[Senate Hearing 108-666]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 108-666
SUDAN: PEACE BUT AT WHAT PRICE?
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 15, 2004
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana, Chairman
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
GEORGE ALLEN, Virginia CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio BARBARA BOXER, California
LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee BILL NELSON, Florida
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West
JOHN E. SUNUNU, New Hampshire Virginia
JON S. CORZINE, New Jersey
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Staff Director
Antony J. Blinken, Democratic Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Alexander, Hon. Lamar, U.S. Senator from Tennessee, opening
statement...................................................... 1
Biden, Hon. Joseph R., Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware, opening
statement...................................................... 4
Corzine, Hon. Jon S., U.S. Senator from New Jersey, statement
submitted for the record....................................... 63
Feingold, Hon. Russell D., U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, opening
statement...................................................... 3
Flint, Ms. Julie, Darfur field researcher, Human Rights Watch,
London, United Kingdom......................................... 52
Prepared statement........................................... 55
Prendergast, Mr. John, Special Advisor to the President,
International Crisis Group, Washington, DC..................... 46
Prepared statement........................................... 48
Snyder, Mr. Charles R., Acting Assistant Secretary of State,
Bureau for African Affairs, U.S. Department of State,
Washington, DC................................................. 6
Prepared statement........................................... 10
Responses to additional questions for the record from Senator
Biden...................................................... 70
Winter, Hon. Roger P., Assistant Administrator, Bureau for
Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency
for International Development, Washington, DC.................. 13
Prepared statement........................................... 17
Responses to additional questions for the record from Senator
Biden...................................................... 72
(iii)
SUDAN: PEACE BUT AT WHAT PRICE?
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TUESDAY, JUNE 15, 2004
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:29 p.m. in room
SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Lamar Alexander
presiding.
Present: Senators Alexander, Brownback, Biden, and
Feingold.
opening statement of senator lamar alexander
Senator Alexander. Good afternoon. The hearing of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee will come to order. I want
to welcome all of you here, especially to welcome our
witnesses. We have two panels of witnesses today, plus we have
three Presidential nominees who have been nominated for
Ambassador. We want at least to get through the hearing on our
main subject today by 4 o'clock or shortly before because we
have a series of votes that begin at 4 o'clock which will
interrupt the proceeding.
So what I will ask our witnesses to do is to summarize
their testimony, if they will, for their opening statement to
no more than 7 minutes and that will give committee members a
chance to ask questions and to have a fuller discussion of the
very important issues.
We are here to examine the complex and difficult choices
that are facing the United States in Sudan. We see a struggle
there to solidify a fragile peace in the south of Sudan and we
want to mitigate the impact of what is the worst humanitarian
crisis in the world today in the western part of that country.
Civil war has consumed the southern part of Sudan for more than
two decades. The heart of the conflict is a clash between the
Muslim government in Khartoum, which identifies more with the
Arab world, and the Christian rebels in the south, which
identify more with sub-Saharan Africa.
President Bush and Congress have responded to this ongoing
conflict. Prior to my joining the U.S. Senate, in 2002 our
majority leader, Senator Bill Frist, led the charge to pass the
Sudan Peace Act. He was then the ranking member of the
Subcommittee on African Affairs and was joined in the effort by
Senator Feingold, who then was chairman of the subcommittee, as
well as a former chairman, Senator Helms, Senators Lugar,
Biden, Brownback, and others expressed a great interest in the
Sudan Peace Act. That legislation provided a framework for the
peace negotiations in Sudan.
Since that time, progress on the peace talks moderated by
the United States, by Great Britain, Norway, and Kenya has been
slow. But the talks have finally yielded results. Senator John
Danforth has served as President Bush's special envoy in this
effort. Just a few weeks ago on May 26, the Government of Sudan
[GOS] and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement signed three
protocols to finally end that conflict. The difficulties of
implementation of those protocols are still ahead, but I am
hopeful that conflict is finally at an end.
This is a tremendous success story, but it has been
obscured by a growing tragedy in another part of Sudan. At the
same time peace was being negotiated between the north and the
south, a new campaign of terror erupted in the western region
of Darfur. The prospect of a just peace with the south
apparently provoked rebel bands in the west to try to get their
piece of the pie. The Government of Sudan responded to rebel
raids swiftly and brutally, beginning a campaign designed not
just to root out the rebels among the population, but to
systematically uproot and destroy the people of Darfur.
It is worth noting that this western conflict has nothing
to do with religion. Both sides are Muslim. The conflict is
about ethnic rivalry and control of territory.
The scope and results of this rampage are only now becoming
clear. Somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000 natives to Darfur
have been killed. Some 200,000 refugees have fled across the
border into neighboring Chad. Over 1 million are estimated to
be displaced in Darfur and 1.2 million are at risk of
starvation if sufficient food assistance is not provided.
Many now believe the Government of Sudan, through its
Janjaweed militias in Darfur has been engaged in an active
campaign of ethnic cleansing. Some have called it genocide. I
expect our witnesses will have more to say on that point.
The international community has failed to respond to the
crisis. The United Nations Human Rights Commission, which is
supposed to confront flagrant abuses of human rights,
especially when they occur on such a mass scale, has failed to
adopt a United States resolution condemning the actions of the
Government of Sudan. That body, the U.N. Human Rights
Commission, has become a travesty, condoning the very activity
it was intended to prevent, largely because human rights-
abusing member governments outnumber those who are eager to
prevent such abuse and they vote accordingly.
President Bush and his administration have stated clearly
and repeatedly that what has been happening in Darfur is wholly
unacceptable and must be dealt with quickly. At the same time,
it is not clear how ready we are to push that principle with
the Sudanese Government.
Some of our friends are reportedly concerned that
confronting Khartoum too directly about atrocities in Darfur
will jeopardize any prospect for lasting peace in southern
Sudan. They may be right, but if hundreds of thousands of lives
are the price of peace in southern Sudan the price is too high.
Today we are fortunate to have two distinguished panels to
testify before the committee on this topic. The first panel,
from the administration, will share the actions taken by our
government, the U.S. Government, in Sudan and what we hope to
accomplish as we move forward. The second panel will provide
expert advice on U.S. strategy as well as an in-depth look at
the atrocities in Darfur.
Before the first panel begins, let me turn to my colleague
Senator Feingold and ask for his opening statement. Senator
Feingold.
opening statement of senator russell d. feingold
Senator Feingold. I thank Chairman Alexander for calling
this important hearing and I thank all the witnesses for being
here today.
I wish that I had been in a position to celebrate when the
government in Khartoum and the Sudanese People's Liberation
Movement reached a set of historic agreements in late May that
hold great promise for a final comprehensive peace accord. I do
commend the administration for working tirelessly in this
effort and of course I welcome the prospect of an end to the
north-south civil war that has claimed the lives of millions
and caused such intense suffering to those who have survived.
But the relentless stream of appalling reports coming out
of Darfur makes it terribly difficult to celebrate. A brutal
campaign conducted by Sudanese military forces and government-
backed militia forces has left tens of thousands of dead, over
a million displaced, and hundreds of thousands at immediate
urgent risk. The massacres and widespread rapes, the
destruction of villages, mosques, and farms, all of this
violence and horror has given rise to a second, even more
costly wave of suffering as civilians are left with no capacity
to sustain themselves as the rainy season approaches.
There seems to be some disagreement about whether what is
happening in Darfur is or is not genocide. Frankly, I believe
that to argue over the semantics is to miss the point. What is
happening is appalling. It is an affront to all humanity, to
all faiths, and we cannot stand by and simply watch this unfold
if we are to be the people and the country we wish to be.
We are a party to the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide for a reason. We did not
ratify the convention so that we could confront a situation
such as the one unfolding in Sudan today and take our time
reflecting on whether or not the massacres and rapes in Darfur
fit the bill. We ratified the convention because doing so was
an act that affirmed our commitment to basic human decency and
affirmed our understanding of our own obligations to act to
prevent genocide from occurring.
I look forward to hearing the concrete proposals of the
witnesses before us today and to working with my colleagues and
with the administration to move forward on policies that
address the humanitarian crisis, but also address the
underlying political issues that first ignited this conflict. I
hope to work toward ways to address the fact that some made a
deliberate decision to unleash this horror on the Sudanese
people. These individuals should be held accountable for their
crimes.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I want to take this opportunity to
make one point perfectly clear to the Government of Sudan.
There can be no normalization of relations between the United
States and Sudan while this crisis continues. That government
should expect no support, financial, political, or otherwise,
from the U.S. Government and the U.S. taxpayers until
meaningful action has been taken to stop the violence, to
protect civilians, and to cooperate with relief efforts rather
than bogging them down with shakedowns and obstructions
disguised as petty administrative requests.
I do not understand what the Government of Sudan hopes to
gain by its actions right now, but I certainly do understand
what that government stands to lose.
Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the testimony and I also
believe that the ranking member of the full committee, Senator
Biden, would possibly like an opportunity to make an opening
statement later on. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Alexander. We thank you, Senator Feingold. Earlier
I mentioned that the Sudan Peace Act had been enacted with your
leadership as chairman of the African Affairs Subcommittee, and
we will welcome Senator Biden when he is able to come and
interrupt at that time and he will have a chance to make his
statement.
We will now proceed to the first two witnesses. Charlie
Snyder is the first. He is currently the Acting Assistant
Secretary of State for African Affairs. Connie Newman will soon
fill that post. Mr. Snyder has been extremely active in our
efforts in Sudan. He has personally traveled there multiple
times to help move the peace process forward and to address the
crisis in Darfur.
After that, Roger Winter, Assistant Administrator for
Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S.
Agency for International Development. Roger has been
instrumental in our plans for southern Sudan as well as our
efforts to mitigate a humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur.
I would ask each of you to summarize your remarks in 7
minutes so we will have a chance to come back to you. But first
I would like to welcome the ranking member of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Biden, and ask him if he
has an opening statement.
opening statement of senator joseph r. biden, jr.,
ranking member
Senator Biden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
your indulgence. I do, if it please the committee.
Let me say I want to thank you for holding this hearing on
an extremely important issue and at a very timely moment. The
administration has worked very hard over the past several years
to support the peace process in Sudan between the government in
Khartoum and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement. With
the signing of the last three protocols on May 26, that peace
process is on the verge of success and that is a truly
significant achievement.
Mr. Chairman, the impact of that agreement has has been
severely diminished and we have all been diminished by the
horrific attacks on civilians that are being perpetrated by the
Government of Sudan and its allied militias in Darfur. These
attacks have precipitated what U.N. officials have called the
worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.
We have already witnessed ethnic cleansing on a massive
scale. Nearly two million people have been displaced. Already
as many as 30,000 people have been killed, and our USAID
Administrator stated 2 weeks ago that, ``Under optimal
conditions, we could see as many as 320,000 people die by the
end of this year as a result of the violence, disease, and
famine.''
A U.N. factfinding team, quote, ``identified massive human
rights violations perpetrated by the Government of Sudan and
its proxy militia which may constitute war crimes and-or crimes
against humanity.'' The violations reported by the U.N. include
targeting of civilians during military strikes, the widespread
rape of women and girls, the intentional destruction of homes,
foodstores, livestock, and crops, the razing of villages,
forced displacements, and thousands of disappearances.
This in itself demands that we seek to save the lives still
in jeopardy, safeguard and feed refugees and displaced people,
and help establish security so that people can return home, and
hold those responsible accountable.
The administration has responded with humanitarian aid and
raised the issue repeatedly with officials in Khartoum. The
U.N. has sent teams out to investigate. These are very
important steps, but I suspect we would all agree they are not
enough. The international community must condemn Khartoum's
actions unequivocally and must insist that Khartoum stop
attacks on civilians by government troops and militias and
provide unfettered access for humanitarian workers in Darfur.
We must hasten the arrival of international cease-fire
monitors.
The U.S. should bring real money to the table to respond to
the crisis rather than the empty promise of money it does not
have. To that end, I call on the administration to request a
budget supplemental that will provide the funds needed to
address the humanitarian crisis now, not next year. I will soon
introduce legislation to authorize such funds and to make the
provisions of money to support the north-south peace agreement
contingent on Khartoum's stopping the killing.
We must also determine the true nature of what is
happening. The question for our administration witnesses is
this: Is the Sudanese Government engaged in or has it been
engaged in genocide? The press reports that the question is
finally under active consideration in the executive branch.
Kofi Annan first raised alarm bells about genocide in April,
but the administration has appeared reluctant to ask the
question.
Let me be clear. We already know more than we need to know
to take urgent action to stop violence and provide humanitarian
aid. But we also must confront the question of whether or not
what is going on is genocide. If we do not, then we will fail
ourselves as well as the people of the Sudan. If we do not
confront the genocide question, we will renege on the promises
we made after World War II and in the wake of Rwanda to not
stand by and let genocide unfold again.
Genocide is a crime so shocking to our collective
conscience that the world agreed on a treaty dedicated solely
to prevent its reoccurrence and to punish perpetrators. If we
do not confront the genocide question, we will fail on moral
and legal grounds to live up to that obligation and we will rob
ourselves of the opportunity to enlist the help of others. The
genocide convention states very clearly in article 1 that
``Parties to the convention undertake to prevent the
destruction of a people,'' not just act after it has happened.
Finally, each and every time we fail to identify genocide
and stop it we numb our collective conscience to the crime and
embolden potential perpetrators to continue.
I hope that our administration witnesses are prepared to
explain whether this is genocide, what the U.S. course of
action should be to stop it, and how we plan to meet the
humanitarian needs with $188 million that is yet to be
appropriated. I think I speak for everyone in this room when I
say that I do not want to see the United States stand by while
genocide unfolds. If we do not ask the tough questions and give
honest answers and if we do not act, that is precisely what
might happen. The truth of the matter is there are a lot of
other considerations, but none in my view rise to a level that
should prevent us from meeting our responsibility in making
that tough determination.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to hearing
our witnesses.
Senator Alexander. Thank you, Senator Biden.
Now, Mr. Snyder first and then Mr. Winter. Thank you for
coming.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES R. SNYDER, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
STATE, BUREAU FOR AFRICAN AFFAIRS, U.S DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Snyder. Thank you, Senator. I will sum up my statement
in respect to your wishes.
Let me talk first about where we are in the peace process
north-south. I think you pretty well brought the hearing up to
date on where we are in terms of a significant breakthrough. We
now have the essence of the peace agreement in terms of the
north-south process. What we need to do next and what we will
do next is attach to that two annexes. One of the annexes will
be the detailed cease-fire process agreement, which will
include things like demobilization, positioning of people, and
so forth. We expect the talks on that subject to begin on June
22 and continue for at least 4 weeks.
The second missing part is an implementation date for the
political agreement that they have made, what is the date that
the interim agreement begins, et cetera, et cetera. We believe
that as soon as the cease-fire talks end, probably in the
middle of July, we will be able to move on to that. The Kenyan
mediator actually hopes to wrap these talks up in about 8 weeks
from June 22. I think he is optimistic, but I think, given the
breakthrough and the partnership that seems to have developed
between Vice President Taha and John Garang, it is not
unreasonable to press for a quick settlement.
One of the tragedies of this process--now let me turn to
Darfur--is that this agreement that they have just signed
actually has the kernel of settlement in it. The
decentralization features, the power-sharing features, et
cetera, can solve the underlying political problem in Darfur.
We have urged and will continue to urge that these partners in
peace, Vice President Taha and John Garang, turn their peace
friendship in the direction of Darfur and act as national
leaders to help to begin to end this process. They have assured
us that they will do that and we are waiting for them to begin
that process. I think that is one of the necessary pieces that
is missing from this so far.
Let me turn to what we have done about the tragedy in
Darfur. We have already used the term ``ethnic cleansing.'' I
think the Secretary said it best and let me quote him: ``All I
know is that there are at least one million people who are
desperately in need and many of them will die if I cannot get
the international community mobilized and if I cannot get the
Sudanese to cooperate with the international community, and it
will not make a whole lot of difference after the fact what we
call it.''
So we are already as mobilized on this subject as we could
be, whether we call it genocide or not, although I agree we
need to answer that question, certainly for the record and
certainly for holding those that are responsible for it guilty.
But as always, we are faced with a tough dilemma: Do we pursue
adequate relief immediately and set aside our justice concerns
in order to press for that?
We will not do that in the long run. We are in the process
of trying to come up with a list of people who are responsible,
people among the Janjaweed who are hoping to actually name, to
begin this process so that the impunity that several of the
members have referred to will begin to end here. And we will go
further than that if we do not get the kind of response we are
hoping to get.
We are on this and we are pressing all parties. You quoted
Mr. Natsios. The reason Mr. Natsios and I were in Geneva was to
rally the assistance and the support, financial and otherwise,
from the European Community, to begin to turn their attention
to this as a serious process and not a case where the Americans
are carrying this out of proportion. I think we have begun that
education process and the Europeans are beginning to pledge
money.
For instance, most tangibly, they pledged $15 million, and
it is the first money other than our million to hit the till,
to get the African Union [AU] cease-fire team on the ground and
in place to begin to have eyes and ears on the ground in an
official sense, to begin to force the government and the rebels
to honor the cease-fire agreement they have made.
I am somewhat optimistic that we can push this out the door
and we can actually have some success in this. When we began
the process in the Nuba Mountains we faced the same dilemma,
getting two parties who are fighting each other by no civilized
rules to stop. It took us 30 days, but it took us getting the
monitors on the ground to begin that process. So I have some
reason to hope if we can get the African Union moving--and it
is moving--the first elements are in Al Fashir and several
other elements are moving out to subordinate areas--that they
may begin to reverse this process.
Again, the $15 million that the European Union put on the
ground says that this is quite a serious process and that they
intend to respect it. More significantly than that, they have
put men on the ground, as we have. We have got our own men in
this African Union peacekeeping force----
Senator Alexander. We have an evacuation, so we will
evacuate now and resume following the evacuation.
[Recess from 2:51 p.m. to 3:33 p.m.]
Senator Alexander. The Committee on Foreign Relations will
come back to order. I want to thank the witnesses for an
orderly evacuation. This is getting to be more frequent.
Now, Mr. Snyder, you were testifying when we evacuated. Let
me say in a preliminary way, we still have votes scheduled
beginning at 4, and what we will do is go until shortly after
4, which will give us time to get through this first panel for
sure, and then I will need to go vote. Hopefully, Senator
Feingold and I can work something out where we go back and
forth and we can continue the hearing while we vote. We may
have to take a short recess for that purpose.
But this is a very important hearing and we are anxious to
develop a full record and make a full statement. We have had a
chance to hear from Senator Feingold and Senator Biden.
Mr. Snyder, why do you not continue, and you are welcome to
summarize again where you were or to recapture anything that
you said, and then we can go to Mr. Winter. Then we will go to
questions.
Mr. Snyder. Thank you, Senator. I think I will pick up by
detailing the actions we have taken in a more specific way than
I was doing. The President, the Secretary, the National
Security Adviser, Mr. Natsios, as I mentioned earlier, have all
raised Darfur several times with President Bashir, Vice
President Taha, and of course the Foreign Minister. The
President issued a strong public statement on April 7 in which
he condemned the atrocities being committed and insisted that
the Government of Sudan stop the Janjaweed violence.
Senior U.S. officials have visited Darfur several times
since last fall to call attention to the situation and to press
the GOS to stop the violence. In fact, we are now hoping to
send out Pierre-Richard Prosper, the Ambassador at Large for
War Crimes, as well as the Assistant Secretary Lorne Craner, to
take a look at the human rights situation before the end of the
month.
In this same regard, we have pressed the United Nations to
be as active as possible and we have some assurances from
Secretary General Annan that he will attempt to visit Darfur as
early as he can, possibly later this month, but certainly
before the African Union summit begins in early July.
We played a decisive role in brokering the cease-fire
between the government and the Darfur armed opposition that was
signed in Chad on April 8. We followed up the last week of May
in Addis to help broker the agreement to actually deploy the
monitors led by the African Union to Darfur. The United States
has pushed for a special briefing on Darfur in the Security
Council on April 7. This in part put the pressure on Sudan to
sign the cease-fire agreement that they did on April 8.
The World Food Program Director and Acting High
Commissioner for Rights Berti Ramcharan briefed the Security
Council again May 7. The council has also heard from NGOs in an
informal session and has been briefed a third time.
We took the lead in drafting a strong Presidential
statement that the council adopted, after some negotiation May
25. That statement, and I quote, ``expressed its grave concern
over the deteriorating humanitarian and human rights situation
and strongly condemned the indiscriminate attacks on civilians,
sexual violence, forced displacement, and acts of violence,
especially those of an ethnic dimension.''
A U.S.-UK sponsored U.N. resolution was passed June 11 to
welcome the protocols at Naivasha. But at our insistence, the
resolution also refers to the situation in Darfur and ensures
that the United Nations Security Council will remain seized of
this issue.
At our initiative, the U.N. chaired a June 4 Geneva meeting
on Darfur with donors to send a concerted message to the GOS
and to stimulate additional pledges to meet the urgent
humanitarian assistance needs. As you know, the United States
has pledged $188 million, bringing our total planned
contribution to nearly $300 million.
At the U.N. Human Rights Commission [UNHCR] meeting in
April this year, we co-sponsored a resolution calling for the
appointment of a Special Rapporteur for Sudan under item 9. The
head of our delegation made a strong statement in which he
condemned the atrocities taking place in Darfur and held the
international community accountable for a lack of action.
Ultimately, the CHR adopted a weaker decision, appointing only
an independent expert.
Finally, as I mentioned earlier in my statement, I want to
underscore that we have made it clear to the Government of
Sudan we will not normalize relations, even if there is a
north-south peace agreement, unless and until the GOS takes the
steps necessary to address the situation in Darfur.
These steps have resulted in some improvement in the
situation, but not nearly enough in the face of the enormity of
this crisis, and we continue to remain active on that front. I
have given you what we have done to date and I have begun to
outline what we hope to do. We will attempt to find those
responsible and name them, if we can, by name so that the idea
of impunity does not become attached to this crisis. And we
will look at more and more extraordinary steps as time goes by
to force the Government of Sudan to honor its pledges.
The simple fact of the matter, as Senator Feingold I
believe pointed out, is that despite the high level
reassurances we have had, we have been thwarted at many turns
by the bureaucracy, and we have made it very clear that this is
not acceptable in the face of the enormity of this crisis. In
fact, I am hoping for the Secretary to press this point again
in the next day or so with the Foreign Minister, who has become
somewhat of an intermediary in this process and begun to get
some satisfaction for our demands on the ground, but again not
nearly enough.
Just to reiterate one last time, the administration
considers resolving the situation in Darfur to be one of its
highest priorities. We said so in our memorandum of
justification that accompanied the President's certification
under the Sudan Peace Act and we have been faithful to that
pledge. We have not stinted, certainly in diplomatic channels,
but our USAID colleagues have not stinted on the practical
side, from pushing this as far and as fast as we can.
I will close with that and let my colleague Roger Winter
have his say.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Snyder follows:]
Prepared Statement of Charles R. Snyder
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I am honored to have the
opportunity to appear before you to discuss our government's efforts to
achieve a just and comprehensive north-south peace accord, and to
address the grave humanitarian and human rights problems in Darfur. We
are exerting strong leadership on both issues and have made tremendous
progress toward ending the north-south conflict over the past three and
a half years. We intend to use some tools that have proven most
effective to address the humanitarian and human rights crises in
Darfur. The situation in Darfur requires urgent attention, and will, if
not resolved, negatively affect prospects to conclude and implement a
comprehensive peace accord between the Government of Sudan (GOS) and
the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM). Given the right
resources, I am confident that we can end the tragedy in Darfur.
The signing of the three protocols on power sharing, the two
disputed areas of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, and Abyei were a
major breakthrough in efforts to achieve a north-south peace accord.
Both sides agree that all the substantive issues have now been
resolved. What remains is to work out the details of a formal ceasefire
and related security arrangements, and implementation modalities. In
their signing a declaration on June 5 in Nairobi, Vice President Taha
and Chairman Garang committed themselves to do this quickly. We are,
therefore, hopeful that a final comprehensive peace accord will be
signed within the next 8-12 weeks. The situation in Darfur complicates
this process, however, and clouds prospects for implementation of a
peace accord. We are pushing the parties to sign a final peace accord
as soon as possible while simultaneously working to end the violence in
Darfur.
The GOS and SPLM will meet on June 22, again under the auspices of
the Intergovernmental Agency on Development (IGAD), to work out a
formal north-south ceasefire agreement including details relating to
disengagement and redeployment of forces, and disarmament,
demobilization, and reintegration. We are sending a strong team of
experts to those talks to assist IGAD mediator Sumbeiywo. The security
talks will be followed by a session on modalities to implement the
accords that have been signed. Once these details have been worked out
the GOS and SPLM will sign a comprehensive peace accord encapsulating
all the agreements that have been reached.
Immediately following that, the six-month pre-interim period will
begin, followed by the six-year implementation period. We are working
now to identify the resources that will be needed to support
implementation, as well as reconstruction and development. A strong
commitment of support will reinforce U.S. leadership in the peace
process and will enable us to push other donors to ensure equitable
burden sharing among the international community.
The title for this hearing, Mr. Chairman, asks the question ``what
price peace?'' The price of war has been enormous. We estimate that
over two million people have died in the course of the north-south
conflict, approximately 700,000 refugees have fled the country, close
to four million are displaced within Sudan, and development has been
severely retarded throughout the entire country. We cannot and will not
lessen pressure on the Government of Sudan and allow what is happening
in Darfur to continue in order to achieve a north-south peace accord.
