[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 139 (Wednesday, December 8, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12025-S12026]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 DARFUR

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I want to comment on one last issue. It is 
an issue I have brought to the floor many times. The issue I speak of 
is the issue of the crisis a long way away from Tennessee which I just 
spoke to, a long way away from Washington, DC where we are tonight, and 
a long way away from education which I just spoke to and which affects 
our future so much. I want to speak to an issue that focuses on the 
continent of Africa and a region called Darfur.
  A few weeks ago the Sudanese Government agreed once more to make 
peace with its southern region. While this is encouraging news, and the 
international community is hopeful, we must not overlook the crisis 
that is raging right now, as we speak, in Darfur.
  Last night I had the opportunity, with several others, in a very 
casual environment to be with His Majesty the King of Jordan. And it 
was interesting. He had met with the President. And this was an 
informal gathering over dinner last night.
  The very first issue he brought up to me was, are we making progress 
in Darfur, which is a part of Sudan. And my response was: Not as much 
as we need to.
  He said: I agree.
  He told me the story of how his country, Jordan, is addressing it in 
many ways. And they have been so beneficial throughout the entire 
Middle East, whether it is in Iraq or all the way across to the country 
of Africa. He told me the story of a field hospital that his Government 
and his military have put in that region of Darfur.
  Darfur is a region about the size of France which is in this country 
with Sudan, the western part of the country of Sudan. But just the 
Darfur region is about the size of France so it is a big area. He told 
me the story of a hospital he has put there and the trust that hospital 
is building.
  For nearly 2 years now the Sudanese Government has waged war against 
the people of the Darfur region. Despite two United Nations Security 
Council resolutions, pressure from the international community and 
neighboring countries, the Government of Khartoum continues its 
genocidal campaign. In mid-November Khartoum ostensibly agreed to stop 
the attacks, but within hours of their agreement, the Sudanese police 
raided a camp in southern Darfur, destroying homes and driving out 
civilians. Such attacks still continue. Tens of thousands of innocent 
victims have died as a result of this government-condoned and, worse 
than that, government-sponsored violence. Eight million more have been 
displaced, have been moved out of their homes, have been moved out of 
their villages, have been transported miles and miles from home, 
family, and security. Entire villages have been burned to the ground. 
Women raped, children abducted, executed.
  Special U.N. Envoy Jan Pronk warns that Darfur is on the brink of 
anarchy. We can't stand by as the people of Darfur suffer. We cannot 
allow another Rwanda. They are calling out to us. They are pleading for 
our help. The international community has a responsibility, a moral 
obligation to act, to respond, to act with solution.
  In August, I had the opportunity to travel to Africa which I do at 
least once a year. I usually go to the southern Sudan, but on this trip 
I chose to go to that western region of Sudan, the Darfur region. But 
because of difficulties with getting into that country and the 
inability to get a visa, I started over in the country of Chad which is 
west of Sudan. And it is at that Chad-Sudanese border that refugees by 
the thousands are fleeing to get out of the crisis and these vicious 
attacks in the Darfur region.
  What a wonderful opportunity it was for me to see refugee camps which 
had sprung up to give support to these refugees whose families have 
been fractured. They didn't know where their spouses were. They had 
lost their kids. Refugee camps where 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 or 20,000 
refugees would come together in miserable conditions, but still people 
coming together, supported by outside groups.
  One of the refugee camps we visited was in Touloum in Chad, and that 
is several hours northeast from the capital there in N'Djamena.
  I was on the ground and met with the refugees and met with the 
community leaders. What I saw there was fairly appalling. Thousands of 
refugees are housed in dust-covered tents. Many more live in makeshift 
shelters of gathered wood and plastic sheeting.
  I spoke with a gentleman named Asman Adam Abdallah. In Darfur, he had 
been a man of prominence, an officer of his tribe and a government 
official. He was from a small village in the Darfur region. It was a 
village called Jemeza, just north of the regional capital of El Fasher.
  During the attack on his village he became separated from his family. 
He didn't know if they were still alive. I asked about his family and 
he said, ``I don't know.'' He didn't know what would happen the next 
week. If you asked, Are you going to be able to go back to your 
village, he says, I don't know. I don't know about my wife. I don't 
know about my children.
  He recounted witnessing 15 men of his village summarily murdered. It 
took him 18 days to travel from that Darfur region across the border 
into Chad and to reach the refugee camp of Touloum. Sudanese Government 
planes bombarded Asman and his fellow survivors as they trekked first 
to Tine, a town right at the border of the Sudan and Chad.
  I talked to many refugees, and another one in the Touloum camp 
described how during a raid on her village, several soldiers grabbed a 
baby and they wanted to see what gender or sex the baby was. The 
soldiers began to argue back and forth, with the mother watching, 
whether to kill the baby boy. She overheard one soldier remarking, 
``But this child is so young.'' It appeared that the soldiers were 
under orders to kill all male children.
  I heard another story of a mentally disabled 15-year-old boy who was 
thrown into a burning house, and these houses are really huts. He was 
thrown into that house to perish. I heard another story of a paralyzed 
man being burned alive in his hut. I heard stories of women who were 
raped in front of their own children.
  I asked one refugee in Touloum what it would take for him to go home. 
He said to me, ``I will go if you''--pointing to me--``will go with me 
and stay with me.''
  The Janjaweed attacks described to me were so vividly disturbing. You 
go from one camp to another camp, one little tent village to another 
one. The stories were exactly the same. You know it is not isolated. It 
is occurring all over the region. You know it is organized and it is 
purposeful. The Janjaweed are preceded by aerial attacks by the 
militia. It is preceded by aircraft flying over; they are government 
aircraft. In some cases, soldiers in government uniforms participate on 
the ground and make references to ``orders from Khartoum.'' Survivors 
tell of racial slurs being hurled at them as the Janjaweed sweep 
through the villages

