[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 116 (Wednesday, July 29, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2088-E2089]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TESTIMONY GIVEN BY ROGER WINTER ON U.S. SUDAN POLICY
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HON. FRANK R. WOLF
of virginia
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I would like to share with our colleagues
testimony that Roger Winter, former U.S. State Department special
representative on Sudan, gave today before the House Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health on the critical issue of U.S.
Sudan policy, specifically as it relates to implementation of the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
I deeply respect Roger's viewpoint as a consummate Sudan expert and
plan to submit the testimony of the other highly qualified witnesses
from today's hearing, in the days ahead.
Chairman Payne, Ranking member Smith and Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to be here with you
today. And to you, Mr. Payne, your consistent and persistent
leadership on Sudan has honestly made you one of my heroes. I
mean that sincerely.
To paraphrase one of my favorite authors, I often wonder
with awe at the willingness of good people, especially
Americans, to suspend all their protective instincts and to
accept some of the worst killers in the human race into their
midst. I remembered that thought when seeing photos of the
Khartoum delegation that arrived recently to discuss Sudan's
Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Perhaps I have seen too
much in the Sudan over these last 28 years and have become
jaundiced. Still, a necrology of three million dead civilians
in Sudan, targeted victims of the policies and actions of the
National Congress Party (or National Islamic Front) since its
coup in 1989, has got to be noteworthy, especially as the
leadership of the NCP have as yet never been held accountable
for their crimes. Surely three million is unambiguously a
Holocaustic number. The gentleman who headed the NCP
delegation to Washington recently and received substantial
public exposure (e.g. in the Washington Times) has one of the
worst track records of all. Surely three million deaths is
unambiguously a Holocaustic number, a reality for which he
makes no apology whatsoever.
Not only has the NCP not paid a price for that body count,
its leadership now controls much of Sudan's economy; its
indicted President is politically protected by the morally-
challenged leadership of the African Union and the Arab
League; and it continues to undermine both the CPA itself and
also the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement, its ``Partner''
in the National Unity government established by the CPA. The
NCP has a 100% perfect record. It NEVER ever keeps the
agreements it signs with its opponents. The pattern is clear.
Take, for example, the issue of the volatile town of Abyei.
President Bashir's three-year-long refusal to implement the
Abyei Protocol of the CPA after signing it on multiple
occasions was followed by his Sudan Armed Forces 31st
Brigade's destruction of Abyei town in May of last year.
Again, he and his Party have paid no price. In fact, he's
essentially been rewarded and now is now threatening to
undermine the CPA's promised Referendum on Abyei's future.
Just one month ago, President Bashir celebrated his
twentieth anniversary as President. He came to power by coup
and, ever since, he and his Party have been at war with the
Sudanese people, North, South, East and West. The National
Islamic Front/NCP leadership team has been the same since it
took power. Since then that able and well-experienced team
has confronted a revolving door of U.S. diplomats and
``special envoys'' who do their best to end Khartoum's
destructive behavior. Often they think that Khartoum can be
successfully appealed to ``to do the right thing'' on behalf
of the marginalized people of Sudan. It's just not so.
Khartoum reads us very well.
Personally, I have changed my perspective on Sudan. As
someone who worked for our Government on the CPA, I believed
in the vision of ``New Sudan''. I believed the ``democratic
transformation'' of Sudan had a chance to succeed. I believed
that ``maybe'' there was a faint chance the NCP ``might be''
willing to ``make unity attractive'' and so sustain a unified
state of Sudan. But Khartoum has killed all that. Those goals
are not in any way achievable any longer. In my view there
are only two general directions that are supportable by
the people of South Sudan at this point: (1) The South
will vote overwhelmingly for separation in the Referendum
provided for by the CPA or (2) The South will be forced
into unilaterally declaring its independence because its
CPA-mandated Referendum is frustrated by Khartoum's
actions and/or the hollow commitments of the International
Community. The International Community's wishy-washy
approach to the CPA has helped assure that either option
will be messy. However, delay or abandonment of the
Referendum would be the worst-possible outcome. I believe,
in such a case, return to war would be essentially
guaranteed.
Because I believe the Referendum must happen timely and in
at least reasonably good form in order for there to be any
viable chance for peace and development in the region, I
believe it is mandatory that the U.S. fully embrace the
people of the South and Abyei, and that we escalate our
efforts to achieve a soft-landing as the result of a
successfully-held Referendum. The U.S. must be clear and
upfront that we will support and protect the outcome of that
Referendum; many people died to achieve that right.
It is no secret that South Sudan and Abyei are plagued with
serious problems but, under the circumstances, they have come
a long way against incredible odds.
For twenty years I was the CEO of a non-profit which was
then was called the U.S. Committee for Refugees. In that role
I was personally exposed to virtually every human rights and
humanitarian disaster in the world. I can assert with great
confidence my view that, before the CPA, South Sudan and
Abyei were the most destroyed places in the entire world. For
more than 80% of the time Sudan has been an independent state
Khartoum has fostered war in South Sudan and Abyei. Khartoum
has not been a genuine government but has generally
functioned partisanly on behalf of a narrow range of Arab
interests. As a clear result, calling the South
``marginalized'' became an understatement. It is amazing what
forty-seven years of war can do to people. I would visit
Abyei which was essentially denuded of its population and
overgrown by bush. I would travel during the war throughout
the South seeing the unspeakable conditions, but survivors
had to live in it. I'll not focus on it except to say it
wasn't only infrastructure that was destroyed, it was much of
humanity and human society.