We have made clear to both the Government of Sudan and the Sudan
People's Liberation Movement that peace throughout Sudan, including
Darfur is essential to the implementation of a north-south accord.
Continued instability in western Sudan would fatally complicate efforts
to implement a north-south accord.
Even if this were not the case, the situation in Darfur would still
merit the most vigorous possible effort by the United States. The
violence and atrocities being perpetrated in Darfur simply must not be
allowed to continue.
A humanitarian crisis of major proportions exists in Darfur. I want
to review how this situation developed and inform you about the steps
we are taking to address it. Darfur is an area where traditional
conflicts between nomadic herders, who are largely Arab, and sedentary
agriculturalists, who are largely African Muslims, have long existed.
The government's perceived marginalization of the region and favoritism
towards Arab tribes have contributed to growing popular dissatisfaction
among the three primary African groups: the Fur, Zaghawa, and Messalit.
This dissatisfaction crystallized as the people of the region looked at
the progress being made in the north-south peace talks and became
increasingly focused on the need to address their grievances. There two
armed opposition groups in Darfur: the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM)
and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). Both groups draw some
support as a result of western grievances, but neither group has a
clear political agenda. Although it is clear that the Government of
Sudan is responsible for the humanitarian and human rights crises, we
should not assume that the armed opposition groups are entirely without
blame.
The emergence of armed opposition in Darfur has profoundly shaken
the GOS because it poses, in many respects, a greater threat than the
activities of the SPLM in the south. The SPLM has never threatened the
north militarily; it is a southern movement. Support for the JEM and
SLM, however, comes from within the predominantly Muslim population of
Darfur; radical Muslim cleric Turabi has links to the JEM. Moreover,
over 50 percent of the Sudanese military is from the Darfur, and that
region is not far from Khartoum. A successful insurgency in Darfur
would fuel potential insurgencies in other parts of the north. This, I
believe, explains why the Government of Sudan has adopted such brutal
tactics in Darfur. The GOS is determined to defeat the JEM and SLM at
any cost to the civilian population.
The effective military operations carried out by the SLM and the
JEM, particularly the attack on the regional capital of Al Fashir last
year, raised grave concerns within the GOS. As a result, the government
launched an all-out effort to defeat the armed opposition. As a major
part of that effort, the government armed and supported Arab-based
``jingaweit'' militias have attacked and displaced civilians. These
attacks are coordinated and supported by government security forces.
African villages have been systematically attacked in a scorched-earth
type approach. Villages are burned to the ground, water points
destroyed, crops burned, and the people are forced from their land. The
African population has been brutalized by the jingaweit through
widespread atrocities including mass rape, branding of raped women,
summary killings, amputations, and other atrocities. Estimates of
civilians killed range between 15,000-30,000. As many as one million
people have been displaced, and tens of thousands have sought refuge
across the border in Chad. All of this amounts to ``ethnic cleansing''
on a large scale.
The United States has exerted strong leadership to stop the
violence. We have consistently told the Government of Sudan--at the
highest levels--that it must take the following steps on Darfur: end
the jingaweit violence; agree to a ceasefire with the armed opposition
and allow international monitoring of the ceasefire; and allow
unrestricted humanitarian access.
I want to detail actions we have taken:
The President, Secretary of State, National Security
Adviser, USAID Administrator have raised Darfur with President
Bashir, Vice President Taha, and Foreign Minister Ismael.
The President issued a strong public statement on April 7 in
which he condemned the atrocities being committed and insisted
that the GOS stop jingaweit violence.
Senior U.S. officials have visited Darfur several times
since last fall to call attention to the situation and to press
the GOS to stop the violence.
The United States played a decisive role in brokering a
ceasefire between the government and the Darfur armed
opposition that was signed in Chad on April 8.
We then followed up the last week of May in Addis Ababa to
help broker an agreement to deploy international monitors, led
by the African Union, to Darfur.
The United States pushed for a special briefing on Darfur in
the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on April 7; this
helped pressure the GOS to sign the ceasefire on April 8.
World Food Program Director and Acting High Commissioner for
Human Rights Berti Ramcharan briefed the Security Council again
May 7. The Council has also heard from NGOs in an informal
session and has been briefed a third time.
The U.S. took the lead by drafting a strong Presidential
Statement that the Council adopted, after some negotiation, May
25. That statement ``expressed its grave concern over the
deteriorating humanitarian and human rights situation'' and
``strongly condemn[ed]'' the ``indiscriminate attacks on
civilians, sexual violence, forced displacement, and acts of
violence, especially those with an ethnic dimension.''
A U.S./UK sponsored UNSC resolution was passed June 11 to
welcome the three protocols at Naivasha. At our insistence, the
resolution also refers to the situation in Darfur and ensures
that the UNSC will remain seized of this issue.
At our initiative the UN chaired a June 4 Geneva meeting on
Darfur with donors to send a concerted message to the GOS and
to stimulate additional pledges to meet the urgent humanitarian
assistance needs. The United States pledged $188.5 million
bringing our total U.S. planned contribution to nearly $300
million.
At the UN Human Rights Commission (CHR) meeting in Geneva in
April of this year, we co-sponsored a resolution calling for
appointment of a special rapporteur for Sudan under Item 9. The
head of our delegation made a strong statement in which he
condemned the atrocities taking place in Darfur and held the
international community accountable for lack of action.
Ultimately, the CHR adopted a weaker decision, appointing an
independent expert.
And finally, as I mentioned earlier in my statement, I want
to underscore that we have made clear to the GOS that we will
not normalize relations--if there is a north-south peace
agreement--unless the GOS takes the necessary steps to address
the situation in Darfur.
The steps that we have taken have already yielded some results,
though not enough given the enormity of the crisis in Darfur. The
ceasefire signed between the GOS and the Darfur armed opposition
provides a basis to end the violence. The agreement specifically holds
the GOS responsible to stop the activities of the jingaweit militia.
The ceasefire agreement provides for international monitoring, and this
is to be under the auspices of the African Union. With our logistical
support, the first team of monitors has just deployed to Darfur. In
addition to representatives from African countries, U.S. and European
Union (EU) personnel are members of the team. We are working with the
AU to ramp up this team and to begin investigations on an urgent basis.
Getting these monitors on the ground and helping them work effectively
is of critical importance. You will recall the pivotal role that
getting monitors into Sudan has played in maintaining the ceasefire in
the north-south conflict and helping move political resolution to the
conflict forward.
While there has been some diminution in violence and some
improvement in humanitarian access, the situation in Darfur remains
grave. USAID estimates that as many as 350,000 people could die over
the coming months if humanitarian assistance is not put in place
urgently. However, most of the violence is being perpetrated by the
jingaweit. In addition, there have been several unconfirmed reports of
aerial bombardment and/or use of helicopter gun ships. Getting
international monitoring in place and stopping the jingaweit violence
is crucial to facilitating unrestricted humanitarian access.
International humanitarian workers simply cannot gain access to many
areas while the violence is continuing. Moreover, those displaced fear
receiving humanitarian assistance, because that provokes further
jingaweit attacks to loot supplies.
The perpetrators of the violence and atrocities in Darfur must be
held accountable. The Government of Sudan has a responsibility to end
the impunity in Darfur. The perpetrators of the violence and atrocities
in Darfur must be held accountable. We described in detail in our Sudan
Peace Act report the atrocities that are taking place in Darfur. While
the information available to us is far less precise than we would like,
we are working hard to identify those responsible. We are exploring
actions that we can take against these people, specifically by freezing
assets they may have in the United States and prohibiting the issuance
of visas to them. We are working hard with the UN and other partners to
ensure that concerns about Darfur received appropriate mention in any
Security Council statements on the situation in Sudan. It is also
essential that the results of ethnic cleansing not be allowed to stand.
The African ethnic groups forced from the land must be allowed to
return voluntarily and their protection must be ensured.
The Administration considers resolving the situation in Darfur to
be one of its highest priorities. The Memorandum of Justification
accompanying the President's certification to the Congress consistent
with the Sudan Peace Act highlighted the need for urgent action both to
reach a north-south peace deal and to end the violence in Darfur. The
Memorandum made clear that the situation in Darfur was taken into
account in the determination. It specifically noted ``Government-
supported atrocities in Darfur and hostilities in other areas have
caused a major humanitarian crisis and stimulated renewed skepticism
about Government intentions.'' It pointed out that the government's
actions in Darfur weaken our confidence that it is committed to achieve
peace throughout the country.
The progress in the north-south negotiations provides an important
opportunity to intensify efforts on Darfur and to test the Government's
commitment to peace. Both Vice President Taha and Chairman Garang have
told us they understand that a north-south peace accord cannot be
effectively implemented without peace in Darfur and that they have
pledged to work together to resolve the Darfur problem. We intend to
hold them to this commitment.
A political process will be essential as part of the solution for
the problem in Darfur. We are encouraging the Government and the armed
opposition in Darfur to have serious political discussions aimed at
achieving a negotiated solution. The agreements signed between the
Government and the SPLM establish a national framework for resolution
of local grievances by providing strong provisions for a federal
structure and local autonomy.
The limited improvement in humanitarian access that has taken place
and the fact that there is at least less violence than there was before
provides some basis for hope. That said, it is by no means possible to
say that we have turned the corner on Darfur, and we must maintain
relentless pressure on both the Government and the rebels to take the
necessary steps. The recent deployment of international monitors will
help establish a new reality on the ground and, therefore, to help end
the violence.
We have surprised the Government of Sudan by our tough actions on
Darfur. Clearly, the GOS had calculated that our desire to see a north-
south accord might lead us to adopt a softer approach on Darfur. That
was a major miscalculation, and the GOS now understands that. Our
linkage of normalization of bilateral relations with the GOS to GOS
behavior in Darfur as well as to a north-south accord highlights our
seriousness. I take this opportunity once again to reiterate our
message to the GOS. Bipartisan congressional interest in this issue, as
manifested by the helpful congressional resolution on Darfur and this
briefing helps send a clear message that we do not intend to stand by
while violence and atrocities continue in Darfur. Our message to the
Government of Sudan is clear: do what is necessary now, and we will
work with you. If you do not, there will be consequences. Time is of
the essence. Do not doubt our determination.
Senator Alexander. Thank you, Mr. Snyder.
Mr. Winter.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROGER P. WINTER, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR,
BUREAU FOR DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE,
U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Winter. I will collapse a lot of stuff in the interest
of time.
Senator Alexander. No, we want to hear from you.
Mr. Winter. I cannot prove that the key government leaders
of Sudan----
Senator Alexander. Is your mike on?
Mr. Winter. It is not.
Senator Alexander. Thank you.
Mr. Winter. I was going to say, I cannot prove what the key
government leaders of Sudan were thinking about 8 or 9 months
ago, but I believe they made a conscious strategic decision to
massively attack the civilian populations from which the armed
rebel groups, the SLM and the JEM----
Senator Alexander. Would you please move that microphone
just a little closer so we can hear you better. Thank you.
Mr. Winter. To implement this massive attack, they used not
just their own militaries, but they used this militia group
called the Janjaweed. The Janjaweed, it is important to keep in
mind, are not just some loose band of fellows on horses. They
are an instrument of the Government of Sudan.
What I would like to do is talk very briefly about the
humanitarian situation and then try to get a little bit at the
issue of accountability. First of all, the situation in Darfur
overall continues to deteriorate. Because the situation of the
civilians is deteriorating does not mean there have not been
some improvements. The Government of Sudan gradually has
allowed additional access to us. It is the case that the number
of attacks against civilians have decreased. That does not mean
they have ended.
We have a packet about this thick [indicating], an incident
log in which we record attacks against civilians. We are
keeping a record of them as they are reported to us, and they
continue up through now, and some aerial attacks periodically
also continue.
New displacement occurs on a daily basis, and sometimes it
is very large displacement. We had 1,500 families evicted from
a single location about 10 days ago. So the numbers of affected
continue to increase. Restrictions and obstructions by the
government to the humanitarian program continue. There has been
improvement in some areas, but those areas that have improved,
have mostly seen improvement specifically for the American
participants. We have made so much noise that we get our visas
processed. But NGOs do not have the leverage we do and other
governments do not necessarily get treated as quickly as we do
now with respect to visas and permits.
New problems, new restrictions, keep materializing. I will
not run through them all. Let me just mention a couple. The
government has indicated it will want UNICEF to submit any
drugs and pharmaceuticals that it uses in its programs to be
tested in Sudanese laboratories. We have a big problem in
customs. We have, for example, one NGO that is conducting what
we call therapeutic and supplemental feeding programs in
Darfur. They have 2,400 kids. These are what we might call
``stick children.'' These are the kids that are in bad shape
already. But this NGOs vehicles and the specialized commodities
they use to benefit these children have been tied up in customs
clearance for months and months and months, and they run out of
those specialized commodities this week.
USAID itself has had eight vehicles impounded for a long
period of months. They are necessary for us to do our work.
They are tied up in customs and we have now been provided a
bill, an invoice from the Sudan Government, because they want
us to pay the fees for having our vehicles stored there. They
billed us for $4,000.
There is lots of this kind of stuff that continues to go
on. I should point out that they do not allow us to photograph
very often. They do not allow us to ask questions of a human
rights nature. If a minder is around, we cannot do that kind of
thing. So there are lots of problems that continue to hamper
the relief operation.
Let me tell you about anticipated mortality real quick. In
the testimony I submitted, we include a chart. It is a chart
that is done by our epidemiologists that lays out what we think
will be the trajectory of what we call the crude mortality rate
and the rate of global acute malnutrition. These are figures
that are prepared by our professionals on the basis of prior
experience in Sudan and prior experience in the region.
The large number of people that it reflects as anticipated
mortality--this is as of April 1--gets up to the 300,000 or
350,000 range. But the way this is calculated, our guys develop
a coefficient that is applied against the total number of
people at risk. The U.N. less than 2 weeks ago more than
doubled the total number of people at risk, which means that
the body count could dramatically balloon. The U.N. expects
that the number of people at risk will rise to 2.2 million by
October.
So you might wonder, as many people do who do not work in
our business, well, if you get some access and you can get some
planes over there and some people out there, why can not most
of these lives be saved? The truth of the matter is some of
them can and that is what we are trying to do. But the way it
works is something like this in reality. I want you to try to
understand how it is on the ground there.
The people whose lives we and the others in the
humanitarian community are trying to save have been displaced.
What that means is they have basically lost everything. They
have fled from their homes. In many cases they have been
displaced for 6 or 9 months. What that means, because we did
not have any access to those populations, is they have not been
eating right or they have not been doing anything normal,
because aid has simply not been able to be provided to them and
they are entirely dependent on other people to help them out.
Their crops were burned, their foodstocks were destroyed.
They did not get a planting in this year, so this emergency is
going to last for a while. Their livestock are dead or stolen.
Their water sources have been destroyed. There is no shelter
for them. This is an arid area. Their real houses are gone and
basically what they would normally do is put up grass huts, but
because it is an arid area there is not a lot of grass. So they
are not really under shelter in any way.
So their bodies have been weakening for all this period of
time. Less than 10 percent of them have access to latrines.
They are crowded together in these IDP camps and the rains have
started. Because there are no roofs, the rains wet them.
Between the combination of the overcrowding, the weakness of
their bodies, the diseases that are out there, the lack of
sanitation, the latrines, and all of that kind of stuff, this
is what kills them.
So it is not as easy as getting some food there. There is a
whole complex approach that needs to be taken to save the lives
of the people. And the obstructions that the government has put
in the way of these programs guarantees that the body count
rises. This monstrous pile of liabilities cannot simply be
overcome, and it guarantees that even if we do the best job we
possibly can there will be a significant body count.
Let me turn a little bit to the issue of accountability
within the limits that I can with the responsibilities I have.
First of all, I think it is quite appropriate that we have, all
of us, been using for some long period of time the words
``ethnic cleansing.'' This has been a real campaign.
But I think it is also appropriate that the administration,
the Secretary has indicated, are now looking at other
possibilities. And I cannot second-guess what they are going to
come up with, but looking at it from the ground level, as USAID
does because our people and our NGO partners, our U.N.
partners, are on the ground with the population, this is not an
accident. You can ask the question of intent and I cannot
really prove intent, but have these attacks been targeted? They
certainly have. You can have two villages right next to each
other, one with an African Sudanese population, one with an
Arab Sudanese population; the one is destroyed, the other one
is functioning perfectly. That is a pattern that we see across
the board.
Is it widespread? Yes, it has gone on all over the three
states of Darfur. Is it systematic? Has it been carried out in
very sort of logical ways, where people were attacked, they
were displaced, they were herded into camps in particular
areas? It seems to be very systematic.
Was it conscious? I believe in my own heart it was a
conscious strategic decision in what I have seen out there. I
think it is conscious because it is even today a continuing
strategy. There has been a lot of noise made by us, by the
United Nations, increasingly by the media, by the Congress, and
many, many others. What has happened to the Janjaweed, the ones
who have been doing most of the pillaging against civilians?
What has happened is nothing. There has not been a single
enforcement action that we are aware of that has been taken
against the perpetrators of this thing.
This has been going on for months. If the government wanted
to rein them in, there are steps it could take to rein them in.
As a matter of fact, there was a few weeks back a parade for
President Bashir, President of Sudan, in south Darfur in which
the Janjaweed marched in the parade. So actions have not been
taken against them.
Was there clear coordination between the Janjaweed and the
military of the Government of Sudan? From our point of view,
from my point of view I should say, clearly. The internally
displaced persons [IDPs] report to us regularly that before
their villages were attacked they were bombed. It shows a level
of coordination between the various displacing entities.
Is there a series of persistent actions on the part of the
government that will hype the body count? Yes. I mentioned a
lot of them already: the destruction of assets, food, water
stocks, livestock. This kind of destruction of assets is going
to have a consequence in the lives of the population.
Do they deny that there is a disaster going on in Darfur?
Yes, they do.
Have they been denying access to those who could go there
to help the civil population or to see and report on what was
going on? Yes, they do deny access. There has been very
restricted access.
The obstructions of our humanitarian operations, I have
mentioned a few examples before. Do they limit photos? Do they
limit our asking questions on how people were displaced and who
did it? Yes, they do.
This large-scale rape and branding of women who have been
raped, presumably to prevent their reconciliation with their
husbands, and that kind of thing, does that continue to go on?
Yes, it does even now.
It seems to me there is also obstruction of accountability.
The denial and delaying of access by the U.N. human rights
monitors I think was part of an approach to doing that. Yes,
they have agreed to let six U.N. monitors come in to see this
devastated area the size of the State of Texas. Six does not
cut it.
Have there been restrictions on press access? Yes, that is
clear. Are visitors who go there manipulated in what they see
and hear? Yes.
What I would say is in summary, and I will stop, that while
saving as many lives as possible in Darfur must remain ours and
the international community's highest priority, the impact of
the actions of the Government of Sudan that undermined the
effectiveness of our humanitarian efforts will ultimately
determine what the body count is going to be, and we certainly
would encourage strong accountability efforts now because that
can help save a lot of lives.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Winter follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Roger P. Winter
I thank the Chairman and Members of this Committee for holding this
hearing. Your interest in Sudan is helpful and can have useful
repercussions on the ground in Sudan at a time when the situation there
is more fragile and more complicated than ever. Several Members of this
Committee have been involved in Sudanese issues for many years, and I
can assure you that that fact is known and respected in the region.
Your veteran wisdom, fresh ideas, and steady engagement on Sudan are
welcome and appreciated by me, by my USAID colleagues, and by many
Sudanese I have met in my regular travels to the region. Thank you for
the opportunity to testify today.
It is tempting to describe this as two hearings in one: one hearing
about the crisis in western Sudan, and one hearing about the progress
toward peace in southern Sudan. Such a description would be dangerously
wrong, however. The same Government of Sudan (Go) that signed a long-
awaited framework peace agreement on May 26 to end a 20-year civil war
in the South that killed or uprooted more than 6 million people is the
same GoS that still pursues a campaign of deadly destruction and relief
deprivation against the people of Darfur in the West. The sense of
injustice, discrimination, and marginalization among black African
Sudanese that partly contributed to the insurgency that began in Darfur
in February 2003 is not unlike the deep sense of grievance among black
African Sudanese that triggered the newest round of war in the South 20
years ago.
An important link exists between the events in southern Sudan and
Darfur, and therefore a link exists in U.S. Government policy. The new
peace agreement in southern Sudan is an important achievement that the
long-suffering peoples of the south deserve to celebrate, and the
international community welcomes it. But it is a diminished achievement
because of events in Darfur. We cannot allow the GoS to believe that
agreement on a peace framework in the South purchases international
tolerance for ethnic cleansing in the West. As testimony by the
Department of State today makes clear, the U.S. Government will not
normalize relations with Khartoum until the devastating GoS policies in
Darfur cease.
USAID is committed to an aggressive humanitarian response to
emergency needs in Darfur, and we are committed to supporting the
difficult process of reintegration, rebuilding, healing and
reconciliation in southern Sudan. But I must warn that our obligation
to respond to the immense human needs in Darfur could undermine the
necessary and justified surge of effort USAID needs to pursue in
helping establish adequate governance and reintegration in southern
Sudan.
i. darfur
Overview
The situation in Darfur is the worst humanitarian crisis in the
world today. It is already too late to save the lives of many people
who will perish in coming weeks because emergency humanitarian
assistance has not arrived in time due to GoS obstruction of
international relief programs. USAID analysis of potential mortality
rates in Darfur suggests that 300,000 or more Darfurians are likely to
perish by the end of this year if restrictions on humanitarian access
persist. By comparison, an estimated 30,000 to 100,000 died in the 1998
famine in southern Sudan's Bahr el-Ghazal Province that some members of
this Committee will remember.
As the GoS and its Jingaweit proxy forces continue a campaign of
ethnic cleansing in Darfur that has forced an estimated 1.1 million
people from their homes while inflicting widespread atrocities, serious
food shortages, deliberate blockages of humanitarian aid, and
destruction of shelter and medical care, it is possible to conceive of
chilling scenarios that could push the death toll far higher than even
the astounding level of 300,000. Some 2.2 million Darfurians are
directly affected by the crisis. An estimated 1 million people are
displaced and in great danger inside Darfur, while approximately
160,000 Darfurians have become refugees in neighboring Chad.
USAID as well as international and private humanitarian agencies
have warned for months about the urgent necessity of delivering large
quantities of relief supplies and expertise into Darfur before the
onset of the annual rainy season in mid-June begins to make entire
areas logistically inaccessible. It is now mid-June; the precipitation
has arrived on schedule, and in a matter of weeks the rain will have
rendered some roads impassable to delivery vehicles and transformed
crowded and unsanitary displacement sites into breeding grounds for
cholera, measles, dysentery, meningitis, malaria, and other diseases
that will claim huge numbers of lives. This is a disaster in the making
in part because prior to the rainy season the GoS consistently imposes
restrictions that delay deliveries of life-saving services. As
discussed later in this testimony, a few administrative restrictions
have been eased in recent weeks but have not disappeared and have in
fact been augmented by new restrictions, ensuring that timely
humanitarian access to Darfur remains a serious problem.
That men, women, and children uprooted by the war and ethnic
cleansing will die in enormous numbers is no longer in doubt due to
advanced stages of malnutrition and disease that cannot be reversed in
time. What remains in doubt is how high the body count will climb, and
whether or not the Sudanese government will finally make saving lives
in Darfur the priority rather than a chit for negotiation.
The U.S. Government has repeatedly pressed the GoS to stop the
violence in Darfur and allow full humanitarian access since the
conflict's impact on the civilian population became apparent last year.
The President, the State Department and USAID have issued strong
statements on the matter. The President, Secretary of State and the
National Security Advisor have all raised Darfur directly and
forcefully to President Bashir and Vice President Taha. Senator
Danforth, Administrator Natsios, then Acting Assistant Secretary
Snyder, myself, and other senior U.S. Government officials have
repeatedly stressed the United States' concern over the situation in
Darfur when meeting with senior Sudanese government officials in
Khartoum or Naivasha. Unfortunately, the GoS has chosen instead to
pursue a policy of violence and ethnic cleansing against the civilian
population.
USAID staff conducted a mission to the region as early as April
2003, just two months after the violence began. I accompanied the first
humanitarian delivery able to reach Darfur in August 2003.
Administrator Natsios led a delegation to Darfur last October, and I
led yet another delegation to Darfur in February 2004. I returned to
Khartoum with a USAID colleague in March to help press for a
humanitarian cease-fire, and the U.S. Government played a significant
role in the Darfur cease-fire negotiations held in N'Djamena, Chad in
early April. When the cease-fire took effect on April 11, USAID
mobilized a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) that same day in
anticipation of improved humanitarian access to Darfur.
The U.S. Government has already committed or pledged to commit
nearly $300 million since February 2003 to fund the difficult challenge
of providing emergency humanitarian assistance in Darfur and eastern
Chad.
Violence and Ethnic Cleansing in Darfur
Insurgent activity began in the Darfur region of western Sudan in
early 2003 in response to local political and economic grievances
against the government in Khartoum. The GoS has responded by unleashing
a campaign of ethnic cleansing targeting Darfur's predominantly black
African population. The local population has not been spared by the
fact that their Muslim religion is rooted in the same basic tenets as
that of the government in Khartoum. Sudanese government air and ground
forces, allied with Jingaweit militias, have systematically attacked
hundreds of villages--including aerial bombardments and helicopter
gunships--in a vast pattern of destruction readily familiar to anyone
who has witnessed or analyzed similar attacks perpetrated by GoS troops
and Murajaleen militia in southern Sudan during the past 20 years.
