[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
U.N. PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS IN AFRICA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
April 30, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-30
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov,
or http://http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
36-134PDF WASHINGTON : 2019
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office,
http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center,
U.S. Government Publishing Office. Phone 202-512-1800, or 866-512-1800 (toll-free).
E-mail, po@custhelp.com.
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York, Chairman
BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York Member
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida JOE WILSON, South Carolina
KAREN BASS, California SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts TED S. YOHO, Florida
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
AMI BERA, California LEE ZELDIN, New York
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin
DINA TITUS, Nevada ANN WAGNER, Missouri
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York BRIAN MAST, Florida
TED LIEU, California FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
DEAN PHILLPS, Minnesota JOHN CURTIS, Utah
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota KEN BUCK, Colorado
COLIN ALLRED, Texas RON WRIGHT, Texas
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania GREG PENCE, Indiana
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey STEVE WATKINS, Kansas
DAVID TRONE, Maryland MIKE GUEST, Mississippi
JIM COSTA, California
JUAN VARGAS, California
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas
Jason Steinbaum, Democrat Staff Director
Brendan Shields, Republican Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations
KAREN BASS, California, Chair
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey,
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota Ranking Member
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania RON WRIGHT, Texas
TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
Janette Yarwood, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD FROM COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Prepared statement for the record from Chair Bass................ 3
INFORMATION SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Information submitted for the record from Representative Smith... 9
WITNESSES
Holt, Victoria K., Managing Director, Henry L. Stimson Center,
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International
Security....................................................... 17
Das, Chandrima, Peacekeeping Policy Director, United Nations
Foundation..................................................... 30
Paul, Dr. Williams, Associate Professor, George Washington
University..................................................... 40
Gallo, Peter, Director, Hear Their Cries......................... 51
MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Information submitted for the record from Representative Smith... 68
APPENDIX
Hearing Notice................................................... 94
Hearing Minutes.................................................. 95
Hearing Attendance............................................... 96
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
Written submission for the record from Represtative Smith........ 97
U.N. PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS IN AFRICA
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
Global Human Rights, and International Organizations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in
Room 2322 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Karen Bass (chair
of the subcommittee) presiding.
Ms. Bass. This hearing for the Subcommittee on Africa,
Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International
Organizations will come to order.
The subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on U.N.
peacekeeping operations in Africa. This hearing is in line with
the overview and orientation that we are providing in this new
session.
The hearing will also provide an update on the state of
U.N. peacekeeping missions in Africa and the role the U.S.
plays in supporting their efforts on the continent, how we
should engage the continent, and what that looks like, moving
forward.
So, without objection, all members have 5 days to submit
statements, questions, extraneous materials for the record
subject to the length limitation in the rules.
I recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening
statement. I would also like to thank our distinguished
witnesses who are here with us today and our ranking member who
has fought for many, many years to make sure that peacekeeping
is done well and that the U.S. stays involved.
We all know that Africa is vast in scope with different
challenges across its geographical regions. The diversity of
the continent means that our approach to policy must be
flexible and strategic when looking to assist the continent's
needs regionally and independently.
Due to demographic changes and increased regional
integration, Africa will be the single largest market in the
world in a few decades. With the support of successful
partnerships within Africa and globally, the continent can
overcome its development and security challenges.
U.N. peacekeepers aim to protect civilians, promote human
rights, prevent conflicts, broker peace, and build the rule of
law.
The recent attack on a U.N. convoy in Mali killed a
peacekeeper from Egypt and injured four others. There were also
10 peacekeepers and another 25 injured at a U.N. camp in Mali
in January.
Peacekeepers are oftentimes in harm's way, trying to broker
peace with radical extremist groups, and peacekeepers in Mali
have oftentimes been the target of extremist groups.
There have been successful U.N. peacekeeping missions in
Africa. These missions also have organized the Burundi
elections in 1905, monitored the cease-fire between Eritrea and
Ethiopia, helped implement the Arusha peace agreement between
the Rwandan armed forces and the Rwandan Patriotic Front, and
helped ECOWAS investigate human rights violations, monitor the
electoral process, and implemented peace agreements after the
Liberian civil war.
I believe that these missions have been more helpful than
not but there are challenges including reported crimes of
peacekeepers. There have been reports of human rights
violations by security forces in the Sahel, torture in the CAR,
Congo, and Somalia, sex trafficking rings.
Peacekeepers are often under equipped. Oftentimes, too few
soldiers are on the ground. Many of the U.N. personnel on the
ground are not local, meaning lack of in-depth knowledge of
cultural institutions and lack of language skills to
communicate with locals.
Considering some of the issues mentioned around protecting
peacekeepers and civilians, I look forward to hearing your
views and suggestions in your testimony or in the Q&A.
The numerous attacks in Mali are very concerning and I
would also like to hear your thoughts on the idea of the
peacekeepers decreasing their footprint in the DRC.
These are just a few questions I will pose to our witnesses
and I look forward to hearing what you think we should do to
strengthen peacekeeping missions on the continent and around
the world.
Last, I am troubled that the administration has not
emphasized supporting U.N. peacekeeping missions particularly
in Africa. This administration stated that funding would be cut
to the U.N.--to the United Nations and that the U.S. will no
longer provide indiscriminate assistance across the entire
African continent.
The U.N. National Security Advisor John Bolton added that
the U.S. will no longer support unproductive, unsuccessful, and
unaccountable U.N. peacekeeping missions.
This is very troubling but I do want to emphasize that U.S.
relations with Africa has always enjoyed bipartisan cooperation
here in Congress and we expect that to continue.
Time after time, when funding was recommended to be reduced
that directly impacts African countries we worked collectively
to reinstate this crucial funding.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Bass follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
I now want to recognize the ranking member for the purpose
of making an opening statement.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Chairman Bass, and thank
you to our witnesses for being here, for your leadership but
also for taking time out of your busy schedules to convey your
wisdom and insights and recommendations to our subcommittee.
This is an important hearing so I thank you, Madam Chair,
for calling us together to talk about peacekeeping in general
and peacekeeping in Africa in particular.
As we know, U.N. peacekeeping costs about $7 billion a
year. Fourteen U.N. peacekeeping deployments are currently
underway.
About 100,000 military police and civilian personnel
comprise those efforts and I think they are extraordinarily
valuable but there is always gaps and always room for
significant improvement.
This subcommittee had been very active on this issue dating
back to the year 2000 as well as holding two hearings on
peacekeeping operations in the DRC, which I held, about the
exploitation of little girls--mostly little girls--in and
around the Goma area, and we did hear from the U.N. at that
time. Jane Holl Lute testified and what was a great focus or in
great focus then was the zero tolerance policy.
In one of our hearings we even said it is zero compliance
because so few of the peacekeepers themselves and their command
structures are taking it seriously enough. We also looked at
peacekeeping operations in 2012 and, again, in 2016, again
focusing on the allegations of abuse and the absence of
accountability and that was another hearing in 2016, and Peter
Gallo had testified at that hearing.
Karen, it was just 3 weeks ago that we met with President
Touadera of the Central African Republic during his visit to
Congress along with Ambassador Lucy Tamlyn for a very
productive discussion on a range of topics including the
security situation in the CAR, the majority of which is not
under effective control by the government.
One of the things that struck me about the dialog is how
clear it was made by the president and his entourage of the
need for U.N. peacekeepers in that country, which is still very
much chaotic, and how U.N. peacekeepers could still fill a gap
so that we do not have to put American troops in harm's way.
That said, however, recognizing a need is one thing.
Meeting that need is another, and I think with respect to that
how well the U.N. peacekeepers are meeting that need in
countries like CAR but also in South Sudan and the Democratic
Republic of Congo is still open for question and there is great
room for improvement.
We know that the record is mixed in South Sudan, UNMISSS's
operation. We hear good things about the Mongolian peacekeepers
who patrol aggressively and give civilians a sense of security.
But elsewhere the record is, at best, mixed, and in many
cases very negative. I have received a statement from Bishop
Nongo of the Diocese of Bossangoa in the Central African
Republic, which I request be entered into the record, without
objection.
Ms. Bass. No objection.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Smith. Thank you. You may recall that Bishop Nongo
testified before the subcommittee in 2013 in one of our two
hearings of this subcommittee on the crisis in CAR.
In his statement submitted for this hearing with his
unusual--his usual, I should say, frankness, Bishop Nongo
identifies the CAR as a failed State and one where MINUSCA, the
United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Civilization Mission
in the Central African Republic, could only play a critical
role in helping stabilize.
Yes, he says one is forced--and I quote him here--to wonder
about MINUSCA's protecting mission. He recalls shocking
incidents where neither the government nor MINUSCA forces took
any action whatsoever despite the prior alert given by
religious leaders.
His assessment is that ``MINUSCA has shown weakness
pertaining to civilians' protection, humanitarian safeguards,
security access and strict accountability for violations of
international humanitarian and human rights law,'' closed
quote.
In particular--and this is important--he calls out the
Moroccan, Mauritanian, and Pakistani contingents for what he
calls inappropriate cooperation and unlawful conduct with ex-
Seleka groups--armed groups--who plunged CAR into the crisis
back in 2012 and 2013.
Such cooperation is including taking former Seleka members
on patrol and with them in armored vehicles as well as
providing uniforms and ammunition.
This raises serious questions about the efficacy of U.N.
peacekeeping operations, at least as far as the CAR goes.
Another written statement which we have received I also ask
be included in the record is from Mike Jobbins in Search for
Common Ground who addresses the failure of peacekeepers to
protect and what that does to undermine the trust which needs
to be there among the civilian community.
He says, and I quote, ``When civilians are killed and
peacekeepers are viewed as neglecting their duty, the host
country loses faith in that mission in acting in their best
interests and resists their presence. Ambiguity is about the
role of U.N. missions when they will or will not use force and
encourages public resentment and undermines the degree to which
they pose a credible threat to armed forces.''
Another witness, Peter Gallo, who will be testifying today,
has also previously testified before this subcommittee, has
been a courageous voice in exposing sexual exploitation and
abuse conducted in connection with U.N. peacekeeping missions.
We need absolute zero tolerance when it comes to that
exploitation.
I look forward to this hearing--his assessment and that of
the others who are testifying today, and I anticipate that a
mixed record when it comes to sexual abuse and exploitation
which needs to be further addressed. Zero tolerance ought to be
zero tolerance.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Ms. Bass. Thank you very much.
