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50–025 PDF 2009

S. HRG. 111–27 

STRENGTHENING U.S. DIPLOMATIC 

CAPACITY IN AFRICA 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICAN AFFAIRS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

April 21, 2009 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware 

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York 

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana 

Republican Leader designee 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

DAVID MCKean, Staff Director

KENNETH A. MYERS, JR., Republican Staff Director

——————

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICAN AFFAIRS

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin, Chairman

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

(II)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Feingold, Hon. Russ, U.S. Senator From Wisconsin ............................................. 1 

Isakson, Hon. Johnny, U.S. Senator From Georgia .............................................. 3 

Lyman, Hon. Princeton N., Adjunct Fellow for Africa Policy, Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, DC ......................................................................... 11 

Prepared statement ...................................................................................... 13 

Pickering, Hon. Thomas R., Former Under Secretary of State for Political 

Affairs, Department of State, Washington, DC ................................................. 4 

Prepared statement ...................................................................................... 6 

Wolpe, Hon. Howard, Director of Africa Program and Project on Leadership 

and Building State Capacity, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC ....... 19 

Prepared statement ...................................................................................... 21 

(III)

(1) 

STRENGTHENING U.S. DIPLOMATIC 

CAPACITY IN AFRICA 

TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2009 

U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICAN AFFAIRS, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in room 

SD–419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Russ Feingold 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Feingold, Kaufman, Lugar, Corker, and Isakson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RUSS FEINGOLD, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM WISCONSIN 

Senator FEINGOLD. This hearing will come to order. On behalf of 

the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs, I 

welcome you all to this hearing, entitled ‘‘Strengthening U.S. Diplomatic Capacity to Anticipate, Prevent, and Respond to Conflict in 

Africa.’’ I’m honored that I’ll be joined by the ranking member of 

the subcommittee, Senator Isakson, and I will ask him to deliver 

some opening remarks when he arrives. 

Today’s topic is one that has come up again and again in the 

hearings of this subcommittee, in my own travels throughout Africa 

over the years. I’ve seen, firsthand, the dedication of our diplomats, 

their resourcefulness, and their hard work. I’ve also—but, I’ve also 

seen how they are overstretched and lack the necessary resources 

and authorities to fully pursue comprehensive strategies. 

The gaps in our diplomatic capacities are especially felt when it 

comes to work on defusing regional conflicts, a priority set by the 

National Security Strategy of 2006. As that strategy notes, these 

conflicts often spread or devolve into humanitarian tragedies, as 

we’ve seen in Congo, in Sudan, and can be exploited by outside 

parties, such as al Qaeda, as we are seeing, to some extent, in 

Somalia. 

Defusing conflict starts with anticipating them beforehand so 

that we are not constantly reacting. 

At his confirmation hearing, CIA director Leon Panetta said he 

is concerned that we aren’t allocating enough intelligence resources 

to various parts of the world, including Africa. While we must address these gaps, we must also recognize that much of the information our country needs on Africa, everything from civil conflicts and 

instability and potential terrorist safe havens, can sometimes be 

obtained overtly through increased diplomatic reporting. I’ve been 

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concerned, for a long time, that we have little to no political presence in key parts of Africa, such as the Central African Republic, 

Northern Nigeria, or Eastern Congo. As a result, we lack eyes and 

ears to gather information and anticipate emerging crises or fully 

understand existing ones. 

In addition, we need to help our diplomats get outside their embassy compounds in foreign capitals to interact with a range of 

non-national governmental actors. This was a goal of the Bush administration’s transformational diplomacy initiative, but their rhetoric was not followed by much action. We need to make good on 

that vision, which includes ensuring our ambassadors in Africa 

have sufficient authority and flexible resources, and looking to establish more permanent out-of-embassy posts. This must all be 

part of an overall integrated interagency collection-and-analysis 

strategy. 

Last year, Senator Hagel and I introduced legislation to establish 

an independent commission to address the lack of such a strategy. 

This legislation was passed by the Intelligence Committee last 

year. And, although Senator Hagel has retired, I intend to reintroduce this legislation this year, and hope that my colleagues on this 

committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, will also support it. 

Now, once we get the information, the next question is, What do 

we do with it? I’ve supported the use of special envoys in different 

cases, but we need to ensure that they are used effectively and remember that they are just a short-term enhancement to our diplomacy. In the long term, we need to rebuild and reposition our diplomatic capabilities to engage in conflict prevention and 

peacebuilding. 

At the same time, we can’t do this all ourselves, nor should we. 

The State Department’s strategic plan for 2007–2012, emphasizes 

regional solutions to regional problems. To that end, we need to 

look at how we can better partner with strong regional actors, such 

as Nigeria and South Africa, and help Africa’s regional organizations develop new capabilities to address conflict. 

I probably do not need to remind anyone that, over the past few 

weeks, there’s been increasing concern about the spate of piracy attacks off Somalia’s coast. I’ve been worried, for some time, about 

the piracy problem, which is an outgrowth of the collapse of Government in Somalia, and I’m working with the chairman of the full 

committee to hold special piracy and Somalia-related hearings as 

soon as possible. But today’s hearing is very relevant because it addresses our ability to address this and other problems, which is, in 

fact, handicapped by inadequate tools and already strained capacity. The administration must make a more serious and sustained 

diplomatic push to stabilize Somalia, including appointing a senior 

envoy for the Horn of Africa. But, these obstacles may make that 

even more difficult. 

Finally, I hope to hold a confirmation hearing, as soon as possible, on the nomination for Assistant Secretary for African Affairs. 

I know, from conversations with him, that Ambassador Carson recognizes the importance of strengthening our diplomatic capacity, 

and I hope today’s hearing will provide some recommendations for 

him to consider, if confirmed. 

3 

Now, I certainly feel that we have an all-star lineup of witnesses 

here with us today, all with intimate knowledge and extensive experience with their diplomatic capacity. 

First, we’ll hear from Ambassador Thomas Pickering, the former 

U.S. Under Secretary of State and former Ambassador to the Russian Federation, India, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria, the Kingdom 

of Jordan, and the United Nations. Time magazine has called him 

‘‘the five-star general of the diplomatic corps.’’ Ambassador Pickering now serves as the chairman of the board of the American 

Academy of Diplomacy, and recently was a member of their Genocide Prevention Task Force. 

It’s, of course, an honor to have you with us today. 

We’ll then hear from Ambassador Princeton Lyman, former U.S. 

Ambassador to South Africa and Nigeria, and former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. Ambassador 

Lyman is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, 

and has written and commentated extensively on developing a 

more strategic U.S. approach to Africa. And I have benefited tremendously over the years from his insights and his knowledge. 

And I’m very glad to have you here today, as well. 

Finally, we’ll have Dr. Howard Wolpe, a man who knows what 

it feels like to be in my seat up here. Congressman Wolpe represented Michigan’s 3rd District from 1979 to 1993, and, for many 

of those years, served as the chairman of the House Subcommittee 

on African Affairs. In addition, though, Dr. Wolpe brings the 

unique experience of having served as a special envoy; during the 

Clinton administration, a Presidential envoy to the Great Lakes region of Africa. He now works as the director of the Africa Program 

at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and director of its Project on Leadership and Building State Capacity. 

I am grateful to all three of you for joining us here today, and 

I look forward to hearing your brief testimony and having a lively 

discussion. I note, with a great deal of pleasure, that Senator 

Corker has joined us today. 

And now, of course, it’s my pleasure to turn to the distinguished 

ranking member, Senator Isakson, for his opening remarks. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHNNY ISAKSON, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM GEORGIA 

Senator ISAKSON. Well, thank you, Senator Feingold, and thank 

you very much for calling this hearing today. I want to welcome the 

witnesses. I won’t make a long statement, except to repeat what 

the chairman has heard me say, and others, before. 

I think, in the 21st century, Africa is the continent for the 

United States of America, and I think it is very important for us 

to understand what our diplomatic capacity is, and to strengthen 

it wherever we can. It is a very diverse, very interesting, very rich, 

and very challenging continent. Senator Corker and myself will be 

going to five African countries at the end of May to try and raise 

our presence there, and to convey to those countries our interest in 

them and the entire African continent. 

We appreciate your being here. I am familiar with each and 

every one of you. Your reputations precede you, and I’m looking 

4 

forward to learn a great deal from you, and appreciate your willingness today to make a commitment to this committee. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator FEINGOLD. I thank the ranking member for his statement and for his very cooperative approach to, and role on, this 

committee. 

Unless Mr. Corker has a comment, I would now turn to Ambassador Pickering for his comments. 

STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. PICKERING, FORMER UNDER 

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC 

Ambassador PICKERING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator 

Isakson, Senator Corker. And it’s a pleasure to be with you, and 

an honor to testify before this subcommittee on the important subject of anticipating, preventing, and responding to conflict in Africa. 

I’m delighted to join two old friends and colleagues, to my right, in 

this testimony, and I have written testimony, which I hope will be 

useful in the record. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Without objection. 

Ambassador PICKERING. Today, I want to do two or three things 

in my testimony. I want to sketch out the nature of conflict and 

some of the issues which lead to conflict in current-day Africa. I 

want to point out some of the steps and ideas that will contribute 

to anticipating and preventing—responding—conflict in the continent. And last, I want to try to answer some of your specific questions. 

With respect to conflict, while Africa, over the years, has had 

more than its share of conflicts and problems, which might lead to 

further strife, a careful review of some of the current issues and 

problems in Africa will set out some of the kinds of issues which 

Africans and those outside the continent interested in resolution 

will now face, and will face in the future. In this testimony, I won’t 

be able to review all of the issues; however, it draws heavily on the 

work of the International Crisis Group, where I am cochairman of 

the board, and I believe I can provide information broadly representative of the current questions and issues to set the stage. I 

then discuss a number of conflicts, including Somalia, the coming 

elections in South Africa, and other things. 

Certainly, the two big questions for us at the moment remain the 

Congo, which has undergone some dramatic change. Eastern Congo 

has been the subject of a longstanding conflict with Rwandanbacked and -supported groups, and the army of the Congo Republic, among other things. Rwanda has recently shifted its position, 

and this has led to some political change, as well as to some change 

in the region, and it’s called, I think, for even further work on behalf of the peacekeepers and, indeed, those who are dealing directly 

with the political problems in the Eastern Congo. 

The Sudan, if anything, is more complex. As you know, President 

Omar Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal 

Court. And Darfur remains a terribly troubled and extremely difficult problem, and the issue is further complicated by the fact of 

the North-South Peace Agreement and the pending referendum, in 

5 

a couple of years, which will decide whether the country stays unified or divided. 

All of these issues, and many more, indicate that increased capacities and activities of the United States and others can play a 

useful role. 

First is the collection of intelligence, which you just have mentioned. Africa has traditionally been seen only as a peripheral part 

of U.S. strategic interests, even at the height of the cold war. And 

weak intelligence collection, I think, and weak analysis, has tended 

to characterize the Africa scene. Embassies were in the forefront of 

collection, and remain so today, and their reporting, as you noted, 

Mr. Chairman, remains very, very important to move the question 

ahead. 

A second set of capacities relates to our diplomatic toolbox, if I 

can call it that way. We must have experienced personnel, trained 

in local languages, knowledgeable and ready to move, to deal with 

these issues in order to pick up the opportunities that are provided 

to us by political openings, and specialized teams ready and able 

to deploy could help us with a number of the problems in Africa 

over the years. 

Anticipating, preventing, and responding to conflicts requires active and effective public diplomacy, and I’ll point out some of the 

ways in which this might be improved. 

Similarly, foreign assistance, both humanitarian and developmental assistance, has diminished over the years, and this has further exposed us to vulnerabilities with respect to our friends in Africa and conflicts and tensions that might hurt, there. 

I think, finally, our capacities in similar areas, the military area, 

among others, are important. A document called the Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future, prepared in 2008 by the American 

Academy and the Stimson Center, provides for a number of very, 

very important ideas that might help. It helps to strengthen our 

core diplomacy by asking for another thousand positions, at a cost 

of $510 million, between now and 2014. It seeks to engage nontraditional actors, the nongovernmental organizations. It looks forward to 100 positions in dealing with multilateral diplomacy, 20 

additional to help shape international law, 80 in the economic area, 

and 175 in interagency coordination. Not all of these would be devoted to Africa, but my view is that Africa should receive more 

than its proportionate share. 

Similarly, it suggests that ambassadors should have funds to 

deal with crisis, perhaps up from the current 25,000 to $250,000 

per ambassador, as a way to empower the ambassador on the scene 

to deal with some of the questions that are out there. 

In public diplomacy, it recommends a major increase in personnel—but, even more important, 100 percent increase in academic exchanges, 50 percent in visitor grants, 25 percent in youth 

exchanges—as ways to address, and indeed face, some of the underlying problems that lead to tension and conflict. 

Foreign aid personnel have declined, over the last 25 or 30 years, 

from 4,300 to 2,200. And this particular approach recommends significant increases in direct-hire foreign aid personnel to avoid the 

notion that the aid agency has become a contract management operation and not actually engaging. 

6 

Stabilization and reconstruction, both before and after conflict, 

are extremely important, and here it recommends 562 positions 

plus two reserve corps of 2,000 each, a bill which has already 

moved through the House and, I believe, still pending here in the 

Senate. But, these are important steps, obviously, to strengthen the 

capacity of our diplomacy to move these particular questions ahead. 

You have asked a number of questions, and I will just briefly respond, in the remaining time, to a few of them. 

One, Do the State Department and the international community 

have sufficient capacity to anticipate long-term threats and genocide? The genocide report says no, and it recommends both increases in the executive branch capacity to analyze and follow 

these issues, and, as well, a special interagency committee to remain on the alert, to signal, early, when issues may well descend 

to that kind of tragedy. 

What additional programs, expertise, and, indeed, resources can 

add the most value? I would say mediation and negotiation teams, 

specialized in conflict prevention, a special economic team to assess 

weak and declining countries and recommend programs for us and 

our allies and friends to help to build against deterioration, rapid 

response capability and humanitarian and economic assistance programs, specialized military training programs, where necessary, to 

bolster and strengthen African peacekeeping, and conflict prevention and special public diplomacy efforts to deal with those issues. 

What areas are being most neglected? Somalia, the Democratic 

Republic of Congo, and Sudan, Madagascar, and probably, in West 

Africa, Nigeria. 

Do our ambassadors have sufficient authority? No. They need the 

additional funds I mentioned. The President needs to write a permanent executive order setting out the authorities of ambassadors 

over all U.S. Government employees, except forces reporting to a 

combatant commander, and to define the relationship, in the latter 

case, between the combatant commander and the ambassador. 

How do we get our folks out of the compounds and maximize security, still? Follow the advice in the Embassy of the Future report. 

Train our people, and equip them to deal with risk management, 

recognizing that risk avoidance is not compatible with their being 

able to do the job. This involves improved training in issues like 

surveillance detection, secure driving practices, physical-security 

best practices, and situational awareness. 

Thank you for the chance to testify. This is an important subject, 

and I believe that many recommendations made in a number of recent reports will help significantly, in Africa and elsewhere, to improve our capacity to anticipate, prevent, and respond to conflict. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Pickering follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R PICKERING, FORMER UNDER SECRETARY

OF STATE FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am pleased and honored to be 

asked to testify before the subcommittee this afternoon on the important subject of 

anticipating, preventing, and responding to conflict in Africa. 

Over the years I had the privilege of serving our government and people on three 

separate occasions in Africa. First, I was assigned as a naval officer in Port Lyautey 

(Kenitra), Morocco from 1957 to 1959. Later I served as a Foreign Service officer 

in Tanzania as Consul in Zanzibar from 1965 to 1967, and then later as Deputy 

7 

Chief of Mission at our Embassy in Dar es Salaam from 1967 to 1969. Subsequently, 

I was Ambassador to Nigeria from 1981 to 1983. 

