to provide sufficient authority that where you have an 

illegal rebellion of an armed force that carries out rape and 

extrajudicial executions, that that force legitimately should be 

countered and acted on using whatever means are necessary by 

MONUSCO in support of the FARDC forces. 

The answer right now is that they have not taken those actions 

to directly go after the M23. I would argue that their mandate regarding the rules of engagement is sufficient to do that. 

Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Chairman, one of the problems is—and Mark 

just mentioned that—there are two parts to the mandate that are 

relevant here. There is protection of civilians in imminent danger, 

but there is also support to the Congolese army. They emphasize 

the latter and not the former. In other words, they conduct operVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:24 Dec 11, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\AGH\091912\76030 HFA PsN: SHIRL
37

ations in support of the Congolese army. They do not conduct, on 

their own, offensive operations against any of these forces. And 

they are frustrated, obviously, by the incapacities of the Congolese 

army itself. 

Mr. SMITH. And, again, that is an old story. 

Mr. STEARNS. And that is a very old story. I mean, we are getting 

back to a problem that since—I used to work for the U.N. peacekeeping mission. And even when I was there, we tried to get our 

troops to deploy aggressively. And they would say, we didn’t come 

to the Congo to be sent home in body bags, was their answer. So 

that is a whole other can of worms probably to open up. But I think 

that that point probably should be reiterated as often as possible. 

Mr. SMITH. Bishop Ntanda, if you could just—in your testimony, 

you noted that women who have been raped in Eastern Congo are 

rejected by their husbands and society. On my trip there, I went 

to HEAL Africa and met with one of its members. It is a faithbased initiative to try to help women—and it provides other health 

care as well—but women who have been so abused. And I know 

there are other faith-based initiatives as well. What impact have 

organizations like HEAL Africa in Goma had on helping those 

women? 

I was awed by how women who had been so horrifically abused 

had smiles on their face, had a sense of hope, had a resiliency and 

a courage that was otherworldly. It was so strong. And I think the 

faith component certainly is a major contributor to that, because 

they do find healing, and they realize that they have been victimized. They had nothing whatsoever to do with it. But their husbands—what is being done to try to get them to realize that the 

exploitation—you know, stand by your victimized wife? Could you 

elaborate on that? 

Bishop NTANDA. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Unfortunately, I don’t 

know about the organization. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. 

Bishop NTANDA. But my point is, the rape of a woman—she will 

be rejected by her own husband—is like you have committed adultery. I don’t like you. It is not just rejected by her husband, but 

she is also rejected by the clan. No one will accept her. Imagine 

such woman affected in her body, rejected by her own family. She 

has nowhere to go. And it looks like the rest of humanity has rejected her. It is so painful to her. 

Not even that. There are some women who get pregnant and 

have children, and those children are not accepted in the family. 

And those children, they have nowhere to go, which means the father, the mother, and the baby are all rejected. 

This atrocity is brought to us because of the war. We didn’t have 

such a culture in our system, but it was a result, a consequence 

of the war. This is why we project—to finish that war, we need to 

come to the source, the trouble in Rwanda. Rwanda has to be responsible to its own people not to bring war to Congo. 

Once we have peace, I think we will be able to deal with our own 

problems inside. In fact, when the lady is rejected, probably, with 

this kind of talk we got from here, we will find the traditional ways 

to take care of her and of the baby. 

38

Concerning the organization—I am so sorry, Mr. Chair. I don’t 

know them. And I wish—if I knew them, I could speak about matters concerning them. 

Mr. SMITH. Let me just ask one final question; and then any 

other points you might want to make, please do. 

We had a hearing earlier this year focused on the killing fields 

in North Kivu and that area. And some of our witnesses made a 

point that everyone seems to know about Sudan and Darfur; and 

yet in an area—in a region where some 6 million people have been 

slaughtered, there still remains an incredible ignorance and a lack 

of focus and even understanding as to what is going on. 

I can’t figure it out. I am wondering if perhaps you could convey 

to us what we could do to—we even invited Ben Affleck, who has 

been very visible in his efforts to bring attention to the killing 

fields there, and he noted that as well, that he has made it his mission to try to bring visibility to this because visibility hopefully 

leads to governments taking more bolder action. 

Because, in my opinion, we have been very weak and ineffective. 

