SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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29–972PDF
2006
THE DETERIORATING PEACE IN SUDAN
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
SEPTEMBER 20, 2006
Serial No. 109–236
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
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Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.internationalrelations.house.gov/
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey,
Vice Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
RON PAUL, Texas
DARRELL ISSA, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin
JERRY WELLER, Illinois
MIKE PENCE, Indiana
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THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida
JOE WILSON, South Carolina
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
CONNIE MACK, Florida
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
MICHAEL McCAUL, Texas
TED POE, Texas
TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
BARBARA LEE, California
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
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GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM SMITH, Washington
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel
ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California,
Vice Chairman
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
BARBARA LEE, California
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DIANE E. WATSON, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
MARY M. NOONAN, Subcommittee Staff Director
GREG SIMPKINS, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member
NOELLE LUSANE, Democratic Professional Staff Member
SHERI A. RICKERT, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member and Counsel
LINDSEY M. PLUMLEY, Staff Associate
C O N T E N T S
WITNESSES
The Honorable Michael Hess, Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development
Ms. Mira Sorvino, Goodwill Ambassador, Stop Violence Against Women Campaign, Amnesty International
The Honorable Roger Winter, former Special Representative of the Deputy Secretary of State for Sudan
Mr. Warwick Davies-Webb, Research Director, Executive Research Associates
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LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State of New Jersey, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations: Prepared statement
The Honorable Michael Hess: Prepared statement
Ms. Mira Sorvino: Prepared statement
The Honorable Roger Winter: Prepared statement
Mr. Warwick Davies-Webb: Prepared statement
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
THE DETERIORATING PEACE IN SUDAN
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2006
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights
and International Operations,
Committee on International Relations,
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Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:40 p.m. in room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Honorable Christopher H. Smith (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. SMITH. The Committee will come to order. Fourteen months ago, I visited Darfur, joined by Greg Simpkins, our distinguished African specialist on the Subcommittee, and we met some of the heroic survivors of genocide at two camps, Mukjar and Kalma camp. When a helicopter landed at the remote Mukjar camp, thousands of women and children danced, clapped, and sang beautiful traditional African songs.
The people of Darfur, as we all know, have a remarkable generosity and spirit, and it was awe-inspiring. At first glance, most of the people had a superficial glow of physical wellness, thanks to a large part to the brave NGO workers bearing food, clothing, and medicine. However, even those necessities now are disappearing due to the insecurity in Darfur caused by a lack of protection of residents and aid workers.
But what profoundly troubled me in having read all the reports is the appalling fear and trepidation that is ever present just below the surface. Among the refugees and IDPs, emotional woundedness and brokenness is everywhere. Like you and me, all that the wonderful people of Darfur really want is to love God and their families and friends and earn a living and to live in peace. Yet they have had atrocities imposed on them that no human should have to bear.
Just about everyone I spoke with, especially the women, told me personal stories of rape, senseless beatings, and massacres by the Janjaweed and Sudanese militias. What is absolutely clear is that the victims of Darfur are relying on the United Nations, the African Union, and governments who claim they care, including ours.
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On that same trip to Sudan, I also met with Sudanese President Omar Hassan El-Bashir at his Presidential suite in Khartoum. All Bashir seemed to want to talk about was ending United States trade sanctions, not the horrific loss of life in Darfur. For me, the exchange was eerily reminiscent of a conversation I had in Serbia with the late Slobodan Milosevic after he invaded Croatia, then Bosnia, and unleashed the Balkan genocide. He too was unmoved by the plight of suffering people.
We are today at a crossroads, and the international community must act and follow through on Human Security Council Resolution 1706 without further delay. In the meantime, the African Union, which is meeting today, must be resolute and extend its mission and mandate to Darfur. That is the bare minimum. To leave now would be unconscionable in the extreme, and it would result in more loss of life.
I have met some of the brave African soldiers who have risked their lives with insufficient resources and equipment, sometimes for less than a dollar a day. Eight of them have been killed in ambushes or battles with the more heavily armed Janjaweed or renegade rebel forces. Meanwhile, the political leadership of the AU has failed to do their part in protecting African civilians in Darfur by deferring to one of its members even when that member state is clearly in the wrong.
While the Chinese Government continues to suppress its own citizens' human rights, they nevertheless can attain some respect on the world's stage by standing with the oppressed in Darfur rather than the oppressor in Khartoum, which has been the case up to now. They have considerable leverage with Bashir, and they need to use it.
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The Arab League, despite the pleas of the international community, not only met in Sudan this year but made Sudan its Chair. To their credit, the League members had pledged $150 million for the AU mission back in March, but at this point, neither the Arab League nor any member nation has actually contacted the AU about when such funding might be made available.
As for the United States' part at this crucial hour, I applaud the Bush Administration for responding to Congress and appointing a Special Presidential Envoy to Sudan. Special Envoy John Danforth made a difference in bringing peace to the south, and we hope Special Envoy Andrew Natsios can make a difference as well in ending the deteriorating lack of peace throughout Sudan and Darfur.
The U.S. Congress must do more as well. Both the House and the Senate have passed a Darfur Peace and Accountability Act. It is time for both chambers to reconcile the differences in the bill and get it to the President for his signature.
When it comes to Darfur, no one could ever say we did not know. Indifference, especially now, makes us complicit in genocide. Ineffectiveness, especially now, makes us unwitting enablers of genocide. The National Congress Party, Government of Sudan, and its Janjaweed militia allies have collaborated to cause the death of more than 200,000—some put it as high as 400,000—people in Darfur and the displacement of nearly 2 million.
They have combined to make life hell on earth for the residents of all three Darfur provinces. Unfortunately, there are other actions contributing to the torment of the people of Darfur, and we need to address those as well.
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I would like to now yield to my good friend and colleague, Mr. Payne, for any opening comments he might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY AND CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS
Fourteen months ago, I visited Darfur and met some of the heroic survivors of genocide at two camps—Mukjar and Kalma camp.
When the helicopter landed at the remote Mukjar camp, thousands of women and children danced, clapped and sang beautiful traditional African songs. The people of Darfur have a remarkable generosity and spirit. It was awe-inspiring.
At first glance, most of the people had a superficial glow of physical wellness thanks in large part to the brave NGO workers bearing food, clothing and medicine. However, even those necessities are disappearing due to the insecurity in Darfur caused by a lack of protection of residents and aid workers.
But what profoundly troubled me, and what by all reports has worsened—is the appalling fear and trepidation that is ever present, just below the surface. Among the refugees and IDPs, emotional woundedness and brokenness is everywhere.
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Like you and me, all that the wonderful people of Darfur want is to love God, and their families and friends, and earn a living—to live in peace. Yet, they have had atrocities imposed on them that no human should have to bear. Just about everyone I spoke with—especially the women—told me personal stories of rape, senseless beatings, and massacres by the Janjaweed and Sudanese militias.
What is absolutely clear is that the victims of Darfur are relying on the United Nations, the African Union, governments who claim they care, including ours.
On the same trip to Sudan, I also met with Sudanese president, Omar Hassan El-Bashir at his presidential suite in Khartoum. All Bashir seemed to want to talk about was ending US trade sanctions not the horrific loss of life in Darfur.
For me, the exchange was eerily reminiscent of a conversation I had had in Serbia with the late Slobodan Milosevic after he invaded Croatia, then Bosnia and unleashed the Balkan genocide. He too was unmoved by the plight of suffering people.
We are today at a crossroads and the international community must act and follow through on UN Security Council Resolution 1706 without further delay.
In the meantime, the African Union, which is meeting today, must be resolute and extend its mission and mandate to Darfur. To leave now would be unconscionable in the extreme and would result in more loss of life.
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I have met some of the brave African soldiers who have risked their lives with insufficient resources and equipment, sometimes for less than $1 a day. Eight of them have been killed in ambushes or battles with more heavily-armed Janjaweed or renegade rebel forces. Meanwhile, the political leadership of the AU has failed to do their part in protecting African civilians in Darfur by deferring to one of its members—even when that member state is clearly in the wrong.
While the Chinese government continues to suppress its own citizens' human rights, they nevertheless can attain some respect on the word stage by standing with the oppressed in Darfur rather than the oppressor which has been the case up to now. They have considerable leverage with Bashir and they need to use it.
The Arab League, despite the pleas of the international community, not only met in Sudan this year, but made Sudan its chair. To their credit, League members pledged $150 million for the AU mission back in March, but at this point neither the Arab League nor any member nation has actually contacted the AU about when such funding might be made available.
And for the United States' part at this crucial hour, I applaud the Bush Administration for responding to Congress and appointing a Special Presidential Envoy to Sudan. Special Envoy John Danforth made a difference in bringing peace to the South, and we hope Special Envoy Andrew Natsios can make a difference now in ending the deteriorating peace throughout Sudan.
The US Congress must do more as well. Both the House and the Senate have passed the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act. It is time for both chambers to reconcile the differences in bill language and get it to the president for his signature.
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When it comes to Darfur no one can ever say we didn't know. Indifference, especially now, makes us complicit in genocide. Ineffectiveness, especially now, make us unwitting enablers of genocide.
The National Congress Party government of Sudan and its Janjaweed militia allies have collaborated to cause the death of more than 200,000 people in Darfur and the displacement of nearly two million people. They have combined to make life hell on earth for the residents of all three Darfur provinces.
Unfortunately, there are other actors contributing to the torment of the people of Darfur. The rebel movements that arose in 2003 to defend the interests of the people of Darfur have increasingly participated in their own attacks on those people. These rebels groups have splintered so often, that it is now difficult to tell where any faction now stands.
In addition to the crisis in Darfur, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement is not being implemented as signed. The Abyei border, despite a border commission decision, has been delayed by the Government of Sudan in its pursuit of continued control of oil resources in the region. This not only interferes with the equitable distribution of oil resources to the Government of Southern Sudan, but it also prevents the installation of administration in that area. That means people in the borer area are not receiving vital police protection or other services.
We also must consider the problem of Eastern Sudan. This region is plagued by famine, tuberculosis, malnutrition and other ills, as well as deep poverty. Moreover, landmines remain a hazard for people in this region, as 23 people were killed by mines and two others wounded just last week.
