[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
SUDAN: A REVIEW OF THE ADMINISTRATION'S NEW POLICY AND A SITUATION
UPDATE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA AND GLOBAL HEALTH
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 3, 2009
__________
Serial No. 111-76
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
______
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California, Chairman
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
Samoa DAN BURTON, Indiana
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey ELTON GALLEGLY, California
BRAD SHERMAN, California DANA ROHRABACHER, California
ROBERT WEXLER, DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
FloridaUntil 1/4/ EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
10 deg. RON PAUL, Texas
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts MIKE PENCE, Indiana
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York JOE WILSON, South Carolina
DIANE E. WATSON, California JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey CONNIE MACK, Florida
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas
JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee TED POE, Texas
GENE GREEN, Texas BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
LYNN WOOLSEY, California GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
BARBARA LEE, California
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
MIKE ROSS, Arkansas
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia
JIM COSTA, California
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona
RON KLEIN, Florida
Richard J. Kessler, Staff Director
Yleem Poblete, Republican Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey, Chairman
DIANE E. WATSON, California CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
BARBARA LEE, California JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
LYNN WOOLSEY, California
Noelle LuSane, Subcommittee Staff Director
Lindsay Gilchrist, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member
Sheri Rickert, Republican Professional Staff Member
Antonina King, Staff Associate
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Major General Scott Gration, USAF, Retired, United States Special
Envoy to Sudan, U.S. Department of State....................... 12
Randy Newcomb, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer,
Humanity United................................................ 35
Mr. Enrico Carisch, Former Coordinator, United Nations Panel of
Experts on the Sudan........................................... 43
Mr. John Prendergast, Co-founder, Enough Project................. 53
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Donald M. Payne, a Representative in Congress from
the State of New Jersey, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Africa
and Global Health: Prepared statement.......................... 4
Major General Scott Gration, USAF, Retired: Prepared statement... 15
Randy Newcomb, Ph.D.: Prepared statement......................... 38
Mr. Enrico Carisch: Prepared statement........................... 48
Mr. John Prendergast: Prepared statement......................... 58
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 78
Hearing minutes.................................................. 79
The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New Jersey: Prepared statement............... 80
SUDAN: A REVIEW OF THE ADMINISTRATION'S NEW POLICY AND A SITUATION
UPDATE
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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2009
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:15 a.m. in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Donald M. Payne,
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Payne. The hearing of the Subcommittee on Africa and
Global Health will come to order. Agenda, Sudan: A Review of
the Administration's New Policy and a Situation Update.
First of all, let me begin by welcoming our first
panelists. But before we get into the hearing on Sudan, I would
like to regretfully report that this morning an estimated 20
people were killed in Mogadishu in Somalia, including three
ministers. Two of the ministers I knew very well. I visited
Mogadishu 7 months ago and met with these ministers, the
Minister of Education, the Minister of Health, and we had had
previous meetings in Nairobi. It was a graduation of the
medical school in Mogadishu where this tragedy occurred. And so
we would like to express our condolences to the victims and
their family members, the transitional Federal Government of
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and the people of Somalia.
Secondly, I just got off the phone with the President of
Puntland. Puntland, as you know, is one of the three Somali
regions that include Somalia, Puntland, and Somaliland. And we
just reached an agreement this morning on prisoners who were
being detained by the government of Puntland. These were people
from the Ogaden, and they were being held without cause. And so
we have been working with the President of Puntland to try to
get their release. And this morning the President will announce
that he will commute their sentences and he will release them.
And so I would like to thank the President of Puntland and
Amnesty International, and Jim Hill, who have been working with
Puntland's representative in the Ogaden community here in this
area.
Let me then move to our hearing this morning, Sudan: A
Review of the Administration's New Policy and a Situation
Update. Let me also express my deep appreciation to the
witnesses who are certainly among the most knowledgeable people
on Sudan. Over the years, we have held so many hearings and
briefings on Sudan, and people here are tremendously interested
in trying to bring attention to the suffering of innocent
civilians and in the hope of promoting a just peace for all.
Many believe and hope that the signing of the Comprehensive
Peace Agreement or the Darfur Peace Agreement would bring about
the much-desired peace and stability in Sudan. Unfortunately
and despite multiple efforts, millions of Sudanese continue to
suffer. I sometimes wonder if we will ever get a just peace in
Sudan as long as the al-Bashir regime is in power. For those
who still believe that a peace agreement with this regime will
bring an ending to the suffering, I say look again at the
situation in Darfur and in Abyei.
Some of us saw firsthand the aftermath of the burning of
Abyei by government and pro-government militia in May 2008 when
more than 50,000 people were displaced from their homes. As a
Senator, President Obama stated, ``For years, the Government of
Sudan has thwarted the will of the United States and the
international community and offended the standards of our
common humanity. Before we improve our relations with the
Government of Sudan, conditions must improve for the Sudanese
people. We cannot stand down. We must continue to stand up for
peace and human rights.''
I fully agree with then-Senator Obama, now our President.
It was not long ago that we witnessed another horrific genocide
in Africa. The international community, including the United
States, turned a blind eye to the gruesome genocide in Rwanda
in 1994. In Rwanda, an estimated 1 million people died in less
than 100 days. In Darfur, 6 years since the genocide began, the
people of Darfur are still waiting for the suffering to end.
A few years ago I stated, ``If Rwanda was a black mark on
our conscience, Darfur is a cancer that will destroy the moral
fiber of our society.'' This is still the case. I am not
opposed to a policy of engagement. In fact, I always argue we
should give peaceful dialogue a chance before we declare war.
For some, our policy is too focused on punitive measures. I
beg to differ. The United States has been at the forefront when
it comes to engagement. We never disengaged. The United States
has appointed more special envoys to Sudan than it has to any
other country in Africa. Why? In order to secure a just peace.
We have imposed punitive measures against this regime, but we
have always helped the Sudanese people.
In October 2009, last month, the Obama administration
announced a new policy toward Sudan. The policy focuses on
three priorities: An end to the conflict in Darfur,
implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the CPA,
and ensuring Sudan does not become a safe haven for
international terrorist groups.
The new policy clarifies a number of issues that surfaced
in recent months and reaffirms the conflict in Darfur, that it
is genocide, stating that the United States's primary objective
in Darfur is ``a definite end to conflict, gross human rights
abuses and genocide in Darfur.'' The new Sudan policy also
states that cooperation on counterterrorism without verified
progress on other issues will not lead to a normalization of
relations.
The administration also plans to enhance U.S. assistance to
South Sudan and to help prepare that country for a possible
two-state outcome should the people choose independence in the
2011 referendum. I fully support the policy objectives of the
new policy.
The question remains, What if the regime continues to
obstruct these efforts? What are we doing to promote justice
and accountability? The United States Government supports a
transparent, free and fair election in Sudan. Can those
elections be free and fair while 3 million people are still
displaced in refugee camps? By supporting the elections with
Bashir as a candidate, are we saying no to justice and
accountability? It is my hope that through the course of
today's hearing we will gain greater insight into these
critical issues.
Let me once again thank our distinguished witnesses. And
before I introduce them, let me turn to our Senator, who has
graced us. As you know, Senator Brownback has been a leading
witness and fighter on the questions of Sudan, and in lieu of
the ranking member, I will certainly turn the mike over. We are
pleased to have you with us, Mr. Senator.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Payne
follows:]Payne statement deg.
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much, Chairman Payne, I
appreciate it. Thank you for the invitation to be here today. I
know this is highly unusual, but I am honored and I am pleased.
