CPSC Reform Act -- Resumed

Floor Speech

CPSC REFORM ACT--RESUMED -- (Senate - March 06, 2008)

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I rise at this moment to discuss a resolution that the Senate enacted last night by unanimous consent relating to the situation in Darfur. Darfur is a region of Sudan that has been in the newspaper for years because of the genocide that has been sadly unfolding in that part of the world.

I introduced this resolution because I think we have reached a critical point where we must act to stop this genocide in Sudan. I am proud that 40 Senators from both sides agree it is time to say ``no more.''

For more than 4 years, the world has watched this humanitarian crisis unfold--thousands have been murdered, tortured, raped, and displaced. Thousands more are languishing in refugee camps.

Leaders from around the world--including President Bush, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, former President Jimmy Carter, Bangladesh microfinance champion Muhammed Yunus, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu--have all called for an end to this violence.

Here at home--and it has been gratifying as I traveled around my State to find this--thousands of people, including many high school and college students, are well aware of this genocide. Church leaders and other activists have helped raise awareness of the horrible human suffering that has occurred in Darfur. Senators on both sides of the aisle have spoken out passionately about this crisis.

Last year, the U.N. Security Council voted to deploy a historic peacekeeping mission to Darfur, but that was last year. Under significant international pressure, the Sudanese Government agreed at that time to the deployment. The 26,000-member U.N. African Union peacekeeping force is to be deployed to Darfur to halt the violence and create conditions for peace and a long-term political settlement.

There was speculation about whether we can get the peacekeeping force in place before the end of last year. Sadly, despite all of the promises of last year, the Sudanese Government has done everything they can to stop the deployment of the peacekeeping force. It has brazenly obstructed this full deployment. I will give you an example: Sudan's leaders balked at the deployment of non-African forces. Last month, government forces in Sudan actually fired upon a peacekeeping convoy.

In recent months, the regime has even appointed notorious figures who were knowingly complicit in this genocide in Darfur--including two accused of war crimes--to senior government positions. It is almost a brazen defiance to the rest of the world that Sudan, on one hand, would agree to a peacekeeping force, and on the other hand, shoot at those who come and try to bring peace to their country, and then exalt to the highest levels some of the worst characters in their country.

Many of you have seen the article on the front page of last Sunday's New York Times about the latest devastating violence in Sudan. This isn't yesterday's genocide or yesterday's moral challenge; this challenge goes on today. The article in the New York Times highlighted how the Sudanese Government continues to defy the international community and murder its own people.

I am going to show you an aerial photograph that appeared in the New York Times, which shows the torched Sudanese village of Suleia. Government forces and allied militias burned the village only a few weeks ago. As you can see, there is nothing left. I don't know if a long view of this, for those observing it, will do it justice. But those who have flown over the area say it looks like cigarette burns across the landscape. Each of these so-called cigarette burns reflects a fire that was lit to a small thatch hut where people were living, people who were forced out, some who were captured, tortured, mutilated, and raped, and some who were taken away. Many had to run away, leaving behind this blighted landscape as a stark reminder that despite all of the speeches and resolutions and all of the determination, genocide in Darfur continues, sadly, to this day.

Witnesses said militiamen in that town laid waste to the town, burning huts, pillaging shops, carrying off any loot they could find, and shooting anyone who stood in their way--men, women, or children.

The attack included aerial bombing and Sudanese Government army ground forces. That the Sudanese Government has returned to these brutal coordinated attacks shows its utter contempt for the international community and its own people.

Rich Williamson is an attorney in Chicago who has served in a capacity with the Department of State in previous years and now has taken the place of Andrew Natzios as a special envoy to deal with this situation in Darfur. We certainly have different political views, but when he came to visit my office, we found that we are of the same mind about this particular crisis and the need for an urgent response to the Sudanese Government. We cannot allow Darfur to slide back into the horrible situation that we know took place over the last several years.

While much of the world's attention has been on Darfur, the comprehensive peace agreement between north and south Sudan has also become increasingly at risk. This agreement, signed in 2005 with the strong support of the United States, brought an end to two decades of civil war between north and south Sudan that had left 2 million dead. Yet the government in Khartoum appears to be backing away from its commitment to this agreement and instead preparing once again for war.

