[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 43 (Wednesday, March 28, 2001)]
[House]
[Page H1274]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  CALLING FOR CONGRESSIONAL ACTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN SUDAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I have just come from a subcommittee hearing 
of a subcommittee of the Committee on International Relations, on which 
I do not serve, but the Chair and the ranking member were kind enough 
to afford me the courtesy of sitting at a hearing today on Sudan.
  I come to the floor today as part of the effort of an increasing 
number of Members to draw to the attention not only of the House, but 
of the country the need to step forward on slavery, genocidal war, 
bombing of humanitarian workers, and forced conversions of Christians 
and animists to Islam, the worst litany of human rights violations in 
the world today.
  The world is full of human rights violations. We have spoken up on 
many of these violations, and done much on many of them. We have not 
been able to get hold of this atrocious situation, although this House 
and the Senate have almost unanimously condemned these violations in 
Sudan.
  The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), the ranking member of the 
subcommittee, and I had a 1-hour special order last year. No Members 
joined us then, but just this week the multilateral, the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Armey), and a bipartisan group of Members held a press 
conference on Sudan indicating that this House, Members from both 
aisles, indeed, are not going to sit still for the outrage in Sudan 
without moving forward.
  We have a new Caucus on Sudan chaired by the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Payne) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), 
perfectly bipartisan in nature. Soon another resolution from the House 
condemning the violations in Sudan will come forward.
  Thus far the most dramatic response has been that schoolchildren have 
bought other children and women out of slavery in Sudan. As important 
as that is for drawing attention to the atrocities in Sudan, it is 
hardly a grown-up response to what is happening in southern Sudan.
  At the hearing today and among all of those concerned, we hear a 
plethora of responses. It is important to settle in on some immediate 
as well as long-term responses.
  Everyone knows that related to the long-term responses to stop the 
war in Sudan, what leads to the slavery, what leads to the genocidal 
bombings, is the search for oil by Khartoum, bombing its own people in 
the south to depopulate it so it could get to that oil without sharing 
it with the entire country.
  But in the meantime, there are a number of things we can do. Surely 
we need to bypass the Khartoum Government and use religious 
organizations and nongovernmental organizations in order to get food 
aid and medical and other assistance to the people of southern Sudan.
  Surely we now in this country ought to be leading the United Nations 
toward a condemnation of the war of the north against the south. There 
are some who want a no-fly zone, although I do understand that the 
problem there is that it could engage us in hostilities with Khartoum.
  We may not be there yet, and perhaps we should not get there, but we 
cannot sit still for what is going on in Sudan.
  Recently I signed on to a letter circulated by the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Wolf) for a special envoy so we could begin to restart 
diplomatic relations. President Clinton had a high-level special envoy. 
President Bush says he is not partial to special envoys. Yet if this is 
a way to try to break into this outrageous situation, then so be it.
  What we must do this session is move beyond what we did last session: 
a special order by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) and I on 
the floor, a resolution by the House and Senate condemning the 
bombings. This is a very complicated situation, and we cannot stop the 
war of the north against the south in Sudan. We cannot eliminate 
slavery through some emancipation proclamation from the United States. 
We cannot go and buy children and women out of slavery. We cannot stop 
the worst conversions.
  But we are the strongest power in the world. We have got to find a 
way to use that power to stop the war in Sudan, or at least to get a 
cease-fire so we can begin to pull the sides apart and help restart 
that country toward a democracy.

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