[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 20]
[House]
[Pages 28581-28589]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2000
                     ENDING THE GENOCIDE IN DARFUR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones of Ohio) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and 
include extraneous material in the Record on the topic of my Special 
Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Madam Speaker, another opportunity to be here on 
the floor on Monday night during the Congressional Black Caucus message 
hour, and you are in the chair. What a privilege.
  I rise tonight, Madam Speaker, during this message hour to pause to 
address an ongoing crisis in Darfur. For many years now we have seen 
the devastating atrocities taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan. 
With the support of the Sudanese Government, the janjaweed militia has 
ravaged the people of Darfur, raping, torturing, murdering and forcing 
hundreds of thousands of Darfuris to flee to refugee camps in 
neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic. We saw the same 
devastation in Rwanda over a decade ago; and the American people have 
made their voices heard on this issue, vowing never again to remain 
silent when humanity is threatened.
  The Congressional Black Caucus has been a leader on this issue. I, 
along with many of my Congressional Black Caucus colleagues, were some 
of the first Members of Congress to speak out about this issue. We have 
been to the Sudanese embassy to protest. Many were arrested. We have 
visited the region numerous times and we have repeatedly addressed this 
issue with President George Bush in meetings, asking him to take 
immediate action. Yet, once again, we come to the House floor to 
challenge this administration to take a stand in Darfur.
  Madam Speaker, today's Washington Post had this to say about our 
progress in Darfur: ``A year and a half later, the situation on the 
ground in Darfur is little changed. More than two million displaced 
Darfuris, including hundreds of thousands in camps, have been unable to 
return to their homes. The perpetrators of the worst atrocities remain 
unpunished. Despite a renewed U.N. push, the international peacekeeping 
troops that Bush has long been seeking have yet to materialize. Just 
this weekend, peace talks in Libya aimed at ending the 4-year conflict 
appear to be floundering because of a boycott by key rebel groups.
  ``Many of those who have tracked the conflict over the years, 
including some in his own administration, say Bush has not matched his 
words with action, allowing initiatives to drop because of inertia or 
failure to follow up, while proving unable to mobilize either this 
bureaucracy or the international community.''
  I continue to quote from the Washington Post: ``The President, who 
famously promised not to allow another Rwanda-style mass murder on his 
watch, has never fully chosen between those inside his government 
advocating more pressure on Sudan and those advocating engagement with 
the Islamist government. So the policy has veered from one approach to 
the other.''
  Today, I am pleased to say that the House passed three resolutions on 
Darfur, which I will discuss as I come back to the microphone. I am 
pleased to be joined again this evening, Madam Speaker, by one of my 
colleagues and good friends, Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California. 
She has been out front, particularly on this issue. We have had an 
opportunity to have press conferences with several leading Hollywood-
types who have really been with us on the issue.
  Madam Speaker, I am happy to yield such time as she may consume to 
the great woman from the great State of California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE. Madam Speaker, first let me thank the gentlewoman from Ohio 
for yielding and her leadership in organizing these Special Orders. 
This is a particularly timely discussion we are having tonight, and I 
want to again thank Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones for ensuring 
that not only this issue, the ongoing genocide in Darfur, stays in the 
spotlight, but also so many issues that we are addressing here on 
behalf of the American people and as a result of the Congressional 
Black Caucus being the conscience of the Congress. Congresswoman Tubbs 
Jones, thank you very much for your voice, stepping up to the plate, 
and your constant leadership on the issues we are addressing, which are 
so timely and, quite frankly, so difficult.
  The poor track record of the Sudanese Government in previous talks

[[Page 28582]]

really have warranted our work here to become more intense and revved 
up. We have got to do our part to keep the pressure up on all sides, 
especially the government, and come together to stop the violence and 
the killing.
  Now, Members of the Congressional Black Caucus and Congresswoman 
Tubbs Jones, I am very pleased that you recounted some of this history 
tonight because it was Congressman Don Payne who for so long was the 
lone voice in the wilderness with regard to the genocide that was 
taking place. Finally, several years ago he brought together this 
entire body to declare that what atrocities we had witnessed is 
genocide.
  So this declaration of genocide exists, it's a matter of record, and 
we, unfortunately, have not acted in a way that warrants that 
declaration in terms of the Darfurian people. So we have to remember 
Congressman Don Payne tonight and members of the Congressional Black 
Caucus who have visited Darfur. I have been there on three occasions. 
We have witnessed the tragedy, we have witnessed the faces, the eyes of 
the children who have seen right before their eyes their villages burn, 
their women raped and their family members killed.
  It is very important that we come together once again with our young 
people from around the country, because it is young people who are 
leading the charge, and the faith community, to end this genocide. 
Unfortunately, as Congresswoman Tubbs Jones said earlier and, again, 
The Washington Post, actually the headlines today, says: ``U.S. 
promises on Darfur don't match actions. Bush expresses passion for 
issue but policies have been inconsistent.''
  Let me mention a couple of the policies in addition to the bills that 
were passed today, which were very important, major steps in the right 
direction. We introduced a resolution, Congresswoman Tubbs Jones was a 
cosponsor, and I introduced it with many others, about a year and a 
half ago, which really was a bill calling for divestment and allowing 
States to divest. This bill is called the Darfur Accountability and 
Divestment Act, better known as DADA.
  Two weeks ago, the Senate banking committee amended and passed DADA, 
which, again, is bipartisan, and it really is a major bill that I hope 
gets to the President's desk very soon. What it does is it would 
authorize divestment from certain companies doing business in or with 
Sudan and prohibit any new Federal contracts with such companies. No 
one should have to worry that they are supporting genocide, whether it 
is through their tax dollars or their pension funds.
  Madam Speaker, thanks to the persistence of a committed group of 
students and grass-roots activists, divestment has become a national 
movement that has the potential to really hit the Government of Sudan 
where it hurts the most, and that is their wallets. Today, 20 States, 
59 universities, 10 cities and scores of individuals and organizations 
around the country have chosen to divest from businesses supporting the 
genocidal regime in Khartoum. Their actions have already had an impact. 
Once we introduced DADA over here, many multinational companies began 
to significantly change their business operations in Sudan, and some 
actually ceased doing business there.
  So we must follow through on this massive grass-roots mobilization 
and pass Federal divestment legislation now so that we can put further 
pressure on Khartoum to end this genocide.
  As we pursue divestment, we must also ensure that we support our 
peacekeeping efforts in the region and protect civilians and prevent 
violence. Again, I witnessed what was taking place on the border of 
Chad several years ago in Sudan, and also this year and last year with 
two additional congressional delegations; and each time I was there, I 
saw more violence and it was getting much worse; and it still is 
getting much worse.
  The recent attacks, really the AU forces, actually when we were there 
last time, I believe it was five soldiers were killed from the African 
Union. They are really overstretched and we need to make sure we 
approve the $210 million in the Foreign Operations appropriations bill, 
because they deserve the resources, they need the resources. We need a 
strong, robust force to provide for peacekeeping operations.
  So I hope that the President will not veto this legislation and that 
he will sign the DADA bill, which would begin to end this genocide in 
Darfur and to assist the Darfurian people.
  Our Speaker, Speaker  Nancy Pelosi, has been such an unbelievable 
leader on this issue. She has made this a priority. I participated with 
her on her delegation last year. Subsequent to that, Majority Leader 
Steny Hoyer led a delegation. And Congressman Ed Royce led a delegation 
where Don Cheadle, the wonderful Academy Award nominee for Hotel 
Rwanda, was with us and spent time in the refugee camps.
  I share that, because the world needs to know that this has been here 
in the House and Senate a bipartisan effort, but we still haven't quite 
done what we need to do. But it is a moment that we must all embrace 
now, because we have to do this. More people are getting killed each 
and every day.
  Yes, some of us were arrested. We were very involved in the anti-
apartheid movement, and sometimes you have to do things out of the box 
to make sure that the public understands that death and destruction is 
taking place and that we cannot allow this death and destruction to 
continue.
  So I want to commend members of the Congressional Black Caucus for 
really putting their bodies on the line and getting arrested and doing 
some of the things that we had to do in the sixties and the seventies 
to ``make some noise,'' as Congressman John Lewis says, because we have 
to work with our outside groups and we have to do the legislative work. 
We have to do what it takes to end this.
  We cannot have another Rwanda. Unfortunately, Congresswoman Tubbs 
Jones mentioned Rwanda. We stood by and we saw nearly 1 million people 
die. The only thing our government did was apologize after the fact, 
after the fact. One million people.
  So not on our watch are we going to allow another Rwanda to take 
place. Whatever we have to do, we will do. The people of Darfur are 
suffering and they are dying. The world is watching. Congresswoman 
Carolyn Kilpatrick, under her leadership, we met with the President of 
Algeria. We met with President Mubarak. We tried to bring forth the 
League of Arab Nations. We talked to China and their representatives. 
We passed resolutions here in a bipartisan manner to ask China and the 
League of Arab Nations to join with us in condemning this genocide and 
doing the things that need to be done. So we cannot stand by and do 
nothing. Not on our watch, not on our dime.
  So I want to congratulate Congresswoman Jackson-Lee for the passage 
of your resolution today, and all of the other Members that are working 
so hard each and every day 24/7, to stop this slaughter that is taking 
place in Darfur.
  Congresswoman Tubbs Jones, thank you again for your leadership and 
for calling us together once again to beat the drum and to let the 
American people know that not on our watch, not on our dime, will this 
genocide continue.
  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I include for the Record from 
today's Washington Post, October 29, 2007, this first part of the 
article entitled, ``U.S. Promises on Darfur Don't Match Actions'' by 
Michael Abramowitz.

