Darfur

DARFUR -- (Senate - March 01, 2007)

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I come again to the floor this evening to speak about Darfur in Sudan. Most Americans are now familiar with what is going on in this remote part of our world.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died. Two million have been forced to flee their homes and still cannot return. Humanitarian workers have been raped, beaten, arrested, and killed.

This is genocide. That is a word we should use with the utmost caution. If we misuse the term, we diminish it; we dilute its power. But if we fail to use the word or if we use it and fail to act, then that is even worse.

The entire world has allowed Darfur to happen. Now it is up to every one of us to stop it. Those of us who have the privilege of being elected to office have a higher responsibility than most. We sought out these positions, and we must assume the duties that come with them.

There are few duties more fundamental than the obligation to save innocent men, women, and children from slaughter.

This week, Luis Moren-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor, presented evidence on the mass murder in Darfur to the judges of the International Criminal Court. This evidence focuses on two individuals as helping to lead and coordinate this campaign of violence.

The first individual named by Mr. Ocampo is Ahmad Muhammad Harun, former state minister of the interior, and now a state minister for humanitarian affairs for the Government of Sudan. State minister for humanitarian affairs--it is hard to even speak those words.

From 2003 to 2005, Harun was responsible for the ``Darfur security desk' in the Sudanese Government. His most important task was the recruitment of janjaweed militias. He recruited them, as Prosecutor Ocampo points out, with the full knowledge that the janjaweed militia members he was recruiting ``would commit crimes against humanity and war crimes against the civilian population of Darfur.'

That was, in fact, the point of his recruitment effort.

The second individual named in the prosecutor's presentation of evidence to the court is Ali Abd-al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb.

Ali Kushayb is a janjaweed commander who personally led attacks on villagers, just as the Sudanese Government intended.

This was part of a coordinated strategy of the Sudanese Government to achieve victory over rebels not by confronting the rebels but by attacking the civilian populations around them, by destroying entire villages and driving out or killing every inhabitant.

Let me read a short section of Mr. Ocampo's document to illustrate the crimes these two men helped coordinate and lead. It is graphic and horrifying. This is what they wrote:

During the attack on [the village of] Bindisi on or about 15 August 2003, Ali Kushayb was present wearing military uniform and he was issuing orders to the Militia/Janjaweed. Ground forces were shooting at civilians and burning huts. The attacking forces pillaged and burned dwellings, properties and shops. The attack on Bindisi lasted for approximately five days and resulted in the destruction of most of the town and the death of more than 100 civilians, including 30 children.

In Arawala, in December 2003, Ali Kushayb personally inspected a group of naked women before they were raped by men under his command. A witness said she and the other women were tied to trees with their legs apart and continually raped.

In or around March 2004, Ali Kushayb personally participated in the execution of at least 32 men from Mukjar. The evidence shows Ali Kushayb standing near the entrance of the prison and hitting these men as they filed past and into Land Cruisers. The vehicles left with Ali Kushayb in one of them. About fifteen minutes later, gunshots were heard and the next day 32 dead bodies were found in the bushes.

The Application [which is the term for Ocampo's presentation of evidence] alleges that Ahmad Harun and Ali Kushayb bear criminal responsibility in relation to 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including: rape; murder; persecution; torture; forcible transfer; destruction of property; pillaging; inhumane acts; outrage upon personal dignity; attacks against the civilian population; and unlawful imprisonment or severe deprivation of liberty.

Many can ask, why, when hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions have suffered, why just single out these two men? What does this presentation of evidence to a court sitting in the Hague in Europe accomplish? Why single them out? Because that is where you start and because this submission by the prosecutor illustrates a direct chain of command from the janjaweed, who rode into the villages on horseback to rape, murder, and plunder, to the official government in Khartoum that orchestrated these atrocities.

It is an act of accountability, when up to now there has been none. But it is not enough.

The International Criminal Court has issued summonses for the two men named by Mr. Ocampo. If they do not appear, it must issue arrest warrants. If the Sudanese Government does not turn them over, then the United Nations Security Council must act.

But this is about far more than two individuals. It is time for the United States of America to lead. Here in Congress, we have been told that progress is being made. I do not see it at all. We have been told that we cannot push harder at the United Nations because the Chinese may veto any resolution we put forward.

I have a simple proposition. Let's put this matter before the U.N. Security Council. Let's let the American representative--our Ambassador--to the United Nations vote in accordance with our finding that a genocide is taking place. Let's let every civilized nation in the world know where we stand. And let's ask them on the record where they stand.

If any country--China or any other--wants to step up and say we should take no action to stop this genocide, so be it. Let the record of history show where they stand as this genocide unfolds.

Congress has passed many bills giving the administration additional sanctions they can presently use as tools by the United States to stop this genocide.

On two different occasions, I have spoken directly and personally with the President about Darfur. I feel very intensely about it. I have said on the floor before--and I think it bears repeating--as a student in this city at Georgetown University, I had a famous professor named Jan Karski. He was in the Polish Underground during World War II and came to the United States to try to alert them to the evidence that he had accumulated about the Holocaust that was taking place. He was a man who spoke broken English, but he was on a mission, looking for anyone who would listen to him, praying that the United States, that he heard so much about, would step forward and do something to stop this Holocaust. He met with a few individuals. He did not get to the highest levels of our Government and left in frustration, having accomplished very little.