Various international human rights groups estimate that 15,000 to
30,000 civilians have died in Darfur during the past 16 months. A
cease-fire signed by the Sudanese government and the two Darfurian
rebel groups on April 8 reduced but failed to eliminate the violence
and did not reverse the underlying GoS policy of depredation against
the population. In North Darfur, an aerial bombardment on May 28
reportedly killed 12 or more persons, and civilians report continued
attacks and harassment in that region. In parts of South Darfur,
Jingaweit attacks reportedly killed at least 56 persons in late May,
and local populations report that Jingaweit have continued to
perpetrate rapes and assaults in the area. In West Darfur, insecurity
persists along the Sudan-Chad border and large numbers fled new
violence in late May, creating a new refugee outflow into Chad in early
June. Some villagers in West Darfur report that fear of Jingaweit
attacks along the roads have made them virtual prisoners in their own
homes. Victims throughout Darfur consistently have reported since the
onset of violence that government troops participate in attacks with
Jingaweit militia and oversee militia activity.
Deliberate wholesale destruction is evident on the ground. Our
surveillance of villages spanning much but not all of Darfur has
confirmed that 301 villages have been destroyed and 76 have been
damaged. We continue to collect data such as this on a regular basis,
finding more destruction each time. One international human rights
agency has reported that in West Darfur alone, Jingaweit attacked and
burned 14 villages in a single day. The long list of destroyed villages
manages to convey a sobering sense of the enormous scope of the
violence and the crippling long-term nature of the devastation: in one
village we know about, all 1,300 structures are destroyed; in another
village, all 466 structures are destroyed; in yet another settlement,
628 of 720 structures are destroyed; and the list goes on. In some
cases we know the names of the destroyed villages, while in some other
cases the village name is unknown to us even though the destruction
left behind is evident. In village after village, the attacks by
Jingaweit and GoS troops have burned crops, killed or stolen cattle,
and destroyed irrigation systems, thereby devastating much of Darfur's
economic base and potentially discouraging eventual population return
and reconstruction.
Victims of the attacks by Jingaweit and GoS military regularly
describe massacres, executions, and rapes committed in plain view. GoS
planes have bombed villages and attacked them with helicopters. We have
received reports that some victims were buried alive and others were
mutilated after death. At one isolated location visited by USAID staff
in Darfur last month, local leaders reported that more than 400 local
women and girls have been raped by attackers in recent months; some
women reportedly were raped in front of their husbands, compounding the
shame and humiliation inflicted by the attackers. We continue to
receive reports of Jingaweit branding their rape victims, presumably to
make the act of rape permanently visible and discourage husbands from
taking their wives back. A health survey in parts of West Darfur in
April found that 60 percent of the deaths there of children older than
age 5 were caused by wounds inflicted in the violence. These acts raise
questions about the community's long-term ability to survive and
reestablish itself.
Many of the estimated 1 million residents of Darfur who are now
internally displaced have been denied safety even in displacement camps
where they have gone to seek refuge. Pro-government security personnel
have blocked some uprooted families from entering particular towns.
Armed Jingaweit apparently under GoS instructions claim to be
``protecting'' camps of displaced persons who fled Jingaweit attacks
days earlier. Camp occupants continue to suffer killings, rapes, and
theft of relief items. Displaced persons say that that they cannot
venture outside their camps or villages for fear of being assaulted by
Jingaweit. Because many men fear death if they leave, many families
rely on women to perform journeys because women need fear ``only''
rape, according to interviews with displaced families. Some communities
have refused to accept sorely needed humanitarian assistance because
they fear that distributions of relief items might attract Jingaweit
atrocities. A United Nations (UN) official recently reported that he
has never encountered displaced populations as frightened as the people
he met in Darfur last month.
A troubling new development is the GoS effort to force frightened,
displaced families to return prematurely to their unsafe villages,
where they are at the mercy of the same Jingaweit militia that attacked
them originally. We have received other reports of families returning
to their homes under duress after receiving GoS assurances of
reintegration assistance that in fact does not exist. Involuntary
returns to locations that are unsafe, utterly destroyed, and currently
beyond the reach of international aid would constitute yet another
violation against the people of Darfur and would compound the current
humanitarian emergency.
Humanitarian Situation in Darfur
The lack of humanitarian access to desperate populations in Darfur
remains a matter of highest priority to USAID, the U.S. Government
broadly, and, we hope, to others in the international community. While
the GoS belatedly has eased or removed some restrictions on relief
programs in the past month, many GoS administrative obstacles remain in
place that translate directly into less aid and greater probability of
suffering and death for populations desperately in need.
The GoS promised in late May to accelerate visas for relief workers
seeking to enter Sudan and has lately fulfilled that promise for USAID
personnel; some other humanitarian agencies report, however, that their
relief workers continue to endure extended waits for visas. While the
GoS says it has waived requirement that relief workers traveling from
Khartoum to Darfur must apply for travel permits, some agencies
continue to encounter travel permit delays as well as registration
problems authorizing them to establish operations in Darfur. Sudanese
authorities have eased their requirement of 72-hour advance clearance
on all air passengers into Darfur by reducing it to 48-hour advance
notice, but travel on the ground within Darfur remains subject to tight
government controls.
Although the GoS has backed away from restrictions it planned to
impose on aircraft used in humanitarian flights, GoS customs delays on
vehicles, radios, food, medicines and other supplies imported by relief
agencies have seriously hindered humanitarian operations. One
international humanitarian organization reported on June 7 that it has
had 31 tons of medical supplies and medicines awaiting GoS clearance to
enter the country since March 2, nine tons of emergency health kits
awaiting import clearance since May 1, and 13 vehicles needed for
emergency health programs bottled up by authorities at Port Sudan for
durations ranging from weeks to months. The relief agency in this
particular case has made explicitly clear that these delays will cost
lives in Darfur by depriving the population of basic medicines and
depriving health workers of the mobility they need to assess conditions
at isolated locations. In another report, an international relief
agency stated that 200 metric tons of food and medical supplies that
arrived in Port Sudan in mid-April had not been released because the
GoS claims it is not an emergency shipment since it arrived by sea
rather than by air.
Sudanese officials have informed the United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF) that the government might insist on conducting its own time-
consuming tests on imported medicines that are urgently needed to save
lives in Darfur. The GoS requires international relief agencies to use
Sudanese truckers to haul relief commodities even though domestic
trucking capacity is insufficient and domestic trucking prices are
three to four times higher than a year ago. Relief efforts have also
been hampered by GoS policies requiring international humanitarian
agencies to partner with local organizations possessing limited
capacities and questionable neutrality to do the work that needs to be
done.
These GoS-imposed delays and restrictions have conspired to limit
the number of international relief agencies able to operate in Darfur
and have curtailed the reach of those agencies that are present there.
Although the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) mobilized
on April 11 in response to the Darfur crisis, it was prevented from
establishing a regular presence on the ground in Darfur until late May
because of GoS policies that delayed each step of the process. Local
GoS officials have interfered with USAID's DART information collection
by restricting the questions our team could ask displaced populations
about why they fled and who attacked them, at times banning our staff
from taking pictures of relief operations, confiscating a satellite
telephone, and abruptly cutting short a visit to a displacement camp.
Last week GoS officials in Darfur implicitly threatened the security of
the USAID DART during a food distribution.
As a result of GoS policies restricting relief activities, combined
with other logistical and security constraints such as banditry, poor
roads and rains, the bottom line is that humanitarian access remains a
grave problem, and a humanitarian disaster is occurring as we speak.
USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios described the Darfur situation in
stark terms during a Donors Conference on June 3: ``The grave situation
that has unfolded in Darfur in western Sudan in recent months is the
worst humanitarian crisis in the world today. . . . Even in a best-case
scenario, under optimal conditions, we could see as many as 320,000
people die. Without optimal conditions, the numbers will be far
greater.''
USAID released a chart last month projecting potential mortality
rates in Darfur. An updated version of the chart is attached. The
projection indicates that, based on initial health surveys and our
experience with previous famines in southern Sudan and Ethiopia, the
death rate in Darfur might be in the process of increasing to four
deaths per day per 10,000 people at risk by the end of this month--a
rate considered to be four times higher than the emergency threshold.
Absent adequate humanitarian response, the mortality rate could be
expected to more than double yet again during July and climb
relentlessly during the final half of the year to as high as 20 deaths
per day per every 10,000 people. Under this scenario, as many as 30
percent of the affected population could die by year's end. Adding to
our alarm is the fact that a more recent nutrition survey conducted in
part of Darfur suggests that the mortality rate projected in the
attached USAID chart might be too conservative. A health survey at
locations in West Darfur concluded in late May that nearly 5 percent of
all children under age 5 had died within the past three months at the
surveyed locations--a mortality rate more than double emergency
thresholds.
It is important to emphasize the awful truth that humanitarian
conditions in Darfur are almost certain to get worse before they get
better. The annual rainy season has arrived. Rains have begun to fall
on hundreds of thousands of persons already physically depleted by
months of displacement, fear, food shortages, and abysmal sanitation
conditions in overcrowded displacement camps. USAID personnel on the
ground continue to report large numbers of uprooted families living in
the open air, without shelter or blankets for protection from the rain
and temperature extremes. Camp sanitation problems from rotting animal
carcasses and months of open defecation threaten to deteriorate further
as the rains intensify. Internally displaced person (IDP) sites in
Darfur require more than a ten-fold increase in latrines to meet
minimum sanitation standards agreed to by relief specialists.
Conditions are ripe for the spread of fatal illnesses such as measles,
cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, meningitis, and malaria.
Even if security prevails and bureaucratic impediments imposed by
the GoS suddenly vanish, relief officials already know that 54 of 80
IDP camps will become fully or partially inaccessible during the rainy
season. We have seen clear evidence that at least one hastily
established IDP site is located in a flood plain that is almost sure to
be inundated in coming months. During the past two weeks, up to four
inches of rain fell in parts of South Darfur, and up to three inches in
sections of West Darfur. Meteorological data indicate that the rains
are advancing northward deeper into Darfur a bit ahead of schedule so
far this year. The illustrated charts attached to this testimony
provide additional information about the number of days remaining
before seasonal rains begin to cut off sites in Darfur and eastern
Chad.
The approximately 1 million persons estimated to be internally
displaced in Darfur are scattered among about 80 known camps as well as
in homes and villages not yet identified, according to UN humanitarian
assessments. Some 420,000 displaced persons can be found in West
Darfur, nearly 300,000 in North Darfur, and some 230,000 in South
Darfur, the UN estimates. The natural mixing of displaced populations
with local residents has created difficulties for relief workers trying
to target the distribution of food and relief commodities to the most
vulnerable people.
UN surveys indicate that relief programs to date, lacking necessary
access to many populations, are addressing only a small fraction of the
immense need on the ground. Approximately 90 percent of displaced
Darfurians in need of shelter and latrines have received neither,
according to analysis by UN agencies. Two-thirds of the uprooted
population have no access to potable water; more than half have no
primary health care; about half of those in need are still cut off from
emergency food deliveries. Overall, according to UN relief officials,
assistance--perhaps merely a single food distribution in some cases--
has reached only about half of all displaced persons in Darfur because
of security constraints and GoS obstructions. The aid that manages to
reach them does not fulfill their needs because those same obstructions
have left relief organizations understaffed and under-equipped. Some
humanitarian officials have advised placing a priority on relief
distributions in West Darfur, where rains will likely cause the
earliest flooding and road closures, followed by South Darfur and North
Darfur in priority order based on normal rain patterns.
The GoS has taken no concrete steps to tap Sudan's million-ton
domestic surplus of sorghum to feed hungry people in Darfur, unless
donors purchase the surplus for that purpose. The World Food Program
(WFP) projects that Darfur will require more than 21,000 metric tons of
food aid per month this summer for 1.2 million beneficiaries,
increasing to a monthly need of 35,000 metric tons for 2.2 million
people by October. Due largely to USAID's Office of Food for Peace and
its commitment of more than 86,000 tons of food assistance to Darfur,
the WFP food pipeline is sufficient to meet needs through September,
but only if we have humanitarian access and sufficient transport to
deliver the food to those who need it. Deliveries currently are
dependent on three cargo planes, a limited fleet of trucks, and a road
network vulnerable to washouts. Humanitarian airlift capacity--
currently about 7,000 metric tons per month--will have to double in
coming weeks to mount airlift and airdrop operations capable of
reaching 65 scattered locations where at-risk populations will soon be
cut off by the rains. Even a doubling of airlift capacity may be
insufficient. Protecting the increased food deliveries from theft will
also be a concern.
USAID is supporting UN agencies examining the possibility of
mounting a cross-border relief operation from neighboring countries to
reach Darfur's people--an operation that would require the formal
agreement of those governments. The cross-border options are
problematic because of serious logistical, security, and local
political constraints.
USAID has deployed a 16-person DART team of relief specialists to
the region to oversee the work of USAID-funded partners, help set
priorities, identify specific projects and partners for additional
funding, conduct assessments, and monitor the delivery and distribution
of relief supplies. Twelve other USAID staff are on stand-by to join
the DART in Darfur. The DART is acutely aware of the need to closely
consider the safety of beneficiaries in all our humanitarian planning,
programming, and information collection.
The DART has completed 14 commodity relief flights that have
delivered nearly 100,000 blankets, relief items to ease water
shortages, and enough plastic sheeting to shelter more than 360,000
people once we are finally able to overcome GoS and logistical
constraints on its distribution. Additional DART relief flights are
planned. USAID's Food for Peace Office has provided more than half of
all international food commitments to this emergency, while USAID/
Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance has provided emergency
assistance for health, nutrition, water, sanitation, shelter and other
relief commodities.
Of special note is an ambitious measles vaccination campaign
currently underway throughout Darfur with USAID support that is
targeting 2.2 million residents for vaccination by the end of June in
hopes of curtailing the worst effects of an inevitable measles outbreak
during the rainy season. The stakes are high.
In eastern Chad, about 90,000 of the 160,000 refugees from Darfur
are living in eight official camps established by the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Chadian government. Two
additional camp sites are under consideration. UNHCR continues to
transport refugees from insecure border areas to the official camps.
Several hundred new Sudanese refugees continue to flee into Chad each
week, indicating that the refugee flow has not ceased as violence
continues in Darfur.
The U.S. Government's financial commitment to the Darfur crisis is
considerable. USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios pledged an additional
$188.5 million for Darfur at an international donors conference on June
3. This raises the U.S. Government's total planned contribution to
nearly $300 million for Darfur and eastern Chad since February 2003, of
which about $116 million has already been committed to specific
projects or partners as of early June. The U.S. Government total
includes funds from the Department of State's Bureau for Population,
Refugees, and Migration for Darfurian refugees in eastern Chad.
Mr. Chairman, I should conclude my discussion of Darfur by
emphasizing that providing emergency assistance in this crisis is much
more than a matter of giving financial support to projects that address
identified needs--as important as that is. Achieving security and
access on the ground are absolutely essential prerequisites that are
missing up to this point for mounting an effective relief campaign, no
matter how well-funded the campaign might be. At USAID, we are vitally
aware that if thousands of lives and an entire society and way of life
are to be saved in Darfur, greater international pressure must be
brought to bear upon the Government of Sudan to halt the killing and
rapes, reverse the ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, and
eliminate GoS policies that obstruct relief efforts. We should avoid
the trap of negotiating with the GoS for token, incremental concessions
on the humanitarian front that leave overarching GoS policies of
devastation in Darfur unchanged and undisturbed.
ii. southern sudan
Overview
On May 26, the GoS and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army
(SPLM/A) signed a framework for a comprehensive peace agreement. It was
an historic moment greeted by jubilation and dancing in many southern
Sudanese villages where violence, death, destruction, family
separation, and extreme isolation have been the depressing norm for
much of the past 20 years. The people of southern Sudan deserve this
moment of hope. Each new agreement brings the cessation of hostilities
closer to a permanent cease-fire and a normal, peaceful existence in
the South. While there were many partners in this effort, the role of
the U.S. Government and the personal activism of the President, his
Special Envoy Senator Danforth, and other senior U.S. Government
officials have been critical to achieving this progress.
The framework peace agreement, however, is not the final stage and
does not mean that permanent peace is assured. Much work needs to be
done. The parties must now turn their full attention to reaching
agreement on implementation modalities, signing a final comprehensive
peace agreement, followed by faithful implementation of the entire
peace process. The militaries must fully disengage. Local armed
militias must disband or reconcile with their neighbors. Significant
returns of refugees and displaced persons have already begun and will
accelerate, requiring proper international support to minimize the
inevitable problems and tensions associated with large population
movements. Ambitious development programs are needed in an area that by
virtually any measurement is one of the most destitute places on earth.
And the need for effective governance and civil administration
throughout southern Sudan--an area as vast as Texas but with terribly
depleted human resources--is probably the supreme challenge if peace is
to become permanent and a force for improved conditions among the
people of the South.
The international community and southern Sudanese themselves are
looking to the U.S. Government to play a lead role in supporting and
nurturing the economic, social, and political construction of the new
South Sudan. Having provided more than $1.7 billion of humanitarian
assistance during the past 21 years to help save Sudanese lives during
a time of war, the challenge now is to sustain humanitarian assistance
where needed while investing more heavily in southern Sudan's peace and
long-term development. The goal should be nothing less than to bring
the benefits of peace to every village and community in South Sudan.
Humanitarian Assistance and Development of Infrastructure in the South
Mr. Chairman, for many years I have come before this Committee to
recite the grim statistics about life and death in southern Sudan.
There is now an opportunity for southern Sudanese to establish a new
and more positive database of peacetime statistics: the numbers of
people returning to their homes, the numbers of schools opening, the
numbers of health clinics established, the quantity of wells dug, the
tons of crops produced, and the miles of roads improved. Tens of
thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons have returned in
recent months to their home areas of southern Sudan, and returns are
expected to accelerate with the signing of the peace framework on May
26. USAID plans expanded programs to help the government of South Sudan
transform people's lives with improvements in education, health and
water systems, economic recovery programs including food and
agricultural projects, infrastructure repairs, reintegration assistance
for ex-combatants, and other sectors vital for reintegration and
recovery.
One of the primary development priorities must be road
improvements. South Sudan has virtually no paved roads except for a few
kilometers of pavement in GoS-controlled garrison towns such as Juba,
and many dirt roads are impassable during the rainy season and
extremely difficult to traverse the rest of the year. The primitive
state of southern Sudan's road network illustrates the daunting task of
nurturing basic development in an impoverished, isolated and far-flung
area the size of Texas after 21 years of war and generations of
governmental neglect.
USAID has already committed $7.5 million to an emergency road
program and dike program that is attempting to open up major
transportation corridors. The priorities at this time are de-mining of
main roads and making modest repairs to render key roads passable in
the rainy season. Better roads will foster economic activity by linking
the major southern towns such as Juba--sealed off by the GoS military
during the war--with the surrounding rural areas and with the economies
of neighboring Kenya and Uganda. Road improvements are an important
step in strengthening economic and social links between North and South
Sudan--links that could bolster political stability. Improvements to
the road network and construction of dikes will also facilitate the
return home and reintegration of Sudan's estimated 5 million uprooted
people and make the delivery of humanitarian and development assistance
easier and less expensive. USAID projects that the emergency road
program can result in a 70 percent reduction in the cost of freight
deliveries, and would enable more food aid to arrive by road at a cost
savings of 60 percent compared to air deliveries. Since 90 percent of
all food aid provided to South Sudan comes from the United States, this
translates into a more cost-effective assistance program. However, it
is important to emphasize that landmines remain a major impediment to
opening up roads; de-mining must proceed concurrently with road repair
activities.
In addition to continued support for the emergency road and dike
program, USAID is planning a three-year, $60 million infrastructure
program for South Sudan that will, among other things, support longer-
term road improvements and maintenance as well as water and power
generation. Further support is also needed for dredging and barge
traffic on the mighty Nile River that bisects southern Sudan and
connects South with North--an important artery for promoting trade and
North-South links.
Commitment to Transitional Zones
While support for reintegration, development, and stability is
important throughout the South, there are three areas of the so-called
transitional zone between North and South that are particularly
strategic and where the U.S. Government is particularly committed in
the aftermath of the recent peace negotiations. Discussions about the
Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile Province, and Abyei in South
Kordofan Province were particularly delicate during the peace talks,
and these three regions are now particularly crucial for post-war
stability. USAID was deeply involved in negotiations over access to the
Nuba Mountains in 2001 that provided an impetus for a Nuba cease-fire
and larger peace negotiations. When the framework peace talks stalled
last year over the future of Abyei, it was a U.S. Government proposal
that helped break the deadlock and move the peace process forward.
Health and agricultural programs are planned or already underway
with USAID support in all three regions. Infrastructure programs will
improve roads, drill new boreholes, and help establish schools and
clinics. Necessary de-mining activities in Southern Blue Nile need U.S.
Government, as does the nascent civil administration in the three
transitional areas.
Government Administration and Reconciliation in the South
For those seeking evidence that true peace can take root in
southern Sudan after so much violence, a remarkable event occurred in
the town of Akobo in Eastern Upper Nile a week after the peace
framework was signed last month. Eastern Upper Nile has been one of the
most volatile regions of southern Sudan in recent years, and Akobo has
changed hands several times during the conflict. On June 2, pro-
government forces approached Akobo and yet another battle appeared
imminent with the SPLM/A troops controlling the town. Akobo community
leaders intervened by separating the opposing forces and engaged in
discussions with both sides to resolve tensions and persuade the
combatants to adhere to the new peace agreement. Local Akobo chiefs
continue to lead discussions to reconcile members of the pro-government
militia with the SPLM/A and the local community. Similarly, in the
village of Mading near Nasir in Eastern Upper Nile, community leaders
after the signing of the peace framework peacefully switched their
allegiance from the GoS to SPLM, and SPLM authorities assumed control
of the town from GoS soldiers and militia with no shooting. These are
but two hopeful indications of the changing mood toward peace and the
impact that the signed agreement can have in villages where the war has
been waged.
However, I do not want to give the impression that events on the
ground in southern Sudan have been uniformly positive. Forces allied
with the GoS attacked in the area of Malakal, in Upper Nile Province's
Shilluk Kingdom, in March and April. Between 50,000 and 120,000 people
have been newly displaced and many villages were destroyed. Some 25,000
ethnic Shilluk have fled to Malakal town, and thousands more to the
Nuba Mountains, Kosti in White Nile Province, and elsewhere. Displaced
families have reported burning of villages, killings and rapes by
militias, looting, and destruction of schools and clinics. Compounds of
international relief organizations in the town of Nyilwak were burned
as well, according to UN sources.
USAID remains concerned about continuing reports of localized
conflict and persistent obstacles to the delivery of humanitarian
relief to Southern Blue Nile and to the Eastern Front area near the
Eritrea border. We are also acutely aware that the Lord's Resistance
Army, a Ugandan insurgent group infamous for its brutality and
abductions of children, continues to operate from bases in southern
Sudan and must be brought under control to achieve security and
stability along southern Sudan's border with Uganda.
Despite these obstacles, the signing of the peace protocols on May
26 means that the work of building the capacity of the new Government
of South Sudan (GOSS) must start now. This is the most formidable task
facing southern Sudan and is the top priority for USAID now that a
peace agreement is signed. The peace protocols specify that the SPLM
shall form the government in the South for a period of six-and-a-half
years, followed by a referendum on unity with or separation from the
North. The SPLM leadership has acknowledged the need to transform
itself from a rebel group into a functioning government.
The SPLM has made progress transitioning into a civil authority,
but it will continue to be a long and difficult process. The war might
be over, but its repercussions are long-lasting. The legacy of more
than 2 million dead from the war, 5 million displaced, and at least two
generations without formal education has left a huge hole in southern
Sudanese society. The pool of educated southern Sudanese prepared to
assume the responsibilities of government and civil administration is
numerically extremely limited. USAID is working to connect the new
South Sudan with the Sudanese diaspora who have resettled abroad and
have managed to obtain education and skills that are desperately needed
to help rebuild the South.
Many analysts have fretted over the years that after Sudan's civil
war ends, internal divisions in the South will take center stage and
spark new cycles of conflict. The GOSS will immediately be faced with
the need to establish democratic governance at the highest levels to
encourage broad-based popular support and a sense of common cause among
the South's political and ethnic groups. Policies will have to be
developed regarding public finance and human resources, including
revenue, taxation, budgeting, accounting, anti-corruption, civil
service development, political appointments and elected officials.
Design of a southern parliament will be yet another priority. All of
these challenges will require negotiation among southern Sudan's
various political groups and competent public officials able to draft
legal frameworks based on southern consensus. For USAID this means that
our support for southern Sudan must be wrapped in persistence and
patience, because an entire system is being constructed largely from
scratch.
Southern Sudan must create a constitution and move rapidly to
ratify new laws. The current civil administration in the South has done
significant work to fashion and implement 26 new laws, but these are
still subject to ratification and do not cover all the issues requiring
new legislation. There will also be many issues surrounding the
implementation and codification of customary law.
In the United States, we take for granted that our judges have
extensive legal training and are sufficiently numerous to fill every
seat at the bench. In contrast, there are only 22 southern Sudanese
lawyers for a judiciary system that will need to fill more than 100
judgeships along with the need for prosecutors and defense advocates.