Even though we have done some things, it has not been at the top 

of the agenda, which is why I asked the Bishop earlier about what 

the response was from U.S. Government officials at the Department of State in terms of what they want to do, the next steps, 

which is why we had hoped that Assistant Secretary Johnnie Carson and Assistant Administrator Earl Gast would have been here. 

We do have an open invitation, as I said earlier, to them because 

we want to ask the tough questions. 

But why are we asking tough questions? Because people are 

dying, and they are being displaced as the killing fields continue. 

So why are so many people unaware of what is going on there? 

Mr. Schneider. 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. I really don’t have a good answer for that. I 

mean, you would think that after the nearly decade—more than a 

decade-long, 15 years of continuing conflict that it would be much 

higher on the public agenda internationally with the level of just 

human tragedy. You would think that the media would have focused more attention on continuing attention on it. 

I think the problem is the recurrence, that people don’t see—they 

focused on it. They thought it ended, and then it happens all over 

again. And there is just so much bandwidth; and, unfortunately, it 

just has not remained high on anyone’s agenda. 

Mr. STEARNS. The curse of the Congo War has been its complexity. You know, if you can’t understand something or sound bite 

it or fit it into some easily encapsulated interest, you could say it 

is difficult to make people care about it. 

What is the Congo War about? You can see already it is difficult. 

It is about, you know, 17 different acronyms and 18 different actors 

and about 16 years of history or hundreds of years of history. So 

because of the difficulty to encapsulate the war, it makes it much 

more difficult to care about. I think that is a key problem. That 

doesn’t make it an excuse or a pretext not to do something, but I 

think that is a key challenge for all of us, for journalists, for politicians, for advocates, everything. 

I think in terms of how to get out of here, I think that there are 

some things we can do in the short term to—we can do a lot more, 

39

and we have mentioned many of them today. I think there are 

many very intractable parts of the situation that are going to be 

difficult to solve. 

I think you know, for example, creating a strong central Congolese state that would be able to deal with groups like the M23, 

even with Rwandan support—as Mark pointed out, they have 

thrown thousands of troops against this small rebellion, and they 

haven’t been able to defeat it. Reconstructing a strong Congolese 

state is going to take decades, unfortunately. Now we can help 

much more than we have in the past, but I think that is one of the 

main conundrums. 

How to get out of this sort of impasse in the short term—just to 

sort of summarize some of the things we have mentioned today—

I think there needs to be a political process that is going. I don’t 

have a faith in the military solution. I don’t see either the Congolese Government or an outside military solution being imposed. In 

other words, there needs to be a political process in which the 

Rwandan Government will have to play an active part, which 

means pressure on them but also means considering them as a 

partner in this process. 

The outcome is going to have to be the arrest of top M23 leaders 

but the reintegration of a majority of them into the Congolese army 

but deployed elsewhere. That is one of the key demands of the government, and I think in this case it makes a lot of sense. 

I think in terms of the U.S. Government they have to get their 

ducks in a row to a certain extent. We have different agencies and 

different players saying different things. 

When the U.N. Group of Experts report was submitted to the 

U.N. Security Council in June, the U.S. Government blocked it initially. And not because the U.S. Government’s policy was to block 

the report but because individuals within the U.S. Government did 

not think it was productive in the long term. And this is a result 

of disagreements within the U.S. Government. 

So I fully encourage your initiatives to ask tough questions to the 

U.S. Government. Because I think that the higher this goes up in 

terms of the priorities, the fewer the disagreements will be, in part 

because it is such a low priority that disagreements like this are 

able to break out. 

And I think that finally, as I have said before, the U.S. Government needs to take a tough look at its financial and political engagement in the region. As I said before, we can’t minimize the 

progress that Rwanda has made since the genocide. It has made 

fantastic progress. It has carried out amazing innovations in health 

and education. But then to sort of hermetically separate that from 

what is going on in Eastern Congo doesn’t make a lot of sense; and 

that has been a problem that we have faced over the last 15, 16 

years, to make people understand that here in Washington. 

So I think, just to summarize, that is not a panacea for what is 

going on, but there is definitely some ideas there for what can be 

done here in Washington. 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Could I, Mr. Chairman? 

You mentioned what is being done in terms of trying to provide 

some assistance to the women. I think that USAID is providing assistance to a variety of programs that you have seen. I was on a 

40

panel with Dr. Mukwege and the Panzi Hospital in providing support there. But much more needs to be done. 

