[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 103 (Thursday, July 22, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1508]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  DECLARING GENOCIDE IN DARFUR, SUDAN

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                               speech of

                           HON. STEVE ISRAEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 21, 2004

  Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill, 
declaring the atrocities unfolding in Darfur, Sudan, as genocide.
  In Darfur, villages are being burned to the ground. Death squads herd 
African villagers into refugee camps until they are full to bursting, 
lacking food and basic medicines.
  In a matter of months, government-backed militias have killed 30,000 
people and forced more than one million from their homes.
  People talk about ``indicators of genocide'' and lawyers argue 
whether the killing, which the administration has already characterized 
as ethnic cleansing, is genocide.
  Whatever label one attaches to these killings, there is a moral 
obligation to do everything possible to stop them. To ignore slaughter 
on this scale is unforgivable.
  To its credit, the administration is pushing a UN Security Council 
resolution. But as that process unfolds, the killing continues.
  The time has come for action, for the international community to 
exercise its moral and political and arguably also legal obligations to 
intervene in Darfur.
  Genocide has shown its ugly face too often this century: European 
Jews during World War II, Cambodians in the late 1970s, and Rwandans in 
1994.
  The lesson is clear. We must stop the genocide; prevent further 
atrocities; and bring those guilty of genocide or ethnic cleansing to 
justice.

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