               [From the Washington Post, Oct. 29, 2007]

              U.S. Promises on Darfur Don't Match Actions

                        (By Michael Abramowitz)

       In April 2006, a small group of Darfur activists--including 
     evangelical Christians, the representative of a Jewish group 
     and a former Sudanese slave--was ushered into the Roosevelt 
     Room at the White House for a private meeting with President 
     Bush. It was the eve of a major rally on the National Mall, 
     and the president spent more than an hour holding forth, 
     displaying a kind of passion that has led some in the White 
     House to dub him the ``Sudan desk officer.''

[[Page 28583]]

       Bush insisted there must be consequences for rape and 
     murder, and he called for international troops on the ground 
     to protect innocent Darfuris, according to contemporaneous 
     notes by one of those present. He spoke of ``bringing 
     justice'' to the Janjaweed, the Arab militias that have 
     participated in atrocities that the president has repeatedly 
     described as nothing less than ``genocide.''
       ``He had an understanding of the issue that went beyond 
     simply responding to a briefing that had been given,'' said 
     David Rubenstein, a participant who was then executive 
     director of the Save Darfur Coalition, which has been sharply 
     critical of the administration's response to the crisis. ``He 
     knew more facts than I expected him to know, and he had a 
     broader political perspective than I expected him to have.''
       Yet a year and a half later, the situation on the ground in 
     Darfur is little changed: More than 2 million displaced 
     Darfuris, including hundreds of thousands in camps, have been 
     unable to return to their homes. The perpetrators of the 
     worst atrocities remain unpunished. Despite a renewed U.N. 
     push, the international peacekeeping troops that Bush has 
     long been seeking have yet to materialize.
       Just this weekend, peace talks in Libya aimed at ending the 
     four-year conflict appeared to be foundering because of a 
     boycott by key rebel groups.
       Many of those who have tracked the conflict over the years, 
     including some in his own administration, say Bush has not 
     matched his words with action, allowing initiatives to drop 
     because of inertia or failure to follow up, while proving 
     unable to mobilize either his bureaucracy or the 
     international community.
       The president who famously promised not to allow another 
     Rwanda-style mass murder on his watch has never fully chosen 
     between those inside his government advocating more pressure 
     on Sudan and those advocating engagement with its Islamist 
     government, so the policy has veered from one approach to 
     another.
       Meanwhile, a constant turnover of key administration 
     advisers on Darfur, such as former deputy secretary of state 
     Robert B. Zoellick and presidential aide Michael Gerson, has 
     made it hard for the administration to maintain focus.
       ``Bush probably does want something done, but the lack of 
     hands-on follow-up from this White House allowed this to 
     drift,'' said one former State Department official involved 
     in Darfur who did not want to be quoted by name criticizing 
     the president. ``If he says, `There is not going to be 
     genocide on my watch,' and then 2\1/2\ years later we are 
     just getting tough action, what gives? He has made 
     statements, but his administration has not given meaning to 
     those statements.''
       Since the United States became the first and only 
     government to call the killing in Darfur genocide, Bush and 
     his aides have grappled with how to provide security for 
     civilians in a large, remote area in the heart of Africa.
       While almost everyone involved in Darfur policy agrees that 
     an African Union peacekeeping force of just 7,000 troops is 
     not up to the task, the United States has refused to send 
     troops and, despite promises of reinforcements, has yet to 
     secure many additional troops from other countries. At the 
     same time, it has been unable to broker a diplomatic 
     resolution that might ease the violence.
       Even Bush has complained privately that his hands are tied 
     on Darfur because, with the U.S. involvement in Iraq and 
     Afghanistan, he cannot be seen as ``invading another Muslim 
     country,'' according to people who have spoken with him about 
     the issue.
       ``It's impossible to keep Iraq out of this picture,'' said 
     Edward Mortimer, who served as a top aide to then-U.N. 
     Secretary General Kofi Annan and says resentment over Iraq 
     caused many countries to not want to cooperate with the 
     United States on Darfur.
       Bush advisers argue that the lack of success reflects the 
     limitations of working through institutions such as the 
     United Nations, NATO and the African Union. They cite the 
     billions of dollars of U.S. relief aid that has kept millions 
     of Sudanese alive. They say U.S. pressure has kept the issue 
     on the world's agenda.
       ``If there was ever a case study where the president sees 
     the limitations and frustrations of the multilateral 
     organizations, it is the issue of Darfur,'' said Dan 
     Bartlett, former White House counselor. ``Everybody for the 
     most part can come to a consensus: Whether you call it 
     genocide or not, we have an urgent security and humanitarian 
     crisis on our hands. Yet these institutions cannot garner the 
     will or ability to come together to save people.''
       There is no doubt that responsibility for inaction on 
     Darfur can be spread around. The Sudanese government has 
     resisted cooperation at every step in the saga and has been 
     shielded at the United Nations by China, its main 
     international protector. Few other Western nations, with the 
     notable exception of Britain and some Nordic countries, have 
     shown much interest in resolving the crisis. The process of 
     raising peacekeepers from U.N. members has proved tortuously 
     slow.
       ``There's an enormous stain on the world's conscience,'' 
     said Mitchell B. Reiss, former State Department policy 
     planning chief. ``We collectively stood by and let it happen 
     a decade after it happened in Rwanda.''