But the critical thing is ending the rapes going forward, and that 

means dealing with this problem of illegal armed groups and the 

FARDC not exercising sufficient control in the Eastern Congo. And 

with respect to that, I think that you do have to ask yourself 

whether this can be done solely by looking at how we stop the current violence. 

What we need to be asking is how do we get to a point where 

the DRC Government is more effective, more stable. And it seems 

to me there we have to go back to the question of post-electoral dynamics and we have to ask the question of what are we doing as 

a government and within the international community in trying to 

ensure that the flaws that occurred in the previous election don’t 

continue and that the next round of provincial and local elections 

is much more credible. We have to go back to the question of security sector reform and the rule of law, and we have to look at what 

is being done and ask ourselves what more can be done in the future. 

And, finally, with respect to MONUSCO, we called for an internal audit of MONUSCO’s role in the past, and we think that that 

should be done now with respect to MONUSCO’s response to the 

M23 mutiny, if you will. And then to ask what it should be doing 

with respect to the dual mandate of the protection of civilians and 

support for the Congolese Armed Forces. 

And, finally, I agree with Jason with respect to the internal advances on the development side in Rwanda, but let’s not forget 

there are also limitations with respect to democratic reforms inside 

Rwanda as well along with the cross-border activities that need to 

cease. We need governance reforms on both sides of the border, and 

we need an end to illegal actions that promote violence across the 

border as well. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Stearns, you mentioned a moment ago about the 

initial blocking of the U.N. report by the U.S. What grade would 

you give the Obama administration in terms of handling the M23 

crisis? I mean it. Because you know, going forward, we are all 

hopeful, we all want things to change, but we really have to be 

honest and very tough as to whether or not we have done enough. 

What grade? 

Mr. STEARNS. I will give them an A for ‘‘apathy.’’

Mr. SMITH. Okay. 

Mr. STEARNS. You know, not to sort of connote any sort of degree 

of excellence by ‘‘A.’’ The key problem the U.S. Government has 

had is apathy. It is not that they have done the wrong things. They 

haven’t done anything at all. 

As I have said before, there will always be internal disagreements within the U.S. Government with regards to different issues. 

But it is because it is at such a low level of priority that you have—

you shouldn’t have the U.S. delegation to the Security Council saying one thing and then the State Department saying something 

else, which is what happened when this report was submitted to 

the U.N. Security Council. 

41

You know, speaking to people at State Department, they have 

good ideas, they are smart people, they are engaged, but it is not 

a high-level-enough priority to deal with. So the response has 

largely been to spend a lot of money on it, but don’t allocate the 

necessary political will. 

We spent a lot of money on the region; and I think, actually, that 

that money is compromised by the fact that we don’t engage politically enough. So you have this paradox with the fact that a country 

like Rwanda is—50 percent of its budget almost is financed by foreign aid. With the Congo, it is exactly the same thing. And yet 

when you go to Kigali or Kinshasa, you hear diplomats—they are 

wringing their hands and are saying, but we don’t have any leverage. 

So how do you not have any leverage even though you are financing them to the tune of 50 percent of their budget? It is because 

it is not a political priority for anybody. 

Most of these countries’ policy is set to a certain extent—to a 

large extent by the Ambassadors themselves, because it just 

doesn’t rise high enough on the flagpole here in Washington. So I 

would say the Obama administration has not been engaged 

enough. Rather than doing the wrong things, it just hasn’t done 

very much at all. 

Bishop NTANDA. Mr. Chair, thank you for the question. 

I was wondering why it took so long to solve this problem of 6 

million. This is why we came to you with the emergency. Why for 

so long were the people able to do it? 

I think Congress has to take steps now. This is your time. This 

is Congress, your time. 

We can go around politics. We can condemn the government and 

so on. But people are dying. This is our concern. And, Congress, in 

your hands, you have the salvation of all Congolese people. You are 

the one who will build a strong wall between Rwanda and the 

Congo, a wall of peace, a wall of love, a wall of justice. We beg to 

you, you can do something. 

Thank you very much. 

And at the end we will never allow to lose even one inch of our 

country. In other words, we will never accept Balkanization of our 

country. We remain as united as the United States has been united 

since September 11. You were as one nation to fight the enemy, 

and we will remain as one nation to fight. But we can bring peace. 

We can bring love. We can bring justice between the two nations. 

