Pelosi: 'Each Day We Wait, Hope in Darfur Disintegrates'

Pelosi: 'Each Day We Wait, Hope in Darfur Disintegrates'

Washington, D.C.—House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi spoke on the House floor this morning in support of H.R. 3127, the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act. Below are her remarks:

"Thank you Tom Lantos, our distinguished Ranking Member on the International Relations Committee and a Co-Chair of the Human Rights Caucus. Thank you for your leadership on fighting for human rights around the world; you have a long history with that and you have personal experience being the only Member of Congress who escaped the Holocaust.

"I want to commend Chris Smith of New Jersey and Frank Wolf of Virginia for being leaders on this issue for many years. All who have been concerned about Sudan are deeply in your debt. I join you in commending Henry Hyde of Illinois and Donald Payne of New Jersey, who have brought this issue to the forefront of the Congress of the United States.

"Mr. Speaker, I bring to the floor a picture of the children of Darfur. All of us on our trip, 11 members of a bipartisan delegation, wanted to take these children home with us. But that wasn't possible; there were so many of them, and it wouldn't be right anyway, because they wanted to go home to their homes, which no longer existed.

"After a day in the refugee camp, our delegation traveled to Khartoum to visit with Vice President Taha. He asked us: ‘The Sudanese people want to know, why are you so interested in Sudanese domestic affairs? I know the American people are free-thinking people, but maybe your free thinking does not create a clear understanding of the facts in my country?' Vice President Taha was denying what we had seen with our very own eyes that day. Refugee children struggling in the heat, without shade, without adequate clothing, and sleeping in makeshift tents that were made from USAID food bags stitched together.

"The Darfuris are forced to walk miles outside the camps for firewood and water with a constant fear that they may be attacked. As Vice President Taha was denying all of this, we could not help but recall stories of villages torched, women raped, children kidnapped, and men tortured and killed. But even in the horror of all of that, we saw hope in the bright and playful eyes of the toddlers, that hope though was diminished in the eyes of the older children who had already seen too much.

"The camps we visited were home to more than 100,000 people -- a fraction of the staggering toll of the violence in Darfur. According to the United Nations, 3 million people are in need of assistance, 2 million Darfuris have been displaced, and nearly 200,000 have been killed thus far.

"We have seen variations of this problem from hell - most recently in Rwanda. We promised then, ‘Never again,' but we have heard ‘Never again' over and over again.

"The humanitarian disaster in Darfur challenges the conscience of the world. It is a systemic destruction of a people - genocide. While we were in Sudan, back home President Bush reaffirmed that this is indeed genocide. On our return, Congressmen James Clyburn, Donald Payne, and Joe Wilson and I met the President in the White House to thank him for his leadership and report on our trip. We also urged him to appoint a special U.S. envoy to Sudan.

"This envoy would signal that bringing peace and stability to Sudan is a priority of the United States and it is a part of the legislation on the floor today. This envoy is necessary because it will help stop the violence, bring the people to the negotiating table, and get humanitarian relief to the people who need it.

"Essential to stopping the violence is stopping the Janjaweed. The Janjaweed are an extension of the Sudanese military, and they are engaged in state-sponsored violence. This must end.

"Many people in our country have been actively involved in the effort to get more humanitarian assistance and support on the ground. The United Nation's Dollars for Darfur program was running out of money by March. Humanitarian workers in Darfur are harassed, their convoys diverted and attacked, and some were even kidnapped. Humanitarian workers have no political agenda or no destabilizing intentions to Sudan. They carry with them hope. They must be protected, their supplies must not be diverted, and volunteers must not be detained.

"That's why I am pleased that we were able to pass in the supplemental budget, the President's request for $439 million, and that Mr. Capuano's initiative to add $50 million for assistance was accepted by the House. We hope that it will be considered in the Senate.

"This legislation contains critical initiatives to help make matters better: stop the violence, bring the parties to the table, and get the humanitarian assistance to the people.

"This brings us back to Vice President Taha's question: ‘Why is the United States so interested in Sudan?' The answer is that genocide is not the domestic affair of any nation, it concerns the entire world. As our colleague Joe Wilson said to him, ‘Americans care about people.' Our care is reflected in the work being done for the people in Darfur on this House floor, in state legislatures, in corporate boardrooms, on college campuses, even in high schools, and back to the White House.

"Each day that the genocide continues, and each day we wait, the hope that we saw in the eyes of the youngest children will disintegrate into disease, despair, and death.

"On April 30, thousands of people will converge onto the Capitol to echo the call, ‘Never again.' These citizens will demonstrate on behalf of the children of Darfur and demonstrate that not only is America great, but America is good, and this legislation on the floor today is a reflection of that goodness. I support and salute the bipartisan cooperation that brought it to the floor."

http://democraticleader.house.gov/press/releases.cfm?pressReleaseID=1495