Remember what fuels this war: Oil fuels this war--oil sold by the Sudanese to the Chinese, to the Indians, and to a handful of other nationalized oil companies. It is the profit of those sales that is fueling this war that is killing so many innocent people.

We cannot allow the agreement to bring peace in Sudan to be undermined, and we cannot ignore what is happening again in Darfur. It is time to bring an end to this violence and time to set conditions for a long-term peace. I salute Senator Biden for leading a resolution last month calling on the President to immediately address any equipment shortcomings with the peacekeeping force. I completely agree with Senator Biden. The White House must not allow a modest shortage of equipment to prolong the suffering in Darfur.

Last night, the Senate passed my resolution, with the support of 40 Senators from both sides of the aisle, to call for an immediate halt to this violence and a commitment from both sides to participate in a new round of peace talks.

The resolution also calls upon the Government of Sudan to facilitate the immediate and unfettered deployment of the U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force, including any and all non-African peacekeepers. Sudan and Khartoum gave their agreement last year. They must be held to their promise. It calls upon the diverse rebel movements to set aside their difference and start to work together in order to better represent the people of Darfur. It condemns any action by any party--government or rebel--that undermines or delays the peace process. It calls upon the Government of Sudan to enable humanitarian organizations to have full unfettered access to populations in need, and it calls upon all parties to the comprehensive peace agreement between north and south Sudan to support and respect all terms of the agreement.

We have allowed the genocide in Darfur to continue for too long. We have allowed a brutal regime to repeatedly obstruct and ignore the international community. It is time, once and for all, to bring an end to this violence in Sudan.

It was my high honor to serve as the successor to Paul Simon, from Illinois, who served in this body for 12 years. He was my closest friend in politics and my mentor, and he helped me along to win this Senate seat and to represent this great State. Paul Simon was at a critical place at that moment in history. He was chairman of the African Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee when the genocide in Rwanda broke out. His ranking Republican member was Jim Jeffords of Vermont.

The two of them, when they noted what was happening in Rwanda, decided to step up and try to persuade the Clinton administration to send even a small peacekeeping force in to stop the killing in Rwanda. They reached out directly to the President, as well as the Secretary of State and other officials in the Clinton administration, with no results. The net impact, of course, was we did nothing and 800,000 people died.

I was in Rwanda a year or two ago with Senator Brownback. We stayed at the hotel made famous by the movie ``Hotel Rwanda.'' Don Cheadle played the actor's role of the hero, the manager who stepped up and saved so many innocent lives by making his hotel a refuge. We stayed in that same hotel. I was haunted walking through the hallways and corridors of that almost-empty hotel. I think of the thousands of people who wondered if they were going to be attacked or killed as they waited there, hoping the genocide would end.

At the end of the day, after weeks of bloodshed, over 800,000 people were murdered in the streets of Rwanda--innocent people murdered simply because of their tribal affiliation.

President Clinton did many good things, and he now reflects on his service and said this is one thing he did not do well; he could have done better. He has returned to Africa and visited Rwanda and has said as much. I think it is courageous of him to make that admission and to realize a little effort could have made a difference.

How many speeches have we heard in this Chamber and in this town about Darfur, over and over again. Yet the simple reality is, despite all the speeches by the President, by Senators, by Members of Congress, little or nothing has been done. This genocide has unfolded on our watch. When we are critical of previous generations for not doing enough during the Nazi Holocaust or during some of the other horrendous events that occurred around the world--certainly the Rwanda genocide--we say: How could they have been blind to the reality of what is happening here?

We still cannot be blinded to the reality of what is happening in Darfur, and each of us, either by our church groups or schools or Members of Congress making a statement on the floor or calling in the appropriate ambassadors or calling in the U.N. General Secretary, have to urge them to take action now to bring an end to this genocide.

I wish to make certain this Senate is on record, and I thank all those who helped last night to pass this resolution, but it is not enough, and it will not be enough until we make significant strides to end this bloodshed in Darfur.

I yield the floor.

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