[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18536-18537]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      STOP THE GENOCIDE IN DARFUR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, after more than 3 violent years, the 
genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan is getting worse. As Jan 
Egeland, Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs at the U.N., 
has said, the coming weeks could see ``a man-made catastrophe of an 
unprecedented scale.''
  At the end of this month, African Union forces are set to leave 
Darfur. Currently the only peacekeeping forces in Darfur, the departure 
of these troops will only embolden the Sudanese Government and the 
allied Janjaweed militias to continue to murder and displace Sudanese 
citizens.
  As my colleagues know, the crisis in Darfur began in February 2003 
when two rebel groups emerged to challenge the National Islamic Front 
government in Darfur. Since then, over 400,000 people have died, and 
nearly 2.5 million have been displaced from their homes. Sadly, it took 
the United States until July 2004 to recognize that these events in 
Darfur constituted genocide, and we cannot continue this type of 
inaction. Far too many times we have seen the horrible consequences of 
ignoring genocide or failing to get involved quickly.
  Madam Speaker, I was pleased to hear that President Bush has finally 
appointed Andrew Natsios as the special envoy to Sudan. I joined 88 of 
my colleagues in cosponsoring a resolution calling for the President to 
appoint such an envoy to demonstrate the United States' commitment to 
resolving the crisis. This special envoy to Sudan will ensure 
continuous high-level U.S. engagement in Darfur, and will work to deter 
a further escalation of violence and humanitarian disaster in the 
region.
  But there is much more, however, that the administration should do to 
work towards a lasting peace in Darfur. As the most prominent democracy 
in the world, the U.S. must step forward and take a leadership role in 
stopping this genocide. Resolving this conflict and ending the violence 
should be a high priority for this Congress and for the Bush 
administration.
  The United States must pressure Sudanese allies, particularly those 
in the Arab League, to ensure that the Sudanese Government agrees to 
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1706. This resolution calls for 22,500 
U.N. troops and police officers to be sent into Darfur to bolster the 
peacekeeping mission.
  So far Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has rejected the U.S. 
Security Council Resolution 1706 and thus rejected calls for U.N. 
peacekeeping troops to enter Darfur. But if the African Union 
peacekeepers leave at the end of September, and al-Bashir is successful 
in keeping U.N. forces out of the region, the situation in Darfur will 
spiral into a worsening tragedy.
  The United States cannot in good conscience stand idly by as the 
horrors in Darfur approach 1 million deaths and 3 million displaced. 
Families are being destroyed, and people are being murdered. The U.S. 
and the U.N. have a moral obligation to stop this genocide so we can 
avoid the failures of Bosnia and Rwanda. Have we not learned anything 
from those mistakes?
  The U.S. must work with NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Darfur to 
ensure military offensives and bombings are brought to an end. The 
Sudanese Government is escalating an air war by turning Soviet-era 
Antonov planes into makeshift bombers and using helicopter gunships 
against mud and thatch huts inhabited by many Sudanese people. We 
cannot allow these killings to continue, and establishing a no-fly zone 
will take a step in the right direction to lessen the violence in 
Darfur.
  Madam Speaker, the Sudanese Government has improperly imprisoned 
American reporters and killed aid workers to try to eliminate any 
international presence in the country. This kind of aggression must 
come to an end. If the international troops are forced out of Sudan, 
the country will spiral further into a land of violence and brutality.
  Finally, the U.S. has a moral obligation to take all possible steps 
to end the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur

[[Page 18537]]

region of Sudan. We have seen over and over what can happen if the 
international community does not intercede when people are being 
systematically murdered and displaced from their homes.
  With the African Union forces planning to depart at the end of the 
month and the Sudanese Government rejecting U.N. peacekeeping forces, 
the time for full-scale international involvement is now.

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