I would now like to introduce our panel. Victoria Holt is a
managing director at the Henry Stimson Center and an adjunct
professor at Columbia University. Her expertise includes
international security and multilateral tools, peace
operations, and conflict prevention.
Previously, she served as the U.S. Deputy Assistant
Secretary for State for International Security in the Bureau of
International Organization Affairs from '09 to 2017. In that
role, she was responsible for policy and guidance for U.S.
actions in the Security Council and oversaw offices handling
peace operations, sanctions, counterterrorism, and U.N.
political affairs.
She led development of U.S. diplomatic initiatives
including the 2015 Leaders' Summit on U.N. Peacekeeping hosted
by President Obama to increase capacities for U.N. operations
and she previously worked on Capitol Hill on defense and
foreign affairs.
Ms. Das serves as the director of peacekeeping policy at
the Better World Campaign. She is a resident expert on U.N.
peacekeeping operations and educates Congress and the
administration on the value of peacekeeping as an effective
part of the U.S. national security toolbox.
She spearheads thought leadership and authors policy papers
and field reports on U.N. peacekeeping. She also served as a
special advisor for the U.N. High Level Panel on humanitarian
financing and providing an American perspective to the panel
and her expertise on conflict resolution.
Previously, Ms. Das worked at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Thank you for joining us.
Paul Williams is an associate professor in the Elliott
School of International Affairs at George Washington University
where he is also associate director of the security policy
studies.
Dr. Williams received his Ph.D. in international politics
from the University of Wales. His research focuses on the
politics of contemporary peace operations and the dynamics of
war and peace in Africa. He previously worked at the
Universities of Warwick and Birmingham in the U.K.
He has been a visiting scholar at Georgetown University and
the University of Queensland, a visiting professor at Addis
Ababa University and a fellow with the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Mr. Gallo is a qualified lawyer--glad you are not an
unqualified lawyer--admitted to practice in Scotland, Hong
Kong, and New York. He has an MBA and an LL.M. in international
criminal law.
He spent 19 years as an investigator based in Hong Kong
working on investigations in some of the most corrupt countries
in Asia and was a leading authority on the identification and
detection of money laundering.
In 2011, he was recruited by the U.N. as an investigator in
the Office of Internal Oversight Services investigations
division in New York, the office that is supposed to
investigate corruption, fraud, and other criminality in the
organization.
After his insights and personal experience there, he became
an outspoken critic of the United Nations, particularly about
the manner in which corruption is covered up.
I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here today
and I would like to ask you to summarize your written
testimony, and we do not have a clock that you can all see but
I have a stopwatch here. So everyone will have 5 minutes and
then we will begin a round of Q&A.
Ms. Holt.
STATEMENT OF VICTORIA K. HOLT, MANAGING DIRECTOR, HENRY L.
STIMSON CENTER, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
Ms. Holt. Chair Bass, Ranking Member Smith, and
distinguished members of the committee, it is a genuine
pleasure to be here. Thank you very much, and I thank you for
the interest in this topic.
It is one this committee has had a long history on, both
the nature of peacekeeping, the link to U.S. interests, and the
constant interest and demand for reform and modernization.
I have served in many roles. I have been a researcher, I
have been policymaker, and I most recently was a diplomat at
the Department of State.
So my comments really today come from that experience of
seeing missions up close and the ongoing desire to reduce the
gap between the aspirations of a Security Council resolution
and actually delivering in the field.
We will never be done, but I will say this moment is a
really awesome chance to move reforms forward; I have much in
my comments about that.
You know the basics. The U.S. is a permanent member of the
Security Council, which is focused on threats to international
peace and security. Peace operations are probably the best
known thing that the U.N. does.
We have over a 100,000 civilians, military, and police in
the field today in 14 missions, often in remote and fragile
States.
Over 120 countries contribute to these. Those numbers are
huge. I will also note the U.S. provides about 40 of these
total officers. So it is really an opportunity where you see a
form of burden sharing. We are the largest financial
contributor.
It also is a direct interest to the United States that
peacekeeping is successful. It avails with stability and
conflict prevention. It addresses countries that are under
threat of violence and extremism and it also supports goals of
democracy and rule of law.
It also supports our values. It promotes human rights and
tries to address humanitarian crises, migration and refugee
flows, and in places like Liberia stepped in to also try and
prevent the expansion of the Ebola crisis in that country. So
both for security interests and our values, we value the U.N.
I saw this up front when I was in State. Today, Co-te
d'Ivoire is a successful West African country with the highest
growth rate in the region. We soon forget that in 2010-2011 it
almost went into civil war when that election resulted in two
people believing they were president.
The small U.N. mission there quickly bunkered down,
provided the election outcome and validated it, and stood firm
as the political process moved forward. War was averted.
Likewise, on the values side, we have seen in South Sudan
when that new country was ushered forward as the first country
in the last 10 years, a small mission--a large mission was
deployed to support peace building.
But in December 2013 things changed. Civil conflict broke
out and people fled to the U.N.'s compounds. They opened the
door. In the town of Bor, for example, a few months later an
American named Ken happened to be the civilian in charge of
that compound. A military crew of 80 showed up with one of the
government ministers and demanded to go in. They intended to
attack the civilians there. He turned around and said, ``Close
the door.'' He was unarmed. He was trained as a New York Police
cop. He did the right thing. He saved lives that day and he
risked his own to do so.
So I think these kinds of examples are really important to
us. Whether it is in Mali and Central African Republic, what we
see in Somalia or Congo, every one of these missions has
details of real people in the field.
But reform is hugely needed and this is what I want to get
to. Supporting political processes and solutions, governments
need to abide by the agreements they make when they invite the
missions in.
We, as diplomats, you, as leaders, can help reinforce those
political agreements and if they are not working, ask why.
Protection of civilians on the ground as well as from any bad
behavior by the peacekeepers remains a top priority. Ninety-
five percent of peacekeepers today serve under those mandates.
And then gaps in capacity--the lack of medical health or being
able to fly where you need to, French-speaking police officers
who are women--it is wide. It is getting better.
The U.S. has been a leader on the reform and modernization.
There has been a series of Presidential summits kicked off by
the U.S. and led by other countries, high-level reviews, and
now ongoing series of resolutions through the Security Council
including on performance and accountability--ones that this
committee had paid attention to.
So what is our challenge? We need that continued U.S.
leadership and we need it strong, and we have a bit of a
challenge. There is a financial crunch coming at the U.N.
The secretary general has just issued a very thick report.
He is worried that most of the missions do not even have 3
months to keep their budgets operating. We have also seen
troop-contributing and police-contributing countries not get
reimbursed for their performance in the field, not because they
did not do well but because there is not enough money.
So the U.S. Congress could help with this. We could pay our
full assessment which is, roughly, 28 percent of the budget. We
could pay back the arrears and lift the congressional cap, the
most during both the Bush and Obama Administrations was lifted
by Congress. If you want us to get to 25 percent, let us put
the State Department on notice. Let us ask why they failed at
the negotiations last year and let us start now with a national
push to get that done.
But let us not accrue arrears in the short run. That helps
nobody. It does not get our reforms and it gives every country
that opposes us a talking point. I saw this in the earlier
negotiations that Ambassador Holbrooke and, Congressman Smith,
you were involved in.
So, finally, the U.N. needs our leadership. We are often
the best at assessing and criticizing as well as being
practical and inspiring to these missions. I urge you to go to
the field and see them yourself.
Myself and my colleagues would be more than happy to help
set that up and work with your teams on this, and let us also
put some more diplomats in New York. They are shorthanded with
only two of the five posts in New York there and working on the
Security Council to be able to give voice and vote and
enthusiasm to the modernization and reform we need.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Holt follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Bass. Thank you very much, and I would just say before
I go on to the next guest, you know, for my colleagues who are
new on the committee, an opportunity to go visit peacekeeping I
think should be high on your agenda and we can make sure that
happens.
Ms. Das.
STATEMENT OF CHANDRIMA DAS, PEACEKEEPING POLICY DIRECTOR,
UNITED NATIONS FOUNDATION
Ms. Das. Chairwoman Bass, Ranking Member Smith, members of
the subcommittee, I am honored to be here today to testify
about the value of United Nations Peacekeeping efforts in
Africa.
Having travelled to six U.N. peacekeeping missions in
Africa over the last 5 years, I believe continued U.S.
financial support for these operations is an investment worthy
of American taxpayer dollars.
U.N. peacekeepers serve 100 million people aiming to create
stability in fragile States. Each mission is tasked with
varying responsibilities authorized by the U.N. Security
Council.
Some missions serve as buffers between two parties. Other
missions are more complex and are tasked with protecting
civilians, monitoring human rights, facilitating delivery of
aid, training security sector, and building the capacity of
government institutions and providing electoral assistance.
They do this at a relatively modest cost. The U.N.
peacekeeping budget covers more than 100,000 personnel deployed
at 14 missions, which half are in Africa.
The total cost of U.N. peacekeeping is $7 billion a year of
which the U.S. is assessed for $1.8 billion. For comparison's
sake, this is 1 percent of the U.S. military spending.
According to the report released by the GAO last year, it
is eight times less expensive for the U.S. to financially
support U.N. peacekeeping missions than to deploy U.S. forces
alone.
Last year, I travelled to Mali, home to the third largest
U.N. peacekeeping mission in the world. After a military coup
in 2012, well-armed radical Islamist groups linked to al-Qaida
took over large sections of the country. These extremists
imposed Sharia law, carrying out stonings and amputations as
punishment.
In Timbuktu, once a famous center of trade and learning,
extremists destroyed the historic town's library and
mausoleums, antiquities now lost to the world forever.
After French forces intervened at the request of the Malian
government, U.N. peacekeepers were tasked with stabilizing the
country. Sixteen thousand peacekeepers covered an area so vast
it is equivalent to the territory from New York to Florida.
However, terrorist organizations linked to ISIS and al-
Qaida continue to threaten and manipulate inter-ethnic disputes
to their advantage.
Just yesterday, ISIS leader Baghdadi pledged allegiance to
the ``brothers'' in Mali and Burkina Faso, highlighting the
security challenges in the region. Recently, the conflict has
shifted to the center of the country and last month 160
villagers--men, women and children--were massacred by
extremists.
Despite these horrifying conditions, there are signs of
hope. The presence of U.N. peacekeepers allow for U.N. agencies
like the World Food Program to partner with 40 villages to grow
their own food and make them less dependent on local militias.
