[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 185 (Wednesday, December 10, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2362-E2364]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  MISSED OPPORTUNITIES ON HUMAN RIGHTS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, December 10, 2008

  Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, despite the seemingly heartfelt personal 
convictions of

[[Page E2363]]

President Bush, I believe that history will show a legacy of missed 
opportunities on human rights for this administration--failure to 
consistently apply their rhetoric; failure to be a tireless advocate 
for the voiceless.
  ``From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and 
woman on Earth has rights, and dignity and matchless value because they 
bear the image of the maker of heaven and Earth.''
  These rousing words were spoken by President Bush at his second 
inaugural address--a stirring articulation of what is at the core of 
this ``shining city on a hill'' and a reminder of the hope that is 
inspired by extending the promise of America's founding to all the 
oppressed of the world. But in order for our soaring words about 
freedom, liberty and democracy to ring true to the ears of countless 
dissidents languishing in prisons the world over, they cannot only be 
applied to pariah states like Burma and North Korea, but consistently 
in places like China, Egypt, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia where these 
virtues are daily under assault.
  While our national interests are complex and manifold, we can be 
assured that it always befits a great nation to boldly stand with the 
forgotten, the oppressed, the silenced and the imprisoned. If not 
America, then who?
  And yet, with the State Department, boldness was rare, and in some 
cases altogether absent. For more than a year during President Bush's 
second term the critical position of Assistant Secretary for Democracy, 
Human Rights and Labor, the lead human rights position within the 
United States government, went unfilled. It bears considering what 
message this sent to dictators and tyrants the world over.
  Personnel aside, the administration's policy in this area was 
unpredictable at best. I have binders of letters I sent over the last 8 
years to a host of officials throughout the administration, pleading 
for action on human rights issues and cases. Many went unanswered and 
those which did garner a reply were rarely satisfactory.
  In January 2001, after having returned from a trip to Central Africa 
which included Sudan, I wrote the administration urging the appointment 
of a high-level, high-profile special envoy for Sudan, who would give 
the same type of attention to Sudan that Senator Mitchell gave to 
Northern Ireland. It was the first of many letters I would write with 
this request including an April 2001 letter in which I joined with a 
bipartisan group of dozens of Congressional colleagues in again urging 
the administration to appoint a high-caliber special envoy to address 
the deteriorating situation in Southern Sudan where over 2.2 million 
people had died over the previous decade because of the civil war.
  Eventually in September 2001, the President appointed former Senator 
John Danforth as special envoy and his leadership was in fact 
instrumental in securing the Comprehensive Peace Accord thereby 
bringing the 20-year civil war to end. I remain grateful for the 
President's leadership in helping to bring about an end to the 
bloodshed in this tortured country for at least a time.
  But the Khartoum regime was not finished with its atrocities--they 
were now pursuing a campaign of terror in Darfur. I wrote President 
Bush in June 2004 and again in November urging him to take every means 
necessary to press the United Nations to act quickly to save innocent 
lives in Darfur. Secretary of State Powell rightly spoke the truth, 
despite considerable indifference by members of the international 
community, in calling evil by its name and declaring the atrocities in 
Sudan genocide. But there was little followthrough.
  In February of 2005 I again wrote the administration, this time 
Secretary Rice, urging appointment of a special envoy to focus on 
Darfur--hopeful that the model utilized in the South might bear similar 
fruit in Darfur.
  In April of that same year, against the backdrop of genocide, the CIA 
flew Sudanese intelligence chief Maj. General Saleh Gosh to Washington 
for ``consultations on the war on terror.'' Gosh is well-known to be an 
architect of the genocide. I wrote the administration protesting the 
visit. While I understand that in the intelligence business it is 
sometimes unavoidable to deal with unsavory figures, it is hard to 
conceive of what information he could have provided, here in our 
Nation's Capital, which could justify our government hosting such a 
person.
  Several months later, in October, I wrote Secretary Rice after 
learning that the government of Sudan had hired Mr. Robert Cabelly, 
managing director, C/R International, to lobby on its behalf. It was 
appalling that the State Department had granted the necessary waiver to 
permit a genocidal government to obtain representation.
  In July 2006 I again wrote the administration reiterating my request 
for appointment of a special envoy for Sudan to work to ensure the 
successful implementation of the CPA and to bring a keen focus to the 
genocide in Darfur. Other Members of Congress had shown their support 
for a special envoy by appropriating $250,000 for this office in an 
Emergency Supplemental bill. With the funding available, and peace in 
the region hanging in the balance, I believed that a special envoy 
would send a clear message to Khartoum that the U.S. was committed to 
the success of the CPA.
  At long last, in Fall 2006, the President appointed Andrew Natsios as 
special envoy.
  An August 2008 New Republic piece had this to say about Sudan: ``No 
genocide has ever been so thoroughly documented while it was taking 
place . . . In the case of the genocide in Darfur, ignorance has never 
been possible.'' In a heartbreaking account in the same piece, William 
Ezekiel, editor of the Khartoum Monitor, is quoted as having great hope 
in America's ability to rescue Sudan. In response to a question about 
the cause of this hope he says, ``Americans? They are not angels. But 
they are keen enough to save the weak from the oppressors.'' Sadly Mr. 
Ezekiel's hope in this instance was misplaced.