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Through no fault of their own, the people of Darfur have had their dreams turned into a nightmare. Any remedy we create must satisfy their desperate need, as well as our own collective conscience.
The people of Darfur deserve to live in peace. They are counting on us to act now.
Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for calling this very important hearing. I continue to be encouraged by the interest and support of Members who have been dealing with this issue for so long, as we saw Congressman Wolfe here and Congressman Tancredo visit south Sudan during the first months of his term in Congress. And so I think that together we have to continue to keep the pressure on. And, of course, my colleagues, Ms. Lee and Ambassador Watson and others, have been right here on the case.
There could be no more important or more appropriate time to hold this hearing than today, because while we have all heard of the staggering figures of the genocide, an estimated 400,000 killed and more than 2 million displaced, countless rapes, continued suffering of millions of Darfurians, things are only getting worse. And when you look at the history of Sudan with the north/south conflict, 4 million displaced, 2 million dead, we wonder how long? Just how long?
There is a renewed area of bombardment in Darfur by the Sudanese Air Force. Attacks by the Janjaweed have increased. There were nearly 500 rapes in one camp alone this summer. Humanitarian workers are unable to get into many areas to provide the much needed services to the millions of innocent people caught in the futile clash between militias, rebels, and government forces.
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Twelve aid workers have been killed and two in the last few weeks. We must act quickly to send in the nearly 20,000 UN troops authorized last month by Security Council Resolution 1706.
I was quite pleased that President Bush was forceful in his remarks at the 61st opening of the United Nations General Assembly. He said if the Sudanese Government does not approve this peacekeeping force quickly, the UN must act. He went on to say that the UN's credibility was on the line. Well, I agree, and I must add that the credibility of our Government, the United States, is also on the line.
We said genocide is happening in Darfur. The House passed it 422 to 0. The Senate passed it with unanimous consent with no dissensions. Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that as a position of the State Department, and President Bush acknowledged that genocide was occurring. However, although we said genocide is happening in Darfur, we are still watching innocent civilians suffer for the past 3 years. That was indicated by our illustrious guest here today.
We must not wait for the permission of the killers in Khartoum in order to deploy a United Nations peacekeeping force. Assistant Secretary Frazer, your remarks at the Congressional Black Caucus' Brain Trust on Africa on September 8 where you included in your statement that the United States will not wait for Khartoum to okay the peacekeeping force was very well received. Let us translate that into action for the people of Darfur who have suffered for so long and for too long.
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President Bashir has retracted his original threat to kick out the AU and says that they now can stay beyond the 30th of September. The AU is meeting today and is expected to extend the mandate. It is simply unacceptable for this rogue President to decide whether or not the AU force can stay in his country or not when it is his own government which is perpetrating the genocide.
We are not without options to stop the suffering in Darfur. If we had the political will, we can end the suffering. NATO did it. NATO did not ask Milosevic his permission to go into the former Yugoslavia under President Clinton, nor did President Bush ask Aidid for permission in 1992 to go into Somalia. He did the right thing. We must do the same in Darfur.
More than 138 Members cosponsored a bill I introduced last year strongly recommending for the United States to use all necessary measures, including ''use of the United States Armed Forces to stop genocide in Darfur, consistent with the convention out of prevention and punishment of the crimes of genocide to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 1556 and 1564.''
If Bashir continues to reject the peacekeeping force and continues his campaign of terror, we should utilize our military assets already in the region to neutralize Janjaweed or other militia groups intent on targeting civilians, destroy helicopters or fixed aircraft used to attack civilians, target intelligence or military headquarters used to plan and direct attacks against civilians, and impose a no-fly zone in Darfur.
I took a trip last month to Juba, south of Sudan, on my trip to the DRC and Kenya and Ethiopia where we visited political prisoners in Addis who have been imprisoned by the Government of Ethiopia.
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But in Sudan, I met with President Salva Kiir and Madam Rebecca Garang and attended the first anniversary memorial service of the late Dr. John Garang. I am not sure how many of you read the helicopter crash investigation report, but I did. I must state clearly the report left a number of critical questions unanswered. Therefore, I strongly recommend and call for a new private investigation in order to clearly answer questions that led to the death of Dr. John Garang, who fought for 20 years to have a comprehensive peace accord, and he served for 20 days in the new south Sudan.
Let me conclude by saying that I welcome the appointment of Andrew Natsios as the Presidential Envoy for Sudan. I look forward to working with him, but I must state clearly that his mandate must be robust. He should have proper staff support and access to the White House and the leadership in the State Department.
On my trips to refugee camps of Darfurians in Chad and on the border of Sudan, it was always in consultation with Roger Winter, who long before coming to the State Department, as he was acknowledged by the Chairman, has done tireless work, and it is people like Roger Winter who have made the conditions—even though horrendous—they would be much worse if it were not for people who devoted their entire lives to the struggle of the people of Sudan and other areas. So, with that, Mr. Chairman, once again, thank you for this hearing, and we look forward to hearing the witnesses.
Mr. SMITH. Mr. Tancredo.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Chairman, I understand there are going to be votes in a relatively short time. I therefore have no comment and hope we can get to the witness.
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Mr. SMITH. Ms. Lee.
Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank you again and Mr. Payne for your leadership, for this hearing, and I just want to associate myself with the remarks of Mr. Payne. I want to also say that it is time that we revved this up a bit, Mr. Chairman. I think what we see at hand and what we have worried about in terms of this horrific genocide taking place is we could see another Rwanda take place.
And as we witness the killings and the escalation of the violence, I am worried that that is what may happen. And so we have got to do everything and then more. I believe that we have to require sanctions and divestment. And we are going to be introducing the Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act of 2006 that would prohibit multinational corporations which are doing business in the Sudan, make them ineligible for Federal contracts, U.S. Federal contracts. And there are many companies that are doing just that.
Finally, let me just say I think that we have got to, as Mr. Payne said, move forward. How in the world—and we communicated this in a letter to the President—how in the world can we allow this genocidal regime to tell the AU that they cannot—and the UN—that they cannot come in and protect innocent civilians, when in fact they are the perpetrators of this genocide? And so we have got to send a clear message that we are not going to wait any longer. The time for action is now, and thank you for this hearing.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Mr. Fortenberry.
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Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you as well, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. I do not know if you recall, but it was 1 year ago this day that we held a briefing on the deteriorating situation in Sudan, and here we are now with an alarming situation. So I have a fuller statement I will submit for the record in the interest of saving time.
Mr. SMITH. Without objection, so ordered. Ambassador Watson.
Ms. WATSON. I also want to thank you, Chairman Smith, for holding this very timely hearing. As we all know, in recent weeks, the Government of Sudan has once again stepped up its campaign of genocide. According to Human Rights Watch, the Government of Sudan is indiscriminately bombing civilians in villages in the rebel-held north Darfur. The African Union has bravely stepped into the breach and tried to protect civilians that are living in Darfur, and I understand that today they have agreed to extend their mission in Darfur until the end of 2006.
However, the capacity of the AU to continue their efforts is severely limited. The only situation to this problem is to fulfill the UN Security Council Resolutions that calls for a UN force to enter Darfur to protect civilians. The UN must deploy its peacekeepers as soon as possible. I expect the President to take the lead in ensuring that the UN peacekeepers deploy to Darfur immediately.
Here in Congress, we should take pride in some of our early efforts to bring attention to the ongoing genocide in Darfur. But I am frustrated with the current progress of our efforts, and I want to thank Donald Payne for keeping it in the forefront of our minds and helping us see the suffering in Darfur. One of the most encouraging aspects of America's engagement with the Darfur crisis has been the outpouring of grassroot support for an American intervention to end the genocide.
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Across our country, millions of Americans have sought to find ways that they can influence events and in the barbarous crimes of Bashir and his cabinet. One of the most practical ways has been by supporting the grassroots movement to divest from foreign companies doing business with the Government of Sudan. Unfortunately, the movement is still vulnerable to legal challenges. Here in the House, we have passed legislation that would support the divestment movement, but now we find that just this week, Senator Lugar has reintroduced the Darfur legislation in the Senate minus the divestment language.
Mr. Chairman, I really find this appalling, and Senator Lugar certainly has a long and distinguished record of service to our country. Nevertheless, it really angers me that a United States Senator would seek to blunt the voice of the American people as they try to take a stand to stop the genocide. So I am appealing to Senator Lugar to restore the divestment language passed by the House to the Senate version of the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, and I thought we ought to send a letter, those of us who support divestiture.
And speaking from my own state of California, we carried a divestment bill for 8 years. We brought attention to what was happening in South Africa with apartheid, and we finally got it passed under a very conservative governor, and that equated to $19 billion withheld from the companies that were still there doing business. It made a difference.
And in 1994, you know the success story. And I think if we can send a letter and get that divestment language back in, we can see the beginning steps of a difference being made in Darfur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Ms. McCollum.
Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have had the chance to visit the victims of the genocide in Darfur twice. I wish not to go a third time to visit victims who have watched family members be murdered, women raped, people permanently disabled. It is wrong, and we need to do more about it. I commend President Bush for bringing the issue up repeatedly, but we must do more to put more pressure on our international brothers and sisters on the Security Council to take action, and take action now.
I would like to say that on both occasions, I had the opportunity to meet with the brave men and women who participate in the African Union. With little or no equipment, with a mission only to defend themselves if they are attacked, every single day they put their life on the line, every single day.
The last time I was in the Darfur area the AU sustained a fatality, and it took them hours to transport someone back to the hospital for help. With little or no equipment, imagine trying to defend a territory the size of Texas with two helicopters, maybe, at your disposal and couple Toyota trucks. Despite all this, brave men and women are willing to risk their lives, like men that I met from Rwanda that had Rwanda sewn onto their uniform because they meant never again as a statement from their country.
We need to do more. We have to do more. The refugee camps are dangerous places with the government still being able to infiltrate and intimidate those individuals that are still at the refugee camps.
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Mr. Chair, I am glad you are holding this hearing, but I think as parliamentarians, we need to also be putting pressure on parliamentarian brothers and sisters in Africa, in Asia, and in Europe—not only administrational pressure—but maybe we need to start writing letters to the speakers of those parliaments asking for their help in making this genocide come to an end. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Ms. McCollum. I would like to now introduce our first panelist and welcome him. That is the Honorable Michael Hess, who currently serves as Assistant Administrator for the Bureau of Democracy Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Prior to his appointment at USAID, Mr. Hess worked as Senior Risk Reviewer and Vice President at Citibank. He also has over 30 years of experience in the United States military where he served in humanitarian operations in Iraq, Bosnia, Turkey, and Kosovo.