                         A President's Passion

       In late 2005, Bush gathered his most senior advisers to 
     discuss what to do about Darfur. He wanted to know whether 
     the U.S. military could send in helicopter gunships to attack 
     the militias if they launched new attacks on the refugee 
     camps. Could they also shoot down Sudanese military aircraft 
     if necessary? he asked. His aides worried that the United 
     States could get involved in another shooting war, and the 
     president backed off.
       ``He wanted militant action, and people had to restrain 
     him,'' said one senior official familiar with the episode. 
     ``He wanted to go in and kill the Janjaweed.''
       The meeting underscored both Bush's personal investment in 
     Sudan, dating back to the beginning of his administration, 
     and his instinct, which aides have kept in check, to take 
     direct action.
       Many close to Bush believe that this intense interest in 
     the issue was heavily influenced by American evangelicals, 
     who have adopted the cause of Christians in southern Sudan. 
     Even before the crisis in Darfur, in western Sudan, one of 
     Bush's foreign policy goals was to try to end the civil war 
     between the Muslim government in Khartoum and rebels in the 
     south, a conflict that had lasted more than two decades and 
     cost more than 2 million lives.
       Former Senator John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), whom Bush 
     appointed as his special envoy for Sudan, said the 
     president's interest in the country is rooted in a larger 
     sense of morality. ``This isn't a country that has much 
     strategic interest for the United States,'' he observed.
       Bush's initiative to broker a north-south deal worked. 
     Despite difficult negotiations, Sudanese President Omar 
     Hassan al-Bashir agreed in January 2005 to a plan to share 
     power and oil revenues with the rebels--and even gave the 
     south the right to secede in six years if the leadership 
     could not reconcile their differences.
       But by then a separate conflict had exploded in Darfur, as 
     long-standing conflicts between African farmers and Arab 
     herders over land, and a failure by the Khartoum government 
     to redress local grievances, boiled over into armed 
     rebellion.
       The government turned to a tactic it had employed in 
     fighting the southern rebels: arming local Arab militias, the 
     Janjaweed, to carry out a counterinsurgency on its behalf. 
     The militias rampaged throughout Darfur starting in mid-2003, 
     burning hundreds of villages, raping women and summarily 
     executing African villagers, according to numerous human 
     rights reports. More than 200,000 people have died in Darfur 
     since the crisis erupted, according to U.N. estimates. Some 
     estimates place the figure as high as 450,000.
       Many familiar with Sudan believe that Bush and his aides 
     initially averted their gaze to the flaring violence in 
     Darfur because raising the issue might interfere with the 
     difficult negotiations with Bashir. Some U.S. officials saw 
     another reason for the reluctance to get involved: preserving 
     a burgeoning intelligence relationship with Khartoum, which 
     had begun sharing critical information about al-Qaeda and 
     other Islamic extremists.
       ``There was a tendency not to see Darfur initially for what 
     it was,'' said Gerard Gallucci, who served in 2003 and 2004 
     as the top U.S. diplomat in Khartoum. It was well known among 
     Western governments, he said, that Sudan ``was using terror 
     to cleanse black Muslim Africans from land that they had 
     promised the Janjaweed.''
       Such claims are vigorously contested by Danforth and other 
     Bush advisers, who say the president repeatedly warned Bashir 
     about the consequences of sending Arab militias after 
     defenseless civilians.
       Over time, Bush has become increasingly outspoken about the 
     situation in Darfur, raising the issue with foreign leaders 
     and meeting privately with dissidents and other little-known 
     political players in Sudan to encourage a solution. In recent 
     months, he has singled out Bashir for harsh condemnation, 
     accusing him of subverting efforts to bring peace to Darfur.
       Meeting with the Darfur activists, Bush acknowledged that 
     Sudan had cooperated in anti-terrorism initiatives--but he 
     insisted that Khartoum could not ``buy off'' the United 
     States, Rubenstein said.
       Last spring, when the White House worked on a new plan to 
     try to press Sudan's government to accept international 
     peacekeepers, it was the president himself who was the 
     driving force in the interagency process, many officials 
     involved the debate said. According to national security 
     adviser Stephen J. Hadley, Bush refused to accept a program 
     developed to confront Sudan because he was concerned that it 
     was not tough enough. He kicked it back to the bureaucracy.
       ``I've had it with this incrementalism,'' Hadley quoted the 
     president as saying in the Oval Office. ``We're going to 
     lead, and if people don't want to follow us, they're going to 
     have to stand up and explain why they are willing to let 
     women continue to be raped in Darfur.''
       At one point, one senior official said, Bush wanted action 
     to crimp Sudan's booming oil

[[Page 28584]]

     business, a move that would have severely aggravated 
     relations with China--and that no one else in the government 
     favored.
       There was stunned silence in the room, the official said, 
     when Hadley disclosed Bush's idea to other government 
     officials. Hadley made clear he was not interested in having 
     a discussion, but the administration never went as far as the 
     president seemed to be demanding. Instead, Treasury officials 
     came up with a sanctions plan aimed at tracking and squeezing 
     key individuals and companies in the Sudanese economy, 
     including the oil business.
  I want to thank the gentlewoman from California, my good friend 
Barbara Lee, for her leadership on so many issues. As we come to the 
floor tonight, I want to thank her for her work that she has done in 
Darfur and thank her for joining me again in this hour.
  As has been said previously, there were three pieces of legislation 
on Darfur that were voted on on the floor today, and one of those 
resolutions happened to be a resolution authored by my colleague and 
good friend Sheila Jackson-Lee from the great State of Texas.
  She has had many great opportunities to take the lead on some of 
these issues as well. I have to say she and Barbara Lee have been 
wonderful about helping me with this CBC message hour every week.
  I am happy to yield to my colleague and good friend Sheila Jackson-
Lee of Houston, Texas.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Thank you, Madam Chairman and Madam 
Manager. I think it is appropriate to congratulate and to thank you 
again for giving us the opportunity to provide a face on the work of 
the Congressional Black Caucus and to thank our chairwoman, the 
Honorable Carolyn Kilpatrick, for working with us to continue to show 
the efforts being made that have such a vast array of impact. Let me 
thank the distinguished Speaker this evening for her leadership as well 
as we work together.
  I am grateful that my first efforts with the Honorable Congressman 
Barbara Lee was an historic trip that we took some years ago as the 
first Presidential trip or major statement before the Marshall Plan on 
HIV/AIDS. I cite that to say that it can be done. You can get your 
hands around a major devastating killer. HIV/AIDS is a killer. It 
continues to kill in Africa. But yet there is the Millennium Account, 
there are a number of issues that address the question of HIV/AIDS. 
Part of it was out of the trip that Congresswoman Barbara Lee and 
myself and Congresswoman Kilpatrick went on some years ago.