  China repeatedly undercut the United States in the U.N. Security 
Council, and thwarted our attempt to impose sanctions on the genocidal 
Sudanese government because of their own self-interest--namely energy 
resources. The China National Petroleum Corp, a state-held entity, has 
more than a 40 percent stake in Petrodar, a major Sudanese oil 
consortium. But China's offenses at home are even more staggering--
imprisoned pastors, brutal crackdowns in Tibet, North Koreans refugees 
forcibly repatriated, reporters silenced--the list goes on and on.
  In 2006, the administration afforded Chinese President Hu Jintao full 
military honors at the White House. Hu Jintao first visited Washington 
in May 2002 as vice president, and summarily refused to accept a letter 
from four members of Congress raising various human rights concerns and 
urging China to release political prisoners, including 25 Tibetans, who 
had been imprisoned during the vice president's tenure as party 
secretary in Tibet.
  I was deeply troubled when the so-called ``Butchers of Beijing'' were 
awarded the honor of hosting the 2008 Olympic Games. I urged the 
president not to attend the Games, fearing that it would communicate a 
tacit approval of the Chinese communist government, and would 
dishearten the countless political dissidents and people of faith who 
languish behind bars.
  Once it became clear that the president was set on attending the 
Games I maintained hope that he would mark his time in China with more 
than mere sporting events. He could have worshipped with the 
underground church. He could have given a major speech in China, like 
President Reagan did at the Danlov Monastery in Moscow during the 
height of the Cold War, publicly calling on the government to promote 
religious tolerance. He could have boldly laid a foundation in his 
words and actions, such that when the Olympic flame was extinguished in 
Beijing, and the eyes of the world looked elsewhere, the flickering 
flame of freedom would burn yet more brightly.
  In fact just weeks before the Games got under way Secretary Rice was 
in China on official business and failed to publicly even mention the 
fact that several notable Chinese pastors and activists were arrested 
during her visit. Instead she limited her public remarks to the topic 
of preferred Olympic sporting events.
  And now that the Games have ended, we see once again that China's 
repression knows no bounds. Just this week, Christianity Today reported 
that ``Amid post-Olympic shifts in China's attitude toward the West, 
the government decided that sacred music should disappear'' including 
the seasonal masterpiece Handel's Messiah.
  In short, the State Department's relationship with the Chinese 
government did not help.
  I shudder to think what the dissident, rotting in prison for 19 years 
now, for the ``crime'' of marching through Tiananmen Square with a 
paper mache statue of lady liberty, thought when much of the world, 
including the United States, spoke glowingly during the Summer Games of 
how far China had come? What about the peace-loving Buddhist monk who, 
because he expressed loyalty to the Dalai Lama, is living under house-
arrest? Or the Uyghur Muslim mother who had her second child forcibly 
aborted? What of the Protestant house church leader who lives in fear 
every time he gathers his flock to disciple them or the Catholic bishop 
who administers holy communion under government surveillance? What 
message was communicated to the Falun Gong practitioner in a 
reeducation camp or the labor activist toiling in the logai who hears 
that leaders of the free world came to his country for the Olympic 
Games and failed to raise their plight with the man to whom their 
captors answer?
  I have repeatedly been assured that high-ranking U.S. government 
officials are raising these ``sensitive'' matters privately when they 
meet with their foreign counterparts. But whispered pleas are not the 
same as public proclamations. Countless dissidents from Sharansky

