[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 45 (Friday, April 15, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3717-S3718]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            SUDAN AID WORKER

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, as my colleagues know, I have a special 
interest in Sudan. I have spent much time there on an annual basis for 
the last several years participating in various types of work--mission 
work, some medical work, as well as a Senator.
  Three weeks ago, a USAID team member working in the Darfur region of 
Sudan was shot and wounded. By now, most Americans know the Darfur 
region is a huge region, about the size of France, in the western part 
of Sudan, a vast country in and of itself.

[[Page S3718]]

  This USAID worker was traveling in a clearly marked four-vehicle 
convoy on a road that was considered safe and secure. The convoy was 
ambushed, and the 26-year-old aid worker was shot in the face. As a 
result of that attack, she has lost vision in her right eye and has had 
and will continue to have to undergo facial reconstruction.
  First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers go out to this 
courageous and compassionate young woman and to her family whom we all 
know must be in tremendous grief. What happened is a tragedy that 
deeply troubles us all.
  I am informed that the shooting was not random. The attackers 
intentionally targeted the humanitarian convoy in order to intimidate 
the world. For 2 years, the jingaweit death squads have terrorized the 
people. With the backing of the Government, these criminals have killed 
nearly 50,000 innocent Darfur Africans.
  A British Parliamentary report issued last month says as many as 
300,000 Sudanese may have died since the Khartoum Government started 
the fighting 2 years ago.
  The exact numbers, as always, are difficult to confirm. Access to 
these areas is very limited. Khartoum simply does not want the world to 
know what those numbers are.

  It was just last August that I made a trip to the region. I was 
denied permission by Khartoum to travel to Darfur properly. 
Nevertheless, I went and spent time just to the west, in the adjacent 
country of Chad, and went along that Chad-Darfur border. I wanted to 
see with my own eyes so I could come back and report, which I did, my 
observations in a part of the world where, to my interpretation, to our 
interpretation, there is genocide occurring.
  We visited refugee camps on that Chad-Sudan border. We met with 
survivors. They told us the heartrending stories of women and girls 
being abused, mass rapes, land destroyed, crops destroyed, villages 
burned, water supplies actively polluted. As a product of all that, 
there is the forced displacement, moving out of villages, out of homes 
of over 1.2 million people.
  It is clear, as I mentioned, that what is going on--the destruction, 
the death, the killing--is genocide. This body has said that. The 
jingaweit are killing the Darfur people because they are ethnically 
different and because they do not support Khartoum.
  Since October of last year, the State Department has formally 
recognized the conditions in Darfur as genocide. Congress has also 
acted, placing sanctions on Sudan's Government and authorizing about 
$100 million in aid.
  This week, at a special international donors conference for Sudan, 
the United States pledged $1.7 billion in aid over the next 2 years, 
more than any other country. As a condition of that aid, the Khartoum 
Government must demonstrate that it is taking action to stop, to end, 
to terminate this killing.
  The United States, under President Bush's leadership, has led on this 
issue from the beginning. The United States has provided over 70 
percent of the supplies going to the survivors now in Darfur and 
eastern Chad, and the United States has been providing assistance to 
the region, indeed, for years.
  Robert Zoellick, our Deputy Secretary of State, is currently 
traveling in the region to observe the situation on the ground. What he 
will see when he is there and what he will report back, I am sure, when 
he comes back to us, no doubt, will deeply disturb him, as it did me 
and others in this body who have traveled to that region.
  In the last Congress, I worked with a number of our colleagues--
Senators Brownback, Feingold, Biden, Lugar, and before that, former 
Senator Helms and many others--to enact a bill called the Sudan Peace 
Act. That bill provided the framework for the peace negotiations in 
Sudan between the northern and southern regions.
  In addition, last year, we in this body voted unanimously to urge the 
Secretary of State to take appropriate actions within the United 
Nations to suspend Sudan's membership on the U.N. Human Rights 
Commission.
  While I am heartened by the aid pledges made this week by the 
international community, a lot more work absolutely must be done. 
Global pressure must be brought to bear.
  I urge the United Nations to formally recognize the reality of the 
crisis in Darfur. What is happening there is genocide. The Khartoum 
Government will not stop this killing until it is faced with stiff 
international pressure.
  Every day the world fails to act, Khartoum gets closer to its 
genocidal goal, and every day the world fails to act, it compounds its 
shame. We must not let this happen. We cannot fail the Darfur people. 
They are pleading for our help, and, indeed, they are pleading for 
their lives.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________