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DARFUR AND THE OLYMPICS: A CALL FOR

INTERNATIONAL ACTION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY

AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 7, 2007

Serial No. 110–51

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.oversight.house.gov

(II)

COMMITTEE ON OVERSISGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman

TOM LANTOS, California

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland

PETER WELCH, Vermont

TOM DAVIS, Virginia

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California

BILL SALI, Idaho

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff

PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director

EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk

DAVID MARIN, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts, Chairman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE TURK, Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 7, 2007 ................................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Anderson, Nick, co-founder of Dollars for Darfur; and Ana Slavin, cofounder of Dollars for Darfur ....................................................................... 14

Anderson, Nick .......................................................................................... 14

Slavin, Ana ................................................................................................ 21

Hari, Daoud Ibrahim, Darfuri refugee and interpreter to Nick Kristof

and other journalists; Joey Cheek, American Olympic Gold Medalist

speedskater; Tegla Loroupe, Kenyan Olympic distance runner, World

record holder and United Nations Ambassador of Sport; John

Prendergast, senior advisor to the International Crisis Group and cofounder of the Enough Campaign; Ambassador (Ret.) Lawrence G.

Rossin, senior international coordinator, Save Darfur Coalition; and

Jill Savitt, director of the Olympic Dream for Darfur Campaign ............. 26

Cheek, Joey ................................................................................................ 33

Hari, Daoud Ibrahim ................................................................................. 26

Loroupe, Tegla ........................................................................................... 39

Prendergast, John ..................................................................................... 45

Rossin, Lawrence G. .................................................................................. 57

Savitt, Jill .................................................................................................. 66

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Anderson, Nick, co-founder of Dollars for Darfur, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 16

Cheek, Joey, American Olympic Gold Medalist speedskater, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 36

Hari, Daoud Ibrahim, Darfuri refugee and interpreter to Nick Kristof

and other journalists, prepared statement of ............................................. 28

Loroupe, Tegla, Kenyan Olympic distance runner, World record holder

and United Nations Ambassador of Sport, prepared statement of ........... 42

Prendergast, John, senior advisor to the International Crisis Group and

co-founder of the Enough Campaign, prepared statement of .................... 49

Rossin, Ambassador (Ret.) Lawrence G., senior international coordinator,

Save Darfur Coalition, prepared statement of ........................................... 61

Savitt, Jill, director of the Olympic Dream for Darfur Campaign, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 68

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 11

Slavin, Ana, co-founder of Dollars for Darfur, prepared statement of ......... 23

Tierney, Hon. John F., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Massachusetts, prepared statement of ................................................... 5

(1)

DARFUR AND THE OLYMPICS: A CALL FOR

INTERNATIONAL ACTION

THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND FOREIGN

AFFAIRS,

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Tierney (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Tierney, Lynch, Higgins, Welch, Shays,

and Platts.

Staff present: Leneal Scott, information systems manager; Dave

Turk, staff director; Andrew Su and Andy Wright, professional staff

members; Davis Hake, clerk; Larry Halloran, minority deputy staff

director; A. Brooke Bennett and John Callender, minority counsels;

Nick Palarino, minority senior investigator and policy advisor; Patrick Lyden, minority parliamentarian and member services coordinator; and Brian McNicoll, minority communications director.

[Videotape Presentation.]

Mr. TIERNEY. The full clip can be found at

www.dhsthepromise.com.

I ask unanimous consent that only the chairman and ranking

member of the subcommittee be allowed to make opening statements. Without objection, that is so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that the hearing record be kept open

for 5 business days so that all members of the subcommittee will

be allowed to submit a written statement for the record. Without

objection, so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that the following written statements

be placed on the record: Professor Eric Reeves of Smith College—

he is the professor and author of the sudanreeves.org Web site and

Sudan Advisor to the Olympic Dream for Darfur Campaign; a

statement by David Muzurski of the Director of the Horn of Africa

Project with the International Crisis Group; and Ann Vatalios with

the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

I want to thank everybody who is participating in this morning’s

hearing, and our witnesses, in particular. Some of the quotes that

were just on there about the need to step up and do something is

certainly encompassed by what our students and the other witnesses here have done today.

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The Olympics has always transcended sport. It has always been

about more than gold medals and world records and individual athletic achievements.

The Olympics goes beyond the compelling stories of the athletes

or their families or their loved ones. It is much more than an accumulation of all the athletes’ dedication, countless hours of work,

and limitless devotion to perfection.

The Olympics is that rarest of institutions in our modern age in

which all the nations of the world put aside their differences and

come together in a peaceful pursuit. It is inspirational, a call for

what the world could be and not about the individual and inevitable faults.

The Olympics is a call to our better natures, a symbol of what

we can achieve if all of us, all the nations and the peoples of the

world, come together.

The ancient Greeks had a tradition of the Olympic Truce, or

Ekecheieria, during which wars and battles would cease and all

athletes, supporters, pilgrims, and artists would travel freely and

unharmed to and from the games. The Olympic Truce has carried

through to the modern day and has been ratified repeatedly by the

United Nations.

But the Olympic spirit should go beyond a mere temporary cessation of hostilities. In 2000, North and South Koreans entered

Sydney’s Olympic stadium under one flag. Just before the 2002

Olympics, the president of the International Olympic Committee,

Dr. Jacques Rogge, publicly hoped that, ‘‘this peaceful gathering of

all Olympic athletes in Salt Lake City will inspire peace in the

world.’’

For the upcoming 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, the host

country chose the theme: One World, One Dream.

We haven’t always lived up to the Olympic ideal, of course, but

that just underscores the importance of redoubling our efforts.

The hearing that we are holding today asks the simple, yet fundamentally important, question: shouldn’t the upcoming Olympic

games in Beijing serve as the catalyst to finally put an end to the

horrific and unfortunately ongoing tragedy in Darfur?

The images of the genocide in Sudan are forever burned into our

collective consciousness: 400,000 people dead; kids killed and

maimed in front of their mothers; mothers raped and beaten in

front of their kids; entire villages burned to the ground; atrocities

and destruction on both a wide scale and on a very personal scale;

2.5 million people uprooted from their lives, their livelihoods, and

their homes. We will hear from one of those individuals today.

The tragedy of violence continues. The Boston Globe recently

called it ‘‘the unending agony of Darfur.’’

Also, as we meet here today, scores and scores of refugees are living in camps, still fearing for their lives, and dependent on aid for

their very survival—aid and workers threatened today by the Sudanese government.

For Darfuris, who still today fear for their lives and their children’s future, the glorious theme of the 2008 Summer Olympics,

‘‘One World, One Dream,’’ stands as nothing but an empty promise.

While the way forward in Darfur is complicated and will take a

sustained effort, one thing is crystal clear: expert after expert and

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report after report all stress the importance of a united world pressuring the Sudanese government, in a coordinated manner, to finally allow full deployment of the hybrid African Union/U.N. forces

in Darfur and to ensure that humanitarian workers can go about

their business without fear for their lives.

Sustained international pressure is also key in bringing all parties of the Darfur conflict together to craft a comprehensive and

sustainable peace agreement.

Far too often, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has played

one country off another, whether in failing to disarm the janjaweed

or in blocking deployment of the 20,000 United Nations peacekeepers.

The international community’s lack of coordination and unity

have allowed these atrocities to continue for far too long. That is

why the International Crisis Group in a recent report stressed that,

‘‘international efforts need to be unified,’’ and that it is vital to

‘‘build international consensus on a new political strategy, particularly with China and the U.S., in order to acquire the necessary leverage over the parties to the conflict.’’

And increasing focus has been placed on the host country of the

2008 Beijing Games as the linchpin in ending the atrocities in

Darfur. Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer sent a letter signed by 108 Members of

the House of Representatives to Chinese President Hu Jintao on

just this subject. A remarkable 95 Senators joined a similar letter

in that other body. And just this week the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on a resolution by Congresswoman Barbara Lee asking China to do more.

The China/Sudan connection is made for good reason: China is

Sudan’s top trading partner and one of its top weapons providers.

Over two-thirds of Sudanese oil goes to China, and the Chinese National Petroleum Company has recently built a 900-mile pipeline in

Sudan. China has canceled $100 million of Sudanese debt and has

even offered a nearly $20 million interest-free loan for the Sudanese government to build a new Presidential Palace. If anyone in

the world community has leverage on the Sudanese government, it

is China, and what better country to help lead the effort to end the

tragedy in Darfur than the host for the 2008 Olympics?

While China has recently made some initial steps to be helpful,

I don’t know of anyone who thinks that they couldn’t do more. And

this is not a question of one country infringing upon the sovereignty of another; it is a question of being a responsible stakeholder in the world community and living up to the Olympic ideals

as its temporary host.

But it is not just China that needs to step up to the plate. The

United States could do more, especially in helping to lead the multilateral effort.

Former Secretary of State Powell courageously brought attention

to Darfur by calling what has happened there genocide, and President Bush recently implemented some additional unilateral economic sanctions. But unilateral actions can only go so far; success

in Darfur now rests on the hard and sustained work of forging coordinated international pressure on the Sudanese government.

4

China could and should be doing more. The United States could

and should be doing more. Russia could and should be doing more.

The Arab League and the European Union could and should be

doing more.

The Darfur tragedy has continued for more than 4 years. And

the young people of our world are saying that enough is enough.

Our young people are stepping up and playing the role of humanity’s conscience.

My wife and I recently attended a community presentation by a

young constituent, Kimberly Pomerleau. Kim is a 2007 graduate

from Reading High School and had the courage and conviction to

speak out to people twice or three times her age and to say enough

is enough.

On our first panel today we will hear from the two Massachusetts founders of the ‘‘Dollars for Darfur’’ high school challenge;

young adults whose initiative and creativity raised more than

$306,000, and increasing still, to help the people of Darfur.

When I visit high schools in my District, I hear again and again

from students that enough is enough, that the horrible atrocities in

Darfur simply cannot and should not happen in this day and age,

not on their watch.

I have right here in my hand letters from over a dozen students

in just one school in my District, Lynnfield High School, on the

issue of Darfur. These students and their terrific teacher, Kacy

Soderquist, are inspirations.

The young people of the world are loudly and vigorously pointing

the way, and it is past time for the rest of the world to follow.

[The prepared statement of Hon. John F. Tierney follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this meeting.

Thank you for your very important statement.

We are meeting today to learn how we can bring an end to one

of the deadliest conflicts and worst humanitarian crises of this century and last, the ongoing genocide in Darfur.

After the Holocaust, and again after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the world community collectively agreed never again. Never

again would it allow such crimes against humanity to occur. But

it is happening again.

The security, human rights, and humanitarian crisis in Darfur

has continued to deteriorate, even after the signing of a peace

agreement in May 2006. While I believe the genocide is finally getting the attention it deserves, the bottom line is the world community is not doing anywhere enough to help protect innocent lives.

Today’s hearing touches on what some would call a sensitive subject, which is the connection between China and its substantial investment and influence in Sudan and the Olympics, which China

will host in 2008. We are all concerned China has slowed international efforts to resolve the conflict. As one of the Sudan’s largest

trading partners, China has hampered efforts to impose U.N. sanctions and deploy United Nations peacekeepers, continues to purchase Sudanese oil, and continues to provide aid to the very government that is complicit in the genocide in Darfur.

I visited Darfur in August 2006, and cannot say enough about

the critical work being done there by humanitarian aid organizations, including Save the Children, which is based in Connecticut.

Whatever policies we adopt to end the killing in Darfur, it is critical we continue providing these organizations with the resources

necessary to serve vulnerable populations, millions of vulnerable

people.

I am grateful that Daoud Hari, who was placed in a Sudanese

prison, among other things, is joining us today to testify. I have

had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Hari and I know his unique

perspectives and recommendations come from a brave heart.

