[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 106 (Friday, July 31, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9666-S9668]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            EMERGENCY FAMINE RELIEF FOR THE PEOPLE OF SUDAN

  Mr. GORTON. I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the 
immediate consideration of S. Res. 267 submitted earlier by Senator 
Frist.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (S. Res. 267) expressing the sense of the 
     Senate that the President, acting through the United States 
     Agency for International Development, should more effectively 
     secure emergency famine relief for the people of Sudan, and 
     for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the immediate 
consideration of the resolution?
  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the 
resolution.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I rise to speak on behalf of a Sense of the 
Senate which, with the help of Senators Feingold, DeWine, Ashcroft, and 
Grams, I have brought before this body in an effort to more clearly 
define the role of the United States Agency for International 
Development in the ongoing multinational effort to address the needs of 
the people of southern Sudan. At least 1.2 million Sudanese are 
hovering on the brink of starvation, with an additional 1.4 million 
being targeted by the World Food Program in an effort to stave off the 
famine conditions which may soon threaten them.
  This Sense of the Senate we offer both urges the President to go 
forward with a more aggressive approach to our contribution to that 
effort, and it gives him explicit Senate backing for the efforts which 
the Administration is already undertaking to that end. The underlying 
premise of the legislation is simple: the United States' role in that 
relief effort and in other, proactive self-sufficiency programs has 
general recognized the constraints placed upon the members of Operation 
Lifeline Sudan--the United Nations' agreement with the government of 
Sudan in Khartoum, where the regime holds veto authority over the 
member's specific deliveries of humanitarian relief. This flawed 
arrangement has allowed Khartoum to use that very humanitarian relief 
as a weapon in their war on the South, and with devastating effect. 
Indeed, the current famine conditions now threatening the lives of over 
2 million Sudanese is largely created by the massive disruptions to the 
fragile agrarian and pastoralist populations in the South these acts of 
war represent. While the United States should continue to provide 
relief through the established channels of Operation Lifeline Sudan, it 
must also seek to use other distribution channels to reach populations 
to which Khartoum has routinely and with devastating calculation denied 
relief agencies access. Additionally, the United States must also begin 
to plan how we can help in preventing future threats of famine.
  To realize these goals and directives, the Sense of the Senate 
recommends that the President take three specific actions. First, 
through the Agency for International Development, he should begin to 
more aggressively utilize relief agencies which distribute famine 
relief outside the umbrella of Operation Lifeline Sudan, thus 
unimpaired by the restrictions of Khartoum. Second, the Agency for 
International Development should begin to incorporate areas of southern 
Sudan which are outside of Khartoum's control into its overall strategy 
for sub-Saharan Africa in an effort to prevent future famine conditions 
and assist in helping the region realize a greater level of self-
sufficiency--both in food production and in rule of law. Finally, the 
President is urged to use the current tentative cease-fire in Sudan, 
and international attention the famine has created, to push for the 
United Nations and the State Department to revamp the terms under which 
Operation Lifeline Sudan operates. It is especially important to 
guarantee that food cannot be used as a weapon and thus end Khartoum's 
veto authority over shipments of humanitarian relief in southern Sudan.
  Mr. President, I am grateful for the support this critical piece of 
legislation has received on both sides of the aisle, and I am 
especially thankful for the effort and support of the Senators who have 
cosponsored this Sense of the Senate. It is important that the 
Administration and the Congress work together to ensure that the United 
States relief effort is the most effective it can possibly be.

[[Page S9667]]

  Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that an op-ed I wrote for 
The Washington Post's July 19, 1998 edition be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, July 19, 1998]

                Sudan's Merciless War on Its Own People

                        (By Senator Bill Frist)