The demands on the justice system will likely be heavy as millions of
southern Sudanese return to their homes and, in some cases, become
embroiled in disputes over land and property. Weapons prevalent in the
post-war environment may be, for some individuals, the main method for
resolving those disputes. Because the GOSS judiciary will possess few
human resources to cope with the large number of people seeking justice
after decades of grievances and neglect, USAID will support development
of a para-legal system and an interim dispute resolution system.
Trafficking and abduction of women and children is a particularly
egregious practice that has reflected the contours of the conflict in
Sudan. Since 2002, abductions have significantly diminished with the
cessation of hostilities. Former abductees are now returning home to
join the families they had lost. Sudan, however, remains in the worst
tier of the State Department Trafficking in Persons report. New
allegations of trafficking and abductions are surfacing in Darfur, and
much work remains to be done to reverse the effects of abductions and
trafficking suffered in the South. USAID is deeply troubled by findings
from staff interviews with numerous women and children, originally from
the South, who have been returned from the North to the South. Many of
these women and children stated that they in fact were not abducted
from the South but were nonetheless taken by force to the South because
they were southerners living in the North. USAID and our implementing
partners will continue to expose and work to prevent these corrupt
practices and fund programs that legitimately assist those who have
been abducted to return to their homes and families.
Southern Sudanese need and deserve honest government officials.
Leading American anti-corruption expert Robert Klitgaard recently
completed, with USAID support, a series of meetings and workshops on
honest and transparent government for SPLM leadership and county
executives. The workshops generated a great deal of interest in
instituting systems to prevent and reduce corruption. SPLM leaders have
regularly stressed a theme of anti-corruption in their public
presentations of late.
Part of a strong, democratic system is a vibrant civil society of
professional associations, unions, human rights groups, faith-based
organizations, community-based groups, and independent media. USAID
will work to help grass-roots groups grow into strong organizations
with the capacity to serve their members' interests, thereby laying a
foundation for civil society to be an active voice in governance. USAID
will support public opinion research and nonpartisan civic education on
peace and governance. A Sudan Radio Service and the Sudan Mirror
newspaper with an ever-widening circulation in the South already
receive strong support from USAID. We have long backed projects
encouraging South-South dialogue and reconciliation and are providing
support fora conference later this month bringing together 350
traditional chiefs from throughout the South to meet with SPLM
leadership to review the framework peace agreement and advance the
notion of reconciliation among southerners.
The U.S. Government is the primary donor for these types of
democracy and governance and transitional programs in the South. Many
international donors may focus on northern areas where U.S. development
assistance currently is difficult to implement because of our
legislative restrictions. The U.S. Government is one of the few donors
that has taken proactive steps to fund development assistance in
southern Sudan during the past ten years. We have already begun to
create a network of trust, experience and lessons learned that other
donors do not yet have in the South.
With humanitarian needs still quite large and with many militia
groups still under arms and weighing the advantages of violence versus
peace, it will be important that southern Sudanese see and experience a
visible peace dividend, particularly in areas of particularly acute
ethnic or political divisions.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, it seems almost incomprehensible that
so many people in Sudan have suffered--and continue to suffer--so much.
I believe that marginalized populations throughout Sudan, including the
people of Darfur, have a vested interest in the successful
implementation of the agreement to end the long civil war between the
GoS and the SPLM. The provisions of that framework agreement, if
faithfully implemented by the parties and seriously supported by the
international community, could be an important step toward engendering
the fundamental democratic transformation that is the best hope for the
permanent improvements needed and deserved by the long-suffering
Sudanese people.
U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
bureau for democracy, conflict, and humanitarian assistance (dcha)
office of u.s. foreign disaster assistance (ofda)
DARFUR--Humanitarian Emergency
Fact Sheet #9, Fiscal Year (FY) 2004--June 10, 2004
Note: This report updates the last fact sheet dated June 4, 2004
background
The humanitarian emergency in Darfur is a direct result of
violence and harassment directed toward the Fur, Zaghawa, and
Masaalit civilian groups by Government of Sudan (GOS) forces
and GOS-supported militia groups collectively known as
Jingaweil. In early 2003, the Sudanese Liberation Movement/Army
(SLM/A) stated that they would engage in armed struggle to
achieve full respect for human rights and an end to political
and economic marginalization in Darfur. On April 24 and 25,
2003 the SLM/A attacked GOS military forces at Al Fashir in
North Darfur.
Following this attack, GOS military forces and Jingaweit
militia initiated a more coordinated campaign of violence
against civilian populations, including aerial bombardments to
kill, maim, and terrorize civilians who the GOS claimed were
harboring opposition forces. Conflict-affected populations have
described recurrent and systematic assaults against towns and
villages, looting, burning of buildings and crops, destruction
of water sources and irrigation systems, gang rape, and
murders. Throughout late 2003, armed conflict intensified, as
GOS military and Jingaweit clashed with the two main opposition
groups--the SLM/A and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)--
in Darfur.
Following U.S. Government (USG) and European Union (EU)
facilitated negotiations in N'Djamena, Chad, the two main
opposition groups and the GOS signed a renewable 45-day
humanitarian ceasefire on April 8 that took effect on April 11.
This agreement included a GOS commitment to disarm Jingaweit
militia groups and a protocol on providing humanitarian
assistance in Darfur. The ceasefire agreement was renewed on
May 22.
Despite the ceasefire, Jingaweit violence against civilians
continues in all three states of Darfur resulting in increasing
displacement. Because the victims are displaced and vulnerable,
they become targets of further violence. Even in villages where
there is nothing left to burn, the fear of further violence
continues to paralyze displaced populations, preventing
voluntary returns. This cycle prevents many internally
displaced persons (IDPs) from safely returning home, trapping
them in camps or informal settlements for the foreseeable
future. Out of an estimated population of 6.5 million in
Darfur, approximately 2.2 million people are affected by the
crisis, including more than 1 million IDPs and approximately
158,000 refugees who have fled into neighboring Chad.
Humanitarian access to conflict-affected populations outside
of the state capitals of Geneina, Al Fashir, and Nyala was
extremely limited until late May due to GOS impediments that
blocked humanitarian access and relief operations in Darfur. As
a result of intense international pressure, the GOS lifted some
of the restrictive travel permit regulations and announced a
series of measures, effective May 24, to facilitate
humanitarian access to Darfur. USAID's Disaster Assistance
Response Team (USAID/DART) and other humanitarian agencies have
deployed additional staff to Darfur to increase emergency
response capacity. However, several obstacles remain, including
continued delays in obtaining visas for relief personnel,
travel restrictions within Darfur, difficulties in clearing
essential relief supplies and equipment though customs, and GOS
interference in relief activities that address protection of
civilians and human rights abuses.
current situation
Continued Insecurity and Disruption of Relief Activities
On June 7 and 8, according to international media sources,
an official from the JEM reported that Jingaweit and GOS
forces, including military aircraft, attacked JEM forces in the
area around Kiro, approximately 30 km north of Geneina in West
Darfur.
According to the U.N. Office of Humanitarian Affairs (UN
OCHA), an assessment team that visited Mallam, South Darfur
observed a large number of Jingaweit in the area. Villages
surrounding Mallam reportedly suffer an average of two attacks
per week, and 19 people were killed last month as a result of
these raids. Several agencies report a general decrease of IDPs
in areas such as Kubum, Um Labbasa, and Badegusa, and an
increase of IDP numbers in Kass town and Kalma Camp. Attacks on
villages southeast of Kass this week led to the displacement of
over 1,500 families.
According to the USAID/DART, SLM/A elements are conducting
mobile checkpoints near Shurom/Tordaan, approximately 50-60 km
southeast of Nyala, and on the road that connects Nyala,
Yassin, and Ed Da'ein route. A commercial vehicle transporting
U.N. World Food Program (WFP) goods was briefly detained by
SLM/A troops in Yassin, 60 km northwest of Ed Da'ein.
The USAID/DART stated that Jingaweit militias reportedly
stopped trucks carrying relief supplies for distribution in Fur
Buranga and Habilah, West Darfur. The trucks were allowed to
pass after a two-hour delay. Due to fighting near the Chad
border, the town of Kulbus is inaccessible and relief agencies
are concerned about travel north of Geneina. Reports of
banditry on the main road to Kass and insecurity on the road
north to Mershing are being investigated.
Humanitarian Access
USAID/DART team members in West and South Darfur reported
the onset of heavy rains this week, accompanied by thunder and
in some cases by lightning and strong winds. In Geneina, rain
fell heavily June 8 for two hours. In Nyala, inclement weather
on June 9 disrupted the power supply to the town. During the
rainy season, many roads become impassable, thereby severely
restricting humanitarian access to vulnerable populations
throughout Darfur.
The response capacity of relief agencies in Darfur continues
to be limited due to the delay in clearing supplies into Sudan
through GOS customs. On June 7, Medecins sans Frontieres-
Holland (MSF-H) reported that food and vehicles critical to the
organization's emergency response remain in customs in Port
Sudan. In Darfur, MSF-H has enrolled more than 800 children in
therapeutic feeding programs and more than 1,600 children in
supplementary feeding programs. These programs provide life-
saving treatment for children in moderate and advanced stages
of malnutrition, and without this treatment many of the
patients will die of starvation. With critical food stocks
delayed in customs, MSF-H predicted that their feeding programs
would run out of food during the week of June 14.
On June 3, members of the SLM/A detained 16 humanitarian
workers near Mellit, 55 km north of Al Fashir in North Darfur.
The detained workers, a multi-agency assessment team comprised
of representatives from the various U.N. agencies, several
international NGOs, and the European Commission, were released
unharmed on June 6 and returned to Al Fashir. According to the
USAID/DART, the U.N. is reviewing security procedures following
this incident.
Lack of Human Rights Monitors in Darfur
At present, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for
Human Rights (OHCHR) has no mandate for human rights
investigations in Sudan. Apart from the OHCHR delegation's trip
to the region from April 21 to May 2, there are no mandated
human rights officers in place. At the donors conference in
Geneva on June 3, the U.N. request for approximately eight
monitors for Darfur received enormous donor endorsement.
However, it is unclear if the GOS would accept human rights
monitors in Darfur.
Food Assistance
During the first week of June, the USAID/DART Food Officer
monitored food activities in West Darfur, where WFP plans to
target up to 300,000 beneficiaries in June. Before the heavy
rains in mid-July, WFP expects to have already completed July
distributions. However, WFP's main implementing partner, Save
the Children-US (SC-US), reports a need to pre-position and/or
distribute food for August as well. Approximately 70,000
beneficiaries in areas southwest of Geneina could be completely
inaccessible by road from mid-July to mid-September, and the
Nyala-Geneina road could be impassable for days at a time
during that period.
According to the USAID/DART, WFP does not appear to have
sufficient capacity at present to pre-position three months'-
worth of rations in West Darfur. Monthly food requirements in
West Darfur are approximately 4,500 metric tons (MT). To date,
WFP has only 500 MT of food stockpiled in Geneina, and while
WFP continues to urge truckers to move quickly, security
incidents on the key roads between Ed Da'ien and Nyala will
likely affect truckers' willingness to travel unescorted, or
without security guarantees from the U.N.
Transporting sufficient quantities of food to Nyala, and
then on to West Darfur, has been a significant challenge for
WFP. Food monitors for SC-US waited in Foro Burunga, West
Darfur for two weeks for WFP to deliver the May rations, which
were to be distributed on June 4 and 5, but the quantities were
not sufficient and some commodities were missing. WFP told the
USAID/DART that about 36 trucks carrying approximately 880 MT
were in transit and would arrive in Geneina around June 10.
According to the USAID/DART, 50 long-bed trucks arrived from
Chad to Geneina this week. This will bring WFP's dedicated
trucking fleet from 90 to 140 trucks. The monthly distribution
capacity of this dedicated fleet is 8,000 MT, enough food for
approximately 500,000 beneficiaries.
Health
According to the USAID/DART, major constraints in the health
and nutrition response in Darfur include the shortage of
international staff available for deployment; the continued
demand for cost recovery at health centers and hospitals
despite a GOS directive that IDPs should receive treatment free
of charge; poor health infrastructure and access; the limited
number of NGOs able to implement health and nutrition programs;
and the Ministry of Health (MOH)'s lack of capacity to
undertake large-scale therapeutic feeding interventions.
According to a World Health Organization (WHO) assessment of
state hospitals in Darfur, 9 of the 11 facilities surveyed are
in need of trained health staff including general physicians,
surgeons, pediatricians, medical officers, hospital
administrators, laboratory technicians, assistant
anesthesiologists, and nursing staff as well as operating
theater and training nurses. Most facilities also lack
essential equipment and basic medicines.
From June 5 to 7, the USAID/DART Health Officer traveled
with USAID implementing partner SC-US to Habilah and Foro
Burunga, south of Geneina near the border with Chad, to assess
the health and nutritional situation of conflict-affected
populations. According to the USAID/DART Health Officer, the
major health problems afflicting the internally displaced and
the host communities are measles, diarrhea, acute respiratory
infections, and malnutrition. SC-US staff has been waiting for
two weeks in Foro Burunga for the agreed upon quantities of
food to arrive from WFP. In order to avert a nutritional crisis
and the need for costly center-based therapeutic care, general
food distributions with an adequate food basket (cereals,
pulses, cooking oil, salt, and corn soya blend) must be
distributed on time. Additionally, supplementary feeding
commodities must be available. WFP currently lacks pulses and
CSB for Darfur, and has cut CSB from general distributions in
order to preserve the pipeline for supplementary feeding
centers.
On June 5, the delayed measles vaccination campaign began in
South Darfur. The campaign is led by the Sudanese Ministry of
Health (MOH) with support from UNICEF and the WHO. The 10-day
campaign is scheduled to begin in North and West Darfur on June
12. The target of the campaign is 2.26 million children under
the age of 15 throughout the three states of Darfur; however,
the MOH stated that populations in opposition-controlled areas
will not be vaccinated.
Refugees in Eastern Chad
The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported
that hundreds of new refugees are arriving around the Chadian
border town of Adre, reportedly fleeing new fighting outside
Geneina in West Darfur. In response to the influx, UNHCR has
increased trucking capacity to relocate the refugees to camps
away from the insecure border areas. On June 4, UNHCR opened an
eighth camp in eastern Chad, Djabal, to host the refugees.
To accommodate the continued influx of both spontaneous and
facilitated refugee relocations from the border areas, UNHCR is
looking for an additional camp site southeast of Abeche near
the camp of Breidjing, where newly arrived refugees have
stretched UNHCR's capacity to provide for 7,809 registered
refugees and 5,000 spontaneous arrivals.
According to UNHCR, as of June 8, approximately 90,000 out
of 158,000 Sudanese refugees had been relocated from insecure
border areas to the eight official refugee camps in eastern
Chad. At present, UNHCR is focusing on relocating refugees
living in southern border areas, where the rains have already
begun, before the roads become impassable.
u.s. government assistance
Over the past year, USAID has deployed field staff to Sudan
specifically to assess the extent of the Darfur crisis. On
April 11, to respond to the increasing scale of humanitarian
needs, USAID mobilized a USAID/DART. Several USAID/DART members
have deployed to Darfur, and USAID continues a phased
deployment of humanitarian personnel as official access and
improved security allow for an increased presence in the
region. As of June 10, eight USAID/DART members have deployed
to newly established field offices in Al Fashir, Geneina. and
Nyala. USAID/DART field officers are attending humanitarian
meetings, monitoring the delivery and distribution of relief
commodities, and participating in assessments with implementing
partners throughout accessible areas of Darfur.
The DART, led by personnel from USAID's Office of U.S.
Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), is complemented by a
Response Management Team (RMT) in Washington that is supporting
field operations and providing a point of contact for
coordination and information regarding the USG's humanitarian
response in Darfur.
USAID recently provided $850,000 to UNICEF for a malaria
campaign in the three states of Darfur.
To date, USAID has delivered a total of 5,160 rolls of
plastic sheeting, 77,500 blankets, and 600 jerry cans via 12
airlifts to Nyala. Based on data collected during Medecins sans
Frontieres' (MSF) recent nutritional survey, the average family
size among the conflict affected population in Darfur is seven
persons. In compliance with Sphere standards \1\ for
humanitarian assistance, each roll of plastic sheeting can
provide adequate shelter for nine families, and USAID's
contribution of 5,160 rolls of plastic sheeting will provide
shelter for more than 325,000 beneficiaries. The total value of
the commodities, including transportation costs, was more than
$2.3 million.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The Sphere Project was launched in 1997 by ICRC, the U.N.,
NGOs, and donors to develop a set of universal minimum standards for
humanitarian assistance and thereby improve the quality of assistance
provided to disaster-affected persons and to enhance the accountability
of humanitarian agencies.
Since February 2003, USAID has provided nearly $16.5 million
to U.N. agencies and NGOs, including CARE, the International
Rescue Committee (IRC), Medair, and Save the Children-U.K. (SC-
UK) and SC-US for emergency health, water and sanitation,
agriculture, food security, shelter, logistics, and
coordination activities. Proposals from additional relief
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
organizations are under review.
On June 3, USAID approved a 13,000 MT contribution,
including 5,000 MT of pulses, 5,000 MT of corn soya blend, and
3,000 MT of vegetable oil, to WFP's Darfur Emergency Operation
(EMOP), valued at approximately $15.8 million. With this
contribution, USAID will have provided 48 percent of the EMOP
requirements.
Since October 2003, USAID has provided nearly $82.9 million
to WFP for Darfur for 86,700 MT of food commodities, including
cereals, cooking oil, pulses, and blended foods. USAID has also
contributed $4.8 million to WFP for Sudanese refugees in
eastern Chad, including 7,040 MT of mixed commodities already
in the region.
USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) has provided
more than $96,000 to IRC for IDP assistance activities in
Darfur. Such initiatives may include support for peace and
reconciliation interventions and strengthening of Sudanese
civil society organizations. In addition, OTI has deployed an
IDP advisor as a member of the USAID/DART.
On May 21, the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of
Population, Refugees, and Migration (State/PRM) approved an
additional contribution of $1.2 million to UNHCR in response to
its emergency appeal for Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad.
This brings State/PRM's total contribution to date to the Chad
appeal to $6,912,972, including $712,972 provided during FY
2003.
In FY 2003 and FY 2004, State/PRM has provided more than
$12.2 million to UNHCR, WFP, the International Federation of
the Red Cross/Red Crescent Society (IFRC), AirServ
International, International Medical Corps (IMC), and IRC for
emergency refugee assistance activities in eastern Chad.
public donation information
The most effective way people can assist relief efforts is
by making cash contributions to humanitarian organizations that
are conducting relief operations. A list of humanitarian
organizations that are accepting cash donations for their
humanitarian emergency response efforts in Darfur, Sudan can be
found at www.interaction.org.
USAID encourages cash donations because they: allow aid
professionals to procure the exact items needed (often in the
affected region); reduce the burden on scarce resources (such
as transportation routes, staff time, warehouse space, etc);
can be transferred very quickly and without transportation
costs; support the economy of the disaster-stricken region;
ensure culturally, dietary, and environmentally appropriate
assistance.
More information on making donations and volunteering can be
found at:
The Center for International Disaster Information:
www.cidi.org
InterAction: www.interaction.org -> ``How You Can Help''
Information on relief activities of the humanitarian
community can be found at www.reliefweb.org
Senator Alexander. Thank you, Mr. Winter and Mr. Snyder.
Senator Feingold, we have four votes that begin at 4. What
I could do is take 7 or 8 minutes and ask questions and then go
vote and come right back, if you would like, and then maybe,
depending on your schedule--will you be able to come back
during any of those votes?
Senator Feingold. I will go over and vote and start the
next vote, do that one as well.
Senator Alexander. We can swap. OK, we will do the best we
can.
You all will have to excuse us. We do not have an executive
job. We have a legislative job.
But this is very important testimony. That is a terrible
story you have told us, and you have told us with precision and
with candor and with specifics. When we get to the second
panel, we are going to hear more about that. So I would like to
focus in the next 7 or 8 minutes, and then we will go to
Senator Feingold, first on what we can do.
Now, how much aid are we currently giving, the United
States, to the Khartoum government, financial aid, how many
dollars?
Mr. Winter. You are not talking humanitarian?
Senator Alexander. No, I am talking about in general, all
aid.
Mr. Snyder. To the government, nothing. The government is
restricted under the terrorism rules and other things.
Senator Alexander. So nothing to the Khartoum government?
Mr. Snyder. No. The humanitarian assistance is what goes on
there.
Senator Alexander. These three protocols that were signed
on May 26, I assume that the expectation is as those protocols
are implemented more aid--what is the expectation of aid to the
Khartoum government or, in a separate category, how will other
aid, how is other aid expected to come into the Sudan?
Mr. Snyder. I think once the--assuming they finish this
process which I outlined maybe as early as mid-August if things
are right, there will be a two-step process. There will be
something called the pre-interim period, in which what is
essentially a new union government including John Garang and
several key members of his will take seats in the parliament,
the executive branch, et cetera, so the beginnings of the
transformation of the government of Khartoum.
Six months later, there will be a full installation of what
will be the new government. There will be a 6-month interim
period. During this interim period I think we will begin to
look at what it is that makes sense to do, provided that they
continue along this path and honor the agreement. There will be
benchmarks set.
Once they get to the new union government, hopefully by
then, because they have met the terrorism standards and other
things and they have stopped this Darfur business--this is the
happy picture I am painting for you--we would then resume
normal relations with Khartoum and take a look at specific
categories of aid.
Senator Alexander. So in any event there is no prospect of
normalizing relations in the next few weeks or few months.
There are a number of steps to be taken. So that is not an
immediate threat. Mr. Winter was talking about 2.2 million
people in October, according to the United Nations figures
possibly, which is a doubling of the number of displaced people
that we hear about today.
Let us move to the humanitarian aid for a minute. What is
the amount of humanitarian aid that is authorized by the United
States in the Sudan now?
Mr. Winter. It depends if you want numbers that relate to
Darfur or in general. Under a normal year, because this has
been a long war in the south, we are normally providing in the
area for the last few years of $200 million a year. Those are
resources that are primarily going to the people war-affected
in the south and people who were displaced into the cities of
the north.
Senator Alexander. What about in Darfur?
Mr. Winter. Darfur is of course a much more recent
situation. We have actually committed since the beginning of
the Darfur thing $116 million and with pledges that would rise
up to about $300 million. But as I think Senator Biden
mentioned, he was distinguishing between what is already
appropriated and what is not, of that $300 million figure about
$145 million is from current appropriations since the end of
last fiscal year and into this fiscal year.
Senator Alexander. What role does the Khartoum government
have in the distribution of this humanitarian aid?
Mr. Winter. Well, they can turn us on or turn us off in
terms of access. But generally we do not do anything through
the government of Khartoum.
Senator Alexander. You do not give them the money----
Mr. Winter. No.
Senator Alexander [continuing]. To then give to----
Mr. Winter. We have two sets of partners primarily. One are
the U.N. and other international agencies and the others are
NGOs, nongovernmental organizations.
Senator Alexander. So the issue with the Khartoum
government in terms of the aid that we are attempting to offer
today are the obstacles that you described, whether they will
get out of the way and let you do the job that you would like
to do with food and medicine and other help.
Mr. Winter. Correct.
Senator Alexander. Let me ask this. We are obviously
talking about a crisis here. Many of us remember Rwanda.
Senator Feingold has mentioned that. Senator Biden has
mentioned that. I remember that. In reflection, many of us
regret that the United States could not have done more then.
And this is rising--this reminds us of the dimensions of that
genocide.
Now, what can the United States do more of immediately that
would be most likely to change the attitude of the Khartoum
government? What further steps could we take?
Mr. Snyder. I think on the political side, as I have
already outlined, we have made it clear to them that
normalization does not come with Darfur in flames, and in fact
we are in the process--and I had this conversation actually
with the Sudanese Vice President. I find myself in the
ludicrous position on the one hand talking about lifting
sanctions and on the other having to talk about trying to
increase sanctions on you and the Janjaweed in particular if
you do not take action immediately.
I made the point that I am not talking a month; I am
talking in weeks. This is too serious, and so far we are seeing
too many bureaucratic obstacles. So on the political side we
are actually threatening sanctions.
Now, we are under no illusion, given that they are
sanctioned under the terrorism act and under the IEPA and under
a set of ten different series of sanctions, that these
sanctions will have anything more than political and
psychological impact. But it is one of the things we are
prepared to do to get their attention.
I am hoping we are not going to go there and, based on
conversations I had with the Foreign Minister, I think he gets
it. The question is can they reverse the bureaucracy, and what
is in charge? Is the peace faction in charge or not? We do not
have the answer to that question, and that goes to the heart of
the issue. I cannot make peace in all of Sudan unless the peace
faction is in control in Khartoum. And if they are, they should
be able to deliver the goods in Darfur as part of that peace
process.
So we have already got a horrifying test, but nonetheless a
very valid test, of whether this peace process goes anywhere,
and they have chosen this test to be in Darfur.
Senator Alexander. And by ``deliver the goods,'' I gather
we mean, A, stop the killing, and B, get out of the way in
terms of food and humanitarian help?
Mr. Winter. We are developing a set of very specific
benchmarks so that bureaucratic enthusiasm for the peace
process will not overcome reality on the ground. We have not
come to closure yet on what those benchmarks are, but they will
be things like the actual protection of these IDP camps by the
government against the Janjaweed, active actions against the
Janjaweed if this process continues, cessation of any reports,
provided we can get the cease-fire in place, of Antonov bombers
going anywhere, cessation of use of helicopter gunships--those
kinds of things.
