[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 78 (Thursday, May 27, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6382-S6383]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   SENATE RESOLUTION 109--RELATING TO THE ACTIVITIES OF THE NATIONAL 
                   ISLAMIC FRONT GOVERNMENT IN SUDAN

  Mr. BROWNBACK (for himself, Mr. Frist, Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. 
Lautenberg, Mr. Mack, and Mr. Lieberman) submitted the following 
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations:

                              S. Res. 109

       Whereas according to the United States Committee for 
     Refugees (USCR), approximately 1,900,000 people have died in 
     Sudan over the past decade due to war and war-related causes 
     and famine, and millions more people in Sudan have been 
     displaced from their homes and separated from their families, 
     making this the deadliest war in the last decade in terms of 
     mortality rates;
       Whereas the war policy of the National Islamic Front 
     government in southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains has 
     brought untold suffering on innocent civilians and threatens 
     the very survival of a whole generation of southern Sudanese;
       Whereas the people of the Nuba Mountains are at particular 
     risk from this policy because they have been the specific 
     target of a deliberate prohibition on international food aid, 
     which has helped induce a man-made famine, and have been 
     subject to the routine bombing of their civilian centers, 
     including religious facilities, schools, and hospitals;
       Whereas the National Islamic Front government is 
     deliberately and systematically committing crimes against 
     humanity in southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains;
       Whereas the National Islamic Front government has 
     systematically and repeatedly obstructed the peace efforts of 
     the Inter-governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) in 
     Sudan over the past several years;
       Whereas the Declaration of Principles put forth by Inter-
     governmental Authority for Development mediators provides the 
     most fruitful negotiating framework for resolving problems in 
     Sudan and bringing lasting peace to Sudan;
       Whereas humanitarian conditions in southern Sudan, 
     especially in Bahr al-Ghazal, deteriorated in 1998 largely 
     because of the decision of the National Islamic Front 
     government to ban United Nations relief flights in those 
     areas from February through April 1998;
       Whereas the National Islamic Front government continues to 
     deny access by United Nations relief flights to certain 
     locations in Sudan, including a blanket prohibition on 
     flights to the Nuba Mountains, resulting in deterioration of 
     humanitarian conditions;
       Whereas approximately 2,600,000 Sudanese were at risk of 
     starvation in Sudan in late 1998, and the World Food Program 
     currently estimates that 4,000,000 people are in need of 
     emergency assistance in that area;
       Whereas the relief effort in Sudan coordinated by the 
     United Nations, Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), failed to 
     respond in a timely fashion to the humanitarian crisis in 
     Sudan at the height of that crisis in 1998 and has allowed 
     the National Islamic Front government to manipulate and 
     obstruct relief efforts in Sudan;
       Whereas relief efforts in Sudan are further complicated by 
     repeated airborne attacks by the National Islamic Front 
     government on feeding centers, clinics, and other civilian 
     targets in certain areas of Sudan;
       Whereas such relief efforts are further complicated by the 
     looting and killing of innocent civilians by militias 
     sponsored by the National Islamic Front government;
       Whereas these militias have carried out violent raids in 
     Aweil East and West, Twic, and Gogrial counties in the Bahr 
     al-Ghazal/Lakes Region, killing and displacing thousands of 
     civilians, which reflects a deliberate ethic cleansing policy 
     in these counties and in the Nuba Mountains;
       Whereas the National Islamic Front government has 
     perpetrated a prolonged campaign of human rights abuses and 
     discrimination throughout Sudan;
       Whereas the militias associated with the National Islamic 
     Front government have engaged in the enslavement of innocent 
     civilians, including children, women, and elderly;
       Whereas slave raids are commonly undertaken by the militias 
     of the Popular Defense Force of the National Islamic Front as 
     part of a self-declared jihad, or holy war, against the 
     predominately Christian and traditional believers of southern 
     Sudan;
       Whereas the Department of State in its report on Human 
     Rights Practices for 1997 affirmed with respect to Sudan that 
     ``reports and information from a variety of sources after 
     February 1994 indicate that the number of cases of slavery, 
     servitude, slave trade, and forced labor have increased 
     alarmingly'';
       Whereas the Department of State in its report on Human 
     Rights Practices for 1998 states with respect to Sudan that 
     ``[c]redible reports persist of practices such as the sale 
     and purchase of children, some in alleged slave markets'';
       Whereas the enslavement of people is considered a crime 
     against humanity under international law;
       Whereas it is estimated that tens of thousands of Sudanese 
     have been enslaved by militias sponsored by the National 
     Islamic Front government;
       Whereas the former United Nations Special Rapporteur for 
     Sudan, Gaspar Biro, and the present Special Rapporteur, 
     Leonardo Franco, have reported on a number of occasions the 
     routine practice of slavery in Sudan and the complicity of 
     the National Islamic Front government in that practice;
       Whereas the National Islamic Front government abuses and 
     tortures political opponents and innocent civilians in 
     northern Sudan, and many people in northern Sudan have been 
     killed by that government over the years;
       Whereas the vast majority of Muslims in Sudan do not 
     prescribe to policies of National Islamic Front extremists, 
     including the politicized practice of Islam, and moderate 
     Muslims in Sudan have been specifically targeted by the 
     National Islamic Front government;
       Whereas the National Islamic Front government is considered 
     by much of the world community as a rogue state because of 
     its support for international terrorism and its campaign of 
     terrorism against its own people;
       Whereas according to the Department of State's Patterns of 
     Global Terrorism Report, ``Sudan's support to terrorist 
     organizations has included paramilitary training, 
     indoctrination, money, travel documentation, safe passage, 
     and refuge in Sudan'';
       Whereas the National Islamic Front government has been 
     implicated in the assassination attempt of Egyptian President 
     Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia in 1995 and the World Trade Center 
     bombing in New York City in 1993;
       Whereas the National Islamic Front government has permitted 
     Sudan to be used by well known terrorist organizations as a 
     refuge and training center;
       Whereas Osama bin-Laden, the Saudi-born financier of 
     extremist groups and mastermind of the bombings of the United 
     States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, 
     Tanzania, used Sudan as a base of operations for several 
     years and continues to maintain economic interests there;