I am also grateful that, in addition to Mr. Hari and policy experts, we will be hearing testimony today from athletes and from

students. Congratulations to our students.

[Applause.]

Mr. SHAYS. We have heard from Connecticut. We are going to

hear from Massachusetts. We could hear from every State from

students.

Several of the largest rallies held here in Washington have been

organized with the assistance of student groups and faith-based organizations, including, in particular, the Jewish and Armenian

communities, who consider this issue from a very personal perspective.

Speaking of students, we just watched a clip of the short documentary, The Promise, produced by students from Danbury High

School in Danbury, CT. It is heartfelt and beautifully done. What

strikes me about the documentary is that it tells the story of genocide so plainly. And really, how else do you tell such a story?

The Promise includes the quote from Edmond Burke, ‘‘All that is

needed for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.’’ This

10

is not a cliche, but a warning and an admonition that we do whatever is required to end the genocide in Darfur.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Shays.

Mr. Welch, did you want to make a comment?

Mr. WELCH. You have covered it, Mr. Tierney and Mr. Shays, but

I want to extend my congratulations to the students. In Vermont,

the biggest event we had in the last election campaign was a rally

that was organized by students in the Burlington area. We had

several hundred people turn out.

What is extraordinarily exciting from my eyes is to see young

people getting involved politically, having a sense of their own

power and a sense of their own responsibility to stand up and to

speak out against injustice and to advocate for human rights for

all.

You are an inspiration to us. We are delighted at your work. We

know that today is just one stop along the long road to try to end

the genocide in Darfur.

Thank you all very much for what you are doing.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Welch.

Mr. Lynch.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Very briefly, I do want to hear from our witnesses, but I would

be remiss if I didn’t say thank you to all the witnesses and all of

the students involved here today. Echoing what Mr. Tierney and

Mr. Welch and Mr. Shays have said earlier, I see a lot of this in

my District. There was a very active effort by the students at Milton High School in my District and also Medfield High School to

try to support refugees and other victims of the genocide in Darfur,

calling upon their Government, ourselves, to take action.

I want to thank you all for the power of your example, because

I think you speak for all the students and the younger generation

in this country. It is great to see the responsibility assumed by

young people. It gives me great hope that the next generation is

very near the point of asserting itself on some of the issues, not

only in this country but globally.

I thank you for your efforts on behalf of all of the victims of the

genocide in Darfur, and I congratulate you and join with you in trying to put more and more pressure, not only on our own Government, but internationally, to take full responsibility and to stop the

genocide in Darfur.

Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Lynch.

I would like to begin by introducing the witnesses on our first

panel here this morning.

We are honored to have the high school student co-founders of

the Dollars for Darfur high school challenge. I want to point out

that it just so happens that these student activists and leaders

come from the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts. we have

Nick Anderson with us and we have Ana Slavin with us, as well.

Nick and Ana’s national high school fund-raising competition on

MySpace and Facebook Web sites generated over $306,000, and it

is still working. Both of them are entering their senior year and

are going to continue to do work on this issue so long as it is necessary.

I want to welcome you both. I do have to tell you that it is the

policy of this subcommittee to swear in all of its witnesses.

14

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TIERNEY. The record will reflect that both answered in the

affirmative.

There is not going to be a question and answer on these particular witnesses, but we are more than grateful for your submitting

of written testimony. We want to hear from your orally. You have

the choice: you can either read to us your written testimony, or,

knowing that is on the record, feel free to speak and tell us whatever you would like in the time.

STATEMENTS OF NICK ANDERSON, CO-FOUNDER OF DOLLARS

FOR DARFUR; AND ANA SLAVIN, CO-FOUNDER OF DOLLARS

FOR DARFUR

STATEMENT OF NICK ANDERSON

Mr. ANDERSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am Nick Anderson, co-founder of Dollars for Darfur, the national high school challenge to stop genocide in Darfur.

In the United States, we are quite comfortable, a blessing in

striking contrast to what is happening in the Darfur region of the

Sudan. In comparison to my home State of Massachusetts, the

number of people in Darfur who have died so far is equivalent to

two-thirds the city of Boston, and the number left homeless is approximately one-quarter of the State’s population. Facts like these

compelled me to act.

I present to you today a bit of the history of our project.

In July 2006, co-founder Ana Slavin and I flew to Washington,

DC, to meet with staff of the Save Darfur Coalition to encourage

them to adopt Dollars for Darfur as one of their campaigns. We

came with three main ideas: First, we intended to set up a national

high school challenge that would both promote awareness of the

situation in Darfur and raise money to be donated to Save Darfur

and key relief organizations.

Second, we proposed using social networking Web sites like

Facebook and MySpace as a conduit to the Dollars for Darfur Web

page. The Web page provided information to increase awareness of

the atrocities occurring in Darfur and had a scoreboard page that

managed the national fundraising challenge. It is a unique format

for disseminating information, as Facebook and MySpace more frequently appear in the news for negative reasons; however, we knew

that this awareness and fundraising strategy had the potential to

reach a staggering number of high school students.

Given the 22,000-plus high schools registered with Facebook alone, we determined that if each school raised just $50 the total

would be over $1 million. So we set a goal of reaching 1,000 schools

and raising $200,000. In the end, we reached over 2,500 high

schools and raised over $306,000.

The third idea that we presented to the Save Darfur Coalition

was to offer a prize of some sort to the schools that raised the most

funds. This suggestion became a reality, and sitting in this room

today are representatives from some of the top 10 high school fundraisers nationwide. We also extend our gratitude to the Save

Darfur Coalition for creating winner’s even beyond our greatest expectations.

15

Ana and I started Dollars for Darfur because we wanted to bring

attention to the horrific crimes against humanity occurring in the

Sudan. We sought to harness the good will that we know is ubiquitous in students of our generation and provide them with a format to effect change. We aspired to define our generation as one

that acted and made a difference. It was always our goal to motivate fellow high school students, but somewhere along the line I realized that kids all across this country had deeply inspired me and

opened my eyes to the power of individuals uniting to assert the

indelible right to justice and liberty for all people of our global community.

In towns and cities across the country, students joined Dollars

for Darfur and inspired fellow students and community members

to help stop the suffering in Darfur. Did you know that just $35

can provide two high-energy meals a day to 200 children in the

Sudan? Some students who participated in the challenge could

scarcely afford the dollar they gave, while others easily gave hundreds. Yet, in his or her own way, each united around this important issue and sought to define our generation as one of strength

and moral fortitude.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Anderson follows:]

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STATEMENT OF ANA SLAVIN

Ms. SLAVIN. It is an honor for us to represent high school students from around the country and to be the voice to represent everyone who contributed to Dollars for Darfur at this important

hearing.

As Nick and I were developing Dollars for Darfur, there was one

aspect that was of primary importance: the involvement of high

school students. While some view high school students to be concerned with merely the trials and tribulations of teenage life, we

saw something more. We saw a generation with the desire to make

a difference.

Our generation has struggled to find an identity. We are now

recognized for our activism. Through this challenge we have proved

that, given the right forum, we can have an impact.

Nick and I started Dollars for Darfur by simply inviting our

friends to join our Facebook and MySpace groups and encouraging

them to spread the word. The numbers grew exponentially. In just

6 months, more than 7,000 high school students had joined our

groups. Teens across the country have devised creative and effective ways of raising money and awareness for the cause.

For example, at our school, Northfield Mount Hermon, Evan

Abrams helped raise more than $15,000 and amassed a Dollars for

Darfur committee consisting of over 50 students. Evan and his

committee sold pizza to dorms around campus and organized a series of tournaments held in our student center.

Ryan Saxe from Nevada organized a walk through the Vegas

Strip, raising both funds and awareness.

Christine Ocshner from Clearwater Central Catholic High School

organized a school-wide dress-down day in which students could

pay to dress in the clothing of their choice rather than their uniforms.

Numerous schools like Deerfield Academy and Athens Academy

held benefit concerts run and performed by students.

Students from Wyoming High School even went door to door

through their communities educating people about the situation

and receiving donations.

Through these efforts, Dollars for Darfur raised over $300,000 in

just 6 months. The success of Dollars for Darfur demonstrates two

things about our generation: we have extremely effective social networks that can be quickly mobilized, and we are passionate about

ending the genocide in Darfur.

I would like to read a few excerpts from the hundreds of messages that students posted on the Dollars for Darfur Facebook and

MySpace sites, to give you a sense of some of the incredible enthusiasm we encountered throughout the Dollars for Darfur challenge.

Claire Helfrich from the American School of the Hague writes:

‘‘This is great, you guys. Here in the Netherlands, my school has

done a Save Darfur campaign, as well. With all our efforts and

money, we can really make a difference.’’

Kristin Girouard from Oakton High School wrote: ‘‘Forget the

imaginary lines that divide us from Africa. A suffering human

being in Darfur is just as important as a U.S. citizen, and, furthermore, worthy of our attention, compassion, and aid.’’

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Finally, Alex Mandel from Solebury School posted the following

quotation from Nelson Mandela: ‘‘Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that generation.’’

Our generation knows that we will inherit a world with staggering problems. We simply can’t wait for others to change the

world—we must start now. Taking action to stop the Darfur genocide is of great concern to high school students. According to a recent survey of 18 to 24 year olds conducted by Harvard University’s

Institute of Politics, the crisis in Darfur was identified as the most

important foreign policy issue after stabilizing Iraq. Our generation

will vote in 2008, and we will support candidates who work to promote human rights.

We are grateful to the Save Darfur Coalition for supporting us

and believing in this idea. We would also like to acknowledge the

work that members of this subcommittee have done to help end the

genocide in Darfur. We extend our sincere gratitude for convening

this hearing and listening to our testimony.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Slavin follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Ana, and thank you, Nick.

I think I can speak for all the members of the subcommittee that

are here and those that have read your testimony and are not here

yet that it is very impressive, and your generation has certainly

found its identity. Human rights is about as good as you can do

when you are looking for a cause.

I understand that you have some representatives from some of

the high schools that were leaders in raising the money. Can we

ask all of them to stand so we can acknowledge their work, as well.

[Applause.]

Mr. TIERNEY. While you are up, would you please tell us your

name and what school you attend and where.

Mr. ABRAMS. I am Evan Abrams. I am from the Northfield

Mount Hermon School.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Ms. OCSHNER. Christine Ocshner.

Ms. KEARNEY. Pilar Kearney, William S. Hart High School.

Ms. CRESCENTE. Kelli Crescente, William S. Hart High School.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you all very, very much. You are doing spectacular things.

Nick and Ana, thank you very much for your testimony. I think

what you are doing is tremendous, and you are just setting such

a great example, and others are going to follow. We will look forward to watching you. This will not be the last we hear from either

of you, I am sure.

Ms. SLAVIN. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very, very much.

Mr. ANDERSON. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. We will take a moment while we change panels, if

we can.

The subcommittee will now receive testimony from the witnesses

on the second panel.

We have an outstanding panel here this morning, and we will

discuss the Olympic spirit as a moral imperative to end the genocide in Darfur. With us to do that we have Daoud Ibrahim Hari.

Daoud is a Darfuri refugee who has served as an interpreter for a

number of reporters, including Nicolas Kristof of the New York

Times and other journalists in Darfur. Mr. Hari was taken hostage

and tortured on a trip into Darfur with the Chicago Tribune correspondent Paul Salopek, who suffered personally in respect to his

family’s situation.

Daoud, we respect the fact that you are here and what you have

gone through and your willingness to come forward and testify.

We have Joey Cheek, American Olympic Gold Medalist

speedskater. After Joey won the gold and silver in the 2006 Olympics, he donated his $40,000 medal bonus to a group helping

Darfuri refugees. Since then, he has been a tireless activist on this

issue.

Tegla Loroupe is a Kenyan Olympic distance runner. I declined

her offer to train with her. She is a two-time New York City Marathon champion and a world record holder, United Nations Ambassador of Sport, and Champion of Peace and Justice in Sudan and

elsewhere in Africa. Thank you for joining us.

