[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 15]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 20091-20092]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          TESTIMONY GIVEN BY ROGER WINTER ON U.S. SUDAN POLICY

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 29, 2009

  Mr. WOLF. Madam Speaker, I would like to share with our colleagues 
testimony that Roger Winter, former U.S. State Department special 
representative on Sudan, gave today before the House Foreign Affairs 
Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health on the critical issue of U.S. 
Sudan policy, specifically as it relates to implementation of the 
Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
  I deeply respect Roger's viewpoint as a consummate Sudan expert and 
plan to submit the testimony of the other highly qualified witnesses 
from today's hearing, in the days ahead.

       Chairman Payne, Ranking member Smith and Members of the 
     Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to be here with you 
     today. And to you, Mr. Payne, your consistent and persistent 
     leadership on Sudan has honestly made you one of my heroes. I 
     mean that sincerely.
       To paraphrase one of my favorite authors, I often wonder 
     with awe at the willingness of good people, especially 
     Americans, to suspend all their protective instincts and to 
     accept some of the worst killers in the human race into their 
     midst. I remembered that thought when seeing photos of the 
     Khartoum delegation that arrived recently to discuss Sudan's 
     Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). Perhaps I have seen too 
     much in the Sudan over these last 28 years and have become 
     jaundiced. Still, a necrology of three million dead civilians 
     in Sudan, targeted victims of the policies and actions of the 
     National Congress Party (or National Islamic Front) since its 
     coup in 1989, has got to be noteworthy, especially as the 
     leadership of the NCP have as yet never been held accountable 
     for their crimes. Surely three million is unambiguously a 
     Holocaustic number. The gentleman who headed the NCP 
     delegation to Washington recently and received substantial 
     public exposure (e.g. in the Washington Times) has one of the 
     worst track records of all. Surely three million deaths is 
     unambiguously a Holocaustic number, a reality for which he 
     makes no apology whatsoever.
       Not only has the NCP not paid a price for that body count, 
     its leadership now controls much of Sudan's economy; its 
     indicted President is politically protected by the morally-
     challenged leadership of the African Union and the Arab 
     League; and it continues to undermine both the CPA itself and 
     also the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement, its ``Partner'' 
     in the National Unity government established by the CPA. The 
     NCP has a 100% perfect record. It NEVER ever keeps the 
     agreements it signs with its opponents. The pattern is clear. 
     Take, for example, the issue of the volatile town of Abyei. 
     President Bashir's three-year-long refusal to implement the 
     Abyei Protocol of the CPA after signing it on multiple 
     occasions was followed by his Sudan Armed Forces 31st 
     Brigade's destruction of Abyei town in May of last year. 
     Again, he and his Party have paid no price. In fact, he's 
     essentially been rewarded and now is now threatening to 
     undermine the CPA's promised Referendum on Abyei's future.
       Just one month ago, President Bashir celebrated his 
     twentieth anniversary as President. He came to power by coup 
     and, ever since, he and his Party have been at war with the 
     Sudanese people, North, South, East and West. The National 
     Islamic Front/NCP leadership team has been the same since it 
     took power. Since then that able and well-experienced team 
     has confronted a revolving door of U.S. diplomats and 
     ``special envoys'' who do their best to end Khartoum's 