I visited a farm supported by U.N. peacekeepers that
provided food for families and gave youth an alternative
opportunity to the extremist ideologies that surrounded them.
Also, I have witnessed the work of U.N. peacekeepers in
Central African Republic. In 2014, it was the 20th anniversary
of the Rwandan genocide and the mission allowed the
international community to live up to the promise of never
again when it helped contain vicious sectarian violence between
Christian and Muslim communities. Amnesty International
reported that the U.N. mission saved many lives and prevented
much bloodshed.
In South Sudan, where a civil war once raged, tens of
thousands of civilians came to the U.N. compounds to seek
shelter. The mission opened its doors serving large numbers of
people who otherwise would have been directly targeted, and
peacekeeping forces continue to protect nearly 200,000 people
at six sites around the country.
I want to take a moment now to address some of the
misconceptions--one, that peacekeeping missions last forever.
They do not. In fact, the last 2 years peacekeeping missions in
Liberia and Cote D'Ivoire closed after peaceful democratic
elections and this coming October the mission in Haiti is set
to close.
And No. 2, the U.N. peacekeeping is incapable of change.
U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres has instituted a series
of reforms backed by majority member States aimed at greater
accountability, transparency, and clarity in peacekeeping.
In partnership with the U.S., the secretary general is
working to modernize the U.N. None of this is possible,
however, without full U.S. engagement and support. The U.S. is
currently the biggest financial donor for U.N. peacekeeping
paying 27.8 percent of the peacekeeping budget.
In December, this rate was lowered from 28.4 and was agreed
to by the Trump administration. However, since the mid-1990's
U.S. law has arbitrarily capped U.S. contributions at 25
percent.
As a result, the U.S. currently owes $750 million in
arrears, contributing to a cash crunch. This means that allies
like Ethiopia, Rwanda, and India are not receiving full payment
for the thousands of police and troop contributions of
peacekeeping, in comparison to the U.S. that only contributes
40 peacekeepers.
Peacekeepers go where no one else will. They protect the
world's most vulnerable in some of the world's most challenging
places. We ask that Congress honor our financial obligations to
U.N. peacekeeping and allow us to pay at our assessed rate. It
not only serves American national security interests but it is
the right thing to do.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Das follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Bass. Thank you very much.
Dr. Williams.
STATEMENT OF PAUL WILLIAMS, PH.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, GEORGE
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Mr. Williams. Thank you, Chair Bass, Ranking Member Smith,
members of the subcommittee. Thanks for inviting me to testify
at this hearing today.
I am an academic who has studied the politics and
effectiveness of peace operations in Africa and elsewhere for
over two decades now and my testimony today focuses on
partnership peacekeeping in Africa--that is, collaboration
between different international organizations and States to
deliver effective field missions, and specifically it
highlights the roles played by missions that are mandated and
authorized by the African Union and explains why the United
States should support the use of U.N.-assessed contributions to
finance AU peace operations that have been authorized by the
Security Council.
Since 2003, the African Union has proved that its peace
operations provide a global public good by helping to keep the
peace in Africa. A strong and effective African Union is,
therefore, good for Africa but it is also good for the world.
The AU has now mandated and authorized 16 peace operations
ranging from small observer missions to large forces engaged in
stabilization, counterinsurgency, and even counterterrorism
activities against groups like al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, and the
Lord's Resistance Army.
By 2015, African States deployed nearly 70,000 uniformed
peacekeepers across Africa, nearly 50,000 in U.N. missions and,
roughly, 22,000 in Somalia, and this was partly thanks to
training programs like the U.S. Global Peace Operations
Initiative.
AU missions have carried out critical peace and security
tasks that are not usually performed by U.N. peacekeeping
operations including counterinsurgency efforts as in Somalia
and Mali, and this is likely to become even more important as
more Islamist fighters are moving from the Middle Eastern
theater into north Africa, the Sahel, and elsewhere in sub-
Saharan Africa.
However, AU missions have suffered major capability gaps
related to finance, logistics, and mission support. These have
been partially filled by external partners, notably, the United
Nations and European Union as well as the U.S.
But AU forces were unable to sustain themselves in the
field and were rehatted into larger U.N. missions in Burundi,
Darfur, Mali, and the Central African Republic.
Nevertheless, as the AU has developed and strengthened,
future peace operations in Africa are likely to be either
mandated or authorized by the AU with U.N. peacekeeping
missions being rehatted African missions.
It is, therefore, imperative that we find a long-term
solution for financial AU peace operations in part to ensure
that U.N. peacekeeping is not being set up to fail when it is
forced to take on mandates and tasks that run counter to its
principles of impartiality, consent, and minimum use of force.
To help do this, the African Union established a Peace Fund
recently which generates revenues via a 0.2 percent levy that
is imposed on eligible goods imported into the African
continent.
So far, that has raised $105 million. This could pay for
some of the costs of the AU's missions but not the whole bill.
AMISOM in Somalia, for example, costs about $1 billion a year.
For the last decade, the U.N. Security Council has debated
whether it should pay the rest through the U.N.'s assessed
peacekeeping contributions.
The AU has tried to lock in this principal because it would
move beyond ad hoc means of support and provide a more
predictable framework which could be the basis for long-term
capacity building and institutional development for the African
Union.
This makes sense. The United States should empower the
African Union by supporting its access to predictable and
sustainable finance. This would be in line with previous
bipartisan U.S. policy, which was based on four preferences:
one, ensuring that the U.N. Security Council remains the
primary multilateral decisionmaking body for matters of
international peace and security; No. 2, ensuring that U.N.
funds are used in an accountable and transparent manner; three,
that decisions on how to respond to particular crises are taken
on a case by case basis; and four, that the African Union
should pay some if not all of the bills for its peace
operations.
Instead of supporting the African Union with ad hoc mixture
of bilateral programs and trust funds, which has produced
highly uneven capabilities available to different AU missions,
the United States would be better served by supporting a more
predictable framework, namely, using U.N.-assessed
contributions to finance AU peace operations that have been
authorized by the Security Council.
This would do three things. No. 1, it would empower the
African Union Commission to better administer and oversee
African peace operations and it would allow international
partners to hold a single entity accountable for the mission's
performance and effectiveness in the field.
Two, it would improve African capabilities and their
adherence to international human rights and humanitarian law
for all the contributing countries across the board, and third,
it would actually reduce the overall cost to the United States
compared to providing the same capabilities on a bilateral
basis to the respective contributing countries because the U.S.
pays about 28 percent of the peacekeeping bill and other
countries pay 72 percent.
Now, at present, different elements of U.S. policy toward
peace operations in Africa are not coherently aligned. The
stated goal of supporting effective and accountable missions is
being undermined by the lack of a coherent diplomatic strategy,
a failure to empower the African Union, and a failure to pay
our assessed contributions in full and on time.
The U.S. should pay its peacekeeping dues in full and on
time. Refusing to do so undermines our credibility and
influence at the United Nations. It undermines the principle of
international negotiations and it hurts the U.N.'s major
contributing countries, many of whom are key U.S. partners in
the field.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Williams follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Bass. Thank you.
Mr. Gallo.
STATEMENT OF PETER GALLO, DIRECTOR, HEAR THEIR CRIES
Mr. Gallo. Thank you, Chairman Bass, Ranking Member Smith,
and distinguished members of the committee.
I spent 4 years as an internal investigator in the U.N. and
I have since spoken extensively about the corruption and the
lack of accountability in the organization, and I know that the
U.N. and others like to portray me as some kind of disenchanted
extremists.
So I like to often begin by deliberately misquoting
Shakespeare, specifically, Marc Antony's speech about coming to
bury Caesar, not to praise him.
Being critical of the U.N. in any way is often interpreted
as an attempt to destroy the organization. Nothing could be
further from the truth. We are not anarchists.
Of course, there is a need for peacekeeping but the U.N. is
wilfully blind to the harm that that peacekeeping brings with
it and my concern for the future, as Marc Antony went on, is
that the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft
interred with their bones. And nobody wants the U.N. to be more
remembered for the sexual abuse of children in Africa rather
than the reason the organization was there in the first place.
Given my background, I focus on accountability and I
appreciate that the committee is concerned with the lack of
independent information about what is actually happening in the
field missions. Those two are far from unrelated.
Peacekeeping, by its very nature, takes place in remote
areas not well covered by an independent free press, leaving
the outside world with the U.N. as the sole source of
information.
But as was seen in the Central African Republic, the staff
working in those missions will not speak out about anything no
matter how egregious, corrupt, or wasteful it may be, and when
they do there are plenty of case studies as to what happens,
like the cases of Miranda Brown, Anders Kompass, and Emma
Reilly.
U.N. peacekeeping has to be understood on the ground in
terms of the U.N. culture, which involves, on one hand, a lack
of accountability for senior staff and those who enjoy the
patronage, and a lack of whistle blower protection for those
who do not.
In the U.N. it is not what you do that matters; it is who
you know, and that applies for career advancement and the
prosecution of misconduct. It is carrot and stick, and the most
important rule in the United Nations, what I call the prime
directive, is to protect the U.N.'s image above all else.
It is not the scale of the sexual abuse and, particularly,
the child rape but the failure to deal with it that is
seriously undermining the U.N.'s credibility.
Now, Hear Their Cries has been criticized for our estimate
60,000 women and children raped or sexually abused by the U.N.
personnel over 10 years. That figure is an estimate, but
neither the U.N. nor anyone else is willing to debate it. And
shocking as though it may be, 60,000 may be a conservative
estimate.
Still, the number of cases that are acknowledged by the
U.N. remains tiny. But the U.N. does not report all the
complaints. They are very good at filtering out most of them at
the assessment stage whereas journalists seem to have very
little difficulty finding victims when they look for them.
Why are more of these rape cases not reported? Because U.N.
staff are not stupid and they know what will happen if they do.
One, any investigation will fail to establish wrongdoing, and
two, the organization will retaliate against the staff member
for having reported it.
In the United Nations, whistleblower protection does not
work because the U.N. does not want it to work. So the staff
who report wrongdoing are committing career suicide. Staff will
look at cases like Miranda Brown and ask why should they risk
it.
Now, the U.S. Government has tried to pressure the U.N.
into strengthening whistleblower protection. These provisions
have been unsuccessful. The U.N. Ethics Office continues to go
through extraordinary lengths never to find retaliation and
when they do, OIOS, instead of investigating it, simply asks
the subject to come up with a plausible explanation for its
actions, essentially abdicating any investigative
responsibility. But the investigations director claims this is
to, and I quote, ``keep the Americans off our backs.''
