World is Silent as Sudan Renews Genocidal Attacks

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak about the
deteriorating humanitarian and human rights situation inside Sudan.
Regrettably, as the attention of the world has been pulled in many
different directions, the people of Sudan have been forgotten.
For over a year and a half, the situation inside Sudan has been
getting worse and worse. It happens quietly, out of the limelight, but
the suffering of the Sudanese people is not silent. Their cries are
deafening to those trying to help.
On July 22, 2004, the House of Representatives adopted House
Concurrent Resolution 467 by a vote of 422-0. That resolution declared
that the crimes of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in Darfur
constituted genocide.
Over a decade later, the Sudanese government has renewed and
increased its genocidal attacks in Darfur. As humanitarian agencies
withdraw from the region, unable to carry out their missions in the
face of unrelenting attacks, the civilian and displaced populations of
Darfur are left without protection and without witnesses.
In the past weeks, the government-supported Janjaweed--now
reincarnated as Bashir's Rapid Support Forces, or RSF--have intensified
their scorched earth campaign of attacks, bombings, rape, displacement,
and destruction.
According to the Satellite Sentinel Project and the Enough project,
these forces are ``better equipped, centrally commanded, and fully
integrated into the state's security apparatus, with legal immunity
from prosecution.''
According to reports by United to End Genocide, since January 1, at
least 20,000 innocent civilians have been forced to flee their homes in
Darfur. President al-Bashir is bombing civilians, blocking the
investigation of the reported mass rape of over 200 Darfuri women and,
in the midst of the sharpest increase in violence in years, demanding
the removal of U.N. peacekeepers.
On January 6, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs reported that 115 villages have either been
abandoned or burned to the ground in North Darfur. Attackers have
forced women, children, and the elderly to leave their villages with
nothing to survive on, often looting everything belonging to civilians.
It is clear that the RSF and their masters in Khartoum are engaged in
a campaign to strip the people of Darfur of everything they own,
anything that might keep them alive, and condemn them to increasing
poverty displacement, starvation, and death. And the world--including
Congress and the U.N. Security Council--remains silent.
In the border states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile, defenseless
civilians in the Nuba Mountains face a relentless bombing campaign by
the Sudanese Air Force and ground attacks by the Sudanese Armed Forces.
On January 20, a hospital in South Kordofan run by Doctors Without
Borders was deliberately targeted by an aerial bombing campaign,
depriving the local population of lifesaving care.
In the past few months, under the auspices of the African Union,
countries from the region, as well as the United States and Europe,
have sought to bring the Bashir regime and various rebel forces to the
table in order to negotiate a cessation of hostilities and promote an
inclusive national dialogue. This is a worthy effort with worthy goals,
but while such talks meander, Khartoum continues its genocidal campaign
to impose military solutions to the political crisis facing Sudan.
President Bashir has no political solution to Sudan's problems. As
the people of Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile know only too well,
displacement, starvation, and death are the only strategies being
pursued by the government in real time and in real life.
It is unconscionable--it is shameful--that these horrors are taking
place inside Sudan in complete silence. The lack of response by the
United States, by the Europeans, by the nations of the region only
serves to provide Bashir with a green light to continue the killing.
Over 10 years ago, Congress called these very same actions acts of
genocide and crimes against humanity. At the end of this month, I
intend to reintroduce an updated version of my bipartisan bill, the
Sudan Peace, Security, and Accountability Act, and demonstrate to the
suffering people of Sudan--especially those in Darfur, South Kordofan,
and Blue Nile--that we hear their cries and that this House intends to
take action.
I ask all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in
this effort.

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