Declaring Genocide In Darfur, Sudan

DECLARING GENOCIDE IN DARFUR, SUDAN -- (House of Representatives - July 21, 2004)

Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 467) declaring genocide in Darfur, Sudan, as amended.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank our distinguished ranking member for yielding me this time and for his leadership on this very important issue.

In the very short time allotted to me, I want to commend my colleagues for being so vocal on this issue at this time and, frankly, for a very long time. I have said before when we had another resolution, an earlier resolution, on the floor that there is no Member of Congress that I hold in higher esteem than the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) for his work on human rights throughout the world. And he has been a leader on this issue, visiting over the years, warning America, warning the world of the impending disaster that was there in one form or another over time.

And the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) has taken the lead in the Committee on International Relations on this important issue, and it has not been because Members of Congress, especially the Congressional Black Caucus in the Congress, have not blown the whistle, have not sounded the alarm, have not called the public's attention to what is happening there.

And the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), of course, as the cochair of the Human Rights Caucus, has been singing this song for a very long time. Why do people not listen?

When the tragedy occurred in Rwanda, everyone was embarrassed, sad, and contrite and said that it was not going to happen again. Never again could we ignore all of God's children being destroyed by each other and sit back and watch it happen to the tune of hundreds of thousands of people.

We have now been told that 30,000 people will die in the Sudan, and if we do not act, then hundreds of thousands more will die. How can we tolerate this? How can we call ourselves persons who care about every person living on the face of the Earth and not care about each and every one of these children and their parents and their families in the Sudan?

The issue today is one that we have discussed before. Is it ethnic cleansing or is it genocide? And if it is genocide, then it should provoke a reaction from all of the countries of the world who consider themselves civilized and respectful of human rights and, quite frankly, those of us and I know the motivation of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) and some of our other colleagues on both sides of the aisle in this regard springs from our belief that all of these people are God's children, worthy of respect.

The Bible tells us that to minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship; to ignore God's creation, which are these children, is to dishonor the God who made them. Right now, the world is dishonoring God. We are not committing acts of worship; we are committing acts of negligence.

It is genocide, and the perpetrators of this genocide sit with impunity in Khartoum and say they are engaged in all of this as a matter of self-defense. Is it self-defense to rape women five, six times over again so that they cannot even go home to their husbands in a society which finds that unforgiveable on the part of the woman? Is it self-defense to have children starve because food cannot get through?

Seeing the pictures of those children challenges the conscience of the world, and yet we are having a debate on semantics in the world. But not in this House. In this House we know it, we call it for what it is.

As the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) said, a calculated, focused, intended elimination of these people; and that very clearly spells out what the definition of genocide is and how what is happening in the Sudan meets that standard and therefore should invoke certain actions by the rest of the world.

We all believe very strongly that something has to be done. But in light of what we said after Rwanda, we are considered hypocritical or inconsistent or just with very poor memory if we do not act upon this now. We must all answer for the genocide that is happening in the Sudan.

So I commend my colleagues for their tremendous leadership. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), the Black Caucus, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), and others have worked so hard on this for such a long time. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) was just there last weekend and brings back personal stories of what he saw. So I thank them. Any one of us who wants something to happen there is deeply in their debt, as are the people of the Sudan. We must make a difference on this. I thank them for taking these steps to do so.