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And we have Jill Savitt, the director of the Campaign to Bring

Olympic Dream to Darfur.

We have John Prendergast, senior advisor to the International

Crisis Group and co-founder of the ENOUGH campaign.

We have retired Ambassador Lawrence Rossin, senior international coordinator with the Save Darfur Coalition.

I want to welcome all of you. I want to thank you. I want to ask

you to be kind enough to stand, please, and raise your right hands

as we do swear in all witnesses appearing before the committee.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. TIERNEY. Let the record please reflect that all witnesses answered in the affirmative.

Mr. Hari, if it is all right with you, we would like to start with

your testimony.

STATEMENTS OF DAOUD IBRAHIM HARI, DARFURI REFUGEE

AND INTERPRETER TO NICK KRISTOF AND OTHER JOURNALISTS; JOEY CHEEK, AMERICAN OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST SPEEDSKATER; TEGLA LOROUPE, KENYAN OLYMPIC DISTANCE RUNNER, WORLD RECORD HOLDER AND UNITED NATIONS AMBASSADOR OF SPORT; JOHN PRENDERGAST, SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP AND

CO-FOUNDER OF THE ENOUGH CAMPAIGN; AMBASSADOR

(RET.) LAWRENCE G. ROSSIN, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL COORDINATOR, SAVE DARFUR COALITION; AND JILL SAVITT,

DIRECTOR OF THE OLYMPIC DREAM FOR DARFUR CAMPAIGN

STATEMENT OF DAOUD IBRAHIM HARI

Mr. HARI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for inviting me

to speak. It is really hard for me to share my experience with you.

It is sad, my written testimony. My name is Daoud Ibrahim

Hari. I am a refugee from Darfur. I came to the United States in

2003 because of the genocide against my people.

I was born in Musbat in north Darfur, where I learned my

English in my school. I am survivor of the genocide.

At the end of 2003 the government of the Sudan destroyed my

village and killed my brother. It caused me to flee with the women

and children to find safety in Chad. In Chad from 2004 to 2006 I

became interpreter for NGO and international journalists seeking

to expose the genocide in Darfur and religious crisis in Central Africa Republic.

I took this risk because I want to show the world the tragedies

happening to my people. I even went back to Darfur with the journalists and some NGO six times to talk with the victims and hear

the stories.

I remember going with Nick Kristof of New York Times for 2

years to talk to soldiers. He was wounded by the villagers. People

asked that the government of Sudan had paid them $200 to come

to destroy this village. If they succeed, they were paid $700. We

saw and he taught me that the government of Sudan had to pay

for genocide.

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I also remember seeing how they would clean the villages. In one

case they dismembered the family bodies and put them in the village well to poison the water resources for the area.

And also, when I went with the BBC, to Sudan and Chad, we

witnessed 81 persons had been killed and dead bodies were destroyed. The village was burned down to the ground.

I, myself, then became victim of the government of Sudan when

they arrested, jailed, and tortured me with Paul Salopek of the

Chicago Tribune on assignment with the National Geographic, and

our drivers. I was sure that I would be killed. This was a miracle

for me that the American politician Chris Shays, Barak Obama,

and Governor Bill Richardson were able to secure our freedom after

25 days in jail. However, my people need more miracle from American and other world.

Finally, to bring peace to my people and to stop the genocide I

recommend that you pressure the government of China to not support the government of Sudan killing my people.

Also, all the Darfuri refugees have need of help and resettlement

in the United States. There are refugees in danger, including

women and children. Sixty percent of the women are refugees who

lost their husband. Thousands of children were held who lost their

parents. We need the United States to provide special legislation

for my people who are in constant risk.

I thank America for saving my life and I will continue to share

my story with the American policy. I look forward to your questions. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hari follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Hari.

Mr. Cheek.

STATEMENT OF JOEY CHEEK

Mr. CHEEK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all the

Members and to all of the staff who have put together this hearing

today. I think it is a timely issue and an important one, and I am

very honored and humbled to be a part of a panel with as much

experience and moral weight as this one does.

It truly is the thrill of a lifetime to compete in Olympic games.

I spent more than 17 years preparing and training and competing

so that I could compete at the Salt Lake Olympics in 2002 and

then in the Turin Olympics in 2006 representing my country. I was

a bronze medalist in 2002, and a gold and silver medalist in 2006

in Turin.

Oftentimes, the American media really plays up the competitive

aspect of the games. What really matters, we are led to believe, is

who are the winners, who are the losers, what are the medal

counts, and which nation stands on top. It is certainly the case that

the Olympics is a competitive event, but in my opinion, having experienced two of them now, that is not the real majesty of the

Olympics.

I have a story that I would like to tell, and it illustrates, in my

opinion, really what I think the true power of Olympic sport is, and

ultimately what the Olympic ideal which we pay a lot of lip service

to and oftentimes do not live up to. I think this story exemplifies.

I am asked oftentimes what my favorite memory is, and it is outstanding to stand on the podium as a gold medalist with the national anthem playing and flag raising, but one of my favorite

memories is the very first time I walked into an Olympic village.

Within the village, very few people are ever accepted and there is

no press, there is no family. It is just the athletes who have qualified. And you walk into this big hall, and the flags of all the nations that are competing are draped from the ceilings. You walk in

and your eyes light up because this is the moment you have

dreamt of since you were nine or ten or eleven years old. You look

down and you see all the athletes from the world, and it is this

great tapestry of colors, because every nation wears their colors on

their back.

At first your eyes are so wide and you are so struck by this experience of finally making it, it takes a little while for you to realize

that, as you look up, you see athletes from Europe and from Asia,

from Africa, from North America, from South America, and we all

sit at the same tables. We sit together and we break bread and we

eat and we laugh. Oftentimes, although when we compete on a

field of play with all our hearts and souls out there and we compete

with all that we have, the cameras never catch us when we return

and we are able to laugh and share experiences and hug and talk

about this shared reality that so few people on Earth will ever get

to experience.

I said in my written testimony that it is not uncommon to see

Japanese and Chinese athletes sitting together and talking, or Europeans from nations that our grandfathers fought to the death

and decimated an entire continent being best friends, being lifelong

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friends. There are actually quite a few Olympic marriages. You

would be surprised.

That story is never told about the Olympics, but to me that one

is something that exemplifies what this Olympic ideal is all about.

We talk about, when we speak of the Olympics, we speak about

sport transcending mere competition. We talk about being able to

use sport to promote the values of peace and common brotherhood

and humanity, and oftentimes it is just kind of boilerplate. It is

something that sounds nice. The only way it can be a true reality

is if we take that flowery language and we choose to live it in our

everyday lives.

After the 2006 Olympics when I was gold and silver medalist I

had a brief moment of media spotlight, and I thought of all the lessons that I had learned from sport, and I realized the most important one was that myself, an athlete from Europe, and athlete from

China, an athlete from Africa, many of us have much more in common than we have different. In fact, I may have something more

in common with a speedskater that grew up competing in China

than I do with someone I may meet walking down the street.

As we get ready in the next year-and-a-half for the 2008 summer

Olympics in Beijing, many people are going to say I don’t see the

connection between a sporting event and the genocide going on on

the other side of the world. In fact, I believe one of the foreign ministers of China was just quoted in the Washington Post saying that

there are many activists that are trying to link this and they will

fail because politics and the Olympics don’t match, they don’t mix.

I think, with all due respect, that is the exact opposite message.

I think he is absolutely incorrect. The sole reason we have an

Olympics is so that we can live up to the ideals that we profess.

It has already been said, of course, the financial relationships between China and Sudan, but I think it is also important to point

out that, by choosing to host an Olympics, China in particular looks

to use this as its coronation on the world’s stage. They are an enormously developing nation. They are going to be a world power, if

they are not yet, very shortly. You don’t get to host the Olympics,

you don’t get to host this great event with all of the glow and all

of the good feelings that come along with it, without accepting the

responsibility of what you are proclaiming.

It is my intention, as we go through the next year-and-a-half and

prepare for this Olympics, to travel out into the world and begin

to recruit athletes, not just from the United States, because I think

that the United States has already done a reasonable job and I

think we will continue to improve in terms of what we are working

on to try and stop the genocide in Darfur, but to recruit athletes

from all over the world, because it is not just nations that have to

live up to the Olympic ideal; I think the athletes that are competing also have a responsibility.

So I founded an organization entitled Where Will We Be, and

over the next year-and-a-half I seek to bring other athletes, because, as the glow from the Turin Olympics fades and the star of

the Beijing Olympics ascends, I think it is vital that new young

hearts and new energy are brought into the fight.

I hope that by the time the Beijing Olympics begin we don’t have

to have another testimony, another hearing about this. I hope that

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the nations of the world have lived up to this responsibility. I hope

that the competing nations in the Olympics will live up to the

ideals that they profess. But I believe that if they are not ready to

make that decision, that the athletes of the world will have to take

a leadership position in that respect.

I appreciate your giving me the time, and I also thank you deeply for making this an issue and keeping this on the national and

the world stage.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cheek follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. We appreciate your testimony. Thank you.

Ms. Loroupe.

STATEMENT OF TEGLA LOROUPE

Ms. LOROUPE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, athletes, and students.

It is a great honor for me to be here today to represent South Africa as an Olympic athlete.

My name is Tegla from the Tegla Loroupe Foundation. I am still

active in sports. Don’t turn down my offer. [Laughter.]

I would like to share with you today about the spirit of Olympics,

through sports. It has a powerful role to play in our lives.

For the past 5 years, I asked my friends from Africa, Holland,

and South Africa, and Uganda to have a race for peace. And they

informed me that I come from a conflict place close to Uganda. I

witness when people are dying. I used to run away from school.

And when [inaudible] went to school in Sudan, I know what it

means.

In 2003 I came and asked [inaudible], said I would like to have

a peace race in that [inaudible] and they refused. They say do not

go there, because of the AK–47s. And I found a place called Angola,

where the place where the Sudanese came and stayed, including

the family of the director. I did not know what to do. And I asked

again, the peace race will help people. And over the last 13 years

I have been the best athlete in Kenya.

There was no race being given in that region. In the night of that

[inaudible] from Uganda, he called me, I never saw his eyes. He

told me, listen, I am a great admirer of yours. We have been fighting for you, all people. You have been fighting to be one of the

greatest athletes in Kenya. [inaudible] the reason I stand you

down, [inaudible] but don’t stop to have that peace race, because

peace is the best thing for us. He did not know what it means to

have peace [inaudible]. I was really shocked.

The following day I went [inaudible] and I asked, I would like

to have this race for women. All of the sudden I had like [inaudible] ten ministers surrounding me. And they told me, listen, Tegla,

it is not only for women; it is for men. Let the race be for all people. I said I could not [inaudible] I don’t have money.

Some of the Sudanese who stayed in Nairobi, they came to me

saying, listen, together with your government, we are going to help

you go and train. Well, I went for training. I came back. I had

peace race in [inaudible]. We were able to bring warriors and they

returned their weapons and their [inaudible] for education.

Today in Africa we have many conflicts. Some are caused by tension over scarce resources, some are caused by ethnic rivalries.

Some are caused because of disputes of fair distribution of oil, diamonds or other sources of wealth. Today, conflict in Darfur, it has

all, contains all the elements of these. The food crisis is a very

painful issue for the people of the continent of Africa. And [inaudible] are the one.

As we discuss about Darfur today, there are so many children,

many boys and girls, many Olympians are losing their lives.

