[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 133 (Wednesday, December 6, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11300-S11301]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ESCALATING CRISIS IN DARFUR

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this evening there was a meeting in my 
office with the U.S. Special Convoy to the Sudan, Andrew Natsios. It 
was an unusual meeting by Senate and Capitol Hill standards. It was a 
bipartisan meeting called by Senator Sam Brownback, my Republican 
friend from Kansas, and myself, inviting our colleagues on both sides 
of the aisle to try to address the escalating crisis in Darfur, in the 
Sudan.
  In the meeting, we talked about the urgent need for international 
action to stop this genocide. Hundreds of thousands of people have been 
killed in Darfur over the last 3 years. Two and a half million people 
have been driven from their homes. There are refugee camps not only in 
Sudan but in Chad and neighboring countries filled with those from 
Darfur who have been driven out by the violence.
  Nearly two-thirds of the people living in this region are now 
dependent on humanitarian aid, and hundreds of thousands are in need 
but far beyond the reach of humanitarian organizations. Humanitarian 
access, the ability to help those in such desperate straits, is, sadly, 
diminishing when, in fact, we need more.
  The Sudanese Government in the capital of Khartoum has orchestrated 
this campaign of genocide. It continues to deny the death toll, and it 
continues to reject the United Nations peacekeeping mission.
  On November 21, Special Envoy Natsios announced that the Bush 
administration would resort to an unspecified ``Plan B,'' as they 
called it, if the Sudanese Government does not agree by January 1, 
2007, to allow an expanded international peacekeeping force in Darfur. 
Mr. Natsios made clear to us in the meeting in my office just a short 
time ago that this force is to be under the command and control of the 
United Nations. It is a very important part of our plan. In September, 
Secretary of State Rice warned that Khartoum faced a choice between 
cooperation and confrontation.
  I believe it is time--it is well past time--for the world to make 
clear to Khartoum and the Sudanese Government that serious steps will 
immediately follow the beginning of the new year if a United Nations or 
combined United Nations and African Union force is not agreed to 
immediately. The United States and the world have a number of things we 
can do, things we can do to persuade the Sudanese that they have to 
stop this genocide in Darfur.
  Militarily, the United Nations has authorized and the Senate supports 
the principle of a no-fly zone over Darfur. It is not going to be easy 
to implement it, but it is possible. Although it is logistically 
challenging, that is no excuse to allow the Government of the Sudanese 
people to continue attacks on the Sudanese people themselves by air.

  The United Nations should also be working with the International 
Criminal Court, sharing intelligence that could help accelerate 
indictments against those Khartoum officials and others guilty of 
crimes against humanity. Economically, the United States has sanctions 
against U.S. companies doing business in Sudan, but most countries 
don't. Sudan is a rich country when it comes to oil. They are expected 
to bring in $7.6 billion in revenue this year from oil. The major oil 
companies in the Sudan are owned and run by the Chinese, the Indians, 
and the Malaysians.
  Independent reports estimate that 70 percent of that oil revenue is 
likely to be used by the Sudanese Government in Khartoum for military 
expenditures. Think of that. An otherwise poor African nation taking 70 
percent of the revenues from oil, converting it into military equipment 
that in many cases is being used to kill its own citizens. Those same 
military expenditures have financed helicopter gunships, automatic 
weapons, and vehicles that have allowed the Sudanese Government and 
their militia to terrorize the population of Darfur.
  The international community needs to join the United States in 
sanctions on Sudan. You can hardly pick up a newspaper in our country 
without finding a full-page ad exhorting our Government and people to 
do something about the genocide in Darfur. I salute those who are 
supporting that effort. I encourage them to take that information to 
other countries in Europe and other places so that they can engage with 
us in an effort to stop this genocide. Civilized nations should not do 
business with genociders.
  In the United States, we need to do more. We should close our ports 
to oil tankers that have operated in Sudan. The President could block 
the assets of 17 individuals named in the United Nations investigation 
as responsible for crimes in Darfur. The list includes the Sudanese 
Minister of Interior, the Intelligence Director, and the Minister of 
Defense. To date, the President has only blocked the assets of four 
people: Two rebel leaders, a former Air Force officer, and a Janjaweed 
militia leader. We need to move up the chain of command. We need to do 
more, and we need to do it now.
  All across America, State and local governments, universities, 
organizations, and private citizens are doing more by divesting their 
pension and other investment funds from companies that do business in 
Sudan, companies that support and enrich the Khartoum Government that 
is looking the other way when it comes to this genocide. Divestment is 
a powerful tool. I believe Congress and the White House should support 
it.
  My State of Illinois was one of the first to step forward and divest 
its State pension funds. Five other States followed. Recently, I joined 
Senator Brownback in writing to every other Governor, urging them to 
join in the divestment effort. We have also each taken steps to 
personally divest. There is an interesting side note here. After 
Senator Brownback and I sent a letter to all of these Governors in 
States that have not divested from investments in the Sudan, an 
enterprising reporter reviewed my personal financial information on 
file and reported to me that

