Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140502 :

CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings May 2, 2014

About his possibly the case and i would love for you to. I kind of did ask. To follow up and say that we now have interagency structures to raise red flags to the highest level. How is it possible that the state department wasnt looking at this intentionally in november and december and i think that is a followup opportunity. And he did play an important role. They were convening behind the scenes at the state department was the key of sharing information in august, september, october, and november. And they did have open sessions with the partners so that we could express what we were seeing. And that would not have happened without this and still are questions are what happened in march and were does the atrocities prevention said on parallel with other National Intelligence priorities. If it was irrelevant until these atrocities were occurring, how are we better elevating that prioritization framework and how can we get ahead. And had we put a better emphasis ahead of the curve instead of after the current . Yes to in 2013, they are required to create a National Intelligence estimate on threats everywhere in the world and its not public, obviously, but we understand it is being created. So figuring out where it was on this list, i think it would be a really great case study for us to explore where the breakdowns are in that system. But we do think that there has been progress in that because of this existence and because of the core commitment, they response was faster than ever wouldve done and quickly i would just add where we think there needs to be more progress moving forward and one would be unlocking this information sharing problems and have problems in longterm funding across the board. Recognizing that you cant solve crises and challenges in 12 months and we need multiyear assistance programs that let us really deal with the complexity of these problems. Third would be to codify or commitment in law. So under this, you know, that might not live beyond the Obama Administration was Congress Codifies it into law. Okay. So let me bring it down. If we were to only do two things in the next 90 days, what would be. Now, i know that we need policing and all of that. But if we could only do two things and say this is the most critical time because we are underfunded and under that, and that was the focus. And theyre saying we have to act immediately. And there are lives being lost. So how do we do this if we were to say the next 90 days, you could do anything that you wanted to do, what would it be in terms of how you would prioritize the involvement there. And mr. Campbell, well start with you. Security would be first because we need that operating environment and the situation is so volatile that until that is stabilized, nothing else can move and then we have such a need. Particularly over and above before we get to the immediate response. That has to come. And because of how this has evolved, the is a longterm disaster. Particularly with food security. And as i have said, this is two years of consecutive problems even in these. Smack her for. I would concur that we are trying to find these peacekeepers and also to explore across the agency if there are ways for the United States to increase as the and in the near term. Number two would be to pass a bill authorizing this assistance funding that transcends the regular appropriations calendar. So that not just Financial Assistance but for a fiveyear Strategic Response bill that includes humanitarian development and political commitments seeing this through the transition. But i would like is if you want, not for open testimony, but if you would cement with the budget would look like and what the parameters would look like. I dont need a cadillac or a rolls words version. And i need something less than that. And we need to think a little bit outside the box. In more troops and police. I firmly believe we will be able to contain the violence. It is another method to stopping the violence that has not been tried and i firmly believe that it will make a huge difference on the ground once people stop to talk together. What would be their motivation to talk . Motivation is that nobody is really in a good situation. People are being attacked daily. So my experience from talking to local people, people are seeking leadership and seeking guidance and it is much more important to stop the dialogs and to push for additional peacekeeping. Realistically speaking, i just dont see where the finance and troops are going to come from at this moment. Let me follow up and then we will let you finish. Because i know we are pressing on time limits for everyone. You mentioned diamonds and a few of the other things. Including outside influences are at war component or percentage of this is whether he has a lot or any of the others, what kind of presence would use the them having and this. It is not something that we have dean today. What we have been is the alliance and key members using this approach in control of these areas to finance this group. And most of those commodities went through because of the relations with the Sudanese Government and members of the militia. So i think that is where we would have to look. I recognize that these are more longterm issues that will not have an immediate fit. That is why do not raise it is the most crucial point. Thank you. I also have to echo peace and security is number one. You need both police and security. But going back to the impunity issue because it has been so doublesided. First of all because it shows if you bring leadership to the Justice System, you have a better chance of reconciliation happening on the ground. If people see that the leaders that have put the country in the situation that it is in now, being brought to justice, i think that it better helps reconciliation process on the ground. That becomes motivation for them to talk, as the gentleman was talking about, if they cant operate without impunity . You might guess, if you have the, then what is the motivation or even if we have more peace groups. I think it encourages people when they see the leadership is brought to justice they have if they have a chance of survival and i would encourage that we begin a dialogue in looking at possibly the car and bringing some of these leadership to justice. Last, and it was touched on briefly, the complicity issue by various elements throughout the region. I do think that that has historically been a problem with car. And you do have various complicity is and supports coming from Different Countries around the world and what their role is, whether it is in the Economic Resource side order of the political influence side. We have an influence in terms of outside complicity in helping to destabilize this. That has not changed. So we need to bring the voice to some of the leaders around the region and those that we know that are there. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. I appreciate your patience before we conclude, a couple of final questions as relates. Yesterday in this room the Foreign Affairs committee passed a resolution that i introduced way back in september and held a hearing on and did an oped on the need for a war crimes tribunal that would be patterned after an ad hoc that we had in sierra leone in the former yugoslavia. And as we all know, it has not had anything other than one conviction in over a decade. Eighteen investigation, and it seems to have all kinds of internal constraints, which a lot have to do it the way it is configured, it does not have an affect. In one of the things that it did is we had a number of scenarios of what that ad hoc tribunal would look like, but you have to have the ability to go after more than one after order what they often do, only 18 indictments in over a dozen years, it is not a record that gives a lot of hope that we will have a consequence for here. So my question would be, should we be looking at an ad hoc tribunal as it relates to this and what we are trying to get off the ground for syria. And secondly, ms. Rose, you mentioned and talked about target intentions towards protecting women. Our landmark law, Greg Simpkins is our chief of staff on the subcommittee and i learned horrifyingly that peacekeepers were raping little girls. Here are the peacekeepers with a duty to protect and a mandate to protect that had not been properly vetted and were actually raping little girls. We have three hearings on it. The u. N. Did issue a zerotolerance policy to its credit and did good work at least on paper and some try to do it for real. But we went there and visited not only the peacekeepers but also a place called heal africa, where so many women were being gang raped by armed individuals, as he pointed out in testimony, getting a faithbased approach helping them get their lives back to deal with it, that is just unthinkable, yet they were getting real help. Ambassador sanders, is it a problem of trafficking and we havent heard a lot about that, have they been complicit in any way . Just the other day we heard of all of those young girls students being trafficked in nigeria because people are so frustrated. And those young girls were sold into slavery. Abducted and sold into slavery. And im wondering if anything like that is happening. Have there been any reports of trafficking and are we all making sure that the peacekeepers that are being deployed are vetted so they are able to be a part of the solution. Thank you, mr. Chairman. On the question about this, the bigger macro issue is the impunity. Whether it is a tribunal where the icc, think it is the message that it sends in the vehicle that we choose. And i think that most vehicles will be useful because you do have this international. And youre right on the number of convictions and at least it brings an international zeroing in as well as you could probably do this as well. But i think it is a question of impunity. I havent heard acerbically on trafficking. But let me just say that i would not surprise if that is also an underlying issue that is going on. If it hasnt started, there is always the potential instability for that to become another weapon of war. Of trafficking young men and women in that circumstance. So i think that is another thing that you are right to put on the table and its one thing that we have to watch. And in fact, i am headed to nigeria right now and so i dont know but my flight leaves at 2 30 p. M. So if that is okay, thank you so much. Thank you so much again. I will talk to the issue of the peacekeepers. There have been several incidents where peacekeepers have been involved in violent acts against civilians and we talked about this earlier today were 30 civilians were killed. Some soldiers were Even Special Forces inside the country, which is just horrible and needs so much more international scrutiny. And i would also just take this opportunity to day that i am publishing a report about the violence in the country or we can learn a lot more about ideas or to thank you for this opportunity. We deeply appreciate that cspan has given the American People the opportunity to hear about this tragedy from experts who are living it. You will find that you can get that at our budget page. Thank you. On the question of justice, i would have three points. Mercy corps is an agency. I dont have an opinion on whether they have an opinion. But there are three points to think about. One would be that we really need to talk to Central Africans and asked him what his justice. And thats one of the questions that we asked on the ground. Is a communitybased or statutory and will make you feel safe. And there are funds to do those types of surveys, but not enough and we need to allocate their voices in the debate. So we do have some structures where we engage in the dialogues and put together the survey if it takes time and secondly just to highlight that i think that in the immediate term in preventing violence, communitybased conciliation is the best approach. So with these centers the Justice System has ground to a halt and we have adjusted our strategy to do a communitybased healing and reconciliation we found out to have got the