God bless. 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. If I could, the one thing—I don’t want to have 

a misapprehension. There is no question that there has been highlevel interagency focus by this administration on the DRC and on 

the Great Lakes region. They named—they had a previous special 

envoy who you knew quite well, the late Howard Wolpe. They have 

a current one. 

The problem, it seems to me, is that, with respect to this particular instance, it seems to me that it has not drawn enough of 

a continuing high-level engagement. So the answer to your question is incomplete. 

And what we need to see now is more activity directly at the 

highest levels in order to make it clear that there has to be an end 

42

to cross-border support for the M23. And the M23 simply has got 

to be dismantled through a political process or a military process, 

and probably it will require both. At least the threat of a military 

element is going to be necessary. 

Mr. SMITH. For a question, our African specialist on the subcommittee, Greg Simpkins, who was actually in the region as far 

back as 1998; and I yield to Greg. 

Mr. SIMPKINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Back then in 1998, right before the fighting—the war started, I 

was quite clear that the problem of cross-border raids into Rwanda 

was very serious. And this is the reason that the Rwandans give 

for intervening, although we have issues with the way they have 

done it. 

A lot of suggestions have been made for how we deal with this. 

Is there any strategy that you have seen that you think will work 

to finally put an end to these cross-border raids so that there is no 

reason for the Rwandans to intervene? 

You have said the neutral force probably is not going to work. 

We still have MONUSCO there, which is I believe 2,000 troops 

under its mandated level. There is still the Congo Army. What 

means are there available to finally bring an end to these raids? 

Mr. STEARNS. I think that, ironically, the best way, the most successful approach has been joint operations between the Congolese 

Government and the Rwandan Army. This was the 2009 peace deal 

that integrated the CNDP into the Congolese army, which brought 

about joint operations between those two countries. 

Now those joint operations had terrible humanitarian side effects—I won’t call them side effects—consequences that I will never 

underestimate. But the fact of the matter is that the FDLR that 

had been carrying out these cross-border raids has been hit extremely hard in the last 3 years. In the last 3 years, they have 

probably lost between 60 and 70 percent of their troops. They are 

now currently estimated to be probably not more than between 

1,000 to 2,000 troops. So compare that with 6,000 to 7,000 back in 

2008. 

Even according to Rwandan security officials in private when I 

speak to them, they almost laugh. They say that these people are 

not—they still have the capacity to carry out terrorist attacks into 

Rwanda, and I think that is still a concern of the Rwandan Government, especially against installations. But the last serious attack 

they carried out in Rwanda was in 2001. So it has been 11 years 

since any serious number of these people crossed the border and 

carried out an attack. Since then, you have had great grenade attacks, some of them which are probably carried out by FDLR 

troops, some of them not. 

But the FDLR, as such, is a dying organization. There is no 

doubt about that. But, ironically, it was this peace deal that had 

brought about that. And ironically, again, if there has been any 

respite to the FDLR, it is these new attacks. The FDLR is a mercenary organization, so they breed on insecurity. They are there at 

the moment praying that the Congolese Government will reach out 

to them because the Congolese Government has now fallen out 

with the Rwandan Government. 

43

So in terms of how to go forward in the future, I think that, as 

I said before, if the Rwandan Government really is motivated—and 

I don’t think it is solely motivated by the FDLR, but that is certainly a consideration—then the Congolese Government should consider to allow the Rwandan Government to continue joint operations against the FDLR and its territory. The Rwandan Government, up to last year, up to early this year, had two companies of 

special forces deployed on Congolese territory, and that is something they could consider to keep doing. But I think that the 

FDLR, as such, as an organization, is on its last legs. 

Mr. SIMPKINS. Mr. Schneider? 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. I think that you need to have, in a sense, a renewal of the previous political agreement. But it is going to require 

additional pressure on both Kigali and Kinshasa, and I think that 

an element of that has got to be an agreement for a cross-border 

verification mechanism against cross-border incursions both ways. 

And that is where it seems to me as well that MONUSCO needs 

to play a stronger role than it has in the past. 

Mr. SIMPKINS. Bishop Ntanda. 

Bishop NTANDA. Thank you very much. 

You can look at the U.N. report. I think it will have the correct 

concept of this. Rwanda is arming Hutus, militias, sending them 

back to Congo in order to justify its presence. For economic reasons, we have called them. I think the best one who can receive a 

very good response to that is the U.N. report in your hands. Rwanda is playing all kinds of games to hide himself, to justify himself. 

