[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 114 (Friday, August 2, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1234-E1237]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WHAT IS THIS ADMINISTRATION'S POLICY IN SUDAN?
______
HON. FRANK R. WOLF
of virginia
in the house of representatives
Friday, August 2, 2013
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise to submit a letter I sent today to
President Obama regarding Sudan as well as a copy of my Darfur trip
report which I issued in July 2004 after having been a part of the
first Congressional delegation to the region. Just months later then-
Secretary of State Colin Powell described what was happening as
genocide--a descriptor that President Obama himself used as recently as
2009.
And yet, the Sudan Special Envoy position remains vacant after nearly
five months. Violence, displacement and atrocities continue in Darfur
and the Nuba Mountains. And Sudanese President Bashir continues to
travel the globe with virtual impunity.
What is this administration's policy in Sudan?
Congress of the United States,
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC, August 2, 2013.
Hon. Barack H. Obama,
The President, The White House, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. President: I have written you on more than one
occasion about the persistent vacancy of the Sudan Special
Envoy post, which has been unfilled for nearly five months.
This is indefensible given the current state of affairs in
Sudan.
I enclose for your reference a recent piece that Sudan
expert and advocate Professor Eric Reeves authored for the
Washington Post. He paints a grim picture about the situation
in Darfur, lamenting that this genocide, which once captured
our collective national outrage, now seems to have
disappeared from public view leaving us with the
misperception that the violence has subsided and the crisis
resolved. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Reeves writes ``. . . the slaughter has continued in
Darfur: Some 500,000 people have died in the past 10 years
from war-related causes. In 2009, as president, Obama again
declared that `genocide' was occurring in Darfur, yet little
followed from this.'' He continued, ``But the people of
Darfur have been left defenseless largely because of an
unforgivable lack of attention and leadership by the United
States. The policies of Obama's administration have hardly
matched his rhetoric. Indeed, in a bizarre reprise of
policies for which Obama had sharply criticized the Bush
administration, on Nov. 8, 2010, senior administration
officials explicitly `decoupled' Darfur from the largest
bilateral issue between Washington and Khartoum: the latter's
place on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.''
While Reeves' focus in the enclosed editorial is on
Darfur--that region is far from being the only humanitarian
and human rights catastrophe in Sudan. Last year I visited
Yida refugee camp in South Sudan. I heard harrowing stories
from a growing refugee population that had fled the Nuba
Mountains, including indiscriminate aerial bombardments aimed
at civilian populations, the use of food as a weapon of war,
people driven from their homes and targeted for killing
because of the color of their skin. In short I heard echoes
of my time spent in Darfur as the first member of the House
of Representatives to visit in July 2004.
Last year I offered an amendment to the State and Foreign
Operations Appropriations bill which would have cut non-
humanitarian foreign assistance to any nation that allowed
Sudanese President Omar Bashir, an internationally indicted
war criminal, into their country without arresting him. The
amendment was adopted with bipartisan support by voice vote.
The amendment I proposed would have effectively isolated
Bashir and made him an international pariah as is befitting a
man with blood on his hands. It is noteworthy that the
amendment garnered the support of 70 prominent Holocaust and
genocide scholars. Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the Wyman
Institute, which initiated a letter of support to the
administration from these scholars, said: ``Halting aid to
those who host Bashir would be the first concrete step the
U.S. has taken to isolate the Butcher of Darfur and pave the
way for his arrest. If the Obama administration is serious
about punishing perpetrators of genocide, it should support
the Wolf Amendment.''
Sadly that support never materialized. In fact your
administration actively sought to remove this language from
the final bill. Meanwhile, Bashir remains free to travel
where he pleases, and the people of Sudan see no end in sight
to their suffering and U.S. policy is in tatters.
The FY 2014 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations
bill, which just last week passed out of the full committee,
included language consistent with the amendment I offered
last year. In seeking to isolate Bashir, our options are
limited but far from nonexistent.
Will your administration support this effort? Will Bashir
be made to face some modicum of consequence for his actions?
Will the special envoy position be filled before the fall?
