04 05 14 Briefing on the D.R.C.
MR.
FEINGOLD: Well, we are so
pleased, all of us in the U.S. Government, State Department, that the Secretary
made the important choice to come here and to also go to Angola later today.
These are interconnected visits. Coming here is a statement about how pleased we
are about the progress that the Democratic Republic of the Congo has made in
particular in the last year. Their economic growth is one of the highest in the
world. Yes, it’s on a low base, but it is positive growth.
QUESTION: What percentage
growth annually?
MR.
FEINGOLD: The latest
quarter was 8 percent, they’ve had 10 percent. I want to check those figures,
but they are positive growth figures, and Prime Minister Matata has been given
credit for working with the president to move forward in that
direction.
Their military
performed admirably in this past year, a military that frankly in the past has
not always received the highest reviews, but they performed admirably in going
after one of the most important threats to the security of the country and going
after the M23 in conjunction with MONUSCO and their intervention brigade. This
was not expected that it would go that well and be that complete of a victory.
So that was an important step for a country that needs to have a credible and
competent military in order to govern the eastern part of the country in
particular, that it’s been besieged by instability and
violence.
At the same time,
they demonstrated a strong diplomatic capacity where they sent a top-notch
negotiating team to the Kampala talks, and we were deeply involved, including
the Secretary himself on occasion, with phone calls and bringing that to a
conclusion. It was very difficult, but it did lead to the Nairobi
Declarations.
So this is a
moment where the D.R.C., despite its many challenges, particularly in the
eastern part of the country, can build on its successes. And the Secretary wants
to congratulate them on this and discuss those aspects.
There are a couple
of things that are particularly important in making that momentum continue. One
is all the armed groups have to be pursued. The M23’s success was a prelude to
what is the ongoing operations against the ADF, or ADF Nalu, a Ugandan-based
group in Northern – North Kivu. And those are difficult operations that have
been continuing, combining the FARDC’s efforts along with
MONUSCO.
But the third
major group that has to be pursued, frankly in my view, the top priority, is
going after the FDLR. And the Secretary already discussed this with Foreign
Minister Tshibanda, will discuss it with President Kabila today. The FDLR is the
group that includes those who were involved, and are still around who are
involved in the genocide, the genociders. They’re just a few hours from Rwanda,
where this horrible crime was committed. They have been involved in very
significant crimes and violence, including sexually based violence in eastern
Congo.
And in addition,
the whole idea of this intervention brigade and pursuing these groups was that
the intervention brigade would go after all our groups. So that has to include
those that Rwanda has a particular concern about as well as the others. And we
pledged – MONUSCO, the United States, all of us, the UN – we pledged that this
would include going after the FDLR. Those operations need to be taken seriously.
The planning has been done. But President Kabila needs to give the green light
to say it is time to take them on militarily, at the same time that we work to
create the modalities so that if the FDLR is truly ready to surrender, we’re
ready to do that. And we are working on that as well, but the two have to go
hand in hand. Neither of them can operate on their own.
So that’s one
priority. The other priority is the Secretary will be discussing with President
Kabila, as he’s already done with Foreign Minister Tshibanda, the upcoming cycle
of elections. Critical fact here is that the world was pleasantly surprised – I
remember at the time being chairman of the Africa subcommittee in the United
States Senate – we were pleasantly surprised by the success and credibility of
the 2006 presidential elections. President Kabila came to power in a very
difficult situation where people maybe did not expect that somebody who came
into power that way would be able to pull that off, but they
did.
Unfortunately, in
2011, it was a different story. The international community witnessed an
election that lacked the indices of free, fair, and transparent elections, and
was largely regarded as flawed, as some people in the country claim it was
rigged.
So this is a
critical thing that the presidential elections are coming up in 2016. There
needs to be a series of elections held between now and 2016 that hopefully will
include the first local elections in the history of this nation – they’ve never
had election of local officials – the election of provincial leaders, including
the governors, and then the presidential election, where a two-term limit is
explicitly stated in the constitution. We believe that it is very important for
the future of this country and its stability that that constitution be
respected.
We also believe
that everyone should work together – the Congolese Government, the opposition
party members, the international donors – to make sure that a clear schedule for
the elections is agreed to, a timeline that it is held to, and that the
budgeting for it is transparent, and that those elections proceed and be
finished, including the presidential election, in 2016 without any change in the
constitution. That is our belief with regard to all of the countries in the
region and all across the world, that it is better to adhere to such a
constitutional provision and to not endeavor to change it for any individual –
that that is a formula for instability, not stability.