                              {time}  2015

  And so as I stand here today to acknowledge the Congressional Black 
Caucus, I want to reinforce the fact of the number of Members who were 
arrested of the organized campaign to respond to the pain of what is 
going on, and the legislative initiatives and the work we did with 
Congresswoman Lee on the divestiture bill. And I, too, believe it is 
long overdue that this bill should move and be signed by the President 
of the United States.
  Just this past summer, I led a delegation with the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Chabot) and the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Smith) to go 
into Darfur and get into the soul and the soil of Darfur and begin to 
realize and to emphasize the importance of moving on the peacekeepers.
  We were the first American delegation to go in right after the 
recognition that the peacekeepers should come in and the agreement by 
the government in Khartoum, as represented to us by the U.N., that they 
had agreed to peacekeepers. We went in, and not only did we go to 
Darfur, Sudan, but we went to Tunisia and Algeria and Ethiopia, and we 
asked each governing body to provide troops to the peacekeeping effort 
through the African Union because it was a serious effort.
  But what we found most of all was red tape. I want to put a human 
face on these refugee camps: 2.4 million displaced. The genocide in 
Darfur has destroyed well over 60 percent of the villages in Darfur, 
displaced over 2 million people, killed an estimated 400,000 and driven 
200,000 into Chad, and that is a separate story in talking about the 
physical and emotional and financial burden of the refugees on Chad and 
the conflict that is rising up in Chad because of the refugees.
  Today the House considered H. Res. 740, which condemned in the 
strongest terms the recent attacks on African Union peacekeepers that 
occurred in Haskanita, Darfur, Sudan, on September 29, 2007. I 
introduced this bill along with the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), 
and 55 Members joined me in this. They recognized that we are not going 
to make any steps of success to put a human face on the suffering. We 
are not going to be able to pull that suffering back, to be able to 
quash the janjaweed, to be able to separate the rebels, to prevent some 
of the tragic stories that I heard.
  We sat in the refugee camps to listen to the women who spoke about 
their plight. This is a growing Rwanda. And I remember people saying, 
``Never again, not on my watch.'' I remember the horror of recognizing 
the inaction of this government, the American Government as related to 
the crisis in Rwanda. Then it was we did not know. Now we have the 
backdrop of Rwanda. Thank God Rwanda is moving to a country of 
stability and overcoming their horrific crisis. But after a million 
deaths, is that what we want to see after 400,000 have died, over 2 
million displaced, 2.4 million displaced, children whose birth weight 
is far below the average because of limited amount of access to food 
and water? In essence, there is a degree of malnutrition, even though I 
want to give great thanks to the NGOs, but it is just not enough. These 
people need food and health care and water and the ability to survive.
  Yet we are seeing the constant dust up of the violence around the 
camps. We saw it firsthand, and it is important that these troops are 
able to come in without the violence. Let me just cite the incident 
that occurred on September 29. An estimated 1,000 members of a heavily 
armed Darfur rebel group in 30 vehicles, armed with heavy artillery and 
mortars overran a small base in Darfur, Sudan, which was occupied by 
the African Union mission peacekeepers. The ambush resulted in several 
hours of intense fighting that killed 10 peacekeepers and wounded many 
others.
  According to U.N. estimates in the aftermath of this brutal attack, 
which was described by the African Union commander as deliberate and 
sustained, 15,000 civilians fled the area to neighboring towns or the 
wilderness fearing for their safety. And in the wilderness, there is 
nothing but death. There is violence by the janjaweed and rebels not in 
line with the peacekeeping mission. There is devastation, lack of 
water. There is lack of food. There is death. And the 15,000 that fled 
were the elderly, women with children and families.
  Madam Speaker, this is what is going on in Sudan and so it is 
important for the Congressional Black Caucus to list a number of 
efforts, including the divestiture, including a number of initiatives, 
putting ourselves forward to protest at the Sudanese Embassy.
  Let me say the recent ambassador that I discussed this matter with 
seemed to care, seemed to want to do something. But my words are that 
you can't want to do something; you must do something.
  So here you can see the landscape. Although it reflects the landscape 
of Sudan generally, this is a compound where people are confined and 
these children have nowhere to go. They have no life. They have no 
games. They have no way of looking to the future. As you see, this 
group of children, there are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of 
children. Babies being born as well. And, therefore, these babies are 
being born with limited health care, malnutrition. And it is important 
to note that they are struggling under these conditions.
  This is a mother and child. They are trying to make mud bricks so 
they don't have to go out beyond the parameters of the refugee camp 
because that is when these women are attacked. Their livelihood is 
dependent on getting firewood as they did 50, maybe 100 years ago. 
Every time they go out to get firewood, the women are subjected to 
rape. The men cannot go because

[[Page 28585]]