[[Page S6383]]

       Whereas on August 20, 1998, United States naval forces 
     struck a suspected chemical weapons facility in Khartoum, the 
     capital of Sudan, in retaliation for those bombings;
       Whereas relations between the United States and Sudan 
     continue to deteriorate because of human rights violations, 
     the war policy of the National Islamic Front government in 
     southern Sudan, and that government's support for 
     international terrorism;
       Whereas in 1993 the United States Government placed Sudan 
     on the list of seven states in the world that sponsor 
     terrorism and imposed comprehensive sanctions on the National 
     Islamic Front government in November 1997; and
       Whereas the struggle by the people of Sudan, and opposition 
     forces to the National Islamic Front government, is a just 
     struggle for freedom and democracy against that government: 
     Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) strongly condemns the National Islamic Front government 
     in Sudan for its support for terrorism and its continued 
     human rights violations;
       (2) strongly deplores the slave raids in southern Sudan and 
     calls on the National Islamic Front government to end 
     immediately the practice of slavery in Sudan;
       (3) calls on the United Nations Security Council--
       (A) to condemn such slave raids and bring to justice those 
     responsible for the crimes against humanity which such slave 
     raids entail;
       (B) to implement the existing air embargo, and impose an 
     arms embargo, on the National Islamic Front government;
       (C) to swiftly implement reforms of Operation Lifeline 
     Sudan in order to enhance the independence of that operation 
     from the National Islamic Front government; and
       (D) to determine whether or not the war policy of the 
     National Islamic Front government in southern Sudan and the 
     Nuba Mountains constitutes genocide; and
       (E) to implement the recommendations of the United Nations 
     Special Rapporteur for Sudan, Leonardo Franco, who has called 
     for the posting of human rights monitors throughout Sudan; 
     and
       (4) calls on the President to take leadership on policies--
       (A) to increase support for relief organizations working 
     outside the umbrella of Operation Lifeline Sudan, including, 
     in particular, the dedication of programs to and an increase 
     in resources of organizations serving the Nuba Mountains;
       (B) to instruct the Agency for International Development 
     (AID) and other appropriate agencies to--
       (i) provide additional support to and coordinate activities 
     with nongovernmental organizations involved in relief work in 
     Sudan that work outside the umbrella of organizations 
     supported by Operation Lifeline Sudan, including the Nuba 
     Mountains; and
       (ii) enhance the independence of Operation Lifeline Sudan 
     from the National Islamic Front government, including by 
     removing that government's power of automatic veto over its 
     operation;
       (C) to double the funds that are made available through the 
     so-called STAR Program for the promotion of the rule of law 
     to advance democracy, civil administration, and the 
     judiciary, and the enhancement of infrastructure, in areas in 
     Sudan that are controlled by the opposition to the National 
     Islamic Front government;
       (D) to instruct the Agency for International Development to 
     provide humanitarian assistance, including food, directly to 
     indigenous service groups in southern Sudan and the Nuba 
     Mountains;
       (E) to intensify and expand United States diplomatic and 
     economic pressure on the National Islamic Front government in 
     conjunction with and urging other countries to impose 
     sanctions regimes on that government that are similar to 
     sanction regime imposed on that government by the United 
     States;
       (F) to continue to enhance the peace process in Sudan 
     supported by the Inter-governmental Authority for 
     Development; and
       (G) to report to Congress not later than three months after 
     the adoption of this resolution regarding the efforts or 
     plans of the President to promote the end of slavery in 
     Sudan.

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