[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 148 (Wednesday, September 17, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8920-S8922]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 AFRICA

  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, the main reason I wanted to come to the 
floor today is another resolution we hope we will be able to get passed 
before we leave having to do with Darfur. I have had the habit of 
bringing attention to situations and conflicts in places around the 
world that get little attention. However, in the case of Darfur, it has 
had all the attention. When people ask, what are the problems with 
Africa, they always talk about Darfur. So while they have received all 
of the attention, there hasn't been any kind of action that has 
followed. It is distressing that the situation in Darfur has received 
so much press and generated so much attention, with documentaries and 
advocacy campaigns and waves of public support, but it has not spurred 
the international community to more action.
  We have been saddened and horrified at the pictures we have seen and 
the stories we have heard about the genocide in Darfur that has 
unfolded since 2003. At least 300,000 people have died, and 2\1/2\ 
million have been forced from their homes at the hands of violent 
militias called the jingaweit who have been encouraged and supported by 
the Khartoum Government, President Bashir. One of the things that is 
interesting about this is, we recall the tragic genocide that took 
place in the middle 1990s in Rwanda. People are now aware of that and 
wondering why we couldn't have done something about it earlier to 
prevent it. They have now killed about a third the number of people of 
the genocide that took place in Rwanda, and President Kagame is doing 
such a great job there. But where were we when we could have helped 
President Kagame and prevented the genocide from taking place?
  It is now up to a third that many in Darfur. So we can do something 
and do something now to avoid it. Last week we received news that 
Sudan's central government is launching land and air attacks in Darfur, 
with many dead and injured. Last month, in August, the Sudanese 
military and police opened fire on Darfur refugee camps, killing 31 
people and injuring a lot of others. The United Nations/African Union 
hybrid peacekeeping force assessed the incident and concluded that 
Sudan used an excessive, disproportionate use of lethal force. For the 
United Nations to come up with that, it has to be bad. They also 
concluded that the refugees were only carrying sticks and knives and 
spears while the Sudanese forces were armed with guns. Khartoum 
insisted that they were searching the camp for drugs and weapons.
  In July, The Hague, the International Criminal Court, began the 
process of indicting President Bashir on 10 charges, including three 
counts of genocide, five crimes against humanity, two of murder, and 
masterminding the campaign to annihilate the tribes in Darfur. A senior 
U.S. official said recently that he expects the ICC, the International 
Criminal Court, to issue an arrest warrant in the next month--long 
overdue, I might add. Bashir, who no doubt is beginning to feel the 
political ground shifting beneath him, continues to resort to more 
intimidation and violence. One major factor in the ongoing violence in 
Darfur can be traced to the continued violations of the U.N. arms 
embargo on Sudan. China is Khartoum's major source of weapons used in 
Darfur. China has embarked on a new form of colonialism in Africa, 
grabbing as many natural resources as it possibly can while 
disregarding the effect on the people. I wish more Members were 
familiar with Africa and the history of Africa. There are so many books 
written about that, one of them addressing the Belgium situation there 
in the early years. They came in, raped the country, took all the 
natural resources, and left the people there to die. We should be aware 
that that is exactly what China is doing right now.

  Beijing has declared 2006 the year of Africa. It shows no signs of 
slowing

[[Page S8921]]

down in spreading its influence to claim resources. Currently, China's 
national petroleum company is pumping roughly 500,000 barrels a day 
from wells in southern Sudan. Keep in mind, China is our biggest 
competitor for oil and gas around the world. Obviously, we are 
dependent upon foreign countries, many of them not too friendly to us, 
for our ability to even fight a war. That is another issue and one we 
will address. But China is right in the middle of this one, making it 
more difficult for us. In order to assure continued access to the oil, 
China has provided weapons to Khartoum and taken a very passive stance 
toward the government's brutal treatment of the people of Darfur.
  Last year Amnesty International reported that both China and Russia 
had broken the arms embargo by supplying Sudan with attack helicopters, 
bombers, and weapons. On July 12, the British Broadcasting Corporation 
reported they had evidence that the Chinese Government provided 
training and equipment to Bashir's government. In February, the report 
said that China was training pilots to fly Chinese Fantan aircraft jets 
on missions from the airfield in southern Darfur. This is a direct 
violation of the U.N. arms embargo which covers training, not just the 
supply of weapons, equipment, and military vehicles. The BBC also 
investigated weapons that China sold to Sudan in 2005 and found 
postembargoed trucks that carried antiaircraft guns. This news, 
although not a surprise, comes at a time when Khartoum is using force 
against refugees with the very planes and weapons that China is 
supplying.
  China is not the only problem there. Russia is actually a problem 
also. Russia is to blame for violating the arms embargo. During the 
last couple of weeks of attacks, Darfur rebels stated that the 
government used four helicopter gunships and two Russian-made Antonov 
airplanes. Russia's continued disregard for crimes perpetrated by the 
Khartoum Government in Darfur and the selling of arms to carry out such 
violence against the people of Darfur is inexcusable and needs to be 
stopped immediately.
  I hasten to say there are many other problems I have come to the 
floor and talked about over the last 12 years in Africa. Darfur is one 
that has captivated everyone's attention. But I assure my colleagues, 
there are problems in other areas. Right now, as we all know, China is 
currently Zimbabwe's largest investor and President Mugabe has 
destroyed the economy in Zimbabwe. We can all remember when they were 
considered to be the breadbasket of all of Africa. It is amazing that 
Zimbabwe is able to buy military articles such as their recent purchase 
from China that included $240 million in fighter jets, in light of 
their dying economy. When I say ``dying economy,'' they don't even talk 
anymore about the value of their currency because their currency has no 
value. So the only ones eating in Zimbabwe, the area that used to be 
the breadbasket of all of Africa, are the ones who are subsistence 
farmers, able to grow what they and their families can eat.
  In 2005, I gave a series of speeches detailing why I believe China to 
be a threat to our national security. From what we have talked about 
today, we know China is also a threat to other countries' national 
security. I challenge my African friends to be wary of current and 
future Chinese involvement in their countries. It seems that much of 
the power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe has been reached with Mugabe 
remaining as President and opposition leader Tsvangirai taking over the 
day-to-day running of the Government as Prime Minister. I hope it works 
out, but I am not optimistic that it will.
  We have a problem there. We have a country that had been the 
breadbasket of sub-Saharan Africa and is now unable to provide 
anything.
  As to other threats in Africa, I have been quite distressed for some 
time that as we get the squeeze in the Middle East and al-Qaida and the 
various terrorist elements down through the Horn of Africa, but we have 
finally made a good decision in this country to assist Africa in 
building five African brigades, located north, south, east, west, and 
central. This is going to be necessary for them to take care of the 
problems. As to other problems in Africa, it has been 30 years now 
since western Sahara was kicked out of their homeland, and they have 
been out in the desolate areas now for more than 30 years. It is 
shocking to me that we don't do anything to help them get repatriated 
and sent back to their proper areas.
  In northern Uganda, on several of my trips there, I have become 
familiar with what President Museveni has been trying to do for a long 
period. Frankly, President Museveni has been doing a great job. He was 
a warrior before he became President of Uganda. But the problem in 
Uganda is every bit as bad as it is in Darfur, and it is a problem 
everybody knows about, though it is totally different. We have a guy up 
there named Joseph Kony, who heads the Lord's Resistance Army. You have 
heard about the Children's Army and how he goes and trains these little 
kids, these little boys who are 12 to 13 and 14 years old, how to use 
automatic weapons. They have to go back to their villages and murder 
both their parents and all of their family. If they do not do it, they 
mutilate them. They cut their ears off.

