[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Page 12420]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             HOUSE MEETING

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, there is a terrorist visiting with the 
President right now. I will elaborate. So many people are looking the 
other way and don't know what is going on in Africa. I have been on 
this floor nine different times talking about the atrocities that have 
been committed in Cote d'Ivoire.
  They had a President there named Laurent Gbagbo. He and his wife are 
great people, friends of this country. An election took place, and I 
stood here and showed how it was fraudulent, and the guy who won is 
named Alassane Ouattara.
  Right now, as we speak, at this very moment, President Obama is 
meeting with the rebel leader and potential war criminal Alassane 
Ouattara in our Nation's Oval Office. This is an unwise and grossly 
misguided decision on behalf of President Obama. It is, in fact, an 
outrage that our President would welcome with open arms a man who is 
responsible for the deaths of at least 3,000 people and the 
displacement of a half million refugees in Cote d'Ivoire.
  Ouattara is an illegitimate usurper who has scandalized Cote 
d'Ivoire's electoral system and wrongfully ousted democratic incumbent 
Laurent Gbagbo.
  Beginning late last year, Ouattara fraudulently won Cote d'Ivoire's 
Presidential election, and after Gbagbo revealed the fraud he led a 
rebel army that violently overthrew the Gbagbo government, with the 
support of the French military, which wrongly intervened in this former 
French colony.
  This is a picture that depicts one of Ouattara's death squads 
murdering, maiming, raping. This is happening as we speak.
  Who is in the President's office? Alassane Ouattara. As a result, 
Amnesty International reported on July 28 that half a million Ivorians 
are displaced in postelection violence and are prevented from returning 
home because of a ``climate of fear'' that continues to reign in this 
country. Amnesty International specifically singles out Ouattara's 
security forces and his state-sponsored militia composed of Dozos--they 
are called--who continue to target pro-Gbagbo ethnic groups.
  Dozos, traditional hunters, are a mercenary group that both Amnesty 
International and the International Committee of the Red Cross blame 
for carrying out a massacre in April of at least 220 people in the 
western town of Duekoue.
  Here they are in this photo. You can see the charred bodies of those 
murdered by Ouattara, who is in the President's office right now. There 
are executions going on. There is a photo of a person who was burned 
and beaten on the back--from the political opposition. That is what is 
happening today.
  Amnesty International alleges that these forces under Ouattara's 
command are continuing to engage in ``documented crimes under 
international law and human rights violations and abuses, including 
extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings, rape, and other 
sexual violence, torture, other ill treatment and arbitrary arrest and 
detention, as well as the consequences of a high level of displacement, 
pervasive insecurity, and intentional destruction of homes and other 
buildings not justified by military success.''
  They are talking about this. We can see that this person was being 
tortured. This photo is of someone from the cabinet--the Gbagbo 
cabinet. He tried to make a statement--Ouattara said he is trying to 
keep some of those people, but here he is in the middle of killing him. 
He died after this. Here they are executing another person they found 
as a Gbagbo supporter.
  This is happening today as we speak. Ouattara's bloodletting seems 
unabated, and he doesn't seem to be interested in restraining his 
forces from eliminating perceived pro-Gbagbo supporters. He does not 
deserve an invitation to our White House or an audience with the 
President in the Oval Office.
  Instead of participating in our Nation's debt crisis, President Obama 
is meeting with this killer and human rights abuser. Even today, while 
Ouattara is in the President's office, his death squads are roaming the 
streets of Abijan. It is an outrage, and maybe now we understand where 
some of the priorities are.
  With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lieberman). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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