[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 14039-14040]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                 DARFUR

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor this evening to 
address the ongoing genocide in Darfur. I have been coming to the floor 
almost every week to try to make certain we don't forget what is 
happening in Sudan, even as we focus most of our energy on important 
issues such as the war in Iraq, immigration reform, and so many other 
things on our Senate agenda. But the crisis in Sudan is simply too 
great for us to ignore. It has now been over 2\1/2\ years since the 
President quite rightly called the situation in Sudan what it is, a 
genocide. It was September 9, 2004, when the President made that 
courageous statement, and we all know a statement like that has 
historic importance.
  The United States, under the 1948 U.N. Convention on Genocide, is 
committed to providing effective penalties against the killers if it 
deems that genocide is taking place. We are compelled to act. Yet 
sadly, we have done precious little to change the situation to this 
point.
  It is true that Congress, the administration, the private sector, and 
the nonprofit community have taken some steps to increase the pressure 
on the Sudanese Government to stop the killings and mass displacement 
of innocent people. That is at least a start. In Congress, Members have 
spoken out against the killings. They have introduced resolutions of 
condemnation, and they have proposed legislation in an effort to do 
something. I have introduced legislation that would support state 
governments which decide to encourage public funds to divest from 
Sudan-related investments. That bill has attracted strong bipartisan 
cosponsorship from over 25 Members of the Senate. Some of us have tried 
to make the right personal decisions to divest from Sudan-related 
investments in our own savings as a gesture of solidarity with the 
divestiture movement. But we have to do so much more.
  As for the Bush administration, the Office of Foreign Assets Control 
within the Treasury Department, working with many agencies and 
departments, has worked hard to tighten economic and political 
sanctions against the leaders and supporters of the Sudanese regime. 
President Bush spoke out at the Holocaust Museum a few weeks ago. He 
has vowed to keep pushing for change in Sudan. Yet the administration 
must do more.
  In the private sector, I was pleasantly surprised to see that 
Fidelity recently decided to sell part of its stake in PetroChina, a 
company listed on to the New York Stock Exchange, the parent of which 
is a state-owned Chinese oil company with massive operations in Sudan. 
Fidelity sold 91 percent of its PetroChina holdings in the United 
States and even though that only amounts to 38 percent of its global 
PetroChina holdings, this is nonetheless a positive sign. The 
divestiture movement is under way. Other investment firms such as 
Calvert have gone a step further and promised to hold no shares of any 
firm that operates to the benefit of the Government of Sudan. Yet the 
private sector must do more.
  Within the nonprofit community, organizations such as the Sudan 
Divestment Task Force and the Genocide Intervention Network continue to 
apply pressure to governments and to private firms to get them all to 
do more to stop the genocide. Yet they too must do more. All of us must 
work together to do more in Congress, in the private sector, among 
nonprofit organizations and, yes, individuals and families concerned 
about this terrible situation. To that end, I am working with my 
colleagues in the Senate and House and with the Bush administration, 
with private sector advisors, and with the advocacy community to craft 
a new bill that will apply even more economic pressure on the Sudanese 
regime and those who support it.
  My bill, which I will introduce when we return, is the Sudanese 
Disclosure and Enforcement Act. It would do the following: First, it 
expresses the sense of the Congress that the international community 
should continue to bring pressure against the Government of Sudan in 
order to convince that regime that the world will not allow this crisis 
to continue unabated.
  Second, it requires more detailed SEC disclosures by U.S.-listed 
companies that operate in the Sudanese petroleum sector, in order to 
provide more information to investors that are considering divestiture.
  Third, it increases civil and criminal penalties for violating 
American economic sanctions in order to create a true deterrent.
  Fourth, it requires the administration to report on the effectiveness 
of the current sanctions regime and recommend other steps Congress can 
take to help end the crisis.
  Fifth, it authorizes greater resources for the Office of Foreign 
Assets Control

