[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 90 (Friday, June 25, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1254-E1256]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            DEATH IN DARFUR

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 24, 2004

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record three 
new articles regarding the continuing crisis in Darfur, Sudan. I will 
continue to submit articles exposing the crimes occurring against the 
people of Darfur. I will not stop until the world takes notice and the 
unnecessary death of innocent civilians ends.

                [From the New York Times, June 23, 2004]

                     Magboula's Brush With Genocide

                        (By Nicholas D. Kristof)

       Along the Sudan-Chad Border--Meet Magboula Muhammad Khattar 
     and her baby, Nada. I wrote about Ms. Khattar in my last two 
     columns, recounting how the Janjaweed Arab militia burned her 
     village, murdered her parents and finally tracked her family 
     down in the mountains. Ms. Khattar hid, but the Janjaweed 
     caught her husband and his brothers, only 4, 6 and 8 years 
     old, and killed them all.
       Ms. Khattar decided that the only hope for saving her two 
     daughters and her baby sister was to lead them by night to 
     Chad. They had to avoid wells where the Janjaweed kept watch, 
     but eight days later, half-dead with hunger and thirst, they 
     staggered across the dry riverbed that marks the border with 
     Chad.
       That's where I found Ms. Khattar. She is part of a wave of 
     1.2 million people left homeless by the genocide in Darfur.
       Among those I met was Haiga Ibrahim, a 16-year-old girl who 
     said her father and three older brothers had been killed by 
     the Janjaweed. So Haiga led her crippled mother and younger 
     brothers and sisters to Chad. But the place they reached 
     along the border, Bamina, was too remote to get help from 
     overtaxed aid agencies.
       So when I found her, Haiga was leading her brothers and 
     sisters 30 miles across the desert to the town of Bahai. ``My 
     mother can't walk any more,'' she said wearily. ``First I'm 
     taking my brother and sisters, and then I hope to go back and 
     bring my mother.''
       There is no childhood here. I saw a 4-year-old orphan girl, 
     Nijah Ahmed, carrying her

[[Page E1255]]

     13-month-old brother, Nibraz, on her back. Their parents and 
     15-year-old brother are missing in Sudan and presumed dead.
       As for Ms. Khattar, she is camping beneath a tree, sharing 
     the shade with three other women also widowed by the 
     Janjaweed. In some ways Ms. Khattar is lucky; her children 
     all survived. Moreover, in some Sudanese tribes, widows must 
     endure having their vaginas sewn shut to preserve their 
     honor, but that is not true of her Zaghawa tribe.
       Ms. Khattar's children have nightmares, their screams at 
     night mixing with the yelps of jackals, and she worries that 
     she will lose them to hunger or disease. But her plight pales 
     beside that of Hatum Atraman Bashir, a 35-year-old woman who 
     is pregnant with the baby of one of the 20 Janjaweed raiders 
     who murdered her husband and then gang-raped her.
       Ms. Bashir said that when the Janjaweed attacked her 
     village, Kornei, she fled with her seven children. But when 
     she and a few other mothers crept out to find food, the 
     Janjaweed captured them and tied them on the ground, spread-
     eagled, then gang-raped them.
       ``They said, `You are black women, and you are our slaves,' 
     and they also said other bad things that I cannot repeat,'' 
     she said, crying softly. ``One of the women cried, and they 
     killed her. Then they told me, `If you cry, we will kill you, 
     too.''' Other women from Kornei confirm her story and say 
     that another woman who was gang-raped at that time had her 
     ears partly cut off as an added humiliation.
       One moment Ms. Bashir reviles the baby inside her. The next 
     moment, she tearfully changes her mind. ``I will not kill the 
     baby,'' she said. ``I will love it. This baby has no problem, 
     except for his father.''
       Ms. Khattar, the orphans, Ms. Bashir and countless more 
     like them have gone through hell in the last few months, as 
     we have all turned our backs--and the rainy season is 
     starting to make their lives even more miserable. In my next 
     column, I'll suggest what we can do to save them. For readers 
     eager to act now, some options are at www.nytimes.com/
 kristofresponds, Posting 479.