With regard to the misconduct by military personnel, in the
CAR the U.N. knowingly deployed ill-disciplined troops with a
history of human rights abuses. Unsurprisingly, they turned out
to be so bad they had to be withdrawn. But why were they
deployed in the first place?
Given the financial incentive, any competent investigator
would consider the possibility of bribery influencing that
decision. But the U.N. will not consider that possibility, far
less investigate it.
Ironically, it was not those peacekeepers who were
responsible for the child sex abuse in 2015. That was only
exposed because a single U.N. staff member, Miranda Brown, was
prepared to stand up against an abusive authority.
That may have sparked off a media firestorm, focused world
attention on the CAR, and journalists began finding hundreds of
other SEA victims.
The U.N. was forced to act. The Deschamps enquiry was
empanelled. But, ultimately, the only thing that is changed is
that Miranda Brown has lost her career.
Now, the U.N. claims that the allegations in the CAR were
fully and professionally investigated at a cost, by the way, of
half a million U.S. dollars, though they established next to
nothing.
But as early as October 2016, OIOS was already undermining
the integrity and the credibility of complainants in the town
of Dekoa. I am aware of an internal review having been carried
out within the OIOS into the sexual abuse investigations in the
CAR in Dekoa.
This was essentially instructed to identify what lessons
could be learned but was never released. Instead, it was made
to disappear and has been concealed even from the OIOS staff
for whom it was written, casting serious doubts on how reliable
the U.N. investigations were.
In 2017, the secretary general announced a new approach to
combatting sexual exploitation and abuse. On closer inspection,
however, this is not a new approach at all. It continues with
the same mind set as before and is doomed to fail for four
basic and fundamental reasons.
No. 1 is that the U.N. continues to ignore the fact that
sexual exploitation is criminal. Second, the U.N. does not want
to recognize that effective deterrence of any criminal conduct
is directly related to the likelihood of the offender being
held accountable. And three, the U.N. still wants to believe
that raising awareness of the conduct being criminal will
somehow deter it. It will not.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gallo follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. Bass. We are going to move on.
We need to--you passed your 5 minutes.
Mr. Gallo. I am sorry.
Ms. Bass. You will have an opportunity in the Q&A to
continue to make your points.
We are going to move into questions and answers with the
members that are here. I will begin and we will each take 5
minutes and be consistent with that as well so everybody can
have an opportunity to ask questions.
Why do not I begin by speaking with Ms. Holt? And you were
talking about the funding and, you know, I think--I wanted you
to clarify something that I am not sure if I heard you say.
I know I am concerned that Congress has capped the U.S.
peacekeeping assessment at 25 percent and I wanted to know the
impact of the cap. But I thought you said even before talking
about that the resources were being reduced on the U.N. level
as well, not even including what the U.S. was doing. Did I hear
you correctly?
Ms. Holt. United States is not the only country but the
U.S. is probably the largest country that has outstanding
obligations to the U.N.
There are a few issues, as you noted. One, the
congressional cap, which was initiated, roughly, 20 years ago
and has been lifted repeatedly by Congress was meant to help
reduce our assessment. Those negotiations just happened last
year and for some reason the administration was not able to
align the actual rate which we pay through negotiations with
our U.N.--through the U.N.
So Congress faces a problem. The cap will continue to
accrue arrears. It is about $750 million today and it is
approaching a billion by the end of the year.
Ms. Bass. Who are some of the biggest, you know, offenders
in terms of not making their contributions?
Ms. Holt. Well, the secretary general has put out a report
with every single country and the amount they owe. The U.S., in
my understanding, is the largest, and I did not study it to
understand the way to rank the countries. But I would be happy
to, maybe Paul knows.
Ms. Bass. Dr. Williams.
Mr. Williams. Yes. The U.N. secretary general's report said
the next largest culprits, if you like, were Brazil, which owed
$243 million, Ukraine $108 million, Venezuela $50 million, UAE
$38.7 million, then Belarus, Japan, Mexico, Argentina, and
Greece. They were the top 10.
Ms. Bass. And I also think one of you--and I am not sure if
it was Ms. Holt or Ms. Das--talked about the AU contributions.
And so my question is what does the AU contribute.
Was that you, Dr. Williams, that said the AU does not
contribute?
Mr. Williams. The African Union contributes in terms of
African Union members.
Ms. Bass. Right.
Mr. Williams. So the 54 members of the AU that are also
members of the U.N. contribute to the U.N. peacekeeping budget.
But the African Union has also just recently set up a new peace
fund, which is trying to fund its own African Union operations
and that is where the $105 million new resources has come from.
But some African countries will be behind in terms of on
time and in full in their payments as well. But they have very
small percentage contributions to the peacekeeping budget. So
it does not figure anywhere near the top 10 countries I just
mentioned.
Ms. Bass. What do you think that the U.S. could do to
strengthen the African Union so that they get to the point
where there is less reliance, frankly, on peacekeepers outside
of the continent?
Mr. Williams. There's a couple of things. No. 1 is to
invest in the long term. So provide a stable set of
relationships and platforms and mechanisms to allow everybody
to know what they are doing over the longer-term period and by
that I mean we need to look a decade or so ahead and prepare to
enhance the capabilities of this organization.
We do not have funding mechanisms at the moment to do that.
It is only the U.N.'s peacekeeping financial mechanisms that
provide that degree of stability, and because, as I just
mentioned, the African Union is raising money to pay for its
own missions at the moment. But it cannot pay for them all.
Ms. Bass. Right.
Mr. Williams. And that is where we are stuck. So the U.S.
could therefore, I think, invest in that long-term relationship
more sensibly.
Ms. Bass. Since we have, you know, capped ours maybe
resources could go to assist the AU. Did any of you else want
to comment on that?
Ms. Holt.
Ms. Holt. Just one point. The U.S. has a very well-known
global peace operations initiative, which comes through the
peacekeeping account, and it was established in 2004 by the
Bush Administration to train African peacekeepers and
peacekeepers worldwide.
So that is a long-range capacity building program that has
had huge results.
Ms. Bass. Thank you. Ms. Das and Mr. Gallo.
Ms. Das. Just to add to what Tori was saying, the impact of
arrears, we are seeing allies--Ethiopia, Rwanda--not getting
paid for its contributions and they are doing the bulk of the
work, as well as, you know, at the end of the day when
helicopters are not being able to deploy, logistics as being
affected.
So it is really having an impact on the ground on what
peacekeepers are able to do. So lifting the cap would be really
recommended and I hope that we can pay our dues in full.
Ms. Bass. Mr. Gallo.
Thank you.
Mr. Gallo. If I could answer the question the other way. If
you look at the amount of money that is being spent, the Congo
costs $1.2 billion. CAR and South Sudan are running about a
billion each.
All organizations lose money through fraud, waste, and
abuse, and even if those missions are only losing 10 percent,
that is $100 million a year.
And it is my concern that there is inefficiency in the way
that the money is spent.
Ms. Bass. So I am just about out of time. But could you
quickly say what do you think the solution is?
Mr. Gallo. In terms of increasing accountability from the
efficiency for which that money is spent, there are some
peacekeeping missions which have been rolling on for years and
years with no end in sight, and the question is why is the U.N.
peacekeeping operations haemorrhaging money to maintain the
organizations that are actually involved in the fighting and
that is a question that no one will ask.
Ms. Bass. So your answer would be more accountability?
Mr. Gallo. It would.
Ms. Bass. That is the first step that needs to happen? Is
that----
Mr. Gallo. Indeed.
Ms. Bass. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thank you
again all for your testimony.
You know, in July 2016 in South Sudan we all remember
this--a compound called the Terrain compound was overrun by
Salva Kiir's troops in Juba. The United Nations peacekeeping
mission was asked to intervene. They were asked emphatically,
including by the U.S. Government by our mission, and they would
not do it.
I went there a month later in August and met not only with
Salva Kiir but many others. Asked for accountability but also
met with the U.N. peacekeepers and they admitted that mistakes
were made and they have made some improvements since, which is
a positive thing.
But then when you get other examples of where the U.N.
peacekeepers, and I mentioned Bishop Nongo earlier, in the
Central African Republic who--you know, he's speaking for all
of the bishops of Central Africa in his testimony today. He
wants the peacekeepers to have a better, as he points out,
rules of engagement.
They need to have enough of them, and that is one question
I would ask. You know, we often see that there is a deployment
number but there is usually a higher number of authorized slots
that are unfulfilled. How are those numbers reached? Is it
accurate? Do we need more? Less?
You know, there are always guesstimates, I would suspect.
So if you could speak to that issue, because I find that very
disturbing. I mean, when I looked eyeball to eyeball with the
U.N. peacekeeping leadership in Juba and then we went back the
next year, the chair and I, and had another set of meetings,
they were making improvements. But it is always like there is a
whole lot of atrocity that happens in the interim.
Earlier today we had a big hearing in the full committee on
Kosovo, and UNMIK's terrible record there was highlighted. I
asked my questions along the realm of UNMIK and their
complicity in human rights abuse.
So it is a problem and I would say to Mr. Gallo I had the
hearings when we tried to hold U.N. personnel leadership to
account on whistleblowers.
To me, a whistleblower, if they are honest and sincere and
they bring forth information, we need to put sand bags around
them rather than have them put out of their job or put into a
situation where they are in dire--you know, they will never
move up, like a ceiling on their upward mobility.
It was way back when Attorney General Dick Thornburgh
appeared before our committee in 1980, and I was there, and he
said how desperately they need IGs. Not IGs that are part of
the system but IGs that are independent with a capital I, and
we are still striving to get there. Hopefully, we are getting
there but we are still striving to get there.
But that is one reason why I think a lot of people, you
know, just want to say if we are going to spend money--and I am
a passionate believer in U.N. peacekeeping dollars--we need to
do it in a way that is absolutely transparent, that they vet
the individuals who are deployed.
After I had those four hearings on what was going on in
Goma and went there, I found that there was still a
lackadaisical attitude. Jane Holl Lute and a few others were
absolutely on the mark. But so many others was, like, well, so
what.
Somebody might be sent back from that mission when they got
back to their country of origin. They were not prosecuted, and
for a time they could even be put or redeployed at a future
peacekeeping mission. I think that has changed.
So along those lines, I would also ask rapid DNA technology
has been shown to be very effective in addressing sexual
assaults. It could also help stop trafficking in persons.