Professor Reeves' piece featured this quote from you: ``We
can't say `never again' and then allow it to happen again,
and as a president of the United States, I don't intend to
abandon people or turn a blind eye to slaughter.'' I wish,
and more importantly the suffering people of Sudan wish, we
had seen an ounce of that moral clarity and conviction since
you took office. Sudan has historically been a bipartisan
issue. We may be from different parties but I had thought,
based on your campaign rhetoric, that this might be an area
of common cause.
Best wishes.
Sincerely,
Frank R. Wolf,
Member of Congress.
____
[From the Washington Post]
Civilians in Sudan's Darfur Region Face Wholesale Destruction
(By Eric Reeves)
After years of obscurity and little reliable international
reporting, the vast human catastrophe in Sudan's Darfur
region is again
[[Page E1235]]
in the news. It was regularly making headlines before 2008,
when the then-five-year-old genocide in Darfur had claimed
hundreds of thousands of African lives, but a lack of
sustained mainstream attention meant that the surging
violence fell off the radar.
Few could have predicted that this remote and obscure
region in western Sudan would galvanize American civil
society. Then again, how could the loss of attention have
been so rapid?
The United Nations recently estimated that 300,000 Darfuris
had been displaced in the first five months of this year;
more than 1 million civilians have been displaced since the
fall of 2008. Human Rights Watch recently reported that
``satellite images confirm the wholesale destruction of
villages in Central Darfur in an attack in April.'' The
attacks were directed by Ali Kushayb, who was indicted in
2007 by the International Criminal Court for crimes against
humanity.
Radio Dabanga--an extraordinary news network organized by
Darfuris both displaced and still in the region--provides
daily, highly detailed accounts of events in Darfur. Although
rarely cited by news organizations, which themselves have no
access to Darfur, Radio Dabanga has long reported brutal
assaults on camps for the displaced, chronic breakdowns in
the vast humanitarian effort in Darfur, an epidemic of rape
and the appropriation of African lands by Arab militias,
which ensures continued instability and displacement.
The ethnic animus in the assaults remains clear, although
in recent years, conflicts among Arab tribes have become
increasingly destructive. The regime in Khartoum, which
cannot defeat the Darfuri rebels militarily and chooses not
to address their legitimate grievances, has resumed its
scorched-earth campaign, using Arab and non-Arab militias
against anyone thought to be providing support to the rebels.
Central Darfur's Jebel Marra region has been the site of a
three-year humanitarian blockade and endless aerial
bombardment by Russian-built cargo planes that have been
crudely retrofitted to drop shrapnel-loaded barrel-bombs.
Useless against military targets, these attacks have caused
countless civilian casualties while also destroying property
and livestock among the region's primarily non-Arab Fur
people.
Although violence has ebbed and flowed over the past
decade, it has accelerated sharply in the past year. Yet
until recently, news coverage has been paltry and often
deeply misleading. In February 2012, the New York Times
declared from western Darfur that ``one of the world's most
infamous conflicts may have decisively cooled,'' citing
``returns'' by the displaced as evidence. In fact, half a
million people had been displaced in the preceding two years
and violence was unrelenting. Last August, western North
Darfur became another arena of violence during a tribal-based
land grab for the Jebel Amir gold mines. The major town of
Kutum was overrun by Arab militias that looted humanitarian
resources. Nearby Kassab camp was also overrun and emptied of
some 30,000 people within a day.
As a senator in 2004, Barack Obama called the atrocities in
Darfur ``genocide.'' He said so again as a presidential
candidate in 2007 and chided the Bush administration for its
accommodation of Khartoum. Invoking Rwanda and Bosnia as
justification for humanitarian intervention in Darfur, Obama
said, ``We can't say `never again' and then allow it to
happen again, and as a president of the United States, I
don't intend to abandon people or turn a blind eye to
slaughter.''
But the slaughter has continued in Darfur: Some 500,000
people have died in the past 10 years from war-related
causes. In 2009, as president, Obama again declared that
``genocide'' was occurring in Darfur, yet little followed
from this. To be sure, much has intervened in the years since
Obama was elected, including the Arab Spring, the drawdown
from Afghanistan, rising tensions with China and a collapsing
world economy. These issues, which impinge more directly on
U.S. interests and obligations than does Darfur, have
consumed much of the administration's energies.