I would like to point out for the record that Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, was unable to be with us today. She was invited, and I know that it was an honest and very serious conflict. She is at the United Nations today working issues of importance relative to Darfur.
So we will make her statement a part of the record and look forward at a very soon to be announced date that we can work out to have her come and testify and hopefully to be joined by Andrew Natsios, our new Special Envoy. So we will look forward to hearing from her. But again, her statement will be made a part of the record.
Mr. Hess, please proceed.
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STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL HESS, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. HESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee. It is an honor to be here today before you and to participate in this discussion on the current situation in Sudan and the prospects for a durable peace in this troubled country. I am going to talk today about the humanitarian threats to peace and security in Sudan. In the interest of time, I respectfully submit my written testimony for the record, but I will limit my oral testimony to the situation in Darfur.
Let me begin by giving you a snapshot of the situation there. In the last week, the UN placed the estimated number of people displaced in Sudan at 1.9 million people. Almost all of these are found in 60 internally displaced persons camps. One million more Darfur citizens are struggling to survive in communities still at risk of militia raids and worse. Two hundred and twenty thousand Darfurian refugees are across the border in eastern Chad.
Approximately 13,000 humanitarian workers are currently in the region; 800 of these are international staff working for the United Nations, the international committee of the Red Cross, and nongovernment organizations. The United States is by far the world's leader in ensuring that these organizations have the manpower and resources they need to mitigate the suffering in Darfur and eastern Chad.
The United States has provided more than $1 billion in humanitarian assistance in Darfur and eastern Chad since the conflict began in fiscal year 2003. Over $400 million has been provided this fiscal year. We have consistently provided more than 60 percent of the food aid distributed in the region, and last year it was clear that we had prevented famine in Darfur and made real gains in health and protection.
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Now we face the risk of famine again and the loss of other humanitarian gains that we have worked so hard to achieve. In Darfur, the decreasing security means decreasing humanitarian access. The decreasing access can mean that hundreds of thousands of people are cut off from food and health assistance. According to the UN, if we compare the 6 months of February to July 2006 with the same 6 months in 2005, we will find the security incidents have increased by 123 percent.
Over the last 5 months, the humanitarian community has had 12 people killed in Darfur. The most recent death involved a valued USAID partner, the International Rescue Committee, when one of its Sudanese volunteer nurses was killed in his clinic during a raid. This occurred in north Darfur days after a worker from the International Committee of the Red Cross was killed.
The effects of this violence are that humanitarian supplies do not get to those who most desperately need them, and security prevented the World Food Program from delivering the food to approximately 355,000 people in north Darfur in August. For many of them, it was the third month in a row without receiving assistance. The International Committee of the Red Cross, the organization most able to operate in insecure areas in Darfur, has had to halt some of its distributions in north Darfur.
The fact is that security in Darfur is deteriorating to a point comparable to that of the conflict peak in 2004. This deterioration has accelerated since May, and while the international community struggles to support the implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement, resistance to the agreement has increased in Darfur. Over the past several weeks, the Government of National Unity has begun to implement its own stabilization plan, launching an organized military campaign to wipe out any opposition forces in Darfur.
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Recent bombing campaigns in north and west Darfur, as well as reports of significant troop movements, attest to the Government of National Unity's determination to act despite international condemnation. The government's campaign has already led to new displacements and suffering and will continue to do so if the violence does not stop immediately.
The African Union's mission in Sudan currently provides the only refuge for Darfurian civilians fleeing the renewed violence. The African Union force continues to offer Darfurian civilians hope that an international entity is monitoring the situation. However, the African Union forces have lost their neutrality in the eyes of some of the rebel groups, increasingly becoming targets of attacks themselves.
In some areas, the African Union forces have had to reduce or even halt patrols, with devastating effect on the humanitarian community's ability to protect the displaced. For example, in August, the International Rescue Committee reported that after the African Union mission in Sudan reduced its patrols in Kalma camp in south Darfur, the incidence of sexual assault against women trying to gather firewood outside of the camp increased from two to three per month to over 200 in a 5-week period.
A complete withdrawal of the African Union peacekeepers at this point represents a worst-case scenario for the humanitarian community, and I say this for several reasons. First, the withdrawal of the African Union peacekeepers will result in further deterioration of security and decreased humanitarian access.
Decreased humanitarian access means that approximately 1.9 million displaced people residing in camps risk losing their only source of food and health services. In these circumstances, increased levels of malnutrition and mortality are inevitable. Finally, no peacekeepers and a reduced international humanitarian presence means that there are fewer witnesses in Darfur, a situation which will easily lead to increased humanitarian abuses and return to the atrocities we have previously documented.
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This is a domino effect that has begun. There are already new displacements of tens of thousands in Darfur, thousands of new refugees have moved into Chad, and reports of attacks against civilians and sexual assaults are increasing rapidly. Our current worst-case scenario magnifies the current deterioration tenfold and includes the renewed displacements of hundreds of thousands of people within Darfur and up to 100,000 new refugees in Chad.
To meet these challenges, we have stockpiled food and nonfood stocks in the region. We have modified our grants with our partners so that they have the ability to adjust their programs as the situation continues to change in Darfur and eastern Chad. We are focusing on and trying to help our partners to maintain the provision of critical assistance through their dedicated Sudanese staff as volunteers of international humanitarian workers are forced to withdraw from Darfur.
We are working with other key donors, specifically DFID and ECHO, to coordinate plans and identify resource gaps. My staff will tell you what Fred Cuny taught me a long time ago: Hope is not a plan. We have done our best to put a good plan in place, but I would be lying to you if I tried to convince you that this is a great plan. Without peacekeepers in Darfur, international humanitarian workers will leave.
Our partners tell us that as long as their Sudanese staff are able to serve without fear of being targets of debilitating harassment or violence, they will try to continue to provide critical basic services. However, if these workers are targeted—and that I am afraid we have every reason to believe it will occur—the people of Darfur will face catastrophe.
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There is no doubt that the picture I presented today is grim. However, my job is to make sure that we understand the impact of the worsening security situation in Darfur and that we try to prepare for it. If the UN re-hats the AU peacekeepers now, we may avert disaster. But I will say it again: Hope is not a plan, and in Darfur, time and hope are running out. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hess follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL HESS, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU FOR DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, it is an honor to appear before you today to participate in a discussion on the current situation in Sudan, and the prospects for a durable peace in this troubled country. I'm going to talk today about what could be described as humanitarian threats to peace and security in Sudan. They pose the greatest threat right now in Darfur, and I will spend most of my time here addressing these. However, I will begin by briefly touching on events in the East and South.
While Eastern Sudan is home to the country's ports and part of its pipeline, malnutrition and maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the country, and its people suffer from what the World Food Program (WFP) calls chronic structural poverty. Like the residents of Southern Sudan and Darfur, the people of Eastern Sudan have historically held little political or economic power and have struggled with marginalization, repression, and a lack of social services. Left unaddressed these factors combine to fuel opposition in the East. The recent initiation of peace talks between Eastern Front rebels and the government present some promise of change. USAID will continue to support activities there with the aim of improving the lives of the citizens in this neglected, underserved region. USAID activities in Eastern Sudan focus on general food and humanitarian interventions, including food security, emergency health and nutrition, water and sanitation, and livelihood interventions. We will also increase our efforts to support activities which support community-based peace building and reconciliation mechanisms.
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In the South, USAID is actively involved in supporting the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which brought an end to Sudan's devastating north-south conflict. While some aspects of Comprehensive Peace Agreement implementation are behind schedule, significant progress towards peace has been made. Peacekeepers are on the ground, roads are being repaired, children are being vaccinated, and refugees and displaced people are returning. Two years ago not many would have believed we would come this far. USAID's reconstruction programs in Southern Sudan are integrated with humanitarian programs to help reduce suffering, promote stability, and mitigate the causes of conflict. Every activity seeks to build human and institutional capacity, increase access to accurate and reliable information, and cultivate systems for good governance and infrastructure development. Our efforts support the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, reduce risks that could put peace in jeopardy, and focus on supporting the peace process, democracy and governance, education, health, and economic growth.
The United Nations Secretary General, Koffi Annan, recently stated that a durable peace in the south will not take hold until the crisis in the Darfur is resolved. Resolving the crisis in Darfur and implementing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement are interrelated issues. In my testimony today, I will discuss what we know about the current security situation in the Darfur region and its effects on humanitarian programming. I will also talk about the steps the U.S. along with our international and non-governmental partners are taking to prepare for a return to widespread conflict and displacement—even as negotiations for the establishment of a robust UN peace-keeping force in Darfur continue.
Let me begin with a snapshot of the situation. Last week the UN placed the estimated number of people displaced within Sudan at 1.9 million. Almost all of these are found in Internally Displaced Persons camps—there are 60. Another 220,000 Darfurian refugees are across the border in eastern Chad. Approximately 13,000 humanitarian workers are currently in the region. 800 of these are international staff working for the United Nations, the Red Cross and non-governmental organizations.
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The United States is by far the world's leader in ensuring that these organizations have the manpower and resources they need to mitigate the suffering in Darfur and Eastern Chad. The United States has provided more than $1 billion dollars in humanitarian assistance to Darfur and Eastern Chad since the conflict began in FY 2003. Over $400 million has been provided this fiscal year. We have consistently provided more than 60% of the food assistance distributed in the region. Last year, it was clear that we had prevented famine in Darfur, and had made real gains in health and protection. Now we face the risk of famine again, and the loss of other humanitarian gains that we've worked so hard to achieve.
In Darfur, a change in security status can mean that thousands—even hundreds of thousands of people become cut off from food or health assistance. According to the UN, if we compare the six months, February—July, in 2006 with the same six months in 2005 we will find that:
Overall security incidents increased by 123 percent;
Car-jackings of humanitarians went up by 230 percent;
Banditry increased by 40 percent ;
Security incidents involving non-governmental organizations went up by 76 percent;
Security incidents targeting the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) increased by 913 percent;
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Armed clashes increased by 100 percent.