they may be killed, so the women go. They scavenge the land. It is 
completely barren because you have 2.4 million people living in one 
compound trying to survive. So they have come up with a creative way to 
try to use the mud to keep the fire going so they don't have to go out 
as much. This is the condition. This is where they cook. This is the 
communal cooking area. I can assure you, as loving as this mother is, 
that the food is so limited it may be one meal a day. It may be a 
porridge because of the limit of wildlife, access to meat and 
vegetables, and these are the conditions.
  I will say to you that the people are resilient, but they are looking 
to us to do something, and the question is: What are we going to do? 
These are the women who I sat down with trying to make baskets to sell. 
I listened to their stories about the intrusions at night coming into 
the camps, going into their living quarters and attacking them. And 
only through their screams did they have men and others come to scare 
away the attackers. So they are not safe from rape even in these 
villages. This is a crime against humanity.
  Those of us who believe in the sanctity of human life, the abhorrence 
of rape and violence, this is a disgrace of what these women are 
facing. I, too, join in reflecting in the words and the headlines in 
The Washington Post, ``U.S. Promises on Darfur Don't Match Actions.''
  But what I want to say to the Commander in Chief who has just asked 
for some $46 billion or more for the Iraq war when our soldiers have 
already done their job and the American people want them home, what we 
want to see done is where the benevolence of the United States can help 
get something accomplished, where people are looking for our safety 
net, and our technical help with the peacekeepers can make a 
difference.
  Listen to these words from the former director of the Darfur 
Coalition who I have worked with, and I thank him and thank them for 
their leadership. Bush insisted there must be consequences for rape and 
murder, and he called for international troops on the ground to protect 
innocent Darfuris. According to contemporaneous notes by one present, 
he spoke of bringing justice to the janjaweed, the Arab militia, that 
has participated in atrocities that the President has repeatedly 
described as nothing less than genocide.
  Congresswoman Jones, you remember it was the Congressional Black 
Caucus sitting down with Secretary Colin Powell, and I thank him for 
what he did, but colleagues like our chairman of the Subcommitte on 
Africa, Donald Payne, claimed this was genocide, called this genocide 
many months before. But it was our persistence to meet with the 
Secretary of State, to sit down in a meeting at which he came, and at 
that meeting he made the statement which he then made public that he 
had determined this was genocide based on the pursuit, the pressure, 
the information, the agitation, the advocation of members of the CBC 
and of course other colleagues in the Democratic Caucus and of course 
in the Republican Caucus, because this is a bipartisan issue.
  So the Secretary of State Colin Powell announced, I believe in 2004, 
that this was genocide by this government. So the President recognized 
what was happening, and the article goes on to say that the White 
House, President Bush, had an understanding of the issue that went 
beyond simple responding to a briefing that had been given, said David 
Rubinstein, a participant who was then executive director of the Save 
Darfur Coalition, which has been sharply critical of the 
administration's response to the crisis.
  He knew more facts than I expected him to know, and he had a broader 
political perspective than I expected him to know. Yet a year and a 
half later, having known all of this information, the situation as you 
reported on the ground in Darfur is little changed, and more than 2 
million people remain displaced. The question is that if we know all of 
this, if the administration knows all of this, if we have declared 
genocide, it is imperative that we act.
  In my visit in August, I could see there was no action. There was no 
action in the south to settle that down so rebels are scattered. There 
are now multiple rebel groups, and then there is the conflict with the 
janjaweed.
  I think tonight what we wanted to do was to reconfirm and reaffirm 
the Congressional Black Caucus is not going to let this rest. We are 
not going to suffer the indignities that these people are experiencing 
and suffering. We are going to call on our colleagues in the Congress. 
We are going to thank Speaker Pelosi and Leader Hoyer and Majority Whip 
Clyburn, Chairman Emanuel and Vice Chairman Larson and our leadership 
in the Congressional Black Caucus, which I am proud to serve as whip, 
our leadership, that what I believe we need now is for this 
administration to move on getting the peacekeepers on the ground, to 
not take no for an answer, to help move the U.N. so they can join with 
the African Union peacekeepers, because it is clear we need additional 
help other than the African Union troops. We must have additional help.
  The last thing I want to say, we have friends and allies, and they 
include members of the Arab League and China. We cannot continue to 
have our allies empower and embolden the Khartoum Government without 
solving this problem. If they think 2.4 million people are okay and 
nothing is happening, I am here to tell you they are wrong. Rape and 
pillage and suffering is going on. I ask on this floor for the U.N. and 
the new Secretary General to take a firm stand to move U.N. 
peacekeepers in now and to help the AMIS effort, the African Union 
peacekeepers now, and have these people move back to their places of 
residence and to solve the violence and the viciousness going on in 
Darfur. Enough of genocide and enough of the travesty on human rights.
  I include the remainder of The Washington Post article dated 
September 29, 2007, for the Record.

                         Way of Sending Troops

       At an appearance in Tennessee this summer, Bush raised a 
     question many have asked about the situation in Darfur: ``If 
     there is a problem, why don't you just go take care of it?'' 
     But Bush said he considered--and decided against--sending 
     U.S. troops unilaterally. ``It just wasn't the right 
     decision,'' he said.
       With the United States tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan, 
     skepticism about using U.S. soldiers, even in a limited way, 
     cut across agencies and bodies that often disagree, from the 
     State Department to the Pentagon to Vice President Cheney's 
     office, according to many current and former officials.
       Advisers say Bush came to accept, albeit grudgingly, the 
     arguments against using U.S. military assets--especially the 
     possibility that they might attract al-Qaeda. ``In my mind, 
     there would never be enough troops to impose order on this 
     place,'' former secretary of state Colin L. Powell said an 
     interview. ``The only way to resolve this problem was for 
     there to be a political settlement between the rebels and the 
     government.''
       Sharing this belief was Powell's bureaucratic nemesis, 
     then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who advocated 
     sending troops to Iraq but not to the middle of Africa, 
     according to many officials in the government.
       This aversion to any use of force was frustrating to some 
     lower-ranking government officials, who saw a modest U.S. 
     military effort as indispensable to making the Sudanese take 
     American diplomacy seriously. Early in the crisis, in the 
     summer of 2004, the U.S. mission in Khartoum made clear to 
     Washington its belief that the African Union was incapable of 
     dealing with the security problem in Darfur on its own.
       It recommended that several hundred U.S. troops help fly in 
     African Union forces and provide other assistance, according 
     to a former State Department official. The idea was never 
     seriously entertained, the official said, and it was not 
     until two years later that the United States began making 
     efforts at the United Nations to bolster the overmatched 
     African mission.
       Roger Winter, a former State Department official who was 
     intimately involved with Sudan policy during the Bush 
     administration, argues that the United States has never been 
     serious about pressuring the Sudanese government. ``They know 
     what we will do and what we won't do,'' he said. ``And they 
     don't respond unless there is a credible threat. And they 
     haven't viewed everything that has happened up until now as 
     credible.''


                           Carrots vs. Sticks

       Over the course of the conflict, Bush has found himself 
     torn between different factions in his administration over 
     how to handle Sudan--whether, simply put, to try carrots or 
     sticks.

[[Page 28586]]