At the time the CPA was signed, there was great optimism
about the future. The international community made many
promises. Khartoum was playing charades and winning. The SPLM
and the newly created Government of Southern Sudan were
hopeful. The problems they faced were overwhelming and mostly
man-made. Because the South had become quiet and Darfuris
were being exterminated in growing numbers by Khartoum
forces, attention shifted away from the implementation of the
CPA and the delivery of an adequate peace dividend for the
South's war-affected civilians. Khartoum, despite signing the
CPA, has consistently undermined it. Supporting violence in
the South, destroying Abyei in May 2008, regularly
withholding funds due the South and Abyei to cripple the
functioning of governance, and activating its friends and
`fellow travelers' in the South to foster civil unrest have
all been part of Khartoum's pattern of behavior.
Despite Khartoum, the South has come a very long way and
has received substantial international assistance, including
major support from the U.S. The South has a functional
government, substantial growth in education, health services,
roads, and other critical services, all in fifty-five months
since the CPA was signed. Candidly, however, the South's
progress is also being undermined by internal forces,
especially in terms of some civil violence, some official
corruption, and some serious weaknesses in governance. My use
of the word `some' here, is to be fair. These problems are
serious, especially as they erode popular confidence, but
they do not eclipse the progress that has been made, given
where they started from and the constant undermining by
Khartoum. Let me mention one example of how Khartoum
routinely works: Abyei.
Khartoum signed the CPA, including the Abyei Protocol, on
January 9, 2005. Khartoum never implemented the Protocol.
That meant there was NO government in Abyei and no government
services for three years. In May 2008, Khartoum forces
completely burned to the ground the market place and all
residential areas. One hundred percent of the population, who
were all returned displaced people, were again displaced.
Subsequently Khartoum forces blew up the SPLM facilities in
Abyei. Forced by international neglect of these developments
in Abyei, the SPLM agreed to international arbitration by the
Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague. While the
PCA was moving forward, an Abyei administration was finally
created. That administration was intended to provide services
to the population funded by a percentage of oil revenues as
specified in the CPA. The Abyei administration's budget was
to begin October 1, 2008; it never happened. After much
pressure, the Abyei administration got only a small
``advance'' in February 2009 and another in April.
Effectively Abyei administration personnel have not been paid
since last January; there is little money for services; the
hospital is basically empty. There is still no approved
budget for Abyei for the fiscal year now almost over. This is
how Khartoum implements the CPA in the single most volatile
location in Sudan, with clear intention to undermine
[[Page E2089]]
stability. This is also typical of how Khartoum has dealt
with every important issue in the CPA. To top it off, many of
the officers of the 31st Brigade (now renamed) and related
militias that destroyed Abyei in May 2008 were promoted, and
today hundreds of those men, commanded by thugs like Lt. Col.
Thomas Thiel Malual Awak, Major Moyak Mobil Ajak and Captain
Joseph Garang Nyoul, among others, are just a short distance
north of Abyei town waiting for the next instruction from
President Bashir to do their evil deeds. And, in my view, he
is preparing to do just that. He has already announced in a
very threatening way how he will try to torpedo the Abyei
Referendum in 2011.
This is how Khartoum behaves across the board on every
important issue. This is the Government our Administration is
seeking to ``make nice'' with. Comparing the problems of the
GOSS with those of Khartoum, which really is the failed
state? Is it Khartoum, the one rolling in cash, thoroughly
corrupt, a killer regime whom WE have accused rightly of
genocide, the `government' that undermines all the
marginalized populations in Sudan and never keeps its
agreements? Or is it the four-and-a-half year old GOSS,
struggling to reconstruct a war-devastated South with an
almost 100% war-traumatized population of survivors minus
several million that didn't survive? Morally, by any
assessment, the South wins hands down. And morally, that's
where America's heart should be.
Why? I believe that with all their shortcomings, the SPLM
and the GOSS politically are fundamentally democrats and
genuinely want to provide development for all the populations
for which they have governing responsibility. In my view it
is in advancing precisely those commitments that U.S.
national interests are ultimately located.
To me that requires a U.S. surge in coming along side in a
full-blown partnership with the struggling GOSS to improve
its performance in terms of governance quality so it can
deliver services to and inspire the hopes of the people of
South Sudan and Abyei. While I cannot be comprehensively
prescriptive on specific programmatic solutions, there are
some that are obvious: improved financial management,
establishment of corruption detection and prosecution
mechanisms, preparation for managing the South's petroleum
sector, enhancing their public information capacity so the
public is well-informed, increased training of police, and
capacity-building in reducing inter-community violence. For
the remaining timeline of the CPA and for sometime
thereafter, the U.S. should stimulate capacity transfer by an
infusion of capable American, Indian and other nationality
expertise to work along side their Sudanese counterparts. It
also means Washington confronting Khartoum when in big or
little ways they obstruct CPA requirements and undermine GOSS
capacity.
To me this is an approach of which the American people
ultimately will be proud. It will free the people of Abyei
and the South and will also best secure our own fundamental
interests.
____________________