[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 8]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 11436-11437]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               OBAMA'S ABDICATION OF LEADERSHIP IN SUDAN

                                  _____
                                 

                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 11, 2013

  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, Friday marks three years since the 
International Criminal Court (ICC) released an arrest warrant for 
Sudanese President Omar Bashir on charges of genocide in Darfur 
including overseeing acts of torture, the rape of thousands of women, 
and forced displacement of hundreds of thousands.
  And yet, almost inexplicably, Bashir continues to travel the globe 
with virtual impunity thanks in no small part to the Obama 
administration's morally bankrupt posture when it comes to the regime 
in Khartoum.
  For four months now the position of Sudan Special Envoy has been 
vacant. This vacancy is symptomatic of a president that has all but 
forsaken the people of Sudan.
  Last December a group of prominent Sudan activists and advocates 
wrote a letter to the administration, which I submit for the Record, 
expressing their ``grave concerns that the current U.S. policy is 
ineffective at stopping mass atrocities in Sudan.'' They urged 
President Obama, in his second term, to embrace ``an urgent shift in 
the U.S. policy to finally end the humanitarian crises and bring about 
a just and lasting peace in Sudan.''
  The letter cited the President's own words from 2007 when he rightly 
called the genocide in Darfur a ``stain on our souls'' and said that 
``as a president of the United States I don't intend to abandon people 
or turn a blind eye to slaughter.''
  And yet, I can't help but wonder if the people of Darfur, who have 
been displaced from their homes and brutalized by violence for ten 
years now, do in fact feel abandoned by this president and this 
administration.
  The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, Ali Al-Za'tari, 
released a statement on July 7, prompted by the recent tragic death of 
two World Vision humanitarian workers caught in a shootout between 
government forces and rebels in Darfur, in which he commented on the 
``continuing unstable security'' in the region which threatens to 
disrupt the flow of vital aid to an already desperate populace.
  Not only is Darfur's nightmare ongoing, but Khartoum's brutality has 
only spread, consistent with its decades' long effort to systematically 
and ruthlessly consolidate power resulting in the death and 
displacement of untold thousands. More recently the Nuban people have 
been driven from their homes, targeted for killing and terrorized 
because of the color of their skin. Khartoum has indiscriminately 
bombed civilian populations--disrupting an entire way of life for this 
largely farming population. Starvation, death and despair have 
followed.
  According to the UN Humanitarian Affairs office approximately half a 
million people have been displaced because of the conflict in Nuba. 
Last week a Sudanese jet reportedly attacked the routes typically taken 
by refugees from the Nuba region to the Yida refugee camp in South 
Sudan killing an unknown number of civilians.
  I have visited Yida and talked with the people personally. I have 
heard their pleas for help and I have conveyed their message to this 
administration--a message which fell on largely deaf ears.
  On March 19, USA Today featured a joint op-ed by actor and co-founder 
of the anti-genocide organization Not On Our Watch, Don Cheadle, and 
John Prendergast the co-founder of the Enough Project, in the op-ed 
wrote, ``By excluding all but a narrow clique of Sudanese from access 
to the power and wealth of the country, marginalized groups from the 
west (Darfur), south (Blue Nile and the Nuba Mountains) and east have 
all taken up arms against that regime. . . . Any peace effort should 
deal comprehensively with all the rebel movements, the unarmed 
opposition, and civil society, in search of a solution for the whole of 
Sudan. Until the abusive governing system in Sudan is radically 
reformed, there will be blood.''
  Indeed, much blood has been shed, and yet inexplicably this 
administration has embraced a policy of engagement marked by 
conciliatory outreach to Khartoum, including the prospect of debt 
relief for a genocidal government.
  While there has been criticism of two successive special envoys, 
ultimately they were merely the implementers of a policy that is 
inherently flawed and ultimately ineffective.
  In a February 12 letter to Secretary of State Kerry I wrote, ``Our 
approach to Sudan and South Sudan needs reinvigorating. It demands a 
renewed sense of moral clarity about who we are dealing with in 
Khartoum--namely genocidaires. It necessitates someone who can speak 
candidly with our friends in South Sudan about their own internal 
challenges, including corruption, and shortcomings as a new nation. 
While an envoy alone does not a policy make, a high-profile special 
envoy, from outside the department, with the knowledge and mandate to 
aggressively pursue peace, security and justice for the people of Sudan 
and South Sudan, is an important step in the right direction.''
  The model of an effective special envoy that I often refer to is that 
of Senator John Danforth. In 2001, I was at the Rose Garden ceremony 
when Senator Danforth, standing between President Bush and Secretary of 
State Powell, was appointed as Sudan Special Envoy. President Bush's 
leadership in appointing Danforth and giving him this charge was 
instrumental in securing, after two and a half years of negotiations, 
the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), thereby bringing about an end 
to the war and ultimately paving the way for South Sudan's 
independence. Danforth was a high-profile envoy. He had the ear of the 
president and the secretary and