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to Solzhenitsyn can attest to this truth. Their lives in captivity did 
not improve because President Reagan quietly urged Gorbachev to set 
them free, but because he publicly shamed them.
  In Egypt opposition leader Ayman Nour, who was himself inspired by 
President Bush's call for democracy in Egypt, challenged Egyptian 
President Hosni Mubarak in the 2005 elections and was jailed prior to 
the election. His wife has tirelessly advocated for his release with 
inconsistent help from the U.S.
  Nour's plight is indicative of a confused policy in Egypt and 
throughout the Middle East which gave occasional lip-service to human 
rights and freedom and then rarely stood with reformers who dared to 
answer the call.
  In 2002, the administration boldly threatened to withhold additional 
foreign assistance to Egypt, the second largest recipient of U.S. aid 
since 1979, largely because of their imprisonment of pro-democracy 
activist Saad Ibrahim. This was the first time that any administration 
linked the human rights of a Middle Eastern country to its eligibility 
to receive foreign assistance. The efficacy of this approach was 
apparent when Ibrahim was eventually released.
  The amount of aid we give Egypt is a powerful means of prompting 
political reform and protection of vulnerable minorities, like the 9 
million Coptic Christians--an ancient community withering under 
tremendous pressure. But the visionary approach of the early days of 
the administration quickly faded to business as usual with the U.S. 
expressing only mild disapproval over Mubarak's February 2006 
announcement of the delay of municipal elections and aid continuing 
unabated.
  Vietnam is another example, like China, where trade has trumped human 
rights for the last 8 years. Just this summer, Vietnamese Prime 
Minister Nguyen Tan Dung visited the U.S. but the focus of talks with 
the President was almost solely on economic cooperation with little to 
no mention of human rights abuses particularly of political dissidents 
and the Christian minority.
  Since 2004 Vietnam had been on the Countries of Particular Concern 
list annually put out by the State Department which names the worst 
violators of religious freedom. But in 2006, on the eve of the 
President's visit to Hanoi, Vietnam was removed despite persistent 
abuse, harassment and detention for those seeking to practice their 
faith outside of government approved religious organizations. Shortly 
after the removal the government launched a crackdown. Sadly we had 
relinquished a major diplomatic tool for bringing about reform.
  If China is any indication of the future, we would be naive to assume 
that more trade between our two countries will bring about political 
reform.
  The list of missed opportunities goes on and on. The ancient 
community of Iraqi Christians is on the verge of extinction, Egypt's 
Bahais continue to be denied basic rights, the people of Tibet are 
helpless to do anything as their homeland is plundered, a sobering 
assessment on this International Human Rights Day which marks the 60th 
anniversary of the U.N. adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human 
Rights.
  President Reagan once said, ``To prisoners of conscience throughout 
the world, take heart; you have not been forgotten. We, your brothers 
and sisters in God, have made your cause our cause, and we vow never to 
relent until you have regained the freedom that is your birthright as a 
child of God.''
  A word to my Republican colleagues as our party seeks to once again 
find its voice in the aftermath of a difficult election year: we must 
return to the principles at the heart of the Republican Party--the 
party of Lincoln and Reagan. We must affirm that we stand for the 
defenseless, champion liberty, confront injustice. In the words of our 
own party platform let us not forget that, ``the international 
promotion of human rights reflects our heritage, our values and our 
national interest.''
  And to my Democratic colleagues, specifically President-elect Obama, 
I pray that the words which rang out on the night of his historic 
victory will in fact be realized during his administration. He rightly 
spoke directly to those ``huddled around radios in the forgotten 
corners of the globe,'' and told them that the ``true strength of our 
nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, 
but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, 
opportunity and unyielding hope.'' I would go a step further. America 
is never more strong, never more fully America, than when we are 
seeking to secure these ideals the world over: for the Egyptian 
opposition leader, the Chinese house church pastor, the Vietnamese 
reporter, the Darfurian refugee.

                          ____________________