But the people of Darfur have been left defenseless largely
because of an unforgivable lack of attention and leadership
by the United States. The policies of Obama's administration
have hardly matched his rhetoric. Indeed, in a bizarre
reprise of policies for which Obama had sharply criticized
the Bush administration, on Nov. 8, 2010, senior
administration officials explicitly ``decoupled'' Darfur from
the largest bilateral issue between Washington and Khartoum:
the latter's place on the U.S. list of state sponsors of
terrorism. That marked a shift in attention to South Sudan
and implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement,
but the signal sent to Khartoum was that the regime could
resume genocidal counterinsurgency warfare in Darfur. The
campaign has been more chaotic than the early years of the
genocide (2003 to 2005) but no less destructive, and with the
continuing collapse of humanitarian efforts because of
growing insecurity, civilian destruction could be wholesale.
It's time to ``re-couple'' Darfur to all bilateral issues
between Washington and Khartoum.
Congressman Frank R Wolf Darfur Trip Report (July 2004)
It was just 10 years ago--in 1994--when the world stood by
and watched as more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis were
systematically murdered in Rwanda by rival extremist Hutus.
When the killing finally ended after 100 days--and the
horrific images of what had taken place were broadcast around
the globe--world leaders acknowledged it was genocide,
apologized for failing to intervene, and vowed ``never
again.''
That pledge from the international community is being put
to the test today in western Sudan, where an estimated 30,000
black African Muslims have been murdered and more than 1
million have been driven from their tribal lands and forced
to live in one of 129 refugee camps scattered across the
western provinces of Darfur. More than 160,000 have fled
across the border to Chad.
The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide describes genocide as
acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part,
national, ethnic, racial or religious groups, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the
group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about physical destruction in whole or in
part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the
group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another
group.
After just returning from spending three days and two
nights (June 27-29) in Darfur, we believe what is happening
there may very well meet this test.
During our trip we visited five refugee camps: Abu Shouk;
Tawilah; Krinding; Sisi and Morney--all sprawling tent cities
jam-packed with thousands of displaced families and fast
becoming breading grounds for disease and sickness.
We drove past dozens of pillaged villages and walked
through what was left of four burned to the ground.
We heard countless stories about rape, murder and plunder.
We even watched the barbarous men--Arab militiamen called
Janjaweed--who are carrying out these attacks sitting astride
camels and horses just a short distance from where young and
old have sought what they had hoped would be a safe harbor.
Janjaweed is roughly translated in Arabic as ``wild men on
horses with G-3 guns.''
Ruthless, brutal killers, the Janjaweed have instigated a
reign of terror on Darfur--a region about the size of Texas--
for more than a year. They kill men. They rape women. They
abduct children. They torch villages. They dump human corpses
and animal carcasses in wells to contaminate the water. Their
mandate is essentially doing whatever necessary to force the
black African Muslims from their land to never return.
It is clearly the intent of Janjaweed to purge the region
of darker-skinned African Muslims, in particular members of
the Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit tribes.
From where does this mandate come? The Government of Sudan
disavows supporting the Janjaweed. Some officials in Khartoum
even deny the existence of a humanitarian crisis in the
region. Yet the facts prove otherwise. We witnessed the
destruction. We heard horrific accounts of violence and
intimidation. We talked to rape victims. We saw the scars on
men who had been shot. We watched mothers cradle their sick
and dying babies, hoping against all odds that their children
would survive. We saw armed Janjaweed waiting to prey on
innocent victims along the perimeter of refugee camps.
To hear the vivid, heartrending descriptions of the attacks
it is clear the Janjaweed have the support--and the
approval--of the Government of Sudan to operate with
impunity. The same stories were repeated at every camp we
visited. The raids would happen early in the morning. First
comes the low rumble of a Soviet-made Antonov plane--flown by
Sudanese pilots--to bomb the village. Next come helicopter
gunships--again, flown by Sudanese pilots--to strafe the
village with the huge machine guns mounted on each side.