I think the U.N. report is clear. We will find the correct answer 

from there, please. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. I would say to our very distinguished witnesses you have given us a clear blueprint. Hopefully, 

the administration is listening as well. We will follow up very aggressively, which is why we had the hearing in the first place, to 

really get your take. 

Do you have any final words or any comments you would like to 

convey to the committee before we adjourn? 

Mr. SCHNEIDER. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I do 

think that it would be useful during these next several days, given 

the sessions that are taking place at the U.N. next week and 2 

weeks after that in the region, to make clear your concerns. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. We had spoken earlier and your suggestion, Mark, of a letter I think is a good one in follow-up to this. 

So thank you for that. 

The hearing is adjourned, and thank you so much. 

[Whereupon, at 11:25 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(45)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

46

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76030n.eps

SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING NOTICE 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20515-0128 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, AND HUMAN RIGHTS 

Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ), Chairman 

September 18,2012 

You are respectfully requested to attend an OPEN hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Health, and Human Rights, to be held in Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building (and available 

live via the Committee website at http://www.hcfa.hollse.gov) 

DATE: 

TIME: 

SUBJECT: 

WITNESSES: 

Wednesday, September 19, 2012 

10:00 a.m. 

Examining the Role of Rwanda in the DRC Insurgency 

Bishop Ntambo Nkulu Ntanda 

United Methodist Church of North Katanga, Democratic Republic of the Congo 

Mr. Mark Schnei def 

Senior Vice President 

International Crisis Group 

Mr. Jason Stearns 

Director, U salama Proj ect 

Rift Valley Institute 

By Direction of the Chairman 
47

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76030m.eps

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

MINUTES OF SUBCOMMITTEE ON ____ --'A"'IJi"',.,:.:·co"' • ...:G"'io:.:b"'":.:' I:.:c1e",""itl",',-,"""'::.',,1l,,"',,,"o:"'.:..' R",'"'g',,,".:..' ____ IIEARING 

Day Wednesil"I' Dale September i9, 2012 Room,_--"2",i2,7",2",R",,,,,,,,,.b,,,u,,,,·,,,, __ 

Stal'ting Time 10·00 II W Ending Time 11:24 a.11t. 

Rece.,ses [oj ( __ to __ ) L-to __ )( __ to __ )( __ to __ )( __ 10 --l L-to __ ) 

Presiding Member(.) 

Rep. ClzriN Smith 

Check all of fhe fol/owing fllal apply: 

Open Session G'J Executive (clo.ed) Session 0 Televised G'J 

TITLE OF HEARING, 

ElectronicallyRecord~taped) G'J 

Stenographic ReCOl'll W 

Examilling the the Role of Rwaltda ill the DRC insurgellcy 

SUIIC()MMIT'rK~: M ~;MIIE){S PJ{I':~;mNT' 

Rep. Chris Smith, Rep. Karen Bass 

NON-SUBCOMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: (Mark wifh an * iflhe)' are Ilof members ojjill! commiltee.) 

HEARING WITNESSES, Same as mecting notice attaclted? Yes m No D 

(If I<no H, please list beloH' and include title, agency, department, or organization.) 

STATEMENTS FOR THE RECORD: (List Q},YSlalemeIllS submitted/or the record.) 

Prepared .<tateme'ltjmm Rep. Buerkle 

QlleM;oll jor tfle Record ji"lJln Rep. Buerkle 

Statement fi"om the GO)lerJ1mellt oj RWllndll 

SllItement fi"um Ulliletl to EII/f Genocide 

TIME SCHEDULED TO RECONVENE ---- W 01' ~ ~ /l /J TIME ADJOURNED 11:24 a.m. W uttit 

Si\ committee Staff Directol' 
48

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76030d.eps

Prepared Statement of Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you also to our witnesses for appearing here 

today. 

It is not easy to know where to begin in discussing the ongoing violence in the 

Congo. I have spoken face-to-face with Congolese people in my district and it is 

heartbreaking. In particular, the violence against women is appalling. 

1 am thankfhl for the assiduous efforts of both Congolese and Americans in my 

district to try to raise awareness about the situation in the Congo. Tn particular, T 

am gratefhl to Syracuse University and Syracuse Stage, who recently premiered 

"Cry for Peace: Voices From the Congo." 