Women and all the people are dying day by day. And so I tell you

today to start to stand, it is not a time for pointing fingers. It is

not a time for fearing one another. It is not a time for politicians

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to come in. We have to save our human beings. Women have

power. It is time for us to stand up in physical areas. It is not a

point whereby, people visit Darfur for half an hour and they fly

away. It is only that [inaudible] that attracts the media. People in

the countryside, they don’t have televisions. I say, because I came

from countryside, when people come to Nairobi and talk about the

peace in Sudan, when people come to Nairobi I talk about the problem between the provinces of Uganda and Kenya. Those who are

playing around there run. Those who are playing for [inaudible],

they don’t understand. If only somebody can come and sit down

there and talk with the people, they will understand.

Why we use sports today, because there is no politics, there is

no difference, there is no diplomacy. You can believe. You can be

placed and you can be moved. But when people come together to

share, they feel, they can understand one another and with respect.

We know that [inaudible] are supporting the government for

Sudan, but if only the Africa Union can come in and stand firm.

Because they are not [inaudible]. There are other people who will

not play a lot. When we see a problem in Darfur, it is not only the

Sudanese people who suffer. We all suffer, especially—I am a

woman, and many of the women [inaudible] and children are dying.

We invest so much, 9 months, and maybe more, another 5 years,

and that kid will be a soldier. It breaks the hearts of the women.

So it is time to tell the people in China doing the Olympics that

we should not only stop a few days for the Olympics to continue

for the Chinese to understand us. People are going to their country

for one reason, peace. Peace is our dream. Sports is our dream for

everybody that should see that they have peace [inaudible] that

they build in Sudan should plant these [inaudible] things in the

eyes of the children.

In the eyes of the poor that cannot talk, today I want to ask [inaudible], you have to come forward and help. You are the voice of

the voiceless, and these people are suffering. It is your duty. It is

my duty. It is the duty of everybody in this House to stand firm

and tell the old ones [inaudible]. You have to visit Sudan and tell

the leaders of Sudan it is time, it is enough.

The rich people, they don’t stay there with their kids. They leave

[inaudible]. They [inaudible]. I want to tell you one example. In

1999, I was running a marathon in Holland. All of a sudden, I saw

my own community [inaudible] on CNN and I saw some people

that I know that there was conflict there. I realized that, and when

I go home my brother-in-law was killed because of conflicts. I really

went home. When I came to Frankfort, I met with one of the [inaudible], and I know he was one of the people who fired the arms.

He asked me where I came. We started quarreling in the airport.

I say I am going home. He said that place, it is fire. And I say my

father is still there. I know he is there. He is family and he will

never leave the place. And he told me that, I’m going to Nairobi

to see my family. I told him [inaudible] putting [inaudible] by the

cameras. I told him, listen, I know that poor people are dying, but

you people have coined the problem as dying, give them money to

the poor fight themselves. That is what is happening today in

Sudan.

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[Inaudible] when I came home, people were not staying there, except my family, and few of them. My father told me, listen, do you

know how to use any weapon? I say, listen, my hands are already

[inaudible]. And he told me [inaudible] something important, don’t

stay with us. Go to the training camp. I said, where? In the other

side are my [inaudible]. There was 4 days I could not go. And then

I said, why? He said in sports place, [inaudible] kill sports people.

He is an older man who cannot understand what it means to me

to play sports. Today, sports can bring people together.

So, as I say, it is time for us. Let us use our resources. These

are [inaudible] people, they are human people.

And I want to ask the countries who have not signed agreements, the small arms treaty, please do so. I know it is our business, but I am telling you it is not only going to stay in Africa, it

will come to us. There are some of our women, light the fire in the

grass, the fire will blind, their eyes are blind. So it will come to

us [inaudible] peace to this day the fire of hatred, so sign the treaty

of small arms before it destroys the students, any [inaudible].

It can reach people. You don’t have peace because [inaudible]

somebody is after you, so make what place you own and let us

stand and be strong, all of us.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Loroupe follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Ms. Loroupe.

Mr. Prendergast.

STATEMENT OF JOHN PRENDERGAST

Mr. PRENDERGAST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I used to be an

athlete, so maybe you can train with me as preparation.

There has been a lot of talk about Darfur. In fact, in my quarter

century now of working in Africa and on African issues, I don’t

think there has ever been a wider gulf between rhetoric and action.

Just this morning I saw come across the airwaves our President

talking about Darfur, and he said, ‘‘I am frustrated, but the international organizations can’t move quickly enough. I don’t know

how long it is going to take for people to hear the call to save lives.

I will be stressing, along with Tony Blair, the need for nations to

take action. If the U.N. won’t act, we need to take action ourselves,

and I laid out a series of sanctions,’’ etc.

A crucial misperception I think has to be corrected if we are

going to be effective in Darfur. The U.N. doesn’t move by itself; it

has to be moved by the brain inside the United Nations, which is

the United Nations Security Council. The most powerful nation in

the Security Council is the United States. The U.N. moves when

the United States moves it.

I worked in the last administration and spent a lot of time doing

this stuff. It simply doesn’t happen unless we move. So to displace

responsibility to other nations or international organizations, which

we are the dominant member, does a disservice, I think, to the

cause.

The United States needs to lead in the United Nations now if we

are going to take action that is going to change the calculations of

the regime in Khartoum and get the peace deal and the protection

force that everyone agrees are the central objectives in Darfur. So

the urgency now is multilateral action, is leading in the United Nations. The unilateral actions we have taken have been tapped out,

they have been discounted by the regime many years ago. It is

harder work to work multilaterally. We have a lot of other issues

on the agenda, so let’s understand and respect the fact that Iran

and North Korea and Iraq and other issues are taking up our time

and energy.

But eggs are going to have to be broken and we are going to have

to expend a little bit of our leverage or, as the President says, our

moral and our political capital, if we are going to move this issue

in the United Nations Security Council. And the fact is, the great

news is that when we have done that in the past, including during

this administration, when we have worked multilaterally we have

actually made a difference in Sudan.

There have been three cases in the 18 years this regime has been

in power where the United States had led multilaterally and there

has been a major change on the ground in Sudan.

The first time was during the 1990’s when Bin Laden lived in

Sudan and support for terrorism was the order of the day with the

Khartoum regime, U.S. led. Bin Laden was kicked out. The Al

Qaeda infrastructure was dismantled, and we saw a real change.

The second time, slavery—all of you have known and heard

about the issue of slavery in Sudan. The U.S. led multilaterally

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and the regime capitulated, stopped arming the militias that were

doing the slavery. It ended.

The third time has been just in the last couple of years when the

United States and the Bush administration led internationally,

multilaterally, to get a peace deal between the north and the south

that everyone said was impossible to reach.

There is a track record here. We have just got to actually act.

So what does it mean to act in this context? Well, of course, what

we have now is 4 years in Darfur where there has been no real cost

for committing genocide, no cost for obstructing the United Nations. Without a cost, this will continue. It would be irrational,

frankly, for the government of Sudan to stop pursuing a military

solution if there is no cost, multilateral cost. That isn’t plan B, because plan B was largely unilateral.

We have to move multilaterally, and I think there are five things

we can do, five things the United States can take the lead on that

would actually make a difference in Khartoum and change the calculation of the government of Sudan.

First, we need U.S. leadership to get the kind of sanctions that

we have imposed on the businesses in Sudan unilaterally, we need

to multilateralize those. We have 160 Sudanese companies now on

a list that we freeze their assets, we go after their business. We

try to target their businesses. We need to multilateralize those

through the United Nations’ Security Council. That takes leadership.

Second thing we can do, same approach, through the United Nations’ Security Council take the idea of sanctioning the individuals

who are most culpable and most responsible for genocide and

crimes against humanity and multilateralize those through the Security Council.

There are three people, and I want to name names, because

there are three people who have been most responsible for the destruction of 400,000 lives in Sudan during the last 4 years, and

there are three people who haven’t yet shown up on our lists because we are protecting them because they are the ones that are

giving us a lot of information in our counter-terrorism cooperation.

We are going to have to make a stand here and decide what matters most to us. The three people are the Assistant to the President, Nafie Ali Nafie; the Director of Intelligence, Salah Abdallah

Gosh; and the Minister of Defense, Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein. Those are the three guys that we need to act. If we don’t target the orchestrators, these sanctions are not going to bite.

The third thing we can do, whether you agree or not with the

International Criminal Court, whether or not we support the ICC,

whether or not we sign the ICC Charter, we can quietly provide declassified intelligence to the ICC that can accelerate the indictment

process. There is nothing that will get their attention quicker than

if the United States quietly says to them, OK, we have given you

4 years. We have information that will lead directly to the prosecution of some of the senior members in this regime. We are going

to turn it over in 30 days. You decide what you want to do. That

is real leverage. We are not using it.

The fourth thing we could do is to plan very transparently, start

to plan for specific military operations that might make a difVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:39 Jun 16, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\42325.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ference on the ground if the situation deteriorates. That requires

multilateral planning, and it can’t just be a no-fly zone. Let me tell

you right now, people keep talking about imposing a no-fly zone.

It is the height of irresponsibility if we press forward with implementing a no-fly zone, which is the easiest thing in the world to

send an airplane over and shoot an airplane on the tarmac that

might or might not have been involved in an offensive operation.

Well, if Khartoum believes that is all we have, that is all we are

prepared to do, the first thing they are going to do is cutoff humanitarian assistance to 4 million people, and then it is on us. And if

we haven’t done the appropriate preparation for ground deployment, let’s not go down the irresponsible road of inciting further action on the part of Khartoum.

So what I am saying is: accelerated military planning multilaterally through NATO and the United Nations’ Security Council that

looks both at air and ground involvement in Darfur if the situation

deteriorates. Just that credible transparent planning will give leverage to the negotiators for the peace and protection the people

need in Darfur.

Fifth and finally and the point of this hearing, we have an unbelievable golden opportunity that is being squandered with each

passing 24 hours. There is a confluence of three unique factors

internationally that I think could help end the war and bring peace

to Darfur in the immediate sense.

First, the U.S. Government has, in fact, turned. The worm has

turned. The United States, through Plan B, even though it is inadequate, even though it is too unilateral, the United States has

made a decision. We have to start working and imposing a class

and doing what we have to do to get this crisis concluded. So the

United States is in the right place.

The French have just elected a new president willing to work

with the United States and who wants to resolve the crisis in

Darfur. The French have a huge oil investment in Sudan and they

have the most leverage of any outside power with the rebels, because they are the main backer of Chad, where most of the rebels

are located.

Third—and everybody has talked about it—China. You have the

first time this regime has opened itself up, because it has a vested

interest in presenting a new face to the world in the context of the

Olympics. It is vulnerable to pressure and it wants to end this crisis, simply because it wants it off its back. We don’t care, frankly,

what their motivations are, but they have that motivation now.

We now have the three countries—France, the United States,

and China—with the most leverage in Sudan, both governments

and rebels, all three now—as of yesterday, the French just named

their own special envoy. There are three envoys. The Chinese,

French, and the United States have special envoys to work this

issue. Why are we not working together? Why are we not hearing

that these guys are getting together and they are going to start a

major diplomatic initiative to get a peace deal and to get a protection force into Darfur immediately?

Historians are going to look back at this perfect diplomatic storm

and say either one of two things: boy, they missed a huge opportunity; or, see, that was the turning point and they seized it. All

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three of these countries have a vested interest now. China, France,

and the United States have a vested interest in peace and stability

in Sudan, for whatever reason. That is both the south, where most

of the oil is, and in the west in Darfur, because we still have an

unfinished agenda in implementing the north/south peace deal.

So there is a solution, basically is the message. There is a solution to the crisis, to the Darfur crisis. For the sake of the 2.5 million survivors in Darfur, we must seize this opportunity now.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Prendergast follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Prendergast.

Ambassador.

STATEMENT OF LAWRENCE G. ROSSIN

Mr. ROSSIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Shays,

members of the committee, for inviting me to testify today on

Darfur, China, the Olympics, and what more U.S. diplomacy is

needed to end this genocide.

With your permission, I will submit the full text of the statement

for the record.