  I have been up in the northen part of Uganda and have been able to 
see it. What have we been able to do about that? Very little. He is 
still loose. Just recently they put him on the list of global 
terrorists for the United States, but that did not really resolve 
anything major. So we have that problem. And we have Joseph Kony, who 
is still to this day killing and mutilating little kids.
  I guess I am a little sensitive to that. We had a great experience in 
my family. We found a little girl in Ethiopia when she was 3 days old, 
and her health was not very good. As we might expect in Addis Ababa, in 
Ethiopia, there is a great need for nurseries and health care for kids, 
but the health care just isn't there.
  I remember looking at this little girl. As the weeks went by and she 
started developing--escaping death time and time again--she finally 
grew up and she became a very attractive little girl. I have said on 
this Senate floor several times that my wife and I have been married 49 
years, and we have 20 kids and grandkids. Well, this little girl shown 
in this picture is one of them now because my daughter Molly, who had 
nothing but boys, wanted to have a girl, so she adopted this little 
girl, Zegita Marie, and she has turned out to be an outstanding little 
girl.
  So there are these problems. One of the problems with adopting in 
Africa is that culturally some countries do not approve of adopting. 
They think the village should be able to take care of the children who 
become orphans. The problem with that is, with such things that are 
taking place right now in Darfur, with such things that have taken 
place in Rwanda, the villages cannot absorb the killing and mutilating 
of a million people in a short period of time. That is what has 
happened in Rwanda.
  So I am glad several Members of this body, including Mary Landrieu 
from Louisiana, have been interested in helping with the adoption of 
some of these kids so that other children like my little granddaughter 
are not left there to die in a country in sub-Sahara Africa but can 
find a loving family.
  Anyway, right now, the subject is Darfur. The subject is Darfur 
because what is going on there right now is kind of in the early stages 
of what we witnessed taking place in Rwanda. That genocide can be 
stopped, and it can only be stopped by us along with anyone else in the 
international community who cares enough to save lives in sub-Sahara 
Africa. Certainly, the southern part of Darfur is a crisis right now 
that needs to be dealt with.
  So I would ask my colleagues to join Senator Bill Nelson of Florida 
and me in asking for the adoption of a resolution that should take 
place today. It is one that is going to establish a specific position 
for the United States of America. The resolution is S. Res. 660, which 
we have submitted this week. It condemns the ongoing sales of arms to 
belligerents in Sudan and calls for both an end to such sales and an 
expansion of the U.N. embargo on arms sales to Sudan.
  As Russia and China provide Khartoum with more weapons and materials, 
they continue to fuel the conflict and violence and drive a peaceful 
solution further away from reality.

[[Page S8922]]

  Countries that want to do business in Africa, or anywhere for that 
matter, must be held accountable for their behavior. One of the things 
I have observed in Africa, no matter what country you go into--if it is 
an oil-rich country--anything that is new and shiny, whether it is a 
bridge, whether it is a colosseum, a sports arena, it is always built 
by China. So they have the inside track, and it is going to be up to us 
to join together to stop that type of mutilation of the population in 
countries such as northern Uganda and the Sudan.
  So I urge the adoption of this resolution today and hope it will 
become a reality so we have a new position for the United States of 
America to save little girls like this one in countries that are 
involved in genocide.
  With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tester). The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business 
for 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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