I would note to the crowd, and a number of people already
know this, but when we declared genocide when it was taking
place in Darfur, it was Congressman Payne, you were the one
that led that effort and that charge. And a number of people
were saying, Well, do we really want to do this, is this really
the time, is this really the place? And you fought and said
yes, it is, let us not do it after it happens, let us try to
stop it while it is happening. And you leaned in aggressively,
and we did that for the first time in I believe the history of
this country. And it was important.
That is what draws my attention to be here today. In the
ashes of World War II, the international community adopted the
Geneva Convention and the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, designed among other
reasons to protect against and deter future mass atrocities.
Now, since its adoption, these conventions have served as
the basis for targeting and bringing to justice several
notorious war criminals and perpetrators of mass atrocities.
The United States has participated in several cases. We helped
to bring to justice former Serbian leader Karadzic, the so-
called Butcher of Bosnia, accused of slaughtering hundreds of
thousands of innocent people. We even put a $5 million reward
for information leading to his capture, and he currently
resides in prison at The Hague.
Charles Taylor, the warlord turned leader of Liberia,
assumed power in the 1990s on an election slogan of ``He killed
my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him.'' Taylor was
directly involved in coordinating and supporting unthinkable
atrocities over many years. The Congress passed legislation
offering a $2 million reward for Taylor's capture. He was
caught having fled to Nigeria and now sits in a prison at The
Hague alongside some of the world's worst offenders of human
rights. The United States was involved in that one as well.
Yet despite American interest and involvement in these and
other cases, there is only one instance in the history of the
United States when our Government acknowledged and declared a
genocide at the time it was taking place. It was one I just
alluded to. That place is Sudan, and the genocide declared in
2004 continues under our watch today.
Under the reign of President Bashir, the Khartoum
Government has committed two genocides. Sudan has become a
haven for al Qaeda, another terrorist organization, while the
regime provides support for Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance
Army, the most horrific terrorist group in Central Africa
today.
Added to that, in March, the International Criminal Court
issued an arrest warrant for Bashir on five counts of crimes
against humanity and two counts of war crimes. His government
responded by expelling more than a dozen humanitarian groups
from Darfur, seizing their assets and threatening life-saving
operations in Darfur.
Based on our nation's leadership in the past, one might
think that such a unique and tragic designation in Sudan would
have triggered a massive effort not only to bring an end to the
genocide but also to bring justice to the perpetrators. And
indeed, at one point, the tragedy of Sudan's genocide did stir
this country.
I recall, as many of the people in the audience will, mass
rallies to save Darfur, headlined by Hollywood celebrities,
countless student initiatives at universities across the
country and successful efforts to divest at the state and local
level. At that time, for the American people, nothing short of
peace for the victims and justice for the criminals would
suffice. This was the organic compassion embedded in the
American ethos bursting forth to aid our brothers and sisters
in distress a world away.
Now the previous administration fell short of ending the
ongoing genocide. The Obama administration's new policy would
actually provide a package of incentives to offer the
perpetrators of genocide to the indicted war criminal, Omar al-
Bashir, incentives. In effect, the policy is to allow the
genocidal regime in Khartoum to trade away some political and
territorial concessions in exchange for measures, such as
diplomatic recognition and the easing of sanctions, which
flaunt the fundamental principles of justice and
accountability.
I strongly oppose any approach toward Sudan that gives
incentives and rewards to a genocidal regime headed by the
Sudanese President, who is an indicted war criminal himself.
Such a policy is engagement to the extreme and blind to
fundamental principles of justice. This new policy sends the
wrong messages to tyrants around the world, that they will not
be brought to justice and instead may even receive American
concessions for merely rolling back the intensity of their
brutality.
Our Government is trying to apply nuance to genocide, an
approach that would be comical were it not so reprehensible. We
cannot trade justice for peace. The ends do not justify the
means.
I look forward to hearing from the witness today, General
Gration, of your thoughts on this. But I cannot believe we
would offer incentives to a genocidal regime that is headed by
an indicted war criminal.
I thank you very, very much, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me
this unusual honor to serve with you on this panel.
Mr. Payne. Well, let me thank you very much and once again
express my appreciation for the many years that you have worked
on this issue and codel travel that you led a decade ago or
more, so your record is very clear, and I appreciate you taking
the time to come here. Thank you.
Congresswoman Lee.
Ms. Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and again,
thank you for your leadership in holding this hearing. And I
want to associate myself with Senator Brownback's remarks with
regard to your leadership and being really the lone voice for
many years in terms of declaring genocide as taking place in
Sudan. We all know that that is the case, and we appreciate
your leadership and for bringing us together really in a
bipartisan way. I see Congressman Wolf in the audience.
I visited Sudan the first time, I have been three times
with Mr. Royce of California. And I think that all of us have
concluded that this is an issue of humanitarian concerns. It is
one of national security. It is an issue that should not be
happening on our watch. Genocide should not be happening in
this century.
I am pleased to see General Gration. We talked before about
the new policy. I am anxious to hear what has developed in
moving forward on this because I think we all are anxious to
see some concrete results. The people of Sudan deserve no less.
I also have to commend the young people in our faith
community for continuing with the simple message of save
Darfur. They have really, truly been the wind beneath our wings
here in Congress to bring this bipartisan consensus on
divestment, on genocide and all of the actions that we have
taken here.
But we all know, as time and history have shown us, that
the regime in Khartoum can be very creative in its obstinacy
and in complying with international law on human rights even as
it continues to perpetrate further crimes and injustices. Sudan
and its people have gone through a heck of a lot over the
years. Too many deaths, too many people have been forced from
their homes, too many families have been destroyed, too many
women have been raped, too many children have been killed.
We have a moral responsibility to help the people of Sudan,
the people of Darfur, achieve a peaceful and a stable future.
So I hope that this new policy will produce a better set of
results than what we have seen before, but I also know that we
must retain our ability to impose harsher sanctions if this new
direction does not bear fruit.
Thank you again, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Payne. Thank you. We will now hear from Mr. Royce, who
for many years was the chair of the Subcommittee on Africa and
has been a member of the committee for decades and has also
worked very diligently on the whole question of Sudan. Thank
you.
Mr. Royce. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I would
say it is good to have General Gration before the committee. As
the General well knows, we have a difference of opinion and
have had for some time with respect to how we move forward with
Khartoum.
I have been watching these war criminals for quite some
time. At one point, General Gration, you and I had an
opportunity in Darfur to see some of this firsthand. And I just
wanted to thank John Prendergast, who is with us today, who
helped guide us into Darfur, Sudan on that trip. And traveling
alongside actor Don Cheadle, I chaired the delegation. We
brought a Nightline camera crew, who you will remember, John,
documented the atrocities that were committed not just by the
Janjaweed militia used by the Sudanese Government--they also
documented the atrocities committed by the Sudanese Government
itself.
And this gets to the point that I want to make. And I also
want to thank some of the other members who traveled with us,
Barbara, on that trip, as Congresswoman Lee did. But I wanted
to make several observations here.
One is thanks to the good work of Don Payne, and I chaired
the committee when we put the genocide resolution through, we
have a number of people that were involved in a principal way
in putting this country on record in terms of where we would
stand on the issue of genocide. And we have the first
eyewitness, we have the eyewitness accounts ourselves as to
what was happening.
And I can share with you the testimony of one young boy who
was missing his hand, and when asked what happened to it, he
said, ``Janjaweed.'' And the pictures that he and others had
sketched out of the attacks that had occurred on his village
were attacks not just by Janjaweed but also by Antonov Planes,
operated by the Sudanese Government, that had dropped bombs on
his city.
We went into Tina, which had been bombed by the Sudanese
Government. We saw sketches of the halftracks and military
vehicles and Sudanese Army troops that did the follow-up work
to the Janjaweed when the Janjaweed was first sent in to commit
the atrocities. The Army, the Sudanese Army came in afterwards.
