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Moran Leads Bipartisan Call for Swift Action in Africa's Great Lakes Region

Special Representative would coordinate comprehensive U.S. policy in war-torn region

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS), along with a bipartisan group of 15 senators, has urged President Obama to swiftly appoint a Special Representative to better coordinate U.S. foreign policy in Africa’s Great Lakes region – an area plagued by instability, brutal violence and human rights abuses.

In a letter to the president, the senators point to the ongoing and brutal violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the regional threat posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) as key reasons for this appointment. The DRC continues to be plagued by the systematic rape of women and girls in the context of an armed conflict financed largely by conflict minerals. The LRA continues to terrorize civilians and abduct children in the DRC, South Sudan and the Central African Republic – which has led to massive displacement.

In 2009, then-Congressman Moran sponsored the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act. Signed into law in 2010, the legislation called for the president to develop a strategy to support multilateral efforts to protect civilians and eliminate the threat posed by the LRA operating in the Great Lakes region.

A Special Representative to the Great Lakes region would coordinate with U.S. Ambassadors stationed in these and other affected countries to help make certain  the president’s strategy mandated by the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act is implemented. 

Click here to view the full text of the senator’s letter to President Obama.

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