[[Page S12026]]

and kill the men and boys and raze their homes.
  The dictatorship in Khartoum says they are not responsible for the 
Janjaweed. They tell us officially: We cannot control what goes on with 
the Janjaweed. To me, that is hard to believe. I believe otherwise. I 
believe if they were sincere in their efforts to make peace, peace 
would be at hand. The direct line between the government of Sudan, the 
Janjaweed, and the raping and pillaging and burning is so direct that I 
am convinced there has to be some sort of order coming from the top. 
But if that same order was reversed, coming from the top, the crisis 
would end. That is what I am so hopeful about. That is why at 9 o'clock 
on the Senate floor it is important for our voice to be heard. If we 
don't recognize or shine light on that, if we don't call the 
international community to act, that order from the government in 
Khartoum simply will not come, this crisis will not stop, and this 
genocide will continue.

  The regime in Khartoum has cynically concluded that it can survive a 
moderate amount of diplomatic pressure and that it can continue the 
genocide. I say cynical because it is wrong. When I say it, I am sure 
people think it is wrong, but it is still occurring. Therefore, we have 
to shine more light and put on more pressure, and we need to go not 
just before the Senate, but we need to have our media across the 
country focus on what is going on with the genocide in the Sudan and 
this Darfur region.
  The government in Khartoum believes it can ignore what is mostly 
rhetorical pressure that has been brought to bear by the international 
community to date. Lip service is being given, but that is just about 
it. Khartoum believes that the threat of a Chinese veto in the U.N. 
Security Council will protect it from more serious sanctions. We must 
prove them wrong. I am convinced we can prove them wrong. It is going 
to take our collective wisdom, but our collective action.
  For nearly 7 years, I have had the opportunity to travel to Sudan and 
to neighboring countries more in my capacity as a doctor, as medical 
mission work, than as a Senator. My first visits there were in 1998. I 
had the opportunity to help and participate with a wonderful group 
called Well Medical Mission, establishing a hospital in this region 
called Lui. I have had the opportunity to go back many times to that 
southern part of Sudan.
  I remember in the year of 2000 going into the middle part of Sudan, 
into a region called the Nuba Mountains, a village called Kuada. We 
delivered 35 tons of seed and farm tools for about 8,000 families. That 
was back in 2000. Since then, that area has opened up to relief. We 
were one of the first relief airplanes in that region. The Nuba 
Mountains are a wonderful part of the Sudan that has a history rich in 
tradition of great Nuba wrestlers--glorious men--really boys--who were 
powerful, big, strong. When I went there, I heard about the 2,000 years 
of this history of wrestling. When I went--and we were the first relief 
efforts in there in 15, 20 years--I found sick people--no wrestlers but 
thin, emaciated kids, with stunted growth from conditions imposed on 
them by the government.
  I mentioned to others there is another part of the Sudan called 
Bapong in the oil region, in the Upper West Nile area. There the 
government was targeting civilians and denying them basic medical 
needs. Since that time, a hospital has been put in that region. I had 
the opportunity to go back this past year.
  Sudan does need to be a focus. A lot is going on that we can 
participate in reversing. This fall, the Senate and House unanimously 
passed resolutions pressing for the immediate suspension of Sudan's 
membership on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. Isn't it ironic that 
you have Sudan in this body of the U.N., after everything that I have 
just said, participating on that Commission on Human Rights? Something 
is not right. It is hypocritical--even worse than that.
  The House and the Senate acted several months ago. All 535 Members 
agreed that Sudan's membership on the U.N. commission to protect human 
rights is a travesty. It is a cruel trick. It defies all decency that a 
nation actively engaged in genocide against its own people could occupy 
a position of honor and authority, a commission in the United Nations 
supposedly devoted to human rights.
  Mr. President, I do want to applaud the President of the United 
States and Secretary Colin Powell for their efforts to bring 
accountability to the Khartoum Government. This administration has 
shown immense leadership in addressing the crisis in Darfur. In fact, 
we can even be proud. The United States is providing over 80 percent of 
all the supplies from around the world going into Darfur and going into 
Chad in these refugee camps--more than 80 percent.
  Since February of 2003, we have provided $219 million for Sudan. The 
appropriations bill we just passed provides over $300 million for Sudan 
in additional support for the African Union peacekeeping activities. It 
is going to take Africans to solve this problem, but it is going to 
take our support and our authority to help them solve that problem.
  In September of this year, Secretary Powell came before the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee and unflinchingly declared the situation in 
Darfur to be government-sponsored genocide. That showed leadership in 
the same way this body showed leadership when it, through a resolution, 
called it genocide.
  In October, the President of the United States authorized the use of 
three C-130 transport planes to convey 3,300 Rwandan and Nigerian 
peacekeeping troops into Darfur. Last month, the U.N. Secretary Council 
held a 2-day meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. At that meeting, council 
members discussed carrot-and-stick approaches to bringing Khartoum into 
compliance with international human rights standards. U.N. Ambassador 
Jack Danforth has worked hard to press the U.N. to take concrete 
action, and I support him in this difficult and critical work.
  I am deeply committed to the future of the Sudanese people. Their 
plight calls out to all freedom-loving nations. As a human being, as a 
doctor, as a Senator who cherishes life, I believe it is our duty to 
answer that call.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________