[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 121 (Friday, August 5, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1497]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  SOUTHERN KORDOFAN: ETHNIC CLEANSING AND HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN SUDAN

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                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH-

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, August 5, 2011

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I called an emergency hearing 
yesterday because of the escalating crisis in the Sudanese state of 
Southern Kordofan. This crisis first arose in June of this year, 
shortly after the military forces of the Republic of the Sudan attacked 
the Abyei region, apparently as a provocation to South Sudan's Sudanese 
People's Liberation Movement, or SPLM. South Sudan was about to become 
independent, and these attacks may have been intended to provoke a 
fight that could derail their independence. At the same time, Sudanese 
attacks on SPLM-North members in the Sudanese state of Southern 
Kordofan were increasing.
  Because of the fighting and the displacement of Sudanese and 
foreigners from Southern Kordofan, no one is estimating how many people 
have been killed in that area. We do know that more than 73,000 people 
have been displaced. Whatever the numbers involved, we can be sure that 
the suffering of the people in Southern Kordofan, especially the Nuba 
people, has been catastrophic.
  This latest violence is a tragic resumption of a prior war by the 
Khartoum government on the Nuba. Beginning in the 1980s, Islamist 
elements in the North began an eradication campaign against the Nuba--
pitting Northern Arabs against Africans to the South. Unfortunately for 
the Nuba, they are not Southerners, even though many fought with the 
Southern army during the North-South civil war. But neither are they 
accepted by the elements ruling the North, even though many of them are 
Muslims.
  This left the Nuba on their own to suffer the onslaught of the 
Khartoum government. The strategy of cultural cleansing pursued by the 
government involved harsh attempts to depopulate vast areas, killing 
potential combatants, as well as many others, and herding survivors 
into tightly controlled government refugee camps. When jihad was 
declared by the Government of the Sudan in 1992, even Nuba Muslims were 
targeted, with the rationale that Muslims in SPLM areas were not true 
Muslims. Rape of Nuba women has been a central component of the 
government's strategy, aimed at destroying the social fabric of Nuba 
society. Almost every woman who has been in one of Khartoum's so-called 
``peace camps'' reportedly was either raped or threatened with rape.
  According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of 
Humanitarian Affairs, between 30,000 and 40,000 people, out of a 
population of 60,000 in the Southern Kordofan capital of Kadugli have 
fled the town. Many of the attacks in Southern Kordofan were 
indiscriminate, including aerial bombardments and artillery fire by the 
Sudanese Armed Forces. Bombings have been reported in five villages 
south of the state capital of Kadugli, as well as in Talodi, Heiban, 
Kaudo and other towns. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human 
Rights told the UN Security Council on July 29th that there were 
reports, as recently as July 27th, of aerial bombings forcing civilians 
to flee into the Nuba Mountains.
  Some are trying to down play the overwhelming responsibility of the 
Sudanese government for the devastation taking place in Southern 
Kordofan by referring to the refusal of the SPLM-North to lay down 
their arms to negotiate with Khartoum. But there is no moral 
equivalence between the SPLM-North's actions and those of the 
government. SPLM-North members are not bombing people indiscriminately, 
driving Arabs off their lands and out of their homes nor going door-to-
door to identify their perceived enemies and execute them. The 
Government of Sudan's military forces are. We saw photographic evidence 
of these atrocities at yesterday's hearing.
  In addition, the recent attacks on Southern Kordofan have disrupted 
the planting season and will have a long-term negative impact on the 
ability of its people to feed themselves. In parts of Somalia, Ethiopia 
and Kenya, people suffer from drought made worse by conflict. In 
Southern Kordofan, the national government is creating a similar 
humanitarian crisis.
  The death and destruction to which Sudanese Africans have been 
subjected was thought to have ended with the signing of the 
Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005 to end the North-South civil war. 
However, the genocide in Darfur diverted the international community's 
attention away from the unresolved issues between North and South. 
These lingering points of contention threatened to derail independence 
for South Sudan just as the independence process was coming to a 
conclusion. And now the struggle over Abyei threatens to stifle the 
suffering cries and pleas for help that are arising from the Nuba 
people as they are dragged into a resumption of the Northern war 
against them.
  We discussed this war during the Subcommittee's June 16th hearing on 
South Sudan. At that time, the fighting in Southern Kordofan was as 
horrific as any attacks waged by the Khartoum government. The testimony 
that was presented yesterday by witnesses who have seen the carnage 
revealed the horrific extent of this situation.

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