Let me just say it is a special privilege for me to testify today,

just after the House passed Resolution 422 calling on China to leverage its influence to end the genocide.

My name is Larry Rossin and I am the senior international coordinator for the Save Darfur Coalition. We have over 180 organizations which together have worked for 3 years now to end the genocide. Our Coalition has joined with other organizations and concerned citizens in building awareness and determination that action should be taken to end the genocide, and the presence here

today of the founders of Dollars for Darfur, who we supported,

demonstrates how the tragedy has moved Americans of all ages all

over our country. Attention given to Darfur in the Presidential debates recently indicates how much our efforts and those of colleagues like Joey and John and Jill Savitt, who will speak after me,

has made the genocide a political priority in our country.

The President’s decision to tighten sanctions on Sudan’s regime

show that Darfur is accepted as a human rights challenge demanding an American response. And we also welcome action proposals

by the new French leadership, with whom I met last week in Paris,

demonstrating growing global engagement that we worked with

foreign partners to foster.

Sadly, Mr. Chairman, all that work has really made very little

difference for the people of Darfur. President al-Bashir continues

his scorched earth campaign against those people with complete

impunity. That the campaign continues is inarguable. Just a week

ago 1,500 women and children finished a 125-mile trek to the Central African Republic, reporting that they had to flee continued

bombing of their villages.

Civil society can educate and agitate, but it is governments that

have to act. We have seen too many tough words but too few tough

actions against that regime. There have been too many envoys to

Khartoum with too little coordination, too many threats, too little

done to make those threats real.

The recent Plan B announcement by the administration of sanctions against the regime is somewhat encouraging, but it is not

likely to end the genocide. President al-Bashir and his regime long

since have figured out how to bleed off these kind of modest pressures. They manipulate advocates for more time for diplomacy, people like, most recently, the Secretary General of the United Nations, so they can continue their murder and mayhem.

Khartoum is only going to end this genocide under serious pressure. It clearly wants to keep doing what it is doing, and calculates

that murder, as John said, costs nothing. Changing that calculation

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national community with influence to wield—the United States,

that means Europe, it means the Arab League, it means Africa,

and it also means an awful lot more from China. China is an

emerging world power, and it has massive economic, military, and

political relationship with Sudan and with all of Africa.

As you noted, Mr. Chairman, China is Sudan’s major investor,

especially in the oil industry, and its biggest export market, and

Sudan is one of China’s biggest trading partners in Africa. Of Sudan’s oil revenues, 70 percent, according to a former Minister of Finance there, fund its military as it wages war against Darfur’s people, working closely with the janjaweed militia.

China also provides major aid to Sudan, and when President Hu Jintao visited Khartoum in February, China wrote off $80 million

of Sudanese debt and provided an interest-free $13 million for infrastructure, including a new Presidential Palace.

Military ties are closer than ever, and in April, when China’s Defense Minister received Sudan’s Armed Forces Chief in Beijing, he

expressed China’s willingness ‘‘to further develop cooperation between the two militaries in every sphere.’’ China maintains this

military relationship, despite a U.N. arms embargo in place since

2005, and the U.N.’s own panel of experts have reported that Chinese weapons, aircraft, trucks were being used by Sudan’s armed

forces and the janjaweed to keep people in Darfur.

Beijing defends these sales as legal, but Amnesty International

has documented convincingly that they violate the U.N. embargo.

Finally, as you have noted, Mr. Chairman, China has been a big

diplomatic defender of Sudan, watering down one resolution after

another in the United Nations, most recently the resolution that

set up the U.N. peacekeeping force.

This support for the al-Bashir Regime has not gone unnoticed

among civil society internationally. Under this growing scrutiny,

the Chinese have tried to portray themselves as engaged, quiet diplomacy, public statements, to get Khartoum to accept U.N. peacekeepers and to end the genocide in Darfur. This began in November 2006, at Addis Ababa negotiations where the hybrid peacekeeping force deal was supposedly reached, and in February President

Hu raised Darfur briefly with President al-Bashir in Khartoum.

More recently, Chinese diplomatic envoys claim to have reinforced

that message. China has committed 275 troops. It has named a

special envoy. All these things are supposed to be indicating increased engagement, although the envoy, when he was in Darfur

2 weeks ago, echoed official Sudanese word that all is well and everything is fine in Darfur for the displaced.

On balance, it is our assessment that China’s performance falls

unacceptably short. Whatever quiet influence China may be bringing to bear is, at best, ambiguous, undermined by simultaneous

debt write-offs, new Presidential palaces, growing military cooperation, and assertions that everything is hunky-dory out there in

Darfur.

No wonder al-Bashir told a Middle Eastern wire service, after

President Hu left Sudan, that he hadn’t felt like he was under any

pressure.

But we are convinced that China has real influence to wield.

China claims that it was their Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun

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who, when he visited Khartoum a couple of months ago, persuaded

Sudan to accept the U.N. heavy support package, the phase two of

the hybrid force, and we believe that. And we would ask, if one

mid-ranking Chinese official can get Khartoum to reverse 6 months

of rejection of that force, what more could China achieve if they

really leveraged its relationships to end the genocide?

Recently, China has been expressing loud concern at agitation by

civil society about the Olympics and about its negative role. As you

noted, the slogan of the Olympics is One World and One Dream.

Well, I can promise this: there is more of that coming. China is extremely well placed to extract agreement from Sudan for the peacekeepers and for an inclusive peace process and basically to stop

killing its own people. That has not yet happened, and until it does

international outrage will mount at China’s complicity.

We, ourselves, have met with the Chinese and told them directly

that, whether the Olympics-related campaign swells or not is entirely in their hands. Civil society pressure will sharpen unless

China visibly helps to end the genocide. How can it be that the

Darfur nightmare would not intrude into this Beijing dream?

We have suggested to the Chinese several measures that would

show real seriousness, including: Acknowledging publicly and condemning—which they have never done—the mass killings, torture,

rape, and displacement in Darfur; affirming, as everybody else but

them has done, that Sudan’s government bears overwhelming responsibility for this devastation; warning that it won’t accept President al-Bashir’s continued obstruction of U.N. peackeepers and

visibly acting to end it; warning also that it won’t accept Sudanese

government obstruction of a renewed and inclusive peace process,

and visibly acting to end that obstruction; signaling that it will

support, not abstain on, but support a Security Council resolution

enacting targeted sanctions absent immediate demonstrable Sudanese government compliance with international obligations; redirecting that money for the new Presidential palace to help the

people of Darfur; and, suspending military cooperation with Sudan

until that conflict has ended.

Mr. Chairman, this list is surely not exhaustive. It is not up to

us. China will know what more it can do to end this genocide. Real

Chinese engagement is an extremely valuable goal. It is worth

great exertion to obtain it, and lives depend on that.

With that said, active Chinese engagement will not prove decisive unless integrated in a coherent, muscular, international diplomacy that backs united messages to Khartoum with pressure

measures.

We share your frustration about poor United States and international diplomacy during the last 4 years. Just in the last year

we have seen four different U.S. Government officials be the lead

on Darfur. Is it Deputy Secretary Zoellick? Is it Deputy Secretary

Negroponte? Is it Assistant Secretary Frazer? Maybe it is Special

Envoy Natsios. We don’t know. We can’t tell. And that U.S. lack

of coherence has been reflected internationally. Part-time diplomacy of this sort will not change Khartoum’s cold calculations. The

parade of uncoordinated envoys to Khartoum really has to end

now. The last 4 years are a graveyard of the old persuasive diplomacy as much as they are of 400,000 Darfurians.

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We, therefore, recommend that this subcommittee exercise its

oversight responsibility generally to get more U.S. action on

Darfur—John mentioned many of the ways that can be done—specifically, by urging the administration to support the recent French

initiative to convene in a large contact group of all the countries

with specific influence in Khartoum, including China. Only such

concerted, structured, global diplomacy accompanied by real pressure will change Khartoum’s calculations.

Without promoting such structured international collaboration,

how can our Government really expect to obtain mandatory Security Council sanctions? It is a big uphill climb. Without structured

international collaboration, the President’s Plan B sanctions will

just inscribe themselves on a 4-year-long list of showy gestures toward Khartoum taken while villages burned, women were raped,

people were murdered—that is, while Darfur’s genocide has proceeded unchecked.

China can and must do more to end Darfur’s agony. So must the

entire international community, acting together. That is another

job this administration has to take in hand, and we urge your subcommittee to press the administration to do so.

I look forward to your questions and thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rossin follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Ambassador.

Ms. Savitt, you have been incredibly patient. Being at the end is

not easy. We respect that.

STATEMENT OF JILL SAVITT

Ms. SAVITT. Thank you so much for holding this hearing, Chairman Tierney, and for inviting me to participate.

I want to associate myself with the comments of all of my colleagues here on the panel, and I won’t go over some of the same

ground that they have covered.

We have articulated that Darfur is a huge crisis. Your holding

this hearing shows that you understand the strategic importance

that China can play right now in this fortuitous moment of having

a close strategic and economic partner of the Sudanese government

being the host of the Olympics.

So the question today is: what might be done to pressure China?

What are all the tools at our disposal?

I want to tell you about a new campaign that is called the Olympic Dream for Darfur that has just launched. It is part of the

broader Darfur advocacy community, and it is one very concrete

way that we want to use the Olympics as a point of leverage to convince China to cause Khartoum to consent to a real U.N. protection

force and to engage in a peace process.

What we are doing is launching a symbolic Olympic torch relay

that will go from Darfur to Beijing. We are starting this in August,

August 8, which is a year from the opening ceremonies of the

Olympics, and we are going to go through countries historically associated with genocide and mass slaughter.

We are starting in Chad. We have the great Darfur advocate,

Mia Farrow, and others have been invited, and we welcome anyone

who would like to join us on this trip. Members of this subcommittee, if there is any leg of this relay, it is something to train for.

Mr. TIERNEY. Maybe I will train with Ms. Loroupe.

Ms. SAVITT. If there is any leg of this trip that you would like

to join us on, you would be most welcome if it fits your schedule.

We are starting as close to Darfur as we can get, so likely in

Chad. We are going then to Rwanda, Armenia, Sarajevo. We are

going to Germany. We are going to Cambodia. And we will likely

end in Hong Kong. I am not sure the Chinese will welcome us in,

but we are going to try. And when we are in Hong Kong, we are

going to talk about the Rape of Nanjing to highlight China’s own

history with the killing of civilians.

We are also going to hold, with our colleagues here, many of

whom are in this room, a symbolic torch relay here in the United

States to show solidarity with that global relay.

One point I want to mention: it turns out that at the Genocide

Memorials in a lot of those countries they have an eternal flame.

So we have now just gotten our torch, and it looks very much like

the torch that the janjaweed uses to torch these villages, as symbolic, and we are going to light that torch from those eternal

flames, just as a way to show you how we want to put pressure

on China.

Our message is: China, please bring the Olympic dream to

Darfur.

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I want to especially underline the comments of the athletes who

have spoken and say we do not support a boycott of the Olympics.

We do believe in this Olympic ideal and the idea that we want to

live in a world where countries do battle in sporting arenas, and

where the Olympic games are where countries send young men and

women to show their patriotism and their physical prowess. So that

is a very important point.

So the question then is what can be done. I am hoping that if

people feel energized and moved by the things they have heard

today they will join us in our relay. If I may, dreamfordarfur.org

is how you can get involved. Sorry.

Mr. TIERNEY. What was that?

Ms. SAVITT. It is dreamfordarfur.org, thank you. And it is F-OR, not the numeral: dreamfordarfur.org. Thank you.

There are a couple of things that I do want to make clear about

what we can all do together. The people we are mobilizing on this

relay, they are right now writing emails, getting ready for rallies,

writing letters to the International Olympic Committee, to the

Olympic corporate sponsors, to the some 200 national Olympic committees, to the United Nations, which has a role to play in international sporting. They are asking all of those bodies to intercede

with the Olympic host.

