[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 26 (Thursday, March 9, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S1381]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ACTS OF BRUTALITY

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, for the second time in one week, I come to 
the floor of the Senate to bring attention to an atrocious and 
despicable act of brutality against innocent men, women, and children.
  Just 8 days ago, the Government of Sudan bombed nine towns, hospitals 
and feeding centers in the areas of the vast country outside of their 
control. As I said a week ago, they did not hit key rebel facilities or 
strongholds. However, they did bomb the town of Lui and the only 
rudimentary hospital and a TB clinic for a hundred mile radius.
  They killed, maimed, and injured dozens of innocent and infirmed 
civilians.
  As I said last week, I know this ``target'' well. It is the very 
hospital where I served as a volunteer surgeon and medical missionary 
just two years ago.
  One of the worst aspects of the bombings is that the Government of 
Sudan knew exactly what these targets were. There was no mistaking it. 
Rebel forces had even caught government army agents attempting to mine 
the airstrip earlier in the year.
  Last Sunday, 4 days after the bombing, the old Soviet cargo planes, 
which have been converted into bombers, returned. They dropped no 
bombs, but inspected the damage of the earlier raid and, we suspect, 
continued selecting targets.
  On Tuesday morning, just past 10 a.m. local time, the bomber 
returned. It dropped 15 more bombs on the Samaritan's Purse hospital it 
targeted last week.
  The sad part of the story is that it is not surprising. For years the 
Government of Sudan has targeted the relief facilities of organizations 
it deems friendly toward the rebels. That is, those who operate 
exclusively in areas outside of government control or those who 
criticize the regime in Khartoum.
  In the town of Yei, the hospital has been bombed so many times, 
bombings of the facility no longer necessary even makes it to wire 
reports.
  On February 8 of this year, one of those routine bombings of civilian 
targets was especially horrific, when school children in the Nuba 
Mountains region--an isolated area especially devastated by government 
bombings and offensive--were killed as they took their lessons under a 
tree. At least a dozen students and two adults were killed by 
antipersonnel bombs pushed out the cargo doors of the converted cargo 
planes. These were schoolchildren. They were not rebels nor child 
soldiers, but children learning to read.
  In that case, we have good reason to believe that the strike was 
retribution for the local Roman Catholic Bishop, who has been charged 
with treason for coming to the United States in an effort to publicize 
the atrocities of his government against its own people. It was a 
school run by his church and a location that he was known to frequent.
  In general, the United States policy is pointed in the right 
direction with respect to Sudan: its primary focus is on ending the war 
through multilateral negotiations, and on aiding the areas of greatest 
food insecurity.
  But the United States policy is not without serious flaws, the 
greatest of which is failing to use our full diplomatic and economic 
weight to change the political environment where the Government of 
Sudan can repeatedly and intentionally bomb civilian targets, including 
schools and hospitals, and not face a single substantial objection from 
any member of the United Nations Security Council--nor any member of 
the United Nations.
  That includes the United States. We do not sufficiently use the 
international body to promote peace to even raise objections about the 
murder of innocent civilians.
  This failure of the international community to forcefully act or to 
raise even routine objections in international fora in an effort to 
stop the most brutal and devastating war since the Second World War is 
as inexplicable as it is tragic.
  It is also hypocritical when compared to any number of United Nations 
sponsored peace missions.
  Why is the United Nations so unwilling or unable to act? Because it 
lacks the necessary leadership among its members. It lacks the type 
public exposure to the truth of the horrors in Sudan to cause 
sufficient shame and embarrassment to change inaction into action.
  The United Nations and its members do not suffer from a lack of 
information about the war I have described as lurking on the edge of 
the world's conscience. The United Nations own Special Rapporteur for 
Sudan has submitted an extensive report detailing the atrocities and 
some common sense recommendations for the body to act upon. But nothing 
has happened.
  It is behind this veil of obscurity that some of our closest allies' 
inaction has somehow instead become the United States ``isolation'' on 
the issue. It is behind this veil of obscurity and sense of this being 
an esoteric American issue that inaction has hidden and thrived.
  That failure, that veil of obscurity, is the greatest tragedy of them 
all. The United Nations was formed to stop or prevent injustice such as 
what is happening in Sudan. But it has instead become a vehicle for 
obfuscation of responsibility. it has become the chosen forum for 
denial and the Sudanese government's charm offensive: a concerted and 
effective public relations effort which portrays them as simply 
``misunderstood'' and the victim of undeserved American vilification.
  The United Nations should be the forum to pull the war in Sudan from 
the edge of the world's consciousness, to the center of the world's 
attention. To fail to take every reasonable opportunity to use the 
United Nations to generate the necessary embarrassment and shame to 
drive our complicity and compel nations to act to end the war would be 
the greatest failure of our policy and a tragic loss of potential for 
good. It is our failure to fully use the United Nations as an effective 
instrument to end the war in Sudan which must become a major focus of 
the United States policy.
  If the United Nations is not used as a forum for resolution of a 
conflict like this, and if we are not willing to assert American 
leadership within that forum, the unavoidable question becomes what, 
then, is the purpose of United Nations and our membership therein?

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