QUESTION: Can I just
—
MR.
FEINGOLD: Yeah. That’s
basically the two things I wanted to mention. Now you can
ask.
QUESTION: So is that a
polite way of saying the United States does not want Kabila to change the
constitution and go for a third term?
MR.
FEINGOLD: We don’t want –
we believe that the constitution should stand, as in all the other countries in
the region, in the Great Lakes. This is a message we have given consistently.
The President of the United States, President Obama, when he was here last year,
made a very important statement. What Africa needs is not strong men, but strong
institutions. And one of those strong institutions is a credible method of
executive succession, executive term limits. And in most cases, things have gone
much better in those countries that have followed that, particularly in Africa,
from my experience, having worked in this area more than other areas in the
world.
QUESTION: But given that
he’s been quite cooperative over the last year, is he looking for a pass from
you guys?
MR.
FEINGOLD: There certainly
hasn’t been any comment to that effect, and when it comes to democracy, it’s
about the people. The people of this country have a right to have their
constitution respected. They have a right to choose their president in
accordance with their constitution. The constitution here provides for two
terms. As I’d like to say, it’s not as tough a provision as the one in the
United States. Bill Clinton can’t run for president again. This provision
actually is only two terms in a row. This is more like the – many other
countries. We have a particularly tough provision. That provision should be
respected.
QUESTION: What happened
between the 2006 and the 2010 elections that you said —
MR.
FEINGOLD:
2011.
QUESTION: Oh, 2011, right.
You said that 2006 went well and 2011 was not seen as
credible.
MR.
FEINGOLD: There are a
variety of analyses of this. Some suggest that the government here itself sought
to handle these elections on their own and did not do all the things that were
necessary. Others have suggested the international community was not adequately
engaged early enough. So there’s plenty of blame to go
around.
This time, the
international community will be engaged. In fact, in particular, the United
States, as the Secretary will announce today, is very serious about making sure
we play our role, a significant role, in making sure that there are resources
available. The Congolese Government has said that they will handle 80 percent of
the cost of these elections, but another 20 percent needs to come from donors
from around the world. I have taken the view and have gotten tremendous support
from the Secretary that we should be upfront about our willingness to help to
make sure the other donors also are upfront about their willingness to
help.
QUESTION: So can –
sorry.
MR.
FEINGOLD: That – we have to
avoid this chicken – this sort of chicken-and-egg thing where one side says,
“Well, we want to know what you’re going to do, but first we got to know what –
you tell us what you’re going to do and then we’ll tell you what we’re going to
do.” I want and the Secretary wants the Congolese to know that if they create
credible elections with proper timeframe, that – as long as that’s happening,
that we will help, and I hope that we will – our help will be considered
significant.
QUESTION: What kind of
costs are we talking about here?
MR.
FEINGOLD: I’m going to let
the Secretary discuss that later today.
QUESTION: Okay. He plans
to?
MR.
FEINGOLD: He’ll be talking
later today.
QUESTION: All
right.
QUESTION: To what does
President Kabila attribute his reluctance to give the green light to take on the
FDLR militarily? As you say, they are the original genocider, they’ve been
around 20 years.
MR.
FEINGOLD: Well, he has
consistently said he knows that it is not only his responsibility, but in the
interest of his country to remove them from their presence in their country.
It’s an illegal armed group. It’s harmful to the country. The D.R.C. is a
signatory to the Peace, Security, Cooperation Framework that requires this. He
will tell you and I’m sure will tell the Secretary that it’s difficult taking on
all these different groups, that the operations against the ADF have been –
consumed significant resources of his military. But he also has told me, as
recently as a few weeks ago, that he intends to give the green
light.
But that needs to
happen, and so we hope to have a good conversation, that the Secretary will have
a good conversation about exactly when and how that can happen. I’ll just repeat
again, as Martin Kobler and I did yesterday and when we spoke to the Secretary,
that MONUSCO is ready, the FIB is ready, it is time for it to
happen.
QUESTION: Can you drill
that into specifics about how many people would be needed to do that kind of
operation, what kind of money the United States would be able to provide to
really go after these —
MR.
FEINGOLD: Well, we are
already the largest supporter of MONUSCO, and I don’t have any particular
information about how much that particular operation will be. I believe the
resources are there for this operation to occur. That’s not the problem. The
problem is making sure the green light is given. I’ve seen the plans. It’s ready
to go.
QUESTION: What’s AFRICOM’s
relevance?
MR.
FEINGOLD: Nothing in
particular.
