[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20355-20356]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 DARFUR

  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I will comment briefly on a topic that we 
will not be addressing in the Senate, and therefore, before we dive 
into the bill, I will mention the issue of the Sudan.
  Just to update my colleagues because on occasion it has been on the 
front page, but we have not heard as much about it over the last 
several weeks, yet what is occurring, what we have called genocide in 
this body and in the House of Representatives, indeed, continues to 
occur.
  Two and a half weeks ago, the U.N. Security Council passed a second 
resolution on the Sudan. This resolution holds out the threat of 
sanctions on Sudan's leaders and its oil industry if the Government 
fails to act, fails to curb the ethnic violence in Darfur.
  The Darfur region is in western Sudan. The Darfur region is about the 
size of France. Around 50,000 people have died in that region in the 
last several months, with hundreds of thousands more at risk.
  I am very pleased by the action of the United Nations, even though, 
despite the best efforts of the United States, I believe the resolution 
should

[[Page 20356]]

have been a lot tougher and it would have had a much greater impact. It 
is no surprise some countries do not share our outrage and 
determination to end those atrocities.
  Even after making modifications, the vote on the Security Council was 
11 to 0, with Algeria, China, Pakistan, and Russia abstaining.
  The measure calls upon Secretary General Kofi Annan to create an 
international commission to determine if the campaign by marauding Arab 
militias--that Jinjaweed--against the villagers of Darfur in western 
Sudan has reached the level of genocide.
  The resolution also reinforces the role of the 53-member African 
Union in taking the lead in calming the situation in Darfur and calls 
on other nations and the Government of Sudan to help it expand its 
presence there with thousands of additional troops.
  As the international community knows, the Congress made this 
determination in late July. It was no secret then, nor is it now, that 
the Jinjaweed are supported and directed by Khartoum; that is, by the 
Government of Sudan, which has a sovereign responsibility to not do 
that but protect its people, not to kill them.
  The Jinjaweed have killed or participated in the deaths of up to 
about 50,000 people in Darfur. They have engaged in mass rape of women 
and girls and destroyed crops and polluted water supplies. They have 
forced over 1.2 million people to leave their homes, leave their 
villages, once pillaged.
  Last month, as I mentioned on the floor of the Senate, I had the 
opportunity to travel through a refugee camp called Tulum, which is 
right on the border, about 30 kilometers from the border in Chad, where 
many people have fled over the border. I had an opportunity to talk to 
women in little makeshift tents, women who had lost their husbands, 
killed by the Jinjaweed, who were separated from their children, lost 
as they had to flee their burning villages.
  It is wrong. We have spoken on this floor. We need to continue to 
speak and to act and to encourage the United Nations to act.
  The United States, under President Bush's leadership, has led the way 
globally on this issue from the beginning. It does, once again, show 
the importance of the United States acting even if the world community 
is slow to react, as we saw in the abstention of the resolution the 
other day by Algeria, China, Pakistan, and Russia.
  The United States has supplied well over 70 percent of the 
humanitarian effort and other supplies going to survivors now in Darfur 
and in that eastern part of Chad, and we have been providing assistance 
there for years. So we need to be very proud as a nation. In parts of 
the Darfur region, we are providing 90 to 95 percent of all the world 
aid going in to assist the people in those regions.
  We need to do a lot more. We need to work with and encourage the 
international community to do its share, especially the countries of 
the European Union and Arab League.
  This month, Secretary of State Colin Powell came before the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee and declared that the State Department's 
studied judgment is that genocide has indeed occurred. Last night, in 
the debates, we heard both Senator Kerry, from this floor, and the 
President of the United States call what is occurring in Darfur 
genocide. It is now time for the international community to act.
  Multiple sources are reporting from the region that attacks by both 
the Jinjaweed and Government forces--again, it is the Government forces 
who are, through direct and indirect aid, supporting this militia 
called the Jinjaweed--are still occurring despite the U.N.'s passage of 
Resolution 1556 last month that, among other things, called for a halt 
to such actions.
  I am pleased by the passage of this latest U.N. resolution, but I am 
not optimistic. I am pleased but not optimistic. Khartoum did not live 
up to the requirements set forth in the U.N.'s July 30 resolution, so 
why do we believe they will now?
  Khartoum will not end its genocide until it has either completed it 
or until it faces stiff international actions that compel it to stop. 
We need the international community to stand up. The United States is 
standing up. We need the international community to stand up.
  This body has unanimously passed, since that time, a second 
resolution urging the Secretary of State to take appropriate actions 
within the U.N. to ``suspend'' Sudan's membership on the U.N. Human 
Rights Commission. Such an action would be consistent with our 
obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention and help preserve the 
integrity of this commission; that is, the United Nations Human Rights 
Commission. Failure to take this action, I believe, mocks the 
principles and purpose for which the commission was formed; that is, 
human rights. Yet in Sudan we have what we have called, and with the 
ravaging of villages we have seen, genocide.
  Further, our resolution passed on this floor calls upon the Secretary 
of State to pursue Sudan's permanent removal from the U.N. Human Rights 
Commission if the U.N. determines, as it should, that genocide has been 
committed in the Darfur and that Khartoum is responsible.
  The U.N. cannot continue to pass resolution after resolution nor can 
the international community stand idly by while thousands die monthly 
in these remote regions of Sudan and eastern Chad. Our failure to act 
is not just another failure of the U.N., it is a failure of our own 
humanity.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                          ____________________