[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.

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