These are the reasons why Bashir is a war criminal, why he has
been indicted by the International Criminal Court.
But this is only the beginning. The discussion in terms of
what his militia, which is being worked up in southern Sudan to
again begin this process, these are the war crimes of a head of
state who to this day won't allow many of the NGOs back into
Sudan in order to assist in trying to bring some level of
humanity and sustenance to the victims of this.
But think for a minute what it means when the Sudanese
Government assists a person like Joseph Kony, who is in the
process of recruiting young children into the Lord's Resistance
Army. Think about the fact that you have a militia whose
purpose is simply to commit rape and mayhem across Central
Africa. And then you have the surrendered commander of Kony's
units who says that the Lord's Resistance Army is sponsored by
Khartoum. This is something that we have known for a long time.
But it is good to finally have an officer in Kony's forces
come forward and say no, we are in fact sponsored by Khartoum
and testified to the intention of LRA leader Joseph Kony to
move along the Central African Republic border of Chad and then
into Darfur to meet officers of the Sudan armed forces, long
reputed to be the LRA sponsors.
``Kony told me,'' says the officer, ``that he was going to
meet Fadeel, the SAF officer who coordinates LRA activities. He
wants them to give him logistical support and a safe haven.''
Well, for many years that was the safe haven. That was the line
of support for munitions and for wounded soldiers who were
taken up and patched back into shape. This is the regime in
Khartoum that we are dealing with.
And I will add one other thing. Kony urged all LRA units to
make their way to Darfur and report to the first Arab military
post they came across. Kony is desperate. He said things are
very hard. We were constantly on the move. Sometimes we would
not rest for a week. The Ugandans were pursuing us everywhere.
Well, this, my friends, is the reality of what is happening
today. And the question is, What is the world going to do to
bring an end to Kony's work, to bring an end to the barbarism
that occurs and the suicidal and the genocidal acts that occur
across Sudan? We took a certain commitment to put an end to
genocide, and frankly, I think we got a rare victory the other
day when Sudanese President Bashir's planned trip to Turkey was
canceled.
But again, at the end of the day, we have got to ask
ourselves the same question that we will hear in the testimony.
The former Coordinator of the U.N. Panel of Experts on Sudan
will testify this morning, ``In contrast to that leadership of
2004 and 2005, the United States appears to have now joined the
group of influential states who sit by quietly and do nothing
to ensure that sanctions work to protect Darfurians.''
I want to hear today why that is not the case. I think that
is dead on. I think that has to change. And it is going to take
more than just John Prendergast working 24/7 to make it change.
It is going to take members of this committee committing
themselves to getting back on offense and seeing justice done
for the victims in Darfur.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. Mr. Miller.
Mr. Miller. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have not been as
involved in the issue of Sudan and Darfur in particular as
other members of the committee. I did with Ms. Lee visit Darfur
and southern Sudan and Khartoum on a Congressional delegation
led by Majority Leader Hoyer in April 2007.
But I am very troubled that we have not kept a promise, a
promise that humanity made before I was born but that I feel
bound by, never again. The promise was not never again in the
Western world or never again in the developed world, it was
never again. We could not put an end to all evil, but genocide
was different and humanity everywhere would act together to
prevent genocide anywhere.
There may be some problems of definition. There may be,
where does an atrocity leave off and genocide begin? But it is
very clear that there have been genocides since the Holocaust,
in Cambodia, in Rwanda and now in Darfur. So we have not kept
the promise of never again to allow genocide.
We have learned bitter lessons about how hard it is to
shape events in various places in the world. We certainly can
all criticize our Government's failures to put an end to it,
but the truth is that the world, all of humanity, has not acted
in a way that we promised more than 60 years ago.
I am pleased by the Obama administration's new emphasis on
ending the genocide in Darfur, ending the violence and the
atrocities, implementing the comprehensive peace agreement that
ended the brutal, deadly civil war in southern Sudan. I welcome
Ambassador Rice's comment that the strategy would be smart,
tough and balanced. But the policy needs to be smart, tough and
balanced in pursuit of a goal of ending genocide and ending the
atrocities in the Sudan generally. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. Congresswoman Woolsey.
Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As a direct result of
our chairman's responsible insistence that the Darfur genocide
be identified before rather than after all these atrocities
become history, the people in my district--I am from Petaluma,
California--started an effort called Dear Darfur, Love
Petaluma. That effort has become an entire Bay Area effort. And
they followed up after knowing that we stepped up to the plate
and knew that genocide was occurring and we weren't turning our
heads and knew that they had to do something about it. I am so
happy that I represent such great people and work with such
great people.
And they know as well as we know we are at a very important
point in Sudan's future right now. Their history is going to be
written as we are Members of Congress, and we have such an
important role to play, and I am truly concerned that so much
attention is being placed on the logistics for the elections,
which are very important, but these elections must have concern
for the political environment in which they take place. And
that is where I am unclear, because under the CPA, the
government is supposed to revise laws governing freedom for the
press, freedom for assembly and laws to limit the power of
national security services.
Well, I am hoping today that I am going to hear some
information from you on if it is going to happen; if not, what
we must do to ensure that we don't have elections that just are
meaningless, because as I said, the history for Sudan and for
the Sudanese people is being written right here before us. So
thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. I would like to invite
Congressman Wolf if he would like to come up and be a part of
the panel. As you know, Congressman Wolf has probably had the
longest history of working on this issue of anyone in the
Congress and preceding my time. He has said no. But I would
certainly keep the offer open if there is any question you
would like to ask. You are certainly welcome.
And let me acknowledge also Ted Dagne, who has worked on
this issue with Noelle LuSane, my staff director. But Mr. Dagne
has been involved with the issue for quite some time and
recently traveled to Juba with me 2 months ago--1 month ago.
They told me it was 2 weeks ago. Time flies. And we had some
very, very good meetings with government leaders in Juba and
South Sudan, dealing with this whole issue of referendum
elections. And so I would like to just acknowledge them.
Also I would like to say that I appreciate the work done by
Congresswoman Woolsey and Congresswoman Lee on this issue. I
had the privilege to visit both of their districts over the
course of the last year or so to meet with their residents who
were so interested in following their leadership. And so I
would like to really commend both of you for the work you do
back in your districts as well as here.
Well, let us turn to our principal witness on this first
panel. We have Major General Scott Gration, U.S. Air Force,
retired. Major General Scott Gration currently serves as the
President's Special Envoy to Sudan. He spent his childhood
years in the now-Democratic Republic of Congo and in Kenya.
General Gration graduated from Rutgers University in New
Jersey with a B.S. in mechanical engineering before joining the
United States Air Force, where he served from 1974 to 2006.
During his time in the Air Force General Gration served a 2-
year assignment with the Kenyan Air Force as an instructor. His
staff positions included tours in the Pentagon and NATO and a
White House fellowship. He was assistant deputy under secretary
of the Air Force for international affairs.
General Gration was a national security adviser to the
Obama Presidential campaign and served as a special assistant
to the President. General Gration speaks Swahili. He has an
M.A. from Georgetown University in national security studies
and is very committed to this issue at this time.
Let me turn the floor over to our Special Envoy.
STATEMENT OF MAJOR GENERAL SCOTT GRATION, USAF, RETIRED, UNITED
STATES SPECIAL ENVOY TO SUDAN, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
General Gration. Thank you very much. Chairman Payne,
members of the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health
and distinguished guests, thank you very much for this
opportunity to provide an update on the administration's
efforts in Sudan.
