[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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