I want to be clear. As Ambassador Rossin said, China has taken

many steps since we started this effort, since our community has

been doing divestment and placing ads and making ourselves

heard. It is, of course, welcome, but not nearly sufficient.

We want to say that there is only one outcome that China must

secure from Khartoum, and that is adequate and verifiable security

for civilians in Darfur, not an envoy, not just 275 engineers, not

statements, but adequate and verifiable security for those civilians

in Darfur. And we would like you to urge, if you are able, that if

Khartoum doesn’t comply with China on that, that China then

takes action, that it doesn’t provide the interest-free loan for a new

Presidential palace, that it doesn’t forgive up to $80 million in Sudan’s debt, that it really has consequences if Sudan does not consent to allowing a troop protection force into Darfur.

We are hoping that we can create some space for policymakers

to act. If there are ways Members of Congress and members of this

subcommittee can approach the Olympic sponsors, can approach

the International Olympic Committee and say that they do not

want the Olympics tarnished by genocide, that the Olympic host

cannot be complicit in an ongoing genocide, because we are really

racing with the clock, as we all well know. The survivalist regime

in Khartoum is prepared to do all that is necessary to ensure the

success of its genocidal counter-insurgency. And if we don’t act

now, this robust civilian protection force is going to be moot because there will be just far, far fewer people in Darfur to protect.

So, as a body—and thank you for holding this hearing—please

insist that China exert its leadership immediately to bring the

Olympic dream to Darfur.

Thank you so much for holding this hearing.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Savitt follows:]

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Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you very much. We thank all of the witnesses.

Those noises that you heard that so rudely interrupted you mean

that we have votes. Members up here are very interested in asking

questions. I don’t know what your schedules are, but if you can

stay, we would like to go vote and come back and maybe let you

have an early lunch or at least a little respite here until about

12:15 or 12:20. Is that good with everybody, or will it ruin your

day?

John, it looks like it ruins your day.

We have two votes. We might be back sooner than that. We could

be back even before noon. If you want to try that, we can do that.

Is there any Member here that will not be able to return? We

want to ask a couple quick questions.

Mr. SHAYS. I will hold my questions, Mr. Chairman, but I will

try to meet that schedule.

Mr. TIERNEY. Great. All right. Then why don’t we come back at

noon time? We will try to be back here at noon and then we will

have the questioning and hopefully let you go before very long after

that.

Thank you all very, very much.

[Recess.]

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, thank you all for your patience. We reconvene the meeting now. I hope you all got a little sustenance in the

break.

What we are going to do is probably, instead of taking 5 minutes

each for questioning, maybe open it up to 10 and have a round of

questioning and then see where we are at that point. I don’t think

there is any need to start slamming the gavel down on people if

we are really getting some good information.

I want to take the liberty of starting here, and then we will move

on from there.

I want to ask a general question. I suppose that Mr. Prendergast

and the Ambassador might certainly have a view on this, but if

anybody else does I would like to hear it, as well.

What are we doing with regard to sponsors of the Olympics? We

have talked about China and the need to engage and focus around

their idea of sponsoring this. What about the Coca-Cola’s and the

General Electric’s and NBC and others who are going to profit considerably out of this? Is there a way to get them engaged in trying

to work the international community, trying to pressure the international community to heighten its awareness or to start working,

say, in a contact group like the Ambassador recommended?

Mr. ROSSIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am only going to talk

about this very briefly. I think actually Jill is the person who can

best respond to the question that you have raised.

We believe that in the Olympics area, like in the more general

area of those with influence bringing pressure in order to end the

genocide, that sponsoring companies for the Olympics have a role

to play.

You will recall that a lot of the buzz about the Olympic linkage

about the genocide Olympics began when Mia Farrow wrote her

column in the Wall Street Journal that didn’t flag China, per se.

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cause Steven Spielberg is, in a way, one of the corporate sponsors,

or he is a communications advisor to the Olympics.

Not only Mia Farrow’s column and all the consciousness that

raised was valuable in and of itself, but it also was valuable in two

other ways. One is it smoked out the Chinese, in a sense. They reacted very, very strongly to the Inspector General. I think they

drew more attention to the opportunity that the Olympics present

for bringing pressure on China to use its influence with Khartoum

to end the genocide.

I think the second thing was the reaction of Mr. Spielberg, himself, who then wrote a letter to President Hu Jintao. I am not sure

he was that aware of what was going on in Darfur. He was quickly

educated. He wrote a letter to President Hu Jintao and now is engaging very actively and I think will become part of this campaign

in a way that will make a huge difference. The kind of attention

celebrity can bring is always very valuable in these campaigns.

I will let Jill talk a little bit, I think, about corporate sponsors,

because that is part of her effort.

Ms. SAVITT. Yes. Our Olympic Dream for Darfur campaign is

working with the entire community, and we have colleagues who

have shown a great deal of success in the divestment community

helping to craft this strategy aimed at corporate sponsors of the

Olympics.

I think our first order of business is to give the corporate sponsors the opportunity to do the right thing and to educate them

about the linkage between China, Darfur, and the Olympics, and

approach them. So we are approaching them in a couple of ways.

One is through the socially responsible investor community—pension funds and the like—who will go to the corporate sponsors and

say we are very concerned. The corporate social responsibility business community, we are very concerned about your association with

this. We want to educate you, and approach them.

We are going to approach them directly and ask them to take one

of two first initiative steps, which is to write a letter to the International Olympic Committee and to the president of China, and

also to make a public statement of concern. Those are the first two

things that we would like. We think they are very modest, and our

goal is to get at least one corporate sponsor to become a leader, and

hopefully then have a domino effect with some other corporate

sponsors.

As part of that strategy, I think there is a huge role to play for

others who can intercede with these corporations and sit down with

them and educate them about the fact that what they are endorsing by sponsoring the Olympics, what they are underwriting and

whose image they are burnishing as the games near.

Again, if we are not going to boycott, ourselves, we are not going

to urge other people to boycott or withdraw. In fact, once you boycott as a strategic matter you lose your leverage, and so as long as

the sponsors are donating money and being able to intercede with

the Chinese government, we want them to use that, and even as

the Olympics near, ask them for more and more things like ceding

some of the advertising time to educate more people about Darfur

and dividing up or giving equal funds to the cause of Darfur that

they are giving to the Olympics, and even underwriting corporate

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sponsorship will take of our Olympic torch relay if they were so inclined.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Hari, there were three names that Mr. Prendergast mentioned in his testimony, and I was wondering about your opinion

of the effectiveness of listing those three individuals as people that

are targeted for sanctions and possibly targeted for information

about their activities to be shared with the International Court.

Would you comment on that?

Mr. HARI. Yes. I hear this name from Mr. Prendergast, like it is

not three but there is a lot of people that have activities in Khartoum against the Darfurian people. We know even Musa Hilar,

who for years were leaders. He was civilian. Now he is, like, general from the government. They call him General Musa Hilar. So

there is a lot of people, yes, you know, associated with the genocide

and terror.

Mr. TIERNEY. Is there, to your knowledge, any group of people in

the political class in Sudan who are likely to be sympathetic to

doing something positive on this issue that just we are not hearing

about because they don’t have a forum or they are afraid to speak

out, or do you think it is a pretty monolithic group that is intent

on just following the lead of Mr. al-Bashir?

Mr. HARI. I didn’t hear any one politician of Sudan is talking

about stop of the genocide in Darfur because the regime, they were

all following the regime, even the parliament, and, you know, how

the government control the members of someone from the politician

of Sudan.

There is nothing like the leaders that were associated with government is very recently, but they have a lot of concern about they

will not talk. Suppose we need to hear from, like, the southern

leader to push government, except, you know, the U.N. troops in

Darfur, but he don’t ask the government, he don’t push government

to accept just to keep silent.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. PRENDERGAST. May I comment?

Mr. TIERNEY. Yes, Mr. Prendergast.

Mr. PRENDERGAST. Thank you for the opportunity, Congressman.

You know, this regime took power in a military coup in 1989.

They have a very small, small base of support. They maintain

power by any means necessary. If it takes genocide to put down a

rebellion in Darfur, they do that. They waged one of the most brutal counter-insurgency campaigns the world has ever seen in southern Sudan for many years, which we talked about earlier, especially the slave raiding and things that went on there. And they

brutally suppress all rights of political opposition.

So the question is really an interesting one. Would there be elements and citizens in Sudan who, if we sided with the Sudanese

people in a very clear way, what would be the reaction. I think it

would be very, very positive. I think if we were smarter in our public diplomacy and smarter in what we do on a day-to-day basis, trying to invest for the long run in a relationship with Sudan and the

Sudanese people, it would make all the difference in the world.

So picking out and being very clear that it is just a few of these

individuals who have held on to power using military means and

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using all the kinds of counter-insurgency tactics that they have

learned from centuries, literally, of history, that is the reason they

have stayed in power. But there are all these aspirations. Sudan

had a huge and vibrant political culture and civil society culture

before these guys came to power in 1989 and just crushed it, but

it is there. It is still there under the radar screen, and the more

that we can invest in building long-term relationships with the people, I think—and our humanitarian aid does that, in part. I mean,

that is an important element to say that we care about the suffering of the people, but we could do a lot more with respect to building the political and supporting the political and social aspirations

of the people as much as just their basic human needs.

Mr. TIERNEY. Having worked in that area with the past administration, do you think that we have, on a diplomatic side, identified

these people and are reaching out through back channels or any

other method, or do you think we are just ignoring that avenue

right now?

Mr. PRENDERGAST. It is funny, because no, not at all. You know,

in these kinds of situations people like me who are hard-liners who

say, you know, we have to use the tools, the punitive measures,

people think that then you have cutoff communication. I think the

opposite. When you ramp up a policy of multilateral pressure, you

should also ramp up your political engagement. We should be engaging not just with the government, with all kinds of the political

parties that are above and underground and all these civil society

organizations. We should increase our diplomatic presence in Khartoum rather substantially, because it is an important country, both

in the world and in our foreign policy, and we have a lot of interest

there. We don’t have an ambassador. We don’t have just but a few

political officers.

There is just not enough to do the kind of real engagement to

demonstrate to people a real public diplomacy strategy, to demonstrate to the Sudanese people that it matters to us what happens

to them and that we want the best for the country, we want to support their democratic aspirations, not our vision of it, it is their

own, and we want to support peace and stability in the country in

the long term.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

I will just wrap up my questions with Mr. Cheek and Ms.

Loroupe. We talked a little bit before the hearing. Can we just

share on the record what efforts you are making to engage athletes

in this prospect that you have been talking about here this morning?

Mr. CHEEK. Well, again, with the founding of this organization

that I sort of put forth, this campaign, the goal ultimately—and we

are sort of in the initial stages. We are getting incorporated and

nonprofit status, and we have office space donated to us. What we

hope is that we can organize an international campaign.

Maybe because I am one of the driving forces, obviously it is

going to be seen a bit as a U.S.-centric thing, but ultimately my

goal is that it is not primarily U.S. athletes but majority athletes

representing other nations, because, to a certain extent, in some

areas anything led by the United States will be met with certain

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national voice, especially of athletes competing in this, it is very

easy to say, Joey, you are done, you are not competing in these

games, you can say whatever you want because there is no real

consequence to you. It is much harder if athletes—and these are

friends and new friends that I am reaching out to from all over

Asia, Europe, and Africa, South America—if they are competing

and they are saying the same thing. It is very difficult to accuse

them of taking a course that is politically easy, I suppose.

Mr. TIERNEY. Ms. Loroupe.

Ms. LOROUPE. I have the same idea also. In Kenya we have some

peace races that we organize, and we talk about the problem in

Darfur. That is the only thing that they understand. It is difficult

to ask someone for spots, television. Next week in 2 weeks we will

be having our peace race in Uganda whereby we also have in

Kenya, and we have 6 minutes at the front. I am really proud that

this is policy, and the representative from government in Sudan,

the Ambassador talked to me that he’s there also, Ambassador to

Uganda, and that will be in Uganda.