Before I begin, let me add my heartfelt condolences to
those who have been expressed by Chairman Payne this morning,
to those who have suffered such a significant loss in the
Mogadishu suicide attack. This event causes us all to think
about how we must redouble our efforts to bring peace in all of
Africa.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to start by expressing my deep
appreciation for your longstanding commitment to resolving the
challenges associated with Sudan. We know that you traveled
recently to the region, and we are thankful for your dedicated
efforts to improve the lives of the Sudanese people, define
lasting solutions to promote peace. We note that your
commitment is widely shared by members of this committee, and
we are also extremely grateful to each member for the deep
interest in our efforts and for your continued support.
As you know, the Secretary of State, Ambassador Rice and I
presented the President's strategy on Sudan in October. This
strategy uses an integrated and comprehensive approach and is
focused on three major objectives.
The first goal is to definitively end the conflict in
Darfur, the gross human rights abuses, the genocide.
The second is to implement the North-South Comprehensive
Peace Agreement in a manner that results in a peaceful post-
2011 Sudan, a united Sudan or two separate and viable states at
peace with each other, at peace with their neighbors.
The third objective is to ensure that Sudan does not again
become a safe haven for international terrorists. I will spend
the next few minutes reviewing some of my recent activities and
explaining how the administration's actions are helping to meet
the goals outlined in the Sudan strategy. I will focus first on
our efforts related to Darfur.
In my travels to the Darfur region over the past 5 years. I
have witnessed firsthand the devastation and destruction that
conflict has inflicted on the people of Darfur, particularly on
the women and children. In keeping with the first objective of
our strategy, the administration remains committed to saving
lives, to fostering meaningful and lasting reconciliation, to
ensuring a durable peace for all the people of Darfur. We
continue to support the Doha peace process, as the AU-U.N.
Mediator, Djibril Bassole, seeks to negotiate an agreement that
fully addresses the concerns of the Darfuri people.
To give these negotiations the best possible chance of
success, we have been working to unite the fragmented arm
movements in Darfur so they can speak at a negotiating table
with one voice. As a result of our efforts, eight rebel
factions have formed a coalition and are committed to even a
wider unification.
In addition, we will continue to support and strengthen
UNAMID. We will work with them and the Government of Sudan to
improve local security conditions throughout Darfur and will
strive to reduce tensions along Sudan's western border with
Chad.
Finally, we are working with USAID and operational NGOs to
improve the humanitarian situation in Darfur, to improve NGO
access to populations in need. In my travels I have observed
that while significant effort has been made to fill the gaps,
to minimize the sufferings caused by the expulsion of 13 NGOs
in March 2009, humanitarian agencies have only limited access
to areas outside the major towns because of the continued
widespread insecurity. We are working closely with the United
Nations, Africa Union and Sudanese authorities to improve local
security, to advance the rule of law, to help build a better
life, a better future for the Darfuri people.
In keeping with the second objective of our strategy, we
are working to fully implement the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement. To that end, we are deeply engaged with the National
Congress Party and with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement
to resolve the remaining CPA challenges, to fully implement the
agreements reached between the two parties.
I believe our involvement in this process has been crucial
to helping the parties negotiate agreements on elections, on
referenda for self-determination. Our involvement will also be
critical in helping prepare for the post-CPA period. Issues
such as citizenship, north-south border demarcation, resource-
sharing must be resolved soon to facilitate a long-term
stability along the border and in the region.
We are also focused on ensuring that the April 2010
elections are credible, that they further political
transformation and the peace process. Voter registration will
conclude next week, but far more work needs to be done in
coordination with the Sudanese authorities and with our
international partners to ensure that the will of the Sudanese
citizens is clearly expressed and fully implemented.
We continue to be deeply concerned about the increase in
interethnic violence in the south and its devastating effect on
local communities. We must all increase our efforts to mitigate
these threats to security and stability, to create an
environment for a peaceful referenda for a transition to the
post-2011 period.
In keeping with the third objective in our strategy, the
United States continues to work with the Sudanese authorities
and international community to keep non-state actors who might
threaten our interests and terrorist organizations from
developing a foothold in Sudan. We will ensure that U.S.
efforts in Sudan enhance our capacity to protect American lives
and American interests around the globe.
Finally, as part of our U.S. strategy on Sudan, senior
officials from the interagency will meet in early 2010 for the
first in a series of quarterly interagency reviews designed to
assess conditions on the ground, to determine whether progress
or backsliding has occurred, to agree on whether incentives or
pressures are warranted.
The United States has a clear obligation and an interest to
lead the international efforts for peace in Sudan. Failure to
accomplish our objectives in Darfur between the north and the
south and on the counterterrorism front could result in more
suffering for the Sudanese people, further regional instability
and in possible safe havens for international terrorists. We
just can't afford to fail.
Together the United States and its partners are committed
to creating an environment in which the parties themselves can
bring peace to Sudan. We have no option but to succeed. And
working together with all the parties, with our international
partners, I believe we can succeed.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, distinguished
guests, thank you again for your leadership and for your
support. I look forward to answering your questions about the
critical challenges that we all face in Sudan. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Gration
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Mr. Payne. Well, let me thank you very much, General
Gration. Like I said, I appreciate the hard work that you are
putting into this effort, and we appreciate your testimony.
Let me begin by asking a couple of questions. First of all,
the administration's long-awaited Sudan policy is fully
implemented and provides a framework to achieve a stable
democracy and a lasting peace in Sudan. At the center of this
strategy is a policy of engagement with necessary benchmarks
and credible pressure to ensure accountability. However,
implementation of the strategy will be critical in moving
forward.
So my question basically is, What are the specific
indicators of progress being used in the U.S. policy and what
are the precise criteria to be used for evaluating them? We
have heard that there are incentives and also disincentives,
and so we really would like to know the way that there will be
a criteria for the evaluation of them since this is the center
of the strategy.
General Gration. Yes, you put your finger on it in that
implementation is the key. Agreements without implementation
are really no good, and so this policy seeks to ensure that
agreements made between parties are implemented fully. We
started with the CPA. When I took on this job, we had 12 areas
where we had differences of agreements between the parties. We
have been able to close on 10 of those 12. The remaining one is
the census and therefore the election and then the referendum,
and we seek to get an agreement on those two.
When we get agreements, we will turn those agreements into
benchmarks. In other words, we have gone through all the
decisions and all the agreements that we have been able to make
and that are codified in the CPA and that we will continue to
make in Darfur discussions that will come out of the Doha
process, and we will turn these into objective statements: Who
is doing it, what they are doing, when it needs to be done by
and what are the performance standards. We have done that
already with the CPA. It is in the form of a stoplight chart,
but we are taking it to the next level.
In other words, when suspenses are missed, these are
identified on a weekly basis to both parties and to interested
parties on the outside. We will continue to do this. But let me
just explain that this strategy will not succeed unless we have
those benchmarks and we are able to objectively track them with
changes of behavior and changes of condition on the ground, and
that is what we are doing right now. We are trying to ensure
that through the U.N. and through other mechanisms that we are
able to see verifiable, unreversible changes on the ground.
We have a philosophy that is a little bit different than
the Cold War when it was trust and verify. Ours is verify, then
trust. We will take a look on the ground, we will verify the
changes in behavior, verify the changes of condition. And then
based on that, we will make a determination whether more
pressures need to be applied or whether incentives need to be
applied to encourage more of that kind of behavior if it is
positive.
And so that is what the policy does. It takes all the
agreements, turns them into objective statements. It looks for
measures and monitoring ways that we can verify the changes on
the ground, whether positive or negative or even just standing
still. And then we will work through the interagency process to
ensure that senior leaders can make the determination whether
we need to put pressures or incentives, and this will be done
obviously as we do everything in consultation with Congress.