       In early 2006, Bush empowered Zoellick to seek a peace deal 
     between Khartoum and the Darfur rebel groups. Zoellick, now 
     president of the World Bank, was essentially pursuing what 
     one senior U.S. official described as a policy of engagement 
     with the Sudanese government, even though the Bush 
     administration believed it was involved in perpetrating the 
     atrocities in Darfur.
       Zoellick worked closely with senior Sudanese officials and 
     dangled the possibility of improved relations and other 
     incentives should Khartoum cooperate in bringing peace to 
     Darfur. And he came close to pulling it off: An agreement to 
     end the violence was negotiated in the spring of 2006, but it 
     fell apart after key rebel leaders refused to sign on.
       Some U.S. officials say Bush never completely bought into 
     Zoellick's approach. He seems to have been influenced in that 
     regard by Gerson, the then-speech writer who was given a 
     wide-ranging policy berth in the early part of Bush's second 
     term.
       Gerson, now a Washington Post columnist, is a devout 
     Christian who was especially animated by the part of the Bush 
     agenda that focused on alleviating suffering in Africa. He 
     traveled to Sudan with Zoellick in late 2005, a trip that 
     included a meeting with Bashir, and came back convinced that 
     Khartoum was not seriously interested in efforts to improve 
     conditions in Darfur.
       ``There was always a series of incremental steps, and 
     nothing changed on the ground,'' Gerson said later.
       Returning to Washington, Gerson told Bush that Bashir was 
     feeling no pressure to cooperate and that the African Union 
     peacekeepers were not up to the task of protecting civilians. 
     He also suggested that it might be useful to establish a no-
     fly zone to prevent the Sudanese government from flying 
     bombing missions in support of Janjaweed attacks.
       Several months later, Gerson sent Bush some articles 
     criticizing the U.S. approach as anemic, and Bush summoned 
     his aide to the Oval Office, a little hot under the collar 
     because he did not agree with the criticism. But he assured 
     Gerson, as the former aide remembers, ``I want you to know we 
     are acting on this.''
       In February 2006, Bush proposed using NATO forces to help 
     quickly bolster the beleaguered African Union mission. The 
     president seemed so excited about the idea that he mentioned 
     it, almost casually, in response to a question about Uganda 
     during a public appearance in Florida. The statement stunned 
     some in the U.S. bureaucracy.
       But even Bush's efforts to promote the idea did little to 
     move the process along. The French were leery of a new NATO 
     mission outside its normal sphere of operations, and there 
     was no interest from Sudan or the African Union in a major 
     role for this quintessentially Western military alliance, 
     according to U.S. officials. The plan went nowhere.
       Now, 20 months later, with Zoellick and Gerson gone, new 
     administration figures are working with other countries on 
     new plans for peace and peacekeepers in Darfur. Given the 
     track record, those who have handled Darfur over the years 
     are cautious.
       ``Overall,'' concluded John R. Bolton, the former U.S. 
     ambassador to the United Nations, ``Sudan is a case where 
     there's a lot of international rhetoric and no stomach for 
     real action.''
  Madam Speaker, the genocide in Darfur has taken a horrific toll on 
that region of Sudan. It has destroyed well over 60 percent of the 
villages in Darfur, displaced over 2 million people, killed an 
estimated 400,000, and driven 200,000 into refugee camps in neighboring 
Chad.
  Today the House considered H. Res. 740, condemning in the strongest 
terms the attacks on African Union peacekeepers that occurred in 
Haskanita, Darfur, Sudan, on September 29, 2007, which I introduced, 
together with my good friend and distinguished colleague, Mr. Chabot. 
This measure was cosponsored by 55 of my colleagues, and it passed the 
House by voice vote.
  Since 2003, we have witnessed a systematic campaign of displacement, 
starvation, rape, mass murder, and terror in the western Sudanese 
region of Darfur. In the worst humanitarian crisis of our time, an 
estimated 400,000 people have been killed in Darfur by the Government 
of Sudan and its Janjaweed allies. An additional 2,000,000 people have 
been displaced from their homes and livelihoods. Both the House of 
Representatives and the Senate declared that the atrocities in Darfur 
constitute genocide in July 2004, and the Bush administration reached 
the same conclusion in September 2004.
  However, three years later, the situation in Darfur continues to 
deteriorate. The United Nations reported a substantial decline in the 
humanitarian situation during the first three months of 2007, during 
which time 21 humanitarian vehicles were hijacked, 15 additional 
vehicles were looted, and gunmen raided 6 humanitarian compounds. The 
security situation makes it extremely difficult for aid organizations 
to reach vulnerable populations, and, in the 12 months preceding April 
2007, the number of humanitarian relief workers in Darfur decreased by 
16 percent, largely due to security concerns, restrictions on access, 
and funding limitations. The flow of humanitarian aid has been severely 
threatened by the escalating violence in the region.
  Since 2004, a small contingent of African Union peacekeepers have 
been deployed to Darfur, responsible for maintaining security in a 
region roughly the size of France. The 7,000 peacekeepers under the 
banner of the African Union Mission in Sudan, or AMIS, have displayed 
exemplary courage and resilience, but they are woefully outmanned and 
outgunned, as well as chronically short of funding. Recognizing the 
near-collapse of the AU Mission, the United Nations, in July 2007, 
approved a UN-AU hybrid peacekeeping mission, to be known as UNAMID, 
which is meant to take over from AMIS shortly.
  The AMIS peacekeeping mission recently encountered yet another 
significant setback. On September 29, 2007, an estimated 1,000 members 
of a heavily armed Darfur rebel group, in 30 vehicles armed with heavy 
artillery and mortars, overran a small base in Haskanita, Darfur, 
Sudan, which was occupied by AMIS peacekeepers. The ambush resulted in 
several hours of intense fighting that killed ten peacekeepers- seven 
Nigerian peacekeepers and three other soldiers from Mali, Senegal, and 
Botswana- and wounded many others.
  According to UN estimates, in the aftermath of this brutal attack, 
which was described by the African Union commander as ``deliberate and 
sustained,'' 15,000 civilians fled the area to neighboring towns or the 
wilderness, fearing for their safety. This attack is considered to be 
the worst on AMIS peacekeepers since their deployment in July 2004. The 
United Nations Security Council condemned this ``murderous attack'' on 
AMIS peacekeepers, and demanded that ``no effort be spared'' to 
identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of this assault.
  Only recently, during the August recess, I had the opportunity to 
lead a Congressional Delegation (CODEL) to Darfur. This was the first 
CODEL to the region since the announcement of the joint UN/AU 
peacekeeping force. Along with my colleagues Mr. Chabot, who joins me 
as the lead Republican cosponsor of this legislation, and Mr. Smith, I 
had the I opportunity to meet with government officials, civil society 
leaders, international aid workers, and affected civilians, as well as 
with the African Union peacekeepers responsible for protecting Darfur. 
I saw first hand the immense suffering of the people of Darfur, as well 
as the enormous strain on the courageous but outnumbered AU 
peacekeepers.
  I strongly condemn recent attacks on African Union peacekeepers. This 
legislation also expresses the condolences of this House to the people 
and Governments of Nigeria, Mali, Senegal, and Botswana, the families 
and friends of those individuals who were killed or missing in the 
attacks, and expresses its sympathies to those individuals who have 
been injured. It expresses the solidarity of the people and Government 
of the United States with the African Union and the African Union 
peacekeepers as they recover from these attacks, and the readiness of 
Congress to support efforts to bring to justice those individuals 
responsible for the attacks and efforts to detect, pursue, disrupt, and 
dismantle the networks that plan and carry out such attacks.
  My legislation also looks forward, to the process of bringing about a 
peace settlement for Darfur. Crucial though effective peacekeeping 
forces are, they are no substitute for a serious and sustained peace 
process. Consequently, this bill also expresses its support for the 
people of Darfur, Sudan, in their continued struggle against extremism 
and violence and support for their efforts to secure a permanent peace, 
justice, and return to their restored villages and homes, and it 
encourages all parties involved in the conflict to commit to negotiate 
a final and binding peace agreement at the peace talks, which began on 
October 27, 2007, in Tripoli, Libya.
  Early reports from these negotiations have not been promising. With 
key rebel groups boycotting the peace talks, media reports indicate 
that mediators will now have to travel to Darfur to meet with rebel 
leaders before actual peace agreements can be reached. Despite these 
setbacks, UN Special Envoy Jan Eliasson has maintained optimism, saying 
yesterday ``I refuse to state that the peace process is interrupted.''
  In Darfur, rape has been an important aspect of the genocide. Women 
and girls have been targeted specifically as spoils or war. Though it 
is impossible to know or even estimate exact numbers of rape victims, 
particularly in light of the Government of Sudan's