[[Page 14040]]

within the Department of Treasury to strengthen its capabilities in 
tracking Sudanese economic activity and pursuing sanctions violators.
  I will introduce this bill when we return. I urge my colleagues to 
seriously consider it, and I hope they will join me.
  I have recently written to President Bush urging him to support the 
bill but also to take the next step. He promised 5 weeks ago to take 
action. His speech was at an auspicious location, the Holocaust Museum 
in Washington, DC, a museum which notes the terrible tragedy that 
befell 6 million people during World War II. The President said on that 
day:

       You who have survived evil know that the only way to defeat 
     it is to look it in the face and not back down. It is evil we 
     are now seeing in Sudan--and we're not going to back down.

  He went on to say:

       No one who sees these pictures can doubt that genocide is 
     the only word for what is happening in Darfur and that we 
     have a moral obligation to stop it.

  Those are the words of the President. They are words worth repeating. 
The President declared that the current negotiations between the U.N. 
Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and President Bashir of Sudan are ``the 
last chance'' for Sudan to do the following: Follow through on the 
deployment of U.N. support forces, allow the deployment of a full joint 
U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force, end support for the Janjaweed 
militia, reach out to rebel leaders, allow humanitarian aid to reach 
the people of Darfur, stop his pattern of destruction once and for all.
  President Bush then declared that if Bashir does not follow these 
steps, in a short time the Bush administration will take the following 
steps, in the President's words: Tighten U.S. economic sanctions on 
Sudan, target sanctions against individuals responsible for the 
violence, and prepare a strong new United Nations Security Council 
resolution.
  Five weeks later, a short time has passed, and now it is time to act. 
In these 5 weeks, President Bashir has ignored the world. In fact, a 
spokesperson for the Secretary General of the United Nations has called 
recently renewed bombing in Sudan indiscriminate and a violation of 
international law. While we wait, while we ponder, while we think, 
while we work, while we vacation, innocent people die, victims of a 
genocide. How will history judge us? Will it judge us for having 
acknowledged this genocide and responding, or will it judge us for 
having acknowledged this terrible tragedy and responded with nothing?
  It is time to act. We must do more. This is simply too important and 
too historic to ignore any longer.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I compliment my friend from Illinois. He 
might be interested to know I met with the Secretary General of the 
United Nations on Monday in his office. I indicated I wanted to know 
what he was prepared to propose. As you know, there are three phases to 
the process whereby the Sudanese have agreed to the implementation of 
ultimately 21,000 troops made up of the African Union as well as United 
Nations forces. He indicated he would have an answer as to what he 
thought might be able to be done probably by the end of Memorial Day. 
My point to him was similar to my friend from Illinois. If, in fact, 
the Sudanese Government refuses to allow, on the basis of their 
sovereignty, the placement of U.N. forces on the ground, that it 
violates their sovereignty.
  I indicated I believed--and others believe as well--that the country 
forfeits its sovereignty when it participates and engages in genocide 
and that we, the United States, should push the Security Council to 
implement the placement of those troops on the ground regardless of 
what Khartoum says. Further, if they don't, it is my view the United 
States unilaterally should engage through a no-fly zone as well as the 
placement of 2,500 troops on the ground to take out the Janjaweed. That 
is not a political settlement, but the point I made to the Secretary 
General was, as we talk about the ultimate problem, the need for a 
political settlement, it is like talking about a patient who has cancer 
and on the way to the operating room falls off the gurney and slits his 
jugular vein and is bleeding to death. Everybody says: We have to take 
care of the cancer. But they are going to bleed to death.
  I have been in those camps in Darfur, actually on the border of 
Darfur. I have visited them in Chad. One camp with 30,000 women and 
children in it, over 300,000 in that region, deteriorating rapidly. It 
is a human disaster. I hope if, in fact, the United Nations doesn't 
act, the Senate will be prepared to act to support pushing the 
President to have the United States lead.
  The point I am making is, I compliment my friend for continuing to 
keep this in the consciousness of our colleagues and the public.

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