Cambridge, Mass. -- Before a crowded hall of scholars at Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., Monday evening, Joseph Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, spoke of his vision for the future of his war-torn country. He also fielded some difficult questions and at times sharply criticized Uganda and Rwanda, neighbors to, and current occupiers of, the DRC.

In response to a question about President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, who spoke at Harvard in February, Kabila said, "Officially or otherwise, we are at war." He added, "One day he must wake up and say, enough is enough, and pull back his forces from the Congo. I believe he is capable of doing that." However, Kabila warned, "If the situation continues as it does, nobody can be sure what tomorrow will bring, whether another genocide, this time in Congo, or permanent war between the two countries."

One questioner cited reports that Rwanda and Uganda knowingly recruited HIV-positive soldiers to invade the Congo and to rape and infect Congolese women and girls. Kabila was careful to call that a "fact we have yet to prove," as his government has had difficulty investigating such allegations in unstable regions. But he did say it was a fact that a good percentage of the Ugandan and Rwandan soldiers in the Congo were HIV-positive.

Kabila went on to criticize the international community for responding to the war in his country in a manner he characterized as slow and inadequate "We have informed the West of the war that’s going on. The West is always very very slow to act."

Kabile took office in the DRC after his father, Laurent Kabila, was killed in January. Since then, President Kabila has traveled around the world to talk about his vision for the world and to ask for help in achieving it. At Harvard, he recounted a meeting with the president of the European Union, in which he asked, "How is it, that when something happens in Croatia, or in Kosovo, people rush to help" -- applause -- "but when the same situation happens in the Congo, in Africa, they just give it lip service?"

In the DRC, which covers an area of 2.3 million square kilometers, or roughly the size of Western Europe, there were 5,000 peacekeepers, Kabila said. However, in Kosovo (10,887 square kilometers), there were at least 50,000 men ready to restore peace.

Kabila also had harsh words for some human rights NGOs. He called on them to work on the ground. "I believe they should be much more active in the true sense of the word, instead of passive in their offices in London," he said. One unnamed NGO particularly irked Kabila; he said he personally invited it to Congo, but up to now it has not come.

Earlier, to a question about the complicity of the U.S. in the continuing war in the Congo, Kabila joked that he could decline to answer, as he is in the U.S. As the laughter died down, he said, quite seriously, "I have got a very free mind." Then, in a response that referred to "the hypocrisy of the international community," Kabila called on the U.S. to put pressure on those who are truly financing the war -- "the very many rich international companies today doing business buying the loot" -- and on Uganda and Rwanda to remove their troops. "It’s just as simple as that," he said.

When Kabila took power in January, it would have seemed unlikely to many Congolese and international observers that he would still be alive and in power in late October, speaking at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government ARCO Forum of Public Affairs with "a very free mind." An Independent (UK) report in January characterized Kabila as "a puppet successor who has been temporarily put in charge." A New York Times article said Kabila is "ill prepared to lead a large country still in the grip of a 29-month war and that he is most likely being used by an inner circle of the former president that wants to buy time until it can figure out how to remain in power," according to those who knew him.

Nine months have passed, and Kabila is a free-thinking, independent, eloquent representative for 52 million Congolese. Still, Kabila’s position is by no means secure. He is aware of the troubled history of his predecessors at the helm of the DRC, formerly Zaire. Patrice Lumumba, Zaire’s first prime minister, was assassinated in 1961. President Joseph Mobutu fled the country in 1997 and died in exile. Laurent Kabila was assassinated.

When asked about his fear of assassination, Kabila candidly replied, "Psychologically, it’s very difficult." However, he said he pushes out fears of personal danger from his head with his driving force: "Do what you believe in, and do it with determination and conviction."

And Kabila’s hopes for what people would say about him 10 years from now were simple: "I would like them to say, there was a man called Joseph Kabila, and these are the change he brought about," Kabila said. "And for once, they are positive."

In his prepared remarks, Kabila listed a number of changes he planned to bring about, including economic reforms, renewed respect for human rights and a free civil society, the establishment of a stable government, and democratic elections. All this, Kabila said, needs peace to come to fruition.

This was not a new message, and indeed to some listeners it struck a false chord, as Kabila’s government walked out of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue meeting in Addis Ababa last week, effectively killing the talks. One questioner asked how Kabila could justify this step, which might have jeopardized the chance for a peaceful resolution between parties to the Congo conflict. In a long response, Kabila clearly laid out the deficiencies in the Addis Ababa meeting, including important groups that were not represented there and insufficient funds, and he committed to strive for peace at the next round of talks, scheduled for late November in Pretoria.

It was in his deft responses that Kabila showed his extensive maturation over the last nine months in office. This maturation impressed lecturer Robert Rotberg, who introduced Kabila. "I had a long discussion with president Kabila this afternoon, and I came away very impressed with his leadership ability," Rotberg said. "He has a vision for the future. It has been well-received around the world. Many others have been impressed with his attitude, style, ideas, and clear-headed thinking about Congo’s history."

Kabila’s speech laid out this history, focusing on the familiar contrast between the DRC’s great natural wealth and its people’s abject poverty. The Congo’s per-capita GDP has been hard to determine because of the war, but some estimate it as low as US$116. This, despite the country’s reserves of copper, cobalt, gold, diamonds, uranium, manganese, and coltan; its huge area, including two-thirds of the African rain forest; and its main artery, the Congo River. The river now provides almost all of Congo’s 2,400 MW installed energy capacity, but Kabila said its potential is for 100,000 MW, which would be enough to electrify all of Africa, and more.

It was with this great potential in mind that Kabila closed by saying, "Of today I talk only on behalf of the Congo, I won’t be doing a very good service to Africa. I can also talk on behalf of Africa. Congo can act as a locomotive to propel Africa, a driving force for the whole continent to pick itself up."