The reality is that the Congo is in desperate need of assistance and the United 

States has a unique opportunity to utilize global pressure to advance peace and 

security in the Congo. The US govemment must continue to explore means of 

accountability for Rwanda's aggression against the Congolese people. The 

Administration should encourage our allies to continue to withhold aid from 

Rwanda until stability is restored in the east of the Congo. 

As long as Rwanda continues its aggression against the Congolese people, the 

Administration should explore ways to assure that Rwanda faces increased 

pressures from the intemational connnunity, including from the United Nations. 

The US Ambassador to the United Nations should explore ways in which targeted 

sanctions can be levied against individuals in the Rwandan regime identified by the 

United Nations group of Experts as having supported rebels in the Congo. 

In the end, the Congolese people - civil society, religious leaders, students, 

women's groups - who have been victims of Rwanda's aggression should be the 

ones who have the tinal say as to whether Rwanda has ceased its aggression 

against the people and hence deserve restoration ofthe aid that has been 

suspended. 

I look fonvard to hearing from our witnesses about this desperate situation and 

how America can best be of assistance. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back my time. 
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Question for the record submitted by Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle 

Examining the Role (!JRwanda in the DRC Insurgency 

September 13,2012 

Could you please comment on whether or not there is evidence that the US Congress should 

investigate whether the Administration is in violation of the Leahy Amendment in training 

Rwandan soldiers who may be committing war crimes or crimes against humanity in the Congo 

or supporting those who are committing crimes against humanity in the Congo? 

Response from Mr. Mark Schneider ofInternational Crisis Group: 

The initial report from the UN group of experts, along with the latest repOlt which specifically 

identities the Rwandan defense minister as responsible tor the support to the M23, is greatly 

worrisome. There have been reports of Rwanda defense forces supporting the M23 and of tho 

M23 engaging in human rights violations. Based on these reports, the State Department, through 

the embassies in Kigali and Kinshasa, will have to investigate to determine whether RVlianda 

units or soldiers were involved in conduct which, under the Leahy Amendment, would prevent 

US. funds from being used in military assistance. 
50

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, 

A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, AND CHAIRMAN, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, AND HUMAN RIGHTS


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communities in the absence of a reliable national socio-economic and political 

framework. These armed groups, coupled with the enduring presence of foreign 

terrorist groups such as the Forces Democratiques pour la Liberation du Rwanda 

[FDLR), the Lord Resistance Army (LRA), Allied Democratic Forces (AD F) and others, 

have gravely exacerhated the problem, The recent conflicts in EDRC are inextricably 

linked to the failure by the GoDRC to pursue a sustainable solution to this situation 

through sincere political dialogue and genuine integration program. 

A short background would attest to this fact: 

• The Pretoria agreement in 2002: The agreement called tor cession of 

hostilities, inter-Congolese dialogue, withdrawal of foreign forces and 

disarmament of negative forces. These initiatives produced limited political 

success. Indeed, Rwanda continued to experience incursions and terrorist 

attacks by FDLR mainly from North Kivu sometimes with direct or indirect 

support of GoDRC officials. As a result, Rwanda recommended the 2 

establishment of a joint Verification Mechanism [jMV) that was designed to 

address cross-horder security issues and specifically deal with the ExForces Armees Rwandaises (ex-FAR) groups responsible for the 1994 

genocide in Rwanda; 

• The Nairobi agreement in 2007: Even under these uneasy circumstances, 

Rwanda accepted to be a party to these negotiations on a " ... common 

approach to end the threat posed to peace and security". Smprisingly, 

instead of implementing the agreement, the CoDRe and MONUC emharked 

on yet another offensive against the National Congress for the Defence of 

the People (CNDP) and Gen. Nkunda, triggering a major counter-offensive 

hy CND!' against FARDC, which led to a major crisis in Octoher 2008. Under 

intense military pressure and political distress, the GoDRC requested 

Rwanda's support to neutralise CNDI', Rwanda gave the DRe's request a 

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positivp. consideration accepting to attend the Nairobi Summit during 

which Rwanda expressed her preference for bilateral mechanisms over 

international intervention; 

Operation Umoja Wetu in 2009: Following the November 2007 Summit 

in Nairobi and a subsequent meeting of Rwanda's Ministers for Defence 

and Foreign Affairs to DRC, a joint operation by FARDC and RDF nicknamed 

Operation UMOJA-WETU was launched in January 2009. The operation was 

remarkably slIccessiiJl in as far as (i) FDLR was significantly weakened; [ii) 

more than 2000 Congolese refugees in Rwanda returned home; (iii) the 

Presidents resumed direct engagements and met in Goma and in Kinshasa; 

(iv) Embassies were re-opened in both capitals; (v) stalled economic 

projects were fast-tracked bilaterally and within CEPGL framework; and 

[vi) CNDP was no longer a threat to the GoDRe, based on expectation that 

the agreement reached between [NDP and GoDRC in Nairobi would foster 3 

political and military integration. 