The only positive statistic for this time period was a 10% decrease in security incidents involving the UN—though this is overshadowed by the fact that in the last five months, the broader humanitarian community has had twelve of its own people killed in Darfur. The most recent death involved a valued USAID partner, the International Rescue Committee, when one of its Sudanese volunteer nurses was killed in his clinic during a raid. This occurred in Hashaba in North Darfur. Days before, a worker with the International Committee of the Red Cross was killed.
The effect of this violence is that humanitarian supplies do not get to those who most desperately need it. WFP reports that due to insecurity it was unable to deliver food to approximately 355,000 people in North Darfur in August—the third consecutive month that many areas in North Darfur have not received a food distribution. The International Committee of the Red Cross—the organization that is most able to operate in insecure areas of Darfur—has had to halt activities in one of the opposition areas of North Darfur.
The fact is that security in Darfur has deteriorated to a point comparable to that at the conflict's peak in 2004. This deterioration has accelerated since May after the signing of the Darfur Peace Agreement. While the international community has been struggling to support the implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement, resistance to the agreement has been increasing in Darfur. It is a resistance not only seen in the increased activities of the non-signatory groups, but also in increasing tension in camps for the internally displaced, in increasing mistrust of African Union forces, and even in the harassment and intimidation of humanitarian workers.
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Over the past several weeks the Government of National Unity has begun to implement its own stabilization plan—launching an organized military campaign to wipe out any opposition forces remaining in Darfur. Recent bombing campaigns in North and West Darfur, as well as reports of significant troop movements attest to the Government of National Unity's determination to act despite international condemnation. The government's campaign has already led to new displacement and suffering and will continue to do so if the violence does not immediately stop.
The African Union's Mission in Sudan currently provides the only refuge for Darfurian civilians fleeing the renewed violence, and African Union forces continue to offer Darfurian civilians hope that an international entity is monitoring the situation.
However, as resistance to the Darfur Peace Agreement has been growing in Darfur, African Union forces have increasingly become targets and have lost their neutrality in the eyes of some rebel groups. In some areas, African Union forces have had to reduce and even halt patrols—with devastating effect on the humanitarian community's ability to protect the displaced.
A complete withdrawal of the African Union's peacekeepers at this point represents a worse-case scenario for the humanitarian community, and I say this for several reasons:
The withdrawal of peacekeepers will result in the further deterioration of security levels in Darfur, and humanitarian access will be further reduced.
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There are 1.9 million people in camps for the displaced who are completely dependent on humanitarian assistance right now in Darfur. Reduced humanitarian access to these people will result in hunger malnutrition, even starvation. People will be forced to move in search of help, and this makes them vulnerable to attack.
No peacekeepers and a reduced international humanitarian presence will also mean that there are fewer witnesses in Darfur—a situation which will easily lead to increased humanitarian abuses and a return to the atrocities we have previously documented.
This is a domino effect that has already begun: In August the International Rescue Committee reported that after the African Union Mission in Sudan reduced its patrols around Kalma Camp in South Darfur, the incident of sexual assault against women trying to gather fire wood outside the camp increased from 2–3 per month to 200 in a 5 week period. There is already new displacement of tens of thousands in Darfur, and thousands of new refugees have moved into Chad.
Our current worse-case scenario magnifies the current deterioration ten-fold, and includes the renewed displacement of hundreds of thousands of people within Darfur and the movement of 100,000 new refugees into Chad. We have stockpiled food and non-food stocks in the region; we have modified our grants with partners so that they have the ability to adjust their programs as the situation changes in Darfur and Eastern Chad. We are working with other key donors—the United Kingdom's Department For International Development and the European Commission's Humanitarian Office in particular—to coordinate plans and identify resource gaps.
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My staff will tell you that I often say: Hope is not a plan. And we've done our best to put a plan in place. But I would be lying if I tried to convince you that it is a great plan. Without peace keepers in Darfur, international workers will leave. We are focusing on trying to help our partners to maintain the provision of critical assistance through their Sudanese staff if international peacekeepers are forced out of Darfur. Our partners tell us that as long as these dedicated workers are able to serve without fear of being targets of harassment or violence, they should be able to continue to provide critical basic services. If, on the other hand, these workers are targeted—and I am afraid there is every reason to believe that this could occur—the people of Darfur will face catastrophe. Hope: despite our best efforts it remains a part of our plan. But it will not prevent disaster.
There is no doubt that the picture I have presented today is grim. However, my job is to make sure that we understand the impact of worsening security in Darfur, and that we try to prepare for it. If the UN re-hats the AU peacekeepers now, we may avert disaster. But time is running out.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Hess. Let me just begin the questioning. You point out that overall security incidents increased by 123 percent, yet the AU mission AMIS has increased by 913. Can you elaborate on what that looks like? I mean, what kind of incidents are you talking about? Are these serious firefights? Are they attacks on an individual soldier? Secondly, the issue of food. You talk about the stockpiled food and nonfood stocks in the region. Apparently that is not a problem, sufficiency, am I correct on that? It is all about security and the means of delivering and securing the camps, is that correct?
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Mr. HESS. First on your questions on AMIS, there have been patrols that have been attacked. There have been compounds that have been attacked. And when they were guarding some warehouses, there have been individual soldiers who were killed and attacked, and that is the nature of those attacks. When you talk about food, I think I testified here a couple of months ago on food aid. We had a situation earlier in the year where there was a break in the pipeline and WFP had to reduce the ration in Darfur.
We have rebuilt the pipeline. Right now the current distribution is 85 percent. There is food in the region. There is food in Sudan, and we are making every effort to make sure that the next pipeline break, which is projected for February, will not happen. We will begin the ordering process in October for that food.
Mr. SMITH. Let me just again stress the security in the camps issue, and you pointed out that some 200 women in a 5-week period in Kalma camp have been raped while gathering firewood, and that is up from two to three per month. And I am wondering, what can be done to ensure that the need for firewood is met by a safe way of procuring it?
I heard those stories when I was there and asked why the men do not go, and they tell me they will get killed as opposed to the women getting raped. Obviously, both are absolutely unacceptable. But what can be done security-wise to protect these women who obviously need to cook for their families?
Secondly, the security in the camps with regards to the workers. As they depart, obviously people get sicker. Medicines are not disseminated properly. Are female aid workers more at risk in the camps scattered throughout Darfur? And what can we do to beef up security right now?
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Mr. HESS. You are absolutely right on the rape issue. There have been a number of steps that have been tried: More efficient stoves, better food distributions, types of foods that may not necessarily—but some of this is firewood that they use to sell to try and make a little money, because there is no way for them to make money within the camps. And so these are coping mechanisms that they are trying to survive on. And even if we do have other stoves and stuff, that is not enough, as you can see by the incidents that happened in that 5-week period.
The key point is security from peacekeepers, and we are trying to emphasize that as much as possible. We have also done some other programs in violence against women within the camps. Within this summer, we have actually prosecuted three rape cases. Two policemen and one soldier, Sudanese soldier, have been tried within the Sudanese system. We hope this acts as some form of deterrent, but as you know, this is not a legal system that has been forthcoming. But we are trying incidents like that to try and prevent those.
In terms of the camps themselves, you are absolutely right. Women workers are targeted, and that is why you see most of them or a lot of them are men.
Mr. SMITH. One final question. I have several, but I will submit them for the record in the interest of time.
Mr. HESS. Yes, sir.
Mr. SMITH. It is almost surreal that the United Nations is meeting right now, and that heads of states are making speeches about this very issue. Last night, I watched Bashir on C–Span as he gave his speech, and he was talking about, or attacking Israel because of Lebanon, and it was almost like watching another world. And I am wondering, do you get any feedback from our mission from the President's visit that the other heads of state and diplomats get it that as they talk and look askance, an entire group of people, a genocide, is occurring under their own noses?
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Mr. HESS. Yes, sir. I obviously cannot speak for State directly.
Mr. SMITH. Sure.
Mr. HESS. But obviously that is why Assistant Secretary Frazer is still up there. She is holding meetings, and Secretary Rice is holding meetings with other leaders, and they will continue during the week on this issue as I understand it specifically.
Mr. SMITH. We had heard reports—and this is my final question—that Janjaweed were dressing up as police in and around camps. Is there any validity to that?
Mr. HESS. Not to my knowledge, sir. I have not heard of that.
Mr. SMITH. Mr. Payne.
Mr. PAYNE. Thank you very much and thank you for your testimony. We find that still in western European capitals, there seems to be not the same urgency about Darfur as we see here in the United States. Have you had any meetings with your counterparts, if they have counterparts, dealing with democracy and conflict and humanitarian assistance in the governments in Britain and France and Belgium and Germany? And what has been their response when we try to get them to have a little more concern?
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Mr. HESS. That is a very good question, sir. When we had the breaks in the pipeline, I testified the last time that we were providing 87 percent of the food aid in Sudan. That number has now gone down to 66 percent. So our efforts, especially with the EU and our other European allies, have been successful in getting some recognition of the problems. I think the meetings that they are having this week up in New York are a testament to that.
I have met with the head of DFID a couple of times personally, and we talked specifically about this and included meetings with Jan Egeland, the head of UNOCHA, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. So we have been marshalling the forces and raising the visibility of these issues so that we can get their involvement in these.
Mr. PAYNE. Thank you. Regarding the seasons, we are entering our fall. And in the Darfur region, is there a rainy season or a season that might come up that makes it more difficult for food distribution? Is there any prospect of a planting in the refugee camps? Do you have any fix on those issues?
Mr. HESS. Actually, the rainy season is just ending, sir, and it was a good season, so there are increased plantings. Our concern, though, is when you have got 1.9 million people, that is a lot of food, a lot of tonnage that has to get around. They cannot sustain themselves on that. WFP estimates right now they have to feed 3.5 million people. That is throughout the region. That is a lot of food that we need to get around there. So even though it has been a good rainy season, it is not going to be enough, and we have to get more food in there.
Mr. PAYNE. The AU with the just 7,000 troops I believe will at least extend their mandate. What are the basic problems with the current deployment there in addition to just numbers?