Later I served as Under Secretary for Political Affairs in the State Department 

from 1997–2000 where I dealt frequently with African issues. These assignments 

have given me a good basis to understand Africa and African developments, particularly as they relate to conflict. 

Recently, I had the pleasure of participating in several relevant studies and panels including the Prevention of Genocide, a Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future, 

The Embassy of the Future, former Secretary of State Rice’s Panel on Transitional 

Diplomacy, a Study of China, the United States and Africa among others. These 

helped also to give me a firmer understanding of the challenges and the solutions. 

Today I want to do several things in my testimony. First I want to sketch out 

the nature of conflict and some of the issues which lead to conflict in current day 

Africa. Then I want to point to some of the steps and ideas that will contribute to 

anticipating, preventing, and responding to conflict in the continent. Last, I want 

to try to answer some of your specific questions. 

CONFLICT IN AFRICA

While Africa over the years had more than its share of conflicts and problems 

which might lead to conflict, a careful review of some of the current issues and problems in Africa will set out some of the kinds of issues which Africans and those outside the continent interested in conflict resolution face now and in the future. In 

this testimony it is not possible to review all of the issues. However, drawing heavily on the work of the International Crisis Group, where I am cochairman of the 

board, I believe I can provide information on a broadly representative sample of current questions and issues to set the stage. 

Let me begin in West Africa. Just a few months ago the important country of 

Guinea underwent a transition with the death of President Conte, a long-serving 

President of the country who had been in charge for several decades and ran the 

country almost as a personal fief. His death led to serious uncertainty and a difficult 

selection process for his successor. The disappearance of autocrats in Africa without 

any clear system for their successor is often a source of tension, uncertainty, and 

potential conflict. The African Union, the Economic Organization of West African 

States (ECOWAS) and friendly countries can play a diplomatic role in easing those 

transitions and avoiding conflict in the region. This requires good personnel in our 

Embassies and strong ambassadorial leadership from knowledgeable and experienced professional diplomats. A recent report setting out the needed funding to 

make up for shortfalls in these areas in the State Department will be reviewed in 

a following section of my testimony to point out some of the way forward. 

A second problem arose in the small country of Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony before its independence some years ago. This is not the first time 

Guinea Bissau has experienced troubles. Recently, the Army Chief was assassinated 

and the head of state was later killed during the ensuing confusion. It was clear 

to many observers that the root cause of these problems was increased drug trafficking through the country and the involvement of these elements in trying to influence governing relationships to protect their own activities. In this case, intelligence 

collection on site, strong leadership with good contacts and an ability to work diplomatically with other foreign representatives and to engage them in working together are critical requirements and skills need to help avoid conflict or prevent 

wider conflict. 

In Zimbabwe over recent months the extensive crises leading to starvation and 

a nearly unchecked cholera epidemic as well as economic collapse and a dispute over 

election returns and the participation of the opposition in governance and indeed 

the future of President Robert Mugabe who has ruled the country since independence in 1980 all impacted the country and raised the potential for extended internal 

conflict. 

What happened was the slow and painful working out of a potential solution 

around creating a unity government with the opposition leader as Prime Minister. 

This took a great deal of time and much political skill, mainly on the part of African 

states willing to work closely with both sides. It was an important example of how 

a political crisis that could lead to open conflict was resolved, at least temporarily, 

with a complex political solution involving both compromise and the beginning of 

a transition from long-time one-person rule to a more open leadership. The problems 

of Zimbabwe are a long way from full resolution, but efforts to build a shared leadership, introduce the dollar as the current currency, fight the epidemic, and open 

the door for more trade have helped. 

8 

South Africa tomorrow will have national elections. The succession in the African 

National Congress (ANC) has been disputed and fraught with local difficulties. New 

parties have emerged to contest the ANC’s dominance of the political scene. The 

United States has to watch this issue with care, understand the trends and issues, 

maintain close contacts and on its own, and quietly speak to all the parties to insure 

that a tense and difficult situation does not become worse. In these kinds of situations, the U.S. is often not the major player and must coordinate its actions carefully in quiet support of others who will take the lead. 

East Africa continues to present challenges. Many are increasingly worried that 

in Kenya, the violence of the past year will emerge again to dominate the scene as 

the two factions and tribal groups, Kikuyu and Luo, show signs of preparing for further violence in the wake of the deterioration of political cooperation. This is the 

time to begin to take action, working with the parties to prevent a worsening of the 

situation and working with others to help quietly seek and broker political solutions 

to current difficulties. 

Elsewhere in East Africa, Somalia is in more than just partial chaos. The resignation of a President who had little influence in the country is not the only sign of 

difficulty. Piracy off the coast has grown and is a current major story which will 

require naval and military cooperation as well as possible humanitarian assistance 

to deal with. 

And up until now we have not touched on the complex sets of problems which 

impact two of Africa’s giant states—the Democratic Republic of the Congo and 

Sudan. Since each of these would take a hearing in itself, I will only touch on some 

of the recent highlights to give you an idea of some of the areas which must be addressed to prevent further conflict and deal with the present and potential humanitarian challenges. 

Congo has undergone some of the most dramatic change. Eastern Congo has been 

the locus of longstanding conflict between Rwandan-backed and supported groups 

and the Army of the Congo. Rwanda has been sympathetic to its fellow Tutsis in 

the Congo, the Banyamulenge. This situation recently reversed itself when apparently Rwanda concluded that its erstwhile Tutsi ally, General Laurent Nkunda, was 

causing more difficulties than they could handle. Rwanda changed course, arrested 

General Nkunda which led to the dispersal of his forces, joined the Congolese Army 

and played an effective, leadership role in pushing some 6,500 former Hutu 

Genocidaires in the Eastern Congo further back into the bush. Rwanda’s motives 

were not all benign. It was beginning to take heavy international heat for its relationship with Nkunda, including from the United States. The process was helped 

by an active role on behalf of the U.N. played by former Nigerian President 

Olusegun Obasanjo. Congo still has many unmet priority needs, including what to 

do about a feckless national army, how to extend state authority over the Eastern 

Congo, the introduction of accountability into the government and how to improve 

governance and sustain regional relationships in general. 

Sudan is, if anything, more complex. The indictment of its President, General 

Omar Bashir, by the International Criminal Court has led to retaliation from Sudan 

through the expulsion of 13 humanitarian organizations working with displaced persons and refugees in Darfur. 

The situation is further complicated by growing pressure on the North-South 

peace arrangement under which there will be a referendum in 2011 on whether the 

South will separate from the North. Difficult questions in the likely event of such 

a move such as border alignment need to be addressed. In addition, uncertainty and 

tensions over Darfur and the indictment of the President have in turn brought 

about greater pressures on the North-South peace agreement. This will require careful international handling and close coordination of the various players if we are to 

avoid new conflicts breaking out in Sudan. 

ANTICIPATION, PREVENTION, AND RESPONSE

The above review notes a number of capacities and activities which can play a 

useful role in Africa. 

First is the collection of intelligence. Africa has traditionally been seen as only 

a peripheral part of United States strategic interest and even at the height of the 

cold war and during the contention with the Soviet Union and China in Africa we 

had a weak intelligence presence in the continent. Embassies were in the forefront 

of collection and reporting information on events likely to lead to conflict. Often 

these were confused and unclear and our analysis capability was focused elsewhere 

and did not deal with African events on a timely basis. There were exceptions such 

as when we were negotiating to remove Cuban and Russian forces from Angola and 

Nambia and assisting with the independence of Namibia. 

9 

A second set of capacities relates to our diplomatic tool box. We must have experienced personnel, trained in local languages, knowledgeable and ready to move to 

deal with these issues in concert with others. We need specialized teams ready and 

able to deploy to assist in working some of the problems in Africa. Over the years 

we have been hollowing out our diplomatic capabilities and Africa has been low on 

the list of priorities. Shortly I will talk about some much needed remedies. 

Anticipating, preventing, and responding to conflicts in Africa, as elsewhere, requires effective and active public diplomacy. In recent years this capacity too has 

been scaled back. That too needs to be reversed as I will suggest below. 

Similarly, our capacities in foreign assistance for both humanitarian needs and 

development have diminished quite remarkably. Both the total amount of funding 

available as well as the personnel trained and equipped to deal with these issues 

have diminished markedly in recent years. 

In the same fashion, until we stood up AFRICOM, we had fewer resources and 

organizational capability to provide training and assistance to African military 

forces for the peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions of the African Union 

and the United Nations both in and outside of Africa. While some have questioned 

our shift to a larger military quotient in our African policy, there is a small but significant role for our military assistance to play in preventing and responding to conflicts in Africa and supporting African Union peacekeepers. I suspect our present 

African Command, which I understand has over 1,300 staff, is considerably larger 

than we need and will convey a signal to our friends in Africa that we are militarizing our policy. 

In post conflict stabilization and reconstruction, we too have had almost no capacity until recently. The new Office of Stabilization and Reconstruction in the State 

Department has set about rectifying that weakness. 

WHAT SHOULD WE DO NOW?

‘‘A Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future,’’ a report prepared in October 2008 by 

the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Henry L. Stimson Center supported 

by the Una Chapman Cox Foundation provides some answers. It was predicated on 

the need to provide additional funds in the next five budget years to assure that 

the Department of State and AID would have sufficient personnel and training to 

be able to carry out their assigned tasks. 

Let me review some highlights because they relate directly to the areas singled 

out in the discussion above of African conflicts. While we did not in specific terms 

provide direct recommendations on the African area of staffing we felt strongly that 

it should receive at least its traditional proportion of the increase, and because of 

past stinting, perhaps an even larger than proportionate share. 

In traditional core diplomacy, a function which includes anticipating, preventing 

and responding to conflicts, the report recommends an increase in 1,099 positions 

over FY 2008 levels by FY 2014 at a cost of $510.5m annually by FY 2014. The purposes served by this increase include funds for proactive and preventive shaping capabilities directly related to the purpose of this hearing, for precrisis conflict mediation and resolution and for the development of joint-planning and joint-response 

strategies and capabilities. 

Engagement of nontraditional actors, especially in the nongovernmental organization (NGO) sector is another element that bears directly on the issues in this hearing and additional funds are called for in this area. 

Increases include 100 positions in multilateral diplomacy, 20 additional staff in 

helping to shape new international law, 80 staff in the economic area, the analysis 

and reporting on which is often critical in crises leading to conflicts, and 175 positions in all aspects of greater interagency coordination in the Department of State. 

In addition, it is proposed that funds made available to Ambassadors to deal with 

crises be increased from 25k to 250k, as well as up to $30m to deal with reconciliation conferences, civil society and microdevelopment projects, the ability to deploy 

rapid mediation and reconciliation teams, and similar rapid deployment capabilities 

for civil police trainers and advisers who can deal with impending civil strife. 

A major problem has been training. There are few positions set aside for this purpose and so to train people State has to pull them out of operational tasks. The report proposes an increase in such positions to 1,287 by FY 2014 at a cost of $309.8m 

in FY 2014 for all areas of training including hard languages such as Arabic, Urdu, 

Farsi, and Chinese. 

Public diplomacy has been underfunded for years. The report proposes an increase 

in personnel of 417 U.S. and 369 locally engaged staff by FY 2014 at a cost of 

$155.2m. The report also recommends 100 percent increase in academic exchanges, 

50 percent increase in visitor grants and 25 percent increase in youth exchanges as 

10 

well as an expansion of English language training, 40 new oversea cultural centers 

and increased support for our existing, now privatized, Latin American cultural centers all at a cost of $610.4m in FY 2014. 

Foreign aid is one of our primary tools in conflict prevention and response. AID 

personnel declined from 4,300 in 1975 to 2,200 in 2007. AID has only five engineers 

to work worldwide and 29 education officers to cover 84 countries. AID has become 

a contract management agency. 

The proposal is to increase AID direct hire staff by 1,250 above FY 2008 levels 

by FY 2014, offset by the reduction or conversion of some 700 contractors at a cost 

for the increase of $521m by FY 2014. 

On Stabilization and Reconstruction, it is proposed to increase the staff at State 

by 562 by FY 2014 including 500 to serve as an active response corps to deal with 

conflict prevention and response actions. In addition, it is proposed to establish a 

standby corps of 2,000 people working in Federal agencies and a civilian reserve of 

another 2,000 working outside the Federal Government. The cost for these activities 

is high because it will require regular, on-going training as new personnel are 

brought on board, equipment including vehicles to support deployment, and security 

protection where security in particular cannot be provided by the U.S. military. 

Finally the report recommends the realignment of military assistance authorities 

so that except for places in which we are engaged in combat operations, the Secretary of State is responsible for approving the countries to receive assistance and 

the expenditure levels and the Secretary of Defense provides advice and implements 

the programs. Where combat is going on the Secretary of Defense will carry out the 

country designations and expenditure-level determinations with the Secretary of 

State’s advice. 

We are pleased that FY 2009 budget decisions included a first slice of many of 

these items and that we understand FY 2010 budget proposals will similarly carry 

forward expanded requests. These should go far toward improving our capability in 

Africa to anticipate, prevent, and respond to conflicts. 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Does the State Department or the Intelligence Community have sufficient capacity to 

assess long-term threats and anticipate potential genocide or mass atrocities? 

Taking a leaf from the Genocide Report cited earlier. I believe the answer is ‘‘No.’’ 

That report recommends setting up a special office to cover, report on, and follow 

these developments closely and to support a special interagency committee which 

is set up to deal with these issues as they emerge. While the report makes recommendations, exact staffing levels and arrangements should be the product of expert study by the agencies concerned. 

What kind of additional resources, expertise or programs can add the most value? 

The information provided above sets out a broad response. From my perspective 

I think the following activities are most important—mediation and negotiating 

teams specialized in dealing with conflict and conflict prevention; a special economic 

team which can assess weak and declining countries and recommend programs for 

the United States and others to deal with this aspect of deterioration which might 

lead to conflict; rapid response humanitarian and economic assistance programs and 

military training programs to be used in cases where such tools could play a constructive role in conflict prevention; special public diplomacy teams which could deploy when required or be used in cases where such support is required to explain 

to the public and the regional and international community our policies and actions 

to prevent or respond to conflict. 

Specifically in Africa, what regions are being neglected? 

East Africa—Somalia; Central Africa—Democratic Republic of the Congo and 

Sudan; Southern Africa—Madagascar. 

Do our Ambassadors in Africa (everywhere) have sufficient authority and flexibility 

to carry out their missions appropriately? 

No. They need access to larger funds ($250 thousand) to respond to crises; the 

President needs to write a permanent Executive order setting out the authorities 

of Ambassadors over all U.S. Government employees except forces reporting to a 

Combatant Commander and to define the relationship in the latter case between the 

Combatant Commander and the Ambassador. 

How do we get our folks out of compounds and still maximize security? 

We follow the advice in the Embassy of the Future Report and train our people 

and equip them to deal with risk management, recognizing that risk avoidance is 

11 

not compatible with being able to do their job. This involves improved training in 

issues like surveillance detection, secure driving practices, physical security best 

practices and situational awareness. 

Thank you for this chance to testify. This is an important subject and I believe 

that the many recommendations made in a number of recent reports will help significantly in Africa, and elsewhere, to improve our capacity to anticipate, prevent, 

and respond to conflict. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you very much, Ambassador Pickering. 

Ambassador Lyman. 

STATEMENT OF HON. PRINCETON N. LYMAN, ADJUNCT FELLOW FOR AFRICA POLICY, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, WASHINGTON, DC 

Ambassador LYMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to Senators, 

for this opportunity. And I, also, would like my written testimony 

submitted for the record. 

I think it’s important to look at Africa, for itself, in analyzing the 

capacity of the department and the government to deal with conflicts. And I think comparisons with other regions are misleading. 

