Darfur

Floor Speech

DARFUR -- (Senate - May 24, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I come to the floor this evening to address the ongoing genocide in Darfur. I have been coming to the floor almost every week to try to make certain we don't forget what is happening in Sudan, even as we focus most of our energy on important issues such as the war in Iraq, immigration reform, and so many other things on our Senate agenda. But the crisis in Sudan is simply too great for us to ignore. It has now been over 2 1/2 years since the President quite rightly called the situation in Sudan what it is, a genocide. It was September 9, 2004, when the President made that courageous statement, and we all know a statement like that has historic importance.

The United States, under the 1948 U.N. Convention on Genocide, is committed to providing effective penalties against the killers if it deems that genocide is taking place. We are compelled to act. Yet sadly, we have done precious little to change the situation to this point.

It is true that Congress, the administration, the private sector, and the nonprofit community have taken some steps to increase the pressure on the Sudanese Government to stop the killings and mass displacement of innocent people. That is at least a start. In Congress, Members have spoken out against the killings. They have introduced resolutions of condemnation, and they have proposed legislation in an effort to do something. I have introduced legislation that would support state governments which decide to encourage public funds to divest from Sudan-related investments. That bill has attracted strong bipartisan cosponsorship from over 25 Members of the Senate. Some of us have tried to make the right personal decisions to divest from Sudan-related investments in our own savings as a gesture of solidarity with the divestiture movement. But we have to do so much more.

As for the Bush administration, the Office of Foreign Assets Control within the Treasury Department, working with many agencies and departments, has worked hard to tighten economic and political sanctions against the leaders and supporters of the Sudanese regime. President Bush spoke out at the Holocaust Museum a few weeks ago. He has vowed to keep pushing for change in Sudan. Yet the administration must do more.

In the private sector, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Fidelity recently decided to sell part of its stake in PetroChina, a company listed on to the New York Stock Exchange, the parent of which is a state-owned Chinese oil company with massive operations in Sudan. Fidelity sold 91 percent of its PetroChina holdings in the United States and even though that only amounts to 38 percent of its global PetroChina holdings, this is nonetheless a positive sign. The divestiture movement is under way. Other investment firms such as Calvert have gone a step further and promised to hold no shares of any firm that operates to the benefit of the Government of Sudan. Yet the private sector must do more.

Within the nonprofit community, organizations such as the Sudan Divestment Task Force and the Genocide Intervention Network continue to apply pressure to governments and to private firms to get them all to do more to stop the genocide. Yet they too must do more. All of us must work together to do more in Congress, in the private sector, among nonprofit organizations and, yes, individuals and families concerned about this terrible situation. To that end, I am working with my colleagues in the Senate and House and with the Bush administration, with private sector advisors, and with the advocacy community to craft a new bill that will apply even more economic pressure on the Sudanese regime and those who support it.

My bill, which I will introduce when we return, is the Sudanese Disclosure and Enforcement Act. It would do the following: First, it expresses the sense of the Congress that the international community should continue to bring pressure against the Government of Sudan in order to convince that regime that the world will not allow this crisis to continue unabated.

Second, it requires more detailed SEC disclosures by U.S.-listed companies that operate in the Sudanese petroleum sector, in order to provide more information to investors that are considering divestiture.

Third, it increases civil and criminal penalties for violating American economic sanctions in order to create a true deterrent.

Fourth, it requires the administration to report on the effectiveness of the current sanctions regime and recommend other steps Congress can take to help end the crisis.

Fifth, it authorizes greater resources for the Office of Foreign Assets Control within the Department of Treasury to strengthen its capabilities in tracking Sudanese economic activity and pursuing sanctions violators.

I will introduce this bill when we return. I urge my colleagues to seriously consider it, and I hope they will join me.

I have recently written to President Bush urging him to support the bill but also to take the next step. He

promised 5 weeks ago to take action. His speech was at an auspicious location, the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, a museum which notes the terrible tragedy that befell 6 million people during World War II. The President said on that day:

You who have survived evil know that the only way to defeat it is to look it in the face and not back down. It is evil we are now seeing in Sudan--and we're not going to back down.

He went on to say:

No one who sees these pictures can doubt that genocide is the only word for what is happening in Darfur and that we have a moral obligation to stop it.

Those are the words of the President. They are words worth repeating. The President declared that the current negotiations between the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and President Bashir of Sudan are ``the last chance'' for Sudan to do the following: Follow through on the deployment of U.N. support forces, allow the deployment of a full joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force, end support for the Janjaweed militia, reach out to rebel leaders, allow humanitarian aid to reach the people of Darfur, stop his pattern of destruction once and for all.

President Bush then declared that if Bashir does not follow these steps, in a short time the Bush administration will take the following steps, in the President's words: Tighten U.S. economic sanctions on Sudan, target sanctions against individuals responsible for the violence, and prepare a strong new United Nations Security Council resolution.

Five weeks later, a short time has passed, and now it is time to act. In these 5 weeks, President Bashir has ignored the world. In fact, a spokesperson for the Secretary General of the United Nations has called recently renewed bombing in Sudan indiscriminate and a violation of international law. While we wait, while we ponder, while we think, while we work, while we vacation, innocent people die, victims of a genocide. How will history judge us? Will it judge us for having acknowledged this genocide and responding, or will it judge us for having acknowledged this terrible tragedy and responded with nothing?

It is time to act. We must do more. This is simply too important and too historic to ignore any longer.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source