Mr. Payne. All right. My time has expired. Let me just ask
one quick question: Is there any plan for the IDPs in Darfur
and in Chad? Is the government discussing any plan of return?
Because I have heard a lot of things, but no one has ever
talked about when we will start to have people return home.
General Gration. We have heard discussions about planning
for return, but our position is, and it is a position that we
have worked in conjunction with IOM, with U.N. agencies that
are in the field that are working on a day-to-day basis with
the 2.7 million people in IDP camps, we will only support a
return when it is voluntary, when the conditions in the places
that they want to return to, whether it be their homes or
whether it be another location, that the conditions are stable
and secure and safe enough for them to return in a sustainable
way.
We also want to make sure that it is done where their human
rights are protected and with dignity. And we also want to make
sure that it is done in a compassionate way. As many people
have to return to places where they lost their families, where
they lost their crops, where they lost their cattle, where they
had their houses burned down, there is going to be an emotional
element, a psychological element that we have to consider. We
want to make sure that as they go back that they can do it
voluntarily and in conditions that will be sustainable and
conditions that will allow them to live a life that is
significantly better than they are living today.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. At this time, we will ask
Senator Brownback for questions.
Senator Brownback. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, again
thank you for this extraordinary privilege to be here with you
on this panel.
General Gration, thank you for joining us, and it is a
tough job that you have, but I am terribly troubled by the
situation. President Bashir, I guess I should ask you, he has
participated in a genocide in Sudan, is that correct?
General Gration. Yes, sir. He was the President of the
country during the time that genocide took place and therefore,
he would have participated.
Senator Brownback. And so he has led the genocide in
Darfur.
General Gration. His government was responsible for that,
and he was the leader of the government. Therefore, he would
have led it.
Senator Brownback. And President Bashir is an indicted war
criminal by the ICC?
General Gration. He is.
Senator Brownback. Has the United States Government been
negotiating, dealing or otherwise associating with any
individual from Sudan who has been directly implicated in
committing genocides or crimes against humanity?
General Gration. Do I understand that you are asking, are
we dealing with people that have been involved in the genocide
or crimes against humanity?
Senator Brownback. Have we been negotiating, dealing or
otherwise associating with any individual from Sudan who has
been directly implicated in committing genocide or crimes
against humanity?
General Gration. I have never met with President Bashir and
we don't have plans to meet with President Bashir. There are
people that we negotiate with that are part of the NCP that are
part of that government. That is the only way that we have been
able to reach agreements on the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.
It is the only way we have been able to reach agreements on
humanitarian assistance in Darfur. It is the only way we have
been able to reach agreements on the Chad-Sudan border
conflict, agreements in Doha. And we are going to have to
continue to have engagement not for engagement's sake but to
save lives and to move the ball forward in Sudan.
Senator Brownback. Have any of those individuals been
involved directly or indirectly in committing genocides or
crimes against humanity?
General Gration. I don't know that directly. I understand
that some of the people were in the government at the time,
especially between 2003 and 2005. But I have no direct
knowledge of their direct involvement in it.
Senator Brownback. They are in the leadership in the
government in Sudan? Individuals you are negotiating with or
dealing with?
General Gration. I am negotiating with individuals that are
in high-level positions in the Government of Sudan.
Senator Brownback. You are dealing with a government that
is conducting an ongoing genocide, is that correct?
General Gration. I am dealing with the government.
Senator Brownback. That is conducting an ongoing genocide
in Sudan?
General Gration. I am dealing with the government in an
effort to end the conflict, in an effort to end gross human
rights abuses.
Senator Brownback. I understand the objective. I am asking
you, are you dealing with a government that has conducted an
ongoing genocide in Sudan?
General Gration. I am dealing with, as I said, I am dealing
with the government in Khartoum of Sudan.
Senator Brownback. Which is currently conducting a genocide
in Sudan, is that correct?
General Gration. That is correct.
Senator Brownback. Should we have dealt with Charles
Taylor? He was an indicted war criminal.
General Gration. I have not been involved with Charles
Taylor.
Senator Brownback. Should we have negotiated with Serbian
leader Karadzic, the Butcher of Bosnia?
General Gration. I have not been involved in that
situation.
Senator Brownback. Let me get to the specifics then in
this, and this will be my last question. I think it is obvious
what is taking place. Despite U.S. efforts to broker a
settlement on key outstanding issues regarding CPA
implementation, the process appears deadlocked, due in no small
part to the National Congress Party's obstructionism. At what
point would the United States follow through on its promises to
increase pressure on the NCP to make the necessary concessions
to pass the Southern Sudan Referendum law, reform the National
Security law, fully implement the Permanent Court of
Arbitration's decision on Abyei and fully implement other
elements of the CPA?
General Gration. I have been involved in discussions and
negotiations with the parties, and it is very clear that they
both have positions that they are maintaining to both in the
south and in the north. And we have been helping both sides
come to a compromise on those issues so that they can get a
solution on the elections, they can get a solution on the
referendum, they can get a solution on public consultations and
on the Abyei issue and in addition to the National Security
law.
I anticipate that these will be resolved in the near future
so we can move on and start working on the post-CPA issues of
citizenship, the north-south border and resource-sharing,
things like grazing rights, water rights and oil.
Senator Brownback. Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much, Senator. Ms. Lee.
Ms. Lee. Thank you very much. General Gration, I am
somewhat encouraged by your new policy that places a special
emphasis on international cooperation and multilateral action
in solving Sudan's pressing humanitarian and political issues.
However, as it relates to genocide, I think those are the
issues that are paramount and foremost in all of our minds. And
I think we have talked a little bit about this in terms of
China being one of the key players in that regard at least in
Sudan and the leverage that China holds.
Given that China holds unparalleled really economic and
political leverage over the Government of Sudan, I took the
opportunity to write to President Obama in advance of his
recent trip to China, encouraging him to secure the Chinese
Government's full support and assistance in accomplishing the
goals of this new Sudan policy. I haven't heard any reports,
however, that indicated whether or not the issue was discussed
on the President's visit.
Can you tell me whether or not and to what extent the
United States has reached out to China for support in terms of
our policy in Sudan and also in support of helping us in the
genocide in Sudan? Also the League of Arab States in seeking
their support in not only implementing the new policy but also
ending the genocide.
I have had the opportunity like many members here to meet
with President Mubarak. We met with the President of Algeria
and other leaders and raised this concern in terms of them
taking a hard stand against what is taking place in the Sudan.
So far we have seen some results only in the humanitarian
needs. I know that Egypt is helping in a tremendous way with
the hospital and clinics and what-have-you. But I haven't seen
the kind of response by China or any of the League of Arab
States saying look, this genocide must end or else we are going
to also impose sanctions and do some other things that may make
it even more difficult for them to continue, for the Sudanese
to continue with their disastrous efforts in killing people and
in committing genocide.
General Gration. Right. As you know, the centerpiece or one
of the pieces of the strategy is the multilateral commitment
and working with our international partners to achieve our
collective goals in Sudan, and we have set up many different
mechanisms to allow us to do that more efficiently.
The first is what we call the Envoy Six. It is the P-5
countries that have special envoys in addition to the European
Union, who has a special envoy. We started meeting together. We
said we were going to meet every 6 months. We are now meeting
about every 2 months, and it is probably going to go down to
every 1 month. As part of that group, Russia and China, along
with France, the UK, the United States and the AU, we get
together.
In terms of China specifically, Ambassador Li Chengwen is
their representative or their envoy on Sudan issues. We go back
to the time when I was flying with the Kenya Air Force and he
was assigned to the embassy in Kenya. We have had a
relationship that allows us to have frank and open
conversations on issues.