       When the United Nations World Food Program announced last 
     week that up to 2.6 million people in Southern Sudan are in 
     imminent danger of starvation, the news was received with 
     surprising nonchalance. Such news is becoming almost routine 
     from misery-plagues East Africa, but what is unfolding in 
     southern Sudan is at least the fourth widespread, large-scale 
     humanitarian disaster in the region in the past 15 years.
       In all cases, the United States' record is not one of 
     success. Ethiopia in 1984, a disastrous military involvement 
     in Somalia in 1993 and shameful neglect in Rwanda in 1994 
     have left the public bitter toward the prospect of yet more 
     involvement. But again, as famine hovers over the region, we 
     face a disconcertingly similar quandary on the nature of our 
     response.
       In January I worked in southern Sudan as a medical 
     missionary, and I have seen firsthand the terrible effects of 
     the continuing civil war and how that war came to help create 
     this situation. As a United States senator, however, I fear 
     that by failing to make necessary changes in our response, 
     American policy toward Sudan may be a contributing factor in 
     the horrendous prospect of widespread starvation.
       The radical Islamic regime in Khartoum is unmatched in its 
     barbarity toward the sub-Saharan or ``black African'' 
     Christians of the country's South. It is largely responsible 
     for creating this impending disaster through a concerted and 
     sustained war on its own people, in which calculated 
     starvation, bombing of hospitals, slavery and the killing of 
     innocent women and children are standard procedure.
       Our policy toward Khartoum looks tough on paper, but it has 
     yet to pose a serious challenge to the Islamic dictatorship. 
     Neither has our wavering and inconsistent commitment to 
     sanctions affected its behavior or its ability to finance the 
     war.
       Khartoum is set to gain billions of dollars in oil revenues 
     from fields it is preparing to exploit in areas of rebel 
     activity. The U.S. sanctions prohibit any American 
     investment, but recent evidence indicates that enforcement is 
     lax. Additionally, relief groups operating there report that 
     new weapons are flowing in as part of a deal with one of he 
     partners--a government-owned petroleum company in China.
       It is our policy toward southern Sudan that is of more 
     immediate importance to the potential humanitarian disaster. 
     From my own experience operating in areas where U.S. 
     government relief is rarely distributed, I fear that both 
     unilaterally and as a member of the United Nations, the 
     United States unnecessarily restricts our own policy in odd 
     deference to the regime in Khartoum.
       In southern Sudan our humanitarian relief contributions to 
     the starving are largely funneled through nongovernmental 
     relief organizations that participate in Operation Lifeline 
     Sudan. All of our contributions to the United Nations efforts 
     are distributed through this flawed deal.
       In this political arrangement the Khartoum regime has veto 
     power over all decisions as to where food can be sent. That 
     which is needed in the areas outside their control is often 
     used as an instrument of war, with Khartoum routinely denying 
     permission for a flight to land in an area of rebel activity, 
     especially during times when international attention lacks 
     its current focus. This practice starves combatants and 
     noncombatants alike and compromises the integrity and 
     effectiveness of relief groups desperately trying to fend off 
     famine.
       Despite associated risks, some relief groups operate 
     successfully outside the arrangement's umbrella, getting food 
     and medicine to areas that the regime in Khartoum would 
     rather see starve. Out of concern that the Khartoum regime 
     would be provoked into prohibiting all relief deliveries 
     under the scheme, the U.S. Agency for International 
     Development and its Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance do 
     not regularly funnel famine relief through outside 
     organizations, and thus our relief supplies are only 
     selectively distributed--a decision that unnecessarily abets 
     Khartoum's agenda.
       The U.S. policy in Sudan does not seek an immediate rebel 
     victory and the fragmenting of Sudan that could follow. 
     Because the splintered rebel groups could not provide a 
     functioning government or civil society at this time, that 
     policy cannot be thrown out wholesale. Yet our failure to 
     separate this policy from the action necessary to save these 
     people from starvation results in absurdity.
       Thus, even while generously increasing the amount of aid, 
     for political reasons we seek the permission of the ``host 
     government'' in Khartoum to distribute it and feed the very 
     people they are attempting to kill through starvation and 
     war. A second reason for this posture is, presumably, a fear 
     that even modest, calculated food aid would allow the rebels 
     to mobilize instead of foraging for their families--a factor 
     that could turn the outcome on the battlefield in their 
     favor.
       The prospect of widespread starvation in southern Sudan 
     does not necessitate that the United States seek a quick 
     solution on the battlefield. Military victory and an end to 
     hostilities are not a substitute for food. However, the 
     administration should make an immediate and necessary 
     distinction between the policy principle and the humanitarian 
     challenge. It should articulate a response without political 
     limitations, which, frankly, are trivial in comparison to the 
     human lives at stake, and it should press the United Nations 
     to do the same.
       We can no longer afford to dance around the issues of 
     sovereignty and political principles while restraining our 
     response to a looming disaster that Khartoum helped create. 
     Such academic debates and diplomatic concerns are for the 
     well fed, but offer no solace to the starving.