We are developing a set of benchmarks and these benchmarks
are going to be timed over the next month. We are not done with
it yet, but we will share that with you when we are done with
it. But that is the level of detail we are going at this with.
Senator Alexander. My last question would be, to the two of
you: Is there anything else specific that the administration
would like for the Congress to do to strengthen your hand in
dealing with the immediate future in Darfur?
Mr. Snyder. I think actually this hearing is quite helpful.
It gives us a chance to say again publicly to the government
what we have said privately in a forum in which we are laying
down very specific benchmarks, that this has got to stop and we
mean it. This policy is not reversible. This is not a private
conversation. So I think the hearing itself is one of those
things.
The fact that you have monitored this carefully with the
Sudan Peace Act has got their attention. The fact that we have
received letters that name government officials, saying to us,
are these people guilty of war crimes--all of those kinds of
things have gotten their attention. I think that my colleague
may have some views on the kinds of aid we are going to need.
We are going to need more aid if we succeed. If we do not
succeed, the questions are going to be very different and we
will be talking to you and others about that. But our time line
on this has not run out yet.
Senator Alexander. Mr. Winter, do you want to answer that
question?
Mr. Winter. The rest of the world is not as engaged as we
are. The Europeans have been unusually slow. They have been
unusually parsimonious with their contributions so far. We
really need to have the collaboration of the other major donor
governments. That is one thing we need.
In my view, it is also the case that we need the Secretary
General of the U.N. personally to provide a level of leadership
that is unmistakable. You mentioned Rwanda. He has a history in
Rwanda. The Secretary General can help change this from
appearing to be a problem between the United States and Sudan,
since we are doing so much of the humanitarian thing, into the
rest of the world also being concerned, and that would change
the dynamics. I think the Government of Sudan would have to
take the Arab world and the African world into account
seriously, and the one who can bring that on line I personally
think is the Secretary General.
Senator Alexander. Thank you, Mr. Winter.
Senator Feingold, I am going to go vote. I will be back
quickly. There may be a brief recess after your questions, but
I will go ahead and resume the hearing when I get back if that
is all right with you.
Senator Feingold [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Snyder, are you satisfied with the intelligence
resources being devoted to monitoring the situation in Darfur
relative to the intelligence resources devoted to Sudan over
the past 5 years? Are we currently at a high mark in terms of
intelligence resources and attention or, because of needs
elsewhere, are we devoting somewhat less to this effort?
Mr. Snyder. Senator, as you may know from my curriculum
vitae, I have been in that business and I think what we are
getting is what we need on Sudan. I am satisfied that I get the
kind of coverage I want when I ask the specific questions and
tell them what I need. I am satisfied that they are doing what
they can, and they are doing enough to meet our needs.
For instance, thanks to commercial satellites, some of the
photos we used in Geneva to show the Europeans what we were
talking about are commercially available. But if I ask for
additional details and additional coverage, I get that when I
ask for it. So I am satisfied with what is going on there. And
as you know, there is a major counterterrorism effort there, so
we do have adequate people on the ground in my view.
Senator Feingold. What relationship, if any, exists, Mr.
Snyder, between the SPLA and the forces in Darfur?
Mr. Snyder. We know in the past, several decades back, SPLM
elements actually trained some of these SLA and other rebels.
We have recent indications of some supply and support
activities as part of that continuing process, but the supply
activity is much more recent. And we have mentioned to Dr.
Garang that he is now a party of peace, not a party of war, and
he needs to use these to gain influence over the rebels so that
we stop this process and they honor the cease-fire.
Senator Feingold. Could you describe the effect that the
crisis in Darfur is having on Chad and also on the Central
African Republic?
Mr. Snyder. Clearly the bulk of the IDPs that are moving,
as my colleague stated earlier, are moving into Chad. There
have been incidents before, and a device we never had to use.
Actually, there have been bombings inside Chad. We could have
actually brought this to the Security Council as a threat to
international peace and security because of the cross-border
bombing activity.
That has been brought into check as a result of a series of
meetings the Chadian Government hosted at Abeche and elsewhere
to try and encourage this process. There is still the
occasional violation of the border. The Chadian Government has
been satisfied by the responses of Khartoum on that military
kind of activity. We have pressed them not to be shy on this
issue.
Nonetheless, the major influence on Chad is the presence of
these large numbers of IDPs. It is somewhat mitigated by the
fact that in this particular area these ethnic groups are
contiguous across both sides of the border, the Zaghawa in
particular, so there is some taking in of families which
mitigates this, but does not go anywhere near close to how far
it has to be gotten.
The good news on the Chad side is we are getting in fairly
decent amounts of resources. The Chadians are posing no
obstacle to us on that side of it.
The impact in the Central African Republic [CAR] has been
less, less noticeable, but nonetheless of some significance,
given the sad state of that country, frankly. They cannot
afford to take any IDPs. But again, it is not a case of access;
it is a case of, frankly, lack of facilities and roads and
things to move things in, not the government obstructing us.
Senator Feingold. Mr. Snyder, Mr. Winter made some
interesting comments a minute ago about other countries, donor
countries, Security Council, and others helping out with this.
Why do you think it is that the United States is not receiving
greater support from other donor countries and Security Council
members in our efforts to address the Darfur crisis? Does it
have to do with more analysis of the severity of the situation
or does it have to do with qualms about our approach? Your
thoughts on that?
Mr. Snyder. I think there are two factors at work here. The
truth is, because we have been so intimately involved in this
process, we know more on the ground. But because we have also
been engaged as the leading enemy of the Government of Sudan
with the terrorism act and other things, there is a certain
hesitation when we step out first with the facts to
automatically accept them. There is always that sophisticated
crowd that says there may be two motives here, let us wait a
minute.
I think we saw that change in Geneva. We did not see it
change with enough money from my point of view, and Roger can
probably talk more effectively to that than I can. But the
rhetoric now on the European side is with us and that is a
change and that has happened recently. Again, I just think it
is we are closer to the problem, we know more. We went out of
our way to get to these rebels right away and kind of shape
them a bit so that there could be some serious discussion and a
cease-fire could be set up.
There was some fear, I am sure, on some of our European
colleagues that we were supporting yet another guerrilla
movement as opposed to driving toward a realistic peace. I
think we have corrected that problem.
Senator Feingold. What support is the United States
providing to the African Union cease-fire monitors? How many
monitors are in place and how many are expected eventually to
be on the ground? If you could, please describe a little more
about their capacity to collect and share information and to be
able to move quickly to investigate reports of violations.
Mr. Snyder. The African Union has, to use the euphemism,
stepped up to the plate in this case. We were glad to see them
being much more responsive than the old Organization of African
Unity was. They have a serious plan. They are proposing to put
120 monitors on the ground and a protection force of 270 men.
They have made it known to the Europeans and us what they
need to do that in terms of money and assistance. The European
Union has put I believe it is $14.1 million into the till in
Addis. We have supplied an emergency in-kind kind of
assistance, taking from our CPMT which is operating in the Nuba
Mountains a couple of planes, three or four of our logistics
contractors, our political officer from Khartoum, who has
become the best friend of the AU in the field in Al Fashir and
elsewhere, to facilitate this process.
They have now begun to deploy. The advance elements are
down in Al Fashir and there are two forward elements. I believe
one is in Nyala and there is another one in Kebkabiya. They are
beginning to move out. The Nigerian commander has not yet
arrived on the scene, but the senior people in the AU that have
been handling this, particularly former President of Mali
Konare, has been very aggressive in getting what he needs from
them and very aggressive in seeking assistance from the
Europeans and us. The AU representative, Ambassador Djinnit,
has been very engaged in this and helpful. Sam Ibok in the AU
has been very engaged and helpful.
So key people have stood up to this and the question is,
unfortunately for us, this is the AU teething on this crisis.
They are doing what they can. We are helping them. We have got
men on the ground and ready. They have agreed and we have
agreed to supply several Americans. There are three Americans
on the ground already. There is a British colonel. He will be
joined by a couple of others. There is a couple of Belgians and
a Frenchman. A total of eight Europeans in addition to our own
will be in there.
So we will participate. This will not be a case of the AU
being out there without significant European assistance, both
to say that we are with them, but also to provide what we can
in a more direct way in terms of logistics to get this thing up
and running.
Senator Feingold. Thank you for that.
Quickly, it is my understanding that the administration
seeks to use some of the emergency funds that Congress provided
for Liberia for this purpose. Is that accurate?
Mr. Snyder. My understanding is there was some money
earmarked in that original Iraq supplemental, not the Liberia
money, that we could use for this. My understanding--and I will
check--is that we are not trying to take anything from Liberia
for this.
Senator Feingold. Not the Liberia money?
Mr. Snyder. That is correct.
Senator Feingold. Thank you.
Senator Brownback, did you want to proceed with a round of
questions?
Senator Brownback [presiding]. Yes, if you would not mind.
Great. Thank you very much.
I want to thank in absentia the chairman and the ranking
member for holding this hearing on what I consider the grave
situation and some have marked as the gravest humanitarian
crisis that exists in the world today, which I think there is
no doubt that that is the case.
Let me ask, if I could, a couple of questions. As a
followup, Mr. Snyder, you were saying there are 120 monitors
from the African Union that are in and on the ground in the
Darfur region or are moving forward? I did not quite catch
that.
Mr. Snyder. There will be 120. They have actually
identified the nations and the numbers that will come. So far
there is far less than that. There is about, by my count, about
32 on the ground at this point, either in Al Fashir or forward.
They will get up to that 120 number as soon as these countries
supply the manpower. They know what countries they are coming
from.
We have got indications by checking in the capitals that
the country involved is serious and has identified the men and
is moving them. We are trying to assist in that in various
places.
Senator Brownback. Should not this number be substantially
higher and not just monitors, but actual peacekeepers, if we
are to try to stabilize this situation? It seems like that
number is quite low to accomplish the task that is in front of
us.
Mr. Snyder. Again, this goes to our experience in the Nuba
Mountains. Our experience there leads us to believe that, given
our relationship with the rebels and the time we spent with
them and given what we know about the government's capability,
if it wants to honor the cease-fire, as long as we have a
reasonable number of monitors--and 120 is, based on our Nuba
experience, reasonable enough for at least a start of this, a
serious start of this--we can monitor the cease-fire and hold
those that violate it responsible.
It will also take other forms of assistance. Senator
Feingold alluded to our intelligence. We will not spare
providing that when we have to if we think things are being
missed or to target and move people in the right direction to
see what they need to see. But if our experience in the Nuba
Mountains instructs this experience, it is possible to do this
with 120 and 270, at least start it.
Clearly, Ambassador Djinnet and others that are running
this have made it clear to us that they will not hesitate, if
they think they need more, to come back and ask more. Again, it
is a teething process. I doubt the AU at this point could do
much more than this and we need to experience how they do this
piece in order to reinforce it.
Senator Brownback. Let me ask Mr. Winter--and I thank you
for traveling into this region, something that I intend to do
myself, and working with others. We have got to get this aid in
quickly. Are we going to need to pass additional supplemental
resources near-term before we can get to an omnibus package,
say by the end of this year, in order to be able to meet the
pressing humanitarian needs that exist? Or can the
administration find the resources to meet the humanitarian
needs on the ground now in Darfur?
Mr. Winter. I would say, quite candidly, I think we are
very tight. We have made significant commitments. We are
continuing to shift around our resources within our
international disaster assistance account. We are looking at
everything we can to make sure we continue to be liquid. But
Darfur at this level was unexpected and so there is some
tightness in our situation right now.
Do I wish that we were more liquid? Absolutely.
Senator Brownback. It seems to me that in the Iraqi
supplemental that is being considered now, and everybody is
trying to keep it clean and I would love to do that as well,
but this is really the vehicle and the timeliness that we need
to put some additional resources to meet this greatest
humanitarian need that we have in the world today.
I am not asking either of you to comment on that. I
understand the administration position, but I also understand
the needs. If we do everything right, I believe Mr. Natsios has
said that we are looking at 300,000 deaths if everything goes
right. If things go wrong we could be looking at somewhere far
exceeding that number.
So this is a great, pressing situation. I also think, as
you alluded to, Kofi Annan should travel to Darfur to bring
further international pressure and focus into this region, so
that the African countries, the rest of the world, looks at
this horrific humanitarian situation and addresses it, not just
the United States.
I have spoken with Sudanese officials, expressed my
frustration. They say: well, the United States is on the
leading edge of this, but it should be other countries as well.
It should be the Europeans, it should be the other African
countries. Kofi Annan would be singularly positioned to be able
to draw that attention to this.
Mr. Winter. He would provide a level of legitimacy that
would be very helpful right now. Given the battle that took
place with respect to the U.N. Human Rights Commission and the
fact that we were basically alone in asserting a firmer posture
with respect to human rights in Sudan, the fact that we are so
high profile when it comes to trying to respond to the
situation in Darfur and everything, makes it sort of in a way
take on a character that really it does not deserve.
I mean, first of all, the population that is dying right
now is a Muslim population. Where is the Muslim world fussing
about this? It is an African population. Where is Africa
broadly?
I think what I am trying to suggest is Kofi Annan said the
right things a few months ago. I think he could bring a
legitimacy that would help depoliticize the way many people
look at this kind of a situation right now, and that is what we
need right now. We need the whole world to pull together.
Senator Brownback. Yes, and I would invite him now publicly
to go with me to that region. He really can bring an
authenticity to it that is desperately needed, so we do not see
hundreds of thousands more die.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing. I am
going to run over and vote.
Senator Alexander [presiding]. Thank you, Senator
Brownback. I wanted to thank Senator Brownback for his
consistent bringing of this tragedy to the attention of his
colleagues. He does it on a weekly basis, on a regular basis.
He has been a leader in informing us and I thank him for that.
I think we will thank Mr. Winter. Mr. Snyder, thank you for
being here. We will now move to the second panel.
Mr. Winter. Thank you.
Senator Alexander. Our next two witnesses--thank you for
waiting--I would say to the President's three ambassadorial
nominees that we will get to your hearing yet this afternoon.
We still have other votes, but we will do our best so as not to
waste your time, and to speed your nominations along.
The first witness, John Prendergast, is currently co-
director of the International Crisis Group. He has authored the
International Crisis Group's report on Sudan and recently
testified before the House of Representatives on this topic.
Thank you, Mr. Prendergast, for coming.
Julie Flint was recently contracted as a field researcher
for Human Rights Watch and co-authored their report on the
crisis in Darfur. She was in Darfur in March and April as I
understand it, getting an on-the-ground view by horseback. Is
that what I have heard correctly?
Ms. Flint. And camel.
Senator Alexander. And camel, horseback and camel. So we
are going to get an eyewitness view from you and from Mr.
Prendergast.
I have read your testimony. You have much to say. It would
be impossible, it would seem, to say it in 7 or 8 minutes. But
if you will try to summarize your report that will give me and
Senator Feingold and others who might come a chance to ask you
questions. Let us start with you, Mr. Prendergast, then go to
Ms. Flint.
STATEMENT OF JOHN PRENDERGAST, SPECIAL ADVISOR TO THE
PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP
Mr. Prendergast. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks
for the extra minute, too.
I regret to inform you that phase one of what I think all
of us in retrospect will call this genocide in Darfur has
nearly been completed. This phase one has been the phase of
ethnic cleansing. Let us tell the truth. The world did not lift
a finger to stop it. There was not one United Nations Security
Council resolution, there was not one permanent U.N. human
rights monitor put on the ground, there was not any additional
pressure applied. Rather, incentives were being offered to the
perpetrators at the very moment of the height of the ethnic
cleansing, including seats at the January State of the Union
Address and the removal of Khartoum from one of the U.S.
terrorist lists last month.
A new phase, phase two of this potential genocide, has now
begun. This is the phase in which the government uses a killing
famine to finish what it started. Khartoum is calling on 15
years of experience in creatively using starvation and disease
as weapons of war. Khartoum is betting that the slow
strangulation of Darfur will not draw the intervention of the
international community, and so far that bet is paying off.
With all due respect to the previous panel, the
international response to this second phase, this phase of the
strangulation through a killing famine of this likely genocide,
is completely inadequate to prevent the onset of this killing
famine and a vast loss of life. The current approach simply
will not succeed. There is no overall strategic plan to deal
with the crisis. The U.N. is scrambling and the Security
Council is bickering. The Europeans are shrinking from the
horror and the Africans are deferring to sovereignty. The U.S.
is still reacting, still not putting forth a comprehensive
strategy for confronting this disaster.
If our actions are to have impact, we have to push the
envelope further than it has been pushed before. First, we have
to move quickly and boldly to prevent phase two of this
potential genocide from succeeding. In other words, we have to
act robustly to break the back of this killing famine.
Preventing famine requires a number of actions. It requires
first and foremost to shine a spotlight, most effectively
through the U.N. Security Council, on Khartoum's policy of
starvation as a weapon. Congress has authorized or appropriated
billions of dollars over the last decade and a half to clean up
the human mess created by these tactics devised in Khartoum. We
have 15 years of empirical evidence that when this government
is publicly challenged, consistently challenged, and
multilaterally challenged, it moderates its behavior in
response to that pressure.
Preventing the famine also requires immediately creating a
humanitarian surge capacity much greater than what has been
envisioned and what you have just heard about in the previous
panel, using civilian and military assets in the region to
undertake a short-term front-loaded major increase in
deliveries that address the deficiencies and gaps in food, in
medicine, sanitation, water, and shelter.
If all else fails, if all of that fails, then we have to be
prepared to authorize chapter 7 in the Security Council to stop
the famine and to save lives.
Second, I think we have to move aggressively to assure that
phase one of the potential genocide, the ethnic cleansing,
which actually continues to this day and I think we will hear
from Julie about that, we have to ensure that that does not
resume more forcefully and is not allowed to stand. That is,
these atrocities surrounding the ethnic cleansing must be
confronted.
Confronting ethnic cleansing requires public condemnation
of Khartoum's support for the Janjaweed militias and strong
pressure to ensure that the Janjaweed are neutralized. We still
have not done that through the Security Council, in a Security
Council resolution. As long as that does not happen, Khartoum
understands that it can continue to do what it wants to do.
Confronting ethnic cleansing also requires rapidly
deploying this robust monitoring presence that is being talked
about, but it needs to include many more cease-fire monitors
than are being envisioned to this point and they need to have a
protection mandate. Can you imagine, we are putting cease-fire
monitors out there that do not have a mandate to protect
civilians. We need U.N. human rights monitors on the ground. We
do not have them. And we need the use of satellite imagery.
There was a question asked about whether we have the
intelligence assets necessary to address the problem there. I
think we have some of those intelligence assets and they need
to be shared with the Security Council members. We need to be
moving that information around and demonstrating that this
ethnic cleansing campaign continues.
Confronting ethnic cleansing further requires the
introduction of personal accountability for crimes against
humanity. The resolution that Congress is working on now should
include targeted sanctions--the House version in fact does
now--against officials of the government who have been most
responsible for orchestrating these atrocities and the
companies, more importantly actually, the companies that they
are board members of and are running, these companies need to
be subjected to targeted sanctions.
I really urge you not to let up on this. You will have an
impact on the calculations of the regime in Khartoum. And you
should urge Secretary Powell to get Ambassador Pierre-Richard
Prosper out to the region immediately, looking at mechanisms of
accountability. This also will have a dramatic impact on the
calculations of the ruling party in Khartoum.
Third, we cannot forget that all these atrocities come in
the context of war in Sudan, and there must be a corresponding
and comprehensive strategy for peace that deals simultaneously
with the three interrelated conflicts in Sudan: the north-south
conflict, the Darfur conflict, and then the conflict that has
been spawned by the government's support for the Lord's
Resistance Army in northern Uganda. All three of these are
linked. All three of these need to be addressed.
The best way to address it I think, and it is very, very
vital that the administration move soon, to appoint a new
special envoy now that Senator Danforth will move over to his
new job, to empower someone as comprehensively and as at a high
level as Senator Danforth was empowered, but also to give them
staff and assets to be able to undertake the full-time
diplomacy in pursuit of peace in all three of these
interrelated conflicts.
In closing, I think we need congressional leadership on
this issue now. We should not forget that it was congressional
pressure that provided the impetus for the United States to
stop the slaughter in Bosnia, to confront apartheid in South
Africa, and to address countless other cases that cried out for
action. Historically, Congress has been a major force in
helping administrations find their better angels. I think
Congress can help ensure that this President does not have to
hold another ceremony at the Holocaust Museum in 6 months,
vowing ``Yet again, never again.''
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Prendergast follows:]
Prepared Statement of John Prendergast
Thank you for holding this urgently needed hearing on the complex
crisis in Sudan. While precious time has been lost, it is not too late
to put forward concrete actions that could prevent the needless deaths
of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese, and to conceive a much more
comprehensive diplomatic strategy that might bring peace to this long-
tortured country.
Today, Sudan is three crises in one. This means that any response
has to be more complex and nuanced than what might have been believed
six months ago:
The first crisis is the longest running, the 21 year war
between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's
Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), which has resulted in two
million deaths and a structural humanitarian emergency.
The second crisis is that wrought by the Sudanese
Government's support for the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a
northern Ugandan insurgency that has wreaked havoc on both
southern Sudan and northern Uganda for years, resulting in the
highest rate of child abductions in the world, among other
depredations.
The third crisis is the most immediate and urgent human
rights and humanitarian disaster in the world today . . . the
unfolding evidence of conditions of genocide in Darfur.
On the first crisis, a peace deal between the government and the
SPLM/A may be imminent, but that will only signal a new phase of
negotiations and challenges. Every step of the way in the
implementation process will be undermined by elements in Khartoum
opposed to the peace deal, and will be challenged by policy incoherence
and a lack of capacity on the part of the SPLM/A. Militias--including
the LRA--will continue to be used by elements of the ruling party to
undermine cohesion in southern Sudan, especially around the oilfields.
The U.S. must be ready and willing to continue its deep involvement in
the peace implementation process. Providing funding for a peace
observation mission is a necessary but insufficient role. Additional
reconstruction resources must be found, diplomatic and intelligence
capacities must be committed, and willingness to confront efforts to
undermine the implementation process must be made clear.
On the second crisis, after well over a decade of death and
destruction caused by the LRA, there still remains no coherent
international strategy to respond to this tragedy. The U.S. should work
with the Ugandan government and other interested actors in crafting
such a strategy, which in the first instance must seek an end to all
Sudanese Government support and safe haven for the LRA.
I will focus the remainder of my testimony on the third crisis:
Darfur.
Vague pronouncements by the G-8 and UN Security Council cannot
obscure the fact that the existing global effort to prevent the onset
of famine and vast loss life in Darfur is grossly inadequate. Continued
stonewalling by key members of the UN Security Council from Europe,
Africa and Asia has ensured that the world's highest collaborative body
fiddles as Darfur burns.
The current approach to preventing famine and further atrocities
simply will not succeed.
Although there are fancy charts and graphs that can now track the
dying months in advance, and millions of new dollars pledged in the
Geneva donors conference earlier this month, there is no overall
strategic plan for preventing a killing famine and bringing a
comprehensive peace to Sudan. The world is still reacting, still behind
the curve of this slowly evolving disaster.
To prevent the deaths of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of
Sudanese, there needs to be an immediate humanitarian surge in the
delivery of relief assistance in order to break the back of the
impending famine. This surge needs to be supported by adequate numbers
of monitors, by actions to increase U.S. and multilateral leverage, and
by a robust diplomatic initiative to end the interrelated wars in
Darfur, southern Sudan and northern Uganda.
i. is it genocide?
It is appalling that we have been reduced to semantic debates about
whether the situation in Darfur is ethnic cleansing or genocide. The
Genocide Convention prohibits actions ``calculated to bring about the
physical destruction of groups in whole or in part'', and compels
signatory states to act to prevent them. In ICG's judgement, the
situation in Darfur more than satisfies the Genocide Convention's
conditions for multilateral preventive action. But even if argument
continues about whether this is a case of actual or potential genocide,
it cannot be contested that in Darfur a large section of Sudan's
population is alarmingly at risk, that the Government of Sudan has so
far failed comprehensively in its responsibility to protect them, and
that it is time for the international community, through the Security
Council, to assume that responsibility.
This is not Rwanda of 1994, a country to which very little
attention was being paid. Sudan has been at the top of the Bush
Administration's radar screen since it came to office. It is not
credible to say now that we did not know what was happening. Over the
past year, Darfur has been Rwanda in painfully slow motion.
ii. the present situation
The humanitarian situation is worse than is still generally
appreciated, due to ongoing state-sponsored violence, layers of aid
obstruction, the lack of an overall humanitarian strategic plan, and
the weakened state of displaced Sudanese.
There tends to be an assumption that because the Govermnent of
Sudan has finally begun to act on promises to grant a higher level of
access, the numbers at risk will be dramatically reduced. That is not
accurate. The government has provided access much too late, IDPs and
refugees have been displaced for long periods, they are in terribly
weakened states, they are subject to sexual abuse and attack, they do
not have shelter, their encampments lack latrines and are horrendously
overcrowded, and it is now raining in southern and western Darfur.
Infectious diseases and dysentery will drive up the body counts
rapidly; And the Khartoum government, its use of food as a weapon well
honed by years of practice in the south and Nuba Mountains, continues
to apply layers of obstruction--for example, by instituting long delays
in customs clearance of relief supplies, and insisting that only
Sudanese trucks can be used in the delivery of such supplies.
