[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 106 (Thursday, July 9, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4946-S4947]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SOUTH SUDAN
Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, today I wish to speak about the ongoing
civil war in South Sudan. July 9 marks the fourth anniversary of South
Sudan's independence. This should be a day of celebration, but it is
instead a day marred by violence and suffering. For the last 19 months,
hostilities between the government and the opposition have brought the
world's newest country to the brink of ruin. Regional mediation efforts
have failed, and the international community has yet to come up with a
viable plan to end the violence. Unless we jumpstart diplomatic efforts
immediately, this conflict is destined to become another long-running
war in Africa that is ignored by the rest of the world.
As some of my colleagues may know, ongoing political tensions between
forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and forces loyal to former Vice
President Riek Machar, coupled with preexisting ethnic tensions,
erupted in violence on the night of December 15, 2013. Both sides in
the conflict have committed and continue to commit serious human rights
violations. The nature and scale of the abuses in the first days,
weeks, and months of the conflict prompted the African Union to
establish a Commission of Inquiry in March of last year to investigate.
However the Commission's report, while completed, has never been
publicly released. We have seen the contents of a version of the report
that was leaked in March and the findings are truly disturbing:
indiscriminate killing of civilians, burning and looting of hospitals
and humanitarian assets, attacks on United Nations compounds, and rape
on a massive scale. Similar findings have been reported separately by
the U.N. and various human rights organizations.
Tragically, increased fighting this spring has been characterized by
an even greater level of brutality. According to the United Nations
Children's Fund, UNICEF, as many as 129 children were killed in May in
Unity State alone--boys were castrated and left to bleed to death,
girls as young as 8 years old were raped and killed, some children had
their throats slit or were thrown into burning buildings by government-
allied militia. This is in addition to the estimated 13,000 children
being forcibly recruited to fight by government and opposition forces.
The behavior of armed groups is beyond inhumane.
As a result of the war, 1.5 million people are internally displaced.
More than 730,000 have crossed borders into Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda,
and Kenya as refugees. The number of people facing severe food
insecurity has almost doubled since the start of the year from 2.5
million to an estimated 4.6 million people, including approximately
874,000 children under the age of 5.
The recent uptick in hostilities has made it extremely challenging
for humanitarian organizations to reach populations in need. Aid
workers continue to be harassed, detained, and abducted. The Government
of South Sudan expelled the United Nations Deputy Special
Representative and Humanitarian Coordinator Toby Lanzer in June. His
expulsion comes at a time of increasing humanitarian need. The ruthless
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means through which troops are executing the war, the parliament's
passage of an NGO law hinders the delivery of much needed services, the
expulsion of the head of the U.N. humanitarian arm and obstruction of
U.N. peacekeeping operations to protect civilians, and the refusal of
the parties to engage in good-faith negotiations to end hostilities all
paint a picture of two opposing sides that have very little regard for
the needs or wellbeing of South Sudanese citizens.
In light of the gravity of the situation on the ground, we must
urgently consider taking several steps: First, we should push for a
United Nations arms embargo on South Sudan to stop the flow of arms to
all warring factions. We may or may not be successful in convincing all
of the Permanent Five members of the Security Council to agree with us
on this, but we will never be successful if we don't make the attempt.
On July 1, the United Nations Security Council imposed personal
targeted sanctions on six South Sudanese generals it believes are
fueling the fighting. I welcome this move, but I have doubts that this
alone will prove a game changer. Strangling the supply of arms and
materiel of the actors on the ground could prove far more effective
than sanctioning military leaders who don't travel outside the country
or hold assets internationally.
Second, we must undertake a review of the military training and
assistance we are providing to countries in the region to determine
whether soldiers we have trained and equipment we have supplied are
being used to either commit human rights abuses in South Sudan or
prolong hostilities. We should also consider whether extra safeguards
are warranted to ensure that U.S. security assistance is not being used
to support the warring factions or otherwise contributing to the
conflict.
Third, we must expand our investments in reconciliation efforts.
USAID has joined with international partners and is doing a tremendous
job on the humanitarian front. But our aid should, to the extent
possible, be coupled with an increase in peace and reconciliation
activities. The vicious nature of the attacks on civilians will make
post-war, community-level reconstruction efforts and national healing
enormously difficult. We cannot wait until the war is over to begin to
bring people together. These programs should also include activities
that support justice at the local level so that people who have borne
the brunt of the violence can obtain some measure of closure.
Fourth, we must begin to look at how we put accountability mechanisms
in place. During his trip to east Africa in May, Secretary Kerry
announced $5 million to support accountability efforts. I applaud this
move, and am pleased to hear that we are supporting the collection of
evidence of gross human rights violations and preserving records for
use in the future. We must take each and every opportunity we can to
make clear that the United States is committed to bringing human rights
abusers to justice. However, we can do more. We should push regional
actors to move forward with efforts to establish the parameters and
modalities of a court or other transitional justice mechanism.
Initiating such mechanisms now--rather than waiting for an end to the
war--more adequately demonstrates the international community's
commitment to justice for victims than empty statements on the
importance of accountability.
Finally, I urge President Obama to convene a meeting with the
Secretaries General of the Africa Union and United Nations while he is
in Addis Ababa this month to discuss a way forward that involves those
two bodies and members of the Troika. And these talks must involve key
regional players who could prove spoilers to any process, including
Sudan and Uganda.
The cost of this war has been astronomical. The U.N. Mission to South
Sudan has cost over $2 billion in the past 2 years alone. The
international community has provided nearly $2.7 billion in
humanitarian assistance. The United States alone has provided more than
$1.2 billion for those purposes. This is money that should have been
invested in building a country that had already been devastated by
decades of war with Sudan. However, the real tragedy is not the dollars
lost--it is in the thousands of lives lost, the seeds sown of ethnic
hatred and division and the squandering of an opportunity to build a
nation that could provide a future to millions of people that were
marginalized, attacked and abused by Khartoum. We must take action now
to stop the war and prevent the deaths of thousands more South
Sudanese.
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