The interesting thing is that China and the United States
share the same objectives when it comes to security, when it
comes to stability. They need security and stability to protect
their investment of $4.5 billion in the oil industry. We need
the security and stability to protect the Sudanese people and
the future of Sudan.
And so we have been able to work together in ways to help
promote stability and security. We have been able to work
together on humanitarian projects, to synchronize these better
so that we don't build two roads next to each other a hundred
miles but we put those end to end.
Ms. Lee. Sure. General Gration, let me just ask you before
my time is up, though, have you communicated to the Chinese
Government the fact that this cooperation that you are listing
is wonderful, it should happen, it should have happened a long
time ago, but if the carnage doesn't stop, if the genocide
doesn't stop, have you communicated to the Chinese Government
that they should join us in imposing sanctions and take a hard
line against what is taking place as a next step?
General Gration. We have. We have indeed. And the President
did bring it up with President Hu. They discussed Sudan, they
discussed areas of cooperation. I don't have all the details,
but I do know that it was a centerpiece of the discussions in
Beijing.
I have also traveled to Beijing and had discussions with
the people over there, and we have made these points very
clear. And while there are significant areas of strategic
cooperation, there are areas where we differ on the tactical
level, on arms and those kinds of things. And we are continuing
to work through those issues. But as you know, these are
bilateral issues, and we will continue to influence them as we
can.
But I will tell you that the spirit of cooperation is
significant, and we are doing the same thing with periphery
states and Arab states. In addition to the Troika and the
contact group, we have frequent meetings with the Arab League,
with Tripoli, Libya, with Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, EGAD
countries. I am leaving possibly tomorrow to attend the
ministerials with the EGAD countries. I will be going to Egypt
and to Libya before Christmas holiday.
These things we continue to do because, like you, we know
that this solution is not one that involves just America. It is
one that involves the international community and the broad
international community. Everybody has to be part of the
solution to end the conflicts and to promote peace and
development.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. Mr. Smith, our ranking
member.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thanks
for convening this very important hearing. I just want the
record to show the only reason I was late, was because Sudan is
one of the highest priorities for me, the head of the Central
Authority for Brazil, which is the agency or entity that
adjudicates Hague cases where children have been abducted, was
in town. Yesterday we had a hearing on that, chaired very ably
by Mr. Wolf on the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. And I
have been working on that issue with David Goldman, a man we
both know very well, from New Jersey, whose son, Sean, was
kidnapped 5 years ago, over 5 years ago. We are hopefully
coming to a positive conclusion soon.
But this is the person who is in charge of that government
entity that adjudicates those cases, so what was a \1/2\-hour
meeting turned into 1\1/2\-hours. So I do apologize, General,
for not being here for your opening, but that in no way
reflects my deep and abiding concern for Sudan, having been to
Mukjar and Kalma Camp myself, and having met with Bashir for
the better part of almost 2 hours in a very real argument with
that man, this is before he was indicted for war crimes. Sudan
is at the top of my list, as it is the chairman's, in trying to
bring some peace, reconciliation and justice.
Just as you may know, General, as ranking member, I have
asked no less than four times for a classified briefing about
the annex of the menu of incentives and disincentives that were
announced as part of the new strategy on October 19. We asked
on October 21, 22, 29 and November 4 and again on the 30th, so
that would be five times, to have a classified briefing to
weigh what it is that this new policy really entails.
As the Secretary of State pointed out, this is classified.
But it seems to me the fact that the ranking member still can't
get this information, I don't think our distinguished chairman
has received it either, is very, very troubling, because like
Mr. Brownback, like Mr. Wolf, like my colleagues on both sides
of the aisle, this is not a passing concern. This is a deep and
passionate concern for each of us. And we want to know what the
strategy is, in a closed session or in a classified briefing
here or downtown, we will do it anywhere, anytime.
So I reiterate that request. I really want to hear what is
being contemplated here. So please honor that request as soon
as possible, today, tomorrow, any day. Just name the day, I
will be there and my colleagues will be there as well.
Likewise, we made multiple requests for detailed briefings
on the reported arms transfers from the regime in Khartoum to
militias in southern Sudan. We held a hearing that Mr. Payne
will remember so well, where we heard about very troubling
numbers of AK-47s and other weapons that are being deployed
south, raising the specter of perhaps renewed hostilities that
we need to get a better handle on at least as policymakers. We
don't know the numbers. So I reiterate that request as well.
Finally, I would ask unanimous consent that my statement be
made a part of the record, I don't think it would be
appropriate to go back and go through that.
Mr. Payne. Without objection.No statement received
[The information referred to follows:]
********** COMMITTEE INSERT ********** deg.
Mr. Smith. But I would join with my colleague, Ms. Lee,
in--I was a signer of the letter that went down to the
President before his trip to Beijing, and we have had hearings
in this room time and again about, remember, we were calling it
the genocide olympics. And in the run-up there was leverage
that was not used with regards to China's singular role in the
genocide first in southern Sudan where 2 million people were
butchered and killed and the upwards of 450,000 or whatever the
current number of atrocity is of dead in Darfur. And to the
best of my knowledge, we saw nothing about that information
being conveyed to Hu Jintao or anyone else during that Beijing
visit--and maybe you can tell us and elaborate on whether or
not the President raised that.
It seems to me that the arms supplier makes it all possible
to wage genocide, if you want to stop it, you go to the source.
It is not just in Khartoum where all of this is emanating. It
is being aided and abetted by the Chinese Government.
And we have raised this, Mr. Payne and I, over and over
again in every fora we could possibly think of and especially
with the Chinese. Mr. Wolf and I were in Beijing right before
the Olympics, and that was a major part of our dialogue with
our Chinese interlocutors. But if it is not backed up by the
President of the United States, it seems to me our thoughts
ring a bit hollow.
And I would add on human rights in general, and I don't
care if it is a Democrat or a Republican in the White House,
human rights transcend all parties. They have no party. When
you are being victimized, it doesn't matter if you are a
Democrat or Republican in terms of who is advocating or not.
We had had a hearing right before the President left about
the horrific one-child-per-couple policy, and we had a lawyer,
Jiang, who bravely testified at that hearing and another
hearing about due process rights and about this crime against
women called forced abortion. We asked the President on that
case as well to raise the issue and to provide protection for
the lawyers, the human rights defenders like Jiang who were
arrested, were interrogated. We believe that now he is under
very, very tight surveillance.
But it is part of a seamless lack of intervention. What
happened on Darfur? Did the President raise the issue? And I
mean robustly. Hopefully he did it in some way, hopefully he
did it in a very profound way, because China can turn off the
spigot of funds and monies that is enabling this terrible
killing field.
General Gration. Thank you. In terms of the classified
briefing, I am available any time to do that. And I don't know
of the ``annex,'' but I do know that there are working papers
that we used as we deliberated, as we came up with a menu of
things that we could consider in tiers of options on the
political, economic, military side, and I would be happy to
share those with you.
Mr. Smith. Well, I mentioned the annex. If I could
interrupt.
General Gration. But there is no annex.
Mr. Smith. Well, the Secretary of State had said that.
General Gration. Okay.
Mr. Smith. She said they are part in fact of a classified
annex to our strategy and we are now seeing the outline of
today.
General Gration. Well, I am telling you that I have never
seen one.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
General Gration. The only thing I have seen is the
classified working papers that are part of the NSC. But I would
be happy to tell you anything that is in those documents.
Mr. Smith. I appreciate that.
General Gration. That is no problem at all.
Mr. Smith. On the China?
General Gration. On the China, I was not with the President
on this trip. All I know is that the issue was raised, that the
two Presidents had in-depth discussions on Sudan and on the
issues surrounding Sudan. I don't know specifically about what
was raised in terms of the moral issues and that kind of thing,
but I can try to find out.