[[Page 11437]]

didn't get bogged down in the department's bureaucracy. He was uniquely 
positioned to negotiate and his stature, prior to taking the job, 
communicated a clear sense of urgency and priority on the part of the 
U.S. He didn't require a sizeable staff, or even a full-time State 
Department post, but the diplomatic feat he accomplished, with 
President Bush's blessing and support, was nothing short of remarkable.
  Meanwhile, not only has the Obama administration failed to fill the 
Sudan Special Envoy post, it has actively sought to block efforts in 
Congress, which I initiated, to isolate Bashir. Last year I offered an 
amendment to the State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill which 
would have cut non-humanitarian foreign assistance to any nation that 
allowed him into their country without arresting him. The amendment was 
adopted with bipartisan support by voice vote despite the department's 
opposition.
  This approach of using our increasingly scarce aid dollars to 
effectuate change and further our foreign policy objectives is a tried 
and true method. When Malawi allowed Bashir to enter the country to 
attend a regional trade summit I pressed the Millennium Challenge 
Corporation (MCC) to end Malawi's compact. The MCC was initially 
opposed to this course of action but ultimately, in the face of a 
deteriorating human rights situation internally, reversed course and 
suspended Malawi's compact, citing Bashir's visit as one of the 
reasons.
  Fortunately Malawi's new president, Joyce Banda, hoping to 
reinvigorate her country's relationship with donor countries, last year 
took a firm stand in refusing to allow Bashir to visit her country for 
the African Union (AU) summit. President Banda went so far as to 
decline to host the summit lest her country and her government be 
placed in the position of being forced to host a war criminal. Given 
her principled stand I made clear to the MCC Board that I supported 
Malawi's compact being reinstated which it ultimately was.
  However, other countries, including large recipients of U.S. foreign 
assistance, have not followed suit and the administration has failed to 
embrace this approach to spur such action. As recently as yesterday, 
reports surfaced that Bashir would soon travel to Nigeria--yet another 
country which has signed up to the Rome Statute--the founding treaty of 
the ICC.
  The amendment I proposed would effectively isolate Bashir and make 
him an international pariah as is befitting a man with blood on his 
hands. It is noteworthy that the amendment garnered the support of 70 
prominent Holocaust and genocide scholars. Dr. Rafael Medoff, director 
of the Wyman Institute, which initiated a letter of support to the 
administration from these scholars, said: ``Halting aid to those who 
host Bashir would be the first concrete step the U.S. has taken to 
isolate the Butcher of Darfur and pave the way for his arrest. If the 
Obama administration is serious about punishing perpetrators of 
genocide, it should support the Wolf Amendment.''
  Sadly that support never materialized.
  When it wasn't busy opposing Congressional efforts to isolate Bashir 
the administration was cozying up to elements of the regime in Khartoum 
and granting them an air of legitimacy. On April 23 the Associated 
Press reported that ``The Obama administration is preparing to welcome 
a senior Sudanese delegation to the United States for some rare 
highest-level diplomacy between the countries.'' The delegation was to 
include Sudanese presidential adviser Nafie Ali Nafie.
  Upon learning of this invitation I immediately wrote the president 
and expressed my strong opposition citing an October 2008 Los Angeles 
Times profile piece on Nafie which opened with the following, ``He's 
accused of torturing enemies, cozying up to Osama bin Laden in the 
1990s and plotting to assassinate Egypt's president.'' The Times piece 
continued, describing him as, ``the leader of the hardline faction in 
the ruling National Congress Party,'' and the one who ``opposed 
allowing U.N. peacekeepers into Darfur and believed that the ruling 
party gave up too much power in signing a 2005 U.S.-brokered peace 
treaty that ended a 21-year civil war with southern rebels.''
  The article quoted a former University of Khartoum science professor 