[[Page S11301]]

one of the mutual funds that I owned, owned stock in a company doing 
business in Sudan. I was shocked to learn that. Quickly I sold it. But 
I think it is a warning to all that if you want to be participating in 
this effort to try to get the message to the Sudanese, we should all 
start with our personal savings and mutual funds and make sure that we 
are not supporting, indirectly, the Government of Sudan. I have sold 
that mutual fund, and I will try to be vigilant that if another mutual 
fund I own purchases something in Sudan, that I divest very quickly.
  All of these are small actions but cumulatively they can make a 
difference. Tonight, as I have done before, I can't help but think 
about Rwanda in 1994. I mentioned it this morning when I noted the 
retirement of my colleague from Vermont, Senator Jim Jeffords. In 1994, 
mass murder was launched in Rwanda. It was carried out by guns and 
torches and by the grisly use of machetes.
  Five weeks after the killings began, Illinois Senator Paul Simon, my 
predecessor and my closest friend in public life, who was chairman of 
the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa, and Jim Jeffords, 
then the ranking Republican on that same subcommittee, phoned General 
Romeo Dallaire, head of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Rwanda in Kigali 
and asked what he needed. A desperate Dallaire told them that if he had 
5,000 soldiers, he could stop the massacre in Rwanda. Those two 
Senators immediately drafted and hand-delivered a note to the White 
House, to the Clinton administration, requesting that the United States 
get the Security Council to authorize deployment of troops.
  In their letter they wrote:

       Obviously there are risks involved. But we cannot sit by 
     idly while this tragedy continue to unfold.

  Sadly, they received no reply to their letter. The killings 
continued. At the end of the day, over 800,000 people died in Rwanda as 
victims of the genocide. Last year, about this time, Senator Brownback 
and I went to Kilgali. People there don't talk about the Rwandan 
genocide of 12 years ago unless it is brought up. As I looked down at a 
Catholic Church down the hill from the Hotel Rwanda made famous by the 
movie, I thought it was just a simple church in an African capital. I 
came to learn that over 1,000 people were hacked to death inside that 
church where they sought asylum during this massacre and the genocide.
  Later, after it occurred, Paul Simon would say:

       If every member of the House and Senate had received just 
     100 letters from people back home saying we have to do 
     something about Rwanda, when the crisis was first developing, 
     then I think the response would have been different.

  Hundreds of thousands of innocent lives would have been saved. So 
many times I have stood on this floor pleading for our Nation to 
intervene in Darfur, and I have been thinking about Paul Simon and what 
he did in Rwanda. This time, during the latest chapter in the world's 
history of atrocities, hundreds of Americans, thousands of Americans 
are engaged. It is so encouraging to go to college campuses across the 
State of Illinois and find college groups that have made Darfur their 
issue. It is great to go to meetings of people old and young in my 
State and have someone afterward come up and discuss the genocide in 
Darfur. These people have not been silent. They have pleaded for 
action.
  Paul Simon was right, in part. The response this time has been 
different. It has been different than the world's response to genocides 
against the Armenians, the Jewish people, the Cambodians, the Bosnians, 
and the Rwandans. It has been different in that this time we recognize 
that truly there is a genocide taking place on our watch, in our time 
in this world. But we haven't stopped it.
  We are here today not as Democrats or Republicans but as advocates 
for the people of Darfur. The U.S. special envoy to Sudan, Mr. Natsios, 
has drawn a line in the sand. As of January 1, the Sudanese Government 
must either accept the peacekeeping mission or face the consequences. 
Personally, I believe this deadline comes too late. But I hope it is 
effective. I hope it convinces the Sudanese Government to accept the 
peacekeepers. If not, then the administration's plan B, the 
consequences of refusal, must be meaningful and immediate and decisive.
  Let me close with the words of Paul Simon and Jim Jeffords, who 
retires this week from the Senate:

       We cannot sit idly by while this tragedy continues to 
     unfold.

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennett). The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I congratulate my colleague from Illinois 
for his very eloquent statement. He, along with Senator Brownback and 
others, has been very much involved in this issue. We say ``issue,'' 
but it is a lot more than an issue. It is something that is truly one 
of the great tragedies of our era. I salute him for his passion. I 
salute him for his intellect and his drive and his determination to do 
something about it. We have made some progress and have a special envoy 
appointed. This was something Senator Biden and I worked on, along with 
others, urged the administration to do. I am delighted that Andrew 
Natsios is in that position. He is a man of great talent. But we in 
Congress--and I will be leaving the Congress--and the American people, 
we all have to continue to speak out. We all have to continue to make 
this a priority. We all have to remember, as my colleague from Illinois 
has so eloquently pointed out, the history of atrocities such as this 
in the past and that when good people do not speak up and do not, more 
importantly, take action, these tragedies not only occur but they 
continue.
  I salute my colleague from Illinois.

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