Conventional responses are simply inadequate to prevent rapidly
increasing mortality rates, and the current response will fail unless
buttressed by a number of bold and urgent actions.
Compounding the problem, in our judgment, is that the numbers of
at-risk civilians will continue to increase. The Janjaweed continue to
undertake attacks against villages, prey on internally displaced
persons (IDPs), and obstruct aid activities: it cannot be assumed that
the centrally-directed ethnic cleansing campaign is over. The Janjaweed
are being integrated into the army and police; no one has been charged
with any crime, and their actions are not being challenged. There
remains a state of total impunity. It is absolutely critical to demand
that Khartoum take action to curtail the impact of the Janjaweed, to
disarm them, to disband their headquarters, and to begin to charge
those responsible for war crimes. All this must aim to reverse in full
the ethnic cleansing campaign that has occurred over the last year.
iii. what must be done
In order to fully confront the multifaceted crisis in Sudan, we
need to push the envelope of response further than it has been pushed
before. The U.S. must work multilaterally as much as possible, but be
prepared as a last option to work unilaterally when others continue to
bury their heads in the sand. European, African and Asian members have
obstructed more assertive action by the UN Security Council, while the
U.S. has been unwilling to date to expend diplomatic capital to help
sway these countries towards a more robust posture.
In the first instance, nothing could be more effective than working
through the UN Security Council to immediately pass a Darfur-specific
resolution that comprehensively responds to the present emergency and
lays the groundwork for sustainable peace. This Security Council
resolution should endorse actions that would prevent starvation, stop
further fighting and atrocities and press for a negotiated peace--while
warning of possible further coercive measures should these objectives
be resisted.
More broadly, the U.S. Congress and the Bush Administration should
work through the UN Security Council and unilaterally toward the
following urgent, interrelated objectives:
A. In Order to Prevent a Killing Famine:
Public Condemnation: The U.S. through the UN Security
Council and directly should strongly and publicly condemn the
various layers of obstruction that the Sudan government
currently employs to delay the delivery of relief assistance.
We need only note the Khartoum government's fifteen year track
record of ceasing unacceptable activity only when it becomes
the source of public condemnation and exposure. With this
amount of empirical evidence to support the need for public and
assertive pressure, anyone arguing for quiet diplomacy and
constructive engagement at this juncture would be providing
political cover for the government's atrocities.
Surge Capacity: Working with the European Union and other
donors, the U.S. should expand the existing capacity for
emergency relief deliveries to the internally displaced in
Darfur and refugees in Chad to meet the growing humanitarian
need. This will require additional resources for securing
urgently needed non-food items and the capacity to deliver
those items. There is a need to establish immediately a surge
capacity through the utilization of both civilian and military
assets in the region--recognizing the particular value of
European Union and U.S. military assets, especially airlift
capacity--that would allow for short-term, front-loaded
increases in deliveries that address deficiencies and gaps in
food, medicine, clean water, sanitation, and shelter.
Humanitarian Monitoring: The U.S. and EU should work with
the UN to support a large increase in the number of WFP,
UNICEF, and NGO monitors that are allowed into Darfur to
oversee the relief effort and should provide them adequate
security;
UN Leadership: President Bush should request the UN
Secretary General to take the lead personally in efforts at
humanitarian diplomacy.
Chapter VII Planning: In the event full access is denied,
Janjaweed attacks continue, and mortality rates escalate, the
U.S. should accelerate contingency planning for using military
assets to protect emergency aid and Sudanese civilians. The
U.S. should work through the UN Security Council to request a
UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations assessment of possible
scenarios and define operational plans for guaranteeing
humanitarian relief and protection of civilians through the
deployment of sufficient civilian and military forces under
Chapter VII authority. Such a deployment would seek to take
control of, stabilize and protect IDP camps in Darfur, and
create a logistical pipeline to deliver assistance to these
camps.
B. In Order to Stop Further Fighting and Atrocities:
Janjaweed Control: The U.S. should work through the UN
Security Council for multilateral condemnation of the Sudanese
Government's support for Janjaweed militias through direct
assistance, provision of barracks, supply of arms, etc. The
Security Council should demand that the Government of Sudan
arrest Janjaweed commanders who continue attacking villages and
IDPs, and immediately demobilize and disarm the Janjaweed
militia. If this does not occur, Chapter VII authority should
be sought to disarm and demobilize the Janjaweed.
Human Rights Monitoring: The U.S. should work through the UN
Security Council and the UN Human Rights Commission for the
immediate deployment of UN human rights monitors in Darfur.
Ceasefire Monitoring: The U.S. should support the African
Union and the parties to the Darfur conflict to negotiate a
substantial increase in the number of ceasefire monitors and
work with the EU and other donors to fully resource these
monitors.
Satellite Imagery: The U.S. should share its satellite
imagery with the UN Human Rights Commission and the UN Security
Council, as well as collaborate in more closely tracking the
activities of the Janjaweed and other government military
assets that are attacking villages or IDPs. Such imagery could
also reveal any ceasefire violations by any party to the
conflict.
Reversal of Ethnic Cleansing: The U.S. should work through
the UN Secretary General to initiate a process now to determine
the conditions which would enable the safe, secure and
sustainable return of the victims of ethnic cleansing under
international guarantees, support and control.
C. In Order to Press for Sustainable Peace:
Comprehensive Peace Strategy: There must be a coordinated
diplomatic strategy to end the three interrelated wars in
south/central Sudan, Darfur, and northern Uganda. This requires
a rapid conclusion to the comprehensive agreement between the
government and the SPLM/A, the construction of a credible
process to settle the conflict in Darfur, and the development
of a strategy to end the crisis created by the Lord's
Resistance Army in northern Uganda and southern Sudan. Leaving
behind any one of these will undermine the entire effort to
achieve peace in Sudan.
Peace Envoy: Now that Senator Danforth has been nominated to
be U.S. Ambassador to the UN, President Bush should move
rapidly to name another Special Envoy for peace in Sudan. Such
an envoy should be tasked to work full time and simultaneously
on all three conflicts bedeviling Sudan, and should be given
the necessary resources to carry out the mission.
Negotiations Structure: The direct negotiations between
Sudanese Vice President Ali Osman Taha and SPLM/A Chairman John
Garang were instrumental in moving that peace process forward.
The Darfur and LRA efforts should utilize this relationship in
seeking a rapid end to those crises.
The U.S. must make clear that if Sudan does not provide full
humanitarian access, neutralize the Janjaweed, and move forward on
peace efforts, the imposition of targeted sanctions (travel
restrictions and asset freezes) will be authorized against those
officials responsible for the atrocities. Ruling party companies with
which these officials are associated should also be targeted. Further,
the U.S. should work through the UN Security Security to make clear
that such intransigence would also lead to the imposition of an arms
embargo and the deployment of an international commission of inquiry or
a high level panel to investigate the commission of war crimes in
Darfur, a necessary prerequisite for the establishment of a future
mechanism of accountability.
iv. what the united states congress can do
All the actions outlined above may not be practical in conventional
circumstances. But with two million already dead as a result of the
govermnent-SPLM/A war and hundreds of thousands more at risk today in
Darfur, circumstances in Sudan require unconventional responses.
If the Bush administration continues to debate internally about
what to do, certain European countries remain reserved due to tactical
and commercial considerations, and the UN Security Council remains
muzzled by the reservations of a few members, then the U.S. Congress
should provide desperately needed leadership.
We should not forget that it was Congressional pressure that
provided the impetus for the U.S. to stop the slaughter in Bosnia,
confront apartheid in South Africa, and countless other cases of
Congressional leadership. Historically, Congress has been a major force
in helping administrations find their better angels.
The Senate should demand that the Bush administration develop a
much more robust and comprehensive multilateral strategy to break the
back of the emerging famine in Darfur.
The Senate should urge President Bush to name a new Special Envoy
whose brief is more operational than Senator Danforth's and more
comprehensive, in order to deal with all three conflicts plaguing
Sudan.
The Senate should pass the House version of its Sudan resolution,
which calls for targeted sanctions against senior Khartoum officials,
and ensure that the resolution language on targeted sanctions is in
forthcoming Authorization and Appropriations bills. The Senate should
also look for other ways to introduce accountability into the
discussion of what to do about Sudan, in order to confront the
continuing genocidal actions of the Janjaweed and its supporters in the
Sudan government, as outlined above
The best way to end this tragedy is to bring home the costs of the
atrocities in Darfur to the Sudanese officials who are directing them.
Every day that we continue to look past this terrible record of death
and destruction, we ensure that it will continue and intensify.
Senator Alexander. Thank you, Mr. Prendergast.
Ms. Flint.
STATEMENT OF JULIE FLINT, DARFUR FIELD RESEARCHER, HUMAN RIGHTS
WATCH, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
Ms. Flint. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. As
you said, I spent 25 days in Darfur and among refugees from
Darfur in March and April, and welcome the chance to tell you
what I found. Some of the people I met will already be dead.
The remainder in their entirety are fighting for survival and
have no voice of their own.
The first and most striking thing I found in Darfur was the
completely empty land, mile after mile of burnt and abandoned
villages, irrefutable evidence of a scorched earth policy the
government says does not exist. Hundreds of thousands of
Masalit farmers lived in this area little more than 6 months
ago. Today there is quite literally no one. Some have managed
to flee to Chad. The others have been corralled into displaced
camps, government-controlled camps far from the border, where
until very recently they were at the complete mercy of the
government and the Janjaweed, beyond the reach of any relief
workers or any independent observers.
It is extremely difficult to ascertain what is exactly
happening in a place the size of Darfur, where the government
denies access and all movement is impeded by the presence and
above all the fear of the Janjaweed. I therefore investigated a
sample area of 25 square miles, 60 square kilometers, where
there were until recently 14 villages.
I found 11 of these villages burned to the ground and 3 in
close proximity to them abandoned for fear. Women of all ages
had been raped, often in front of their husbands and children,
and everything that made life possible, sustainable, had been
systematically destroyed. Civilians who had been displaced
insisted that there were no rebel positions anywhere near their
villages and there certainly were not when I was there. We had
to ride for several hours to reach all of the villages we
visited.
Some of the villages had had self-defense units--
``militias'' is far too grand a word for these groups--but they
proved incapable of defending either themselves or their
villages.
The second thing that struck me was the consistency of the
victims' claims. Estimates of the numbers of people killed in
attacks varied, although usually not by much, but descriptions
of attacks were remarkably similar and it quickly became clear
that the burning of Masalit villages has not been haphazard,
but absolutely systematic. Whole areas have been cleared one by
one by Janjaweed and government forces working hand in glove,
side by side.
The reason the government is targeting the Masalit and the
Fur and Zaghawa is that these three ethnic groups form the
backbone of the rebel movement in Darfur. The government has
deliberately chosen the Janjaweed as a counterinsurgency
militia because it knows there are prior ethnic tensions
between the Janjaweed and the African farmers that it can
successfully manipulate, and that it is continuing to
successfully manipulate.
Death tolls are chillingly high, especially when you
consider how small most of these villages are. I documented
large-scale killings in 14 incidents in areas between November
2003 and April 2004. In these 14 incidents, almost 800
civilians died that I know of. There will be others. All 14
involved coordinated attacks by the army and Janjaweed
arriving, fighting, and leaving together.
These were not the only incidents in the Masalit area in
this period, but rather those I was able to corroborate from
witnesses I believed were credible in the time that was
available to me.
Attacks like these are no longer attacks by Arab nomads
driven onto Masalit farmlands in search of water and grazing.
They often involve hundreds of men and are often coordinated
across several fronts. They are carried out under the eyes of
government soldiers by men who wear the same uniform as the
regular army, who carry the same weapons as the army, and who
often enjoy the support of the Sudanese Air Force. This is not
happenstance, it is not coincidence. It is coordination.
The Janjaweed--let me just insert here, if I may, a
concrete example to bring this home to you in terms of people,
because this is about people. There is a village called Tullus
which is in the interior of the Masalit area and it was
attacked in February, I believe, of this year by government and
Janjaweed. The first the residents knew, most of the residents
knew, was that they heard Antonov bombers coming, so the men
sent the women and the children away on donkeys for their own
safety.
Within half an hour or so, the village was attacked by
ground forces, government and soldiers, according to people
from the village. They burned everything. All it takes is a box
of matches; we are talking about straw huts. Having burned and
killed--and I do not know how many people they killed for sure
there--they then pursued the women and the children to the
valley where they were hiding and they proceeded systematically
to kill the women and the children.
I found in Chad a child of 12 who had been shot three times
in cold blood, closer than I am to you, by a group of people.
He said they approached him, they sat down, they talked to him,
they called him a rebel--he was 12 years old--and one of them,
who he thought was unarmed, ordered his companions to shoot the
children.
There were four children hiding behind this tree. My
friend, Hussein Dafa'allah, was shot three times, in the face,
in the arm, and in the leg. The three other children hiding
with him behind this one tree--there were many other trees--
were all shot and fell to the ground. He does not know what
happened to them. The youngest was only seven. This is not
unusual.
The Janjaweed themselves increasingly are structured.
Thousands are now organized into brigades which are the same
size as Sudanese Army brigades. They are headed by men who call
themselves generals and who wear the same stripes as generals
in the regular Sudanese Army. Janjaweed leaders have one or
even two homes in government garrison towns. Government forces
have been seen training Janjaweed and reportedly pay some of
them salaries. They have also been seen delivering weapons by
helicopter and car.
As has been said before, the Janjaweed have complete
immunity in Darfur. Not only are they not prosecuted for any
offenses whatsoever, but some police told me that they had
received orders not to interfere in any operations by the
Janjaweed and not to consider any complaints made against the
Janjaweed.
Unless the Janjaweed are disarmed, disbanded, and withdrawn
from the areas they occupy and from which they prey on
displaced civilians, there will be no possibility for civilians
to return to their homes and plant next year's harvest in
safety.
The emergency we are seeing today, with 350,000 expected to
die even if help is sent immediately, is the direct result of
human rights abuses--scorched earth, denial of relief, denial
of access, the same tactics the Government of Sudan used in its
war to depopulate oil-producing areas of southern Sudan and the
same tactics it has always used. This is nothing new.
Recent reports indicate that groups of Arab origin have
begun moving into some of the lands at least bordering Chad
that have been ethnically cleansed. Just before coming here
today, I called some people in Darfur and was told that the
entire population of a small town called Arrara has been moved.
They were ordered to move to a Janjaweed stronghold called
Beida, now believed the site of a displaced camp. And Arabs
have been settled in Arrara in their place.
The Masalit I spoke to say they do not know where these
settlers are from, but they are not from Sudan and they do not
think they are from Chad either. This apparently is happening
in a lot of the villages in the Masalit area that are empty. It
was the exception when I was there. It almost looks as if it is
now becoming the rule.
Government officials and Arab groups in Darfur have accused
the SLA and the Justice and Equality Movement, the second rebel
group in Darfur, of targeting civilians and destroying their
villages, and have provided a list of attacks and cease-fire
violations to Human Rights Watch. Human Rights Watch is eager
to investigate these cases, but so far have not received a visa
from the government. We have not found witnesses to these
abuses in Chad, but that does not mean that the abuses are not
taking place.
Winding up, the United States has taken the international
lead in Darfur and must remain fully engaged. Several
additional U.S. actions are needed. Firstly, a Security Council
chapter 7 resolution. If the Sudanese Government does not
neutralize the Janjaweed soon, the council must act to end and
reverse ethnic cleansing in Darfur, ensure the protection of
civilians, provide for the voluntary return in safety of all
refugees and displaced persons, provide for effective and
unrestricted delivery of humanitarian access.
Second, a human rights monitoring team. The north-south
peace agreement lacks an independent human rights monitoring
body to hold the parties to their human rights pledges.
Third, a U.N. accountability mechanism for past crimes
against humanity and other grave abuses in Sudan. Again, the
north-south peace agreement lacks any truth commission,
reparations, or investigation into abuses by either side.
We welcome the new emphasis on Darfur, but it comes very,
very late in the day. This war in its present extreme form has
been raging for the past 16 months. I myself have been writing
about it since August 2002. There is absolutely no more time to
be lost.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Flint follows:]
Prepared Statement of Julie Flint
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Senators, for the opportunity to
testify at this hearing. I spent 25 days in Darfur, and among refugees
from Darfur, in March and April and welcome the chance to tell you what
I found there. I am an independent journalist and conducted this
research on behalf of Human Rights Watch. The results of the research
are available in the report, ``Darfur Destroyed: Ethnic Cleansing by
Government and Militia Forces in Western Sudan,'' recently published.
The first, and most striking, thing I found in Darfur was a
completely empty land--mile after mile of burned and abandoned villages
that constitute irrefutable evidence of a scorched-earth policy the
government says doesn't exist. Hundreds of thousands of Masalit
farmers, Sudanese of African descent, were living in the rural areas I
visited little more than six months ago. Today there is, quite
literally, no-one. Some have managed to flee to Chad; the others have
been driven into government-controlled camps far from the border where
they were, until very recently, at the complete mercy of the government
and the Janjaweed--beyond the reach of any relief workers or
independent observers.
The only civilians I encountered in Darfur were a handful of
refugees who had crossed the border from Chad. They were venturing back
to their village to dig up food stores they had buried in hope of
preserving them in the event of attack by the army and the Janjaweed,
militiamen drawn from some Arab tribes of Darfur and Chad. The refugees
looked like walking dead--stick-thin, exhausted and ragged in a way
they wouldn't have been, despite their poverty, only a few months ago.
It is, of course, difficult to ascertain what exactly is happening
in a place the size of Darfur, where the government denies access and
all movement is impeded by the presence--and the fear--of the
Janjaweed. I therefore decided to investigate a sample area: a 25-
square mile block in which there were until recently--14 villages
inhabited by Masalit, one of the three tribes that form the backbone of
the Sudan Liberation Army. (The other two are the Fur and the Zaghawa.)
I found 11 of those 14 villages burned and three, in dose proximity to
them, abandoned for fear of burning. Mosques were burned; straw huts
torched; food stores destroyed, in their totality. Cooking pots were
smashed. Water pumps were not smashed because there were no pumps to
smash in the first place. We are talking about people who have never
had electricity, running water or, for the most part, schools or
medical clinics; people whose best bet when they are seriously wounded
is to go to Khartoum, more than 700 miles away, for treatment.
In these villages, everything that made life possible had been
obliterated. Fields that had produced tomatoes, peppers, potatoes,
cucumbers, beans and millet were dried up and strangled by weeds.
Across the border in Chad, women went from home to home begging for
food.
Everyone I talked to insisted there were no rebel positions
anywhere near their villages. There certainly weren't when I was there:
we had to ride for several hours to reach any of the villages we
visited. Some of the villages had had self-defense units--militias is
far too grand a word--but this smattering of armed men proved incapable
of defending either themselves or their villages. Many, many died.
Women of all ages had been raped--often in front of husbands and
relatives--in the aftermaths of attacks; in, around and on the way to
displaced camps; and while they searched for food, water and firewood.
I visited a number of other areas, less systematically, and found
the same thing: no human life, and no way of sustaining life in the
immediate future. The terrible humanitarian emergency we are seeing
today, with 350,000 expected to die even if help is sent immediately,
is the direct result of human rights abuses: scorched earth, denial of
relief, denial of access--the same tactics the government of Sudan used
most recently in its war to depopulate oil-producing areas of southern
Sudan; the same tactics it used in the Nuba mountains; the same tactics
it has always used.
The second thing that struck me in Darfur was the consistency of
the victims' stories. Estimates of the numbers of people killed in
attacks by the government and Janjaweed varied. But descriptions of
attacks were remarkably similar. It quickly became dear that the
burning of Masalit villages has not been haphazard, but systematic.
Whole areas have been cleared, one by one, by government and Janjaweed
forces working together--sometimes coming out of garrison towns where
they have separate barracks; sometimes advancing from joint positions
more recently established in strategically located villages.
Typically, the regular army will surround a village with heavy
weapons while Janjaweed on horse- or camel-back ride in,
indiscriminately firing Kalashnikovs and sometimes rocket-propelled
grenades. It has been said that men are being targeted--presumably in
the belief that they could be members, or supporters, or even potential
supporters, of the SLA. I do not believe that the attackers are
targeting only men. What many witnesses described to me was how
villagers, forewarned of attacks, send the women and children away on
donkeys, leaving men behind to try to defend their homes.
Death tolls are chillingly high, especially when you consider how
small most of these villages are. Our investigations uncovered large-
scale killings in 14 incidents in the Masalit area between November
2003 and April 2004. In these 14 incidents, almost 800 civilians died.
All 14 involved coordinated attacks by the army and Janjaweed,
according to different eyewitnesses interviewed at different times and
in different places.
These are not attacks, as they were in the past, by a handful of
``Arab nomads'' driven onto Masalit farming lands in search of water
and grazing. They are attacks that often involve hundreds of men and
are often coordinated across several fronts. They are carried out under
the eyes of government soldiers, by men who wear the same uniform as
the regular army, who carry the same light weapons as the army and who
often enjoy the support of the Sudanese air force. Helicopter gun ships
reconnoiter before and after attacks. Antonov bombers bomb in advance
of attacks, especially in areas away from the international border
where there are no independent witnesses. This is not happenstance. It
is not coincidence. It is coordination.
Let me give you an example that is nothing out of the ordinary. The
village of Tullus, several days' walking away from the border with
Chad, was attacked in February this year. Some of the attackers came
from Mornei--a town of a few thousand inhabitants that today hosts tens
of thousands of displaced--and a few inhabitants of Mornei rode out to
warn neighboring villages. Some families left Tullus immediately. When
Antonovs started bombing, women and children who had stayed behind were
put on donkeys and sent to nearby hills. Then army Land Cruisers
surrounded the village and Janjweed went in, killing at least 23 people
and burning everything. All it takes in these mud-and-straw villages is
a box of matches.
After the attack, soldiers and Janjaweed continued on to the hills
where the women and children were hiding and began killing again. I
could not get a precise figure for the dead--the field of vision of the
fugitives here was often confined to the tree or the rock behind which
they were hiding--but I am confident that at least 15 people were
killed including seven women and six children.
On a hillside in Chad, where a three-month-old refugee baby had
just died for reasons that will never be known, I met a 12-year-old
survivor of Tullus--a boy called Hussein Dafa'allah. He ran from Tullus
with his mother and hid behind a tree with three other children. The
youngest of the three, a girl called Fatima, was only seven years old.
Hussein said a group of uniformed men approached him as he hid and sat
down beside him. These men were not behaving as if they feared attack.
Their behavior surely suggests there were no rebels here, nothing that
could be considered a military target. The men taunted Hussein, calling
him a ``Tora Bora''--a rebel, in Darfur-speak. Hussein told me: ``There
are no Tora Bora in Tullus. It's a village.''
One of the men who cornered Hussein was apparently unarmed--a
detail that suggests he was not a member of the Janjaweed. He ordered
his companions to fire at the children behind the trees and Hussein was
hit three times--in the face, a leg and an arm. The three other
children were also hit, but no-one could tell me what became of them.
When Hussein's father arrived after the attackers left, he strapped his
son onto a donkey and took him across Dar Masalit--the Masalit
``homeland''--to Chad.
This was not the only instance I discovered of displaced Masalit
being hunted down and killed. On August 27th last year, Antonovs bombed
the town of Habila six times in one day. Twenty-six civilians were
killed, induding many women and children. Habila not only had a police
station; it had an army post. The only explanation the people of Habila
can find for the attack is that the town was packed with people
displaced from neighboring villages. It wasn't enough to destroy the
villages, they said; they believed the government's intention was to
destroy the populations too.
Six months after this, on March 5th this year, 137 African men were
executed in two separate but simultaneous operations in Wadi Saleh, due
east of Dar Masalit. Most belonged to the Fur tribe. A neighbor of the
sole survivor of one of the massacres told me that people in Wadi Saleh
woke up on the morning of March 5th to find a large area surrounded by
government and Janjaweed forces. These government forces entered
villages within the cordon they had set up, apparently meeting no
resistance, and asked men which villages they came from. More than 200
men whose villages had been burned and who were displaced were taken to
police stations. In early evening, they were taken by army trucks to
valleys where they were made to kneel and bend their heads before being
killed with a bullet in the back of the neck.
Thus does the government's scorched-earth policy set in motion a
new cycle of atrocities. Today's displaced are tomorrow's rebels, or so
the government fears.
For the past two decades, successive Sudanese governments have
armed and supported militias recruited among groups of Arab descent in
Darfur and Chad. But under the present government, what was essentially
an economic conflict between African farmers and Arab pastoralists has
evolved into an ethnic war with racial overtones between Muslims of
African extraction and an Arab-centric Islamist government and its
proxies. When the SLA took up arms 17 months ago, the government began
fighting alongside its proxies.
The exact nature of the linkage and the chain of command between
government forces and the Janjaweed is impossible to determine given
the restrictions on access to government-controlled areas of Darfur and
the government's denial of any connection to a group it describes only
as a ``militia''. But there is no doubt in the minds of the African
farmers who have survived attacks on their villages, farms and families
that there is an organic, organizational link now between the army and
the Janjaweed.
When I asked why they say this, two different people--one a village
headman, the other an SLA commander--responded with exactly the same
words: ``They come together, they fight together and they leave
together.'' The army draws much of its soldiery from Darfurians of
African origin, and the Masalit are in no doubt that the government
trusts the Janjaweed far more than it trusts the army to fight in
Darfur.