and critic of the Khartoum government who was arrested in 1989 as 
saying that Nafie was his interrogator. Specifically he said, ``I was 
tortured, beaten and flogged in his presence . . . He was administering 
the whole thing. He did it all in such a cool manner, as if he were 
sipping coffee.''
  I am not opposed to diplomacy. But there are plenty of locations, 
including through our embassy in Khartoum, to engage in these talks. 
Why the administration would choose now to reward Khartoum, 
specifically the likes of Nafie Ali Nafie, with an invitation to 
Washington is beyond me. It is further worth noting that the invitation 
is utterly at odds with Obama's own 2011 Presidential Proclamation 
refusing entry into the United States of anyone who has ``planned, 
ordered, assisted, aided and abetted, committed or otherwise 
participated in, including through command responsibility, war crimes, 
crimes against humanity or other serious violations of human rights, or 
who attempted or conspired to do so.''
  The administration's misstep in inviting Nafie was met with grave 
expressions of concern from many in the Sudan advocacy community. 
Eventually, at a Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing focused on 
Sudan just last month the administration indicated the invitation was 
now off the table--although they did not rule out another change of 
course in the future.
  Candidate Obama purported to be deeply concerned by the crisis in 
Sudan and committed to bold actions.
  Have we seen a fraction of that concern or anything close to bold 
action since he became president?
  Candidate Obama was sharp in his criticism of President Bush's 
handling of Sudan.
  Have we seen President Obama take even fleeting interest, beyond the 
occasional talking point, in the deteriorating situation in Sudan 
marked in part by a growing humanitarian crisis in the Nuba Mountains?
  In a piece in the August 4, 2011 Christian Science Monitor noted 
Sudan researcher and activist Eric Reeves, wrote, ``If the world 
refuses to see what is occurring in South Kordofan, and refuses to 
respond to evidence that the destruction of the Nuba people, as such, 
is a primary goal of present military and security actions by Sudan, 
then this moment will represent definitive failure of the 
`responsibility to protect.'''
  Meanwhile in an April 23, 2012 speech at the U.S. Holocaust Museum 
President Obama lauded his commitment in the realm of genocide and 
mass-atrocities prevention, saying, without a hint of irony, ``We're 
making sure that the United States government has the structures, the 
mechanisms to better prevent and respond to mass atrocities. So I 
created the first-ever White House position dedicated to this task. 
It's why I created a new Atrocities Prevention Board, to bring together 
senior officials from across our government to focus on this critical 
mission. This is not an afterthought.''
  He continued, ``. . . we need to be doing everything we can to 
prevent and respond to these kinds of atrocities--because national 
sovereignty is never a license to slaughter your people.''
  I couldn't agree more. And yet, I think most in the Sudan watchers 
would hardly be able to claim that this administration has done 
everything it can to prevent and respond to Khartoum's assault on its 
own people.
  Arguably, the Obama administration's moral equivalency and silence in 
the face of atrocities in Sudan has only, in the words of famed 
Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, helped the oppressor and encouraged the 
tormentor.
  With tensions between Sudan and South Sudan on the rise and nearing a 
tipping point, thousands starving in the Nuba Mountains, refugees 
fleeing aerial bombardment and pouring over the border into South 
Sudan, violence persisting in Darfur and an internationally indicted 
war criminal at the helm in Khartoum who travels the globe with seeming 
impunity, it is time for a fresh policy and a renewed commitment to 
peace and justice in Sudan.
  To date, this President has offered nothing more than an abdication 
of leadership and a failure of vision, which has culminated in human 
suffering and misery.
  Obama has failed the people of Sudan who yearn for peace, justice and 
basic human rights.

                          ____________________