It also could, if we were to do rapid DNA technology for
every peacekeeper, when there is an allegation there is a way
of proving at least in a paternity effort whether or not they
are the ones who are responsible. I mean, it could also have a
chilling effect that they know that they will be discovered and
they will be prosecuted hopefully by their home country.
Finally, let me just ask you--I have a lot of questions--
but in--I would ask unanimous consent, Madam Chair, that Brent
Schaefer's----
Ms. Bass. Without objection.
Mr. Smith [continuing]. Testimony be included from the
Heritage Foundation.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Smith. He makes an excellent point that even at 25
percent the U.S. pays more than 182 countries combined for
peacekeeping. And, again, a lot of what we do never gets on the
ledger. AFRICOM, all that we do there, never on the ledger of
what we are doing to try to mitigate war and conflict and to
promote peace and humanitarianism.
Airlift--all the things we do--which never is on that
assessment page. Also, he points out that Brunei, Kuwait,
Qatar, Singapore, and the UAE, despite having a per capital
gross national income more than twice the world average, they
are assessed peacekeeping dues that is equivalent to the poor
developing countries.
So that needs to change so that there is more partners
contributing to this, and your thoughts on that. I am not sure
if that is because they are part of the G-77 or whatever it
might be.
But it seems to me a better assessment of who is capable to
pay and, again, I would go to 30 percent, whatever it takes.
But there are other countries that need to be providing
additional money. So DNA rapid technology--if you could speak
to that, and also the other questions that I raised.
Yes, Ms. Holt.
Ms. Holt. I would like to comment briefly, if you do not
mind, on the South Sudan case. It was horrific, the attacks in
Juba.
Mr. Smith. Just to interrupt briefly.
Ms. Holt. Yes.
Mr. Smith. I found out after I started raising it, and 3
days before I got on the plane to go over there that a member
of my--of a humanitarian organization from my district was one
of the women who almost got raped. I mean, that is how bad it
was, and luckily, you know, she was resisting--heroic, strong--
two guys with AK-47s who actually shot and said, you know--and,
luckily, the door was broken in and these guys were stopped.
But that was Salva Kiir's people. But the U.N. peacekeepers, I
say again, would not respond.
Please.
Ms. Holt. I mean, what you are pointing to is this was an
attack by the government forces. But the mission failed to
intervene and the civilian--there is a number of Americans
involved had called and were reassured peacekeepers were on
their way.
We pursued this deeply when I was in the government. We had
a very strong--General Patrick Cammaert did a intense review
with a whole range of things that we then pressed to put in
place.
So I will not argue that--it was never acceptable but it
has pushed for a whole new set of protocols so the contingents
not be in doubt. This is one of the tensions. When missions go
in and think they are partnered with the government but then
government forces turn on civilians or even on the peacekeeping
missions themselves, as they have in South Sudan, contingents
get confused. They are often outgunned by the military forces
of the other country in the country that they are serving in.
So it is a horrific example. But I will tell you that it
was one that went to the highest levels of our government and
other governments, which is why U.S. engagement on these
issues--modernization, reform, and the diplomatic muscle that
Congress and the American government can bring--is so critical
to continuing to push for these reforms.
I will just say, briefly, also I have not had a chance to
read Brett Schaefer's testimony. He is very knowledgeable on
these issues. But I will say it would be worth this committee
getting a briefing from the administration on why, given some
of the points you have pointed out, we were unable to win over
diplomatic support to reduce our assessment rate.
I did not mean to take up the whole time.
I was just going to say because there could be a case made
and the best way to do it is to start now with that diplomatic
push, and I do not understand why the administration was not
able to do that. It is a problem.
Ms. Wild [presiding]. OK. Go ahead.
Ms. Das. Just to comment on the tragic attack at the
Terrain Hotel, I have been there before. I know how close it is
to the peacekeeping base, and just knowing that peacekeepers
did not respond it was a failure.
But many things have happened since then, including pretty
much immediately after that attack happened the force commander
that did--there was a breakdown in communication--the force
commander was fired and then there was an independent
investigation that Tori was mentioning which led to
recommendations on that this does not happen again.
You know, this is--when peacekeepers are not deployed at
the right numbers they are--we do not get to protect as many
civilians as we should. But this was a real failure and the
U.N. has acknowledged that and they are doing--they are trying
to do better.
And just on the DNA testing, we know that a part of the
reforms are happening and so looking into DNA testing for
paternity claims. And so that is something the U.N. is already
pursuing, and we could probably get you more information on
what is out there on that.
Mr. Williams. Thank you. On the 25 percent and then the
vacancy rates in force generation, I have read Brett Schaefer's
testimony and I agree with him on this. There is a very good
case politically for lowering the United States rate below 25
percent. It is politically unwise for an organization like the
U.N. to rely so much on one member State.
The question, as Tori raised, is why have we failed
diplomatically to get our position there accepted at the U.N.
General Assembly, and I would submit that a good diplomatic
strategy here is to get the 54 members--African members of the
U.N.--on side in part by giving in to their requests that we
support AU peace operations through the U.N. Security Council
and link those two issues. I think diplomatically that would
make sense.
On the force generation issue, peacekeeping missions need
both numbers and capabilities. So you have to get the numbers
of soldiers, police, and civilians. But you also need
capabilities, logistics support, ISR support, medical, special
forces, increasingly, and military engineering.
Why we need or what we need really is a much better bench
because the accountability issues that have been raised means
the U.N. is often desperate to fill missions without the top
tier troop-contributing countries providing troops and support.
So we need a broader bench of countries that can provide
these types of capabilities. That, unfortunately, is a long-
term process of building up militaries and police forces in
other countries and we have done that well through programs
like the U.S. Global Peace Operations Initiative.
But it takes time. But we are in a much better situation
with the U.N. in 2019. The bench is pretty strong. Countries
like Mongolia that you have already mentioned that have come
from literally nowhere, but others--Kazakhstan, Serbia--these
are all good peacekeeping countries now that did not really
exist on the radar screen 20 years ago.
The problem is the political acceptability. It is the U.N.
Security Council that pushes the numbers down and the
capabilities of peace operations down for political and
financial reasons.
So it is hard for the secretariat to make an objective
assessment of how many troops and capabilities are needed
really to protect civilians in South Sudan or Congo because
that number is way higher and the capabilities are way higher
than are seen as being politically or financially acceptable at
the Security Council.
Mr. Gallo. I think the remaining question is the one you
raised on DNA testing. In addition to that, there is no
plausible argument against it that I will suggest.
But the investigative capacity has required a first
responder ability. The U.N. at the moment does not have that,
and the question of DNA samples have to be taken as soon as
possible and not stored for a year so that they are useless
when they are analyzed--the form of investigation.
And, of course, the other thing is that the international
criminal court works on the basis of command responsibility and
you hold the first commander accountable for misconduct by his
troops.
The United Nations, for internal purposes, for misconduct
does not do that.
Ms. Wild. Thank you.
Ms. Das, I wanted to direct this to you. One of the
benefits of the U.N. peacekeeping operations is that it
promotes institutional stability and fragile States, and
democracy building by outside forces can be met with
significant opposition by locals.
In those countries that have shown democratic potential,
what can be done to avoid democratic backsliding and who is
giving institutional and electoral guidance and how do we make
sure that the democratic framework being established addresses
local needs and challenges?
Ms. Das. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. We have
seen the U.N. support democratic elections in Central African
Republic. We have seen it in Co-te D'Ivoire, Liberia, where we
have helped government institutions build capacity and
longstanding capacity that they continue to build resilience.
So the U.N. peacekeeping is one partner. But there are
other U.N. agencies including UNDP that play a critical role on
helping to establish democratic practices.
And this is another way that when the U.S. is engaged we
push for democracy in these places and it is really important
that the U.N. peacekeeping continues on this. I mean, the
Central African Republic is a great example of where we have
seen successful transfer of power from a transitional
government and then having elections where the elected leader
is trying to do the right thing.
It needs support from the U.N. and from the U.S. to
continue--it is a very fragile State--continue to pursue the
right things, the right--democracy and have--extend State
authority.
So that is one thing that U.N. peacekeepers have been
working on is to support the government institutions to help
extend State authority in that country.
So that is one example that we have been working with the
U.N. on quite a bit.
Ms. Wild. And what kind of oversight does the U.N. have,
for instance, in a country like Liberia where the peacekeeping
missions were closed in 2018?
Ms. Das. So there is a country team there that continues to
work to support the government institutions and it is led by
UNDP.
So there is a continuing footprint of U.N. presence there
to continue the work that peacekeepers have already built on
and then to make sure that it does not slide back, as you had
mentioned before.
Ms. Wild. What kind of enforcement mechanisms do they have,
if any?
Ms. Das. I do not--I am not sure if there is an enforcement
mechanism in the sense of boots on the ground. But there is
definitely--you know, I think there is definitely support
within the Security Council and others to make sure that the
gains made by peacekeepers are trying to move forward and
continued.
Ms. Wild. And let me just ask you this. Well, actually, let
me ask this of Dr. Williams or Mr. Gallo.
While I appreciate the AU's utility of peacekeeping
operations and I certainly understand why the AU peacekeeping
operations may have more local legitimacy with host governments
than U.N. operations, I think it is vital that the AU operate
in a manner that is consistent with U.N. priorities,
objectives, and policies.
What are the best ways to give the AU autonomy in
conducting peacekeeping operations while also retaining,
implementing, and enforcing U.N. oversight?
I will put that out there for either one of you or both of
you.
Mr. Williams. So there is two ways we can think about how
to enhance the AU's accountability and performance on the
ground. Option one is to let it do it all itself and to have no
oversight mechanisms. Option two is to support the AU with
multilateral legitimacy of a Security Council resolution
authorizing its missions.
And then if it comes with U.N. support, that has to meet
what we call the HRDDP--the human rights due diligence
policies--which means that any U.N. support that is given to
the African Union has to come with the types of accountability
mechanisms that Peter was talking about earlier to make sure
the AU troops are acting in conformity with international
humanitarian law and human rights law.
And so I think that is the two real options here. And so
the better one I think is to provide external support.
Now, that has been happening on an ad hoc basis for about
the last 10 years. And so when the African Union has asked for
U.N. or partner support from the European Union or United
States, we have then said to the AU that you need to improve
your conduct and discipline policies.
You need to produce a policy on sexual exploitation and
abuse and how to reduce it. You need to provide policies on
accountability across the board. In that, the organization, in
my opinion, has made significant strides and progress over the
last 10 years.