In recent years, thousands of Janjaweed have been organized into
liwa, or brigades. These brigades are the same size as regular Sudanese
army brigades and are headed by ``generals'' who wear the same stripes
as generals in the regular army. Rebel leaders say they have identified
six Janjaweed brigades--among them the Liwa al-Jammous, or Buffalo
Brigade, and the Liwa al-Nasr, or Victory Brigade. These two brigades
are headed respectively by Musa Hillal of the Um Jalloul tribe and
Abdul Rahim Ahmad Mohammed, known universally as Shukurtallah, of the
Mahariya tribe. Musa Hillal has enjoyed close relations with many
senior government officials, prime among them a governor of North
Darfur state, and is a frequent visitor to Khartoum. The Masalit say
that Shukurtallah served in the army in Geneina and in Juba before
being sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment for killing Masalit
civilians. But he was released from jail before completing his
sentence, they say, and emerged as the leader of the Janjaweed in West
Darfur state. Soldier to Janjaweed, via a murder conviction, in one
easy step.
Top Janjaweed leaders all have one, or even two, homes in
government garrison towns and have often been seen traveling in army
cars. Several Masalit informants claimed that in 1999 government forces
were seen training Janjaweed in El-Daien, 60 miles from Darfur's
southern border with Bahr el-Ghazal, alongside established government-
backed militias like the ``Peace Army'', a militia that operated in the
Bentiu area, and the muraheleen, tribal militias from southern Darfur
and southern Kordofan that in 1989 were incorporated into government
militias controlled by the army, and used in the war in southern Sudan
against Dinka and other southern peoples.
At the end of August 2003, Janjaweed took over from police and army
in manning checkpoints in much of Dar Masalit. This could not have
happened, nor be continuing, without the full agreement and compliance
of the government.
In Geneina, capital of West Darfur state, Janjaweed are said to
have a headquarters in the Medina al-Hujjuj, the old customs yard. Many
Masalit reported seeing government helicopters and cars delivering
weapons to Janjaweed positions. Others claimed knowledge of government
payments to Janjaweed. A farmer from Gozbeddine, a village near Habila,
said that in August 2003, as mass burnings became routine in Dar
Masalit, local government officials promised all Arabs who came
forward, with a horse or a camel, a gun and a monthly salary of 300,000
Sudanese pounds--U.S. $116, the equivalent of the per capita gross
domestic production. This figure was repeatedly cited to me as a
typical Janjaweed salary.
The Gozbeddine farmer said Janjaweed were recruited in Habila in an
office that flew the Sudanese flag. ``The Arabs weren't organized
before,'' he said. ``It was only groups of 30 or 40 attacking civilians
for their cows.''
A government role in recruiting Janjaweed--and by extension,
presumably, in paying them too--is confirmed by a document obtained by
Human Rights Watch in which the state governor of South Darfur ordered
commissioners to recruit ``300 horsemen for Khartoum''. The letter,
dated November 22, 2003, is from the office of the governor and is
addressed to two commissioners in South Darfur state--one in Nyala, the
state capital, and the other in Kas, one of the largest towns in South
Darfur. The letter lists promised donations and projects which would
benefit the Janjaweed community. These include the vaccination of
camels and horses--the Janjaweed's method of transport.
Government support for the Janjaweed is not limited to sins of
commission; there are also sins of omission. The Janjaweed enjoy
complete immunity in Darfur and roam around armed even though Sudan's
penal code posits 10 to 20 years' imprisonment for carrying illegal
weapons and ethnic Africans are regularly searched, apprehended, and
imprisoned. Former members of the government's security forces report
receiving specific instructions not to interfere in any actions or
operations by the Janjaweed.
Nureddine Abdul Ismael Abaker, a Masalit policeman from Misterei in
West Darfur, received orders from the local army boss not to interfere
with the Janjaweed. In his words: ``To let them do whatever they
wanted.'' He resigned from the police force in 2003 because, he said,
``the government took the Arab tribes and allowed them to be the law,
over everyone else''. Policemen in Geneina said they too were ordered
not to take action of any kind against Janjaweed and not to lodge any
complaints against them. ``Not to interfere with them in any way,''
they said.
There is no doubt that the Janjaweed feel themselves empowered.
Time and again, Masalit civilians said Janjaweed tell them ``We are the
government!'' when challenged about their behavior. A 32-year-old
farmer burned out of a village near Geneina quoted a Janjaweed leader
in Geneina as telling residents of the town: ``This place is for Arabs,
not Africans. If you have a problem, don't go to the police. Come to
the Janjaweed. If we say you have to pay compensation, you pay. The
Janjaweed is the government. The Janjaweed is Omar Bashir,'' referring
to Omar El Bashir, president of Sudan.
The Sudanese government's extensive use of Janjaweed to fight the
rebel movements--the SLA and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM)--
started after the rebels attacked the town and military base of Al
Fashir, capital of North Darfur state, in April 2003. The attack
destroyed several Sudanese air force planes on the ground and shocked
the Sudanese government, which was convinced that the rebels were aided
from abroad. (An air force colonel captured by the rebels even gave an
interview on Al Jazeera which was broadcast to the Arab world.) The
Janjaweed, who were already inimical for economic reasons to the tribes
from which rebels were recruited, already owned camels and horses, the
best means of transportation in vast untarmacked Darfur. They already
had guns, but the government provided more--along with training,
communications equipment, and other war materiel.
The strategy is the same as used in the twenty-one years of war in
southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains: 1) finding an ethnic militia
with existing rivalries with the targeted group (the ethnic group
related to the rebels); 2) arming and supporting that militia, and
giving it impunity for any crimes; 3) encouraging and helping it to
attack the civilians of the targeted group, with scorched earth tactics
often backed up by government ground troops and air power; 4) killing,
raping, abducting, or forcibly displacing the targeted group and
destroying its economy; and 5) denying humanitarian access to needy
civilians. This pattern of attack has been used, again and again, in
southern Sudan.
The strategy is still used in the south, despite an 18-month
ceasefire there--in the Shilluk area, in the Upper Nile region of
southern Sudan, in March 2004. There a southern government militia
attacked and burned villages, forcibly displacing more than 100,000
civilians. The reason was that the military leader of the Shilluk
changed loyalties (again) from the government to the SPLA--which is
permissible under the current peace agreement in the south. Although he
went to the SPLA, the government dearly did not want him to take with
him the Shilluk land which is near oilflelds in eastern Upper Nile.
update
Even after having fled their homes, the vast majority of the more
than one million displaced Darfurians are today utterly unprotected
from violent abuse--unless they are among the 110,000 who have made the
long journey to Chad, somehow evading Janjaweed ``patrols'' that
attempt to interdict their escape. Originally cattle nomads, the
Janjaweed continue to attack, rape, and steal from the displaced in the
camps in Darfur. They have grown rich on the cattle they rustle,
leaving their victims desperately poor.
The humanitarian crisis we are seeing today is the direct result of
the forced displacement and violence directed at hundreds and hundreds
of farming communities in North, West, and South Darfur. The displaced
people are mostly farmers who have missed the May-June planting season
because they were burned out of their homes and farms. Their seeds were
burned or looted, and they still have no access to their land. As a
result, U.S. AID has estimated that there are two million war-affected
people in Darfur in need of emergency assistance--the displaced, those
they are living with, and those who usually buy their produce.
Unless the Janjaweed militias are disarmed, disbanded and withdrawn
from the areas they occupy, and from which they prey on displaced
communities, there will be no possibility for civilians to return
voluntarily and in safety to their homes and plant next year's harvest.
As it is, emergency relief is needed for at least sixteen months to
save two million people from this entirely man-made famine.
Some local authorities are reportedly trying to force displaced to
return to their villages to present a picture of ``normalcy'' to the
international community, but by now the spotlight on Darfur is probably
too bright for such deception to succeed. It is disturbing that there
are still officials who attempt such maneuvers, however, as it does not
bode well for government transparency and cooperation in southern
Sudan.
The first rains have already come to Darfur. Soon the dirt tracks
that serve as roads will be impassable, making it difficult if not
impossible to move relief supplies overland. Mosquitoes and malaria
will aggravate the health problems that are already killing in the
displaced camps; measles has already started to carry away the small
ones; cholera and other water-borne diseases pose real death threats to
all during the rainy season. At one camp outside Nyala, deaths have
been running at between 8-14 a day--most of them children. The camp has
a population of 28,000--and in the last three months has sprouted five
cemeteries.
There are many reports of fighting and attacks on civilians, all of
which violate a ceaseflre agreement signed by the government and two
rebel groups in Chad on April 8, 2004. On May 22, fifty-six people were
reportedly killed in a Janjaweed attack on a village in South Darfur--
most of them just outside their huts. That was just part of a campaign
to assert, or restore, government presence in areas south and east of
Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, prior to the arrival of African
Union ceasefire monitors.
Recent reports indicate that groups of Arab origin are moving into
some of the lands bordering Chad that have been ``ethnically cleansed''
and are now under government and Janjaweed control. This trend paves
the way for continued ethnic turmoil and threatens regional stability.
Chad has even complained of Sudanese bombing on its soil in support of
Janjaweed pursuing Sudanese refugees into Chad. While the Sudanese
government trusts Chad's President Idriss Deby, whom it helped seize
power in Chad in 1990, many Chadians of Zaghawa ethnicity are literally
up in arms in Darfur, to defend their fellow Zaghawa.
rebel abuses
The SLA began armed operations in February 2003 to protect African
communities against a 20-year campaign by government-backed militias.
Neither the SLA nor the JEM, the two rebel groups in western Sudan, was
involved in the southern conflict; neither was a party to the north-
south peace agreement.
Although the SLA won support by attacking government and military
targets--with remarkable success initially--there is new evidence that
even these targeted attacks took heavy civilian casualties. Recently
received testimony indicates that the attack on Al Fashir in April
2003, although apparently directed at military objectives, resulted in
the deaths of numerous civilians as well as military personnel. The JEM
has been accused by Amnesty International of incidents of torture of
suspected informants, including using pepper in the eyes. Both groups
have been accused of using child soldiers.
The SLA took sixteen humanitarian aid workers captive in June, of
whom three were expatriates and thirteen Sudanese. This is a violation
of international humanitarian law as the sixteen, who worked for
various agencies in Darfur, were not military. They were released
unharmed after three days.
Government officials and Arab groups in Darfur accuse the SLA and
JEM of targeting civilians and destroying their villages, and have
provided a list of ceasefire violations and attacks on villages to
Human Rights Watch. We are eager to investigate these cases inside
Darfur, but so far have not received a visa from the government. We
have not found witnesses to these abuses in the Chad refugee camps, but
that does not mean the abuses have not taken place. Only a fraction of
the displaced has been able to reach Chad for refuge.
Recently the director of Human Rights Watch, Kenneth Roth, and a
Sudan researcher, Leslie Lefkow, met with representatives of the rebel
groups and presented them with a list of alleged abuses. The rebels
denied the allegations but we expect to have a more detailed response
from them. Because we have not had access to the government-held areas
of Darfur, however, we have not been able to substantiate the
government and other allegations.
In 25 days with SLA forces in Dar Masalit, I found a marked absence
of many of the abuses that have sullied the SPLA's record in southern
Sudan. There was no evidence either of the use of child soldiers--the
youngest rebel I encountered was 19--or of forced recruitment. The
Masalit commander, Khamis Abdullah Abaker, admitted that neither was
needed given the number of displaced adults offering themselves to the
SLA as combatants. My observation was that the soldiers I encountered,
and to whom I spoke, were farmers burned out of their homes, with a
smattering of professionals, former government soldiers, and members of
the police force who joined the SLA after their villages were attacked
by the government they served.
Masalit civilians insisted that SLA positions were many miles away
from their villages--one reason, they said, for the ease with which
they had been displaced.
the u.s. role
The U.S. has rightly taken the lead in the international community
to insist that the Darfur crisis be addressed at the same time as the
Naivasha peace accord is finalized, ending the twenty-one year war
between the Sudanese government and the SPLA/M. The U.S. has
contributed to the emergency relief fund and for other needs, and has
encouraged its allies to act together diplomatically at the Security
Council and elsewhere to stop the slaughter in Darfur. The U.S. has
correctly identified this as ``ethnic cleansing.'' It has reiterated
that its policy is to reverse the effects of this ethnic cleansing and
enable the displaced to return home. It has stated that human rights
abuses are causing the humanitarian emergency. The director of U.S. AID
has said that the government must provide full humanitarian access to
Darfur if up to a million people are not to die.
The U.S. should continue to remain fully engaged and to give the
Darfur emergency top priority. The fighting and human rights abuses
have not yet stopped, despite the ceasefire agreement. The African
Union was asked by the parties to set up a ceasefire monitoring
commission, and some of the logistical personnel for this team of
approximately one hundred persons have arrived in Darfur, also with
U.S. assistance. But the ceasefire monitors are not yet deployed.
Several additional actions are urgently needed, in which the U.S.
must take the lead:
A Chapter VII resolution at the U.N. Security Council
whereby, if no effective measures have been taken by the
Sudanese government to ``neutralize'' the Janjaweed within a
specified time period, the Council will take further measures,
including through the imposition of targeted sanctions and
other measures, to:
end and reverse ``ethnic cleansing'' in Darfur,
ensure the protection of civilians at risk,
create an environment conducive to the voluntary
return in safety and dignity of all refugees and displaced
persons,
and provide for the effective and unrestricted
delivery of humanitarian assistance.
A U.N. human rights monitoring team for Sudan.
A U.N. accountability mechanism for past crimes against
humanity and other grave abuses in Sudan.
On May 25, the Security Council issued a Presidential Statement on
Darfur which contained strong condemnation of abuses, and called on the
Sudanese government to live up to its ceasefire commitment to
``neutralize,'' disarm, and disband the militias. On June 10 the G-8
group called ``on the Sudanese government to disarm immediately the
`Janjaweed' and other armed groups which are responsible for massive
human rights violations in Darfur''.
But the Sudanese government remains even more stubborn with regard
to human rights, and investigation and prosecution of alleged abusers,
than it does about relief access. No one, either military or Janjaweed,
has been detained or prosecuted for the crimes against humanity or
ethnic cleansing in Darfur. Only a handful has ever been prosecuted for
individual cases of rape, murder, and looting. They have certainly not
been disarmed.
human rights monitoring
The U.S. should insist on one final ingredient for the Naivasha
peace agreement, one which is vital for Darfur: that the peace
agreement include a vigorous U.N. human rights monitoring team
throughout Sudan, to periodically and publicly report on respect for
human rights.
The parties to the north-south peace agreement already have agreed
in writing to abide by human rights principles. The peace agreement,
however, lacks any mechanism for monitoring human rights performance.
There are to be elections in three years throughout Sudan, at the
local, state, regional, and national levels. Monitoring is necessary in
the period leading up to the elections to ensure a level playing field
for all parties--especially the aggrieved citizens of Darfur.
It is not too late to insist that this monitoring be inserted into
the peace accords. Implementation remains to be negotiated. The U.S.
Congress should insist upon a U.N. human rights monitoring component to
implement the human rights principles to which the parties have already
agreed.
human rights accountability
Similarly, the Naivasha peace agreement does not contain any
provision for accountability for past abuses in the twenty-one year
civil war in which more than two million died and four million were
made homeless, most of them southerners. We agree with the call of the
U.S. Congress in its concurrent resolution of May 17 urging the
President to direct the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. to seek an official
U.N. investigation into crimes against humanity in Darfur--but what
about crimes against humanity committed in southern Sudan, the Nuba
Mountains, and elsewhere during the long civil war? Should not Sudanese
officials and others most responsible for these grave abuses also be
investigated, and made answerable for their crimes?
It is sad to note that, even in the south, where a ceasefire has
been in effect since October 2002, the Sudanese government continues to
use its ethnic militias (in this case Nuer militias under the command
of Gabriel Tanguinya) to conduct scorched earth campaigns in the
Shilluk land, north of Malakal. Although the U.S.-sponsored Civilian
Protection Monitoring Team (CPMT) reported that more than 100,000
Shilluk have been forcibly displaced, and their homes burned, the
guilty remain at large, enjoying complete impunity for their crimes.
They and the relevant Sudanese government officials must be
accountable--not only the ethnic militias in Darfur.
We urge Members of Congress to insist that accountability be an
integral part of the Naivasha peace agreement--not only for Darfur, but
for all of Sudan.
the u.s. and future response
The political lead must be taken by the U.S. and the Security
Council to end abuses and reverse ethnic cleansing in Darfur, which is
the stated policy of the United States.
It is time for the Security Council to pass a resolution under
Chapter VII to prepare the way to take measures to relieve the massive
human rights abuses and the famine even without the consent of the
Sudanese government. There is no time to waste.
Senator Alexander. Thank you very much, Ms. Flint and Mr.
Prendergast.
I have just been informed there are 3 minutes left in the
second vote, so I must take a brief recess, and I assume
Senator Feingold will get back before I do and he will begin
with questions. So the hearing is momentarily recessed.
[Recess from 4:42 p.m. to 5:02 p.m.]
Senator Alexander. Our hearing on Sudan will resume. I
thank the witnesses and others for their patience with the
Senate schedule.
Here is what we will do. I saw Senator Feingold. I have one
more vote to cast and he has two, so I will ask my questions of
Ms. Flint and Mr. Prendergast. I will then ask them to step
aside if they have time to do that, because Senator Feingold
would like to also have a chance to ask you questions, and then
we will move to the three nominees. It is my hope we can do
that today.
Senator Feingold has a scheduling issue and I am going to
let him go first with the questioning of the three nominees
because I think we have a better chance of actually getting to
you today if we do it that way. So if you will bear with us, we
will try to get all of our work done.
Now, we have heard some very interesting, graphic, specific
testimony about the tragedy in Darfur in the west of Sudan.
Just at a time when we had hoped we would be making peace in
Sudan, we are having atrocities that make us not think very
much about the peace.
Our witnesses on the second panel are witnesses who have
seen what is happening there recently and confirm that
humanitarian aid is being denied, that the Government of Sudan
is responsible for many killings, and is also responsible for,
as I mentioned, obstructing the delivery of aid. What is
interesting to me is that both of you have said that you
believe that congressional action could make a difference. Many
Members of Congress, both Democratic and Republican, would like
to make a difference on this topic.
For example, I saw Senator Corzine as I came back, who was
not able to attend the hearing today, but who made it clear
that, and has made clear in speeches on the floor, his feelings
about the tragedy in Sudan and who emphasized to me that
whatever Senator Feingold, Senator Brownback, and I and others
were to do in the Senate, he wants to be part of. I am
confident there will be many, many more.
[The prepared statement of Senator Corzine follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Jon S. Corzine
Mr. Chairman, I would note that recent UN Security Council
statements on Darfur on May 26 and June 11 were strongly worded, but
fell short of calling for UN action; the G-8 statement on Darfur issued
June 10 was well-meaning but also quite cautious. Time is slipping away
from us in Darfur. I have written to President Bush, on June 4, in a
letter co-signed by Senator Lautenberg, to go farther and urge U.S.
pressure on the UN, on Western European governments and on Sudan, for
immediate and effective action. I called for action, backed by UN-
authorized military intervention under Chapter VII of the UN Charter if
necessary, to restrain and disarm ``janjaweed'' militias, guarantee
access to Darfur for both human rights observers and humanitarian
workers, establish a peace process to resolve underlying grievances
between Khartoum and Darfur, and establish judicial accountability for
human rights violations. i11In testimony June 15 before the Foreign
Relations Committee, we heard from non-governmental experts (Human
Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group) who had similar
recommendations for immediate action by the U.S. and the world
community; they noted events in Darfur have already moved from
``Genocide Phase I--ethnic cleansing and displacement'' into ``Phase
II: killing famine.''
In that same Sudan hearing, Assistant Secretary of State for
African Affairs Charles Snyder noted that European support for action
on Darfur appears limited by the fact that the U.S. is in the lead.
This seems to me an instance of the critical importance of nurturing
and sustaining alliances, a duty which goes hand in hand with and is
inseparable from the need to exhibit, when appropriate, resolute and
bold leadership, as we now need to do with respect to Darfur.
I believe it is feasible and absolutely necessary for there to be
immediate U.S.-led international action, under UN authority if at all
possible. Such action should aim at:
(1) a Chapter VII resolution, authorizing the use of force at
the UN Security Council whereby, if no effective measures have
been taken by the Sudanese government to ``neutralize'' the
janjaweed within a specified time period; and
(2) Imposition by UN and/or Western European governments of
targeted sanctions and other measures to:
end and reverse ethnic cleansing in Darfur,
ensure the protection of civilians at risk,
enable the voluntary return in safety and dignity of all
displaced persons,
ensure unrestricted delivery of humanitarian assistance,
Establish a U.N. human rights monitoring team for all of
Sudan, and
Establish a U.N. or other international accountability
mechanism for crimes against humanity in all parts of Sudan.
Senator Alexander. Now, you have been very helpful
witnesses in this fact, you have been very specific. I have
read your full testimony. Let me ask the first question in this
way. You have heard each other. Do you basically agree on what
the Congress should do or did you hear--did one of you hear the
other say something that you did not or that you disagreed
with?
How much agreement is there between the two of you on
exactly which steps the Congress can take to do the most good?
Mr. Prendergast. Thank you for that. That is an interesting
question, Senator. I think we are Siamese twins on this issue.
I think there is not a drop of light between us on this. I
think the human rights groups, the conflict prevention groups,
the humanitarian organizations, the NGOs in general, if they
cannot say it publicly because they are on the ground, they
believe essentially--agree essentially in large part with this
agenda that we have outlined to you.
I want to reiterate just for emphasis what the specific
actions that the U.S. Congress can lead on, as opposed to sort
of the general actions that the U.S. administration, the Bush
administration, ought to be doing. I think specifically--and
let me preface this by saying that 300,000 people do not have
to die. It is not exactly--Senator Brownback started his
questioning by saying that Andrew Natsios has said if things go
right.
Now, that is if things go right and we do things the
conventional way, which is we nickel and dime everybody and
argue over access for the next few weeks and do the same old
thing we always do. Obviously, it is the most extreme situation
we have faced in a long, long time. It argues for a much
greater, much more robust humanitarian response.
So at this juncture we need to go to the Security Council.
We just had a resolution last week on the implementation of the
peace agreement between the north and south, between the SPLM
and the government. We need a second resolution, as Julie said,
that has direct bearing on the humanitarian response, that
calls for the Government of Sudan to stop with all these layers
of bureaucracy that we heard from Roger. They need to be called
out on it consistently and multilaterally. If it is just the
U.S. saying these things, they know they can contain it. They
will just give us our visas more quickly, as Roger said, but
they will not move to change the entire edifice which is built
for using starvation as a weapon.
So I think we need to use the Security Council as a
battering ram on Khartoum at this juncture to press for that
opening of access.
Senator Alexander. OK, so step one is a Security Council
resolution, which would I guess have to be initiated by the
United States.
Mr. Prendergast. And the UK, yes.
Senator Alexander. And the UK. Which would as its first
step say, stop obstructing the humanitarian aid.
Mr. Prendergast. Right, public pressure. They will tell
you, the administration will tell you, rightly, that at this
juncture perhaps 5, maybe more, of the 15 members of the
Security Council do not agree and will oppose moving forward in
the Security Council. So this requires some robust diplomacy in
New York and in capitals at the highest levels of the U.S.
executive branch to go to the leaderships of these governments
that are opposed to moving for sovereignty reasons and for
other reasons, for commercial reasons, other things that link
them to the Sudanese Government, and urge and push and cajole
for acquiescence for Security Council movement on this issue.
Senator Alexander. Ms. Flint, would you have a comment on
that?
Ms. Flint. Well, something John said that I would pick up
on is there are very obvious things that can be done without
too great delay. Cross-border access. And there is a great
parallel between today in Darfur and 1988 in Bahr El Ghazal,
when there was again a manmade famine, and the international
community simply could not get its act together. It was
debating what to do, and after a quarter of a million people
had died implemented cross-border access in the form of
Operation Lifeline Sudan. But a quarter of a million people had
already died.
As I said before, we are all already moving very, very late
on this. Darfur has been sacrificed to the north-south peace or
the north-south truce, depending on how you see it. So I just
think, as John said, it is very, very necessary to push ahead
by any means possible--air drops, cross-border access. It is
possible.
Senator Alexander. Now, you have mentioned the Security
Council resolution and how that would have a more dramatic
effect on the government than simply a United States effort.
What is second on your priority list? A Security Council
resolution might take a little while. Is there anything that
can be done more rapidly that would speed up the humanitarian
aid or remove the obstructions?
Ms. Flint. Well, the key thing I think in the short term is
not just getting the food in there, but protecting it so people
can actually eat it. I met people who--many people are trying
to come out of these displaced, concentrations--I am not quite
sure how formally they are camps; they just seem to be almost
ad hoc settlements--because conditions were so bad there.
Janjaweed were coming into the camps and killing and raping,
looting in the camps. Families have been sending men across--I
was in the Masalit area--to see if they could get to Chad and,
if they could, going back to the camp to try to bring their
families back to Chad.
So it is not just a question of getting the food in. It is
protecting the food so once it is there people can be able to
eat it. Whether the African Union numbers are sufficient for
that, I really do not know.
Senator Alexander. Well, that was Mr. Prendergast's second
major point, was to make sure phase one stops, which is the
killing.