There are sports in Uganda and education. They will be training

us. We feel that we are going to start somewhere.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Shays.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for

holding these hearings.

To our witnesses, each one of you has provided a wonderful insight into this issue, and each of you have different perspectives,

so every one of you was necessary, I think, for us to have this kind

of meaningful dialog and to learn from you.

I just want to be clear with you, Mr. Cheek, in terms of you are

not recommending we boycott the Olympics; what you are recommending is that we use the Olympics in an effective way with

American athletes and other athletes around the world making

sure that we speak out now and during the Olympics about this

issue. Is that what I am hearing?

Mr. CHEEK. Correct. I am strongly against any kind of boycott of

the Olympic games.

Mr. SHAYS. And, Ms. Savitt, you have taken that same position?

Ms. SAVITT. Exactly.

Mr. SHAYS. I am just reminded one time when I was really angry

what happened in the State House of Representatives about a process. The entire Republican delegation members walked out, and we

just watched our other colleagues stay on the house floor and continue to debate the bill minus our input. I have to tell you it was

the stupidest thing we ever did. Well, we have done a lot of stupid

things, but that ranks as one that I haven’t forgotten. So I am really grateful that you are saying go there, but do not be silent about

the issue.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could go and thank this Chinese government for responding before? In other words, let’s not assume

that it is going to, you know, be like this by the time of the Olympics. Let’s assume that we can all have some impact.

I want to say to you, Mr. Hari, you are a brave heart. I am

stunned by the fact that you were willing to go into northern

Darfur, given all the threats that may have come your way and ulVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:39 Jun 16, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00080 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\42325.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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timately did by your arrest with Mr. Salopek. I want you to know

when we met with Mr. Salopek in the prison, he was concerned

about himself but he was more concerned about you. He was more

concerned about you. He insisted that you be treated better. He insisted that we Americans focus on your plight. He was grateful

that we were focused on his. I think you know it, but I just want

to say it for the public record. You have a wonderful friend in Mr.

Salopek, and you have a lot of friends here, and you have a lot of

admirers. You are not a difficult person to help, because you are

a brave heart and you represent a lot of other brave hearts.

I am going to tell all of you that I think that this administration

gets a bit of a bad rap. I think that we have spent a ton of money.

We have called this a genocide, where no other country is willing

to do it. We are constantly being criticized by other countries for

calling it that. We have a special envoy. We had an ambassador,

frankly, who dedicates 99 percent of his time to this effort. And we

have American NGO’s that are getting significant resources to feed

individuals who now are in these camps.

I am a former Peace Corps Volunteer. When I went to visit one

of the camps in northern Darfur, I was struck by the fact that

there was food and there was education, and I looked at some of

the villages around these camps and I thought, you know, I don’t

know if I would rather be in the villages around the camps or I

would rather be in the camps. Now, obviously I wasn’t in the villages so I can’t form a firm opinion.

What I was struck with was how there has been some real effort

on the NGO side of the equation, and a lot of people are risking

their lives because they know if the United States just does something that this government doesn’t like, their lives can be threatened. I did not have one NGO that thought we should send military there. They said, you send military there, we are dead men

walking. Really what they said is we will have to leave and we are

not sure we will be able to get out safely. That was one point that

was made, and we traveled together in this, so your observations

may be slightly different.

I use this word as infrequently as I can, because I do not like

to think that I have this mentality, but I am somewhat frustrated

by people who suggest that we have to get other countries to do

what we want through negotiations, and when they don’t do what

we think they should it is our fault, because it isn’t our fault.

There are a lot of countries here who are doing far less and could

be doing far more, and they are getting a pass. So I know we can’t

send military troops. I will make this point to you and I am just

saying this so I can then ask each of you for your reaction. When

we were talking to the Governor of northern Darfur and we were

talking about how outrageous it was that you had cattlemen killing

farmers with weapons and on large animals with farmers who had

no weapons who were in a very vulnerable position. And it was almost like, you know, yes, this is happening and it is wrong and so

on. And then I said, you know, what I think we should do is we

should at least begin by having a no-fly zone. At that moment the

Governor of northern Darfur became outraged, incensed, and said,

How dare you impugn our country? How dare you impose on our

sovereignty? Then he was outraged. He was outraged about the

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sovereignty, not outraged by the death of his own countrymen,

women, and children.

I thought this is one tough group of people. I say this. Now I

would like reaction. I would like you to start off, Mr. Hari, and we

will go right up the line. Actually, I would like to go to you and

Ms. Loroupe, and then to you, Mr. Prendergast and Mr. Rossin, because I have already engaged. React to what I have said. Tell me

what you would specifically like our country to do that we are not

doing, and tell me why, if we did it, it would make a difference.

And if you would like someone else to go first, I can do that. Mr.

Prendergast, you are the most aggressive on this. Let’s start out

with you.

Mr. PRENDERGAST. You can count on me for aggressiveness.

United States is, indeed, doing more than any other country in

the world, and, indeed, the humanitarian relief effort has been

nothing short of herculean. What you may not have been briefed

on fully, because it is the way you do the numbers, is we have now

over 1 million people in Darfur, according to the United Nations,

not according to us aggressive activists, that are outside of the

reach of humanitarian assistance.

Mr. SHAYS. You mean they are not in the camps?

Mr. PRENDERGAST. Many of them are in camps, but because of

targeted violence and because of bureaucratic restrictions imposed

by the government of Sudan, both of these two factors, people

largely in camps—98 percent of those are in camps—are not being

reached by our humanitarian aid infrastructure. One million people.

So whereas the people that are being served now in very, very

difficult circumstances, you know, people braving risking their lives

often to provide that assistance, 90 percent of the assistance being

provided, of course, by Sudanese, themselves, we don’t have any

idea what is going on in those areas where a million people are not

being reached. We don’t know what their mortality rates are. You

get the picture.

So yes, there has been a lot expended, but, wow, we have a long

way to go.

Mr. SHAYS. Fair enough.

Mr. PRENDERGAST. No. 2, U.S. action has been, by far and away,

larger than any other country, but, as I said—and I think it is a

really important point—it has been unilateral. We have to work assiduously multilaterally, which is a lot harder. I mean, it is just a

lot more work right now. We need to save our leverage, understandably, for Iraq and Afghanistan and North Korea and Iran,

and we only have so much.

So, again, I worked in the last one where we had to do this horse

trading every day in New York and you make your calculations

where do we want to expend our energy and where are we just

going to basically do things for public relations purposes, and I fear

that Darfur gets, although first-tier rhetoric, it kind of falls down

into second-tier expenditures.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask you this question: if we don’t have success multilaterally, isn’t our only other choice to act unilaterally?

Mr. PRENDERGAST. Well, we haven’t tried multilaterally. That is

my point. The point of going from zero to 60 with military measVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:39 Jun 16, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00082 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\42325.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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ures and with unilateral measures when there are things that have

been proven over time, as we said, the three cases, three times we

have actually changed government of Sudan policy during the last

18 years, when we worked very assiduously through the United

Nations, both administrations, Clinton and——

Mr. SHAYS. You say the last 18 years. Some of those things you

mentioned happened in the last year or two, didn’t they?

Mr. PRENDERGAST. The most important example, indeed, was the

peace process brokered by the Bush administration, the peace

agreement between the north and the south.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, that was acting multilaterally.

Mr. PRENDERGAST. Acting multilaterally.

Mr. SHAYS. So we have tried. I mean, I am not trying to debate

you other than to just——

Mr. PRENDERGAST. No.

Mr. SHAYS [continuing]. Make sure the record is clear.

Mr. PRENDERGAST. But I definitely referred to that in the testimony, wrote about it. I think it is the most important case study.

In other words, we have a model. We just need to reintroduce the

model.

Mr. SHAYS. But I would suggest to you that we are doing things

that don’t show up on people’s radar screens multilaterally. We are

putting incredible pressure on our allies in Europe, at the same

time we are putting pressure on them with Iran, and it is not—

in my judgment, I think there are things that are happening that

nobody is going to give this administration credit for.

Mr. PRENDERGAST. And true of all administrations. We never get

the credit we need. But there are two things I think that need to

be visible, and the first one is that we need, through the United

Nations Security Council, to get a resolution that does impose a

cost. Let’s look at the Genocide Convention. Read it upside down,

inside out. The only operative phrase in the entire convention is

that signatory states must do all they can to prevent—way too late

for that—or to punish the crime of genocide. We haven’t punished

it, and we have to punish it multilaterally because the Sudanese

discount unilateral action.

And the second thing we need to do with our special envoy, as

of yesterday the new French special envoy, and the Chinese special

envoy, we need to make a visible diplomatic push, the three countries that have leverage. That hasn’t happened yet. It can be in the

context of a contact, as the Ambassador said, or whatever. We have

to be visibly working with them, because I believe, as every one of

us have said, the Chinese are a big question mark. They can be engaged. It is in their national security interest to have stability in

Sudan, so we actually share a common goal. It is not like we are

trying to fight them to do something they don’t want to do; it is

just how they do it is going to be completely different than how we

do it. They will never criticize this government in Khartoum. They

will never say anything that broaches sovereignty. But behind the

scenes I believe they can be engaged to do a lot more than they

are doing now.

Mr. SHAYS. With the chairman’s indulgence, could I go to the

Ambassador and our two African friends?

Ambassador.

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Mr. ROSSIN. Thank you, Congressman Shays.

Our organization has certainly put a lot of pressure on the administration and on President Bush through our advertising and

through other work that we have done——

Mr. SHAYS. And I think that has impact.

Mr. ROSSIN. It does have impact in our assessment, as well, and

thank you very much for affirming that. But I want to underscore

something: we don’t question the President’s genuine, sincere concern about the situation in Darfur, nor the efforts of the will of our

Government and our administration to try and make a difference

and to end the genocide that it, itself, as you pointed out, had

named in Darfur. But we do have a concern, and when we have

talked to officials of the administration the concern is reinforced.

There is a dynamic, particularly with there are things like Iraq and

Afghanistan, North Korea, that are always at the very top level of

diplomatic attention. They don’t need to be pushed. They are always out there in the system.

Things like Darfur, like Kosovo and other Balkans issues in the

1990’s, like Haiti, tend to have to be pushed, tend to have to be

pulled by interested officials in the administration to a place where

they get all of the attention and, in a sense, the whole toolbox

of——

Mr. SHAYS. And what that argues for is that you state the case

in as extreme a way as you can state it. In other words, you

shouldn’t be the moderating force in the middle; you need to be

pushing from one end.

Mr. ROSSIN. You need to be pushing it. You need to be pushing.

Mr. SHAYS. I am monopolizing time here. I would love to speak

to our two witnesses from Africa.

Mr. TIERNEY. Ms. Loroupe.

Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Loroupe.

Mr. TIERNEY. Do you have a comment on that?

Mr. SHAYS. I would like to just know what would you like. Give

me one or two things specifically you would like our Government

to do. And I am going to qualify it by saying I find there is a real

concern in Africa that we not act like a colonial power and that Europe doesn’t act like a colonial unit. Been there, done that. So I

find that is somewhat of a restraint on our even doing some good

things. But whichever of you would like to jump in first, and if you

don’t want to answer, you don’t have to.

Ms. LOROUPE. I think to send the forces over there, Africa, and

one mention about the fear, people mention about sending troops

to Darfur. I think the only thing that your government can do is

to work together with the African Union, not go alone.

Mr. SHAYS. But, see, I think aren’t we willing to almost fund all

of the African costs, the United States? My understanding is if they

sent, instead of 7,000, 14,000, the United States would help fund

most of that cost.

Mr. TIERNEY. Are you asking the witness?