                          [From the BBC News]

                      From the Grim Times in Sudan

                          (By Tamsin Walters)

       Food and water are scarce, women have been gang-raped, 
     disease is rife. In the Darfur conflict, even an experienced 
     aid worker can be taken aback by the hardships suffered--but 
     will the rest of the world hear Sudan's pleas for help?
       Driving along the deserted, pot-holed roads towards 
     southern Darfur, the unfolding scenes of devastation are 
     marked by burnt-out village after burnt-out village. Mud 
     walls are torn down or smashed, and straw roofs no longer 
     exist. Discarded sandals litter the area, illustrating the 
     speed with which the people have fled.
       This rapid flight has left hundreds of thousands of people 
     with nothing. No clothes, no sleeping mats to lay over the 
     bare earth, no cooking utensils. Any personal belongings are 
     likely to be among the charred remains left behind in the 
     villages. And attacks by the Janjaweed, the Arab militia 
     blamed for perpetrating atrocities against African farmers, 
     continue. Rather than a sense of security in the towns and 
     camps to which the refugees have fled, the mood of fear is 
     oppressive.
       The only people seen on the road are Janjaweed groups laden 
     down with the animals they have looted and the goods they 
     have taken. They wave happily as we drive by.
       Sex crimes. Security is the major problem facing the people 
     of Darfur. I've spoken to women who have been repeatedly 
     raped, and heard of girls as young as 11 who've been 
     abducted. The women are effectively trapped, unable to 
     venture outside the towns and camps to search for firewood 
     and grass--items essential to their survival, either to sell 
     in exchange for food or for their own use. As an aid worker 
     specializing in health and nutrition, with experience in 
     emergencies around the world, I came to Sudan prepared for a 
     grim situation. But Darfur is by far one of the worst 
     humanitarian crises I've witnessed. The aid agency's pleas 
     haven't fallen on deaf ears, as more than K300,000 has 
     already been donated. But Martha Clarke, the head of media 
     for Cafod, says the press in the UK is very focused on 
     domestic matters and admits there's a ``kind of fatigue'' 
     when it comes to reporting on the crisis. ``It's a shame that 
     there needs to be conflict to bring it to the media's 
     attention,'' she says.
       Cafod and other agencies are doing what we can to alleviate 
     people's suffering, concentrating on providing shelter, food, 
     water and sanitation to the hundreds of thousands of people 
     made homeless. But time is running out in which to reach 
     them--our aim is to beat the rains which come in early July, 
     and cut off many parts of this devastated region.
       Rainy season. These rains have to be seen to be believed. A 
     thunderstorm broke while I was there. Tucked inside a local 
     office, at least I had cement walls and a roof. Thousands of 
     others crouched together under shelters hastily built from 
     narrow poles covered in grain. The torrential rain soon 
     flattened many.
       When the rains arrive, those without shelter face the new 
     threat of acute respiratory infections and malaria. Without 
     food, they will not have the strength to fight disease that 
     stems from unclean water and lack of sanitation. Because of 
     the severe water shortages, people queue for up to 10 hours 
     at the few pumps--and this leaves them vulnerable to further 
     attack. There is barely enough water to drink, let alone 
     wash. And with few latrines and cramped conditions in the 
     towns and camps, the health risks are enormous.
       Already many children have died from a measles epidemic, 
     which is now under control. But the children are traumatized, 
     and food shortages and disease have left the very young with 
     severe malnutrition.
       The towns of the south are among the last places to be 
     reached by aid organizations. So the people themselves do 
     much of the work. Local communities have taken the displaced 
     into their own homes, or helped them build shelters, as well 
     as offering cooking utensils.
       With whole villages being emptied in one fell swoop 
     following Janjaweed attacks, the displaced often include 
     teachers and health workers, who are working hard for their 
     communities. And our role is to help provide the tools they 
     need to survive.