You have 48 states in sub-Saharan Africa. Many of them are 

weak, vulnerable states. Most of them are subject to the spillover 

effects of conflicts in neighboring countries. We have to recognize 

that conflicts will be part of the scene on the continent of Africa 

for decades to come. That’s why every Assistant Secretary of State 

for Africa comes on board with a broad agenda of development, environmentalist, good governance, et cetera, but spends most of his 

or her time running from one conflict to another, or maybe two or 

three at the same time. The structure of the Department and its 

supporting structures just don’t fit this reality. 

The Africa Bureau is smaller than the East Asia Pacific Bureau, 

smaller than the West Hemisphere Bureau, smaller than the Europe and Eurasia Bureau. It lacks the surge capacity, the capacity 

to mobilize teams dedicated to conflicts, like Ambassador Pickering 

talked about, teams that can work, over several years, seriously on 

each of these major issues. 

The lack of depth in the Department, its ability to cover important areas, can be illustrated just by Nigeria. As you well know, 

Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, with a serious conflict 

in the Delta region, unrest in the north, with economic decline— 

yet there is only one officer assigned to the desk for Nigeria. 

Now, the reality is that, in Africa, a lot of the conflicts, or potential conflicts, occur in small countries in which our presence is thin. 

We can see potential conflict or existing conflict in Guinea, GuineaBissau, Chad, Central African Republic, Comoros, Mauritania, the 

Casamance region of Senegal, et cetera. We can’t assume that we 

can put huge embassies or USAID missions in all these posts, but 

we can supplemental these posts with access to some of the newer 

diagnostic tools—Fund for Peace’s conflict assessment tool, Robert 

Rotberg and Mo Ibrahim’s governance index, a number of other diagnostic tools—but nothing substitutes for people on the ground— 

people with language skills, people with development resources, 

people who have travel funds, et cetera. And that can be backed 

up if the department also draws upon people outside the government to supplement the Department’s own staff with the skills that 

12 

are available—former Peace Corps volunteers and others, who can 

go out and help these missions. 

I would also call your attention to recommendations, in the report that Ambassador Pickering spoke of, the Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future, which talks of specific funding authorities that 

the Department should have in ordere to provide missions like the 

funds to bring people together, undertake conflict resolution, and 

give those missions the flexibility and the resources to address 

these problems early on, before they blow up into major conflicts. 

Now, when you get to the big conflicts, the major ones—the DRC, 

Sudan, Somalia, et cetera—these are complex conflicts; they are 

not only civil wars, they involve neighboring countries; they involve 

international actors. And that, in turn, requires worldwide diplomacy. It calls for sustained, full-time teams that are dedicated to 

these situations. 

Often we respond to these situations by naming a special U.S. 

envoy, and that can be an extremely valuable thing. But, an envoy 

who walks out around the world without backup from the Department—and by that, I mean a sustained staff, following up, sending 

out messages, staying in touch with allies, making sure that the 

Department is behind that envoy—that envoy is just not going to 

be able to do the job. And we have a lot of examples of that. 

We had a very skillful team dedicated to Ambassador Danforth 

when he was working on the North-South problem in Sudan. That 

team’s long gone, and no other team has taken its place, in spite 

of Darfur, in spite of the fragility of the North-South Agreement. 

The capacity is not there to do it, and it has to be created if we’re 

going to be serious about the Great Lakes, about Sudan, and about 

the looming crisis that you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, in the Horn. 

I would like to mention a number of other concerns. Some of the 

crises that we have in Africa go beyond Africa. When you’re dealing 

with Somalia, you’re dealing with a crisis that is just as much related to the Middle East as it is to sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, the Department is not well structured for moving across bureaus. That 

takes high-level leadership in the Department to say to the Near 

East Bureau, which has, obviously, a lot of other issues, that 

they’ve got to work with the Africa Bureau to help address the Somali conflict. If we don’t have Saudi Arabia and Yemen and Qatar 

involved, we are not going to get solutions to the Somalia problems. 

The same is true in the Sahel where North African countries, outside the coverage of the Africa bureau, are intimately involved. 

Another problem is that the State Department is not organized 

for regional leadership in the field. AFRICOM can bring together 

northern African states and Sahelian states around the counterterrorism program. The Department isn’t structured for that. I’d call 

your attention to a study that came out from the National Defense 

University last year which made specific recommendations on how 

the Department, in the field, can have comparable regional structures that can interface with an AFRICOM or others to deal with 

these issues. 

In addressing neglected areas, as you have asked, let me call attention to one that I think is going to need a lot of attention in the 

future, and that’s the growth of narcosyndicates in Africa. They are 

spreading rapidly in West Africa, in Guinea-Bissau, in Guinea, and 

13 

beyond. They have tentacles in Senegal. They’re one of the most 

dangerous developments on the continent. They produce conflict, 

they produce corruption, they undermine governance. We do not 

yet have a strategy for dealing with them. 

I’ll touch briefly on some of your other questions, Mr. Chairman, 

and come back to them in questions. 

Ambassador Pickering has addressed the issue of how we get out 

more, given our security considerations. I think we need to move 

our staffs out, but I am very sensitive to the requirements of protecting our staff in the field. I think we need to do it, but I think 

we ought to ask our staffs to volunteer for such duty. To move into 

the areas like the Niger Delta or other insecure areas, I think it 

has to be with their willingness, and that we provide them with the 

kinds of protection that Tom talked about. But, I think, my own 

preference would be ask for volunteers to take that on. 

You have asked about coordination with major African players. 

It’s absolutely essential. There is no conflict in Africa that is not 

settled if the neighbors are not onboard to settle it. But, the reality 

today, Mr. Chairman, is that African leadership is weak. Nigeria 

is not the same as it was a few years ago, when President 

Obasanjo was active across the continent. The new leadership in 

South Africa may not be as committed to Pan-African cooperation 

as Thabo Mbeki was. And I think the reality is, we’re going to have 

to look for leadership, and help promote it on the continent. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, no amount of staffing or structure will do 

if our policies are divided internally. If you look at Somalia over 

the last few years, we’ve been divided at what our policy is. Is it 

to bomb terrorists? Is it to help create stable Government in Somalia? Is it to work with the U.N.? Or is it not? With that kind of 

a divisiveness, we can’t be very effective in these situations. So, one 

of the requirements of dealing with complex conflicts like this is for 

leadership, from the Department and elsewhere, to bring about 

unified policies, and then back them up with the right structures. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Lyman follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF PRINCETON N. LYMAN, ADJUNCT SENIOR FELLOW, 

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, WASHINGTON, DC 

I welcome this opportunity to discuss the needs for strengthening U.S. diplomacy 

for preventing and/or reducing the impact of conflicts in Africa. As members of this 

subcommittee know well, conflicts have taken a terrible toll in Africa, with millions 

of lives lost, terrible human rights depredations, the weakening of authority and 

governance, and the setting back of development for hundreds of millions still living 

in poverty. These conflicts also open the door to criminal activities that bear on U.S. 

interests, as in the case of Somali piracy, or interruptions in the supply of energy 

as in Nigeria. 

At the same time, we need to be aware that the number of conflicts in Africa has 

been dramatically reduced over the past two decades, and the lessons of those resolutions are pertinent to the subject today. Wars in Mozambique, Angola, Namibia, 

Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Coˆte d’Ivoire, and between the north and south in 

Sudan have been brought to a close, some on a promising long-term basis, some 

with fragile peace processes still under way. There are lessons to be learned from 

those processes. Very serious conflict situations remain, including in the Democratic 

Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Darfur region of Sudan, Somalia, parts of Ethiopia, the delta region of Nigeria, and in both Chad and the Central African Republic. Several other countries face internal unrest and potential outbreaks of violence, 

including Guinea, Guinea Bissau, the Comoros, Mauritania, and the Casamance 

region of Senegal. 

14 

DISTINGUISHING THE SKILLS REQUIRED

Despite the dedicated efforts of many diplomats, envoys, and consultants over the 

past several years, the U.S. capacity to address this range of challenges is very 

weak. Senior officials run from one emerging crisis to another—Kenya, Somalia, the 

DRC—but the ability to mobilize and deploy a significant team of experts and resources to follow up to address these situations on a consistent and adequate basis 

is often not there. For example, the once significant and dedicated team that backed 

up the negotiations to end the North-South civil war in Sudan was disbanded and 

the capacity lost to competing requirements in Iraq and elsewhere. Thus the work 

of special envoys for Darfur has been hampered by inadequate backup capacity in 

the Department and a confusion of roles and responsibilities. Conflict management 

and resolution requires a dedicated effort, with strong staff support, ready outreach 

to a wide number of international actors, and strong embassies and other agencies 

on the ground. We also need to remember these are long-term processes. Peace in 

southern Africa was the product of nearly a decade of intensive, well resourced 

efforts throughout the 1980s. 

We need to distinguish here between the diplomatic capacity needed to prevent 

or restrain conflict, including early steps in conflict resolution, and that needed to 

respond to major crises situations. Much of the recent writing on conflict diplomacy 

has related to the latter, with proposals for surge capacity in such situations as 

Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. I applaud those recommendations, and I commend to the committee’s attention the report of the American Academy of Diplomacy, ‘‘A Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future: Fixing the Crisis in Diplomatic 

Readiness,’’ October 2008. Included in that report are detailed proposals for in-house 

and reserve surge capacities. 

In Africa, do sweat the small stuff. In Africa, however, we need to recognize that 

there are potential conflict situations spread across Africa and involving in some 

cases quite small countries in which our diplomatic presence is very limited. Keeping abreast of those situations, and even more, assessing the imminence and importance of threatening circumstances, is not easy. For these situations, we need 

embassies with the capacity to tap into and utilize the several highly developed IT 

systems for analyzing potential conflict situations, e.g., the Fund for Peace’s system 

for anticipating failed states, Robert Rotberg’s governance index, Mo Ibrahim’s governance index, and other such systems. Embassies also need resources to respond 

early to signs of stress, with flexible resources to help in conflict resolutions exercises, assistance to weak governing institutions such as the judiciary, and to be able 

to call on AFRICOM for help in training security forces. Backup in Washington is 

essential, with analytical as well as bureaucratic skills. Little of that presently exists. If a country as large and important as Nigeria has but one person on the Nigeria desk, you can imagine the capacity to do serious analytical and backup work for 

the large number of smaller countries of the continent. 

Major crisis situations. The current major crises in Africa—in the DRC, Sudan, 

and Somalia—are exceptionally complex, involving not only civil war but a host of 

regional and international involvements that demand virtually worldwide diplomacy 

to address adequately. One standard response to these situations has been (and is 

now being reinvigorated) the designation of envoys. Having a high-level envoy is a 

useful device: It demonstrates serious U.S. concern, brings often higher level political attention to the situation, and attracts serious responses from other interested 

countries. But all too often the designation of an envoy is a substitute for the hard, 

long institutional commitment to the crisis. Part-time envoys are in particular ineffective if their work is not backed up on a full-time basis by a team dedicated to 

that situation, sending out messages, monitoring agreements, and doing their own 

diplomatic outreach. For a crisis like that in the DRC, there should be staff as well 

in each of the key European embassies designated as part of this team, keeping in 

close touch on a daily basis with our European partners. That was done throughout 

the southern Africa diplomacy of the 1980s. 

I characterize envoys without such backup as ‘‘going naked into the jungle.’’ They 

have neither the capacity nor resources to bring U.S influence and resources to bear 

adequately on the situation. 

With this background, let me address the specific questions raised in the invitation to testify. 

1. Does the State Department on collaboration with our Intelligence Community, 

have sufficient capacity to assess the long-term threats on the continent? 

First, we must recognize that there is no sure science to assess long-term threats 

in a timely action-oriented way. It is not hard to identify the many potential causes 

of conflict in Africa, a continent with generally weak states, poor governance, povVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:00 Jun 10, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\50025.TXT MikeBB PsN: MIKEB
15 

erty, and in particular weak institutions to channel political and social grievances 

into peaceful resolution, e.g., Parliaments, courts, police, etc. One could find these 

characteristics in most African countries. But identifying in which countries over 

which timeframe these factors may produce crisis or conflict is much harder. Liberia 

descended into horribly brutal civil war in the 1980s, but only after more than 100 

years of inequitable class rule and general poverty. Mali is one of the poorest countries on earth but has a functioning democracy; can it thus manage the unrest 

among its northern Taureg population, egged on to some degree by radical foreign 

elements, or will it suffer a growing crisis in this regard? These are hard calls. 

The answer to the question posed by the committee is, of course, ‘‘No.’’ But to 

counter this on a practical basis, the Department needs to access, as recommended 

earlier, the several computer-based systems for identifying potential sources of 

weakness and conflict. Staff needs to be trained in these systems and have the 

equipment to access them on a regular basis. But these only point to the potential 

causes. Nothing takes the place of on-the-ground contacts, sensitivity, and outreach. 

That takes staff, with language skills, travel money, and overcoming some of the 

risk-adverse policies now in place. Finally, to avoid having to ‘‘cry wolf’’ to seek to 

engage the attention of the Department, embassies in these smaller countries need 

resources and flexibility to address local conditions early without waiting for serious 

conflict to erupt. Those resources today are quite limited. 

The Department does not have to do this alone. There are numerous think tanks, 

universities, and other nongovernmental organizations which have the skills and 

means to assist in these analyses. The Department utilizes some of these, some of 

the time, but not consistently and not to study a single problem over a long period 

of time. The early studies by CSIS on Sudan (Barton and Crocker) are an exception 

worth reexamining. 

2. Which regions are neglected? 

Somalia 

Up until recently Somalia was badly neglected. But our response reveals other 

weaknesses. United States policy on Somalia, since the takeover of Mogadishu by 

the Islamic Courts Movement in 2006, has been divided. On the one hand, there 

are the diplomatic approaches to the situation, fronted by State, led by the U.N. and 

for a time with the support of a multilateral body led by Norway. But within DOD, 

and within parts of State as well, the focus has been on getting at terrorists within 

Somalia. This meant U.S. bombing raids, support for the Ethiopian invasion that 

dislodged the ICM from Magdishu but unleashed a long insurgency, and an inconsistent attitude toward the moderate Islamists within the Islamist Courts movement. The recent focus on piracy could produce a similar divide, but hopefully a 

more comprehensive and well-directed policy will emerge. Without a clear, unified 

policy, lack of capacity is only part of the problem. 

Somalis illustrates another weakness in addressing conflicts in the Horn of Africa. 

Somalia is a Middle Eastern as well as African problem. The Africa Bureau, and 

indeed some of the other diplomatic efforts on Somalia, have failed to engage seriously enough key Middle Eastern players, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Yemen 

whose cooperation is essential. The Africa Bureau is not well equipped, bureaucratically or with sufficient personnel, to engage the Near East Bureau and other 

elements of the State Department in a high priority regional diplomatic effort. Only 

high-level direction, from the Secretary, can create the necessary inter-Bureau 

structure to address this situation on a continuing basis. 

DRC 

While the U.S. has played an important role in helping the eastern regional 

neighbors of the DRC come together and overcome some of the proxy warring within 

the DRC, and has supported financially the U.N. force, MONUC, the DRC has not 

had the focus that it deserves. The DRC influences much of central and eastern 

Africa, and its rich mineral resources will always be attractive to outsiders, e.g., 

neighbors, companies, or rogues, and usually all three. The war has also been the 

most costly in terms of lives lost, nearly 5 million. The U.S. has not been ready to 

support a more robust U.N. force, struggling to keep down peacekeeping costs, and 

has not engaged at high levels with the relevant players. In large part, the United 

States has left leadership in this conflict to the U.N., South Africa, and the AU, and 

the Europeans. That is not bad but U.S. support to the peace processes could be 

much more vigorous. A new envoy is about to be appointed. But the question will 

be whether this envoy is backed up by real commitment of staff, time, and resources, or only sent out to show a U.S. face? All too often in the past, this has been 

the fate of our Great Lakes envoys, despite they having been exceptionally dedicated 

individuals. 