Sometimes the helicopters would land and unload supplies for
the Janjaweed. They would then be reloaded with booty
confiscated from a village. One man told us he saw cows being
loaded onto one helicopter. Moments later, the Janjaweed,
some clad in government uniforms, would come galloping in on
horseback and camels to finish the job by killing, raping,
stealing and plundering.
Walking through the burned out villages we could tell the
people living there had little or no time to react. They left
everything they owned--lanterns, cookware, water jugs,
pottery, plows--and ran for their lives. There was no time to
stop and bury their dead.
The Janjaweed made certain that there would be nothing left
for the villagers to come home to. Huts were torched.
Donkeys, goats and cows were stolen, slaughtered or dumped
into wells to poison the water. Grain containers destroyed.
In one village we saw where the Janjaweed even burned the
mosque.
Only the lucky ones--mostly women and children--made it out
alive.
ethnic cleansing
What is happening in Darfur is rooted in ethnic cleansing.
Religion has nothing to do with what unfolded over the last
year.
No black African is safe in Darfur. Security is non-
existent. The Janjaweed are everywhere. Outside the camps.
Inside the camps. They walk freely through the marketplace
in Geneina, a town in far western Darfur, with guns slung
over their shoulders. One shopkeeper, we were told, was
shot in
[[Page E1236]]
the head by a Janjaweed because he wasn't willing to lower
the price of a watermelon.
The Government of Sudan military and security forces also
are omnipresent. At each of the places we visited we were
either trailed or escorted by a mixture of military regulars,
police forces and government ``minders.'' There have been
reports that the government has been folding the Janjaweed
into its regular forces as a way to disguise and protect
them. At two of the camps we visited, we were told the
government had inserted spies to report on what was said or
to threaten those who talked. We were told the ``minders''
repeatedly scolded refugees and told them in Arabic to shut
up. Yet, even with these restrictions, refugees in every camp
we visited were eager to tell their stories.
It should be understood that the Janjaweed are not
``taking'' the land from the black Muslim farmers they are
terrorizing. The Janjaweed, whose historical roots are part
of the region's roving nomads who have battled with the
African farmers for generations, are employing a government-
supported scorched earth policy to drive them out of the
region--and perhaps to extinction. It also was clear that
only villages inhabited by black African Muslims were being
targeted. Arab villages sitting just next to African ones
miles from the nearest towns have been left unscathed.
On our first day in the region, we met with local
Government of Sudan officials in the town of El Fasher, a
two-hour plane ride west of Khartoum. They blame the crisis
in the region on two black African rebel groups--the Sudan
Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement
(JEM)--who started an uprising in February 2003 over what
they regarded as unjust treatment by the government in their
struggle over land and resources with Arab countrymen. The
rebel forces actually held El Fasher for a short period last
year. A cease-fire was agreed to in April 2004 between the
rebel groups and the Government of Sudan, but the Janjaweed
have continued to carry out attacks with the support and
approval of Khartoum.
While local government officials in El Fasher were adamant
in saying there is no connection between the Government of
Sudan and the Janjaweed, whom they called ``armed bandits,''
the militiamen we saw did not look like skilled pilots who
could fly planes or helicopters.
We also were told the Janjaweed are well armed and well
supplied. If they are traditional nomads, how are they
getting modern automatic weapons, and, more importantly, from
whom? They also are said to have satellite phones, an
astonishing fact considering most of the people in the far
western provinces of Darfur have probably never even seen or
walked on a paved road.
The impunity under which the Janjaweed operate was most
telling as we approached the airport in Geneina on our last
day in the region for our flight back to Khartoum. In plain
sight was an encampment of Janjaweed within shouting distance
of a contingent of Government of Sudan regulars. No more than
200 yards separated the two groups. Sitting on the tarmac
were two helicopter gunships and a Russian-made Antonov
plane.
