By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The US Senate on Wednesday screened three career diplomats nominated for diplomatic missions in Africa at a hearing examining their credentials to lead US diplomatic missions. If confirmed, three of the toughest diplomatic missions abroad will be led by women.
They told members of the Senate that serving on the diplomatic front lines is a privilege and that they are committed to doing what they can to further peace and prosperity in the African region.
Lucy Tamlyn, who currently heads the US diplomatic mission in Sudan as chargé d’affaires, may soon head south to the Democratic Republic of Congo to serve as ambassador.
During her appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Tamlyn described the DRC as a country of enormous size, complexity, and promise, and said “the DRC’s dynamic, entrepreneurial, and creative population of over 100 million are eager to engage with the United States.”
Senator Chris Van Hollen, a member of both Foreign Relations and the Appropriations Committee, which has authority over US foreign aid, pointed to the challenges awaiting Tamlyn at the hearing.
“The DRC is an incredibly complicated place with all sorts of rivalries and conflict, especially in the East. My question for you is: what do you think is at the heart of those conflicts and what do you think you can do as U.S. ambassador to try to address them in the long-term interest of stability in the DRC?” Van Hollen, himself the son of a career US Foreign Service officer, asked.
A lack of governance, coupled with the possession of vast natural resources formed the basis of some of most entrenching challenges the DRC has faced, Tamlyn said in response to Van Hollen’s question.
“There’s inevitably a competition, both inside the country as well as outside, for access to those resources. In the absence of strong government providing services to the people, you have instead a whole network of armed groups which provide some form of local governance,” a situation that poses problems, she said.
Tamlyn said it is important to communicate to the country and its people that things could change.
“We want the Congolese people to know that corrupt mineral exploitation deals, illegal logging and environmental devastation is not inevitable, and that there are alternatives,” she said.
The United States is committed to supporting governments and leaders that provide security and services to the people, she said, while vowing to use “all our diplomatic tools, including leveraging visa ineligibilities and sanctions, to help the Congolese fight corruption,” which she said was a common aspiration among the population.
The committee also screened two other senior career diplomats nominated to head embassies in Mali and Ivory Coast, both in West Africa.
If confirmed, Jessica Davis Ba will represent the United States in Ivory Coast and Rachna Sachdeva Korhonen will lead the diplomatic mission in Mali.
The three senior members of the US Foreign Service fully embraced the assignments awaiting them.
“If confirmed, my husband and our five sons will be going with me,” Davis Ba told the lawmakers, pointing to her husband and eldest son sitting behind her.
