[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 67 (Wednesday, April 25, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E851]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page E851]]


                      CURRENT SITUATION IN DARFUR

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 24, 2007

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, last week the House Committee 
on Foreign Relations held an important hearing on the current situation 
in Darfur. I am grateful to Chairman Tom Lantos for keeping this 
critical issue in the spotlight of the committee.
  President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has proven that he considers the 
people of Darfur to be merely pawns in a game that he is playing with 
the international community. Even as his representative is sending a 
letter to the UN Secretary General accepting the Heavy Support Package 
that is supposed to lead to a joint UN-AU protective force in the 
region, we are receiving news reports that his government is flying 
arms and heavy military equipment into Darfur under the disguise of UN 
and AU aircraft in order to fuel the conflict.
  The gulf between Bashir's actions and his words is as wide as the 
callous attitude I encountered when I met with him personally in 
Khartoum and the desperate, deeply grieved look on the faces of the 
refugees I met in the camps of Darfur. It is time for the global 
community to stop considering Bashir as a legitimate negotiating 
partner and to start treating him as he is--the despotic tyrant 
responsible for more than 400,000 deaths and 2 million people displaced 
from their homes in Darfur. That is in addition to the 2 million dead 
and 4 million who were displaced during the war in the south.
  I welcome President Bush's announcement last week that our government 
will be taking several new steps if the Sudanese Government does not 
meet its commitments. I strongly urge the President to make that window 
of opportunity for Bashir to finally follow through on his word 
extremely short. Bashir has long since lost any entitlement to one day 
more than is absolutely necessary to establish peace in Darfur.
  In order to be effective, however, the efforts of the United States 
must be joined by those of the international community. We must ALL 
decide that NOW is the time to end this crisis. Our partners on the UN 
Security Council should agree immediately to the resolution that will 
be introduced by the United States applying new sanctions against the 
Sudanese Government and any individual that violates human rights or 
obstructs the peace process. Particularly given the revelations of the 
government's continued military support to the Arab militias, the 
Security Council must also impose an expanded embargo on arms sales to 
the government of Sudan, prohibit Sudan's government from conducting 
any offensive military flights over Darfur, and strengthen the 
international community's ability to monitor and report any violations.
  The Government of the People's Republic of China, in particular, 
should take a leadership role in ending the Darfur conflict. Instead of 
lending money to Bashir for a new presidential palace, the Chinese 
Government should be pressuring him to enable the people of Darfur to 
live in their own homes in peace and security. I have long exhorted the 
Chinese Government to stop the reprehensible violation of the human 
rights of its own people, and I have signaled the upcoming 2008 
Olympics in Beijing as a singular opportunity for the international 
community to insist on the respect of those rights. I applaud the 
outstanding efforts of Ms. Mia Farrow, one of our distinguished 
witnesses at the hearing, to galvanize the world to object to China's 
hosting of the Olympics at the same time it is ignoring the plight of 
our brothers and sisters suffering in Darfur. I would encourage my 
colleagues here in Congress to join these efforts with respect to the 
Olympics and to seek other measures to end the genocide.

                          ____________________