     destructive behavior. Often they think that Khartoum can be 
     successfully appealed to ``to do the right thing'' on behalf 
     of the marginalized people of Sudan. It's just not so. 
     Khartoum reads us very well.
       Personally, I have changed my perspective on Sudan. As 
     someone who worked for our Government on the CPA, I believed 
     in the vision of ``New Sudan''. I believed the ``democratic 
     transformation'' of Sudan had a chance to succeed. I believed 
     that ``maybe'' there was a faint chance the NCP ``might be'' 
     willing to ``make unity attractive'' and so sustain a unified 
     state of Sudan. But Khartoum has killed all that. Those goals 
     are not in any way achievable any longer. In my view there 
     are only two general directions that are supportable by the 
     people of South Sudan at this point: (1) The South will vote 
     overwhelmingly for separation in the Referendum provided for 
     by the CPA or (2) The South will be forced into unilaterally 
     declaring its independence because its CPA-mandated 
     Referendum is frustrated by Khartoum's actions and/or the 
     hollow commitments of the International Community. The 
     International Community's wishy-washy approach to the CPA has 
     helped assure that either option will be messy. However, 
     delay or abandonment of the Referendum would be the worst-
     possible outcome. I believe, in such a case, return to war 
     would be essentially guaranteed.
       Because I believe the Referendum must happen timely and in 
     at least reasonably good form in order for there to be any 
     viable chance for peace and development in the region, I 
     believe it is mandatory that the U.S. fully embrace the 
     people of the South and Abyei, and that we escalate our 
     efforts to achieve a soft-landing as the result of a 
     successfully-held Referendum. The U.S. must be clear and 
     upfront that we will support and protect the outcome of that 
     Referendum; many people died to achieve that right.
       It is no secret that South Sudan and Abyei are plagued with 
     serious problems but, under the circumstances, they have come 
     a long way against incredible odds.
       For twenty years I was the CEO of a non-profit which was 
     then was called the U.S. Committee for Refugees. In that role 
     I was personally exposed to virtually every human rights and 
     humanitarian disaster in the world. I can assert with great 
     confidence my view that, before the CPA, South Sudan and 
     Abyei were the most destroyed places in the entire world. For 
     more than 80% of the time Sudan has been an independent state 
     Khartoum has fostered war in South Sudan and Abyei. Khartoum 
     has not been a genuine government but has generally 
     functioned partisanly on behalf of a narrow range of Arab 
     interests. As a clear result, calling the South 
     ``marginalized'' became an understatement. It is amazing what 
     forty-seven years of war can do to people. I would visit 
     Abyei which was essentially denuded of its population and 
     overgrown by bush. I would travel during the war throughout 
     the South seeing the unspeakable conditions, but survivors 
     had to live in it. I'll not focus on it except to say it 
     wasn't only infrastructure that was destroyed, it was much of 
     humanity and human society.
       At the time the CPA was signed, there was great optimism 
     about the future. The international community made many 
     promises. Khartoum was playing charades and winning. The SPLM 
     and the newly created Government of Southern Sudan were 
     hopeful. The problems they faced were overwhelming and mostly 
     man-made. Because the South had become quiet and Darfuris 
     were being exterminated in growing numbers by Khartoum 
     forces, attention shifted away from the implementation of the 
     CPA and the delivery of an adequate peace dividend for the 
     South's war-affected civilians. Khartoum, despite