Some 25 or 30 years later, Dr. Karski was a professor at my university. I remember when he told that story, I thought to myself: How could this happen? How could 6 million people die and no one do anything about it? He tried. At least he tried. But what about everyone else? I did not understand it. But now I do. I do because I have watched what has happened in Darfur since the genocide was declared. The honest answer is: Almost nothing. And the honest answer is: The United States of America has done almost nothing.

I have asked the President directly, I have spoken to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and I have spoken to all who will listen, begging them to do something, something to respond to this declared genocide.

Special Envoy Andrew Natsios said that come January 1, the United States would exercise sanctions if Sudan did not agree to a joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission.

Well, January 1 came and went and no mission was allowed. There is no joint peacekeeping mission in the Sudan today, and it is March 1.

I believe we should use every economic and diplomatic tool at our disposal. We should implement additional sanctions immediately. But, more importantly, we must convince other countries and the United Nations to do the same. And it starts with us personally, divesting ourselves of those businesses that are doing business in Sudan.

I made this speech and put out a press release a month or two ago, and some enterprising reporter went through the 5 or 10 mutual funds my wife and I owned and spotted one that had an investment in PetroChina. PetroChina is the Chinese oil company in the Sudan. He identified that mutual fund, and I sold it immediately. I was not embarrassed because you cannot really keep up with a mutual fund and everything they own. But I knew I had an obligation to do something once I was advised.

It wasn't that difficult for my family. Certainly it didn't damage my portfolio, as modest as it may be. But I ask everyone, if you seriously believe that the genocide in Darfur must end, start by seeing what you can do personally. Every American should ask if their investments are going to support the Government of Sudan. Every mutual fund director should ask the same thing. I have written to every college and university in my State asking them to divest of investments in Sudan until the genocide in Darfur ends. Unilateral sanctions by the United States are important, but multilateral sanctions imposed by the United Nations can make a difference. Genocide occurs because the world allows it to occur. It is time to prove that the 21st century will be different.

Mr. President, just a few days ago--in fact, just yesterday--in the Washington Post, a woman who is well known to many, Angelina Jolie, published an article about the situation in Darfur. It is entitled ``Justice for Darfur.' Ms. Jolie, who is well known to all of us, is a comely actress whom I had a chance to meet a year or two ago when she came to town in her capacity as goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. She has certainly proven her skill as an actor, and I think she has demonstrated that her caring for people around the world is genuine. The article she wrote in the Washington Post is one that, at the end of my statement, I will ask to have printed in the Record so that it is an official part of our Senate proceedings. She is in Bahai, Chad. She says in this article ``Justice for Darfur' the following:

Sticking to this side of the Sudanese border is supposed to keep me safe.

Ms. Jolie writes:

By every measure--killings, rapes, the burning and looting of villages--the violence in Darfur has increased since my last visit in 2004. The death toll has passed 200,000; in 4 years of fighting, Janjaweed militia members have driven 2.5 million people from their homes, including the 26,000 refugees crowded into Oure Cassoni.

She talks about accountability. In this article, she says:

Accountability is a powerful force. It has the potential to change behavior--to check aggression by those who are used to acting with impunity. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, has said that genocide is not a crime of passion, it is a calculated offense. He's right. When crimes against humanity are punished consistently and severely, the killers' calculus will change.

Mr. President, she concludes by saying:

In my 5 years with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, I have visited more than 20 refugee camps in Sierra Leone, Congo, Kosovo and elsewhere. I have met families uprooted by conflict and lobbied governments to help them. Years later, I have found myself at the same camps, hearing the same stories and seeing the same lack of clean water, medicine, security and hope.

It has become clear to me that there will be no enduring peace without justice. History shows that there will be another Darfur, another exodus, in a vicious cycle of bloodshed and retribution. But an international court finally exists. It will be as strong as the support we give it. This might be the moment we stop the cycle of violence and end our tolerance for crimes against humanity.

What the worst people in the world fear most is justice. That's what we should deliver.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the article from the Washington Post be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I conclude by saying that the subcommittee which I chair of the Judiciary Committee, the Human Rights Subcommittee, had a hearing several weeks ago on genocide in Darfur. We are preparing legislation as a result of that hearing to authorize State and local governments and others to divest of investments in Sudan and businesses that are doing business in Sudan and furthermore to extend the authority of the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute those whom we find guilty of genocide in foreign lands. That authority currently exists for those whom we accuse and wish to prosecute for torture; the same thing should apply to crimes of genocide.

Those two legislative changes may help, but in the meantime it is time for our Government to help. I commended the Bush administration 4 years ago when they finally used the word ``genocide' as it related to Darfur. I thanked then-Secretary of State Colin Powell for his courage in using that word. I said the same to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. But, having said that, we must understand that if we use the word and fail to act, what does it say of us? If we acknowledge that a genocide is taking place and do nothing, what does it say of America?

We have the power to do things, to change this. It will take political courage, not only in the White House but here in Congress. History will write in years to come whether we acted or not, as it is written about the lack of response to the Holocaust. I sincerely hope history will judge us late to the cause but rising with a sense of justice that is necessary to end this terrible killing.

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