A hearing on the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was held today by Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), Chairman of the House congressional panel that oversees Africa and international human rights.

    The hearing, entitled “The Devastating Crisis in Eastern Congo,” featured witnesses testifying before an open hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights.

    “This conflict was exacerbated by Rwanda's interventions in neighboring eastern Congo, as documented by the release of three United Nations reports this year,” said Smith. “These reports confirmed Rwanda's support of militia who have ravaged and continue to plague this region. Can the inter-ethnic problems in the DRC and its neighbors be finally resolved so that a lasting peace among all the people in the DRC can be achieved? It is time now to find a way to bring to an end the suffering of the people of the DRC.” Click here to read Chairman Smith’s opening statement.

    Also testifying were Johnnie Carson, Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S. Department of State; John Prendergast, Co-founder of The Enough Project; Steve Hege, former member of United Nations Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and; Mvemba Dizolele, Peter J. Duignan Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. (Click on the name of witness above to read testimony.)

    "The security and humanitarian situation in the Congo is the most volatile in Africa today,” Asst. Secretary Carson testified. “An estimated five million people have died in the years since the second regional war began in 1998, and millions more have been forced to flee their homes… . First and foremost, we are monitoring humanitarian needs and mobilizing a response. The humanitarian situation in the eastern Congo remains deplorable, as it has been for years, with more than two million Congolese currently displaced internally or to neighboring countries.”