Date: 2004-07-13
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. 10 years ago. . as bloated corpses floated down Rwandas rivers. the international community debated whether the atrocities being committedin Rwanda fit the definition of "genocide." By the time the world stopped debating. it was too late. Millions of men. women and children had been killed. The failure of the world to act in Rwanda remains a stain on our collective conscience. We must learn from the tragic mistakes of the past. Today. 1.000 miles north of Rwanda. ir the Darfur region of Sudan. more than 30.000 people have already been killed by the Sudanese militarys aerial bombardments and the atrocities being committed by their ruthless proxies. the Jangaweed militia. Gang rapes. the branding of raped women. amputations. and summary killings are widespread. More than a million people have been drlven from their homes as villages have been burned and crops destroyed. The Sudanese Government has deliberately blocked the delivery of food. medicine and other humanitarian assistance. More than 160.000 Darfurlans have become refugees in neighborlng Chad. Conditions are ripe for the spread of fatal diseases such as measles. cholera. dysentery. meningitis and malaria. The U.S. Agency for International Development estimates that 350.000 people are likely to die in the coming months and that the death toll could reach more than a million unless the violence stops and the Sudanese Government immediately grants international aid groups better access to Darfur. Here in Washington and at the United Nations headquarters in New York. many offtcials are again debating whether this unfolding tragedy constitutes genocide. ethnic cleansing or something else. This time let us not debate until it is too late to stop this human catastrophe. Let us not wait until thousands more children are killed before we summon the will to stop this horror. America and the international community have a moral duty to act. The United States and the 130 other signatories to the Genocide Convention also have a legal obligation to "undertake to prevent and punish" the crime of genocide. The Convention defines genocide as actions undertaken "with intent to destroy. in whole or in part. a national. ethnic. racial or religious group. as such." The actions include "deliberately inflicting on members of the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." By all accounts. including the reports of U.N. fact finders. it is the African peoples in the Darfur region who have been targeted for destruction by the Khartoumbacked Arab death squads. In the middle of an unfolding crisis like that in Darfur. there will always be debate over whether what is happening constitutes geno.cide. But it is important to remember that the Genocide Convention does not require absolute proof of genocidal intentions before the intemational community is empowered to intervene. The Convention would offer no protection to innocent victims if we had to wait until there were tens of thousands more corpses before we act. A key part of the Genocide Convention is prevention. not just punishment after the fact. The United States has already done more than any other nation to call attention to and respond to this tragedy. But our efforts to date have not brought an end to the growing crisis. We must take additional measures now. The May 25 Security Council statement expressing "grave concern" about the situation in Darfur does not provide any authority for international action. The United States should immediately call for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council and introduce and call for a vote on a resolution that demands that the Government of Sudan take the following steps: First. allow international relief groups and human rights groups free and secure access to the Darfur region. including access to the camps where thousands are huddled in wretched conditions. second. the Government of Sudan must immediately terminate its support for the Janjaweed and dispatch its forces to disarm them. third. the Sudanese Govemment must allow the more than one million displaced persons to return home. The resolution must include stiff sanctions if the Sudanese Govemment refuses to meet these conditions and it must authorize the deployment of peacekeeping forces to Darfur to protect civilians and individuals from CARE and other humanitarian organizations seeking to provide humanitarian assistance. It is critical that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan exhibit strong leadership on Darfur. Mukesh Kapila. until recently the top U.N. official in Sudan has been outspoken in sounding the alarm. But KofiI was pleased to join with Congressman WOLF and other members of Congress on June 4 in urging Secretary General Annan to go to Sudan to address the crlsis there. I am encouraged that he will finally be going next week. However. this visit must be more than an expression of concern. Secretary General Annan must make it clear that if the Sudanese Government does not cooperate fully in stopping the killings and destruction. he will push for immediate international sanctions. He must let the Sudanese Government know that the welcome progress made in reaching an accommodation with the South will not prevent the world from taking action to stop the horror in Darfur. The U.N. ignored warnings of mass murder a decade ago in Rwanda. it must not stand by again. We should not allow other members of the U.N. Security Council to engage in endless negotiations and delay a vote on the resolution. In this case. every day that goes by without action means more lives lost. Lets vote on the resolution. If the rest of the world refuses to authorize collective action. shame on them. Failure to pass such a resolution would not represent a failure of American leadership. it would be a terrible blot on the worlds conscience. Whether or not the United Nations acts. the United States should take steps on its own. We should make it clear that if the Sudanese Government does not meet the demands in the proposed resolution. the United States will impose travel restrictions on Sudanese officials and move to freeze their assets. Even apart from U.N. action. we can immediately urge other nations to join us in taking these and other measures. I commend Secretary of State Colin Powell for his decision to travel to Sudan next week and visit the Darfur region. It is critical that the Secretarys visit do more than simply call attention to the tragedy unfolding there. He must make it clear that the failure of Khartoum to fully cooperate in ending the destruction and killings will result in a concerted American effort to punish the Sudanese Government and harness international support to intervene in Darfur. We must not look back on Darfur 10 years from now and decry the fact that the world failed to act to stop the crime of genocide. Rwanda and other genocides should have taught us that those who knowingly fail to confront such evil are themselves complicit through inaction. We are all Gods children. These are crimes against humanity. Let us respond to this unfolding human disaster with the urgency that it demands.