III
106TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. CON. RES. 75
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
JUNE 16, 1999
Received and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Condemning the National Islamic Front (NIF) government
for its genocidal war in southern Sudan, support for
terrorism, and continued human rights violations, and
for other purposes
Whereas according to the United States Committee for Refu-
gees (USCR) an estimated 1,900,000 people have died
over the past decade due to war and war-related causes
and famine, while millions have been displaced from their
homes and separated from their families;
Whereas the National Islamic Front (NIF) government’s war
policy in southern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, and the
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Ingessena Hills has brought untold suffering to innocent
civilians and is threatening the very survival of a whole
generation of southern Sudanese;
Whereas the people of the Nuba Mountains and the
Ingessena Hills are at particular risk, having been spe-
cifically targeted through a deliberate prohibition of
international food aid, inducing manmade famine, and by
routinely bombing civilian centers, including religious
services, schools, and hospitals;
Whereas the National Islamic Front government is delib-
erately and systematically committing genocide in south-
ern Sudan, the Nuba Mountains, and the Ingessena
Hills;
Whereas the Convention for the Prevention and the Punish-
ment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United
Nations General Assembly in 1948, defines ‘‘genocide’’ as
official acts committed by a government with the intent
to destroy a national, ethnic, or religious group, and this
definition also includes ‘‘deliberately inflicting on the
group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction, in whole or in part’’;
Whereas the National Islamic Front government systemati-
cally and repeatedly obstructed peace efforts of the Inter-
governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) over
the past several years;
Whereas the Declaration of Principles (DOP) put forth by
the Intergovernmental Authority for Development medi-
ators is the most viable negotiating framework to resolve
the problems in Sudan and to bring lasting peace;
Whereas humanitarian conditions in southern Sudan, espe-
cially in Bahr al-Ghazal and the Nuba Mountains, dete-
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riorated in 1998, largely due to the National Islamic
Front government’s decision to ban United Nation’s re-
lief flights from February through the end of April in
1998 and the government continues to deny access in
certain locations;
Whereas an estimated 2,600,000 southern Sudanese were at
risk of starvation late last year in southern Sudan and
the World Food Program currently estimates that
4,000,000 people are in need of emergency assistance;
Whereas the United Nations-coordinated relief effort, Oper-
ation Lifeline Sudan (OLS), failed to respond in time at
the height of the humanitarian crisis last year and has
allowed the National Islamic Front government to manip-
ulate and obstruct the relief efforts;
Whereas the relief work in the affected areas is further com-
plicated by the National Islamic Front’s repeated aerial
attacks on feeding centers, clinics, and other civilian tar-
gets;
Whereas relief efforts are further exacerbated by looting,
bombing, and killing of innocent civilians and relief work-
ers by government-sponsored militias in the affected
areas;
Whereas these government-sponsored militias have carried
out violent raids in Aweil West, Twic, and Gogrial coun-
ties in Bahr el Ghazal/Lakes Region, killing hundreds of
civilians and displacing thousands;
Whereas the National Islamic Front government has per-
petrated a prolonged campaign of human rights abuses
and discrimination throughout the country;
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Whereas the National Islamic Front government-sponsored
militias have been engaged in the enslavement of inno-
cent civilians, including children, women, and the elderly;
Whereas the now common slave raids being carried out by
the government’s Popular Defense Force (PDF) militias
are undertaken as part of the government’s self-declared
jihad (holy war) against the predominantly traditional
and Christian south;
Whereas, according to the American Anti-Slavery Group of
Boston, there are tens of thousands of women and chil-
dren now living as chattel slaves in Sudan;
Whereas these women and children were captured in slave
raids taking place over a decade by militia armed and
controlled by the National Islamic Front regime in Khar-
toum—they are bought, sold, branded, and bred;
Whereas the Department of State, in its report on Human
Rights Practices for 1997, affirmed that ‘‘reports and in-
formation from a variety of sources after February 1994
indicate that the number of cases of slavery, servitude,
slave trade, and forced labor have increased alarmingly’’;
Whereas the enslavement of people is considered in inter-
national law as ‘‘crime against humanity’’;
Whereas observers estimate the number of people enslaved by
government-sponsored militias to be in the tens of thou-
sands;
Whereas former United Nations Special Rapporteur for
Sudan, Gaspar Biro, and his successor, Leonardo Fran-
co, reported on a number of occasions the routine prac-
tice of slavery and the complicity of the Government of
Sudan;
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Whereas the National Islamic Front government abuses and
tortures political opponents and innocent civilians in the
North and that many northerners have been killed by
this regime over the years;
Whereas the vast majority of Muslims in Sudan do not sub-
scribe to the National Islamic Front’s extremist and po-
liticized practice of Islam and moderate Muslims have
been specifically targeted by the regime;
Whereas the National Islamic Front government is consid-
ered by much of the world community to be a rogue state
because of its support for international terrorism and its
campaign of terrorism against its own people;
Whereas according to the Department of State’s Patterns of