Mr. Smith. Well, with respect, and asking the indulgence of
the chairman, I read the joint statements that were made by
President Obama and Hu Jintao. I read them very carefully. And
my concern is, where was Darfur? Where was human rights in
general other than an oblique mention buried in the body of the
text? If you could get back with specifics about what was
raised and in what manner, that would be very, very helpful,
because private diplomacy can only go so far when there is a
genocide occurring. I hope he did mention it, but I hope he
mentioned it in a way that was really significant.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. Mr. Miller.
Mr. Miller. Thank you. General, it should not be a great
surprise that there are continuing disagreements about the
preparations for the national election in April, about polling
procedures, voter registration, but more broadly about whether
there are going to be real elections.
Do you think the elections, the 2010 elections, are going
to take place? Do you think that they are going to be credible,
that they are going to be free, fair and transparent? What are
we doing to make sure that happens? What are we doing to
prepare for the very distinctly possible outcome of elections
that are not credible, that are a fraud, that are a sham? What
are we doing to make sure that those are not treated as
legitimizing a genocidal government?
General Gration. Yes. We believe that the spirit of the
CPA, the letter of the CPA tells us and gives us our mandate to
have elections in Sudan. This is part of the political
transformation that we are seeking, that the CPA sought.
The first step was to get an election law that allowed us
to proceed. We have been able to do the registration piece, and
as you probably know, we are up to 60 percent, 7.4 million
people overall in the north in Darfur, just under 50 percent,
with 1.79 million people registered, and in the south we have
achieved 60 percent, with 2.5 million people registered. That
allows these Sudanese the option of expressing their will in
the election, and I think that is very important.
We have seen that while there have been irregularities and
while there have been things that we don't like, we have seen
that the government has been responsive in trying to help the
situation get better. In the very beginning there were only
1,500 people that were registrars. There weren't enough books.
When the international community pointed that out, they
increased the number of registrars, increased the number of
books, to help more people get registered.
And while it is not perfect, we have to remember that this
is the first time in 24 years that they have had elections. We
also have to remember that in the last election only 5 million
people were registered as opposed to the numbers that we have
already, 11.96 million people registered already for this
election.
So yes, I think that there is an opportunity for us to work
on political transformation through this election. There are a
lot of things that have to continue, though. We have to get
sorted out the census so we can get an agreement between the
two parties about the legislature, because it is only by having
the elections down to the legislative level that we can, number
one, have a legislature that has been elected by the people as
to one that has been appointed.
Number two, we have to make sure that all the other pieces
that go into an election to help make it free and fair, that we
help with instituting these processes. So it is not only the
law, it is not only this registration piece, but it is voter
education. It is making sure that there is security. It is
making sure that there are all the administrative pieces of
putting the ballots and getting them to the right places at the
right time. And then there is the whole piece about tabulation
and in a way that is clear.
And so what we want to do is work with the international
community to have monitors at the right place. And the Carter
Center has increased its people from 12 to 30 already for the
registration, and we are working together with the
international community to bring in more.
We are also working with the National Election Commission
to ensure that they are bringing in their monitors and that
this system is as free and as fair, as credible as we can get
it. Why? Because it is part of the transformation process. But
number two, we will start next year in July to start
registering people--I shouldn't say we, but the Sudanese will
in the south and in Abyei for the referendum, in the south for
self-determination and in Abyei to decide whether they stay
with the north or go with the south if the south chooses
independence.
Many of these same procedures in terms of the law, in terms
of the preparation, in terms of free, fair and credible, in
terms of counting and security, are the same things that we are
going through the processes now for, we are going to have to go
through it again. And the worst thing that I can think of is at
the end, in January 2011, we say to the people of southern
Sudan this referenda wasn't free, it wasn't fair, it wasn't
credible, therefore it is invalidated.
We need to do everything we can now and then to ensure the
people of Sudan not only get to elect their leaders, not only
get to elect their legislators, but the people in the south
have an opportunity to express their will in a way that is
free, fair and credible. We are working that process. This is a
process.
And if you take a look at each of the post-conflict
countries as they have tried to do elections, this has been
tough. And when you don't have a history of legislative
process, election process, as Sudan doesn't in that we have had
a break since 1986 until now and we have had all the conflict
and we are just coming together, this is a tough process.
But I have got to tell you the United States and the
international community is committed to doing everything they
can to ensure that the process will result in a situation where
individuals can express their will and that their will is fully
counted and implemented.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. We have a vote coming up.
We have three members who have not asked questions. We will
give each of them 4 minutes. That will take 12 minutes. That
will give us plenty of time to get over to this 15-minute vote.
So at this time, Dr. Boozman.
Mr. Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Gration, what
benchmarks is the administration using to measure the success
of the new Sudan strategy? What are the incentives and
disincentives? If you can't divulge them now, will you allow
Congress access to the classified annex of the policy review?
General Gration. Yes. I am happy to come over here any time
at a time that is convenient for you all to discuss the working
papers and the policy deliberations that we went through,
recognizing that this is just a menu of options that are
available to decision makers as we take a look at what we can
do to pressure and what we can do to incentivize actions on the
ground. As I explained earlier, we are looking at conditions
changing on the ground. We are trying to do this in an
objective way, and we will continue to work through this
process so we have objective benchmarks that we can present.
The first meeting that we have planned is going to be
shortly after the New Year where we will be able to present
these conditions on the ground, that it will be up to
policymakers in the executive branch, and we will also do this
in consultations with Congress to make sure that we either
increase pressures in those areas where there has been
backsliding or no progress and incentivize in those areas where
we made progress.
Mr. Boozman. I am sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but we
have just got a second. You mentioned progress, and I guess
what I would like to know is what specific progress that we
have to show that the engagement policy is working. The
situation on the ground in Darfur has not substantially changed
since the administration took office. Insecurity in the south
is rising and there is no sign of an imminent peace deal. What
has the NCP given us?
General Gration. I would take issue with all those. I think
we have made a lot of changes. When I took over, there were 1.2
million people that faced a crisis because of 13 NGOs being
thrown out. We have been able to fix that. We made it through
the rainy season without having those losses.
We have been having significant movement in terms of armed
group unification. The Chad-Sudan border issue has gone from
where we had rebel groups in N'Djamena, proxy people in
Omdurman, we are now in a situation where Kamal Harazi is going
over to N'Djamena, and we are expecting the Minister of Foreign
Affairs, Faki, to come to the Sudan.
These are significant changes. If you just take a look at
the numbers in June of this last year, and I recognize that
they are low, there were 16 excess deaths. None of them were
Fur people. It was Arab-on-Arab, plus two policemen and two
others.
My point is that things are changing significantly, things
are improving, but there is still an awful long ways to go. We
have 2.7 million people living in abhorrent conditions. We have
insecurity. We have gender-based violence. This has to change,
but we are making progress.
Mr. Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Payne. Thank you. Ms. Woolsey.
Ms. Woolsey. Thank you. General Gration, when the Sudanese
Government unilaterally kicked the humanitarian NGOs out of the
country, the situation disintegrated rapidly for the people in
need. The situation was already dire for women and children. So
what is the situation now regarding women and children,
regarding health, regarding delivery of emergency food sources?
General Gration. By working with the U.N., existing NGOs
and by the Sudanese Government allowing four major new NGOs to
return to Darfur, we have actually gotten up to the capacity we
had before. That said, we are doing it with emergency
conditions, we are doing it with stopgap measures. It is not
sustainable. We are working on fixing that.
You are exactly correct in that there were gaps before the
NGOs were pushed out; there are still those gaps. There are
certain areas where we have not gotten up to speed, and these
include the protection aspects and some of the aspects that you
have talked about where we are really taking care of the women
and the children.