It is still not perfect. But I think the best way to ensure
that it gets better is to work, as I have said, through the
U.N. and provide those types of accountability mechanisms that
are built in.
Ms. Wild. Mr. Gallo, did you want to add anything to that?
Mr. Gallo. No, ma'am. You are asking a political question,
which is outside the scope of my comfort zone.
Ms. Wild. Thank you.
Ms. Houlahan, I believe you are up.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you very much for the chance to speak
with you all, and I really appreciated the conversation. I also
serve on the Armed Services Committee and so I have the
opportunity to watch the budgetary process for the DOD go
through the Congress.
And one thing that I have consistently heard through that
NDAA process is the DOD and contractors alike will talk about
the importance of consistency of funding and something, you
know, not being erratic.
And I know you guys, almost every one of you, had the same
kind of plea was not only funding but consistent funding
regular and predictable.
My question is, in the DOD side of things we hear very
specific examples of what happens when you do not fund on time
or you do not fund to the proper amount--you know, steel plants
shuttering, production lines of helicopters shut down, losing
our resident labor unions--those kinds of things.
I know that this is a quantifiable amount of money that you
are asking for. But what happens when it does not happen on
time? Can you give us some anecdotal stories of what happens
when we do not get the funding that we are asking for?
Ms. Das. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman.
The first thing that happens is that troop-contributing
countries do not get reimbursed for providing troops. So I had
mentioned India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia. These are--Rwanda--these
are our allies who do a bulk of the peacekeeping. They are the
ones who send out their troops in harm's way.
And then the second thing that happens is--one anecdote
that we heard recently was a country that provided helicopters.
Their helicopter was--needed maintenance.
But because that maintenance was not able to be provided,
that helicopter no longer deploys and that country no longer
provides helicopters to peacekeeping, which is a main way a lot
of these places in Africa do not have the necessary roads or
places to get to. So helicopters are a vital resource that is
lacking.
And so these are some of the major things. But then, you
know, even getting peacekeepers to project and leave their
bases and do protection of civilians outside is really critical
and not having that capacity because their logistics or their
vehicles do not have the fuel or what not is really
problematic.
So these resources have critical needs that are not being
met. But I will let my colleagues----
Ms. Holt. I would just add this as to your report, maybe we
could submit it for the committee's consideration. This is the
report on the financial situation.
Among the things pointed out in that report is that it
looked like only two of the peacekeeping missions have a
minimum cash reserve of 3 months of operating costs. So it puts
them in an uncertain posture. And so some of it is also the
psychological problems.
So I would worry that if a mission faced a crisis such as
Congresswoman Smith was describing in South Sudan, you know,
would that impact the mobility because your fuel supply may
have run out of the funding for that month. That's a
hypothetical. But you can see how this would cramp the
operational pace of the mission.
I would also say by borrowing from troop-contributing
countries to fund missions it also puts the U.S. in a
precarious position for our own leadership. It gives every
country that wants to push us aside a talking point. Like, why
should we listen to you--you are not even paying your fair
share.
And so it is a wonderful way to distract from our calls for
performance and accountability, modernization and reform. And
so I would say that is another kind of substantive impact.
And then, third, it suggests that we do not take these
missions seriously. As a member of the council we vote for
them. We often write the mandates ourselves. We have often
trained many of the troops that go in. And so for us not to
fund it is really confusing to other countries as well.
Mr. Williams. Just to add one more point, it undermines the
attempt to get that bench that I was talking about earlier
because, like anything in life, you are disincentivized doing a
job if you are not sure you are going to get reimbursed for the
money that you are owed doing that and that is what we are
doing to the world's biggest troop-contributing countries, as
has already been mentioned.
So we are, on the one hand, trying to get more effective
and accountable missions deployed in the field but, with the
other hand, we are taking away the money in reimbursement that
we are giving to those peacekeepers that should be operating in
the field.
So it disincentivizes particularly the more least-developed
and poorer countries where financial incentives are, you know,
one of the factors.
Mr. Gallo. Let me point out that there is a financial
incentive for troop-contributing countries to provide troops to
the United Nations.
If the United Nations budget is short, the government--the
TCC should still be paying its own troops on the ground. So it
is not--it is not the direct cause and effect, and if you are
telling me or if anyone is suggesting that the financial
situation is so precarious that the--those troops cannot be
deployed because they have not been paid by the host nation
government, I would question the fitness for role--for being in
a peacekeeping role in the first place.
Ms. Holt. With permission, if I could just say one thing.
Ms. Wild. Yes, go ahead.
Ms. Holt. When I was in the State Department, an African
country came to us and said, we have been asked to deploy. We
took out a large loan to pay for not the troops but all the
equipment they need to bring with them and have been delayed in
the deployment and then the loan was due.
So they were in a bit of a bind because they had put out a
lot of funds for which it was not--they were not a wealthy
country.
So there are things beyond paying soldiers that actually
are part of the budget.
Ms. Houlahan. I appreciate your time. Thank you. I yield
back.
Ms. Bass [presiding]. Representative Omar.
Ms. Omar. Thank you, Chairwoman.
So my question really is, to begin with, Dr. Williams, I
wanted to address your fourth recommendation. I do agree that
it is a problem politically and logistically for the U.N. to
rely heavily on the United States.
The efforts of peacekeeping forces are too important to
depend the whims of U.S. politics. We have seen the
consequences of this administration that is outright hostile to
international organizations and allies, and for those of us who
believe in the importance of these organizations to figure out
a more sustainable way is important.
But one of the unfortunate realities has been that when the
United States steps back its obligations, other countries do
not step up.
So I wanted to talk to you. Can you tell me a little more
about what the strategy would be in encouraging African
countries to step up on peacekeeping contributions and what
that would look like? Is there a political will in Africa or in
Europe or in any other country to pick up the burden if the
United States keeps paying less in peacekeeping efforts?
Mr. Williams. Thank you very much for the question. So
there is a couple of ways to answer it. At the general macro
level, we need to make this thing worth investing in.
And so this thing--this enterprise of U.N. peacekeeping has
got to be seen to be across the board of the U.N. membership
something that works and can be effective and accountable and
can do things that we really need to do. So that is the first
challenge is selling it that way.
That is undermined by our absence of the Ambassadorial
positions and others at New York at the moment and by not
paying our own contributions.
The second part of this, though, is that when the U.S.
retreats from its leadership others are stepping up and filling
that vacuum. China is the key player here when it comes to U.N.
peacekeeping.
China's financial contributions have risen quite
significantly over the last few years. It is now paying about
15 percent of the U.N. peacekeeping budget and it has a quite
different set of views of the types of things that U.N.
peacekeepers should be doing in the field.
And so the vacuum will not remain a vacuum for long. Others
will fill it.
And third, then, for the African countries themselves, they
are stepping up or they are starting to step up now with the
new peace fund that they are trying to develop indigenous
sources of funding for their own missions.
But in the short term, it is completely unrealistic to
expect these countries to pay the nearly $1 billion, for
example, that AMISOM costs in Somalia.
My suggestion is that we make a sort of diplomatic quid pro
quo or linking of these issues. The African Union wants us to
support their missions through the U.N.
The United States wants to pay less for U.N. peacekeeping.
And so I am sure there is some diplomatic middle ground in
there. So that is how I would approach that issue.
Ms. Omar. That is great, and thank you for bringing up
Somalia. That was going to be the sort of next question that I
was going to ask in another, I think, important dynamic in
peacekeeping is the discrepancy between peacekeepers, national
police, and the military.
If we use Somalia, for example, when you speak to Somalis
they will mention the fact that peacekeepers get a salary of
about $1,400 a month.
And when the salary for the Somali military individually is
$50 with the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia now
drawing down, there is a lot of anxiety in the region within
Somalia that is exasperated because people are trying to figure
out what that looks like.
And so I just wanted to know if you had any suggestions on
how we should invest in building local capacity, what the
transition--what are the best practices for a full transition
to happen when AMISOM leaves Somalia, which I am guessing is
happening pretty soon, and how do we invest in gaining the
trust of the countries that we have peacekeeping missions and
knowing that we have made the right investment so that they can
now transition into guarding their own peace.
Mr. Williams. Thank you. That is a difficult set of
questions but I will try my best.
The first point----
Ms. Omar. We have a limited time so----
Mr. Williams. Sure. AMISOM is not, in my opinion, going to
leave nor should it leave Somalia completely anytime soon. But
the issue will be can it reconfigure its size and its mobility
over time.
The current debate is looking to, about a year or so after
the elections if they happen in Somalia in 2020 and 2021,
AMISOM can start drawing a bit more down there.
But it is not on the table to leave completely. Second,
when it comes to the money the one thing we should not do is
cut the budget to the U.N. support office in Somalia.
So the Somalia National Army Forces that you mentioned and
AMISOM get all their logistics and mission support coming
through the U.N. support office in Somalia.
So when we are saying here another effect of not paying our
fees or dues at the U.N. is that UNSOS is undermined that means
the Somali National Army and AMISOM is basically suffering less
logistical support to conduct operations against al-Shabaab.
So we need to maintain that. And then on the individual
level, SNA troops are getting, roughly, or should get, I should
say, about $250 a month. An AMISOM peacekeeper, at the moment,
is getting about $800 a month. So I can see that their--the
Somalis you mentioned earlier that discrepancy is real.
Ms. Omar. Yes. Our records, what I have, says $1,440 a
month for AMISOM.
Mr. Williams. That is what the--no, the U.N. guard force.
UNSOM, the U.N.'s political mission in Somalia, has a Ugandan
guard force that are paid at the U.N. rate of, roughly, $1,400
a month.
The African Union peacekeepers in Somalia get a lower rate,
a different rate, which is at the moment about $800 a month,
because that is paid for by the European Union.
As I said earlier, the African Union cannot pay its own
money. So the European Union actually pays the AMISOM
peacekeepers at a rate of $800 a month.
Ms. Bass. Representative Phillips.
And when we are done--when Representative Phillips
finishes, I will go back to Representative Smith. But if
anybody else after that on the committee wants to continue, we
can certainly do that.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Chairwoman Bass, and to each of
our witnesses.
My first question is about China, and with our diminished
role or seemingly diminished role and increased interest by
China throughout Africa, my question to each of you is are you
seeing growing Chinese influence through the U.N.
I believe China is now one of the largest troop
contributors and, I think, the second largest funder of our
peacekeeping efforts.
If so, are you seeing it? If so, how, and then what are the
implications in the near and long term?