16 

Nigeria 

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and the fifth (sometimes sixth) largest 

supplier of oil imports to the United States, is going through one of its most difficult 

periods of governance and stability. The conflict in the Niger delta has grown steadily more costly, with Nigerian oil production reduced by as much as 500,000 bbl/ 

d. Stolen oil and other criminal activities finance the importation of ever more sophisticated arms by the various militia. Unrest has spread to neighboring countries, 

as militia attack oil facilities and carry out kidnapping there. Piracy in the Gulf of 

Guinea rivals that off the Somali coast and endangers the entire Gulf of Guinea oil 

region. 

Experts disagree whether Nigeria teeters on the edge of breakdown or is simply 

going through one of its many difficult transitions having only restored civilian rule 

in 1999 and being a difficult country to manage in the best of circumstances. But 

the delta crisis presents serious challenges and is not being addressed effectively by 

the Nigerian Government. Beyond the delta, the economic deterioration in the 

north, Nigeria’s Islamic center, with factories closing and large number of unemployed youth, poses long-term threats to stability. 

At present the United States has no presence in the delta, and its staff is forbidden to travel there for security reasons. This greatly limits U.S ability to assess and 

impact the situation. The Embassy also has no consulate in the north. While vacancies have recently been filled, almost all key positions in the Embassy are filled 

under grade. 

One should recognize that assisting Nigeria in addressing any of its issues is not 

easy. The government has spurned most offers to assist with the crisis in the delta, 

including technical help from AFRICOM to counter the illegal oil exports. The economic problems in the north and elsewhere are due to long-term neglect of the 

power sector and other infrastructure, the effect of overdependency on the oil sector, 

and various governance problems. None of these are ones that the U.S. is in a position to help, except perhaps for advice, encouraging of investment, and support 

through the IFIs. But our ability to play even this role is compromised by our lack 

of outreach. In addition, high-level attention to Nigeria, and in particular to the 

problem in the delta has been at best sporadic. AFRICOM has expressed the most 

sustained concern, with visits and offers of assistance. But the State Department, 

taken up perhaps with more immediate crises, has not invested heavily in the Nigerian relationship. 

The Sahel 

This region has attracted special attention from DOD, first through EUCOM and 

now with AFRICOM. The concern has been infiltration into the region from Algeria’s AQIM and the potential of radical elements exploiting local grievances. The 

Trans Sahara Counter Terrorism Program (TSCTP) is designed as an interagency, 

State-led program to address this concern. But State has two disadvantages in 

matching AFRICOM’s concerns and resources: (a) Neither State nor USAID has sufficient personnel or resources to address fundamental grievance issues in this area, 

and (b) while AFRICOM has been effective in bringing north African and Sahelian 

states together in this endeavor, here again State has difficulty coordinating across 

Bureaus. Our counterterrorism programs meanwhile risk running against the internal political needs of the governments in this region, where sensitive political oversight and better resource allocations are needed. Again, too, State and USAID lack 

language skills for engaging the people in the area of most concern. 

The Narcotics Infiltration 

If there is one new dangerous crisis in Africa it is the growing infiltration of influence, money and power of narcotics syndicates. They operate primarily from Latin 

America, using west Africa as transit point for shipping drugs to Europe. In the 

process, they increase addiction in these African states, corrupt governments, and 

grow their role in the local economy. Poor and weak states, like Guinea Bissau are 

prominently affected, but most west African states are involved. A similar problem 

exits in east Africa, again using Africa as transit point to Europe with the same 

corrupting effects. We know from Columbia and Mexico just how destabilizing this 

industry can be. African states are poorly structured to address it, and it takes place 

in some of those countries where out diplomatic presence and aid programs are 

small. The way to proceed may be to establish a high-level interagency task force, 

under State leadership, which can work with individual embassies and across regional boundaries, set up counter programs, and if necessary greatly increase assistance to these states. Mobilizing African opinion and support will also be critical. 

This is an emergency and will take much effort to overcome if it can be done in 

time. 

17 

3. How to address security concerns 

As a former Ambassador I am acutely aware of the responsibility of every mission 

to protect its employees and their families. In the field, the embassy relies on the 

assessment of the Regional Security Officer in assessing the risks. We should send 

our diplomats and assistance experts into possible danger only where our interests 

truly demand. 

In Africa today, as elsewhere, our interests do demand that we be more in touch 

with a broad array of society. In areas where the danger of radical infiltration exits, 

being able to reach those populations involved and assess the reality of the threat 

is essential. For example, without more direct knowledge of the so-called 

‘‘ungoverned spaces’’ in the Sahel, it is hard to assess the seriousness of the threat 

and to see whether our counterterrorism programs are effective. In Nigeria, without 

more direct contact with the areas in which the unrest takes place, the United 

States is not in a position to offer more than generalities to the Nigerian Government, and perhaps more important, unable to interact with the oil companies, the 

local communities, and local officials, to understand what really is going on. 

For these reasons, we need to provide employees with a better framework for such 

activities. We must honestly assess the risks. We need to compare our practices with 

those of the U.N., other countries, and NGOs. For example, in Nigeria, many of 

these entities go regularly to the delta. And we should be able to do likewise. However, I suggest we not force employees to take such risks, but seek only volunteers 

for such duty. We should also increase language training so that diplomats can 

travel in remote areas with greater interaction with people and maneuver better. 

We also can ask employees (as many now do) to entertain more in local restaurants 

and in their homes, rather than meet with counterparts in the rather forbidding 

surroundings of today’s fortress embassies. 

We need to ask these same employees to be prepared to manage consulates in less 

than fully secure areas. We need to fashion, with Diplomatic Security, the technological and physical arrangements that would make such posts relatively more 

secure, even if far from perfect. 

4. Do our Ambassadors have sufficient authority and flexible resources to carry out 

their mission appropriately? 

Again I would refer the committee to the Academy of American Diplomacy report, 

which details the additional authorities and resources needed. Ambassadors need 

more flexible funds on the ground to sponsor better communications within local societies, to provide educational and professional travel, and to promote better governance. The AAD report recommends in particular that the ‘‘Emergency in the Diplomatic and Consular Service’’ fund be increased from $5 million to $25 million and 

be used more for conflict prevention than only response to crises once they have 

emerged. Other increases for authorities and funds are detailed in the report. 

One difficult challenge is that while AFRICOM can operate across regions, like 

the Sahel, and indeed such regional approaches are necessary, Ambassadors can approve or disapprove activities in their own countries of assignment, but are not in 

a position to help shape regional programs nor to monitor them. A study last year 

by the National Defense University suggested that in particular where the U.S. 

military is actively engaged, the Department arrange for one Ambassador in the 

subregion to coordinate with his neighboring colleagues, with the funds to bring 

them together, and that Ambassador or the regional group have some authority to 

pass on regional programs operated by other agencies. The Horn and the Sahel are 

good examples of where this would be valuable. 

5. How can we better engage with regional actors, like Nigeria and South Africa, 

subregional organizations, and the African Union? 

One of the lessons of the resolution of many of Africa’s conflicts is that African 

leadership, or very active involvement, was essential. Particularly since the formation of the AU in 2000, African leaders have been instrumental in bringing peace 

to Burundi, the early agreements to end the civil war in the DRC, and to fashion 

efforts at creating a government in Somalia. In west Africa, only when neighboring 

states finally came to agreement that the conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in 

which several of them were indirectly involved, was costing them more than they 

gained, was ECOWAS and its peacekeeping arm, ECOMOG able to bring peace to 

those countries. Indeed in virtually every conflict on the continent, both internal and 

external actors are involved, and only agreement by both will bring a conflict to an 

end. 

Unfortunately, however, Africa currently suffers from a dearth of strong and regionally committed leadership in key countries like Nigeria and South Africa. Nigeria’s Obasanjo, who was personally involved in overcoming coups in several west 

18 

African countries and a force behind the forward leaning policies of the AU, has 

been succeeded by a President who is not well, and less inclined to be a major figure 

on the continental scene. Thabo Mbeki is gone from South Africa, depriving the AU 

and Africa in general of a leader who thought long and hard about how to advance 

the continents’ own peacemaking and peacekeeping capacities and who used South 

Africa’s resources, e.g., in Burundi and the DRC, for that purpose. Another formerly 

leading player, especially in the Horn, was Kenya. But Kenya is now absorbed in 

its internal political crisis. The AU has itself suffered from setbacks in its peacekeeping operations in Darfur and Somalia. It is questionable that the organization 

will take such forward leaning steps in the near future, as it did in Burundi, Darfur, 

and Coˆte d’Ivoire, but rather look to U.N.- or Western-led operations being initiated 

first in which to participate. For the immediate future therefore we must recognize 

that African leadership is relatively weak. 

Nevertheless, in every conflict situation on the continent today, active African 

participation in both the peace process and possible sanctions or peacekeeping is essential. In some cases, however, as in Sudan and Somalia, we will need to find a 

broader regional structure than the AU, to bring in Middle East countries as well. 

The decision to establish an Ambassador to the AU was a valuable step and 

thoughts that the position should be absorbed with the Ambassador to Ethiopia 

would be an unfortunate setback. Strengthening the AU’s conflict resolution capacities, its peacekeeping role, and its progress in implementing other reforms as represented in NEPAD, are valuable investments. The Ambassador’s role might be enhanced, moreover, to take on the role of coordinator of U.S. policy in the Horn, along 

the lines described above. 

Among the subregional organizations, ECOWAS stands out for progress made in 

both conflict resolution and peacekeeping. Continued investment in it is eminently 

sensible. SADC will only achieve effectiveness in this regard after it resolves the situation in Zimbabwe and perhaps reconciles relations more between South Africa 

and Angola. 

South Africa itself remains key, but with the current economic downturn, and the 

change in leadership, it is questionable how active it will be beyond the southern 

and central region. Yet, the U.S. should make a major effort to turn a new page 

in our relations with South Africa following the election there. 

The bottom line here is that African leadership will be less able in the next few 

years. Conflict prevention and resolution will thus have to combine African participation along with vigorous outside participation. Each conflict will need to be surrounded by a group of nearby affected African states, United States and European 

involvement and help, and in several cases like Somalia, heavy reliance and support 

for the convening and negotiating role of the U.N. 

CONCLUSION

Comparisons are misleading. Sub-Saharan Africa consists of 48 states, many weak 

and most subject to the spillover effects of conflict in neighboring countries. Conflicts will be a part of the continental scene for decades to come. That is why every 

Assistant Secretary of State for Africa starts out with a broad agenda, of development, good governance, regional integration, more trade, and improvements in the 

environment, etc., but spends most of his or her time dealing with one crisis after 

another or more likely several simultaneously. The structure of the Africa Bureau, 

and other support units of the Department, do not reflect this reality. 

The Africa Bureau staff is smaller than that of the East Asia and Pacific, Western 

Hemisphere, or the Europe and Eurasia Bureaus. It lacks surge capacity, the ability 

to assemble teams of people to work over years on serious, complex conflicts. Where 

active conflicts do not exist, the staffing is thin. There is one desk officer for Nigeria, 

the most populous and one of the most important countries on the continent. The 

Office of the Coordinator for Post-Conflict Recovery and Stabilization was supposed 

to supplement this capacity. It has to some extent, but it, too, has been limited, and 

bureaucratic rivalries have further limited its role. If we are serious about conflict 

prevention and resolution in Africa, we have to recognize that this is a labor-intensive effort, and that the labor assigned to the Africa Bureau has to be appropriate 

to the task. 

Naming special envoys can also be a diversion if not backed up by a team of professional staff, with resources and the ability to manage a complex diplomatic process on a full-time basis. We should not confuse form with substance, nor saddle 

highly dedicated and competent envoys with tasks that are not adequately 

resourced. 

But no amount of staffing nor resources can make up for competing or confused 

policies. U.S. policy in the Horn has long been pulled back and forth between agenVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:00 Jun 10, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\50025.TXT MikeBB PsN: MIKEB
19 

cies and between elements in State, reducing our leverage and confusing both partners and combatants. Our policy in the DRC has at times been conflicted between 

the realities on the ground and the desire to protect relations with neighbors who 

deny their involvement. As AFRICOM takes a more active role on the continent, 

and addresses more and more the security issues that affect the United States, as 

it must, the situation cries out for dynamic and broadly based leadership from 

State, at the Washington, subregional, and local level. That will take strategic 

thinking, more and better trained staff, and more resources. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, Ambassador, for your excellent 

remarks, and I certainly appreciate the part about Somalia. I have 

been begging for a policy towards Somalia for years, and then people wonder why there’s an unstable situation in Somalia that can 

lead to this kind of piracy. The failure to act, a failure to have a 

policy, does have consequences, and we’re paying the price right 

now. 

Dr. Wolpe. 

STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD WOLPE, DIRECTOR OF AFRICA 

PROGRAM AND PROJECT ON LEADERSHIP AND BUILDING 

STATE CAPACITY, WOODROW WILSON CENTER, WASHINGTON, DC 

Dr. WOLPE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I would 

ask that my testimony be submitted for the record. 

I really welcomed this invitation to testify before your committee, 

and want to particularly commend you on your focus on the capacity to defuse or prevent conflicts. We give a lot of lipservice to that 

concept, but we really haven’t focused on that in a very serious 

way. 

My reflections this afternoon draw upon the 5 years I put in as 

President Clinton’s special envoy to Africa’s Great Lakes Region, 

where I was deeply involved in the Congolese and Burundi wars 

and peace processes, and a number of post-conflict reconstruction 

training initiatives in which I’ve been involved for the past several 

years in such places as Burundi, the DRC, Liberia, and East 

Timor. This combination of experiences has led me to conclude that 

conventional approaches to peacebuilding are deeply flawed, because they seldom involve direct engagement with the key leaders 

of the belligerent parties, and virtually ignore the mistrust, the 

suspicions, the fears with which they enter the reconstruction process. We spend considerable time focusing on structures and institutions and establishing a multiparty electoral system, but the fundamental challenge of divided societies, such as we face in Africa, is 

not the absence of sufficient competitiveness; rather, it is the absence of collaborative capacity. Leaders that have been through 

years of conflict and war simply find it difficult to get beyond a 

winner-take-all, zero-sum mindset to identify common interests, or 

to rebuild the trust and relationships required to enable them to 

work effectively together in rebuilding their societies. Yet, our governance and peacebuilding programs, such as those administered 

by NED and NDI and IRI and so on, seldom have incorporated 

strategies or processes to build collaborative capacity. As a consequence, many peacebuilding initiatives are unsustainable, with 

countries returning to war within a few years. 

From this prospective, let me address, now, some of the specific 

questions that you posed. 

20 

First, with respect to the diplomatic presence and resources required to anticipate and prevent long-term threats, I would submit 

that we need a new diplomatic paradigm. We need instruments 

and processes that are less focused on imposing Western institutional structures and more directed to assisting nationals in divided societies develop a recognition of their interdependence and 

of the value of collaboration, even with former enemies. 

Second, the implementation of such a paradigm requires a new 

approach to the training of diplomats. Most diplomats, I discovered 

during my time at State, have little or no expertise in the techniques of institutional and conflict transformation, and are minimally trained, if at all, as bizarre as it sounds, in mediation and 

facilitation techniques. Diplomats tend to think of sticks and carrots, of pressures and incentives, of anything that will bring belligerent parties to the signing of peace agreements. But if the belligerent parties feel they have been manipulated into an agreement, 

and have little sense of their ownership of the final product, the 

chances for sustainability are greatly reduced. 

The leaders of belligerent parties may well sign an agreement, 

but that does not mean that, the day afterwards, they see each 

other any differently than the day before or that they are any more 

prepared to address the issues underlying their conflict. In short, 

if we are serious about sustainable solutions, processes that address the mindsets of key leaders directly, their fears, their suspicions, their perceptions of one another must be seen as a critical 

complement to conventional diplomacy. 