Mr. SHAYS. I am asking you or the Ambassador.

Mr. ROSSIN. Well, we fund currently, sir, the cost for infrastructure for the African Union. Of course, the European Union funds

the salaries and operating costs. I don’t know, if that force was enlarged if, in fact, we would be willing to do it, because the adminisVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:39 Jun 16, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00084 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\42325.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE
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tration has consistently sent inadequate funding requests to the

Hill. In fact, it has been Members of Congress that——

Mr. SHAYS. We will leave that on the record.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. Mr. Hari, if you have 1 minute, we do

want to go to other members of the committee. Do you have any

comment that you want to make on Mr. Shays’ remarks?

Mr. HARI. OK.

Mr. TIERNEY. You do?

Mr. HARI. Yes. You know, I am a Darfurian. Like the other

Darfurian, I need from United States to push, working with his allies to push U.N. Security Council to send more troops to Darfur.

Mr. SHAYS. Can I just say but the U.N. includes China. That is

the problem. The Security Council includes China. They are part

of it.

Mr. HARI. When the people are working together, they have to

pressure China to start to make the resolution, because what I saw

in Darfur now is going now in Chad, like eastern Chad and eastern

Central Africa right now is going the genocide the same Darfur.

This is why the genocide started in Africa because the community

would not care about, they didn’t take action in Darfur. That is

why the government is used as sometimes, you know, pressure for

the NGO’s sometimes.

But first of all in Darfur they need the secure from United States

and U.N. Security Council.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Hari.

Mr. Higgins, thank you for your patience.

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Chairman John Tierney, for holding

this hearing. I am struck by the conviction and the commitment of

the panel, because, you know, such an atrocity should justify a

major response from the world, particularly the western world that

values the very things that are being violated in Darfur in a very

fundamental level. But it is the non-governmental community, formally or not, that has sustained attention and focus on this issue,

which is a great tribute to all of you.

I think the good thing for you is that the governments are catching up. I think that even Congress in the past 6 months has come

a long way. Unfortunately, there has been this preoccupation with

Iraq and Afghanistan and other world conflicts. Although different

in nature, this is a world conflict that obviously requires a response, and a stronger response, and at the very lease from the

United States.

I traveled to the Sudan with then chairman, now Ranking Member Chris Shays, and we visited Paul Salopek in custody in the

Sudan, and he, as Chris has said, was most concerned about your

welfare than his, despite the fact that there was this filthy individual being held, but very lucid, and was subsequently released,

which was a very good thing.

The other thing that struck me was, going into some of the refugee camps and the schools that were being conducted by Save the

Children, despite all this misery that surrounded them and this

lack of optimism for a future, there was a presence in these kids

that conveyed a tremendous sense of optimism and appreciation for

what they were going through. Despite our long trip and seeing

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some of the horrible things that were going on in Darfur, you leave

with a sense of optimism because you believe that in them is the

potential for the triumph of the human spirit against extraordinary

atrocities.

A couple of things. You know, when you look at world conflict,

wherever it exists, there are fundamentals, and this one has an

economic fundamental. This one has a racial fundamental, despite

being indistinguishable from color. There is an African population

and there is an Arab population. The misery that has been exacted

on the African population is beyond human comprehension.

I think when the new regime, the current regime, took control,

there was pervasive drought in the Sudan which reduced the arable land and thus intensified the competition for the land, which

I think created a situation which was horrible. But the other thing

that you realize, since the current regime has taken over, the world

has changed. I think in many cases the discussion here, the theme

has been will or lack of will on the part of the United States and

on the part of the western world to do something about this conflict.

One question I have, John Prendergast, for you and others,

please, is: is it a lack of will or is it a loss of leverage because of

the demand for oil and the precious resources that the Sudan has

an abundance of? Has the United States, which previously the

Sudan would have a much greater dependence on, have we lost leverage because of that?

Then I have a followup question.

John, I would like to start with you, and then the other panelists, please.

Mr. PRENDERGAST. Thank you, Congressman.

I also want to just say one very quick parenthetical to your very

good explanation of a lot of what has happened, and that is that,

with respect to Arab and non-Arab peoples in Darfur, you know,

the government that took power is a very small minority regime,

and they have used a very small percentage of the Arab militia in

Darfur, this sort of Darfur’s version of the KKK, the janjaweed, to

undertake most of its destruction. The vast majority of Arab people

in Sudan are horrified by the actions of this small minority of people, so I just wanted—you weren’t implying otherwise, but I just

wanted to keep that in there so that we understand this isn’t an

ethnic or tribal or racial issue; it is a power grab, and people maintain power.

On your question about lack of will versus lack of leverage, indeed, I think the United States has less leverage. No one could

argue we have more than we did pre-2003, pre-Iraq, and we are

constrained dramatically, in fact, multilaterally on a number of

fronts by what has happened over the last 3 years. Nevertheless,

when we have demonstrated leadership, particularly in the United

Nations Security Council globally on issues like North Korea, when

our policy finally shifted, on Iraq, still we still can get countries to

go along with us. People will go along.

And I wanted to make a point to Mr. Shays’ question or point

to answer yours. In the last whatever number of years it has been

since the cold war ended, China, Russia, none of these countries

have ever vetoed a Security Council resolution related to Africa. In

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other words, if it matters enough to us and, in fact, it is in their

interests to have a resolution to the crisis, they are going to stand

publicly and threaten veto, they are going to stand publicly and oppose anything that violates the sovereignty of another state, because they don’t want their sovereignty because of what they are

doing. So however, I think we still have the leverage when we decide to press forward with enough political will to move the international community sufficiently to do the work.

The most exciting thing about this issue has been that it has

been bipartisan. The thing hasn’t been attacked by the Democrats

against the administration or whatever. It has been joint. We can

do more. Yes, we have lost a little bit, but still empirical evidence

demonstrates on other issues that when we do take that leading

role we can actually move a situation on the ground fairly substantially.

Mr. ROSSIN. Thank you, Congressman.

I would like to make two comments, as well. One of them was

your observation, which obviously I would share and our entire organization would share, about the heroism of the humanitarian

workers in Darfur who work under really incomparable threats and

harassment from the Sudanese government. The things they describe, they have never encountered in other situations.

I think that underscores something about that heroism, about

that bright light of the human spirit which you described which

can give rise to optimism, and that is that all of that exists at the

sufferance of the Sudanese government. They could be deciding

even now while we are sitting here, they could be deciding to kick

all of those aid workers out, to do anything they want, because

there is absolutely no international leverage on the ground in

Darfur to control in any way what they do. The U.N. has been

warning that could happen. The private NGO’s have been warning

that could happen. That is why we think we need to move beyond

this kind of a situation to where we can actually get some grip on

the situation in Darfur so that the people that are living there in

these camps and the humanitarian workers, themselves, are not at

the mercy of this government which has no good intentions in its

heart.

With regard to the leverage issue that you mentioned, I would

certainly agree with John and I think with the implication of your

question, as well, which is that our leverage is diminished compared perhaps to some other times, and there is a lack of competition for administration attention.

I think the concern that we have is the leverage and the tools

that we do have are not adequately mobilized, in fact. I worked on

the Balkans for a number of years as a State Department officer

before I retired at the end of the last decade beginning of this, and

the kind of international, consistent, concentrated, going across the

Atlantic every week going to these places that we used to do on

Kosovo and on Bosnia, I travel a lot in Europe for our organization

and meet with government officials and I see no evidence of that

taking place with regard to Darfur. Oftentimes I am the first person that has come into their office to talk about Darfur. I don’t

know if it is maybe embassy officers delivering xeroxed demarges,

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as we used to do when I worked for the State Department, but

there is not that kind of intensive engagement.

The Darfur Peace and Accountability Act last year mandated the

President do certain things and authorized him to do a number of

other things such as barring the entry into U.S. ports of ships that

have carried Sudanese oil. We don’t understand why, in a sense,

the book isn’t being thrown at President Bashir, why dribble out

a few sanctions now with Plan B and maybe who knows when

down the road you dribble out more. There is just nothing in the

behavior of the government of Sudan or the diplomatic process that

has been going on to justify really not throwing the book, not imposing all the sanctions that are available now.

I think the other thing that I would say is that even the things

that have been done maybe have not been adequately implemented, and I think, with regard to the new sanctions that were

announced by the President, it is important for this committee and

for the Congress, as a whole, to monitor and to exercise oversight

to make sure those things are actually done. They need more enforcement mechanisms. They need more resources in Treasury, at

the agency, and in April, when Andrew Natsios testified before a

Senate committee, he said part of Plan B would be setting up the

enforcement mechanisms not only for the new sanctions but actually for the existing sanctions, i.e., what have we been doing with

those existing sanctions over the last period?

So I think this is the area where our concern is great and where

there doesn’t seem to be a positive evolution nearly fast enough to

match the scale even of the deterioration in Darfur.

Thank you.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. HIGGINS. Just one more question. Again, we talked about the

United Nations, you know, does not move itself; it has to be moved

by the influence. I think the irony is that after World War II the

United States had the world at its feet, and established international organizations, including the United Nations and the

United Nations Security Council, and as a demonstration not only

of military might and economic superiority, the United States demonstrated generous spirit by including China in the United Nations

Security Council, and perhaps China should be reminded of that.

But just on the issue of who is in control there, al-Bashir, is he

a figurehead? John, you had mentioned in your earlier comments

that, you know, there are three individuals that you want to apply

pressure to in Darfur, and I think it was the assistant president,

the director of intelligence, and the minister of defense. Why? Is alBashir more a figurehead, or is it a loose coalition that requires all

of these individuals? I am not quite sure. Just elaborate, if you

will.

Mr. PRENDERGAST. The government of Sudan, like many dictatorships, are a collective decisionmaking body, but there are people in

that collective who wield disproportionate influence. In my view,

particularly the first two, Nafie Ali Nafie, the Assistant to the

President, and the Chief of Security, overall security, Salah

Abdallah Gosh, these are the two people who consistently have

been the leading, sort of the pointy end of the spear on military

strategy that the government of Sudan has pursued since it came

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to power, first against southern Sudanese and now against

Darfurians that have caused, by far and away, more destruction

than anywhere else on the planet during the last 15 years besides

the Congo.

I mean, I just believe we ought to go right at the source of those

and place the scarlet letter. We are not arresting them and sentencing them. We are not sending a military force to annihilate

these guys, but just put the scarlet letter on the shirt, because in

the past when we have done these kinds of things, when we have

spotlighted particular elements of the regime or done that, it actually has affected their calculations.

This isn’t the Taliban. Bashir and company aren’t Saddam Hussein ready to go down with the ship. They want to play ball internationally. They want to get involved in the world. They wanted

to be in the Security Council. They made a very big pitch in 2000

to try and become a member of the Security Council, and the

United States blocked their ascension to it and put Mauritius, just

as a nice footnote, as the aspiring Security Council country.

So I think there is a lot we can do by using the tools that we

have, as Ambassador Rossin said, before we have to escalate to

other, more dramatic measures.

Conventional diplomatic, economic, and political measures working multilaterally, aggressive diplomatic engagement, and multilateral punitive measures have gained traction in the past and I think

we just need to do it. We just need to decide we are going to have

to break a little China, literally and figuratively, to move this process forward and to get consensus around a particular plan that

would bring a peace process that could bring peace to Sudan and

to get the U.N./A.U. hybrid force that the world has basically

agreed upon to be actually be deployed over the objections of the

Sudanese government in Darfur to protect civilian populations.

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

I want to thank every single one of our panelists here today.

Thank you very much for your contributions. They are valuable to

us. We will be following up on this and we will be working in concert to take some action on that. We wish you all good luck and

good fortune with what you have done, and we are particularly

grateful also for the testimony of the first panel today. I think we

were all impressed by that.

So thank you very, very much.

With that, there being no other questions, this hearing is adjourned. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 12:57 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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