QUESTION: They’re not
training, they’re not providing intelligence, they’re not helping
anyone?
MR.
FEINGOLD: No, MONUSCO is
handling their own operation. They have their overall force that’s been there
for a while. The FIB is the force of 3,000 people particularly devoted to this
kind of activity with a strong mandate, about a thousand troops each from
Malawi, South Africa, and Tanzania. And they performed well with regard to the
M23. Some of them have been helping, I believe, with regard to the
ADF.
Yeah, they have, I
believe, right? They’ve been helping with the ADF? They’ve been
(inaudible)?
PARTICIPANT:
Yeah.
MR.
FEINGOLD: Yeah. And so this
is a reasonably financed – they can’t do everything on their own, but there’s a
lot of resources behind this, and I think they have the capacity combined with
the FARDC. This is not some (inaudible) whole new commitment. This is just the
next task that needs to be taken on.
QUESTION: What about
finishing the M23? Rwanda and Uganda are going to have to give up some of the
leaders of that group, it’s my understanding, to stand – to face some sort of
Congolese judicial accountability. Do you believe that President Museveni and
President Kagame will be willing to turn over those
people?
MR.
FEINGOLD: I’m reasonably
optimistic about the follow-up on the so-called Nairobi Declarations. This has
been a little slow, but we got a good update both from the ICGLR and from
Foreign Minister Tshibanda. It appears that the modalities for most of the
people involved, some 1,300 in Uganda and some 600 in Rwanda, are underway. Most
of the individuals will be eligible for and apparently are already signing these
amnesty declarations and they are being processed. This means that many of these
individuals should, in the not-too-distant future, be able to start returning to
the D.R.C. where appropriate and go into the demobilization programs and
hopefully reintegration where appropriate.
Yes, there are
individuals that would not fit in that category, and those individuals should
face justice if they have committed war crimes or crimes against humanity.
That’s the provision of the amnesty law. And I suspect that a reasonable number
of those individuals will be returning to the D.R.C. for that process as well,
although some possibly could be involved with other forms of justice
too.
QUESTION: Mixed
too?
MR.
FEINGOLD: Mixed – yeah,
well, that’s right. As a part of this, in addition to the fact that the amnesty
law was passed – and this is another example of the good things that happened in
the D.R.C. It’s not always easy dealing with congress or a parliament. But they
did the job. The Nairobi Declarations were signed in – on December
12th. By the end of January, they had passed and promulgated this
amnesty law. That was a critical first step to create – otherwise, none of this
follow-up could be really occurring.
The next step is
something where the United States has been really urging the D.R.C. to do
something that it appears they’re very eager to do now as well, and that’s to
create something called mixed chambers or mixed courts. These are Congolese
courts. They’re not international courts. But they’re courts that would include
international judges, typically African judges but people with background in
international law, who would handle these kinds of cases. They would be a
majority Congolese on the court at both the trial and the appellate level, but
it would include the expertise of the international community to make sure that
these prosecutions and all the convictions or whatever may come out of it is
internationally recognized. We also believe it is beneficial to the future
development of the Congolese judiciary.
So, we – our
government has been very active in advising and working on this, and we think
it’s outstanding that there’s a chance that this legislation providing for these
mixed courts could pass in this current legislative session of the D.R.C.
parliament. This is – would be important to making these examples where justice
has to be done actually occur.
QUESTION: Is this session,
this legislative session, is this this calendar year, or does it extend beyond
the calendar –
MR.
FEINGOLD: It, I think, goes
till June.
PARTICIPANT: Yeah, it’s
current.
QUESTION:
Oh.
MR.
FEINGOLD: Started in
March.
PARTICIPANT: I think
(inaudible).
MR.
FEINGOLD: So I’m referring
to just the session, as opposed to the whole.
QUESTION:
Oh.
QUESTION: Can I follow up
on something? The mixed courts, is that – is there any precedent for that? And
also, when you talked about the issue of term limits before, I can’t recall –
does the United States usually take a position on countries’ internal
constitutional processes of term limits? I can’t remember if the United States
comes out and says, “You don’t extend, don’t – “ I don’t remember that
happening. Is that the common –
MR.
FEINGOLD: Well, first of
all, I believe a good precedent – and you could talk to Ambassador Stephen Rapp
about this in more detail – a good precedent is Senegal for the mixed chambers,
which – he often refers to how that was approached. It’s different than, for
example, Sierra Leone, which was an international court that was officed, or
set, in Sierra Leone. This is a Congolese court. And the same thing was done
with regard to one major prosecution in Senegal.
