[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 126 (Thursday, October 7, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10686-S10687]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RWANDA AND SUDAN: SIMPLY RECOGNIZING GENOCIDE IS NOT ENOUGH
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this summer and fall, a lot of us have
been drawing comparisons between Sudan today and Rwanda a decade ago.
The October 4, 2004 edition of the New York Times contains a piece
furthering this argument by one who is uniquely qualified to do so:
retired General Romeo Dallaire, who was the commander of the United
Nations forces in Rwanda during the genocide.
Ten years ago, General Dallaire pleaded for more troops to stem the
rising tide of murders that were sweeping across Rwanda. Instead of
sending reinforcements, the United Nations cut his peacekeeping force
from 3,000 to 500, leaving Dallaire and his troops to witness the mass
killings that they did not have a prayer of stopping. In the aftermath
of this decision, 800,000 people died in 100 days.
Ten years ago, the African Union promised battalions to stop the
killing but lacked the equipment and logistical support to come to the
assistance of Dallaire and the people of Rwanda. Those forces never
arrived in any numbers.
Today, genocide is again taking place, this time in Sudan. Secretary
General Kofi Annan has recognized it. President Bush has recognized it.
But
[[Page S10687]]
again the world is essentially standing by.
Last month, the Senate passed an amendment to the Foreign Operations
appropriations bill which provided $75 million to support an expanded
African Union mission in Darfur, Sudan. This bill is now in conference.
It is vitally important that it pass with this measure and additional
assistance for Sudan relief efforts intact.
President Clinton has said that failure to act in Rwanda constitutes
his greatest regret as president. That is not a failure that we can
bear to repeat. It is not enough for the international community to
recognize genocide. This time, we actually have to stop it.
I ask unanimous consent that General Dallaire's op-ed from the New
York Times be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, Oct. 4, 2004]
Looking at Darfur, Seeing Rwanda
(By Romeo Dallaire)
Montreal.--Each day the world is confronted by new reports
of atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan. President Bush,
in his address to the United Nations General Assembly last
month, referred to the situation as ``genocide,'' and he and
Secretary General Kofi Annan pledged support for sanctions
against the Sudanese government and a Security Council
resolution to expand the African Union force on the ground
there. But I am afraid that moral condemnation, trade
penalties and military efforts by African countries are
simply not going to be enough to stop the killing--not nearly
enough.
I know, because I've seen it all happen before. A decade
ago, I was the Canadian general in command of the United
Nations forces in Rwanda when that civil war began and
quickly turned into genocide. The conflict was often
portrayed as nothing more than an age-old feud between
African tribes, a situation that the Western world could do
little to stop. All that was left to do was wait to pick up
the pieces when the killing stopped and to provide support to
rebuild the country.
Although the early stages of the Darfur situation received
more news coverage than the Rwanda genocide did, at some
level the Western governments are still approaching it with
the same lack of priority. In the end, it receives the same
intuitive reaction: ``What's in it for us? Is it in our
`national' interest?''
Sudan, an underdeveloped, orphan nation, with no links to
colonial masters of its past, is essentially being left to
its own devices. The Islamic Janjaweed militias of Darfur,
with the complicit approval of the government, are bent on
ridding the region of its residents, primarily black
Africans--killing, raping and driving refugees into camps
along the border with Chad.
The United Nations, emasculated by the self-interested
maneuverings of the five permanent members of the Security
Council, fails to intervene. Its only concrete step, the
Security Council resolution passed in July, all but
plagiarized the resolutions on Rwanda 10 years earlier. When
I read phrases like ``reaffirming its commitment to the
sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity and independence of
Sudan'' and ``expressing its determination to do everything
possible to halt a humanitarian catastrophe, including by
taking further action if required,'' I can't help but think
of the stifling directives that were imposed on the United
Nations' department of peacekeeping operations in 1994 and
then passed down to me in the field.
I recall all too well the West's indifference to the
horrors that unfolded in Rwanda beginning in April 1994.
Early warnings had gone unheeded, intervention was ruled out
and even as the bodies piled up on the streets of Kigali and
across the countryside, world leaders quibbled over the
definition of what was really happening. The only
international forces they sent during those first days and
weeks of the massacres were paratroopers to evacuate the
foreigners. Before long, we were burning the bodies with
diesel fuel to ward off disease, and the smell that would
cling to your skin like an oil.
Several African countries promised me battalions of troops
and hundreds of observers to help come to grips with the
relentless carnage. But they had neither the equipment nor
the logistical support to sustain themselves, and no way to
fly in the vehicles and ammunition needed to conduct
sustained operations.
Today, to be sure, the international community is caught in
the vicissitudes of complex political problems--particularly
the fragile cease-fire between the Islamic government and the
largely Christian population in southern Sudan. Powerful
nations like the United States and Britain have lost much of
their credibility because of the quagmire of Iraq. And
infighting at the United Nations has bogged down an American
proposed second resolution that probably wouldn't do much
more than the one passed in July.
So in the end we get nothing more than pledges to support
the international monitoring team of a few hundred observers
from the African Union (on Friday, Sudan agreed that this
force could expand to 3,500 soldiers). Nigeria and other
countries are willing to send a larger intervention force,
but they can't do so effectively without the kind of
logistical and transportation support Western countries could
provide.
Sudan is a huge country with a harsh terrain and a
population unlikely to welcome outside intervention. Still, I
believe that a mixture of mobile African Union troops
supported by NATO soldiers equipped with helicopters,
remotely piloted vehicles, night-vision devices and long-
range special forces could protect Darfur's displaced people
in their camps and remaining villages, and eliminate or
incarcerate the Janjaweed.
If NATO is unable to act adequately, manpower could perhaps
come individually from the so-called middle nations--
countries like Germany and Canada that have more political
leeway and often more credibility in the developing world
than the Security Council members.
In April, on the 10th anniversary of the start of his
country's genocide, President Paul Kagame told his people and
the world that if any country ever suffered genocide, Rwanda
would willingly come to its aid. He chastised the
international community for its callous response to the
killing spree of 1994, during which 800,000 people were
slaughtered and three million lost their homes and villages.
And sure enough, Rwanda sent a small contingent to Darfur.
President Kagame kept his word. Having called what is
happening in Darfur genocide and having vowed to stop it, it
is time for the West to keep its word as well.
____________________