WORLD'S WORST HUMANITARIAN CRISIS
The situation in Darfur is being described as the worst
humanitarian crisis in the world today. We agree. But sadly,
and with a great sense of urgency, things are only going to
worsen. Some say that even under the best of circumstances,
as many as 300,000 Darfuris forced from their homes are
expected to die from malnutrition and diarrhea or diseases
such as malaria and cholera in the coming months. Measles
have already spread through Abu Shouck, a large refugee camp
outside of El Fasher.
According to some predictions, the death toll could reach
as high as 1 million by next year. The Dafuri farmers have
missed another planting season and will now be dependent on
grain and other food stuffs provided by the international
community for at least another year. The impending rainy
season presents its own set of problems, making roads
impassable for food deliveries and the likelihood of disease
increasing dramatically with the heavy rains.
The potential for a crisis of catastrophic proportions is
very real, especially since none of the villagers we talked
to at the refugee camps believed they will be able to go back
to their homes anytime soon. Having been brutally terrorized
by the Janjaweed and fearing for their lives, they do not
believe Government of Sudan officials who say it is safe to
return to their villages. We heard stories of some families
who went back to their villages only to return to the camps a
week later for fear of being attacked again.
The attacks have traumatized thousands of young children.
In an effort to cope with what they have endured, programs
have been established in the camps to help the young boys and
girls deal with their psychological scars. Part of the
program encourages them to draw pictures of what they have
seen. The crayon drawings are chilling. Huts on fire, red
flames shooting through the roof. Planes and helicopters
flying overhead shooting bullets. Dead bodies, depictions,
perhaps, of their mother or father.
We also saw a group of children who had made clay figures
of men on camels and horseback attacking villages. There is
no way to measure the impact of these atrocities on the
thousands of children living in these camps. Their lives are
forever scarred.
The first step in resolving this crisis is disarming the
Janjaweed. It must be done swiftly and universally. If not,
the Janjaweed will just bury their weapons in the sand, wait
for the pressure from the international community to lift,
then reinitiate their reign of terror.
A system of justice overseen by outside monitors must also
be implemented. The heinous, murderous acts carried out by
the Janjaweed cannot go unpunished. War crimes and crimes
against humanity clearly have been--and continue to be--
committed. Those responsible must be brought to justice.
DIFFICULT LIFE IN IDP CAMPS
Abu Shouk was the first of five IDP (Internally Displaced
People) camps we visited. More than 40,000 people live in
this sprawling tent city, created in April after El Fasher
was overrun with displaced families. Methodically laid out
with water stations, a health clinic, a supplemental feeding
station and crude latrines, it is being hailed as a ``model''
by humanitarian relief workers in the region.
However, aid workers at Abu Shouck are deeply concerned.
They observe that the malnutrition rate at this ``model''
camp is a staggering eight to nine deaths every day, and fear
what is happening at the other camps, especially in the more
remote areas of Darfur that have not been reached by
humanitarian groups.
Life in the camps is difficult. Crude shelters made from
straw and sticks and covered with plastic sheeting stretch as
far as the eye can see. Families arriving at the camps--
almost all after walking for days in the hot sun from their
now abandon villages--are only given a tarp, a water jug,
cookware and a small amount of grain.
The sanitary conditions are wretched. The sandy conditions
make building latrines difficult. At Mornay, the largest of
the IDP camps in Darfur with more than 70,000 inhabitants, it
was hard not to step in either human or animal feces as we
walked. In a few weeks, when the heavy rains begin, excrement
will flow across the entire camp. Mortality from diarrhea,
which we were told represents one-third of the deaths in the
camps, will only increase.
To their credit, all the non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) that have been allowed to operate in Darfur have
done--and continue to do--a tremendous job under extremely
trying circumstances. The Government of Sudan has repeatedly
thrown up roadblocks to bringing in aid. It has denied or
slowed visa processing for relief workers. It has kept aid
vehicles locked up in customs for weeks at a time. It has
blocked relief groups from bringing in radios. It has limited
access to certain regions of the country. All this has made
getting medicine, food and other humanitarian supplies like
plastic sheeting and water jugs an uphill battle. While the
Government of Sudan plays its games, people are dying as
needed aid sits on tarmacs.