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Mr. HESS. Actually, sir, that is not my area, but I can only speak about the security. I mean, if you look at Tawila camp, which is about 40 kilometers from al-Fashir if I remember correctly, we cannot even access that camp, which has half a million people in it by road. We have to access that by helicopter, and it is that access that we are really worried about. If you go into north Darfur, when we cannot reach 355,000 people, that is the real issue for us is can they provide enough security for access?
Mr. PAYNE. Okay. Well, let me thank you very much. I just would also like to associate myself with the remarks of Ambassador Watson, who to our disappointment and almost shock that one of my heroes, Senator Lugar, has actually stripped out of our legislation the right for states to hold state pension funds from being divested in companies that do business in Sudan, multinational companies.
As you know, we have sanctions already on basic United States firms, and the National Foreign Trade Council has evidently reached a Senator who actually supported, even though he said it should be something the court should look at in 1986, divestment from South Africa. His vote was the 67th vote that overturned President Reagan's veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act introduced by Congressman Dellums in 1986. This was 30, 25 years ago.
As a matter of fact, it has been told that if we insist on the legislation to have divestment from state governments that Senator Lugar will not move the bill forward at all. So, because the National Foreign Trade Council wants to continue to have blood money, money with the lives of people dripping from it, money from where women are being raped, that our United States Senator takes out of the bill the fact that plenty of state pension money in New Jersey in 4 months have been withdrawn from companies doing business in Sudan.
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So, since they respect nothing else, we thought that another tool would be to take investments from Khartoum. It is tough to go into shooting and fighting and so forth, but can we not at least take money from Sudan, from Khartoum, to continue to strengthen its Air Force and to pave and to buy equipment so that they can more easily kill people?
And it is dastardly that we had a bill passed which Congressman Hyde supports divestment, and we have a Senator that said not over his watch. I am shocked. That is not a question. That is for sure. I do not want to put you on that. All right. Thank you very much. I will yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Payne. Let me before yielding to Chairman Royce recognize and say it is a high honor and privilege for me to recognize the First Lady of the Republic of Tanzania, Salma Kikwete, a teacher by profession and known affectionately as Mama Salma.
She has made a major contribution to the development of education in Tanzania through teaching mathematics and science, and she is also in the fighting of HIV/AIDS. The First Lady has initiated a project known as Every Child As Your Own whose target is to stop the new HIV/AIDS infections in youth, in children. It is a distinct privilege to welcome you to the Subcommittee. Thank you. Chairman Royce.
Mr. ROYCE. Thank you, Chairman Smith. We are on the brink of something very horrible, and I say that because Congresswoman Betty McCollum and myself and Diane Watson had the opportunity to see what the conditions were like in the Sudan and to talk to some of the survivors, and what they told us was not only that they had been attacked by the Janjaweed.
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Children would draw pictures for us of aircraft, Sudanese Government aircraft, that had bombed their villages and certainly pictures of Sudanese soldiers, regular army, that had shot up their families, and killed their family members. The Sudanese Government is about to unleash a round of killing like we have never seen before in Sudan. This calamity is playing out right before our eyes. And I wanted to share with you that 2 years ago, myself and Chairman Hyde wrote a letter expressing one particular concern that we shared with Secretary of State Powell at the time.
And the point we made in that letter, we said we believe that genocide requires exceptional responses by the United States and the international community. We also believe that these responses should be taken with or without concurrence by the Government of Sudan. In short, the Government of Sudan's complicity and participation in a genocide in Darfur has forfeited the sovereignty and territorial integrity reaffirmed by this draft resolution by the UN.
The reaffirmation of these principles through perhaps stock language for the United Nations will be consequential in shaping the international community's response to the Darfur crisis. The United States should not be bolstering the Government of Sudan's ability to frustrate current and potential interventions in Darfur. That is the question we have to ask ourselves. Is this argument of sovereignty a license for genocide?
It is this argument of sovereignty that China is alluding to in its attempts to block the international community from taking decisive action to end a genocide, and I wanted to ask you if you could share with us your perspective on this, Mr. Hess.
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Mr. HESS. Obviously, sir, I think that is a question that is better suited for the State Department. We look at the humanitarian assistance, and as you know—I think you know—we provide humanitarian assistance based on need. We have done it in North Korea. We have done it in Darfur. We do it where there is a need. Now we have done it in Zimbabwe. We will provide humanitarian assistance where we need to.
Mr. ROYCE. Well, we could have sent care packages to Auschwitz, but when you know what is unfolding before you, the question becomes a little broader.
Mr. HESS. Yes, sir, I agree with you there. But obviously that is—I am not trying to dodge the question—but it is obviously——
Mr. ROYCE. No, I know. But, Mr. Hess, you have been on the ground.
Mr. HESS. Yes, sir.
Mr. ROYCE. And you are the witness here before us. And so I was going to try to engage you in this dialogue because I think it goes to the crux of the problem. I think the international community is going to have to intervene if we are serious about stopping a genocide.
Mr. HESS. Yes, sir.
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Mr. ROYCE. Well, I will yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Ms. Lee.
Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I would like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record on behalf of Ranking Member Lantos two statements from Mr. Bahid [phonetic] and Mr. Gito [phonetic], two Sudanese nationals from California's 12th Congressional District.
Mr. SMITH. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. LEE. Thank you very much. Let me ask a couple of things. First of all, I had the opportunity to visit Sudan twice with Mr. Royce and also recently in a bipartisan delegation with Congresswoman Pelosi. The first time we went, if you remember, Chairman Royce, the Chad/Sudan border was fairly safe for us to travel into the refugees who sought refuge along that area. Recently, when we were back this year, that area had become a very violent, dangerous place.
I am wondering—and we have not heard recently—what has happened in terms of the Sudan/Chad border? What is going on with the refugees? Is there increased aerial bombardment now in that region as well as al-Fashir and the other areas of Sudan? And how are we addressing funding cuts? Because when we were there this year, we heard that there were going to be cuts in funding for health services in some of the camps by USAID.
Mr. HESS. To answer your question first on the border, the border is a big concern of ours. It is very insecure right now. We are getting indications from our partners that there are military operations happening along the border, and that is making it even less secure. So we are very concerned about security of people along that border, and that is why we are increasing our funding in anticipation of problems along that border as people try to flee to Chad.
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On your second issue about lack of funding, we have been stockpiling goods. We have been moving as much money and funding for our partners as possible to make sure that the water, sanitation in particular, and health needs of these camps are met. So I am not aware of any shortfalls in those areas, and my staff certainly has not let me know of any of those. We took the money that you all gave us in the supplemental and applied it and are obligating those funds right now in Darfur.
Ms. LEE. Well, I will get you the information with regard to the organizations that said they were being cut.
Mr. HESS. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. LEE. And the aerial bombardment of the village? Of the refugee camps?
Mr. HESS. We have actually not—in the refugee camps you are talking about in eastern Chad?
Ms. LEE. Yes.
Mr. HESS. We have no indication of an aerial bombardment in eastern Chad. Just along the borders.
Mr. ROYCE. Will the gentlelady yield?
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Ms. LEE. I will yield.
Mr. ROYCE. We do know for a fact that the Chadian portion of the city of Tine was hit by aerial bombardment by the Sudanese Government flying Antonovs, and frankly, we saw the destruction in east Tine when we were there. So I do not think you can categorically make that assertion, Mr. Hess. I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
Ms. LEE. Reclaiming my time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Finally, I too have got to say that with regard to the divestment effort and the non-preemption language of states to move forward on behalf of the people of their states to divest resources and money from companies doing business in Sudan. This is amazing to me that we say one thing and do something else regarding the multinational companies.
And I want to say to Mr. Payne, to the Chairman and to Congresswoman Watson in her absence, that I associate myself with their remarks with regard to moving this bill forward and to making sure the House version of the bill is the bill that is ultimately passed by the Senate.
And I think we need to ask some hard questions with regard to how serious are we about ending this genocide in the Sudan on behalf of our Government, because if our Government issued a declaration of genocide that is taking place, then we should do everything that is necessary, including requiring the profits that are being used to kill people to be divested. And I want that on the record, and we are going to continue to move forward on that.
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Mr. SMITH. Will the gentlelady yield?
Ms. LEE. I will yield.
Mr. SMITH. I would just say very briefly that in the scheme of things, empowering states to divest is a minimum requirement of what we should be doing. I mean, it is not even in the area of maximum.
Ms. LEE. That is right.
Mr. SMITH. But it is in the House bill, and we will do everything we can to keep it because I think it should be.
Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PAYNE. Would you yield?
Ms. LEE. Yes.
Mr. PAYNE. As I indicated before in New Jersey, there was about $3 billion or $4 billion that had been invested, and in 120 days, the state treasurer, with the support of former Senator Corzine, who is the new governor, they were given a year to divest. The treasurer of the state of New Jersey, who was a financial person I believe that came from Goldman-Sachs, also identified the companies. Several billion dollars was divested in less than 60 days.
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They did it in 2 months rather than a year because everyone in New Jersey, the assembly, the senate, the governor, the treasurer's department, says our fiduciary responsibility to get the best yield said that this is more important than the yield, and I think that these kinds of issues could certainly help in weakening the Government of Sudan. Representative Payne, my brother happened to pass the legislation, but we are very, very disturbed that this is being gutted out of our bill.
We need to think of a way that we can perhaps have a conference or we might look at the legislative process to see. Let them pass their bill, bring it together and perhaps in conference if it will come to conference, because we have 100 percent support from our Chairman, Chairman Hyde, Congressman Wolfe, who is out of probate, and all the rest. So thank you.
Mr. SMITH. Dr. Boozman. I deeply regret that we do have three votes. So we will have to take about a 15-minute recess, and then we will reconvene and ask our second panel to present their testimony.
Mr. HESS. Thank you, sir.
Mr. SMITH. We stand in recess for 15 minutes.
[Recess.]
Mr. SMITH. The hearing will reconvene, and I again want to apologize to our witnesses for that lengthy delay for the votes that were on the Floor. I would like to begin introducing our witnesses, beginning with Ms. Mira Sorvino, who is the official spokesperson for Amnesty International, USA's Stop Violence Against Women Campaign.