Global Terrorism Report, ‘‘Sudan’s support to terrorist
organizations has included paramilitary training, indoc-
trination, money, travel documentation, safe passage, and
refuge in Sudan’’;
Whereas the National Islamic Front government has been im-
plicated in the assassination attempt of Egyptian Presi-
dent Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia in 1995 and the World
Trade Center bombing in 1993;
Whereas the National Islamic Front government has per-
mitted Sudan to be used by well-known terrorist organi-
zations as a refuge and training hub over the years;
Whereas the Saudi-born financier of extremist groups and the
mastermind of the United States embassy bombings in
Kenya and Tanzania, Osama bin-Laden, used Sudan as
a base of operations for several years and continues to
maintain economic interests there;
Whereas on August 20, 1998, United States Naval forces
struck a suspected chemical weapons facility in Khar-
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toum, the capital of Sudan, in retaliation for the United
States embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam;
Whereas relations between the United States and Sudan con-
tinue to deteriorate because of human rights violations,
the government’s war policy in southern Sudan, and the
National Islamic Front’s support for international ter-
rorism;
Whereas the United States Government placed Sudan in
1993 on the list of seven states in the world that sponsor
terrorism and imposed comprehensive sanctions on the
National Islamic Front government in November 1997;
and
Whereas the struggle by the people of Sudan and opposition
forces is a just struggle for freedom and democracy
against the extremist regime in Khartoum: Now, there-
fore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That the Congress—
(1) strongly condemns the National Islamic
Front government for its genocidal war in southern
Sudan, support for terrorism, and continued human
rights violations;
(2) strongly deplores the government-sponsored
and tolerated slave raids in southern Sudan and
calls on the government to immediately end the
practice of slavery;
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(3) calls on the United Nations Security Coun-
cil to condemn the slave raids and bring to justice
those responsible for these crimes against humanity;
(4) calls on the President—
(A) to increase support for relief organiza-
tions that are working outside the United Na-
tions-coordinated relief effort, Operation Life-
line Sudan (OLS), in opposition-controlled
areas;
(B) to instruct the Administrator of the
United States Agency for International Devel-
opment (USAID) and the heads of other rel-
evant agencies to significantly increase and bet-
ter coordinate with nongovernmental organiza-
tions outside the Operation Lifeline Sudan sys-
tem involved in relief work in Sudan;
(C) to instruct the Administrator of
USAID and the Secretary of State to work to
strengthen the independence of Operation Life-
line Sudan from the National Islamic Front
government;
(D) to substantially increase development
funds for capacity building, democracy pro-
motion, civil administration, judiciary, and in-
frastructure support in opposition-controlled
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areas, and to report on a quarterly basis to the
Congress on the progress made under this sub-
paragraph;
(E) to instruct appropriate agencies to
provide humanitarian assistance directly, in-
cluding food, to the Sudan People’s Liberation
Army (SPLA), its NDA allies, and other indige-
nous groups in southern Sudan and the Nuba
Mountains;
(F) to intensify and expand United States
diplomatic and economic pressures on the Na-
tional Islamic Front government by maintaining
the current unilateral sanctions regime and by
increasing efforts for multilateral sanctions;
(G) to provide the Sudan People’s Libera-
tion Army (SPLA) and its National Democratic
Alliance (NDA) allies with political and mate-
rial support;
(H) to take the lead to strengthen the
Intergovernmental Authority for Development’s
(IGAD) peace process; and
(I) not later than 3 months after the adop-
tion of this resolution, to report to the Congress
about the administration’s efforts or plans to
end slavery in Sudan;
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(5) calls on the United Nations Security
Council—
(A) to impose an arms embargo on the
Government of Sudan;
(B) to condemn the enslavement of inno-
cent civilians and take appropriate measures
against the perpetrators of this crime;
(C) to swiftly implement reforms within
the Operation Lifeline Sudan to enhance inde-
pendence from the National Islamic Front re-
gime;
(D) to implement United Nations Security
Council Resolution 1070 relating to an air em-
bargo;
(E) to make a determination that the Na-
tional Islamic Front’s war policy in southern
Sudan and the Nuba Mountains constitutes
genocide or ethnic cleansing; and
(F) to protect innocent civilians from aer-
ial bombardment by the National Islamic
Front’s air force;
(6) urges the Inter-Governmental Authority for
Development (IGAD) partners under the leadership
of President Daniel Arap Moi to call on the Govern-
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ment of Sudan to immediately stop the indiscrimi-
nate bombings in southern Sudan;
(7) strongly condemns any government that fi-
nancially supports the Government of Sudan;
(8) calls on the President to transmit to the
Congress not later than 90 days after the date of
the adoption of this concurrent resolution, and not
later than every 90 days thereafter, a report regard-
ing flight suspensions for humanitarian purposes
concerning Operation Lifeline Sudan; and
(9) urges the President to increase by 100 per-
cent the allocation of funds that are made available
through the Sudanese Transition Assistance for Re-
habilitation Program (commonly referred to as the
‘‘STAR Program’’) for the promotion of the rule of
law to advance democracy, civil administration and
judiciary, and the enhancement of infrastructure, in
the areas in Sudan that are controlled by the opposi-
tion to the National Islamic Front government.
Passed the House of Representatives June 15, 1999.
Attest:
JEFF TRANDAHL,
Clerk.