On 21st June 2012, the UN Group of Experts (GoE) on DRC submitted its interim 

annual report to the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee. Four drtys later, the 

GoE submitted a 48-page Addendum to the interim report under intense pressure 

from the media and non-state actors. The Addendum contains a raft of allegations to 

promote the narrative of active involvement by the Government of Rwanda (GaR) in 

the creation and support of M23 mutineers in violation of the UN Arms Embargo and 

Sanctions Regime that applies to the DRe. 

It should he understood that Rwanda is most affected by the consequences of 

instability in the EDRC; therefore it has all to gain in region stability. The Addendum 

thus fails to arldress basic questions such as: VVl1at would Rwanda be seeking to 

achieve through M23 that it could not achieve through other means? What would be 

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Rwanda's end goal in supporting a mutiny? What strategic purpose would be served 

hy active involvement in destabilizing and subverting the central government of the 

DRC? Why would Rwanda have invested so much over the last three years in 

consolidating its partnership with the DRC central government if it eventually aimed 

to undermine it? 

In fact, multiple political, diplomatic and military demarches by the GoR expose the 

inherent contradictions in the unsubstantiated claim that Rwanda supported the 

creation of M23 and/or its cause. The GoR provided political and moral support to 

the reelection of President Kabila in 2011 General Elections, and was involved in 

over ten bilateral meetings with GoDRC in support to political dialogue and 

integration of disgruntled ex-CNDP officials as requested hy President Kahila. 

Rwanda's effurts to prevent escalation and military confrontation were undermined 

by the increasingly belligerent attitude of the FARDC (supported hy the MONllSCO) 

and the overall lack of a strategic approach to fostering stahility in EDRC 

The emergence of the M23 is a result of lhe failure of the above mentioned mediation 

efforts. Despite the lack of willingness on part of the GoDRC and active fabrications of 

evidence with regards to Rwanda's support to the M23, the GoR continued to seek 

the resolution using regional mechanisms, mainly the International Conference of 

Great Lakes Region (ICGLR). 

Consequently, Rwanda has opened itself to international monitoring verification and 

supports the establishment of the Neutral International Force to eradicate armed 

groups in EDRC and supporting the GaDRe in resolving the wider aspects of the 

conflict. Conversely, it's known lhat the GoDRC has been actively strengthening 

alliances with the FDLR, providing it with operational support induding the 

provision of arm ami ammunition, uniforms, military m cards, and safe passages. 

However known, these serious facts arc disingenuously overlooked by the 

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international community and instead focuses on Rwanda's allp.ged support to the 

mutiny despite its constructive role, 

Through regional efforts, Rwanda supports the resolution of the current crisis whilst 

helping the GoDRC to tackle the root causes of the cyclical conflicts in EDRC. 

Additionally, Rwanda believes that stability in EDRC cannot be brought about by 

international intervention's that portrays GoDRC as a victim; disregards Rwanda's 

constructive role in stabilizing the EDRC; focuses exclusively on "eradication" of 

armed groups without addressing the underlining cause or their existence; and 

undermines sub-regional initiatives, 

End!. 

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Save Datjur Coalition and Genocide Intervention Network are now 

United To End Genocide Statement for the Record 

United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs 

Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights 

"Examining the Role of Rwanda in the Democratic Republic of Congo Insurgency" 

September 19, 2012 

Chairman Smith and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for holding a hearing on the role 

of Rwanda in the insurgency in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). We appreciate the 

opportunity to submit a statement for the record. The hearing offers an opportunity to discuss, 

not only the renewed humanitarian crisis in eastern DRC, but also the underlying causes of the 

contlict. 

As the largest activist organization in the United States dedicated to preventing and ending 

genocide and mass atrocities worldwide, United to End Genocide is deeply concerned about 

gross human rights violations, crimes against humanity, and war crimes being perpetrated by 

armed groups in the DRC's eastern provinces. 