result. And so also i would say that there is a third point about support to this day. Police are there, please still have Civil Servants that want to serve that havent been able to. So that is a piece of the justice puzzle. And then of course, the issue of silence. I dont have information on complicity of peacekeepers, but im have to ask my staff. Regardless of whether it happened or not, the priority is ensuring the Due Diligence that is put into place immediately so that any new troops that come in and those that will be transitioned are going through that process now. So the sooner, the better. Third, on the point of Holistic Services and whether we are adequately funding them, mercy corps is funded from the peace and security act and Africa Bureau for our services. As to highlight something that started in congress is working on the ground to really save lives. But we arent seeing the International Response carved out right now. I would like to highlight that that secretary of state john kerry wants this say from the start initiative. It is supposed to wrist on the grants would be made available. But i think this is a good example of asking if this is coming to realize because we havent seen it yet. So thank you so much. Cecececececes suspend the quorum call. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Paul mr. President , it is often said that foreign aid from america is to project american power, to project the things that america believes in. Unfortunately, over decades, the only thing consistent about foreign aid is that the money continues to flow, regardless of the behavior of the recipients. This is extraordinary, and we have seen this decade after decade. Studies will show often that 75 of foreign aid throughout many continents is simply stolen, taken in graft. The mubarak family in egypt is an eangs example of this. The point that i would like to make today is if we are going to project what america stands for, that if we want our money to go to people who are supporting activities that america is for, we should write that into the law. Now, weve made attempts at this in the past. Senator leahy several years ago attached to foreign aid an amendment that says that countries need to be evolving towards democracy or showing an ability to go forward towards democracy. The problem is that every time we have restrictions on foreign aid, theyre evaded. We always give an out. The president has always got an out. So this week in egypt, 683 people were condemned to death in one trial and yet your money still flows to egypt without interruption. We have another contingency that says, if a country has a military takeover, if you have an election and then you have a military junta or a military takeover of the government, then our aid should end. Didnt happen in egypt. We had a military takeover. The only thing consistent about foreign aid is that it flows to all countries regardless of behavior. So its the opposite of what many of the proponents say. Many proponents say, we do this so we can modulate behavior, so we can try to improve and make things better around the world. And yet they steadfastly oppose restrictions on foreign aid. So i have a bill that im going to ask in a few minutes for the sna the tsnoot tosenate to unan. This should be an easy lift for most senators. This a bill to support our ally israel and to say to the Palestinian Authority that in order to receive american moneyen, imoney,if you wish to e and the american taxpayer gives hundreds of millions of dollars yeem each year to the Palestinian Authority, but theres always an out and they always get their money. So i am asking is lets have some restrictions. Shouldnt they gray to recognizy agree to recognize the state of israel . We now have a problem and the reason this has become a more pertinent issue is you have hamas, a terrorist group, in ga gaza, now allying themselves with the people in the Palestinian Authority. Are we going to send mean to a unity government . Part of the charter of hamas is not only just not recognition of israel but actually for the destruction of i will rail. Israel. So what i would ask to americans and what i would ask to those who will object to this bill because there will be an objection to my bill today i would ask to those who object, how can you object to something that calls for the recognition of israel as state . How can you object to and how can you continue to allow the flow of money to a group that calls for the destruction of israel . And they will say, well, weve got contingencies for that and well stop it if they become part of or control the west bank. When i was in israel a year ago, i asked everybody this question. I met with the Prime Minister of israel. I met with the president of israel. I met with the king of jordan. I met with the leader of the west bank, abbas. I met with them and asked, can there be a separate peace . Can there be peace with the west bank and peace with gaza in they all said, no, it has to be one peace. They lobbed missiles at us a. They are at war with us. They dont recognize our right to exist as a state. Not only that they openly advocate for the destruction of israel. But realize in the objection you will hear today, you will hear an objection that despite arguments to the contrary weal how money to go to a iewngtsy government that will include hamas. Im simply asking that if were going to send good money after bad, frankly money we dont have were 1 trillion in debt; we got bridges falling down in our own country and your government is end ising hundreds of millions of dollars to Palestinian Authority, now going to be unified with hamas, and without restrictions. Restrictions that have a hole so big you can drive a whole hole h the restrictions. This always happens. Every contin yen circumstance every contingency that you would think would be practicable and reasonable always has an exception for the president to overcome. The president always does it. So the only thing consistent about foreign said that money continues to p. L. O. To flow. So, mr. President , i would ask unanimous co

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