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[1] (December 8, 2016)

handle is hein.crs/crsmthmaope0001 and id is 1 raw text is: CRS INSIGHT Democratic Republic of Congo: Targeted Sanctions December 8, 2016 (IN10622) Related Author Al-exi a AriefF Alexis Arieff, Specialist in African Affairs (aariefF@ crs loc.gov, 7-2459) Congress has long focused on human rights and humanitarian hardship in war-ravaged eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, an epicenter of instability in Central Africa's Great Lakes region. Recently, congressional attention has turned to DRC's democratic trajectory and dynamics in the capital, Kinshasa. President Joseph Kabila's effort to stay in office- which opposition and civil society activists view as uncontituLional-has spurred unrest and could become a violent crisis (see CRS Report R43166, Democratic Revublic of Congo: Background and US. Relations). In October, the DRC government and regional leQader backed an agement extending the deadline for elections from November 2016 to April 2018. Top opposition and civil society leaders boycotted the talks that produced the agreement, however, and some have called for mass protests on December 19-when Kabila's second elected term nominally ends. Since 2015, the security forces have VoLcn ly suppressed protests, arretedyouth activists, b k independent media, and t1lled international researchers. Several religious leaders have rrL been killed after criticizing the government. Protesters have also been implicatedin violence against police. The State Department has cri tiiz threats to political rights and called Er a more inclusive agreement involving elections in 2017 and a commitment from Kabila not to seek another term or amend the constitution. In this context, U.S. policymakers have examinedthe threat and use of targeted sanctions as a tool to deter government abuses against protesters and/or to force Kabila to compromise. Sanctions against DRC were a focus of a recent Senate haring-and Lantos Human Rights Commission hering. S 485 and H R 780 (each recently passed by their respective chambers) express concern about the situation in DRC and call on the President to consider additional punitive measures. Context In 2006, citing widespread violence and atrocities that continue to threaten regional stability in DRC-and in the wake of LUN Security Council resolutiosseeking to isolate those violating an arms embargo on non-state actors and/or committing grave human rights abuses-President George W. Bush invoked national emergency authorities to impose an asset freeze on certain rebels and arms traffickers. In 2014, President Obama expanded naion emergn to enable sanctions against those found to undermine democratic processes or institutions, among other new grounds for designation. In 2016, the Administration has for the first time designated Congolese state officials: one for undermining democra

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