[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 103 (Monday, August 1, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 1, 1994]


 
                                 RWANDA

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I do not see someone on the floor seeking 
recognition, so I am going to proceed for just a very few minutes on 
another matter. I utilize the Pastore rule. I will, of course, yield 
the floor when those involved with the amendment come back.
  I see the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island, the chairman of 
the Foreign Relations Committee and chairman of a significant 
subcommittee of the Labor and Human Resources Committee. The subject I 
am going to speak about, I think, is probably something that will 
interest the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from Rhode Island 
because of their interest in humanitarian concerns.
  Mr. President, the Parliamentarian may disagree with my analysis of 
the Pastore rule but, in any event, I rise to speak about the Rwandan 
crisis.
  When we turn on the television and read the news, we know that 
Rwandan refugees are continuing to die by the hundreds and thousands. 
Images of deprivation are overwhelming. I do not think any of us, in 
our experience, have seen anything like what we are watching there.
  They have a cholera epidemic. It has killed over 14,000, 15,000 
people, including thousands of children. And we now see dysentery is 
going to claim thousands more. As many as two-thirds of all the 
Rwandans have been displaced from their homes. Some are beginning to 
return. But there is no clear end in sight to the suffering, and those 
in the camps are suffering from cholera, they are suffering from 
dysentery, because the thing most needed, clean water, is not 
available. They are not going to return unless they are given some 
significant medical help. They are simply going to die there. They are 
far too weak to try to return.
  The international community has stood by while Government forces and 
paramilitary troops loyal to the Hutu majority slashed and burned their 
way through entire communities, killing everybody in sight, killing 
whole families, chopping children to death with machetes.
  I commend the French Government for contributing troops to protect 
defenseless communities, and for trying to bring an end to the 
fighting. But it was too late to help the hundreds of thousands who 
have been killed and hundreds of thousands of others who have been 
displaced. In fact, it is now going to require a tremendous effort just 
to prevent the death of thousands more refugees.
  I do salute President Clinton for taking decisive action to mobilize 
that effort. The troops, the equipment, the supplies have begun to 
arrive in Goma, Zaire. It was an honor for me, as chairman of the 
Foreign Operations Subcommittee, to work with Chairman David Obey of 
the House Appropriations Committee. Around 2 o'clock in the morning 
Friday, we approved an emergency appropriation of $50 million to 
finance part of that relief effort in an amendment that I offered, with 
the support of Chairman Obey.
  I talked with the President about this. I encouraged him to request 
inclusion of this appropriation, on an extraordinary basis, in the 
report of the conference on the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill 
for fiscal year 1995. I say extraordinary because neither the House nor 
the Senate had this matter before them, and we included it on a 
conference that went to about 4 o'clock Friday morning. We included it 
about 2 o'clock in the morning with the concurrence of the majority of 
those in the conference, even though it had not been before either 
body, it was not in either bill, and even though it required an 
emergency declaration by the President to take it outside the budget 
caps.
  I salute the Senators and the Congressmen and Congress members of the 
conference committee for the humanitarian spirit in quickly moving it. 
In fact, we had items of real insignificance in that conference that 
took a lot of debate and this took virtually none. The Department of 
State will receive $30 million of this appropriation to enable them to 
respond to urgent appeals from the United Nations High Commissioner for 
Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as 
to fund the humanitarian efforts of private voluntary organizations 
that provide, food, water, and shelter for millions of Rwandans.
  The Agency for International Development will receive the other $20 
million to finance its direct relief effort. It will provide medicine 
and support medical teams and purchase biomedical supplies, purchase 
food.
  Our assistance is going to save many, many lives, and it could not 
have been provided by anyone else. However, I would like to sound a 
note of caution. More and more often the international community is 
called upon to respond to floods of refugees--Vietnamese, Cambodians, 
Burmese, Afghans, Armenians, Kurds, Sudanese, Somalis, Rwandans, 
Haitians. Just ask the question: Who is going to be next?
  The magnitude of the world refugee problem has grown to the point 
where it far surpasses the capacities of the world relief resources. 
There are far more refugees than we have resources today. I am pleased 
our foreign aid can help alleviate some of these crises, but I would be 
infinitely more pleased if we could effectively focus our foreign aid 
on preventing these from happening in the first place. We will not 
spend the tiny amounts necessary to stop the crisis from happening, but 
the world community will come together after the crisis has happened, 
thousands of people have died, and we have millions of refugees. Then 
we come forward and say, ``Let's do something about it.'' It will be 
far better if we help in the first place.
  Foreign aid is not a popular item in the budget, and whenever any of 
us go home, we are always told we should balance the whole U.S. budget, 
get rid of foreign aid, charity begins at home, and all the rest. The 
fact of the matter is, we spend far less on foreign aid than most of 
the first world nations, as part of our gross domestic product, and we 
are spending less every year. Only a fraction of 1 percent of our 
budget goes on foreign aid.
  It seems, however, that only when you have a crisis of the magnitude 
of Rwanda or Haiti that many in the Senate warm up to the idea of 
helping our fellow human beings. In fact, over the past 2 weeks, I have 
heard more and more the lament of the tragedy in Rwanda, but many who 
lament the tragedy in Rwanda do not say one word about the fact that we 
would not do anything to help prevent the tragedy in the first place.
  In fact, 2 weeks ago, some of the same Senators who now say how 
terrible it is, what is happening in Rwanda, voted in favor of an 
amendment that would have reduced substantially our contribution to the 
International Development Association and the Global Environment 
Facility.
  The IDA, Mr. President, is the largest institution that we have to 
help the neediest countries like Rwanda. IDA is working steadily to 
enable the economies of these countries to grow and to give some 
opportunity to their people to earn a decent livelihood so they do not 
become refugees. It is IDA that is coordinating the international 
effort to eliminate the conditions that produced the Rwandan refugee 
crisis. And some of the same Senators who voted against IDA voted 
against the same thing to stop the Rwandan refugee crisis. They say 
this is of Biblical proportion, this is terrible, something must be 
done. I will say to those same Senators that they should have joined 
with those of us who voted to protect that money.
  I note, in looking around the Chamber, that every single Senator on 
the floor now voted to protect the money, knowing that it helps prevent 
crises. But I would like to see some of the Senators come up here and 
explain why they voted to cut the money.
  The Global Environment Facility is a brand new concept, but we know 
we are going to have to have enormous international cooperation if we 
are going to save our planet for our children and our 
grandchildren. And we have to help.