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Ms. Sorvino has worked with Amnesty in its ongoing efforts to help reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, to end the conflict in Darfur, to stop the trafficking of women around the world. Ms. Sorvino is an acclaimed actor who has used this platform to champion human rights throughout the globe. We are happy to say—and Don and I think would attest to this—we are very happy that you also come from the great state of New Jersey.
We will then hear from Mr. Warwick Davies-Webb, who is Research Director for the South African-based firm Executive Research Associates. He has over 20 years of experience working in Africa and has a keen insight into the changing African scenario, especially with respect to the interplay between political, security, and energy developments. This includes a close assessment of big power intervention in Africa and the implications that this has on private sector investment opportunities in the continent. His countries of interest include South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Chad, and Sudan.
We will then hear from Mr. Roger Winter, who most recently served as the Special Representative on Sudan for the Deputy Secretary of State. His appointment to this position reflected the high priority this Administration attaches to halting the violence in Darfur and supporting implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement.
Mr. Winter has been involved in humanitarian and conflict issues in the Sudan for 25 years. Prior to his last appointment, he served as Assistant Secretary for Democracy Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance with the U.S. Agency for International Development and has frequently over the years been a source of expert testimony for our Subcommittee as well as the Full Committee. And it is great to see Mr. Winter again here before the Committee.
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Ms. Sorvino, if you could begin.
STATEMENT OF MS. MIRA SORVINO, GOODWILL AMBASSADOR, STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN CAMPAIGN, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Ms. SORVINO. Chairman Smith, Congressman Payne, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, I would like to thank you earnestly for holding this important hearing and for allowing me this opportunity to address the urgent situation in Darfur. I will focus my own comments on the devastating crisis in Darfur. I also respectfully request the opportunity to submit more extensive testimony later this week.
Mr. SMITH. Without objection, so ordered.
Ms. SORVINO. Thank you. I would like to begin by speaking for myself regarding the use of the word ''genocide'' and its implications for our actions, the United States. Amnesty International uses the terms ''war crimes'' and ''crimes against humanity'' to describe the mass murder, torture, systematic rape, mass displacement, and destruction of villages, crops, and livestock perpetrated by the armed proxy militias and government troops in Darfur and eastern Chad.
Since the conflict began in the winter of 2003, hundreds of thousands of people have died, the vast majority civilians, with over 2 million people displaced, including 215,000 refugees in Chad. Regardless of the nomenclature used, the violence is heinous and the Darfuri's people plight dire. Our President has for some time used the term ''genocide.'' It carries with it a strong call to action which has been largely and inexplicably delayed.
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Although the U.S. was instrumental in drafting the UN convention on genocide as a response to the atrocities of the Holocaust between 1946 and 1948 and President Truman signed the genocide convention in 1949, Congress did not ratify the convention or pass a similar provision outlawing genocide until the late 1980s. For nearly 20 years, from 1967 to 1986, Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire gave a speech every single day Congress was in session urging U.S. ratification of the genocide convention.
In February 1986, the Senate adopted a ratification resolution. In 1987, Senator Proxmire's Genocide Convention Implementation Act was passed, and on November 4, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Act. Well, after a year and a half of Janjaweed militia and Government of Sudan violence against civilians in Darfur, Colin Powell called the situation ''genocide'' in an address to Congress in early September 2004.
I remember because I had given a speech about the terrible crisis in Darfur the night before to an assembled group of Congressmen and women, press, and other concerned individuals on Capitol Hill in this very building. All of us working on the issue were delighted by this development. We felt it was a huge step toward the implementation of forceful measures to halt the murderous actions of the Janjaweed and the Khartoum regime.
President George W. Bush soon echoed that term, and it seemed certain that we were on the road to preventing further death and destruction suffered by the Darfuri people. Now, although the UN genocide convention requires of states to do all they can to prevent genocide and to punish those responsible, we have acted with puzzling restraint. We have been somehow reluctant to apply the kind of serious negative pressure on Sudan to create the cessation in atrocities that we and the international community desire.
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And in the 2-year interval between the first official use of that term and now, the death toll has risen from 50,000 people to hundreds of thousands. These figures have turned a prescient early understanding of the situation into a morbidly fulfilled prophecy with not a small share of the responsibility in our own hands for not acting forcefully enough. As in the almost 40 years it took for us to ratify the genocide convention, our current pace of response to an acknowledged dire situation has been shamefully slow.
It is time to change the manner in which we deal with this crisis. In the wake of the failure of the Darfur Peace Agreement to bring peace and security to the region, the only current and lasting solution for civilian protection is the fulfillment of the expanded mandate of the UN Security Council's August 31 Resolution 1706 to send in roughly 22,000 UN peacekeeping troops to take over from the African Union's 7,000 undersupplied and undermanned troops in the Darfur region.
Because the Government of Sudan has threatened to oust the African Union troops by the end of September because of their support for the implementation of the UN's peacekeeping force, we must act vehemently and with effect so that a security void is not created in which the Darfuri civilians are utterly vulnerable and without protection from military and government-led violence. Although the AU today has stated that they will extend their mandate through this December, we fear that Bashir will use this as a further excuse to block the UN forces from entering Sudan.
The much vaunted Darfur Peace Agreement, the DPA, brokered by the AU and western states, failed to gain support from all but one of the rebel movements in Darfur. The signatory rebel group, Minni Minnawi's faction of the Sudanese Liberation Army, has now been implicated in grave human rights offenses in attacks against nonsigners and civilians, launching offensives in concert with the Khartoum regime.
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The other rebel factions feel the agreement did not address the reasons that they rebelled in the first place: Their political and economic marginalization and lack of power-sharing in Darfur. Most civilians interviewed feel the agreement failed to ensure even their most basic human rights and security.
Khartoum has begun to deploy some 10,500 troops in the last few weeks to north Darfur and has begun a major military offensive against civilians in areas held by rebels that have not signed the peace accord. As you know, the UN reports that they are bombing civilians again as they did in the early part of the conflict, using government Antonov planes to rain destruction down indiscriminately on rebels and civilians alike.
These acts are all in direct violation of international humanitarian law and the terms of the DPA. Khartoum's threats to oust the AU mission in Sudan also undermine the active and crucial role outlined for them in the DPA. Essentially, the DPA has just been distorted to be used as a perverse tool justifying the Khartoum regime's crushing of any opposition with military force rather than pursuing a political solution.
The situation on the ground worsens every day. The World Food Program warned recently that due to fighting and banditry, 350,000 people in north Darfur had been cut off from food aid. Government forces have driven villagers to flee, leaving crops to wither.
Blocked migration routes cause water shortages and lack of access to health care. Humanitarian aid access on the ground diminishes even further as groups pull their workers out because of intolerable risk. Twelve aid workers have been killed since April. The UN Humanitarian Chief, Jan Egeland, refers to the aid situation as a freefall necessitating the UN peacekeeping troops to avoid a collapse.
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The proxy militias fighting in Chad who have destroyed the safe haven for Darfuri refugees who fled across the border, many now have returned to take their chances in war-torn Darfur alongside Chadian refugees fearing for their lives. Those who remain in eastern Chad are in great danger as militias conscript men and boys from the very refugee camps meant to protect them.
The International Rescue Committee reported a dramatic increase in systematic rape there earlier this summer. In 2004, Amnesty International reported huts in which women were raped, sometimes gang-raped, while foraging for their family's water and firewood outside their IDP camps. As we heard earlier today, that has increased dramatically in the past few months to hundreds per month again.
Women have been tortured for information about their husbands, their fingernails pulled out, their faces pressed between wooden sticks, their legs broken if they try to escape. Refusal to comply with their attackers' demands has meant slaughter. These attacks have degraded the women and shamed their men, who will often disown them as victims of sexual violence. These women are vulnerable to HIV, to survival prostitution, and to impregnation by the Janjaweed. This fathering of Janjaweed offspring has often been intentional. The illegitimate children produced by this violence are frequently not accepted by their mothers' communities.
Pregnant women have been slashed in the stomach, killed because they carry the child of the enemy. Children themselves are not immune to extremely cruel forms of killing. And at this moment, I just want to speak a little extemporaneously. Just the other day when I was speaking at the New York rally to save Darfur, I learned from one of the refugees there that he had actually witnessed—and I was warned not to mention this because it might drive people away, but I just feel that it is too upsetting to not bring to the table.
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He witnessed children being boiled alive in gasoline tanks, and although this is not confirmed research, it is not incompatible with the kind of violence that occurred in Rwanda, the kind of violence that occurred in South Africa, and frankly, I believe it wholeheartedly. And after hearing that, I have been working on this for awhile, but I just felt such a sense of personal failure that all of these individuals have been killed, slaughtered, all of these children have lost their lives and nothing we have done has saved them.
We have been promising to come in there and save them for years, and hundreds of thousands have died while we have been talking, and I felt the deep sense of personal responsibility even though I as an individual probably cannot do much besides implore all of you in power to do as much as you possibly can to end this. This is the worst kind of violence imaginable. One can think of no reason that a government would not do everything in its power to prevent such hideous violence against its own people, and yet it is the Khartoum Government that is actually perpetrating it.
The Khartoum regime has been forcibly silencing internal voices of dissent. The Sudanese journalists report heavy harassment. One newspaper was seized and another had a page blanked out for reporting of public arrests on August 30 and September 5, against recent price increases in basic commodities in which hundreds of demonstrators were arrested, including leading political activists and human rights defenders.
The government propagandizes the situation in Darfur and suppresses the fact that almost all political parties in Sudan, including the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, the partner of the National Congress Party, and the Government of National Unity support the deployment of UN peacekeepers. Even the First Vice President, Salva Kiir Mayardit, one of two Vice Presidents in the Government of Sudan and the head of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, told the independent Al-Sudani daily newspaper on September 16 that he supported the entrance of the UN peacekeeping troops because the Sudan Government was incapable of protecting civilians.
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And yet President Omar Al-Bashir has repeatedly rejected the peacekeeping mission and threatens to oust AMIS for their support. The regime's contempt for international opinion of their behavior is crystal-clear.
We stand at a critical crossroads in the Darfur crisis. We must not allow a security void to open at the end of this month if AMIS leaves. This would be tantamount to condoning the slaughter of civilians who would be left completely vulnerable to Janjaweed and government violence. The UN peacekeeping troops must be allowed to take over the mission as planned in October. Until that point, the African Union troops must remain, and the United States must do more to take a leadership role in supplying them and supporting their infrastructure.