[[Page 28587]]

practice of harassing or even detaining representatives of 
organizations attempting to report such statistics, they would 
certainly be extremely high.
  In Darfur, rape is linked to racial slurs. When rape victims were 
interviewed by human rights workers, they reported hearing Janjaweed 
militia and Sudanese soldiers shouting their intent--to rape the women 
and girls, forcing them to have Arab children. According to a Refugees 
International report, one woman interviewed in a refugee camp in Chad 
said that a Janjaweed militiaman who raped her told her: ``I will give 
you a light-skinned baby to take this land from you.''
  One Sudanese human rights activist has noted, ``The war in Darfur is 
centered on identity, and rape is being used as a weapon of war in the 
struggle for the identity of the region. Women have a very important 
role in Darfur's culture, and rape destroys not only a woman but her 
tribe.''
  Though many survivors of these attacks are able to find their way to 
displaced persons camps, they remain at risk. Many women and girls are 
attacked when they leave the relative security of the camps to collect 
firewood and other necessities. When women living in refugee camps were 
asked why they went to fetch water and risk rape rather than the men, 
they answered, ``If we let the men go, they will be killed. It is 
better for us to be raped than for our husbands to be killed.''
  Today, the House also considered H. Res. 726, introduced by my 
colleague, Congresswoman DeLauro, which I was proud to cosponsor. This 
resolution draws attention to this savage practice, and it calls on the 
President, the Secretary General of the United Nations, and the United 
Nations Security Council to take measures to provide assistance to 
these victims, to fully fund the UN Mission in Darfur, and to find the 
government of Sudan in noncompliance with Security Council Resolution 
1325. It also calls upon the government of Sudan, responsible for 
unleashing this madness on the women and girls of Darfur, to provide 
full legal protection to the victims of rape and to bring the 
perpetrators to justice.
  The international community must do much, much more to protect the 
women and girls of Darfur, to meet the needs of those who have already 
been sexually abused or raped, and to finally bring this horrific 
conflict to an end. The deployment of the hybrid UN/AU peacekeeping 
force is a necessary and important step, but it is no substitute for a 
serious and sustained peace process.

                              {time}  2030

  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Madam Speaker, I want to thank both of my 
colleagues for their leadership. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee, all 
that you've done around this issue and so many other issues, thank you 
so much and again for joining me as we do this Congressional Black 
Caucus message hour.
  I'm so pleased today that the House passed the three resolutions on 
Darfur. One of them, H. Res. 573, recognizing and commending the 
efforts of the United States public and advocacy groups to raise 
awareness about and help end the worsening humanitarian crisis and 
genocide in Darfur, Sudan, and for other purposes.
  H. Res. 726, calling on the President of the United States and the 
international community to take immediate steps to respond to and 
prevent acts of rape and sexual violence against women and girls in 
Darfur, Sudan, eastern Chad and the Central African Republic.
  And, finally, H. Res. 740, condemning in the strongest terms the 
attacks on African Union peacekeepers that occurred in Haskanita, 
Darfur, Sudan, on September 29, 2007.
  I want to reference back for a moment to the person that 
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee mentioned and that was my friend from 
ECOWAS, and ECOWAS is an acronym for the Economic Commission of West 
African States, and my friend who went to Case Western Reserve Law 
School as I did is Dr. Muhammad Chambas. Was there something else you 
wanted to say about Dr. Chambas?
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. If the gentlelady would yield, first of 
all, to thank him for sharing his insight and his leadership and thank 
you for allowing us to have that opportunity, and just to be able to 
emphasize, he was firm that he wanted and needed and thought that they 
needed more help. And that help was, of course, the United States, the 
U.N., and a number of other countries.
  And I'd just like to finish by saying, as there may be those 
listening, I would encourage as you mentioned that resolution about 
thanking the various advocacy groups to continue their work and to 
reach out to the college campuses, because I remember speaking at the 
University of Nevada. They are there; they want to work. College 
campuses can be the agitation to get this government to move, to 
continue the light on the genocide in Darfur.
  And I thank you for yielding to me just to be able to say, college 
students, get about the business because you can make a difference. 
Organize Save Darfur Coalitions on your campus, and call and write and 
e-mail about the crisis in Darfur.
  Mrs. JONES of Ohio. The Congresswoman is referencing H. Res. 573, and 
I want to add my comments to encourage the young people on the college 
campuses across this country. Many of us recognize in the history of 
the United States many of the great movements were begun by young 
people, by students sitting at lunch counters and just the involvement 
of so many young people.
  One of the things that people often have said about young people 
these days is that they're self-centered and only concerned about 
what's going on in their own lives. I found that not to be true, and I 
had the opportunity even as recently as this weekend, I happened to be 
in Iowa campaigning for my candidate for President.
  And while I was campaigning there, campaigning for Senator Clinton, I 
met with a group of young University of Iowa students who were 
complaining about the fact that nothing has happened in Darfur and that 
they are expecting this government to step up on their behalf.
  So I want to join my colleague in commending college students, as 
well as all of the nonprofit organizations across the world who are 
trying to focus a light or shine a light on what's happening in Darfur.
  I want to talk for a moment about the whole issue of sex crimes 
against women and girls in Darfur. One of the worst things to happen to 
a woman, and particularly a young woman, is for her to be sexually 
abused or raped.
  We recognize in this country the impact that this has had. In fact, 
we recognize it such that we passed the VAWA Act which is the Violence 
Against Women Act, to help address the issue of violence against women.
  When you begin to think about the fact that there are thousands of 
women and girls in these various refugee camps and the things that 
happen, all we need do is to focus on what happened with Katrina. We 
had people of the United States of America in a football stadium, and 
the stories about what happened to young women that were raped right 
there in Louisiana, in New Orleans, being raped. So you can imagine, if 
you exponentially take a look at that and see how many thousands of 
women and children are there, and these women venture out just to get 
things to help themselves and to continue to live and the fact that 
they would be subjected to rape and others does not make sense.
  I can only think about that movie, ``Time to Kill,'' where that young 
girl in the South who was like 7 or 8 years old got raped by three men 
and raped her such that she was never able to have any children. It 
just makes no sense that we would not focus, and let me give you a few 
statistics.
  During war, rape and sexual violence are often used systematically as 
a weapon of intimidation, humiliation, terror and ethnic cleansing. We 
know right here in America that generally rape is not about sex. It 
really is about being in control, being in charge. It has nothing to do 
with the sexual act itself. I won't say ``nothing.'' In many instances, 
when you're involving children, it does in fact have to do with the 
sexual act, but it means being in charge.
  It's estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 women and girls were 
raped during the genocide in Rwanda. On September 2, the International 
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found Jean-Paul Akayesu guilty of rape and 
held