Third, building a more effective approach to sustainable 

peacebuilding requires the development of new partnerships between diplomats, on the one hand, and specialists in the techniques 

of institutional and conflict transformation, on the other. Diplomats 

seldom know much about these techniques, but they do have access 

to national leaders, they do understand the politics of divided societies, and they do comprehend the regional diplomatic environment. Trainers, on the other hand, though having the skills required to transform conflictual relationships, seldom have access to 

national leaders, generally have little background on the politics of 

these societies, and are generally not conversant with the diplomatic environment. In short, trainers and diplomats need each 

other if key leaders are to be drawn into the required training initiatives. 

Fourth, one means of building this new synergy between diplomats and trainers would be to better integrate the work of 

USAID’s Bureau of Conflict Mitigation and Management, the repository of most government expertise on conflict transformation, 

with the State Department’s diplomatic agenda. Moreover, CMM 

knows the lay of the land with respect to the conflict transformation profession. It’s best positioned to mobilize expert trainers 

to establish in-country training initiatives designed to support our 

diplomatic objectives of assisting states emerging from war or 

states threatening to go to war, to strengthen state cohesion and 

the collaborative capacity of key leaders. 

And fifth, in a somewhat different vein and consistent with some 

of the comments of my distinguished colleagues earlier, we’re often 

flying absolutely blind, with little solid information about the varVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:00 Jun 10, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\50025.TXT MikeBB PsN: MIKEB
21 

ious military elements involved in the conflict or about their role 

of ethnic diaspora that are financing and fueling many of the conflicts in Africa. There were, when I was at State, simply too few 

intelligence assets committed to African conflict zones. I’m hopeful, 

but skeptical, that this situation has changed significantly, and 

would argue for the resources required to enable the United States 

Government to develop much more informed diplomatic strategies. 

And then, sixth, also, I think, mentioned briefly earlier, related 

to the intelligence deficit, is an extraordinary paucity of language 

skills, particularly African languages. 

Seventh, one of the things that I discovered very directly through 

my experience is the importance of close diplomatic coordination 

with all of the countries engaged in a country’s peace process. One 

of the most important developments that occurred as we were trying to address both the Burundi and the Congolese conflicts was 

a very close partnership I formed with my European Union counterpart, Aldo Ajello. We worked closely together, ensuring that we 

were communicating precisely the same message and could not be 

played off against each other by the belligerent parties. 

In addition, regular meetings were established involving all of 

the key international players—the European Union, Belgium, 

France, Canada, the United Kingdom. These meetings not only facilitated important information exchanges, but they enabled us 

both to harmonize our messages and to decide on an appropriate 

diplomatic strategy as events unfolded on the ground. 

I have some additional comments on special envoys, but I would 

simply associate myself with the remarks made earlier about the 

need to recognize the supreme importance of special envoys in 

multicountry situations, because sitting ambassadors invariably 

end up reflecting the perspective of their own capitals. You need 

someone that’s able to have a much wider view and is capable of 

doing the kind of shuttle diplomacy required. In addition, that 

envoy must have the kind of support of which Princeton Lyman 

was speaking. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Wolpe follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD WOLPE, DIRECTOR OF AFRICA PROGRAM

AND PROJECT ON LEADERSHIP AND BUILDING STATE CAPACITY, WOODROW WILSON

CENTER, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. Chairman, I welcome the invitation to testify before your subcommittee, and 

commend you for focusing in a timely way on a number of issues that are central 

to America’s diplomatic capacity—and particularly to our ability to defuse or prevent conflicts within the conflict-plagued Africa Continent. My reflections this afternoon draw upon my 5 years experience as President Clinton’s Special Envoy to Africa’s Great Lakes Region, where I was deeply involved in both the Congolese and 

Burundi wars and associated peace processes, and a number of post-conflict reconstruction training initiatives in which I have been involved the past several years— 

in such places as Burundi, the DRC, Liberia, and East Timor. 

This combination of experiences has led me to conclude that conventional approaches to peace-building are deeply flawed, because they seldom involve direct engagement with the key leaders of the belligerent parties, and virtually ignore the 

mistrust, suspicions and fears with which they enter the reconstruction process. We 

spend considerable time focusing on structures and institutions, and establishing a 

multiparty electoral system. But the fundamental challenge of divided societies is 

not the absence of sufficient competitiveness. Rather, it is the absence of collaborative capacity: Leaders that have been through years of conflict and war simply 

find it difficult to get beyond a ‘‘winner take all,’’ zero-sum, mindset to identify comVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:00 Jun 10, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\50025.TXT MikeBB PsN: MIKEB
22 

mon interests, or to rebuild the trust and relationships required to enable them to 

work effectively together in rebuilding their societies. Yet, our governance and 

peace-building programs seldom have incorporated strategies or processes to build 

collaborative capacity. As a consequence, many peace-building initiatives are unsustainable, with countries returning to war within a few years. 

From this perspective, let me now respond to the specific questions you have 

posed for consideration. First, with respect to the diplomatic presence and resources 

required to anticipate and prevent long-term threats—and, I would add, to implement post-conflict mitigation, recovery, and transformation strategies to sustain 

peaceful transitions to democracy—I would offer the following reflections and 

recommendations: 

• First, we need a new diplomatic paradigm—one that recognizes that the starting point for preventative initiatives in Africa is a recognition of the divided nature of most African societies. That means we need instruments and processes 

that are less focused on imposing Western institutional structures than in assisting nationals in divided societies develop a recognition of their interdependence and of the value of collaboration even with former enemies. Such initiatives should be directed at changing the ‘‘winner take all,’’ zero-game conflict 

paradigm that characterizes most elite interactions, at building the trust and 

relationships among key leaders, at building a new consensus on how power is 

to be shared and organized, and at strengthening the communications and negotiations skills of key leaders. • Second, the implementation of such a paradigm requires a new approach to the 

training of diplomats. One of the things that I learned during my 5 years at 

State is that most diplomats have little or no expertise in the techniques of institutional and conflict transformation, and are minimally trained (if at all) in 

mediation and facilitation techniques. Diplomats tend to think of sticks and carrots, of pressures and incentives—of anything that will bring belligerent parties 

to the signing of peace agreements. But if the belligerent parties feel they have 

been manipulated into an agreement, and have little sense of their ownership 

of the final product, the chances for sustainability are greatly reduced. The 

leaders of belligerent parties may well sign an agreement—but that does not 

mean that the day afterward they see each other any differently than the day 

before, or that they are any more prepared to address the issues underlying 

their conflict. In short, if they are serious about sustainable solutions, processes 

that address the mind-sets of key leaders directly—their fears, their suspicions, 

their perceptions of one another—must be seen as a critical complement to conventional diplomacy. In this connection, I welcome the proposal laid out by 

President Obama in the recent campaign to establish a Mediation Unit at 

State—that would bring together experienced diplomats and other practitioners 

to build an inventory of peace-building best practices and ‘‘lessons learned.’’ • Third, building a more effective approach to sustainable peace-building requires 

the development of new partnerships between diplomats, on the one hand, and 

specialists in the techniques of institutional and conflict transformation, on the 

other. Diplomats, as I have indicated, seldom know much about these techniques, but they do have access to national leaders, do understand the politics 

of divided societies, and comprehend the regional, diplomatic environment. 

Trainers, on the other hand, though having the skills required to transform 

conflictual relationships, seldom have access to national leaders, generally have 

little background on the politics of these societies, and are generally not conversant with the diplomatic environment. In short, trainers and diplomats need 

each other if key leaders are to be drawn into the required training initiatives. • Fourth, one means of building this new synergy between diplomats and trainers 

would be to better integrate the work of USAID’s Bureau of Conflict Mitigation 

and Management—the repository of most government expertise on conflict 

transformation—with the State Department’s diplomatic agenda. Too frequently, however, the work of CMM is viewed as a secondary enterprise, not 

central to the real work of diplomacy. Yet, nothing could be further from the 

truth. Moreover, CMM knows the lay of the land with respect to the conflict 

transformation profession, and is best positioned to mobilize expert trainers to 

establish in-country training initiatives designed to support the diplomatic objective of assisting states emerging from war, or states threatening to go to war, 

strengthen state cohesion and the collaborative capacity of key leaders. 

• Fifth, in a rather different vein, during my tenure as Great Lakes Special 

Envoy I was struck by how often we were flying blind—with little solid information about the various military elements involved in the conflict, or about the 

role of ethnic diaspora that were financing and fueling many of the conflicts. 

There were simply too few intelligence assets committed to Africa conflict 

23 

zoners; this seemed to be a very low priority for the Central Intelligence 

Agency. I am hopeful, but skeptical, that this situation has changed significantly, and would argue for the resources required to enable the USG develop 

more informed diplomatic strategies. • Sixth, and closely related to the intelligence deficit, was a woeful paucity of appropriate language skills. There are few within the U.S. Government that speak 

indigenous African languages—and when it came to the assignment of defense 

attache ́s, several lacked even solid French. This linguistic shortcoming greatly 

hampered their effectiveness in working with the security branches of the host 

governments. • Seventh, during my tenure as special envoy, I was constantly reminded of the 

importance of close diplomatic coordination with all of the countries that were 

seeking to support the peace process. One of the most important developments 

that occurred as we were trying to address both the Burundi and the Congolese 

conflicts was a very close partnership I formed with my European Union counterpart, Aldo Ajello. We worked closely together, sometimes even to the point 

of making joint demarches. This insured that we were communicating precisely 

the same message and could not be played off against each other by the belligerent parties. In addition, regular meetings were established involving all of the 

key international players—most notably, the EU, Belgium, France, Canada, and 

the United Kingdom. These meetings facilitated an important information exchange, and enabled us both to harmonize our messages, and to decide on appropriate diplomatic strategy as events unfolded on the ground. In later years, 

Aldo Ajello observed that he felt the international effort in the Great Lakes was 

compromised when the United States did not reappoint a special envoy with 

whom he could have collaborated. 

Finally, it is well known that the Africa Bureau is severely understaffed. 

Hopefully, this personnel deficit will be overcome with the contemplated expansion of State Department personnel—but there should be no question as to the 

importance of this issue. In this connection, I would draw your attention to the 

report issued on October 8, 2008, by the Stimson Institute and the American 

Academy of Diplomacy outlining very precise and reasonable staffing increases 

for State to ‘‘expand the diplomatic toolkit.’’ 

Let me turn now to the second question the subcommittee has posed—the role of 

special envoys, and how they interface with our Embassies in the conflict zones in 

which they are engaged. I would offer two principal observations: 

• First, I would underscore the importance of special envoys in addressing situations involving more than a single state. Sitting Ambassadors invariably come 

to reflect the perspective of the capitals in which they are based; it is virtually 

impossible for the Ambassador to Rwanda, for example, to fully comprehend the 

Kinshasa perspective on the Great Lakes conflict; nor do Kinshasa-based diplomats have a good comprehension of the Rwandan perspective. Special envoys 

enjoy the unique position of being able to view and understand a conflict from 

all perspectives—thereby enabling the development of a much more balanced 

and nuanced diplomatic strategy. While Bureau heads in Washington do develop a broader view of conflict dynamics, they simply have too much on their 

day-to-day bureaucratic plate to undertake the required on-the-ground diplomatic engagement. 

• Second, it is important, in my view, for special envoys to work very closely with 

the various Embassies within their area of responsibility—to insure that the sitting Ambassadors are fully in the loop, and that there are no misunderstandings or mixed messages. I always made it a practice to have the sitting Ambassadors or Embassy political officers accompany me to my meetings. Then, at the 

conclusion of a national visit, the Ambassador would often host a gathering of 

the locally based diplomatic community where I would provide a full debriefing 

on the meetings I had held. This helped significantly to build trust between the 

Embassies, and to harmonize both analyses and messages. 

Finally, the subcommittee has asked me to comment on what Embassies might 

do to strengthen their information-gathering function. 

• Successful political, policy, intelligence and representational functions of an 

American Embassy are dependent on the officers of that Embassy—the Ambassador, the DCM, the political and economic councilors and their staff officers— 

understanding the politics, economies, cultures and histories of the countries in 

which they serve. This can only be done adequately if those officers get to know 

the leaders and the people of their host countries. The relationships need to be 

structured on the basis of openness and frankness, based on mutual respect and 

trust, or they result in diplomats being told what the nationals think they want 

24 

to hear, rather than what is their true situation. These relationships can only 

develop from extended and egalitarian interactions with the community. Of 

course, there are security constraints these days, with Embassies and American 

diplomatic communities in some instances being restricted to almost ‘‘fortress’’ 

like existences behind secure walls and armored cars. Special efforts need to be 

made to get beyond and outside of these fortresses, both physical and conceptual. • During my diplomatic tenure, I was struck by the great variation between Embassies in the amount of political outreach that is undertaken. Some Embassies 

were outstanding in insuring that the Ambassador and political officers were 

fully engaged with diverse constituencies. This is very much a function of the 

leadership provided by the Ambassador. The best Ambassadors placed special 

emphasis on reaching beyond the often closed circle of the diplomatic community, as much as security concerns allowed, to mix professionally with the host 

communities and, as a part of that, to engage in broad social intercourse, which 

is often the foundation for good political contacts. • I was also struck by the tendency of Embassies to develop capital-centric perspectives. It is especially important, to counter this natural tendency, for Embassy officials to travel outside of the capital, to engage rural constituencies, 

and to reach out to opposition and unofficial elements. • Finally, as discussed earlier, Embassies are often hampered by very limited intelligence assets—and some of these deficiencies in the allocation of both human 

and technical resources need to be corrected—especially in volatile, conflict-sensitive areas. This will greatly strengthen the over-all diplomatic capabilities of 

our Embassies. 

I hope these reflections have been helpful, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to any 

questions you might have. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, Dr. Wolpe. 

I want to thank all the panelists. This truly—as I know my colleagues know—is a very distinguished panel. 

And I want to thank my colleagues for such excellent attendance 

at this hearing. We’re all very busy, but this is a great showing. 

And, of course, I’m delighted my colleague Senator Kaufman is 

here. He’s new to the Senate, but not new at all to this committee 

and these issues; he knows them very well. And, of course, Senator 

Lugar, the ranking member of the full committee—no one in the 

Senate has devoted more effort and time to these issues of diplomacy and trying to solve these problems. 

So, I thank you all for being here. And I will start with a 

round—7-minute rounds. And we can do more, if people want. 

Ambassador Pickering, picking up on the American Academy’s 

paper you mentioned, one of the challenges we face is that some 

in the Foreign Service do not believe that spending large amounts 

of time on a difficult post in Africa will advance their careers. How 

can we restructure the incentive and support system to encourage 

diplomats to go to places like Chad or Sierra Leone, both countries 

that are obviously hardship posts? 

Ambassador Pickering. 

Ambassador PICKERING. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I’ve never believed that the material rewards in the Foreign 

Service, were the overwhelming incentive. What was an important 

incentive, I think, for all of us was the fact that you had a tough 

job, and you had an opportunity to do it very well. In that sense, 

Africa is a collection of tough jobs. 

And I had the pleasure and honor of having 8 years of my career 

in Africa, in three different jobs, two in the Foreign Service and 

one in the military. My sense was that it was those difficult and 

challenging jobs that gave you the opportunity, particularly as a 

young officer, to show what you could do, and that, while it was 

25 

a kind of make-or-break challenge in some instances, it also helped 

to speed advancement and move things ahead. So, very early on I 

volunteered for Africa. There was an excitement about what was 

going on in Africa in the 1960s. That quickly turned to crises after 

crisis, as we all know. That challenged me and many of my friends 

and colleagues. And I think we all benefited, to some extent, by 

being tested early and tested often, if I could put it that way. 