Ms. Holt, if you might begin.
Ms. Holt. Thank you very much.
I think each of us might have an aspect answer. China is
aggressively moving forward to be seen as a leading country on
peacekeeping. As you note, they are the largest member of the
permanent members of the Security Council with, roughly, 2,400
troops on the field, which is a huge change.
When I was in government, we led a dialog with China in
2009 and 1910 and at the time they had very small numbers and
they mostly were building roads.
Today, they have a diversity of capacity. Second, as you
note, they have increased their financial contribution, and
with this, frankly, comes voice and sway in the larger
organization.
The evidence that I know of is still somewhat anecdotal.
But they did try and cut staff positions for protection of
civilians and human rights during a budget committee debate and
overview of peacekeeping missions.
Usually the U.S. would be there and say that is
ridiculous--no, we are not doing that. But they will continue
to have a different vision for what peacekeeping missions
should do in the field.
They, traditionally, have not been as forward leading as we
have on human rights, on protection of civilians, and ability
to use force on behalf of civilians.
So I think the trends are still working themselves out. The
U.N. has turned to China for a number of major studies and one
was quite forthright on the security of missions themselves,
and I think that you see also a shift in these extra budgetary
funding, sometimes for a good cause but it will give them more
leadership capability and sway, particularly if the U.S. is not
at the table and aggressively engaging in the way we are used
to.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you.
Ms. Das.
Ms. Das. Eighty percent of the Chinese peacekeepers are
actually deployed in Africa and they have a 8,000-person
standby force that they are eager to test out.
Mr. Phillips. How large? I am sorry.
Ms. Das. Eight thousand.
Mr. Phillips. Eight thousand.
Ms. Das. The standby force that is--that they have offered
to the U.N. peacekeepers. And they are wanting to deploy their
new technologies and peacekeeping and try different things out.
So they are happy to deploy in these ways and, again, I had
mentioned before the U.S. only provides 40. We do a lot of ways
and, obviously, our financial contribution is huge.
But, as Tori is mentioning, when the U.S. is not engaged in
these conversations about budget cuts we have seen China try to
take out positions on human rights or protections of civilians.
And so it is really important that the U.S. continue to be
engaged because China is happy to take that role and kind of
push their own agenda forward in these discussions.
So China's influence is rising and it is something that we
should--the U.S. should be countering at the U.N.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you.
Dr. Williams.
Mr. Williams. I would agree with everything you have just
heard. I think it is spot on. I would just add one thing. I
think China is learning at the moment how difficult U.N.
peacekeeping can be.
In Representative Smith's earlier question about UNMISS and
Juba, China was one of the contributing countries that was
caught up in those issues and it is facing a very difficult set
of dilemmas that all the other U.N. contributing countries have
faced over time.
So it is learning. The way it is learning, though, is in
part by putting more effort into doing this enterprise. It has
now had a couple of force commander slot submissions so it has
got experience about how to run these operations.
It has increased over the years not just deploying
engineers and logisticians and medical soldiers. It has been
now deploying actually infantry battalions into Mali and South
Sudan. So its military forces are getting more operational
experience on the ground here.
China, obviously, does not have the equivalent of NATO or a
lot of overseas theaters to practice this. So I think it is
learning through operational experience that it is getting in
the peacekeeping missions.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you.
Mr. Gallo.
Mr. Gallo. To further add on to that, the question of voice
and sway, when the United States is not at the table China,
clearly, has a very different approach to human rights.
In our perception, human rights is imperative in building
democracy and institution building, and if the function of
peacekeeping is to, you know, make countries safe and to
institute a lasting peace, that is something that has to be
done because it cannot be separated from the human rights
issue.
And the other question to be looked at is look at the
corruption cases being prosecuted by the FBI in New York
involving Chinese corruption involving the U.N. and why is the
U.N. not diligent in eradicating this corruption from the
inside.
Thank you.
Mr. Phillips. Before I--Mr. Gallo, you have spoken on this
on a number of times. But if we could wave a magic wand here in
Congress where would we start relative to the oversight and
anti-corruption efforts that you deemed so necessary?
Mr. Gallo. With regard to oversight? There is no oversight
of the investigation function in the U.N. So, basically, that
means the U.N. carry out the most shambolic investigation that
you have ever seen in your life and I can give you plenty of
examples of this.
And the legal system within the U.N. is only concerned with
the process. There is no concept of the unreasonableness of the
decision. So long as the U.N. can hold that the decision was
made in accordance with the process, the legal system is not
concerned with what that decision is, and that is what leads to
some of the most ridiculous things that we have ever seen and
that is what leads to the lack of whistleblower protection and
that is germane to the corruption inside the U.N.
U.N. reform on a global basis is a massive undertaking and
a daunting international challenge. Reform of the investigation
function is a lot more manageable, a lot more feasible and will
affect the culture of the organization.
Mr. Phillips. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. Bass. Thank you, Mr. Phillips.
Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith. Real quick, if I could.
Mr. Gallo, you had mentioned one Wu Hongbo, a former U.N.
undersecretary general for the diplomatic Department of
Economic and Social Affairs at the U.N. who, in a Chinese
television appearance, told how he used his position to protect
Chinese national interests and had a Uighur Muslim politician
and human rights activist barred from the U.N.
Those examples--I mean, I held a hearing last year on the
Uighurs. We had a woman who had been severely tortured and when
she asked her torturer why in China, in the autonomous region,
Xinjiang, why it was happening, he goes, because you are a
Muslim.
And yet many of these people--cannot say certainly, but
many like Wu Hongbo, carry that mind set into the United
Nations, which I think is a--and you might want to speak to
that.
But you also in your testimony talked about the Dekoa
investigation and how children fathered by peacekeepers and a
subsequent U.N. investigation with regard to paternity claims,
if you might want to elaborate bit on that. I am not sure you
did so in your opening comments.
And, again, as I asked earlier, whether rapid DNA tests
have helped insofar as the spoilage of the evidence. I would
also ask Secretary Guterres has launched the Action for
Peacekeeping Initiative. How do you feel about it, all of you?
Is it a good idea? Does it have flaws? Is it well-meaning
but not necessarily effective enough? Please speak on it.
And then, finally, is there a conflict or an emergency
somewhere on the planet that cries out for a deployment now or
is on the precipice of being in need of such a deployment of
U.N. peacekeepers?
Mr. Gallo.
Mr. Gallo. If I can start with the Dekoa investigation. I
cannot answer that question fully because neither I nor anyone
else has seen that report.
It exists, but we do not know what is in it and there are
all sorts of rumors going around, and the one about the DNA,
and I was told and I had absolutely--I mean, I cannot testify
to this because I do not know it but the story is that DNA
samples were taken and stored in a drawer for a year.
So when they were tested they were useless and that allowed
the investigation to conclude that the DNA results did not
establish paternity.
Now, I do not know if that is true or not and that is the
importance of the Dekoa report and that is why it has not been
released or I believe that is why it has not been released.
Now, I understand there is a lot more to it. But it is a
bit a holy grail. So I am afraid you are going to have to find
that one for yourself.
Mr. Williams. I will leave the action for peacekeeping to
my colleagues who are better placed to answer that. But on
your--is there a crisis anywhere on the planet, in Africa I
think the two places that concern me most would be the sort of
the spillover effects from Mali.
And so, particularly, in the Sahel we have seen a lot more
Islamist fighters moving particularly into Burkina Faso, Niger,
Mali, that area. So the spillover effects that the U.N.
peacekeeping mission cannot deal with because it is confined to
Mali is one place.
The second place in Africa for me that is very worrying is
Cameroon and the violence that we have seen over the last 18
months or so there.
Where the government is problematic elsewhere in the world
it is Ukraine and Yemen are the two places where we are
actively debating whether U.N. and what type of U.N. types of
operations might be helpfully deployed there.
Ms. Das. Just carrying off of what Paul had mentioned I
think concerns Ukraine and there has been debate about
peacekeeping there. But because of where the Security Council
is, it is very doubtful that there would be anything happening.
And another concern in Africa would be Burundi. Their
government has been very strategic about pushing the U.N. out
and making sure that there are not human rights or anybody kind
of watching what's happening there. So that is a place I would
be worried about.
Regarding action for peacekeeping, it is a really
innovative idea took hold of the Security Council, the troop-
contributing countries as well as the financiers, the U.S.,
together hold them accountable from when you deploy
peacekeepers in making sure that there is a political process.
So peacekeepers are being deployed to some of these places
for long times because the political process or political
solution has not come to fruition.
So making sure that these three--these counterparts are
working together that there is a political solution so we can
end some of these peacekeeping missions. So it is really about
the implementation and, you know, we are very hopeful that this
will move forward some of these missions that have been
longstanding.
Ms. Holt. I will just add to the excellent comments. On the
newest A4P agenda for peacekeeping, it has, as been described,
pushed back to the politics a little. If you have a weak peace
agreement, the best peacekeeping in the world cannot tape it
back together again. And so some of that is reinvesting in the
diplomatic and the negotiations behind the peace agreement.
And I will suggest to you, given where your interests are,
there is a role for Congress to even raise that politically and
help.
I was in New York a few weeks ago and I got lobbied by a
member State to say, this is a great platform. You folks in the
outside community need to be helping us--basically, implement
these reforms, and I am, like, OK.
So I think there is some momentum behind it, and with
support from countries like the U.S. and others, it is a
continuation of this 5-year effort for really getting serious
about modernizing and reforming in the field, including on
protection of civilians, sequencing, and basically making
missions fit for purpose.
I will say as far as the new places my colleagues have
mentioned, Yemen in particular, there has least been an
observer team sent out to figure out what the future might
hold.
We would all have long-term hopes for places like Syria.
Countries do not always invite the U.N. in, and I would put
Venezuela on that list right now, and then also we'll see what
other parts I would concur, and Cameroon it is quite curious.
My last point might just be briefly the U.N. is a living
breathing organization. Just like Congress it is full of
people. People who want to basically do well and do better. But
they need push and they need help and they need support.
So it is not whether--I think much of the problems we have
heard on accountability and corruption it requires governments
like ours and outsiders like us to push in and do the best they
can and I think that is part of our role.
Thank you.
Ms. Bass. I think it is like Congress.
[Laughter.]
Ms. Bass. I am just----
Ms. Holt. May I clarify for the record? That was not about
corruption. That is about the ambition.
Ms. Bass. No. No. You know----
Representative Omar.