                [From the New York Times, June 23, 2004]

                Newsview: Sudan May Be Next for Genocide

                       (By The Associated Press)

       Washington (AP).--Genocide has struck many victims over the 
     past 65 years: European Jews during World War II, Cambodians 
     in the late 1970s, Rwandans in 1994. There may be a new 
     addition: The black African tribes of Darfur province in 
     western Sudan have faced murder, displacement, pillage, 
     razing of villages and other crimes committed by Arab 
     militias known as janjaweed.
       The dictionary defines genocide as ``the systematic killing 
     of a racial or cultural group.'' The U.S. government is 
     reviewing whether Darfur qualifies for the designation.
       ``The janjaweed are the government's militia, and Khartoum 
     has armed and empowered it to conduct `ethnic cleansing' in 
     Darfur,'' says Human Rights Watch. The Brussels-based 
     International Crisis Group says Darfur can ``easily become as 
     deadly'' as the Rwanda genocide of 1994. Then, soldiers, 
     militiamen and civilians of the Hutu majority killed more 
     than 500,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus 
     in 100 days. All along, Sudan has denied allegations of 
     complicity with the Arab militias and has blamed rebels for 
     rights violations.
       In February 2003, the Zaghawa, Fur and Masalit black tribes 
     rebelled against what they regarded as unjust treatment by 
     the Sudanese government in their historic struggle over land 
     and resources with their Arab countrymen.
       Countless thousands of tribesmen have died in a brutal 
     counterinsurgency. The conflict has uprooted more than 1 
     million, and the Bush administration believes this many could 
     die unless a peace settlement is reached and relief supply 
     deliveries are greatly accelerated. Sudanese cooperation has 
     been limited but is improving.
       The Muslim-vs.-Muslim conflict is separate from the 21-year 
     war between ethnic Arab Muslim militants in northern Sudan 
     and the black African non-Muslim south. That three-decade-
     long struggle may be ending thanks to peace accords signed 
     last month.
       A U.S. interagency review is aimed at judging whether the 
     Darfur tragedy qualifies as genocide under a 1946 
     international convention that outlaws the practice.
       ``I believe what is occurring in Sudan approaches the level 
     of genocide,'' says Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., a senior member 
     of the House Appropriations Committee. He and several 
     colleagues are pushing for $95 million in emergency 
     assistance for Darfur's victims.
       Rabbi Marvin Hier, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a group 
     opposed to intolerance in all forms, says Washington could 
     increase the pressure on the Sudanese government by issuing a 
     ``stern warning'' that, in the U.S. view, it is ``close to if 
     not bordering on genocide.'' This would greatly impact 
     international public opinion, said Hier, founder and dean of 
     the center.
       Mark Schneider, a vice president of the International 
     Crisis Group, says Hier may have a point. He also cautions 
     that a genocide designation by the United States could thrust 
     the U.N. Security Council into prolonged debate, deflecting 
     attention from Darfur's massive humanitarian needs.
       A role for the United Nations is made clear under Article 8 
     of the Genocide Convention: ``Any contracting party may call 
     upon the competent organs of the U.N. to take such action 
     under the Charter of the U.N. as they consider appropriate 
     for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide.''
       U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he wasn't ready to 
     describe the situation in Darfur ``as genocide or ethnic 
     cleansing yet,'' but he called it ``a tragic humanitarian 
     situation.'' For now, the U.S. administration seems to be 
     tilting against the genocide label but is sticking with 
     ethnic cleansing to describe the situation.
       With so many in Darfur at risk of dying, ``legal 
     distinctions about genocide versus ethnic cleansing are going 
     to seem rather hollow,'' says State Department deputy 
     spokesman Adam Ereli. The focus, he says, should be on 
     helping the needy. Humanitarian access remains a serious 
     problem, the result of both government resistance and the 
     remoteness of the Iraqi-sized province. The United States has 
     been airlifting relief supplies to the region, a costly 
     process.
       Over the weekend, Sudan President Omar el-Bashir vowed to 
     disarm the militias. Also, peace talks between government and 
     rebel leaders opened in Berlin on Tuesday. U.S. officials are 
     wary about the Sudanese gestures,

[[Page E1256]]

     pointing out that Khartoum has routinely violated an April 8 
     cease-fire agreement.

                          ____________________