To deal with the problems of the Foreign Service, in terms of 

compensation, it is a travesty, Mr. Chairman, that right now the 

pay system, which, in effect, provides locality pay for the Civil 

Service, which is much deserved, has now undermined the Foreign 

Service’s special provisions to pay extra amounts for people who 

serve in dangerous places. So it is now much more lucrative to 

serve in Washington than it is in Ouagadougou. And to get people, 

particularly in their final years, when they are building their highest 3-year salary for their pensions, which is very important, to 

serve overseas in challenging places means that we have to change. 

We have to make the base pay for the Foreign Service the pay that 

people receive in Washington in total, and then to calculate the allowances that deal with danger and special circumstances, and all 

the other issues that you all know so well about, as being on top 

of that. We’ve all got it all, now, backward. It’s not the fault of anyone, but it is, frankly, if I could be a little bit direct, in your hands. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Fair enough. Very helpful comment. 

Ambassador, let me continue with you. One of the issues that I 

have repeatedly discussed in my travels throughout Africa, and 

even other parts of the world, is something you certainly alluded 

to, the Chief of Mission authority. I’m concerned that this authority 

has eroded, limiting the ability of our ambassadors to fully oversee 

and coordinate U.S. activities in their own countries that they’re in 

charge of. And I’d be interested to know your thoughts on how we 

can restore the Chief of Mission authority and ensure that it is 

upheld by all U.S. agencies. 

Ambassador PICKERING. Yes, and I am happy to address that. 

The authorities began by being set out by President Kennedy in a 

letter to ambassadors. That practice has died out. And so, sometimes that letter came in the 8th year of an administration, sometimes it didn’t come at all. So, the first thing I suggested to you 

in my testimony was that President Obama craft an Executive 

order that will sustain itself across administrations, and put into 

that all of the best statements that his predecessors have included 

with respect to the role of the ambassador. I think that that’s extremely important. 

The second point I made was that the ambassador is in charge, 

except for the forces under a combatant commander, and that’s the 

kind of Afghan-Iraq situation. And there are good reasons for that. 

But, nowhere has anybody sat down and defined how those individuals relate to each other, when they’re centrally important. The 

military cannot do it alone; it needs, in fact, the knowledge, experience, and backup of civilians in their special skilled areas, whether 

it’s humanitarian assistance or regular diplomacy, to get all kinds 

of jobs done. And so, in fact, we have to look at that universe, Mr. 

Chairman, and work out how those things should be worked. 

26 

I, for one, would strongly favor, in the early days of a military 

intervention, which, as you know, I believe has to be the absolute 

last resort, that the military commanders should be in charge, but 

be advised closely by the Ambassador. Now, many of my friends 

would consider that a travesty. But, it has to move over fairly 

quickly when it begins to appear that we have to do the civilian 

jobs in order to make sure that the sacrifices the military made 

have continued meaning and importance, in terms of the national 

interest in that country. And my feeling is that unity of command 

is worth the sacrifice, particularly because we have seen, in many 

occasions, good ambassadors and good military commanders know 

how to get along together. Bad ones ought to be changed. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Very good. Thank you, Ambassador. And I’ll 

come back to you later. 

I want to get started with Ambassador Lyman, by asking you 

about the Washington side of this discussion. You’ve spent a lot of 

time working in and with the Africa Bureau at the State Department. You mentioned, in your testimony, it’s one of the smallest regional bureaus, and it’s been under capacity for a long time. In 

your view, how can we rebuild and reenergize the Africa Bureau 

so it’s not, as you pointed out, simply responding to the crisis of 

the moment and putting out fires? 

Ambassador LYMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think there are several things to do. As I mentioned, that you 

have to assume that there’s going to be conflict as part of the agenda for any administration dealing with Africa. It isn’t the only 

agenda item, by any means, but it’s an important one. 

And we need to construct, either within the Bureau or in support 

from an office like the Coordinator for Post-Conflict Reconstruction 

and Stabilization, teams of conflict resolution and conflict-addressing experts who will work within the Bureau to backup any sustained peace effort in which we’re involved. And that team has to 

be allocated to the Bureau, has to be available, and it has to be 

available as long as necessary, which may mean for several years. 

So, in the case of Sudan, we should have a team that’s working 

constantly on the range of issues which are interrelated—that includes the CPA, on the one hand, and Darfur, on the other. And 

we need the same for the Great Lakes Region, and backing up that 

diplomacy. 

The second important requirement is to deal with what I call the 

‘‘cross-Bureau problem,’’ in the Horn, crossing the Africa Bureau 

and the Near East Bureau—and the same is true in the Sahel— 

and having the Secretary direct that there be creative joint structures that deal with these areas, and give them the priority that 

they need. Quite frankly, the Africa Bureau doesn’t have the clout, 

alone, to command the attention on the Middle East policy makers, 

and it needs that if you’re going to deal with the Horn or you’re 

going to deal with the problems of the Sahel. 

The third requirement—and it is in the recommendations of the 

the Foreign Affairs Budget Report that Ambassador Pickering 

talked about—is for specific authorities and funding that could be 

given to missions—and by that, I mean both embassy and USAID 

missions—so that, on the ground, they can be working to deal with 

a whole range of problems that are not going to get the attention 

27 

from the Assistant Secretary, but can prevent a lot of the conflicts 

from growing larger. There are tools for that if the authorities, 

funding, and training are made available. 

And the last would be to draw on the kind of expertise that Howard Wolpe talked about; that is, the Department needs the funding 

and the willingness to bring to bear expertise that’s outside the Department. I find the Intelligence Community does this a lot. I’ve 

been to more intelligence conferences over the last few years than 

I’ve been to State Department conferences, and it’s because the intelligence community does that all the time. And I think the Department could do much more in bringing skills to bear that it does 

not have in house. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, Doctor. I will come back to you 

and to—excuse me—Ambassador and Dr. Wolpe, I’ll come back to 

you later. 

Let me just tell you how delighted I am to hear you talk about 

the interrelationship of Africa and the Middle East. I have been 

trying to talk about this, for years. You almost never hear it. All 

you have to do is listen to the statements of al Qaeda, and their 

strategy, and you realize they’re thinking that way. Why aren’t we? 

Why are we incapable of understanding that interconnection and 

not focusing on it? 

Ambassador PICKERING. Could I make a brief point on that—— 

Senator FEINGOLD. Very quickly. 

Ambassador PICKERING. [continuing]. Mr. Chairman. 

Senator FEINGOLD. I ought to—— 

Ambassador PICKERING. I’ll be very quick. 

Senator FEINGOLD. [continuing]. Yeah—— 

Senator ISAKSON. Go right ahead. 

Ambassador PICKERING. Over the years, Turkey was seen as preeminently the same problem that Ambassador Lyman described for 

the Horn of Africa. Over the years, at least some people instituted 

a view that no policy recommendation with respect to Turkey could 

come forward without full consultation with the Middle East Bureau, and, when we had a separate Bureau for Russian and Soviet 

Affairs, without that Bureau being involved. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Very good. Thank you. 

And Senator Isakson. 

Senator ISAKSON. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, you 

know, following up on that series of comments: I was sitting somewhere, watching television last week, when it was announced that 

Somalia had adopted Shari’ah law, and it occurred to me at that 

minute, the tie that you’re talking about, the Middle East and the 

Muslim faith in that part of the world, as far as that’s concerned. 

So, I—the light bulb just went off, and, in listening to them talk, 

that it is important to get the Africa Bureau and the Mid-East Bureau coordinating on Somalia, where we have had no policy since 

Mogadishu, I guess, of any consequence, I think that comment’s 

outstanding. 

Mr. Wolpe—is it ‘‘Dr. Wolpe’’? 

Dr. WOLPE. Howard. 

Senator ISAKSON. Professor? Howard? [Laughter.] 

Howard, let me ask you this question. You were special envoy for 

7 years—— 

28 

Dr. WOLPE. Five years. 

Senator ISAKSON. [continuing]. 5 years. Chairman Feingold and 

I wrote President Obama in February 2009, urging him to appoint 

a special envoy to the Sudan, which he did, and we met with him 

a few weeks ago. I am extremely concerned with what’s happeneing 

in Darfur, what appears to be the ineffectiveness of the African 

Union troops to protect the NGOs, to deliver the humanitarian aid. 

As a special envoy, I didn’t think that Mr. Williamson, who I think 

was the previous—— 

Dr. WOLPE. That’s right. 

Senator ISAKSON. [continuing]. Special envoy, if that’s correct, 

ever seemed to get the response that he appeared to me to be asking for, so we need to give General Gration, in my opinion, who is 

this new special envoy, that type of a—support. What type of support did you get when you were a special envoy? 

Dr. WOLPE. When I was a special envoy, I had, basically, three 

staff working with me—support staff, and then two colleagues of 

mine, one in Washington and one that was usually in the field with 

me. And that was very helpful. What I found enormously frustrating at times was, we were in the middle of two wars that involved nine countries, and there was, at times, urgent need for 

some shuttle diplomacy between capitals. And to try to do shuttle 

diplomacy by commercial aircraft in Africa is a challenge, to say 

the least. There were a couple of instances in which we were able 

to get the White House to make available one of the defense 

attache ́ planes in the region, but I cannot tell you the numbers of 

times we were restricted in what we could accomplish because we 

just did not have access to the players. And that was ridiculous. To 

me, that was more important, in some ways, than the kind of staffing. 

Now, as we look forward to the Great Lakes or to the Horn, 

you’ve got to look at these issues, not only in terms of the immediacy of helping to stop the conflict, but also the longer-term perspective of putting in place economically integrated regions; for example, in Central Africa. At the end of the day, the only hope for 

smaller countries, such as Burundi or Rwanda, is to become part 

of a large economic region. We need to begin to help the states of 

the region begin to talk about building a new security architecture. 

That applies to Sudan, as well as others. And that requires a set 

of experts and advisors that ought to be available in support of the 

special envoy as we craft policy and initiatives in the region. 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you very much. I know the comment 

was being made about attracting people to Africa to serve the State 

Department there. I think one of the things that has made that 

somewhat difficult has been the lack of infrastructure the State Department has at these posts. I know my visit to Equatorial Guinea 

a year and a half ago, the Embassy had a 10-foot hole in the roof, 

and the Chinese, two blocks down the street, were building what 

had to be a $4 or $5 million Embassy. I think we’ve got to invest 

more in the infrastructure, and, for that matter, the transportation 

infrastructure, because it is difficult to get around. Ambassador Pickering, you made reference to a $250,000 account, which I took to be a discretionary account for the Ambassador to use to facilitate helping with problems within the country 

29 

they’re designated to. Is that—does that exist anywhere else in the 

State Department? 

Ambassador PICKERING. It exists, in the present format, at $25,000 level, and has for many years. And, in fact, we now see the 

state of the world, the conditions that prevail, the difficulties of 

failed and failing states, and the needs, have all changed radically. 

And while $25,000 was seen as a way, maybe, to deal with the 

leading edge of an earthquake—a small one, I have to add—none 

of that is, as we know, in this day and age, adequate to do anything. In some cases, when ambassadors have used the full extent 

of the money, it has seemed so paltry and so cheeseparing that, in 

fact, it has subjected us to ridicule rather than to the generosity 

that was intended behind the effort to give the ambassadors on the 

spot the ability to respond immediately. Obviously, there are some 

crises that are in the $25,000 category still, but the notion is that 

we, as a great country, would be seen to be able to respond rapidly 

and intelligently, and I think, over the years, this money has been 

used with care. I have not seen comments from Hill staff or from 

the Hill that somehow ambassadors have abused this authority. 

And that’s quite important, because you, sir, and I, know the degree to which contingency funding is treated, up here, as something 

that nobody would like to touch. In effect, of course, we have it in 

very large amounts in the money we appropriate every year to AID 

to deal with international crises. And, to some extent, I think we 

have now built, I hope, a modicum of trust between the Hill and 

the executive branch on these issues, and obviously you approve all 

the ambassadors here in the Senate, so we should have a basis for 

going ahead that I hope can help to move this. 

Obviously, our first job is to convince the present administration 

to propose to you that change. We haven’t been able to do that yet, 

but this is early days. But, my hope is that that will come, and that 

can involve a number of kinds of activities, from immediate relief 

of populations in emergency circumstances, to evacuations where 

that is necessary, to further involvement in all kinds of things that 

would not be available because the other, regular processes take 

too long. 

Senator ISAKSON. I was thinking, as you said that, when we provided the PRTs in Iraq with the funds for a combination of 

microloans and ultimately what became the $3 a day to The Awakening, we turned the paradigm of the entire conflict, and then our 

troops performed magnificently. So, that’s pretty good evidence that 

some discretionary money at the right place, or the right crisis can 

make a world of difference in a very underdeveloped part of the 

world. 

Ambassador PICKERING. It is, Senator Isakson. It’s also clear that 

the commanders Emergency Response Program for military commanders has shown how those kinds of programs can be very successful in difficult situations in the field. And my feeling is that we, 

of course, need that on the civilian side, as well, because, in fact, 

on the civilian side they’re supposed to be handling the bulk of 

those programs around the world. 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you. 

Senator Kaufman. 

30 

Senator KAUFMAN. I’d just like to comment on that. I just returned from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the CERP funds are 

incredibly helpful. And they’re dispensed by the Department of Defense, but they’re primarily for the nonmilitary part of the counterinsurgency. So, they’re basically things that State Department 

should have. We think it’s important to do it in places like that, 

I think it’s important to do elsewhere. So, I think the extent of the 

CERP funds makes a lot of sense. 

In my travels in Africa, it seems to me the biggest problem we 

have is corruption. I mean, it—you know, it just kind of eats away 

at everything we’re doing. 

The strength of U.S. diplomacy to anticipate, prevent, and respond to conflict in Africa seems, the prevention part—if we could 

do something about corruption in Africa, it would go a long ways 

toward preventing these things. Do you have any ideas of how, diplomatically, we can improve our ability to deal with corruption? 

Ambassador LYMAN. Let me try and deal with that, Senator. And 

you’ve put your finger on a terribly, terribly critical problem. I 

think there are several ways in which we can be helpful. 

One is promoting a free press and civil society, because it’s only 

by putting a spotlight on it and getting political pressure on it that 

you make some headway in that regard. 

Second, we have to be honest about prosecuting Americans and 

getting our European friends to prosecute Europeans who provide 

some of the bribes, because that clearly has been one of the things 

that undermine things in South Africa, European arms manufacturers that were at the heart of that big bribery scandal. 

I think, also—and I’m hoping this will be a theme of this current 

administration—that President Obama will make that a major part 

of his outreach to Africa. He talks a lot about personal responsibility, and I hope he will say that to the Africans, that we’ll be 

looking for African countries who are responsible, and their leaders 

are responsible. 

I think the Millennium Challenge Account works well in this regard, because it sets up criteria very specifically with a corruption 

threshold and says, ‘‘Countries that do well, we will reward.’’ I 

think that’s an important element to retain in the AID program. 

And then, as I—I think, in general, promoting the democratic institutions, the checks and balances, the—getting parliaments to 

stand up and be stronger—those are the elements, because it has 

to come very much within the country. But, I think we can do a 

lot to encourage that. 

Senator KAUFMAN. Yes. 

Dr. WOLPE. Could I just add a—— 

Senator KAUFMAN. Sure. 

Dr. WOLPE. [continuing]. Just add an additional point? I would 

agree with everything that Ambassador Lyman has offered, but I 

would make one other point. 

From my perspective, the corruption ought to be perceived more 

as a symptom than as a cause. It is fundamentally symptomatic of 

this lack of cohesion, in most African states and societies, in which 

everyone is existing in a world that is seen as a zero-sum game, 

winner take all, and in which all your political actors—and the 

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31 

preneurs, where the state is seen as the means to wealth, and 

there is no sense of their—of the value of collaboration with others 

who they see as potential competitors. So, to the extent we can 

begin to strengthen state capacities and cohesion by helping folks 

involved in these divided societies recognize their common interests, see themselves as interdependent, recognize the value of collaborating with others as a matter of strengthening their own selfinterest, I think you’ll begin to see a diminution in the levels of corruption. 