And now the United States and the UN must begin playing hardball in earnest with the Khartoum regime. The days of offering incentives and waiting for the Government of Sudan to grow a conscience are over. We must apply pressure with serious consequences to propel them to accept the UN peacekeeping mission. Though the United States helped craft a UN Security Council Resolution creating targeted economic sanctions for responsible Khartoum officials, only one has been levied, and this on a retired Air Force official.
Unless we want to send idle threats, we must begin serious asset freezes on Sudanese officials right now. In the absence of current divestiture, this form of economic punishment to those who perpetrate the slaughter could still be extremely effective. Pinch them where it hurts. We must stop turning a blind eye to their behavior by forgiving them their atrocities because of their help on the war on terror. We wash our hands in the blood of the innocent. It is patently clear that Khartoum does not behave with the best interest of its citizens in mind.
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We must also share our formidable body of intelligence with the International Criminal Court as it conducts its investigation into war crimes committed in Darfur, in pursuit of justice and to influence the behavior of officials that risk indictment. We urge the House of Representatives and the Senate to put aside their differences and get the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act before the President before this congressional session ends. We must not allow a delay any further. We must break through this stage of planning and debate and move forward toward action.
We welcome President Bush's announcement of the appointment of Andrew Natsios as UN Special Envoy to Sudan and look forward to his timely contribution to ending the Darfur crisis as rapidly as possible. Diplomatic pressure from the U.S. must be applied relentlessly around the clock. One of the reasons that the Darfur Peace Agreement may have failed is that the senior United States official who helped broker the deal left the table after the one Darfuri rebel group had signed, leaving an unstoppable hole in the fragile dam that had been built.
This week, as the President of Sudan attends the General Assembly of the UN, we must tirelessly pursue the goal of El-Bashir's consent to not only allow the African Union mission to remain but to admit the UN peacekeepers to take over as planned in October. We must make ending the Darfur crisis a genuine diplomatic priority for this Administration.
Speaking for myself, not on Amnesty's part, for myself as an individual citizen, at a certain point, we must begin to consider abandoning the overriding concern that this is not what Khartoum wishes. The UN has concluded that a peacekeeping force is the solution to the current crisis. The African Union has endorsed the decision. The people of Darfur have cried out for its implementation as quickly as possible. However, President El-Bashir has once again voiced his refusal to allow them in. In the past 24 hours, he has reiterated his refusal.
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If the Security Council and its member states abandon that solution, they and we lose credibility. We cannot stand by wedded to the idea of inviolable state sovereignty and allow a government guilty of mass murder of its own citizens to do whatever it wants. Again, speaking for myself, I recommend to this important Subcommittee that it consider the need to introduce UN peacekeepers into Darfur without Khartoum's consent, as it is clear that the death toll will continue to soar if the regime is left to its own devices.
Last Friday, September 15, President Bush suggested the possibility of new alternatives to waiting for the Sudan Government's invitation such as ''passing a UN resolution saying we are coming in with a UN force in order to save lives.'' It is my opinion that at the very least, we should begin to enforce UN Security Council 1591, which established a no-fly zone banning Sudanese military flights over Darfur. This has never been enforced, but it must be in order to stop the renewed aerial bombing of civilians.
And lastly, the gatherings assembled around the world on Sunday, September 17 in protest of the ongoing atrocities and in support of the UN peacekeeping missing in Darfur prove the concern of millions of people for the plight of Darfur. I personally spoke at the New York rally, alongside such luminaries as Chairman Smith and Madeleine Albright, and can attest to the robust crowd of 20 to 30,000 people and their heartfelt commitment to ending the atrocities in Darfur.
I also produced and hosted a benefit concert with Amnesty International for Darfur in Portland, Oregon earlier this year and found that the youth audience was incredibly passionate about Darfur. People from all parties, all nationalities, have voiced their outrage and will to change the situation for years now. We have all chanted never again in response to various mass atrocities that have occurred in the past century.
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Unfortunately, again is now. It is again. It has happened again. It is currently happening again, and it will continue to happen again until we do something. I do not see why these people are any different from the other groups of people that have been slaughtered, and we have all deplored and cried and said, how could we let this happen? Why are these mothers who love their children any different from the mothers in the Holocaust? The mothers in Rwanda? What is the difference? Why are we pussyfooting around?
Khartoum has to be stopped. We have to save these people. It is our moral responsibility as United States citizens and citizens of the world. It must not be tolerated a second longer. Let us live up to the promise of what Senator Proxmire devoted his entire being to enact. Let us not have the blood of insufficient action on our hands. Let us be the moral leaders that we know we can be, and let us save the people of Darfur. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Sorvino follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MS. MIRA SORVINO, GOODWILL AMBASSADOR, STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN CAMPAIGN, AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Chairman Smith, Congressman Payne, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, I would like to thank you for holding this important hearing and for allowing me this opportunity to address the urgent situation in Darfur. I greatly appreciate the breadth of this hearing to consider the cost of human conflict across Sudan. I will focus my own comments on the devastating crisis in Darfur. I also respectfully request the opportunity to submit more extensive testimony later this week.
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INTRODUCTION
I would like to begin by speaking for myself regarding use of the word ''genocide'' and its implications for action on our (the United States) part. Amnesty International uses the terms ''war crimes and ''crimes against humanity'' to describe the mass murder, torture, systematic rape, mass displacement, and destruction of villages, crops and livestock perpetrated by armed proxy militias and government troops in Darfur and Eastern Chad. Since the conflict began in the winter of 2003, hundreds of thousands of people have died, the vast majority civilians, with over 2 million people displaced, including 215,000 refugees in Chad. Regardless of the nomenclature, the violence is heinous and the Darfuri people's plight dire. Our President has for some time used the term ''genocide''; it carries with it a strong call to action which has been largely delayed.
Although the U.S. was instrumental in drafting the U.N. Convention on Genocide as a response to the atrocities of the Holocaust between 1946 and 1948, and President Truman signed the Genocide Convention in 1949, Congress did not ratify the Convention or pass a similar provision outlawing genocide until the late 1980s. For nearly twenty years from 1967 to 1986 Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire gave a speech every single day Congress was in session urging U.S. ratification of the Genocide Convention. In February 1986 the Senate adopted a ratification resolution, in 1987 Senator Proxmire's ''Genocide Convention Implementation Act'' was passed, and on November 4, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Act.
After a year and a half of Janjawid militia and Government of Sudan violence against civilians in Darfur Colin Powell called the situation genocide in an address to Congress in early September 2004. I remember because I had given a speech about the terrible crisis in Darfur the night before to an assembled group of Congressmen and women, press and other concerned individuals on Capitol Hill in this very building. All of us working on the issue were delighted by this development; we felt it was a huge step towards the implementation of forceful measures to halt the murderous actions of the Janjawid and the Khartoum regime. President George W. Bush soon echoed that term, and it seemed certain that we were on the road to preventing further death and destruction suffered by the Darfuri people.
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But although the UN genocide convention requires of states to do all they can to prevent genocide and to punish those responsible, we have acted with puzzling restraint. We have somehow been reluctant to apply the kind of serious negative pressure on Sudan to create the cessation in atrocities that we and the international community desire. And in the two year interval between the first official use of that term and now, the death toll has risen from 50,000 people to hundreds of thousands. These figures have turned a prescient early understanding of the situation into a morbidly fulfilled prophesy, with not a small share of the responsibility in our own hands for not acting forcefully enough. As in the almost forty years it took for us to ratify the Genocide Convention, our current pace of response to an acknowledged dire situation has been shamefully slow.
It is time to change the manner in which we deal with this crisis. In the wake of the failure of the Darfur Peace Agreement to bring peace and security to the region, the only current and lasting solution for civilian protection is the fulfillment of the expanded mandate of the U.N. Security Council's August 31st Resolution 1706 to send in 20,000 UN peacekeeping troops to take over from the African Union's 7,000 under-supplied and under-manned troops in the Darfur region. Because the Government of Sudan has threatened to oust the African Union troops by the end of September because of their support for the implementation of the U.N.'s peacekeeping force, we must act vehemently and with effect so that a security void is not created in which the Darfuri civilians are utterly vulnerable and without protection from militia and government-led violence.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN DARFUR
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The much vaunted Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA) brokered by the AU and western states, failed to gain support from all but one of the rebel movements in Darfur. The signatory rebel group, Minni Minawi's faction of the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA), has now been implicated in grave human rights offenses in attacks against non-signers and civilians, launching offensives in concert with the Khartoum regime. The other rebel factions feel the Agreement did not address the reasons they rebelled in the first place, their political and economic marginalization, and lack of power sharing in Darfur. Most civilians interviewed feel the agreement failed to ensure even their most basic human rights and security.
Khartoum has threatened to deploy some 10,500 troops in the last few weeks to North Darfur, and has begun a major military offensive against civilians in areas held by rebels that have not signed the peace accord. The U.N. reports that they are bombing civilians again as they did in the early part of the conflict, using government Antonov planes to rain destruction down indiscriminately on rebels and civilians alike. These acts are all in direct violation of international humanitarian law and the terms of the DPA. Khartoum's threats to oust the AU mission in Sudan (AMIS) also undermine the active and crucial role outlined for them in the DPA. Essentially, the DPA has been distorted to be used as a perverse tool justifying the Khartoum regime's crushing any opposition with military force, rather than pursuing a political solution.
The situation on the ground worsens every day; the World Food Program warned recently that due to fighting and banditry 350,000 people in North Darfur had been cut off from food aid. Government forces have driven villagers to flee, leaving crops to wither. Blocked migration routes cause water shortages and lack of access to health care. Humanitarian aid access on the ground diminishes even further as groups pull their workers out because of intolerable risk; 12 aid workers have been killed since April. U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland refers to the aid situation as a ''freefall'' necessitating the U.N. peacekeeping troops to avoid a ''collapse.'' The proxy militias fighting in Chad have destroyed the safe haven for Darfuri refugees who fled across the border; many have now returned to take their chances in war-torn Darfur alongside Chadian refugees fearing for their lives. Those who remain in eastern Chad are in great danger, as militias conscript men and boys from the very refugee camps meant to protect them.