Ms. Flint. Absolutely.
Senator Alexander. But I am looking for tactically, if the
Security Council resolution takes a while what is the second
step that you would recommend from your perspective that our
focus should be on?
Ms. Flint. I think I would defer to John on that. I have
been on the rebel side in the bush. I am not an expert at all
in the corridors of power.
Mr. Prendergast. That is good, you are asking the right
question, because there are multilateral actions that can be
taken and there are unilateral actions that can be taken. We
have now talked to you about the multilateral, but the
unilateral action that can be taken is for the U.S., and
working directly with the European Union but moving forward as
aggressively as we can, is looking at what kind of assets we
have in the region.
We have excess capacity, military capacity, in Djibouti. We
have 1,200 forces there who are conducting training programs in
the context of our counterterrorism efforts, and it is an
underutilized capacity. The French have a larger contingent
there, as well as throughout Central Africa. We need capacity
to move items, relief items, from the port, which most of those
goods are being, as Roger told you, being held up in the port.
We need the capacity to move that rapidly in the next month
directly to the ground.
We are going to look back 3 months from now and say: Damn
it, why did we not do something when we had a chance, as the
rains were just beginning, because 3 months from now it is
really not going to matter. It is going to be much more
difficult.
Senator Alexander. When does the rainy season start?
Ms. Flint. It has started.
Mr. Prendergast. It started a week ago, 2 weeks ago. So the
problem is now that we have got to--it is what we call a surge
capacity. We need to surge our assets into the region and move
the stuff into Darfur and then, as Julie said, have people on
the ground so they can distribute it.
Senator Alexander. In your judgment, does the threat of
more sanctions on a country already with sanctions matter to
the government of Khartoum?
Mr. Prendergast. Let me just say one more thing on that. It
is a qualitative difference between sort of the larger
contextual economic sanctions that have been in place now for 7
or 8 years since the Clinton administration and picking out
individuals in the government who are being assessed to have
been complicit or responsible for mass atrocities, perhaps even
genocide, and then saying to those people: You perhaps over the
next 20, 30 years of your life are going to be unable to travel
anywhere, your assets are going to be frozen, and some day you
will sit in the dock like Milosevic did and some of the others
did from the Rwandan genocide.
I think sending those messages now, not starting the
process because it is a long, lumbering process of actually
establishing these mechanisms of accountability, but saying we
are going to start doing that, getting Ambassador Prosper out
there this week or next week, and saying, we are collecting
evidence on individual culpability in this context, that is a
different quality of fish and I think that really will have an
impact.
Senator Alexander. So immediately putting the spotlight on
personal accountability for these crimes is something else that
might have an immediate effect?
Mr. Prendergast. Yes.
Senator Alexander. Ms. Flint.
Ms. Flint. Yes. The Government of Sudan only ever reacts,
does anything, under pressure. It is not going to do anything
if there is not a consistent increase in pressure. Even if
there are already sanctions in existence, the mere fact of more
being threatened will be effective. They will not move unless
there is pressure.
Senator Alexander. Well, let--excuse me; did you have
something?
Mr. Prendergast. No.
Senator Alexander. Let me--first, Senator Feingold will be
here in a moment and he will want to ask questions of both of
you. But let me thank you for coming today and helping us do
one of the things that you recommended, which is put the
spotlight on this tragedy. I can assure you there are a number
of Senators, both Democratic and Republican, who are deeply
concerned about this. This was a subject of discussion today at
our weekly Republican Senators luncheon, as an example, and I
know that Senator Feingold and Senator Corzine and others,
Senator Biden who was here today, feel the same way.
So your testimony today has done exactly what we have
hoped. The administration testimony has also been very
specific, I thought, and was candid. We will take this
information and do our best to help put the spotlight on the
tragedy and to see if we can help do it immediately.
So thank you for being here, and if you do not mind waiting
for a few minutes I will invite you to come back when Senator
Feingold comes.
If I could then ask the President's nominees for ambassador
to come forward, we will begin that process.
[Whereupon, at 5:15 p.m., the hearing was recessed and the
committee proceeded to other business, the hearing to reconvene
at 5:45 p.m. the same day.]
Senator Feingold [presiding]. Let me at this point recall
the second Sudan panel.
I want to thank both of you for your very compelling
testimony. I will review the transcript very closely.
Mr. Prendergast, before I go to some questions I want to
thank you for raising in your testimony the additional issue of
Sudan's relationship with the Lord's Resistance Army, a group
that has terrorized the people and especially the children of
northern Uganda for several years. I share your view that the
United States needs to address this issue as part of a
comprehensive Sudan policy and, joined by Chairman Alexander, I
introduced legislation earlier this year stating plainly that
the overall relationship between the Government of Sudan and
the Government of the United States cannot improve until we
have confidence that no element of the Sudanese Government is
complicit in providing support to the LRA.
So thank you again for calling attention to this important
issue. And Ms. Flint, I thank you for traveling some distance
to be here today. Despite all the interruptions, I assure you
that this hearing will have a real influence on our thinking
and our actions and that many of us regard this as one of the
most, if not the most, urgent situations in the world at this
time.
For both of you, can either of you help the committee to
understand the motives of the government of Khartoum as we look
at its actions in Darfur? What is its purpose behind these
atrocities and what is the government's ultimate intent?
Ms. Flint.
Ms. Flint. I think that is difficult to answer because I
think there is probably more than one intent. The government,
successive governments, have supported the Arab-based militias
of Darfur for more than a decade now. When the rebellion
started, they were taken by surprise, I think, by the successes
that the rebel movements had. Within weeks of taking up arms,
they had captured a state capital, including a military
airstrip, destroyed five military aircraft, captured a bunch of
senior air force commanders.
The government was quite surprised and very quickly changed
its tactics from attacking the rebels to attacking the
civilians.
Darfur is, as you know, 100 percent Muslim. It is solidly
Muslim. So this is not in any way a religious war. But of
course, this is a government which is Arab-centric. There is an
Arabist agenda here. There is also a large degree of racism. I
think the war in the south has been for me far more than a
religious war, a racist war. So there are many, many, many
different agendas going on here. And of course, the Janjaweed
have their own agenda, which is land and loot.
Senator Feingold. Mr. Prendergast, if you could answer that
as well and just talk a little bit about whether you think the
Government of Sudan is actually unified on its positions and
policies regarding Darfur?
Mr. Prendergast. I think that, to add to precisely what
Julie just said, those are the first motives. They also want to
drain the water to catch the fish. I think there is a long
history of this government using these kinds of tactics in a
number of parts of southern Sudan and central Sudan. Any time
there is a rebellion or opposition, they go straight after the
civilian population.
They have learned and honed these tactics over the years,
so now the use of the Antonov bombers, the use of the attack
helicopters, the use of ethnic militias, is the principal part
of their strategy, of their military strategy. They very rarely
engage armed rebel elements because it is so effective to clear
the populations out of these areas, because then it denies the
rebels the civilian base in which it can move around.
I think that we also have to understand that the government
is trying to send a very clear message to every corner of Sudan
that if anyone attempts, especially in northern Sudan, to try
to overthrow this government, to try to challenge this
government, this is the kind of reaction they are going to get.
And that message has been delivered.
The government is definitely not unified on this. There are
military and civilian elements within the government that are
unalterably opposed to this kind of strategy. They did not mind
when they were doing it to the southerners, but now they are
doing it to people in Darfur, Muslim populations, and
populations which--of course, Darfur is heavily represented in
the center, especially in the military, so a number of people
have been replaced, a number of high-level military officials
have been jailed or killed and transferred.
So a lot has gone on internally over the last few months
that has been highly destabilizing in the region. So you have a
number of trends within the government over Darfur that are
causing fissures at a time when they need unity to move forward
on this agenda with respect to the SPLM.
Senator Feingold. Thank you.
Ms. Flint, to what degree has the north-south peace process
exacerbated feelings of disenfranchisement among parts of
Sudanese society that are neither represented by the Government
of Sudan nor by the SPLM? And how exactly are these parts of
Sudanese society supposed to get a seat at the table and have a
hand in determining their own future?
Ms. Flint. I will talk about Darfur because that is where I
have been. There is absolutely no doubt that the beginning of
the Naivasha process gave impetus to the rebellion. The lesson
of Naivasha was that the only way to be listened to was to
carry arms. I believe that was the main reason why the
rebellion began in February 2003, that unless you carried
weapons you had no seat at the peace table, your complaints
were not listened to.
I have not been there since the peace agreement was signed.
I was there just before it was signed. But there was tremendous
anxiety that this was an agreement being signed without them.
Several people I spoke to on the phone after the signing of the
agreement said the cease-fire agreement is not going to last;
we are going to make sure that it does not, we are going to, if
necessary, break the cease-fire to go back to have our voice
heard. So I think in Darfur it has been extremely negative,
both before and after the signing.
Senator Feingold. Mr. Prendergast, we all agree that the
situation in Darfur is urgent. What deadlines exist for action
by the Sudanese Government that can give the international
community a mechanism to hold them to account?
Mr. Prendergast. Well, there really is not. It is bleeding
on in a way that is quite disconcerting and I think the fact
that there has not been a deadline introduced undermines the
leverage that the international community might hold.
The fact that the Security Council has not acted yet, and
we just talked a bit about that with Senator Alexander, the
fact that the Security Council has not acted on Darfur and has
not sent the kind of message that needs to be sent to the
Sudanese Government, is simply emboldening them to continue to
undertake the kind of obstruction and use of food as a weapon
that Roger Winter was talking about earlier.
So I think there has to be this kind of urgency introduced,
that if x does not happen then y is going to result. There has
to be conditionality and there has to be pressures and threats
that begin to be introduced into the discussion. In the absence
of that, we are not going to have any leverage.
I understand that you are looking at legislation. We heard
from Senator Biden a little while ago that there is some
discussion about legislation. It is urgently important that we
do not undertake a solely incentive-based strategy to try to
bring these, to drag these guys along. Whether or not they get
assistance, foreign assistance, when they are getting a billion
dollars a year in oil income is irrelevant to their
calculations. We need to be introducing very specific measures
of accountability that we are threatening to use, and if
multilaterally we cannot do it we will push it unilaterally
until others go along with us, and I think that if we simply
rely on incentives right now, as we have for the last 9 months,
trying to drag these guys across the finish line in Naivasha,
it is simply going to undermine our own capacity for additional
leverage.
Senator Feingold. Let me thank both of you and all the
panelists. I regret that we did not have more time, and I also
regret how convoluted the process was. But Chairman Alexander
and I are committed to following through on these issues and we
admire your work in this area.
That concludes the hearing.
[Whereupon, at 5:55 p.m., the committee adjourned, to
reconvene subject to the call of the Chair.]
----------
Responses to Additional Questions Submitted for the Record
Responses of Charles R. Snyder to Additional Questions for the Record
Submitted by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Question 1. According to The New York Times, the administration has
begun a review of whether or not the violence in Darfur is genocide.
When did the genocide review begin, have you come to any
conclusions, and what are the points of debate among lawyers as to
whether or not what is happening in Darfur is genocide?
Answer. The violence in Darfur must stop, regardless of the label
applied to it. The United States is seeking an immediate end to the
killing and other atrocities and is taking action to achieve this
objective. The United States has been among the most vocal countries in
the international community to speak out against the violence taking
place in Darfur. Measures to end the violence and suffering are
imperative.
As the Secretary has indicated, the Department will continue to
take firm action in connection with this crisis. We have not yet
determined whether the violence in Darfur, which we have characterized
as ethnic cleansing, constitutes ``genocide.'' Based on what we know
thus far, there has been widespread atrocities and suffering. We have
been quite clear that what is occurring has involved attacks and
atrocities against African civilians by the government supported Arab
militias. As the Secretary has stated, we are keeping this situation
under intense review to determine if the situation in Darfur is now or
becomes genocide. Let me stress that, regardless of how the situation
in Darfur is described, we are addressing it with extreme urgency with
a view to stopping the violence and alleviating the suffering. The
review of the situation in Darfur is ongoing and involves both factual
and legal components.
Question 2. What is the administration doing to prevent genocide in
Darfur as required by Article I of the Genocide Convention?
Answer. The United States has been pressing the Government of Sudan
to stop the violence in Darfur. We are seeking an immediate end to the
killing and other atrocities, the protection of civilian populations,
facilitation of access to all affected populations, and the creation of
conditions permitting the safe and secure return of people to their
homes.
The United States helped organize three briefings on Darfur in the
UN Security Council. Pressure from the first briefing led the
Government of Sudan to agree to talks with the rebel groups in Chad and
the subsequent agreement to a humanitarian ceasefire on April 8. Later
briefings helped push the Government of Sudan to waive visa and travel
permit requirements. The United States subsequently was instrumental in
N'djamena, Chad in ensuring that the Government of Sudan and rebel
leaders negotiated face-to-face. Additionally, in April of this, year
the United States took a strong stand on Sudan at the UN Commission on
Human Rights, supporting a condemnatory resolution to address the
atrocities in Darfur (although a weaker decision was ultimately adopted
by the Commission). The United States also voiced its opposition to the
election of Sudan to the UN human rights body.
The resulting ceasefire has given way to some improvement in the
security situation; but serious problems remain. Credible reporting
indicates that the Jingaweit militias are continuing to perpetrate
violence against civilians. The Government of Sudan has not yet taken
all the critical measures necessary to facilitate the delivery of
adequate assistance to populations in need.
In accordance with the ceasefire agreement, a monitoring group
under the auspices of the African Union has begun to deploy to Darfur.
Subsequent to the signing of the ceasefire agreement, the United States
worked closely with the European Union and African Union to develop
modalities for organizing the monitors and deploying the force.
Americans will participate in this effort.
At U.S. insistence, a statement on Darfur was brought before the
UNSC in May. In June, the U.S. ensured that UNSC 1547, which authorizes
the formation of a UN special political mission in Sudan, also
specifically express concern for the situation in Darfur.
The leaders of the G-8, at their Summit at Sea Island, declared
their concern about the situation in Darfur.
We have told the Government of Sudan that we will seek additional
action in the UN Security Council and other fora, and will consider
further unilateral actions should it not take the necessary steps on
Darfur. We have also stated clearly that we will not normalize
relations--in the context of a north-south peace accord--unless the
Government of Sudan takes the necessary steps to address the situation
in Darfur.
To date, USAID has provided over $116 million in humanitarian
assistance for the crisis in Darfur. USAID has mobilized a Disaster
Assistance Response Team to go to Darfur to facilitate planning and
delivery of assistance, but the Government of Sudan has thus far failed
to issue all of the requested visas.
The situation remains under careful scrutiny of very senior
Department officials, and we are constantly reviewing possible
additional steps that would contribute to a satisfactory end to the
crisis in Darfur.
Question 3. The CIA-sponsored Task Force on Political Instability
is a group composed of academic experts and policy makers who carry out
studies that are specifically designed to raise red flags about
incidences of ethnic wars, disruptive regime change and genocide.
The task force has found that, ``based on conditions that existed
during historical incidences of genocide and politicide from 1955 to
2002, Sudan exhibits at least five of the six risk factors identified
by the Task Forces as statistically significant predictors of genocide
. . .''
Do State Department officials participate in the Task Force? Is the
State Department aware of the above finding? How has the above finding
influenced U.S. policy over the course of the past several months?
Answer. The Department is aware of the Task Force on Political
Instability. It does not participate in the Task Force. The Department
received a report of the Task Force's finding on Sudan in early June,
2004.
The Department of State has carefully focused on the situation in
Darfur for several months. The President made a strong personal
statement in February, 2004. The United States pressed the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights for a strong resolution on Sudan at
its meeting in March in Geneva. We have also pushed the UNSC to engage
on the issue of Darfur, and secured adoption of a Presidential
Statement on May 25.
We remain actively engaged in bilateral and multilateral efforts to
end the violence, killing and atrocities in Darfur, to deploy an
effective monitoring force, to ensure protection of civilian
populations, to secure humanitarian access to all affected people, and
to require the Government of Sudan to provide sufficient security to
permit the safe return of all people to their homes.
The situation remains under careful scrutiny of very senior
Department officials, and we are constantly reviewing possible
additional steps that would contribute to a satisfactory end to the
crisis in Darfur.
Question 4. State Department officials have stated that we will not
normalize ties with Sudan until the situation in Darfur is resolved,
and that we will not pursue peace in the south at the expense of the
people of Darfur. It appears, however that we took the first step
toward normalizing ties last month, when the Secretary of State
informed us that Sudan was removed from the list of states not fully
cooperating with U.S. anti-terrorism efforts. What specifically did
Khartoum do over the course of the past year that they had not done
before which merited their removal? Why, in the face of all that is
going on in Darfur--aerial bombardment of civilians by the government,
systematic, widespread rape of women and girls, and rampant murders and
torture--did we decide that now was the appropriate time to remove
Sudan from the list of states not fully cooperating with U.S. anti-
terrorism efforts? Please include a classified annex if necessary.
Answer. Sudan has been very cooperative on matters related to the
Global Fight against Terrorism. Details of the Sudanese government's
cooperation may be found in the classified annex to this document.
The timing of our decision on Sudan was controlled by the
provisions of Section 40A to the Arms Export Control Act (the Act),
which requires a report to the Congress by May 15 on states ``not
cooperating fully with U.S. antiterrorism efforts.'' Genuine
cooperation and a state's will to act are weighed along with a state's
capabilities when making this determination.
The change of Sudan's status was based on the facts. The Sudanese
government is aware that this action does not affect their continued
status as a state sponsor of terrorism, including economic sanctions.
Our dialogue on the issue of state sponsorship continues, as do our
concerns about the presence of HAMAS and Palestine Islamic Jihad in
Sudan. We also continue to raise our concern regarding continued
reports of GOS assistance to the Lord's Resistance Army.
annex
[Deleted].
Question 5. Last week Secretary General Annan gave a report to the
Security Council regarding the establishment of a peacekeeping mission
to Sudan. How will the situation in Darfur affect a UN peacekeeping
mission in support of the North-South Peace agreement? Did the
administration's budget request for FY 2005 anticipate that such a
mission for Sudan might be established and request contingency funding
for it? Given the other missions which might be stood up over the
course of the next twelve months, what sort of shape is our UN
peacekeeping budget going to be in next year?
Answer. We continue to monitor the situation in Sudan. Once a
comprehensive peace agreement is reached in Sudan, we expect to support
establishment of a UN mandated monitoring mission there to monitor the
parties' compliance with their commitments, and will formally inform
the Congress of our intention through a Congressional Notification.
The Administration does not request contingency funds in the
Contributions to International Peacekeeping Account (CIPA) budget for
possible new UN peacekeeping missions. Out of necessity, the budget
request for each year is put together long in advance of world events
that may lead to a need for new UN peacekeeping missions. Regarding the
2005 CIPA budget, the Administration requested $650 million. With the
creation of several new UN peacekeeping missions in FY 2004, as the
Secretary has indicated in recent hearings before the House and the
Senate, the budget is severely strained and we will need to consider
all alternatives including possible supplemental funding.
Question 6. The President has appointed our current Special Envoy
for Sudan, former Senator John Danforth, to serve as our Representative
to the UN. Do we intend to appoint another Special Envoy for Sudan?
When will that happen?
Answer. The President appointed former Senator Danforth to serve as
his Special Envoy for Sudan in order to support the Norht-South peace
process. The USG is engaged on Sudan at the highest levels. No decision
has been made regarding whether or not the Special Envoy position will
be maintained.
______
Responses of Hon. Roger P. Winter to Additional Questions for the
Record Submitted by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Question 1. Who attended the Darfur pledging conference in Geneva,
and how much did the conference generate? Who pledged what?
Answer. On 3 June, the United Nations and key humanitarian agencies
met with representatives of 36 countries, including the main donor
governments, the Government of Sudan, the African Union, the League of
Arab States and the European Commission.
High-Level Donor Meeting on Darfur, Geneva, 3 June 2004
Pledges announced for Darfur (Sudan) + Chad
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pledged in US$ Pledged to date*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Australia 0.00 5,643,070.00
Austria 245,098.00 245,098.00
Belgium 1,838,235.00 2,610,166.00
Canada 4,485,294.00 9,492,789.00
Denmark 1,200,000.00 3,109,268.00
European Commission 0.00 33,610,720.00
ECHO 12,254,902.00 22,649,270.00
Finland 0.00 1,340,896.00
France 2,818,627.00 4,098,075.00
Germany 3,063,725.00 7,582,365.00
Greece 245,098.00 245,098.00
Ireland 1,838,235.00 4,025,336.00
Italy 3,063,725.00 2,755,032.00
Japan 2,200,000.00 3,343,438.00
Lichtenstein 720,000.00 80,000.00
Luxembourg 0.00 118,000.00
Netherlands 6,127,451.00 7,979,701.00
New Zealand 0.00 1,910,886.00
Norway 5,500,000.00 10,423,784.00
Portugal 306,373.00 300,000.00
Saudi Arabia 0.00 204,490.00
Spain 612,745.00 600,000.00
Sweden 2,941,176.00 3,520,553.00
Switzerland 8,000,000.00 11,011,669.00
U.K. 0.00 61,964,879.00
USA** 188,500,000.00 283,900,000.00
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 245,960,684.00 482,764,583.00
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Pledged or committed since 2003 (as of June 27, 2004).
**Spread through the end of 2005.
Source: U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
CAP Section based on verbal announcements and printed statements. OCHA
has communicated that these numbers are subject to confirmation in
writing. These are best estimates given a rapidly changing
environment.
Question 2. The majority of the $188 million that Mr. Natsios
pledged in Geneva comes from anticipated FY 2005 appropriations. How is
the U.S. going to fulfill the pledge that Andrew Natsios made if
Congress does not pass a 2005 foreign operations appropriations bill
this year?
Answer. On June 3, 2004, Andrew Natsios pledged $188.4 million to
the Darfur crisis, $48.4 million from FY2O04 resources and $140 million
to come from FY2005 planned resources. This amount was in addition to
the $95.5 million that had already been committed to Darfur as of May
27. This would bring the total USAID contribution to $283.9 million.
Responding to the Darfur crisis is among USAID's top priorities. If
the Congress does not pass an FY2005 foreign operations appropriations
bill this year, the United States hopes it could still make good on its
pledge and that the FY2005 pledge could be accommodated in a Continuing
Resolution.
Question 3. The World Food Program projects that assistance will be
needed in Darfur for the next 18 months. If we assume that the security
situation improves, which is a big if, how long can we expect emergency
needs to exist in Darfur? How much money will we need during the 2005
fiscal year to meet them?
Answer. Even if security dramatically improves, the World Food
Program's assessment, which reflects the loss of this year's
agricultural season, represents a conservative assessment of the amount
of time that we can expect emergency needs to exist. Eighteen months
should be considered a minimum amount of time, with every month of
ongoing insecurity adding to the length of time both food and other
disaster assistance will be required.
In FY2005, a minimum of 420,000 metric tons of food assistance will
be required in Darfur. This calculation is based on a continuing
caseload of 2,000,000 people, and a scenario of increasing security and
gradual returns of displaced people to their homes. The United States
typically meets 75 percent of the food resources in Sudan. If the
United States is to meet only 50 percent of this need, it must plan to
allocate approximately $200,000,000 in Title II resources for Darfur
alone.
Needs are also critical in other parts of the country where food
assistance will be critically needed to support the peace agreement
between the North and the South. If these needs are considered, an
additional $130,000,000 in Title II assistance will be required in
FY2005 to stabilize areas of internally displaced persons and refugee
return and newly accessible conflict-affected areas in the South.
Question 4. Some of the reports coming out of Darfur indicate that
internally displaced people are subject to attack and abuse by
government sponsored Arab militias. What are we doing to protect
internally displaced people living in camps? What more should we be
doing?
Answer. Security and protection issues in Darfur are an
overwhelming concern that the U.S. Government is attempting to address
on a political and diplomatic level, as evidenced by Secretary Powell's
recent visit to Khartoum and Darfur. A much larger international
presence would have a mitigating effect on the violence. The U.S.
Government will continue to pressure the Sudanese Government to remove
all obstacles to humanitarian access and to allow mandated human rights
monitors into Darfur. We should also help ensure that the African Union
ceasefire monitors are well-equipped and deployed in large numbers.
At the level of humanitarian assistance programs, the USAID
Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) has developed a draft
protection strategy for Darfur, outlining a range of activities to
improve protection for vulnerable communities. The goals of the program
include reducing the risk to, and upholding basic rights of, internally
displaced and other vulnerable civilians, as well as paving the way for
holding perpetrators accountable for their crimes. USAID support
includes activities in Darfur, Khartoum, neighboring Chad and the
United States aimed at the following: (1) getting perpetrators to
change abusive behavior by using information from incidents and trends
as a pressure tool; (2) responding to the needs created by the abuses
and preventing further violence through humanitarian programming; and
(3) supporting the collection and analysis of testimonials, documentary
evidence and physical data on incidents.
Specific activities in Darfur include medical and psycho-social
treatment for rape survivors; alternative fuel to reduce incidents of
rape and violence when collecting firewood; intelligent camp design;
safety committees; family tracing; and training other humanitarian
staff and local authorities in protection norms and principles. In
Chad, USAID is sponsoring, together with the State Department, the
interviewing of 1,200 refugees on the Chadian border to provide solid
evidence of the nature of the atrocities. Given the sensitivity of
protection issues in Darfur, more details can be provided to the
Committee in a private session.