[[Page 28588]]

that rape and sexual assault constitute crimes against humanity.
  On October 31, the United Nations Security Council adopted Security 
Council Resolution 1325, calling on all parties to an armed conflict to 
take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based 
violence, particularly rape and other forms of sexual abuse.
  The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which entered 
into force July 1, 2002, states that rape and any other form of sexual 
violence of comparable gravity may constitute both crimes against 
humanity and war crimes.
  Since 2003, mass rape committed by members of the Sudanese armed 
forces and affiliated militia with the support of the Government of 
Sudan has been a central component of the Government of Sudan's 
violence and ethnic cleansing in Darfur.
  Can you imagine this is the army, the militia of a country just 
having their way, going into camps and violating women and girls, 
thousands of women and girls who have been violated as a result.
  Women and girls leaving internally displaced persons camp in Darfur 
and refugee camps in Eastern Chad to seek firewood, water or outside 
sources of income are often attacked and subjected to rape. My 
colleague already spoke to that issue. It is just outrageous that this 
could continue to happen.
  On March 9, 2007, members of the United States-United Nations High 
Level Mission on the Situation of Human Rights in Darfur reported that 
rape and sexual assault have been widespread and systematic, 
terrorizing women and breaking down families and communities and that 
women are also attacked in and around refugee camps in eastern Chad.
  Think about this: Systemic, widespread, terrorizing of women and 
girls. Systemic. That is just something that I can't even imagine that 
we would continue to allow happen in another country. We know how great 
the impact of rape and sexual assault on women and girls in our country 
over time, and imagine what it would be in a country where they don't 
have available to them what our women and girls have available to us. 
Be it counseling, medical care, long-term mental health counseling, it 
just doesn't happen.
  So I'm just so happy that the House passed by way of suspension bills 
today three resolutions around Sudan.
  Finally, I think that what I would say at this point is that the 
people of America and all of these nonprofit organizations and the 
children across this country, women and children and students, must 
stand up. They must speak up about what's going on in Darfur, and you 
all know that old statement, that piece of speech that someone gave, 
and I can't think of the author, and it said, if you're quiet when they 
come for other people, who's going to speak up when they come for you? 
And that is what we should all be thinking about, that we need to speak 
up on behalf of the people of Darfur and say enough is enough; we're 
not going to have this happen anymore.
  The United States, under the leadership of George Bush, who's been 
talking loud and saying nothing on this issue and not moving forward, 
should move forward to make sure that there are people and peacekeepers 
going into this area and making sure that these people are taken care 
of.
  With that, I would again commend the Chair of the Congressional Black 
Caucus, Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, for her leadership and 
thank her for giving me the opportunity to lead the Congressional Black 
Caucus message hour every Monday evening and to give us the opportunity 
to step up, speak out, and really shine a light on issues that the 
Congressional Black Caucus is concerned about and that the people of 
America, regardless of their color, are concerned about.
  Again, thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It's always good to be 
leading a Special Order when you're in the chair. I thank you for your 
leadership as well.
  Mr. CONYERS. Madam Speaker, today we recognize the ongoing loss of 
life occurring in Darfur. I would like to restate my unconditional 
support and commitment to advancing peace and security for the people 
of Darfur. I implore my colleagues in Congress to join me in urging the 
Sudanese government to take decisive action to address this tragedy. 
This quite simply is a matter of Life and Death and as the destruction 
of hope and possibilities continues to erode away at a people who are 
calling out for help. These atrocities continue to mount in the Sudan 
as our Administration continues to pump billions of dollars into Iraq 
and redirects greatly needed resources away from this unnecessary 
tragedy. The conflict in Sudan began as a genocide against tribes of 
small farmers in its Darfur region over five years ago. Militia groups 
have slaughtered an estimated 400,000 people and driven 2.5 million 
people from their homes. There has been an increase in civilian 
killings and large scale attacks in Darfur. The rape and torture of 
women and children remains a constant concern on a daily basis. 
Thousands have moved to displacement camps which contain their own 
level of violence with guns being readily available and tensions in 
Darfur continuing to grow every day. The African Union peace keeping 
troops who have put up a courageous fight have lacked the proper 
resources and manpower needed to contain the growing threat. Equipped 
only with light weapons, they are no match for the heavily armed 
rebels. They are undermanned and outgunned and in desperate need of 
advanced weapons and helicopters to properly engage with the Militia.
  In May, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel 
called Darfur ``the capital of suffering.'' He called on all of us to 
``tell the victims they are not alone.'' Violence continues in Darfur, 
as the Sudanese government attacked two internally displaced camps in 
the past week. On October 19, the Militia attacked the Kalma refugee 
camp, the largest in Darfur. Additionally, on Oct. 22, the Hamidiya 
camp near the town of Zalengei was attacked in a series of clashes 
between government troops and rebel groups. The killings of African 
Union peacekeepers and World Food Programme contract drivers combined 
with detentions of humanitarian workers in the conflict-ridden Darfur 
region of western Sudan are just a few examples of a deteriorating 
situation, which is prompting increased anxiety by those affected by 
the ongoing crisis, as well as by those responding to the emergency. 
From June until late August, the United Nations reported, an estimated 
55,000 new persons had been displaced in the region--bringing the total 
number of those uprooted this year to some 250,000. In all, the UN 
estimates, 2.2 million of Darfur's 6.4 million people have been 
displaced, and four million are now dependent on some form of 
humanitarian assistance.
  While almost everyone involved in Darfur policy agrees that an 
African Union peacekeeping force of just 7,000 troops is not up to the 
task, the United States has refused to send troops and, despite 
promises of reinforcements, has yet to secure many additional troops 
from other countries. At the same time, it has been unable to broker a 
diplomatic resolution that might ease the violence. There is no doubt 
that what is taking place in Darfur is genocide, and the government of 
Sudan and the Janjaweed bear responsibility. Congress and the 
Administration must support legislation to address this most pressing 
human rights issue. We must move beyond the rhetoric and take action to 
save the lives of the people who are struggling each day with this 
horrific conflict. We must leave politics aside and support legislation 
such as H. Res. 573, which recognizes and commends the efforts of U.S. 
advocacy groups to raise awareness about and help end the worsening 
crisis in Darfur; We must also support H. Res. 740, which condemns the 
brutal attack on African Union peacekeepers that occurred in Haskanita, 
Darfur one month ago today. This violent act, carried out by rebels, 
took the lives of 10 peacekeepers--seven Nigerians and three other 
soldiers from Mali, Senegal, and Botswana; and finally H. Res. 726, a 
resolution calling on the President and the international community to 
take immediate steps to respond to and prevent acts of rape and sexual 
violence against the most innocent of Darfur's victims--young girls and 
women.
  We must continue to provide security and support for the courageous 
humanitarian workers, who risk their lives daily. Their commitment to 
this struggle has been exemplarily in the face of danger. We must also 
take this opportunity to unite and stop these crimes against humanity. 
We can not allow our past failures to identify genocide in places such 
as in Rwanda, Bosnia, and elsewhere to exist ever again.

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