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The International Rescue Committee reported a dramatic increase in systematic rape earlier this summer. In 2004 Amnesty International reported huts in which women were raped, sometimes gang raped, while foraging for their family's water and firewood outside their IDP camps. Women have been tortured for information about their husbands—their fingernails pulled out, their faces pressed between wooden sticks, their legs broken if they tried to escape. Refusal to comply with their attackers' demands has meant slaughter. These attacks have degraded the women and shamed their men, who will often disown them as victims of sexual violence. These women are vulnerable to HIV, to survival prostitution, and to impregnation by the Janjawid. This fathering of Janjawid offspring has been intentional. The illegitimate children produced by this violence are frequently not accepted by their mothers' communities.
Pregnant women have been slashed in the stomach, killed because they carry ''the child of the enemy.'' Children themselves are not immune to extremely cruel forms of killing. This is the worst kind of violence imaginable. One can think of no reason that a government would not do everything in its power to prevent such hideous violence against its own people, and yet it is the Khartoum government that is actually perpetuating it.
The Khartoum regime has forcibly been silencing internal voices of dissent. Sudanese journalists report heavy harassment. One newspaper was seized and another had a page blanked out for reporting on public protests on August 30 and September 5 against recent price increases in basic commodities, in which hundreds of demonstrators were arrested including leading political activists and human rights defenders. The government propagandizes the situation in Darfur and suppresses the fact that almost all political parties in Sudan, including the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) partner with the National Congress Party (NCP) in the Government of National Unity, support the deployment of UN peacekeepers.
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Even the First Vice President Salva Kiir Mayardit, one of two vice presidents of the Government of Sudan and the head of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, told the independent Al-Sudani daily on Sept 16th that he supported the entrance of the UN peacekeeping troops because the Sudanese government was incapable of protecting civilians. And yet President Omar Al-Bashir has repeatedly rejected the peacekeeping mission, and threatens to oust AMIS for their support. The regime's contempt for international opinion of their behavior is crystal clear.
THE NECESSARY RESPONSE
We stand at a critical crossroads in the Darfur crisis. We must not allow a security void to open at the end of the month, if AMIS leaves. This would be tantamount to condoning the slaughter of civilians who would be left completely vulnerable to Janjawid and government violence. The UN peacekeeping troops must be allowed to take over the mission as planned in October. Until that point the African Union troops must remain and the U.S. should take a leadership role in supplying them and supporting their infrastructure.
And now the U.S. and the UN must begin playing hardball in earnest with the Khartoum regime. The days of offering incentives and waiting for the government of Sudan to grow a conscience are over. We must apply pressure with serious consequences, to propel them to accept the UN Peacekeeping mission. Though the U.S. helped craft a UN Security Council Resolution creating targeted economic sanctions for responsible Khartoum officials, only one has been levied, and this on a retired air force official. Unless we want to send idle threats, we must begin serious assets freezes on Sudanese officials now.
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We must stop turning a blind eye to their behavior. By forgiving them their atrocities because of their help in the war on terror, we wash our hands in the blood of the innocent. It is patently clear that Khartoum does not behave with the best interest of its citizens in mind.
We must also share our formidable body of intelligence with the International Criminal Court as it conducts its investigation into war crimes committed in Darfur, in pursuit of justice, and to influence the behavior of officials that risk indictment.
We welcome President Bush's announcement of the appointment of Andrew Natsios as U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan and look forward to his timely contribution to ending the Darfur crisis as rapidly as possible. Diplomatic pressure from the U.S. must be applied relentlessly around the clock; one of the reasons the Darfur Peace Agreement may have failed is that the senior U.S. official who helped broker the deal left the table after the single Darfuri rebel group had signed, leaving an unstoppable hole in the fragile dam that was built. This week, as the President of Sudan attends the General Assembly of the UN, we must tirelessly pursue the goal of Al-Bashir's consent not only to allow the African Union mission to remain, but to admit the UN peacekeepers to take over as planned in October. We must make ending the Darfur crisis a genuine diplomatic priority for this administration.
Speaking for myself as an individual citizen, at a certain point we must begin to consider abandoning the overriding concern that this is not what Khartoum wishes. The UN has concluded that a peacekeeping force is the solution to the current crisis. The African Union has endorsed this decision. The people of Darfur have cried out for its implementation as quickly as possible. If the Security Council and its member states abandon that solution, they and we lose credibility. We cannot stand by, wedded to the idea of inviolable state sovereignty and allow a government guilty of mass murder of its own civilians to do whatever it wants. Again, speaking for myself alone, I recommend to this important subcommittee that it consider the need to introduce UN peacekeepers into Darfur without Khartoum's consent, as it is clear that the death toll will continue to soar if the regime is left to its own devices. Last Friday September 15 President Bush suggested the possibility of new alternatives to waiting for the Sudanese Government's invitation, such as ''passing a UN resolution saying we're coming in with a UN force in order to save lives.'' It is my opinion that at the very least we should begin to enforce UN Security Council 1591, which established a no-fly zone banning Sudanese military flights over Darfur. This has never been enforced, but must be, in order to stop the renewed aerial bombing of civilians.
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THE MANDATE OF THE PEOPLE
The gatherings assembled around the world on Sunday September 17th in protest of the ongoing atrocities and in support for the UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur prove the concern of millions of people for the plight of Darfur. I personally spoke at the New York rally, alongside such luminaries as Chairman Smith and Madeleine Albright, and can attest to the robust crowd of 20–30,000 people, and their heartfelt commitment to ending the atrocities in Darfur. I also produced and hosted a benefit concert with Amnesty International for Darfur in Portland, Oregon earlier this year and found that the youth audience was incredibly passionate about Darfur. People from all parties, all nationalities have voiced their outrage and will to change the situation for years now. We have all chanted ''Never Again'' in response to various mass atrocities that have occurred in the past century. Unfortunately, Again is Now. It is happening right in front of our eyes, and we have a grave responsibility as moral, compassionate human beings to step up on behalf of the civilians of Darfur. This crisis must be tolerated not a second longer. Let us live up to the promise of what Senator Proxmire devoted his entire being to enact. Let us not have the blood of insufficient action on our hands—let us be the moral leaders we know we can be, and save Darfur!
Mr. SMITH. Ms. Sorvino, thank you so very much for your very comprehensive and passionate statement to the Committee, and words do matter. We need deeds, but certainly words hopefully animate those deeds, and your words have been I think very well chosen, so thank you so much.
Ms. SORVINO. Thank you.
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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Winter.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ROGER WINTER, FORMER SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SUDAN
Mr. WINTER. Thank you, Mr. Smith and Mr. Payne, for having me here. While Darfur is a humanitarian catastrophe and it is a genocide, it is more than that. It is a planful strategy that we are seeing unfolding in Darfur. It can get worse, and, the way we behave, likely will get considerably worse. I would like to take a couple of moments to try to explain my views on how it will get worse and the links between what is happening in Darfur and my belief that the CPA itself, its survival, is at risk.
The crux of the problem is the National Islamic Front (NIF). After 17 years of being in power, they were responsible for between 1 and 2 million deaths in the south, the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile, and Abyei, also several million more, actually 4 million more, who had their lives destroyed by being displaced by the National Islamic Front.
The very same people who came to power 17 years ago are still in power, and they have never paid a price for what they did in the south, what they did in the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile, and Abyei, nor have they paid a price for what they are now doing in Darfur. The agenda has not changed. It has fluctuated sometimes, but it has not changed. The NIF is guided by a radical ideology, by access to riches, and a thirst for personal power.
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They respond only to credible threats, not idle talk and posturing, which has been the pattern of critics in the past. Only once in 17 years did they begin to negotiate seriously about changing the pattern in Sudan, and that was when they were confronted by an undefeatable Sudan People's Liberation Army and activist leadership by the United States. That process produced the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that brought security and quietude to most of the south and the other conflict areas that the CPA covered.
I say again I believe that the CPA itself is at risk, and this is a new iteration of NIF policy and strategy. The core National Islamic Front leadership was abhorred by the provisions of the CPA. They were severely rattled a number of times when it began to grow on them what the potential of the CPA was. For example, in April 2005, after the CPA was signed, the first SPLM delegation that went to Khartoum was mobbed by thousands and thousands of people who even broke down the fence around the Khartoum airport to get at the representatives of the SPLM.
Why? To lift them up on their shoulders and dance in the streets because they saw the potential for peace, development, and they saw the potential for a new Sudan. I was there on the 8th of July 2005 when Dr. John Garang for the first time in decades went back to Khartoum.
When he went there, he was greeted by crowds that have been estimated at 6–8 million people. They were not all southerners. They were northerners. They were westerners. They were easterners. And they were also in many cases from the center, because all of the people of Sudan want to be rid of the National Islamic Front.
The National Islamic Front saw finally that the CPA provided the opportunity, the possibility, for a new Sudan. How? Well, the CPA provided that Dr. John Garang would immediately become the first Vice President of the country. And the CPA provided for elections.
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The National Islamic Front saw the popularity with the 6–8 million people showing up in Khartoum, and they were concerned about the Army of the south, the Sudan People's Liberation Army, which would, under the CPA continue to exist. Okay. They would be called part of the National Army, but they would continue to exist as an entity.
The south itself would be able to govern itself, and ultimately at the end of an interim period, the south would be able to vote in a referendum on whether they might actually secede from the state of Sudan. As all this was happening, Darfur was in flames, and those flames represented the same, very same tactics that the NIF used in the war in the south. It was mass destruction of populations. It was blocked and impeded humanitarian access. It was the use of surrogate militias. It was all of that.
So, given these factors, that is, the war in Darfur and also the threat of a new Sudan brought about by the CPA, why did the NIF sign when so many of their members abhorred by many of the CPA's provision? Simply to buy time. They wanted to buy time because the war on terror was on. They wanted to buy time because they were the political berthing place for Osama bin Laden. They wanted to buy time because they were on the American ''state sponsors of terrorism'' list. It was in their interests ''for now'' to get into a serious negotiation and ultimately sign the CPA.
But over a 6 1/2-year period, it is always possible that there can be a midcourse correction, and that is what