As we approached the Morney camp on the last day of our
three-day trip, we were stopped by Government of Sudan
soldiers and security officers. They followed us throughout
the camp, watching with whom we talked. Amazingly, their
presence did not inhibit the refugees from recanting the
horrors from which they escaped--and for some, mostly women,
continue to endure.
The men said while they feel somewhat secure inside the
confines of the camps, they dare not venture outside for fear
of being shot or killed by the Janjaweed. They showed us
scars on their arms and legs of the gunshot wounds they
received while escaping from their villages. They are
despondent over the fact that they are unable to provide food
for their families because they cannot farm their fields.
They expressed utter sadness and outrage about their wives
and daughters who venture outside the borders of the camp to
collect firewood and straw, knowing the fate that awaits them
at the hands of the Janjaweed. Life and death decisions are
made every day: send the men out and risk death or send the
women out and risk rape.
Rape is clearly another weapon being used by the Janjaweed.
Rapes, we were told, happen almost daily to the women who
venture outside the confines of the camps in search of
firewood and straw. They leave very early in the morning,
hoping to evade their tormentors before they awake. With the
camps swelling in size and nearby resources dwindling, they
often walk several miles. The farther the women go from the
camp, the greater the risk of being attacked by the
Janjaweed. As we approached Mornay, we saw a number of
Janjaweed resting with their camels and horses along the
perimeter of the camp, easily within walking distance.
We heard the horrific story of four young girls--two of
whom were sisters--who had been raped just days before we
arrived. They had left the camp to collect straw to feed the
family's donkey when they were attacked. They said their
attackers told them they were slaves and that their skin was
too dark. As they were being raped, they said the Janjweed
told them they were hoping to make more lighter-skinned
babies.
One of the four women assaulted, too shy to tell her story
in front of men, privately told a female journalist traveling
with us that if anyone were to find out she had been raped,
she would never be able to marry.
We were told that some of the rape victims were being
branded on their back and arms by the Janjaweed, permanently
labeling the women. We heard the chilling account of the rape
of a 9-year-old girl.
[[Page E1237]]
We also received a letter during our trip from a group of
women who were raped. To protect them further attacks, we
purposely do not mention where they are from or list their
names. The translation is heartbreaking:
``Messrs Members of the US. Congress
``Peace and the mercy and the blessings of God be upon you.
``We thank you for your help and for standing by the weak
of the world, wherever they are found. We welcome you to the
(. . .) region, which was devastated by the Janjaweed, or
what is referred to as the government `horse- and camel-men,'
on Friday (. . . 2004), when they caused havoc by killing and
burning and committing plunder and rape. This was carried out
with the help of the government, which used the (. . .)
region as an airport and supplied the Janjaweed with
munitions and supplies. So we, the raped woman of the (. . .)
region, would like to explain to you what has happened and
God is our best witness.
``We are forty-four raped women. As a result of that
savagery, some of us became pregnant, some have aborted, some
took out their wombs and some are still receiving medical
treatment. Hereunder, we list the names of the raped women
and state that we have high hopes in you and the
international community to stand by us and not to forsake us
to this tyrannical, brutal and racist regime, which wants to
eliminate us racially, bearing in mind that 90 percent of our
sisters at (. . . ) are widows.''
``(Above) are the names of some of the women raped in the
(. . .) region. Some of these individuals are now at (. . .),
some are at Tawilah and some are at Abu Shouk camps.
Everything we said is the absolute truth. These girls were
raped in front of our fathers and husbands.
``We hope that you and the international community will
continue to preserve the balance of the peoples and nations.
``Thank you.
From: The raped women at (. . .).''
These rape victims have nowhere to turn. Even if they
report the attacks to the police, they know nothing will
happen. The police, the military and the Janjaweed all appear
to be acting in coordination.
DIRE SITUATION IS MAN-MADE
The situation in Darfur is dire, and from what we could
see, it is entirely man-made. These people who had managed to
survive even the severest droughts and famines during the
course of their long history are now in mortal danger of
being wiped out simply because of the darker shade of their
skin color.