Corruption occurs primarily between people of different groups, 

not from one’s—not within one’s own family or traditional structure. 

Senator KAUFMAN. Ambassador Pickering. 

Ambassador PICKERING. I would pick up on what both Princeton 

and Howard have had to say, and I agree with them all. I think 

that we need to help Africans begin to address the question of totally inadequate compensation for responsible jobs. I can remember, when I was in Nigeria, that customs jobs were auctioned off 

at huge prices, but only for a year at a time, because that was all 

that they were prepared to rent those jobs for. And I think that’s 

important. 

I think, second, over the years, we have had experience in dealing with very difficult criminal problems in foreign countries, 

where we are able to get people to step forward in law enforcement 

and go through a vetting process and stay as a cohesive unit to 

deal with that issue; the Mafia in Sicily was one example of that. 

And, third, judiciary. It will not work, in fact, if the judiciary is 

bought and paid for, and that comes with the immunity that you 

buy through the corruption operation. It just becomes a kind of 

continuous cycle. So, we also have to, I think, work very hard to 

get courts that are responsible, that can deal with cases of prosecution, and people know that there is a penalty. At the moment, most 

of these people enjoy no sense that there is any penalty for involving themselves in corruption. As Howard said, it merely is a way, 

from their point of view almost legitimate to advance their livelihoods, their families, and their futures. 

Senator KAUFMAN. I’d just like to associate with Mr. Lyman’s 

comments, and maybe someday we can have a hearing on the press 

in Africa and how we get a free press, because I think that’s a secret to ending corruption, if we have a free press, and I think it’s 

incredibly important, and free press is dying in Africa, right across 

the continent. 

Let me just ask you a point that you raised, Ambassador Pickering, but it goes to all things, and that is this whole problem between outreach and security. I mean, this is really—we are closing 

down our outreach opportunities, here. Is there anything—any 

hope you can give—I know our ranking member has spoken, and 

has a bill, which I’ve cosponsored on how to deal with the libraries, 

for instance—is there any—can you give us any hope on how we 

deal with this—I mean, just hunkering down and not having outreach just doesn’t seem to me to be the way to behave, but I also 

am concerned about security. I’d like someone to, you know, help 

me. 

32 

Ambassador PICKERING. Senator, in my prepared remarks, and 

in my oral remarks, I think, given before you had a chance to join 

us, I talked about, in public diplomacy, some serious steps that we 

recommend—100-percent increase in visitor programs, and so on. I 

think that’s important. We—I also, in the prepared testimony, 

noted that we need to do cultural centers once again, that we need 

to do all kinds of exchange programs, and that one of the proposals 

is that—we privatized our cultural centers in Latin America, they 

now need public support to come up to standard. These kinds of 

things, of course, have been thought of and have been worked on, 

and I would not slight the past administration for totally ignoring 

them, but they need to be regenerated and strengthened, in my 

view, to get precisely at that outreach program. 

Over the years, I think all of us have enjoyed working with foreign officials who were educated in the United States, who knew 

the United States. Now, some turned sour, but they were a tiny 

percent, and the others were remarkably good to work with. They 

understood us, they understood our national objectives, and they 

understood our national principles, and they respected them, in the 

main, and they were there for colleagues and friends rather than, 

necessarily, opponents. They didn’t sell out their country, but they 

were looking for the best possible joint deal. 

Senator KAUFMAN. Great. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding this hearing. I think this has been excellent. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you very much, Senator Kaufman. 

Senator Lugar. 

Ambassador LYMAN. I just want to add one thing to Ambassador 

Pickering’s excellent point, because—and all of us have experienced 

this—the outreach that you get through both cultural and public 

diplomacy is extraordinary valuable. It is not just opening up lines 

of better appreciation of the United States, but it allows you to 

help people be exposed to different ways of approaching problems. 

And no one knows that better than Senator Lugar. During that period when we were working to see the end of apartheid, and those 

negotiations were going on, having it under then-USIA, the resources to say to South Africans engaged with various issues, e.g., 

federalism which was a divisive issue in the negotiations, ‘‘Here’s 

how you might deal with the federalism issue, here’s an opportunity to study the experience with it in the U.S. and other countries.’’ In other cases, to make available experts. Flexible resources 

like that, just opened up lines of communication and exchanges of 

ideas, for them and for us, that were indispensable. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Senator Lugar. 

Senator LUGAR. Well, I thank the chairman and ranking member 

for this remarkable hearing. I just have appreciated so much the 

testimony. I remembered a presentation given by the Peruvian novelist Vargas Llosa over at the Woodrow Wilson Center about 20 

years ago, which was important for those of us who heard it, because it was sort of the advent of all of the United States interests 

in elections in Central America. Vargas Llosa, as a novelist, was 

giving us insights into the history, the prejudices, the passions, all 

the conflicts that were a part of that situation which did not fit 

very neatly with any of our classical democracy situations. 

33 

I also thought of it when we had a hearing here on Sri Lanka 

which demonstrated very sharp opinions and a concern about 

American diplomacy. As you pointed out, Dr. Wolpe, perhaps American diplomats in those situations really need to have business 

managers, development experts, people involved in the intelligence 

services, and as Ambassador Pickering has indicated a team of people. I wouldn’t call them fixers, or manipulators. They would understand, really, how the fabric of that particular society has any 

hope of reconciliation and what kind of concessions are going to 

have to be made. 

We have many Senators coming and going from Afghanistan and 

Pakistan who often come back and say, ‘‘This is really bad.’’ They 

don’t say ‘‘hopeless.’’ We have a situation in which we’re grinding 

our way to something that might be called stability, and that somehow or other the insurgents are going to be chased down so that 

they’re sort of out of the picture, and the question then is whether 

Pakistan can remain stable in that process. With Afghanistan, in 

which even more work and effort has been made, but no one really 

has a very good fix on how many or what kind of personnel are 

going to be required. 

I’m encouraged that our National Guard is now sending out agricultural personnel, farmers who are members of the National 

Guard in Indiana and elsewhere, who are actually—know something about agriculture. They’re out there rather inconspicuously 

working their way though too few numbers. As many have noted, 

we have people who are pretty good in reconciling others, doing the 

tradoffs, and bringing about stability. 

This leads to my question. What happens if, after the contribution of our troops and our funds, countries I have mentioned and 

countries in Africa come to a result that many Americans, looking 

at liberal democratic traditions, say, ‘‘This isn’t exactly what we 

had in mind. As a matter of fact, we think there are some deficiencies, in terms of civil rights, human rights, maybe women’s 

rights, education, ignored in all this. Even though it is stable and 

people may have stopped fighting the question then will be, ‘‘Is this 

going to be acceptable?’’ In other words, one problem the Ambassador has in representing the President now is that he sort of has 

to say, ‘‘Well, this just isn’t good enough, or, this really isn’t democracy, or, as a matter of fact, you’re violating what most Americans 

think is very important.’’ How do we bring about the evolution of 

situations in which the fixers, the development experts, the intelligence community bring stability without, at the same time, violating our own general principles? 

Dr. WOLPE. Senator Lugar, that’s a fascinating question, and an 

enormously difficult one. I’d like to use, if I may, though, an analogy to some of the work I’ve done elsewhere, because, in some 

ways, we were facing the same kinds of issues. For example, when 

we launched a training program in Burundi, I had approached the 

World Bank—this is after I left the State Department—and suggested to the bank that we try something new, because they had 

had a peace agreement there, but no one thought the agreement 

would stick. There was so much paranoia on all sides, and so many 

suspicions. And so, we decided to identify key leaders within the 

society. And we had Burundians make that identification; we didn’t 

34 

make the selection. And when they came up with about 100 leaders 

that represented all the different sectors, there were some of these 

guys that had done violence to everything we Americans would 

have subscribed. They had done some terrible deeds earlier, were 

responsible for some terrible human rights violations. And I was 

warned by former diplomatic colleagues of mine not to involve 

them in our process of building collaborative capacity, of training 

for collaborative capacity, because they would only undermine what 

we were doing. 

Well, but when I saw both Hutu and Tutsi, in the instance of—— 

Senator LUGAR. Yes. 

Dr. WOLPE. [continuing]. The warlord equivalents in Afghanistan—but when I saw both Hutu and Tutsi, the enemies, the 

rebels, and the government, identify the same people as folks who 

could—were key to Burundi’s future—they could undermine it very 

easily—we made the decision to invite these guys into the process. 

And it was the best decision we ever made, because it turned out 

that what was driving these guys’ extremism and some of the bad 

things they had done was their extraordinary insecurity, fear, and 

stereotypes they had of one another. And once we could break 

through that, and they began to look at each other in a different 

fashion, as individuals, not seeing each other out of their ethnic or 

political lenses, then when they sat down to construct solutions to 

the problems that they faced in common, the environment, the context, the ambience of the entire process was dramatically transformed. 

At the end of the day, it seems to me we have two choices. One 

is, we have to recognize that we cannot impose institutional frameworks and solutions on others. If they don’t buy those solutions, 

they’re never going to be sustainable, they’re going to be undermined. So, that’s No. 1. 

Second, if they end up with a solution that we’re not comfortable 

with as Americans, then we can always take the position, ‘‘We can’t 

deal with you.’’ I mean, it’s just as simple as that. ‘‘In terms of our 

national interest, we cannot have the kind relationship we’d like to 

have, unless X, Y, or Z changes.’’ But, then that’s their decision to 

make, in terms of the value—the extent to which they value our 

relationship. 

So, I do think we need to separate out the peacebuilding reconciliation task, on the one hand, from some of these other judgments that need to be made subsequently about accountability, 

about justice, and about the nature of the relationships we need to 

forge with these countries. 

Senator LUGAR. My time’s up, but I would just comment, I think 

the explanation made is very important, and we have a responsibility, as Senators or members of the House or what have you, to 

understand enough of this to be able to explain some of this to our 

constituents, to the press at home, as opposed to getting on a high 

horse, becoming so moralistic that we it’s impossible for any of this 

to succeed—— 

Dr. WOLPE. I agree. 

Senator LUGAR. [continuing]. Which could undermine, then, 

whatever the diplomacy is we’re involved in. 

Dr. WOLPE. Exactly. 

35 

Senator LUGAR. Thank you. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Thank you, Senator Lugar. 

I’ll start a second round, start with Ambassador Lyman. 

As you pointed out, I think the lack of capacity has been one of 

the reasons we’ve had to rely so heavily on the use of special envoys. But, I think until we rebuild that capacity, we’ll continue to 

need these envoys to bring high-level and consistent attention to a 

crisis. As you look back at the last few decades and the range of 

envoys that have been used in Africa, what lessons can be drawn, 

in terms of effectiveness, and what recommendations would you 

give to the Obama administration as it deploys special envoys in 

Africa? 

Ambassador LYMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think appointing a special envoy can be an extraordinarily special contribution, because it puts a spotlight on the issue and it 

shows that America has a special concern with it. But, I think it 

only succeeds if it’s backed up by a serious policy with resources 

and staff and a diplomatic outreach. 

As I mentioned, when Senator Danforth took on the task of 

Sudan, the North-South peace process, he had a very strong team 

behind him, working with him, available to go to Khartoum when 

he wasn’t able to, to reach out. I watched that same strategy during the 1980s, when Chet Crocker was doing Southern Africa. He 

had a team of 10 people working with him day and night for 8 

years. On the other hand, if you have a special envoy and there 

isn’t strong backing from the Department, and if there isn’t a unified policy that that envoy is carrying out—look, in Sudan we have 

a tough time right now, because what do we do about President 

Bashir, and the ICC indictment, and how do we balance our outrage at what’s going on in Darfur with the need to get him to be 

part of the peace process? That takes a lot of delicate, careful diplomacy. It has to be unified, has to be unified between Ambassador 

Rice in New York and the State Department so that the envoy is 

working with strong support all around and there isn’t a lot of 

backbiting. I won’t go into detail, but I know of two envoys in the 

last few years who had more problems with the Department than 

they had with the people they were dealing with abroad. I think 

that it is important that the policy be clear and the envoy is given 

that authority and backing to do it. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Dr. Wolpe, in your written testimony you 

mentioned there are simply too few intelligence assets committed 

to African conflict zones. I certainly agree with that, not only from 

my work on this committee, but on the Intelligence Committee. 

How specifically could the intelligence community better support 

the State Department’s efforts at conflict prevent and 

peacebuilding in Africa? And what kind of information is most 

needed? 

Dr. WOLPE. Well, you’re dealing with conflict, you certainly want 

to know about the military capacities and the internal operations 

within the military forces that are involved. When we were dealing 

with the Burundi conflict, as an example, we were flying really 

blind with respect to what was happening either inside the military 

or inside of the rebel organizations that were being financed and 

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36 

zania, Europe, Canada, and America. And we pleaded constantly to 

try to get some commitment of resources to work with those communities. What was even more shocking at times was when we 

had—occasionally had some defense attaches assigned who sometimes did not even speak French, much less the indigenous language, and therefore were extraordinarily limited, in terms of their 

ability to work closely with the militaries with whom they were associated. So, these are the kinds of things that ought to change, 

and that just require a commitment to begin to hire folks that 

speak the languages, that are located where the conflicts are ongoing, and that are—have access to folks that are relevant to those 

conflicts. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Doctor, you’ve talked—— 

Ambassador PICKERING. Can I make a brief point, Mr.—— 

Senator FEINGOLD. Oh, please. 

Ambassador PICKERING. [continuing]. Chairman? 

Senator FEINGOLD. Yes, Ambassador. 

Ambassador PICKERING. We’re into ‘‘envoyism,’’ ‘‘envoyitis.’’ And 

it’s extremely important that we recognize that these folks, for reasons that Princeton Lyman related early on, can make a real contribution, because, in fact, they can bring in multiple aspects of a 

particular problem and help to synthesize that, develop policy, lead 

the policy, and move back and forth. But, we need to be careful at 

both ends; and let me describe what the ends are that we need to 

be careful about. 

We need to be careful that, in an area like the Middle East, 

where we have several envoys at work, we don’t, in fact, destroy 

one set of policies by being ‘‘superjihadi’’ on another set of policies. 

Someone has to deal with the relative priorities and the rough 

interrelationships that take place, particularly around a very delicate situation like Iraq. And this is very important. And I think 

people understand that, but carrying it out is a lot harder than understanding it. 

At the other end, you do not want to destroy your ambassadors. 

Your ambassadors are there all the time, they understand what 

goes on. They can help the envoy, they can fill in the gaps. They 

know the players, and, in some cases, they have great trust and 

confidence in moving the question ahead. And so, it has to be a 

team effort, top to bottom and, if I could put it this way, sideways, 

in order to make it happen. And envoys are not the sovereign answer to all difficult problems, they represent a very, very useful 

tool. But, it has to operate with the rest of the toolbox, it can’t operate entirely alone and in an individual way that undermines our 

other national priorities. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Ambassador, that certainly rings true, in 

terms of the experience I had in Djibouti in trying to meet with the 

different Somali groups, and then seeing our Ambassador to 

Djibouti, our Ambassador to Kenya, and thinking about how this 

all works together. 

Did you have another comment, Doctor? 

Dr. WOLPE. I did say something about this in my written testimony. What Ambassador Pickering says is so very important. And 

one of the ways that I, as a special envoy, dealt with that problem 

that was to constantly ensure that the ambassador was always atVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:00 Jun 10, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\50025.TXT MikeBB PsN: MIKEB
37 

tending the meetings that I attended within the country, so there 

was never any sense of the ambassador being undercut. 

The other thing that would usually happen is, the ambassador 

would then host a meeting for all the diplomats in the area, after 

every one of my special envoy visits, in which the entire diplomatic 

community would be brought abreast of what was happening. And 

that really helped to coordinate, reduce tensions, and create a 

sense of unity. 

