[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 193 (Thursday, December 15, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H8975-H8976]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SUDAN
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Virginia (Mr. Wolf) for 5 minutes.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I was pleased this morning that The Washington
Post did a story on a shameful development here in Washington; namely,
that Bart Fisher, a Washington lawyer, was granted a license by the
Office of Foreign Assets Control, OFAC, at Treasury, to represent the
genocidal government of Sudan. I submit a copy of the Post article for
the record.
The Sudanese people have long been brutalized, marginalized, and
terrorized by their own government. Yet, unbelievably, it seems the
same regime has been afforded the privilege of legal representation in
Washington by the Obama administration.
According to a news report earlier this week in Africa Intelligence,
Mr. Fisher was hired with the express purpose of trying to ``lift
American sanctions against it.'' In documentation posted on the
Department of Justice Web site, it appears that Mr. Fisher was granted
a license by the Office of Foreign Assets Control at Treasury to
provide this representation, and that he plans to engage in political
activities, among them ``representations, including petitions to U.S.
government agencies regarding sanctions.''
I'm appalled that this has been permitted and someone or Mr. Fisher's
political contributions were a factor. The administration should
reverse this approval.
Martin Luther King famously said, ``In the end, we will remember not
the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.'' The Obama
administration should remember the words ``the silence of our
friends.''
What must the people of Sudan be thinking at this particular juncture
when the administration struggles to find its voice on their behalf,
while at the same time seemingly empowering the voice of their
oppressors?
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's crimes are well known and
documented. This is the same man that is accused by the International
Criminal Court of five counts of crimes against humanity, including
murder, rape, torture, extermination, and two counts of war crimes.
I've been to Sudan five times, including in July of 2004, when
Senator Sam Brownback and I were the first congressional delegation to
go to Darfur. We spoke with women who had been raped just days earlier.
The Arab Janjaweed militias, armed by Khartoum, the government of
Khartoum of Sudan, told these women that they wanted to make ``lighter-
skinned babies.''
In addition to horrific human rights abuses and crimes committed by
Bashir and his National Congress Party, Sudan remains on the State
Department's list of State sponsors of terrorism. It is well known that
the same people currently in control in Khartoum gave safe haven to
Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s. Moreover, Khartoum was a revolving
door for Hamas and other designated terrorist groups.
But Bashir's crimes are not merely a thing of the past. At the recent
Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing on the crisis in Southern
Kordofan and Blue Nile states in Sudan, a former Member of Congress and
President of United to End Genocide, Tom Andrews, spoke about his
experiences while visiting the region.
He said there were reports of ``Sudanese armed forces and their
allied militias going door to door targeting people based upon their
religion and based upon the color of their skin.'' And yet the Obama
administration gives them the right to have somebody in this town
represent them.
{time} 1100
A recent delegation from the U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom visited Sudan and met with refugees in Yida camp.
They returned with similar reports. All of the pastors with whom they
spoke said they fled southern Kordofan after learning that the Sudanese
military was undertaking house searches for Christians and SPLM-North
supporters.
We stand just blocks from a museum that cries out, ``Never again.''
Meanwhile, it appears that this administration is complicit in allowing
a genocidal government to have an advocate in Washington.
The people who have the authority and the power to stop this from
happening are President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, Secretary of
the Treasury Geithner, Adam Szubin, who is the head of the office of
OFAC, and David Cohen, the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial
Intelligence at Treasury.
History will be the judge if they fail to act.
[From the Washington Post, Dec. 15, 2011]
Sudan Hires Washington Lawyer
(By Dan Eggen)
The Obama administration has allowed the Republic of Sudan
to hire its first U.S. lawyer in years, prompting strong
objections from human rights groups and some members of
Congress.
Bart S. Fisher, a veteran international trade lawyer, is
being paid $20,000 a month by Sudan to help the strife-torn
African nation in its attempts to have U.S. economic
sanctions lifted and be removed from the State Department's
list of terrorism-sponsoring governments, according to
federal registration documents.
The hiring has angered U.S. human rights activists and some
lawmakers because of the Sudanese regime's history of alleged
genocide and other atrocities against its citizens during a
decades-long civil war. Fighting has flared again this year
along the border with newly independent South Sudan,
displacing an estimated 400,000 people and prompting new
accusations of indiscriminate bombing and illegal killings by
the Khartoum government.
Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), a longtime critic of the
Sudanese regime, attacked Fisher in the House and during a
news conference this week for agreeing to work for ``a
genocidal government'' that ``has blood on its hands.'' He
also said he suspected the administration may have issued a
license to Fisher because of the lawyer's past campaign
contributions to President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton and other Democrats.
``I don't know how Mr. Fisher sleeps at night,'' Wolf said
on the House floor Tuesday, adding later: ``If he has
received one penny from the government of Sudan, he should
return it immediately.''
[[Page H8976]]
An alliance of activists, Act for Sudan, plans to picket
Fisher's Washington offices on Friday. ``Our government
should not be seeing this as the time to reward the
government of Sudan,'' said Act for Sudan spokesman Eric
Cohen.
Fisher said in an interview Wednesday that the objections
are misplaced and based on the erroneous idea that he is
working as a lobbyist. Under the terms of the license issued
by the Treasury Department, which enforces sanctions against
Sudan, Fisher may only represent the Khartoum government in
legal matters and is forbidden from lobbying or engaging in
public relations, records show.
``I am not a lobbyist,'' Fisher said. ``I am a lawyer, and
the Embassy of the Republic of Sudan is my client.''
The State Department has designated Sudan a state sponsor
of terrorism since 1993, when the United States imposed
sanctions on the country for harboring terrorists such as
Osama bin Laden. The restrictions remained amid persistent
allegations of genocide and other crimes during a 20-year
civil war. A fragile peace agreement in 2005 led to the
formation this year of the new nation of South Sudan.
The Khartoum regime has long sought ways to persuade the
U.S. government to lift its restrictions, including the
hiring of a Washington lobbyist in 2005, who was later
prosecuted for working on behalf of the country in violation
of sanctions.
The Washington Post reported in 2009 that the regime had
worked through the nation of Qatar to enlist the help of
former Reagan administration official Robert ``Bud''
McFarlane, who is now an adviser to Newt Gingiich's
presidential campaign.
Documents filed with the Justice Department under the
Foreign Agents Registration Act show that Fisher was hired
Nov. 1 to ``counsel and assist the Republic of the Sudan in
satisfying appropriate U.S. conditions to reduce and
eliminate the Sudanese Sanctions Regulations and related U.S.
laws.'' A license allowing the deal was issued by Treasury on
Nov. 16, records show.
The fee is $20,000 per month, paid quarterly. Fisher's wife
also received a gift of a purse and two candlestick holders
from the republic on Nov. 2, disclosure records show.
A Treasury official, speaking on background, said that the
agreement adheres to sanction guidelines because legal
representation, but not lobbying or public relations, is
allowed.
``Recognizing the importance of due process and opportunity
for redress, our regulations ensure that even the worst
actors have the opportunity to challenge the blocking of
their property before U.S. government agencies and courts,''
the official said in a statement.
Fisher said Sudan's government needs legal representation
to continue implementing the 2005 peace accord, which
includes complex negotiations over transportation and other
infrastructure issues with South Sudan.
``Is it controversial? Yes. But is it improper to have
counsel under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution? I
don't think so,'' Fisher said. ``Why would they not have a
right to counsel like anyone else?''
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