The United States
has consistently said throughout the world and, in particular, in Africa – and I
was involved in this on many occasions as a member of the Senate – where we
would suggest to leaders directly that it is our experience and our thought that
it is far better for your country to maintain term limits for the executive if
it is in your constitution, that it is as a destabilizing influence, and it’s
reputationally damaging to a growing nation to change that. I personally
delivered that message to many African leaders. It’s not the most fun thing to
do. I remember once delivering this message to the president of Djibouti, and he
said something to the effect of, “I hope I don’t have to continue doing this.”
He seemed a little down that day.
But this is – and
sometimes we’ve had a successful role in persuading people who may not have been
excited about leaving that, really, it’s part of their legacy, and that there
are great things that leaders of countries can do after they have been
presidents of their country.
So we respect the
sovereignty of countries, we understand they can create their own constitutional
provision. We didn’t always have executive term limits. But it is our judgment
that stability and democracy and growth of the governance, democratic governance
of countries, is best served by following those
provisions.
QUESTION: And just to
clarify, these are term limits for two terms in a row. He could come back in a
couple of years later and —
MR.
FEINGOLD: That is my
understanding of the Congolese constitution.
QUESTION: Okay. And then
also, what is the U.S.’ position on – as I understand it, there is a move for
indirect elections upcoming, versus direct elections?
MR.
FEINGOLD: We have not taken
a formal position on this. I can tell you that I spent nine days just listening
to people all over this country, particularly in the east. There was almost
unanimous opposition to the idea of indirect election of provincial
governors.
As a personal
matter, if somebody in the United States knows the history of our indirect
election of United States senators, that was a terrific way to have horrible
corruption that led to the direct election of United States senators. We had
even an interesting moment in Illinois not too long ago that had to do with this
issue.
So I think – I
personally think it would be something they might want to avoid. I think it
could be destabilizing as well, just as a personal viewpoint. But I’m not
speaking here that this is our official U.S. Government view. But it seems to me
the popular election of officials is better. But this is not of the same status,
frankly, as the executive term limits.
QUESTION: Okay. And who is
putting the idea forward of the direct elections, if it’s facing
—
MR.
FEINGOLD: It has been
suggested by the head of the CENI, the C-E-N-I, the election commission, Abbe
Malu Malu, who provided two choices to the national parliament. His first choice
was direct local elections followed by – the second year by indirect provincial
elections. In other words, the local officials elected and then presidential.
His second alternative involved having the provincial elections in the same year
as the presidential elections, and making them direct. And these matters are
being considered, as I understand, by the Congolese parliament at this
time.
QUESTION: Is it more
difficult to make the argument for respecting executive term limits in Kinshasa,
when this president’s main rival looks to Kigali and Kampala, and two guys that
have been there way longer than two terms?
MR.
FEINGOLD: It is a message
that has to be consistently delivered throughout the region. It is fair for any
of the presidents in the region to expect that we would take the position, same
position, in all the countries in the region. I am special envoy to the region,
and this is a message that we believe applies in all situations
equally.
QUESTION: This is – I mean,
you’ve been saying already to the president, this is not a new thing that’s
going to happen today, the first time —
MR.
FEINGOLD: I was asked about
this in Kinshasa in January, and spoke very clearly that this was our position.
I know the Secretary has already repeated this to the foreign minister
yesterday. There are no surprises here. We respect the sovereignty of this
nation, and certainly do not believe we should be directing the way they run
their country, but we do not believe in, at the last minute, telling people our
thoughts about this. We are up front as Americans, and we are up front in saying
it is unwise for the future positive movement of this country to change this
constitution.
This country has
shown that it was capable of having a presidential election in 2006, which
defied the expectations of the international community. It would be a terrific
thing that it could show that it can follow its constitution and hold free,
fair, and transparent elections with the opposition in advance, as we agree to
these modalities for the election. It would be a major step forward for the role
that I think the D.R.C. is destined to play in Africa and throughout the
world.
QUESTION: You haven’t
spoken about the LRA yet. Could you bring us up to speed on
that?
MR.
FEINGOLD: It’s not within
my mandate.
QUESTION: Oh,
okay.
MR.
FEINGOLD: I wrote the
legislation as a senator relating to this. My senior advisor worked on this
issue in the past. I’m pleased that the United States is continuing its efforts
in that regard, but I’m not the guy to be holding forth on that
today.
QUESTION:
Okay.
MS.
PSAKI: All
right.
MR.
FEINGOLD: Okay.
Thanks.
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