  Mr. GORTON. I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, 
the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the 
table, and any statements relating to the resolution appear in the 
Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The resolution (S. Res. 267) was agreed to.
  The preamble was agreed to.
  The resolution, with its preamble, reads as follows:

                              S. Res. 267

       Whereas the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum, 
     Sudan, continues to wage a brutal war against its own people 
     in southern Sudan;
       Whereas that war has already caused the death of more than 
     1,500,000 Sudanese since 1983;
       Whereas famine conditions now threaten areas of southern 
     Sudan as a direct consequence of the concerted and sustained 
     effort by the regime in Khartoum to subdue its southern 
     regions by force and including violations of basic human 
     rights;
       Whereas famine conditions are exacerbated by diversions of 
     humanitarian assistance by armed parties on all sides of the 
     conflict;
       Whereas the United Nations World Food Program has now 
     targeted 2,600,000 Sudanese for famine relief aid, to be 
     distributed through an umbrella arrangement called 
     ``Operation Lifeline Sudan'';
       Whereas the regime in Khartoum retains the ability to deny 
     the relief agencies operating in Operation Lifeline Sudan the 
     clearance to distribute food according to needs in Sudan;
       Whereas the regime in Khartoum has used humanitarian 
     assistance as a weapon by routinely denying the requests by 
     Operation Lifeline Sudan and its members to distribute food 
     and other crucial items in needy areas of Sudan both within 
     the Khartoum regime's control and areas outside the Khartoum 
     regime's control, including the Nuba Mountains;
       Whereas the United States Agency for International 
     Development provides famine relief to the people of Sudan 
     primarily through groups operating within Operation Lifeline 
     Sudan and, thus, subjects that relief to the arrangement's 
     associated constraints imposed by the regime in Khartoum;
       Whereas several relief groups already operate successfully 
     in areas of southern Sudan where Operation Lifeline Sudan has 
     been denied access in the past, thus providing crucial 
     assistance to the distressed population;
       Whereas it is in the interest of the people of Sudan and 
     the people of the United States, to take proactive and 
     preventative measures to avoid any future famine conditions 
     in southern Sudan;
       Whereas the United States Agency for International 
     Development, when it pursues assistance programs most 
     effectively, encourages economic self-sufficiency;
       Whereas assistance activities should serve as integral 
     elements in preventing famine conditions in southern Sudan in 
     the future;
       Whereas the current international and media attention to 
     the starving populations in southern Sudan and to the causes 
     of the famine conditions that affect them have pushed the 
     regime in Khartoum and the rebel forces to announce a 
     tentative but temporary cease-fire to allow famine relief aid 
     to be more widely distributed; and
       Whereas the current level of attention weakens the resolve 
     of the regime in Khartoum to manipulate famine relief for its 
     own agenda: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--
       (1) the President, acting through the United States Agency 
     for International Development, should--
       (A) aggressively seek to secure emergency famine relief for 
     the people of Sudan who now face widespread starvation;
       (B) immediately take appropriate steps to distribute that 
     famine relief to affected areas in Sudan, including the use 
     of relief groups operating outside the umbrella of Operation 
     Lifeline Sudan and without regard to a group's status with 
     respect to Operation Lifeline Sudan; and
       (C) encourage and assist Operation Lifeline Sudan and the 
     ongoing efforts to develop relief distribution networks for 
     affected areas of Sudan outside of the umbrella and 
     associated constraints of Operation Lifeline Sudan;
       (2) both bilaterally and within the United Nations, the 
     President should aggressively seek to change the terms by 
     which Operation Lifeline Sudan and other groups are 
     prohibited from providing necessary relief according to the 
     true needs of the people of Sudan;

[[Page S9668]]

       (3) the President, acting through the United States Agency 
     for International Development, should--
       (A) begin providing development assistance in areas of 
     Sudan not controlled by the regime in Khartoum with the goal 
     of building self-sufficiency and avoiding the same conditions 
     which have created the current crisis, and with the goal of 
     longer-term economic, civil, and democratic development, 
     including the development of rule of law, within the overall 
     framework of United States strategy throughout sub-Saharan 
     Africa; and
       (B) undertake such efforts without regard to the 
     constraints that now compromise the ability of Operation 
     Lifeline Sudan to distribute famine relief or that could 
     constrain future multilateral relief arrangements;
       (4) the Administrator of the United States Agency for 
     International Development should submit a report to the 
     appropriate congressional committees on the Agency's progress 
     toward meeting these goals; and
       (5) the policy expressed in this resolution should be 
     implemented without a return to the status quo ante policy 
     after the immediate famine conditions are addressed and 
     international attention has decreased.
       Sec. 2. The Secretary of the Senate shall transmit a copy 
     of this resolution to the President and the Administrator of 
     the United States Agency for International Development.

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