As a result ofviolence in the ORC that began in 1996, over 5.5 million people have died, 

countless women and children have been raped and 2.5 million people live as refugees. We are 

deeply concerned by the increased insecurity in North Kivu caused by fighting between the 

Congolese military and a group of army defectors, known as M23. 

In late April 2012, M23 began fighting with the Congolese Armed Forces (FAROC) The rebel 

group has since taken control of towns in Masisi and Rutshuru near the Ugandan and Rwandan 

borders. During the final week of July, the United Nations (UN) reported that M23 had taken 

control of villages within 40 km of North Kivu's capital Goma. Fortunately, no direct clashes 

have been reported since that time even though the threat of renewed attacks continues. 

According to the {..TN, the recent violence has uprooted nearly half a million people, including 

some 220,000 people who remain displaced within North Kivu province and 200,000 within 

South Kivu province. More than 51,000 have fled to neighboring Uganda and Rwanda. M23's 

activities have led to condemnation from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the UN Security 

Council (UNSC). 

A newly-released report from Human Rights Watch accuses the M23 rebels of being responsible 

for widespread war crimes, including summary executions, rapes and forced recruitment of child 

soldiers. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, noted on June 19 that the 

leadership ofM23 features "prominently among the worst perpetrators of human rights 

violations in the DRe." Bosco Ntaganda, whose defection from F AROC spurred the creation of 

M23, is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes committed in nearby Ituri 

province between 2002 and 2003. In addition, other M23 leaders have an established record of 

perpetrating mass atrocity crimes. 
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Uniled lo End Genocide Slalemenl [or the Record 

Page 2 

We are encouraged by the ongoing high-level dialogue among regional states through the 

International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, and urge the UNSC and the US 

government to emphasize political solutions in the interest of protecting civilians and deterring 

further violence. 

We support efforts to hold alleged human rights abusers accountable, including Bosco Ntaganda, 

Sylvestre Mudacumura and other leaders of armed groups who are the subjects of multiple ICC 

arrest warrants. We are concerned by reports that anned groups have increased their operations 

in light of the security vacuum created by fighting between M23 and F ARDC. The UN has 

reported that the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), Mayi-Mayi militia, 

and the Lord's Resistance Army have committed more than 45 attacks on 30 villages since May, 

including the massacres of people in North Kivu. 

In addition to military reform, the government of the DRC must improve the credibility and 

transparency of the domestic electoral process. The Congolese Independent National Electoral 

Commission must be reformed prior to provincial elections. This would help to enable legitimate 

governance. 

We call on the government of the DRC to ensure that the protection of civilian populations 

remains a priority. The Congolese government urgently needs to deploy capable forces to combat 

the FDLR and suppress ethnically motivated attacks by anned groups. Developing a disciplined 

and unified army as part of a comprehensive security sector refonn (SSR) process remains 

critical to the stabilization of the DRC. Therefore, international donors should coordinate their 

programs for SSR to ensure that the government of the DRC immediately implements the 

necessary refonns and increases its capacity to protect civilians. We also urge the UNSC to 

support MONUSCO and its stakeholders to successfully implement the SSR protocols under 

their new mandate. 

In light of credible reports from Human Rights Watch, the UN Organization Stabilization 

Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) and the UN Group of Experts on the DRC, we are deeply 

concerned that members of the Rwandan government continue to provide weapons and recruit 

soldiers for M23 and other armed groups operating in the DRC. In response, the US. 

Department of State suspended $200,000 of military aid to Rwanda this past July. We encourage 

the United States government to remain actively engaged at the highest levels to urge Rwanda to 

playa constructive, not destabilizing, role in addressing the crisis. 

Lastly, we welcome Congress' ongoing leadership to target the use of the DRC's rich mineral 

resources by armed groups as a means to fuel the conflict. We appreciate that the U.S. Security 

and Exchange Commission recently approved final rules on the 2010 Wall Street Reform and 

Consumer Protection Act Section 1502, the conflict minerals provision. This is an important first 

step towards curbing profits for armed groups and building a legitimate mining sector. 

Moving forward, we urge the US. government to support the development of innovative systems 

that enable supply chain actors to source minerals that are validated, certified and traced to mines 

that are contEct free. This process must be monitored and audited using internationallyrecognized standards and mechanisms to support responsible self-sustaining minerals trade in the 

DRC and adjoining nations.