  Now, we can, as some suggest, abandon foreign aid as a continuing 
program--that might be a very popular thing to say back home--and we 
could confine our efforts to providing aid in emergencies, disasters 
like Rwanda that are so urgent and compelling that the logic of a 
response by the United States is inescapable.
  But the number of those disasters is increasing. We cannot mobilize 
airlifts of supplies to every one of them. So I favor another choice. 
Instead of abandoning all foreign aid until a crisis happens and trying 
to pick and choose among the crises, why not work hard to promote 
sustainable economic development? It is the most effective strategy for 
forestalling the floods of refugees that we have seen because we raise 
their living standards. There is an old adage that people with full 
stomachs rarely go on the warpath. If there are no wars, there is going 
to be a lot fewer refugees.
  So that is why I favor efforts to help people earn better livings and 
to live in a better environment. IDA, GEF, and USAID are dedicated to 
doing just that. The Foreign Operations appropriations bill as approved 
by the House-Senate conference last Friday contains provisions to 
support them.
  So I hope many of my colleagues who opposed these provisions when the 
bill was on the Senate floor, who said no to the Rwandas of this world, 
will change their mind because I would say, one, it makes good economic 
sense and security sense for us to prevent these crises from happening. 
But I would say one other thing, Mr. President. We are the wealthiest, 
most powerful Nation on the Earth. We have 5 percent of the population 
and own close to half the world's resources. I hope Senators realize we 
have a moral responsibility, a moral responsibility to help those who 
have so little. No one of us will ever live in the squalor and 
deprivation we have seen. No one of us ever go hungry except by choice.
  We ought to start asking ourselves, ask our consciences if it might 
make sense, as 38 Senators did, political sense back home, to stand up 
and vote against help for the poorest of the poor like those in Rwanda. 
While it might get a nice, rousing cheer at a town meeting back home, 
they ought to ask themselves what kind of a soul they have, ask is it 
really exercising their conscience when they have the opportunity to 
live in a country as powerful and wealthy as ours and with all the 
privileges they have.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask that the Senator's remarks be 
printed at the appropriate place in the Record, not to interfere with 
consideration of the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, at the present time, we have had a good 
discussion of Senator Danforth's amendment, and we are in the process 
of trying to see if there is some common ground in that particular 
amendment. We have had some conversations off the floor, and those 
conversations are continuing. We will be reporting back to the floor in 
a short period of time.
  We had planned to move, after the Danforth amendment--and he has 
indicated to us that we could temporarily set aside his amendment to go 
on to other amendments. We had hoped to be able to consider the 
amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire, to whom I had talked 
earlier in the day. He was prepared at the conclusion of the Danforth 
amendment to move ahead on an amendment--at least earlier in the day. 
The amendment focused on addressing or striking the new programs, the 
add-on programs, which had been included in the legislation.
  So, at this point, we want to indicate again to the membership, as we 
did last week, even though there are a number of amendments that have 
been listed as potentially to be offered, we are inviting the Members 
to indicate to Senator Jeffords and myself and to Senator Pell exactly 
which amendments they would like to move forward. We are here. Members 
have inconvenienced themselves by coming early today to be prepared to 
get about the work on this measure. We are inviting our colleagues 
that, if they do have amendments, to the floor and debate those 
amendments and dispose of them one way or another. We will try to work 
with them to accommodate their concerns.
  We have had a good debate on some of the very important issues which 
we knew the Senate would want to address. On the question of prayer in 
school, on the formula, and also on the voucher programs, we have had 
very good and lively debate and discussion. Those were the areas that 
had been of primary concern to most of the Members.
  Senator Danforth indicated to us at the end of last week about this 
amendment which he presented to the Members earlier today in what I 
think was a very thoughtful presentation. We have responded to that 
amendment, and it is being reviewed now as to whether there is the 
possibility of finding common ground. Maybe there is. Maybe there is 
not. We will report back soon.
  But we are here. We are ready to act. We again would invite our 
colleagues to be here. I know we will go on through the evening this 
evening, and I know Members will probably have additional plans at that 
time. So we would certainly urge, as the leaders have urged, that we 
address these issues during the course of the day so we do not 
inconvenience our colleagues this evening.
  I know it was the intention of the leader to try to see if it was 
possible to conclude this legislation today. We are ready to address 
those matters, but we urge our colleagues to come here and indicate to 
the staff, to Senator Jeffords, to myself, and to Senator Pell that 
they want to address certain matters.
  I am authorized by Senator Danforth to temporarily set aside his 
amendment so that the bill would be open to further amendment.
  Mr. GREGG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts needs to make a 
unanimous-consent request.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I ask unanimous consent that we temporarily set aside 
Senator Danforth's amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and 
it is ordered.
  Mr. GREGG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire is recognized.

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