[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 62 (Thursday, May 6, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4945-S4946]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SUDAN DARFUR CRISIS

  Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on an issue that 
too easily comes off our agenda in America and around the globe. We 
accepted S. Con. Res. 99 which condemns the Government of the Republic 
of Sudan for its participation and complicity in the attacks against 
innocent civilians in the impoverished Darfur region of western Sudan. 
I think it is not enough just for us to be condemning in this 
situation. It has all of the makings of turning into a humanitarian 
crisis that rivals or at least approaches the kinds of problems we saw 
in Rwanda.
  While we will take a stand in recognizing it as a problem, I think it 
is absolutely essential that we maintain attention and focus when there 
are so many events in the world that draw us away.
  The United Nations, international humanitarian and human rights 
organizations, as well as our own Government, agree that the campaign 
by the extremist, theocratic Sudanese Government and their militia 
allies against Muslim civilians of African ethnicity in Darfur, western 
Sudan, over the last 14 months has driven over 1 million civilians from 
their home. We have the risk of another tragic genocidal action in 
place.
  The 1 million Muslim civilians displaced within Darfur, Sudanese 
citizens victimized by their own Government, cling to life as 
displaced, homeless persons living in the open or in pathetic and 
inadequate camps, in constant fear of further attacks and depredation.
  Their physical condition is severely weakened, food supplies are 
exhausted, and the international community so far has been unable to 
get critically needed food assistance into the interior, due to 
deliberate interference and

[[Page S4946]]

obstruction by the Khartoum government. These individuals, these Muslim 
civilians, are fleeing systematic attacks by their own Government, 
Sudanese armed forces, and their militia allies, the ``janjaweed.''
  The horrors which civilian families in Darfur are fleeing include the 
cold-blooded murder of unarmed civilians; pillage and burning of 
villages; organized, systematic rapes of women--wives, daughters, 
sisters; rape used as a deliberate weapon of terror and political 
control; and the deliberate destruction of farms, the irrigation 
systems, and food stockpiles on which this already impoverished region 
depends; in other words, deliberately manufactured starvation that will 
lead to the kind of real potential for genocide that we have seen in 
other places on the African Continent. We must stay alert. We must keep 
the focus of public opinion on this issue.
  Last is a key point. Even though from 10,000 to as many as 30,000 
civilians have died so far in Darfur since February, 2003, the final 
death numbers for 2004 and 2005 may prove far higher because of the 
actions that are being taken and the lack of ability for the 
international community to actually participate and provide assistance 
for the unbelievable inhumane conditions.
  This is all in the context of a very difficult environment--
underdeveloped, impassable roads, huge swings in the nature of the 
weather. It is an incredibly complex and debilitating human situation 
which needs to be brought to attention. While genocide may not yet have 
occurred in Darfur, the elements are in place. The possibility of such 
horrors should not be far from our minds. That is why I speak out about 
it on the Senate floor, and I will do it over and over. This needs to 
be made into something about which we have a positive sense of 
responsibility, both here in the United States and in the international 
community.
  U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan has compared the genocide in Rwanda 10 
years ago to events that are now unfolding. It will not be enough to go 
back and look, after the fact, to this kind of inhumanity to man.
  We will have, later this year and next, an occasion to vow yet again, 
in the wake of another deliberately inflicted mass murder and disaster, 
to say: Never again. But we can do that now as opposed to after the 
fact. I hope all of us in this body, those of us who are part of the 
Foreign Relations Committee and are very focused on these issues, will 
make sure it stays a priority, although that is very hard in the 
complex world we have. So I hope by speaking out today and as we go 
forward that this Darfur situation will not fall off the radar screen.
  This is a real risk of genocide evolving. I think it absolutely 
essential that our Government stand up, stand tall, be outspoken, make 
sure we are not tolerant of the developments that are so readily 
reported in that part of the world. It is important that we recognize 
it and keep it in the limelight so world public opinion can stop this 
kind of action before it happens.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

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