Ms. Omar. Thank you. I just felt like my last question was
not answered. So I will rephrase it and see if we can start
with Ms. Holt and then maybe get all three of you on the
record.
So the peacekeeping mission in Somalia has now been in
effect for 12 years. Oh my God, it is 12 years. And I just
wanted to see if you would agree that there has been efforts
made to strengthen the police force, the military force within
Somalia so that there could be a process set up for success
once the peace mission ends.
Was that always the plan that this will ultimately end at
some point and were there mechanisms--are there mechanisms put
in place for that to happen?
And then the second piece of that question is that because
there is this gap in compensation for whether it is U.N. or AU
or the local military, we hear reports--newspaper reports that
some of the military or the police within Somalia sometimes
might--because they cannot--they are not getting paid for
months sometimes that they might sell their weapons to militia
or maybe even terrorist organizations like al-Shabaab--is there
conflict in that and could their remedy be to help in trying to
give them proper compensation?
Mr. Williams. I will answer it this time.
Ms. Omar. Yes. Whoever wants to take and then the three of
you will----
Ms. Holt. I will make some points, Paul.
Just a minor distinction. It is often said it is peace
keeping in Somalia. But the distinction I might make it is a
Chapter 7 authorized peace enforcement mission. It is not led
and run by the United Nations even as it is authorized by the
Security Council and the African Union.
It is able to use force to achieve its aims, which is
including going after al-Shabaab. So I just want to make that
distinction between most of the missions we are describing
today, which are invited in with consent and use force in
defense of the mandate to protect civilians themselves and
their--so one is able to do war fighting, the other is not.
And as I understand it, you know, the aim has been that
this peace enforcement mission works alongside the U.N.
political office, has U.N. logistics, and there is a U.N.
country team which is focused on development and humanitarian
enterprises.
So it is not exactly a peace keeping mission. But the idea
was if Amazon could create a secure and stable environment, it
should be handing off, as you describe, to local police, work
with local communities, have governance take root, and we were
trying to encourage all of this to happen simultaneously.
Professor Williams will know better than I the state of
play. The gap that was always, unfortunately, well recognized
was you did not have enough capability coming in behind to then
play that stabilizing role for police and rule of law, and to
work appropriately with the communities which----
Ms. Omar. And that lack of capability is with the country
or with----
Ms. Holt. Probably a combination. Amazon cannot bring
everything with it and the government was still, as I
understood, working to try and build out and work also with
local authorities. So I think that is a work in progress.
Mr. Williams. I would agree with everything said.
Just to add, one is that AMISOM has not even reached year
zero in the world of normal peace keeping, and what I mean by
that is all these other missions we have talked about normally
deploy after a cease-fire or after a peace agreement.
There is no peace deal in Somalia and there has not been.
So the 12 years that AMISOM so far is--we are still not even at
year zero for peace keeping--which is why fatigue might be
setting in.
Second, as Tori mentioned, AMISOM is basically a
conventional military force that is trying to degrade a network
transnational terror network in the form of al-Shabaab.
And so there is no way that a conventional force like
AMISOM is able to militarily defeat al-Shabaab. It relies
ultimately on trying to stabilize the recovered areas that al-
Shabaab used to control and that requires police,
administrators, civilians, and that is where the Somali
government and the Federal member States have been in short
supply.
But to your final--to your question and, finally, about has
AMISOM boosted local police forces and the army, yes. Over that
12 years, there is no comparison.
If you look at the 12-year period, the Somalian national
army, the State police forces and the regional police forces
and also the Darwish and the militia groups in Somalia, they
are in a much better situation to deal with these issues now
than they were 12 years ago.
But have they reached the level where you would want to
pull AMISOM out in the last couple of years, as we talked
about, I do not think we have reached that stage yet.
And yes, the SNA are sometimes guilty as are the regional
forces of selling ammunition, food supplies, rations, and other
things.
They have just recently completed their biometric identity
data base for the Somalian national army which quite--it is
amazing if you think about it. Until this year, we did not know
who was in the Somalian national army. And if you do not know
who is in the army we cannot do all the other things
subsequently.
So that has only just happened but that is a sign of
positive progress there. Now the job is to pay them through,
basically, mobile phone and secure banking networks linked to
their biometric IDs and when they are paid they can properly
focus on pushing back al-Shabaab and not on some of other
issues that they have unfortunately strayed into previously.
Ms. Omar. I know we have to go, but can I ask one more
question? OK.
And this question is for Mr. Gallo. I know that I would be
in trouble if I did not--in talking about accountability and
oversight, not bring his up with many of my constituents.
There is the question of rape and sexual violence with some
of the peacekeepers in Somalia and the process of
accountability has not really been quite transparent and I
wonder in your conversation about waste and fraud does the
other kind of tragedies that sometimes might be caused by those
that are deployed by the U.N. to engage in peace keeping go
along the same line?
Mr. Gallo. Ma'am, I mentioned in my written statement my
concern about the U.N.'s lack of concern with known cases of
corruption in Somalia.
In 2015, I believe my former office conducted a number of
investigations and discovered $0.80 on the dollar of aid money
going into Somalia was being lost or was otherwise unaccounted
for.
We know that that was--there were connections in that case
to al-Shabaab and the U.N. was simply not interested in
pursuing it.
What can I, as an individual, do about that other than to
tell you that it exists and that it happened?
Ms. Omar. So only 20 percent was going to do the work and
80 percent----
Mr. Gallo. Yes, between 70----
Ms. Omar. We do not know--it could have gotten into the
hands of a terrorist organization like--and there is no
accountability measure for it?
Mr. Gallo. Well, it was even worse than that. As I
understand it, OCHA received these reports and stuck them in a
bottom drawer for 3 months and refused to tell the member
States, because if the member States knew about it they might
reduce their contributions for the following financial year.
But that is the culture of the U.N. There is no
accountability. Nobody's career is going to be harmed for doing
something like that.
Ms. Omar. But yes, thank you for pointing that out. I was
not really here when you gave your testimony. I think it is
important for us to see clarity in reports like that and make
sure that that level of corruption is not being perpetuated
without any remedy for it.
But if one of you wants to help address maybe what
transparency and accountability had looked like for the cases
of rape by AMISON within Somalia or any of the countries where
they are doing peacekeeping work.
Mr. Gallo. I can tell you how the system works.
Ms. Omar. I was going to have--yes.
Thank you.
Mr. Williams. Thank you. Yes, the statistics are right.
Transparency International has put Somalia as the most corrupt
country for the last 11 years or so. The figures of 70 percent
or so disappearing were normally, at least according the U.N.'s
monitoring group reports, from about the 2012-13 period and it
has got better since then.
The fact that a lot of that money is disappearing, though,
does not automatically mean it has ended up in the hands of al-
Shabaab. The vast majority of this just means we cannot track
it financially in the normal ways that we would track accounts.
But that was because Somalia did not have a finance
ministry and a central banking system that worked. So the money
not being traced did not automatically mean it was going to
terrorism actors like al-Shabaab.
On AMISOM, yes, there was--allocations were seriously
raised against AMISOM troops in 2014 by Human Rights Watch
researchers and reports, and they made various allegations
about SEA and rape in some cases.
The African Union conducted an internal investigation
looking into that, the results of which were published
subsequently in 2015. But more to the point, what has happened
in practical terms is Uganda started as the main troop
contributing country in AMISOM.
It started to hold court marshals in Mogadishu itself for
two reasons--one, to obviously, reiterate that this is not
acceptable behavior and there would be consequences, but
second, this would need to be done on Somali territory so that
Somalis could see the impact of the African Union actually
trying to promote justice and accountability here, and those
things continue to this day.
Ms. Omar. Go ahead.
Ms. Das. Just to add to what Paul had mentioned, not
necessarily for AMISOM but just in general, in 2015 the
secretary general put together an online data base. So every
allegation that was ever reported is in this data base and
where they are in the reporting, so in their investigation as
well as what--have they been prosecuted and what the justices
look like.
In 2016, the U.S. put together a resolution called 2272,
giving executive power to the secretary general to remove any
troops that are doing systematic wide abuse. So this has been
implemented in Central African Republic where the Republic of
Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo both countries were
repatriated from that country.
And then Congressman Smith mentioned Jane Holl Lute. She is
looking at sexual exploitation and abuse across the U.N.
system, not just within peacekeeping. So it is--you know, we
are looking at UNDP and others. It is something that this
secretary general is very focused on and addressing this.
And then, you know, in the last 2 years we have seen the
numbers decrease significantly. In 2016, there was 103 cases of
SEA--sexual exploitation and abuse--by peacekeepers. That has
dropped to 50.
And, last, it is really important for the secretary general
that we are assisting victims. So there is a victims rights
advocate, Jane Connors, who reports directly to the secretary
general, and on top of that, she has victims' rights advocates
that are embedded within the mission, so making sure that
victims have access to--access to legal services as well as
health services on the ground.
But any case--one case of sexual exploitation and abuse is
one too many by peacekeepers.
Ms. Omar. Well, thank you all for your testimony. I think,
you know, we all understand how valuable--I mean, I speak from
firsthand experience how valuable the work that international
organizations do are.
And to Mr. Gallo, I would say thank you so much for your
testimony and for really seeking accountability. I do not
believe that we should throw the baby out with the bath water
and I think that there are a lot of people who are very much
interested in being advocates for accountability and
transparency and seeing where we could create reforms and where
we could be truth seekers.
Again, I know this has been very informative for me and
probably for a lot of our committee members and I do want Ms.
Holt to take you up on that offer of going with you and seeing
what the work looks like on the ground.
Thank you.
Ms. Bass. Once again, I want to thank all of the witnesses
for being here today and the meeting is now adjourned.
Mr. Gallo. If I could interject with a clarification,
Chairman, the conduct and discipline website which Ms. Das
refers to does not list all of the allegations.
It lists the investigations. The United Nations does not
publish the numbers of complaints received. I cannot remember
the General Assembly resolution which mandates it. But there is
a requirement to report to the GA the number of sexual
exploitation and abuse cases.
The U.N. defines case as one which is being investigated,
and what happens is that the vast majority of these complaints
are screened out at what they call the assessment phase.
So we do not know the number--the total number--of
complaints that are received. And with regard to the victims'
rights advocates, the problem there is that the United Nations
definition of a victim is someone who has had a case--whose
sexual exploitation and abuse has been determined by a U.N.
investigation. And if you look at the statistics of them, they
are tiny.
Ms. Bass. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
[Whereupon, at 3:56 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]