[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11228-11229]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


                              SOUTH SUDAN

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, today I wish to speak about the ongoing 
civil war in South Sudan. July 9 marks the fourth anniversary of South 
Sudan's independence. This should be a day of celebration, but it is 
instead a day marred by violence and suffering. For the last 19 months, 
hostilities between the government and the opposition have brought the 
world's newest country to the brink of ruin. Regional mediation efforts 
have failed, and the international community has yet to come up with a 
viable plan to end the violence. Unless we jumpstart diplomatic efforts 
immediately, this conflict is destined to become another long-running 
war in Africa that is ignored by the rest of the world.
  As some of my colleagues may know, ongoing political tensions between 
forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and forces loyal to former Vice 
President Riek Machar, coupled with preexisting ethnic tensions, 
erupted in violence on the night of December 15, 2013. Both sides in 
the conflict have committed and continue to commit serious human rights 
violations. The nature and scale of the abuses in the first days, 
weeks, and months of the conflict prompted the African Union to 
establish a Commission of Inquiry in March of last year to investigate. 
However the Commission's report, while completed, has never been 
publicly released. We have seen the contents of a version of the report 
that was leaked in March and the findings are truly disturbing: 
indiscriminate killing of civilians, burning

[[Page 11229]]

and looting of hospitals and humanitarian assets, attacks on United 
Nations compounds, and rape on a massive scale. Similar findings have 
been reported separately by the U.N. and various human rights 
organizations.
  Tragically, increased fighting this spring has been characterized by 
an even greater level of brutality. According to the United Nations 
Children's Fund, UNICEF, as many as 129 children were killed in May in 
Unity State alone--boys were castrated and left to bleed to death, 
girls as young as 8 years old were raped and killed, some children had 
their throats slit or were thrown into burning buildings by government-
allied militia. This is in addition to the estimated 13,000 children 
being forcibly recruited to fight by government and opposition forces. 
The behavior of armed groups is beyond inhumane.
  As a result of the war, 1.5 million people are internally displaced. 
More than 730,000 have crossed borders into Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, 
and Kenya as refugees. The number of people facing severe food 
insecurity has almost doubled since the start of the year from
2.5 million to an estimated 4.6 million people, including approximately 
874,000 children under the age of 5.
  The recent uptick in hostilities has made it extremely challenging 
for humanitarian organizations to reach populations in need. Aid 
workers continue to be harassed, detained, and abducted. The Government 
of South Sudan expelled the United Nations Deputy Special 
Representative and Humanitarian Coordinator Toby Lanzer in June. His 
expulsion comes at a time of increasing humanitarian need. The ruthless 
means through which troops are executing the war, the parliament's 
passage of an NGO law hinders the delivery of much needed services, the 
expulsion of the head of the U.N. humanitarian arm and obstruction of 
U.N. peacekeeping operations to protect civilians, and the refusal of 
the parties to engage in good-faith negotiations to end hostilities all 
paint a picture of two opposing sides that have very little regard for 
the needs or wellbeing of South Sudanese citizens.
  In light of the gravity of the situation on the ground, we must 
urgently consider taking several steps: First, we should push for a 
United Nations arms embargo on South Sudan to stop the flow of arms to 
all warring factions. We may or may not be successful in convincing all 
of the Permanent Five members of the Security Council to agree with us 
on this, but we will never be successful if we don't make the attempt. 
On July 1, the United Nations Security Council imposed personal 
targeted sanctions on six South Sudanese generals it believes are 
fueling the fighting. I welcome this move, but I have doubts that this 
alone will prove a game changer. Strangling the supply of arms and 
materiel of the actors on the ground could prove far more effective 
than sanctioning military leaders who don't travel outside the country 
or hold assets internationally.
  Second, we must undertake a review of the military training and 
assistance we are providing to countries in the region to determine 
whether soldiers we have trained and equipment we have supplied are 
being used to either commit human rights abuses in South Sudan or 
prolong hostilities. We should also consider whether extra safeguards 
are warranted to ensure that U.S. security assistance is not being used 
to support the warring factions or otherwise contributing to the 
conflict.
  Third, we must expand our investments in reconciliation efforts. 
USAID has joined with international partners and is doing a tremendous 
job on the humanitarian front. But our aid should, to the extent 
possible, be coupled with an increase in peace and reconciliation 
activities. The vicious nature of the attacks on civilians will make 
post-war, community-level reconstruction efforts and national healing 
enormously difficult. We cannot wait until the war is over to begin to 
bring people together. These programs should also include activities 
that support justice at the local level so that people who have borne 
the brunt of the violence can obtain some measure of closure.
  Fourth, we must begin to look at how we put accountability mechanisms 
in place. During his trip to east Africa in May, Secretary Kerry 
announced $5 million to support accountability efforts. I applaud this 
move, and am pleased to hear that we are supporting the collection of 
evidence of gross human rights violations and preserving records for 
use in the future. We must take each and every opportunity we can to 
make clear that the United States is committed to bringing human rights 
abusers to justice. However, we can do more. We should push regional 
actors to move forward with efforts to establish the parameters and 
modalities of a court or other transitional justice mechanism. 
Initiating such mechanisms now--rather than waiting for an end to the 
war--more adequately demonstrates the international community's 
commitment to justice for victims than empty statements on the 
importance of accountability.
  Finally, I urge President Obama to convene a meeting with the 
Secretaries General of the Africa Union and United Nations while he is 
in Addis Ababa this month to discuss a way forward that involves those 
two bodies and members of the Troika. And these talks must involve key 
regional players who could prove spoilers to any process, including 
Sudan and Uganda.
  The cost of this war has been astronomical. The U.N. Mission to South 
Sudan has cost over $2 billion in the past 2 years alone. The 
international community has provided nearly $2.7 billion in 
humanitarian assistance. The United States alone has provided more than 
$1.2 billion for those purposes. This is money that should have been 
invested in building a country that had already been devastated by 
decades of war with Sudan. However, the real tragedy is not the dollars 
lost--it is in the thousands of lives lost, the seeds sown of ethnic 
hatred and division and the squandering of an opportunity to build a 
nation that could provide a future to millions of people that were 
marginalized, attacked and abused by Khartoum. We must take action now 
to stop the war and prevent the deaths of thousands more South 
Sudanese.

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