Senator FEINGOLD. You even did that when a Senator and a U.N. 

Ambassador showed up when you were there, as I recall. [Laughter.] 

You’ve talked and written a lot—— 

Dr. WOLPE. I recall that. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Doctor, you’ve talked and written a lot about 

the need to promote reconciliation and build collaborative capacity. 

And I, of course, agree that it’s critical to creating lasting peace in 

many divided African societies, but there’s also a need for accountability and breaking patterns of impunity. I’d like to know how you 

think this fits within our efforts to defuse and prevent conflicts. 

Dr. WOLPE. The issue of justice and accountability has been very 

much central to both the conflicts in which I have been involved. 

That issue has been present in Congo, in Liberia, and in Burundi. 

There is no issue that is more difficult, in the final analysis, to address than issues of justice, impunity, and accountability. 

I would argue, as someone who’s been involved in the 

peacebuilding side of this equation, that sometimes the effort to 

move quickly to accountability and judicial determinations of who 

was responsible for terrible earlier deeds can undercut the 

peacebuilding process. My experience has been that the stronger 

the political accommodation is, through the reconciliation process, 

the less insistent are the belligerent parties to find mechanisms of 

judicial accountability for past deeds. They want to move on to the 

future. They’re still interested in truthtelling, so truth and reconciliation commissions become very much part of the dialogue, but 

if you try to move to justice and accountability prematurely, you 

can end up with a situation where one person’s justice is seen as 

the other person’s vengeance. 

So, I would argue that you definitely first need a political accommodation. The South African experience that Ambassador Lyman 

helped to navigate is classic here, where there were some decisions 

that were made to permit some amnesty, to permit various kinds 

of mechanisms that would allow the peace process to go forward before you moved into some of the harder questions. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Not unlike some conversations we’re having 

domestically. [Laughter.] 

Senator—— 

Dr. WOLPE. Yes. 

Senator FEINGOLD. [continuing]. Isakson. 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you. 

Mr. Lyman, you—I think it was your testimony about the narcotrafficking and the narcosyndicates in Africa. Is the source of the 

narcotics—are they grown in Africa or are they coming out of the 

Middle East? 

38 

Ambassador LYMAN. They’re actually coming from two directions. 

On the west coast they’re coming from Latin America. These are 

largely, if not entirely, Latin American syndicates. They are moving the narcotics from Latin America to Africa to Europe—Europe 

is the market. And it’s a very big business, and it’s growing very 

rapidly. 

And the amount of money involved with—when you’re dealing 

with very poor, very weak governments, like Guinea Bissau, is 

enormous. There are areas of Guinea Bissau that are virtually 

owned by the narcosyndicates. There are whole neighborhoods in 

Dakar that are owned by the narcosyndicates. 

On the east coast of Africa, the drugs are coming from Asia. 

They’re not grown very much in Africa. Africa is a transit point, 

a trading point, for most of this. The vulnerability of Africa to this 

kind of insidiousness is extremely great. The traffickers team up 

with other forms of criminality, with corruption and undermine 

governance. It is one of the most serious problems we’re facing in 

Africa now, and it’s growing. 

Senator ISAKSON. I assume, then, Africa is to Europe what Mexico is to the United States. Is—— 

Ambassador LYMAN. Yes—— 

Senator ISAKSON. [continuing]. That—— 

Ambassador LYMAN. [continuing]. Exactly. 

Senator ISAKSON. [continuing]. Fair analogy? 

Ambassador LYMAN. Exactly. 

Senator ISAKSON. But, none of the Afghanistan poppy or opium 

is coming into Africa or—— 

Ambassador LYMAN. It is coming through East Africa. There is 

a similar, if not quite as well-developed—but, similar narco business coming in to East Africa. Now, one new drug that is being 

now manufactured in Africa is meth. I don’t know the full long—— 

Senator ISAKSON. Methamphetamine. 

Ambassador LYMAN. That, I understand, is being manufactured 

in east and southern Africa. 

Senator ISAKSON. And that’s worse—that’s the worst of all of 

them. 

Ambassador Pickering, I was very proud of the decision that the 

President made regarding Captain Phillips’ capture by the pirates 

off the coast of Somalia. And from listening to all three of your testimonies related to Somalia, I am assuming that the piracy is a reflection of the lawlessness in the society of Somalia. Is that correct? 

Ambassador PICKERING. I would say yes and no. Of course lawlessness plays a very significant role, but—few people have mentioned it, but at least there is some serious evidence that, with the 

disappearance of governance in Somalia, the distant water fishing 

states exploited the economic zone, and literally vacuumed it so 

that traditional Somali fishermen had no more occupation. And obviously with the free gun trading that went on in Somalia, they 

turned their skills to other purposes. 

So, my own view is that, not only do we need effective naval enforcement, but we also need two other programs, which will sound 

totally contradictory, but are very important. We need—and not 

only to convoy, in my view, in the major shipping routes, ships out 

in the Gulf of Aden, away from the Somali coast, but we also need 

39 

to put naval forces in a place where we can block exit and entry, 

to the greatest extent possible—we know it’s porous—and then we 

need to begin to establish food aid, because these people have no 

substantial way of feeding themselves. And over a period of time, 

my own view is that we should keep foreign fishermen out of the 

Somali economic zone, and we should begin to train and move Somalis back into the fishing business, if that’s where they’re prepared to go and that’s how they want to deal with themselves. And 

it sounds contradictory, but, in my view, we’ve got to look at the 

problem from its various facets and move it ahead in that direction, 

otherwise there will be an endless, I think, exploitation of lawlessness for these people to continue to find new ways to go further 

and further at sea with motherships and all the other things that 

we have seen that’s developed into this effort. And I think we have 

to do this jointly. And in order to get the authorities, my view is, 

we probably go back to Security Council, which seems to be willing 

to help, and get the authorities that are necessary to do these various things that have to be done. 

Senator ISAKSON. So, the Somalia waters were overfished, and 

therefore, the fishermen didn’t have any jobs, so they—— 

Ambassador PICKERING. That’s what I have—— 

Senator ISAKSON. [continuing]. Went to piracy? 

Ambassador PICKERING. [continuing]. Been told. And that may 

not be the total story. We all know there are other pieces. These 

are complicated things. But, it’s a piece we shouldn’t ignore. Right 

now, of course, it’s the total demonization of Somali pirates for 

what they’ve done, and they justly deserve it, but it wasn’t necessarily just the free availability of weapons and ammunition that 

put them in that position. 

Senator ISAKSON. So, you would do two things. One, you would 

convoy the traffic going through the Gulf of Aden. Would you do 

that? And you refer to the Security Council under the under the 

auspices of the U.N., or would you—how would you do that? 

Ambassador PICKERING. If we think we need authorities to do 

that—you can’t force people to come into convoys, but I would 

say—it’s 500 miles between the outlet of the Red Sea and Sockotra 

Island, around which you could then send vessels south and be way 

offshore in—off Somalia. And my own view is—that’s a day and a 

half, 2 days, of reasonable shipping. There are 21,000 ships a year 

that make that trip. That would produce significant convoys. I 

think you’d need, one, well-equipped naval vessel with drones and 

helicopters and night-vision devices to protect them. But, I think 

people would take advantage of that. And someone even suggested 

you should charge a small fee that you could pay for the food program. I don’t—you know, there are all kinds of things that are 

there. The rest of it, I think you have to use your naval forces to 

keep others out of the fishing zone and do everything you can to 

keep Somali pirates in port to enforce this. And then, I think you 

should begin the food program. 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you very much. 

Yes, sir. 

Ambassador LYMAN. Can I add just—— 

Senator FEINGOLD.lease. 

Ambassador LYMAN. [continuing]. Something—— 

40 

Senator ISAKSON. Sure, Ambassador, go ahead. 

Ambassador LYMAN. [continuing]. To the very good proposals 

from Ambassador Pickering? 

There’s a lesson in the Somali situation, and you learn it also in 

the Niger Delta situation. If you leave a situation long enough in 

chaos, criminality takes over and it becomes much more profitable 

to be a criminal than to do something else. And we see that with 

the militias in the Delta of Nigeria. And then it’s hard to turn people around and say, ‘‘Well, gee, why don’t you go back and do something other than that?’’ 

But, there is one other aspect of the Somali situation, in that the 

piracy has become a big enough business that it’s being backed by 

some pretty significant businessmen. The Somali business community is a very significant community. They don’t all live in Somalia. 

And the U.N. envoy Ould-Abdallah has, several times, reached out 

to them to try to get them to support the peace process. I think, 

in connection with what Ambassador Pickering has been talking 

about, about alternatives, one needs to reach out to that community and ask them where they’re putting their money and whether 

they can put their money into something different than some of 

them are doing in the piracy area. 

Senator ISAKSON. Dr. Wolpe. 

Dr. WOLPE. I would agree with everything that’s been said, but 

there’s one additional point, I think, that needs to be emphasized, 

given the debate that’s taking place at least within the media 

about where our policy should go. Right now, as has been suggested, what we’re seeing is basically criminal activity with economic roots. It would not be difficult to suddenly politicize what is 

now a criminal enterprise by beginning to act in an indiscriminant 

way, militarily, in ways that would only alienate the larger Somali 

population. I think we have to be very careful and be much more 

nuanced and discriminating in the way we approach that. 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator FEINGOLD. I want to just finish by following on what you 

just said in this excellent conversation. This may be not the precise 

topic of this hearing, but—we have this kind of talent in front of 

us, so I want to pursue this Somalia thing a little more. 

Yes, there are Somalia businesspeople. I met with a number of 

them in Djibouti; in fact, a whole lot of them are in Wisconsin and 

Minnesota. [Laughter.] 

We have the largest population there, and this is a constituent 

matter, as well as a matter involving our relations with Somalia 

and the threats. And I did hear the excellent suggestions with regard to the water, and how we can protect the water. But, the fact 

is, apparently, according to public reports, that, when the Islamic 

Courts had control, that the piracy was significantly down. Now, 

this is not an endorsement of the Islamic Courts or of Shari’ah law, 

although there’s Shari’ah law and there’s Shari’ah law. There is a 

Shari’ah law that might be put forward by the TFG versus the 

Shari’ah law that the al Shabab might put forward. 

So, my concern about all of this conversation, not just today, but 

in general, ever since this piracy incident, there seems to be almost 

a reticence to talk about this nascent government that’s attempting 

to bring everybody together in Mogadishu. When I was in Djibouti 

41 

in December, I met with Sheikh Sharif. I had no idea that he was 

going to end up being the president. I did know that he had been, 

as I understand it, in charge of the Islamic courts. But, here I was 

in the American ambassador’s home, meeting with him, so I obviously assumed that we had concluded he is not necessarily one of 

the, quote, ‘‘bad guys.’’ All right. So, we’ve had all this going on, 

and I sent a letter to the President asking, why is it that the President hasn’t reached out to him? Why is it that Secretary of State 

hasn’t reached out to him? Maybe there’s a good reason. Maybe it 

wouldn’t be good for them. Maybe it wouldn’t be good for us. 

But, I fundamentally believe that understanding, of course, the 

issues relating to the fisheries and the availability of that—that 

the idea of an inclusive government in that area would be about 

the best way to solve this problem instead of having to police the 

water. So, I may be wrong about this, but these are the facts that 

I’ve been studying very carefully the last couple of months. 

I’d like each of your reactions to this question: What level of diplomacy, of contact by our government, would be appropriate at 

this time with this nascent government? 

Ambassador Pickering. 

Ambassador PICKERING. I guess I’m of the school that says that 

you’ve got to deal with the people who are out there and who can 

affect the outcome, and that diplomacy is a very useful tool. You 

cannot do it without some leverage and without some influence, 

and we obviously do not want to, in a sense, ennoble and crown 

people who have been, in effect, the progenitors of terrorism there 

and around the world. We want to find a way to block that. And 

so, I think you need careful study as you move ahead. 

You need to know and understand what direction this particular 

issue can take. And my own view would be that I would start lowlevel contacts first, and see if you can begin to define, and define 

which way this process will go. But, to leave it in a diplomatic vacuum, in a diplomatic black hole, is aserious mistake. I think we 

need to be—— 

Senator FEINGOLD. Well, we’re already doing that. Certainly, you 

can’t call them low-level contact, as our ambassadors are—I met 

with—— 

Ambassador PICKERING. Yeah. 

Senator FEINGOLD. [continuing]. Two ambassadors, and with Mr. 

Sharif. 

Ambassador PICKERING. Yeah. 

Senator FEINGOLD. What about our—I mean, if that’s occurred, 

based on your assessment, is it time for a higher level contact? 

Ambassador PICKERING. I don’t think it’s time for a higher-level 

contact, and I don’t think enough of the other has occurred yet, but 

I could see it leading to the high-level contact. 

Senator FEINGOLD. All right. Ambassador Lyman. 

Ambassador LYMAN. I think that we have to see—one thing is, 

this is still a very fragile process being led by the U.N. I think we 

could give more support to the UN envoy’s diplomatic effort. He’s 

been out there almost alone working on this with very mixed support, and he is knocking himself out to do it. And I think we can 

lend support to that process, watching it, as Ambassador Pickering 

says, to see if the new president is capable of bringing a broad 

42 

group together. It’s not clear the government has the outreach yet, 

but I think supporting that diplomatic effort is extremely important, because it’s reaching out to a different constituency than the 

al Shabab. 

The other possibility here is also to be in touch with others, in 

different parts of Somalia, who are not part of the government, but 

who are not part of al Shabab either, and seeing whether one can 

make contact with them and encourage them to separate themselves more from the more extremist groups, and maybe eventually 

look toward a much more federated agreement in Somalia. But, we 

haven’t clarified where we are on all these things, and I think we 

need to do so and let the U.N. know where we stand, and act on 

it. 

Senator FEINGOLD. And, of course, this is why, also in these 

meetings, I met with the leaders of Somaliland, and we did that. 

But, Ambassador, what about the Secretary of State or the President having some direct contact with Mr. Sharif? 

Ambassador LYMAN. I think it’s not necessary, at this time, if we 

send a strong signal through our ambassadors in the field that 

we’re supporting the U.N. diplomatic effort. At this point, I think 

that already would give strong support to the government, and 

then let’s see how strong and well received this government is, because if it has no real support anywhere in Somalia, then you don’t 

want to waste the Secretary’s credibility. I think his government 

has potential, but we haven’t seen it really prove itself. 

Senator FEINGOLD. Well, my judgment, having followed this 

country for 17 years—you gentlemen have followed it longer than 

I have—but, for some time, is that this is a much more promising 

and believable group of people that are more inclusive. So, I’m interested, finally, in Dr. Wolpe’s response. 

Dr. WOLPE. Well, I share your view about that potential. I think 

it’s important also to recognize that we, in some ways, are a little 

bit handicapped in our approach to Somalia because of the earlier 

bombing activity, because of identification with the Ethiopian incursion into Somalia. There are others that are somewhat better 

positioned than the United States right now, such as the Norwegians, who were playing a major role in the earlier diplomatic 

effort, in partnership with the United States at that time, that I 

think ought to be in the lead, in some respects. I’m not sure that 

we’re, at this stage, that well positioned to play a very dominant 

role. 

Senator FEINGOLD. The only thing I’d say back to that is, it’s precisely because of the perception of what we did, vis-&-vis the Ethiopian invasion, and the perception of what we’ve done, that makes 

it a higher obligation for us, I think, to show a support for this 

kind of a government—— 

Dr. WOLPE. That—— 

Senator FEINGOLD. [continuing]. If possible, because we need to 

dispel the notion that we don’t want them to succeed. 

43 

Dr. WOLPE. Well, I—— 

Senator FEINGOLD. Fair enough? 

Dr. WOLPE. Fair enough. 

Senator FEINGOLD. All right. 

On that note, I want thank the ranking member and everybody, 

and that concludes the hearing. 

[Whereupon, at 4:03 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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