[[Page 20092]]

     signing the CPA, has consistently undermined it. Supporting 
     violence in the South, destroying Abyei in May 2008, 
     regularly withholding funds due the South and Abyei to 
     cripple the functioning of governance, and activating its 
     friends and `fellow travelers' in the South to foster civil 
     unrest have all been part of Khartoum's pattern of behavior.
       Despite Khartoum, the South has come a very long way and 
     has received substantial international assistance, including 
     major support from the U.S. The South has a functional 
     government, substantial growth in education, health services, 
     roads, and other critical services, all in fifty-five months 
     since the CPA was signed. Candidly, however, the South's 
     progress is also being undermined by internal forces, 
     especially in terms of some civil violence, some official 
     corruption, and some serious weaknesses in governance. My use 
     of the word `some' here, is to be fair. These problems are 
     serious, especially as they erode popular confidence, but 
     they do not eclipse the progress that has been made, given 
     where they started from and the constant undermining by 
     Khartoum. Let me mention one example of how Khartoum 
     routinely works: Abyei.
       Khartoum signed the CPA, including the Abyei Protocol, on 
     January 9, 2005. Khartoum never implemented the Protocol. 
     That meant there was NO government in Abyei and no government 
     services for three years. In May 2008, Khartoum forces 
     completely burned to the ground the market place and all 
     residential areas. One hundred percent of the population, who 
     were all returned displaced people, were again displaced. 
     Subsequently Khartoum forces blew up the SPLM facilities in 
     Abyei. Forced by international neglect of these developments 
     in Abyei, the SPLM agreed to international arbitration by the 
     Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague. While the 
     PCA was moving forward, an Abyei administration was finally 
     created. That administration was intended to provide services 
     to the population funded by a percentage of oil revenues as 
     specified in the CPA. The Abyei administration's budget was 
     to begin October 1, 2008; it never happened. After much 
     pressure, the Abyei administration got only a small 
     ``advance'' in February 2009 and another in April. 
     Effectively Abyei administration personnel have not been paid 
     since last January; there is little money for services; the 
     hospital is basically empty. There is still no approved 
     budget for Abyei for the fiscal year now almost over. This is 
     how Khartoum implements the CPA in the single most volatile 
     location in Sudan, with clear intention to undermine 
     stability. This is also typical of how Khartoum has dealt 
     with every important issue in the CPA. To top it off, many of 
     the officers of the 31st Brigade (now renamed) and related 
     militias that destroyed Abyei in May 2008 were promoted, and 
     today hundreds of those men, commanded by thugs like Lt. Col. 
     Thomas Thiel Malual Awak, Major Moyak Mobil Ajak and Captain 
     Joseph Garang Nyoul, among others, are just a short distance 
     north of Abyei town waiting for the next instruction from 
     President Bashir to do their evil deeds. And, in my view, he 
     is preparing to do just that. He has already announced in a 
     very threatening way how he will try to torpedo the Abyei 
     Referendum in 2011.
       This is how Khartoum behaves across the board on every 
     important issue. This is the Government our Administration is 
     seeking to ``make nice'' with. Comparing the problems of the 
     GOSS with those of Khartoum, which really is the failed 
     state? Is it Khartoum, the one rolling in cash, thoroughly 
     corrupt, a killer regime whom WE have accused rightly of 
     genocide, the `government' that undermines all the 
     marginalized populations in Sudan and never keeps its 
     agreements? Or is it the four-and-a-half year old GOSS, 
     struggling to reconstruct a war-devastated South with an 
     almost 100% war-traumatized population of survivors minus 
     several million that didn't survive? Morally, by any 
     assessment, the South wins hands down. And morally, that's 
     where America's heart should be.
       Why? I believe that with all their shortcomings, the SPLM 
     and the GOSS politically are fundamentally democrats and 
     genuinely want to provide development for all the populations 
     for which they have governing responsibility. In my view it 
     is in advancing precisely those commitments that U.S. 
     national interests are ultimately located.
       To me that requires a U.S. surge in coming along side in a 
     full-blown partnership with the struggling GOSS to improve 
     its performance in terms of governance quality so it can 
     deliver services to and inspire the hopes of the people of 
     South Sudan and Abyei. While I cannot be comprehensively 
     prescriptive on specific programmatic solutions, there are 
     some that are obvious: improved financial management, 
     establishment of corruption detection and prosecution 
     mechanisms, preparation for managing the South's petroleum 
     sector, enhancing their public information capacity so the 
     public is well-informed, increased training of police, and 
     capacity-building in reducing inter-community violence. For 
     the remaining timeline of the CPA and for sometime 
     thereafter, the U.S. should stimulate capacity transfer by an 
     infusion of capable American, Indian and other nationality 
     expertise to work along side their Sudanese counterparts. It 
     also means Washington confronting Khartoum when in big or 
     little ways they obstruct CPA requirements and undermine GOSS 
     capacity.
       To me this is an approach of which the American people 
     ultimately will be proud. It will free the people of Abyei 
     and the South and will also best secure our own fundamental 
     interests.

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