Geoncide Accountability Act of 2007
Floor Speech
GENOCIDE ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - March 22, 2007)
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to speak about S. 888, the Genocide Accountability Act. It is a bipartisan bill I have introduced with Senator TOM COBURN of Oklahoma, Senator PATRICK LEAHY of Vermont, and Senator JOHN CORNYN of Texas.
This Genocide Accountability Act is the first legislation produced by the Judiciary Committee's new Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, which I chair and Senator Coburn serves as ranking member.
I wish to thank organizations that have endorsed this act, including Africa Action, the American Jewish World Service, Amnesty International USA, the Armenian Assembly of America, the Armenian National Committee of America, the Genocide Intervention Network, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, Refugees International, and the Save Darfur Coalition.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter from the organizations I have just mentioned supporting this legislation.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:
March 15, 2007.
Hon. Richard J. Durbin,
Hon. Tom Coburn,
Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Durbin and Ranking Member Coburn: We write to express our strong support for the Genocide Accountability Act. We believe this legislation, a product of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law's inaugural hearing on genocide, is necessary in order to enable the United States to lead the world in bringing perpetrators of the most serious human rights crimes to justice. We look forward to its swift enactment into law.
Winston Churchill once remarked that the extermination of Jews in Europe was ``a crime without a name.'' That inspired Raphael Lemkin to name it, and he then devoted his life to codifying the crime of genocide in international law. Lemkin's work culminated in the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The most serious human rights crime had a name, but since 1988, when the United States formally ratified the treaty, genocide has been a crime under U.S. law only in the narrowest of circumstances.
The Genocide Implementation Act (18 U.S.C. 1091), enacted in 1987 as a prerequisite to the United States becoming a party to the Genocide Convention, provides jurisdiction over the crime of genocide only in circumstances where the perpetrator is a U.S. citizen or the crime took place in the United States. Since the time that law was enacted, the world's pledge that it would ``never again'' tolerate mass slaughter has been mocked again and again--in Bosnia, in Rwanda and now in Darfur. As the violence in Darfur rages into its fifth year, the United States must do all it can to deter those who act with seeming impunity, including by removing any barriers to prosecution in this country of those responsible for genocide.
The Genocide Accountability Act would accomplish this by enabling the Department of Justice to prosecute foreign nationals suspected of genocide who are present in the United States. This is not merely a theoretical concern. The Justice Department has already identified individuals who may have participated in the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides and are currently living in the United States under false pretenses, but current law fails to provide jurisdiction to charge them with that crime.
Like the pirate and the slave trader, perpetrators of genocide are rightly considered to be the enemies of all mankind. The United States must not remain passive when those suspected of genocide enter or are found in its territory. By eliminating barriers to prosecution, as the United States has done in the cases of hostage-taking, torture, and other serious crimes, the Genocide Accountability Act will ensure that perpetrators of genocide do not evade accountability when they are present in the United States. We welcome its introduction and strongly urge its enactment into law.
Sincerely,
Africa Action, American Jewish World Service, Amnesty International USA, Arab American Institute, Armenian National Committee of America, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Genocide Intervention Network, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, Open Society Policy Center, Physicians for Human Rights, Refugees International, Save Darfur Coalition.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Leahy for allowing the creation of this new subcommittee in Judiciary that is known as Human Rights and the Law. It is the first time in the 218-year history of the Senate such a committee has been designated, and I am honored to serve as its chair.
After our first hearing on genocide in Darfur, we decided it was time to close the legal loopholes that prevent the U.S. Justice Department from prosecuting people in our country who have committed genocide. This legislation is a result of our first hearing. We heard about these gaps in the law and found them hard to believe. Unlike the laws of torture, piracy, material support for terrorism, terrorism financing, hostage taking, and many other Federal crimes, laws related to genocide do not allow the arrest and prosecution in the United States of people who are not U.S. citizens, or who have not committed the act of genocide in our Nation. Of course, those are few and far between. There is no reason to treat genocide, perhaps the worst crime known to humanity, differently than any of these crimes.
During the Human Rights Subcommittee's hearings, we heard from Romeo Dallaire. He is now a member of the Canadian Senate, and he was the general in charge of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Rwanda in 1994. He tried desperately to stop that genocide, and many people refused to even listen. Two notable exceptions were former colleagues in the Senate: my predecessor, Senator Paul Simon of Illinois, and a man whom I respect very much and recently retired, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont. They appealed to the Clinton administration to send troops into Rwanda--just a small force to stop the massacre--but sadly, the administration did not respond. President Clinton has said it was the worst mistake of his administration. His candor and honesty are appreciated, but we should learn from that mistake.
Despite all of the world's solemn promises, today in Darfur, in western Sudan, another genocide rages. In a region of 6 million people, hundreds of thousands have been killed, and over 2 million people have been displaced. For them, the commitment of ``never again'' rings very hollow. Earlier this month, Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir sent a letter to the U.N. Secretary General rejecting the core elements of the plan to send U.N. peacekeepers to Darfur. Bashir claimed that U.N. and African peacekeeping forces have no authority to protect civilians in his country, saying Sudan bears the primary responsibility.
Four years into the genocide, the claim that the Khartoum regime will protect civilians in Darfur is not only implausible, it is offensive. President Bashir has thumbed his nose at the international community. The question is: How will we respond, once having declared a genocide?