Over the course of three days, we saw the worst of man's
inhumanity to man, but we also saw the best of what it means
to be human: mothers waiting patiently for hours in the hot
sun so that they could try to save their babies; NGO aid
workers and volunteer doctors feeding and caring for the sick
and the dying, and the courage and bravery of men, women and
children eager to talk to us so that we would know their
story.
The world made a promise in 1994 to never again allow the
systematic destruction of a people or race. ``Never again''--
words said, too, after the Holocaust. In Darfur, the
international community has a chance to stop history from
repeating itself. It also has a chance to end this nightmare
for those who have found a way to survive. If the
international community fails to act, the next cycle of this
crisis will begin. The destiny facing the people of Darfur
will be death from hunger or disease.
When will the death of innocent men, women and children who
want nothing more in this world than to be left alone to farm
their land and provide for their families--be too much for
the conscience of the international community to bear?
We sat with the victims. We heard their mind-numbing
stories. We saw their tears. Now the world has seen the
pictures and heard the stories. We cannot say we did not know
when history judges the year 2004 in Darfur.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The Government of Sudan
The Government of Sudan should immediately implement key
provisions of the April 8 cease-fire agreement, including:
the cessation of attacks against civilians; disarming the
Janjaweed; and removing all barriers to the admittance of
international aid into Darfur. There should be a strict
timetable holding the Government of Sudan accountable for
implementing these provisions.
The Government of Sudan should renew a dialogue with the
Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement
to discuss the political, economic and social roots of the
crisis.
The African Union
Additional cease-fire observers should be deployed and
violations of the cease-fire reported immediately. The
current number of 270 is inadequate to monitor the activity
of an area the size of Texas.
The United States
The United States should publically identify those
responsible for the atrocities occurring in Darfur, including
officials and other individuals of the Government of Sudan,
as well as Janjaweed militia commanders, and impose targeted
sanctions that include travel bans and the freezing of
assets.
The President should instruct the U.S. Representative to
the United Nations to seek an official investigation and hold
accountable officials of the Government of Sudan and
government-supported militia groups responsible for the
atrocities in Darfur.
The United Nations
The United Nations should pass a strong Security Council
Resolution condemning the Government of Sudan. It should call
for: an immediate end to the attacks; the immediate disarming
of the Janjaweed; the immediate protection of civilians by
beginning a review of the security of refugees in Darfur; the
determination of the feasibility of sending in UN protection
forces; an immediate review of bringing legal action against
those responsible for the policies of ethnic cleansing,
crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur; and the
imposition of targeted sanctions that include travel bans and
the freezing of assets.
The United Nations should immediately deploy human rights
monitors to Darfur.
The protection of civilians and access to humanitarian aid
should be a primary concern; the Security Council must be
prepared to establish a no fly zone if the cease-fire
continues to be violated.
The United Nations together with other organizations should
continue to coordinate a relief strategy for getting aid into
those regions of Darfur that have yet to receive humanitarian
assistance. Alternative routes and means of delivering aid
should be considered if the Government of Sudan continues to
impede deliveries.
The United Nations should take immediate steps to seek the
removal of Sudan from the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights.
The United Nations should set a deadline for the Government
of Sudan to comply to all obligations under the cease-fire
and prepare contingency plans in the event those deadlines
are not met.
We would like to thank everyone involved in organizing,
coordinating and implementing our trip. Representatives from
the State Department, USAID and the NGOs both in Washington
and Sudan deserve special thanks. We would also like to thank
Sean Woo, general counsel to Senator Brownback, and Dan
Scandling, chief of staff to Rep. Wolf, for accompanying us
on the trip. They played a critical role in writing this
report and took all the photographs. We would also like to
thank Janet Shaffron, legislative director, and Samantha
Stockman, foreign affairs legislative assistant, to Rep.
Wolf, and Brian Hart, communications director, and Josh
Carter, legislative aide, of Senator Sam Brownback, for
editing the report. Colin Samples, an intern in Rep. Wolf's
office, did the design and layout.
We also want to extend out thanks to Secretary of State
Colin Powell and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for visiting
the region. Their personal involvement in working to resolve
this crisis is critically important.
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