Last week a U.N. human rights team reporting on Darfur called for U.N. Security Council intervention, tougher sanctions, and criminal prosecution of guilty parties. They also called for the international community's response to the genocide in Darfur immediately.
The U.N. human rights team is led by Jody Williams, a genuine American hero who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to ban landmines. Upon completing her investigation of Darfur, Ms. Williams had a message for the international community. She said:
If you're not prepared to act on what you say, don't say it.
Jody Williams is right. We have to do more than just talk about genocide in Darfur. Today, joined by Senator Sam Brownback, a Republican of Kansas, and 30 of my colleagues, I sent a letter to the President urging him to put the question of meaningful multilateral sanctions to a vote before the U.N. Security Council. We have been told in the past that one of the permanent members of this council may veto the resolution. I say: So be it. Let that nation stand up in front of the world and say they are going to veto this effort to stop this mass murder.
We recognize there are political risks to advancing this strategy, but it is time to weigh those risks against the damage that is being done and the verdict of history. It is our moral obligation to do everything we can to stop this genocide in Darfur.
Another important step is to make clear the commitment of the United States to hold accountable those who are guilty of this ultimate crime. It is hard to imagine that individuals in the Sudanese Government whom we have identified as being involved in genocide have come to the United States and have been treated as visiting dignitaries, and have traveled with impunity around our Nation. It is hard to imagine we would turn our back on the fact of what they have done in their own home country.
I am pleased the International Criminal Court is moving forward with this investigation into the Darfur genocide, but that does not excuse the United States from its obligation to prosecute war criminals who seek safe haven or even travel in the United States.
It is not just Darfur. The Justice Department has identified individuals who participated in the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides living now in the United States under false pretenses. How can we let the United States be a safe haven for those who are guilty of genocide around the world? The fact is the law is on their side. American law doesn't give us the authority to arrest and prosecute these individuals, and that is why I have introduced this legislation, to change the law and let them know they can no longer seek a safe haven in the United States.
The Genocide Accountability Act says if you commit genocide anywhere in the world and come to the United States, America will hold you accountable under the law. This is the first legislation produced by the Human Rights Subcommittee. There will be more bills to follow. But I doubt the subcommittee or any other committee in Congress will face another issue as compelling as this genocide in Darfur.
In 1862, 1 month before he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln sent a message to Congress proposing to end slavery. His words reach us even today when he said:
We--even we here--hold the power and bear the responsibility.
Those words remain true. We here, even now, hold the power and bear the responsibility to do all we can to stop this genocide. Enacting the Genocide Accountability Act is an important step to ending impunity for perpetrators of genocide.
Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. I ask unanimous consent that the letter which was sent to the President be printed in the Record.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
U.S. SENATE,
Washington, DC, March 22, 2007.
The President,
The White House,
Washington, DC.
DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: We write to you as Members of Congress who are deeply concerned about the ongoing genocide in Darfur and equally frustrated by the inability or unwillingness of the international community to put a halt to it. Last August, the United Nations Security Council passed UNSC Resolution 1706, which expanded the mandate of the United Nations Mission in Sudan to include Darfur and stated that over 20,000 military and civilian police personnel were to be deployed as peacekeepers in the region. Over six months have passed and fewer than 200 UN personnel have been deployed because of the Sudanese government's refusal to comply with what the Security Council has authorized.
History demonstrates that Sudan's leadership does not respond to this type of request. We believe that it is time for the Security Council to enact a new resolution, imposing multilateral economic sanctions on the Sudanese government and targeted sanctions on individuals named by the UN Commission of inquiry as being responsible for crimes against humanity.
We recognize that previous U.S.-led efforts to move stronger resolutions at the Security Council have been deterred by the threat of a veto by one or more of the Permanent Members. We frankly urge you to introduce and push for a vote on a resolution imposing multilateral sanctions regardless. Let a country stand before the community of nations and announce that it is vetoing the best effort we can muster to build the leverage necessary to end ongoing mass murder.
There are political risks to advancing this strategy, but we urge you to weigh those risks against the verdict of history if we fail to try. If the Security Council does not act, the United States should engage with our allies to create a coalition that will impose economic penalties on the Sudanese government. The United States has already implemented a number of unilateral sanctions, and we understand that you are considering still more, a development that we would applaud. However. the real key to changing Khartoum's behavior most likely lies in multilateral sanctions, especially those aimed at the Sudanese oil industry.
We encourage you to put this matter before the United Nations Security Council as soon as possible. A threatened veto should not silence us.
We know that you share our commitment to this issue and we commend your courage in recognizing this genocide for what it is. We look forward to continuing our efforts until a timely solution to the crisis in Darfur is found.
Sincerely,
Dick Durbin, Joe Biden, Carl Levin, Russell D. Feingold, Bill Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, Sam Brownback, John E. Sununu, Mel Martinez, Jack Reed, Tom Harkin, Barbara A. Mikulski, Barack Obama, Robert Menendez, Dianne Feinstein, John Cornyn, Susan Collins, Wayne Allard, Mark Pryor, Richard Burr, Sherrod Brown, Olympia Snowe, Frank R. Lautenberg, Amy Klobuchar, Mike Crapo, Maria Cantwell, Elizabeth Dole, Patty Murray, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chris Dodd, Jim Webb, John F. Kerry, Pat Roberts.
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