But in terms of health, in terms of food, water and
sanitation, we are meeting the basic needs. But you are exactly
right; we need to push a lot harder to work on protection and
some of these other issues.
Ms. Woolsey. Will that push depend upon the free, fair,
credible elections, or can it happen as part of that?
General Gration. It is happening right now, ma'am. We are
working on an ongoing basis to try to fix this problem. And I
would say it is unrelated to the election.
Ms. Woolsey. So regarding the election, I guess this is
more of a rhetorical question: What if it doesn't turn out to
be fair, free and credible? Where will the United States draw
the line? Or will we compromise, thinking we have put in all
the effort that we possibly could, did the best we could and
tried but failed? I mean, will we accept a criminal government?
General Gration. We are now working with our international
partners on these very same issues. The envoys, the contact
group, we are discussing what is going to be our approach
because we are going to have to be doing a lot of the funding.
And the question is, When do you stop funding something that is
not going to be working out? We are committed, though, to doing
everything we can to ensure we put in these processes. And
ma'am, it may not only be for this election, but it may be for
subsequent elections.
And so what we are trying to do is put into place processes
and procedures and a way of doing things now so people
understand that they can vote, that they can make a change,
that they can express their will through democratic means. And
this political transformation is going to be a process. And it
may not be something we can do between now and April, but it is
certainly something that we have to try to do, and then it is
something that we have to continue to build on through the
referendum and through subsequent elections.
Ms. Woolsey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Payne. Thank you. Mr. Royce.
Mr. Royce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am just going to
quickly make the observation here that when you have a
manufactured crisis and you run, as Bashir did, you run all the
aid groups out and then you let a handful of them back in with
a set of new conditions, as the group Enough did, what to do
about Sudan now? They say they don't have access to large areas
of Darfur anymore and those that do have access to vulnerable
populations no longer publicize their assessments for fear of
expulsion. So I just want to get that into the record in terms
of the other side of this argument.
I wanted to make the point and come back to the fact that
the Lord's Resistance Army is on the run. We have a commander
who recently surrendered. In interviews he has noted that
Joseph Kony has the intention to move his forces into Darfur to
link up with the Sudan armed forces. He wants those armed
forces to give him logistical support. In the past they have. I
remember when they were patching up his soldiers in hospitals
and sending them south and giving munitions to them. So the
Islamist government in Sudan is really the last lifeline, as it
has been the lifeline for years, but it is now the last
lifeline for Kony.
Let us cut this off and end Kony's terror across Africa. I
just ask you, how involved today is the Sudanese Government and
how do you intend to bring pressure to get that lifeline cut
off?
General Gration. First of all, I would say that in terms of
the NGOs moving around Darfur, I meet with them all the time, I
just met with them last week in N'Djamena and Al Fashir, and it
is really a security issue as opposed to a restriction issue.
And if we could fix the security issue, which we are working on
right now very hard to do at the local level with the
Bandistri, with the Janjaweed autonomous with our militia
groups, if we can get these things fixed, that will solve a lot
of the NGO problems.
In terms of the LRA, we agree with you. There is no reason
that Joseph Kony should be allowed to be wandering around and
be alive and continuing the Lord's Resistance. It is abhorrent.
I used to live in that area between Aba and Adi-Faraj, and the
number of people that are being raped and houses being burned
down and that kind of thing is unbelievable. And the fact that
it is not an absolutely international outrage is disgusting to
me.
That said, I have been working with the Sudanese Government
in Khartoum, and I think that they would agree with you that
Joseph Kony has to stop. We cannot find links, and it has been
reported to me, and if you have the links that we can go in, I
cannot find any links right now of the Sudanese Government to
Joseph Kony. And if we can find them, obviously those will be
things that we will put pressures in, but there is nothing that
we can find right now.
Mr. Royce. I would just point out that his commander who
surrendered says they were backing us in the past. So I don't
know about the moment, but he is telling his troops if you get
out of the encirclement, this is who you surrender to, this is
who will work with you. I just bring it up.
I am the ranking member of the Terrorism Nonproliferation
and Trade Subcommittee. We had a hearing 2 weeks ago in which
one witness testified, and I am going to use his words here,
``The Jihadist aim is to thwart the international community in
Darfur and reignite a holy war in southern Sudan.'' I would ask
if you share any concerns about the reputed ambitions of
Khartoum. From my standpoint, I remember pretty vividly
Khartoum's backing some years ago of Osama bin Laden, so I
don't give the benefit of the doubt to Bashir. So give me your
assessment, General, if you would on that.
General Gration. Yes. Obviously we have our eyes wide open.
We are looking for any indications that would lead us to
believe that that is happening. Right now, though, our mandate
is to save lives, to implement the CPA, to ensure that the
conflict stops in Darfur and that we reset the picture on the
CT front. We are trying to do that. And if we have indications
that there is a jihadist movement that is disrupting the south,
obviously we are going to apply a lot of pressure and speak out
very forcefully against it. This cannot be tolerated, and we
won't.
Mr. Royce. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, General.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. Our ranking member will
have 30 seconds to intervene.
Mr. Smith. Thank you. General Gration, let me ask you, at
our July 29 hearing, SPLM, Secretary General Pagan Amum,
testified that it had been documented that the NCP had supplied
79,000 AK-47s to the civilian population in the south. The next
day, at a Tom Lantos hearing, we heard that it was indeed
79,000 that had been distributed, but a total of 200,000
additional AK-47s had been ordered.
Do those numbers comport with our assessment and how many
of those 200,000 have been distributed since the 79,000, if
that number is accurate?
General Gration. These are questions that I continue to ask
UNMIS, and we are continuing to try to get our arms around this
issue. There are reports of increased ammunitions. There are
these reports of guns coming through. We have not found
linkages to the Khartoum Government at this time.
Mr. Payne. Senator, we have about 1 minute more if you
would like to make a concluding statement.
Senator Brownback. Just that I hope we can work with the
administration and stop this complete loss of moral authority
if we negotiate with a genocidal government. And I appreciate
very much the chance here to work, but I more would appreciate
the chance for the administration to reconsider what steps it
has taken here. It is a massive step that I think undermines a
great deal of our authority that we have had around the world
in dealing with genocidal-type regimes or people that conduct
war crimes. I really think I would hope you would reconsider
that.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me to be here today.
Mr. Payne. Well, let me thank our witness. We have been in
session now for, in our 12th month. That is one-half of a
congressional term, and this has been frustrating, as you know,
an issue that many of us feel very deeply about, very emotional
about. And so we first of all appreciate you getting here. We
would hope it would have been sooner than later, and that is
where a lot of pent-up frustration is.
You can see this is an issue that is bipartisan and both
Houses take very seriously. I know that the President and you
take it very seriously. But when you are kept in the dark so to
speak, you really don't know. And we knew you were working
hard. It is just we didn't know what you were doing. Now we
have gotten some light, now we can have some evaluation. As you
can see, there is still a lot of skepticism and a lot of us
that want to see Sudan come into the 21st century, and we don't
see it yet.
But let me once again thank you for coming. We will
adjourn, recess this hearing. There is no time left, but we
will be back. There are four votes. We should be back in \1/2\-
half hour or less.
With that, I would like to thank our Special Envoy for
coming. And this portion of the hearing is complete. Thank you.
The next three witnesses will be part of the official
hearing, and our fourth and final witness, we will then turn
the hearing into a briefing since, as you know, House Rules
indicate that official hearing, you may not have officials of
governments. However, they can brief the Congress. And so it is
just a technicality. They will all remain at the desk and they
will all be questioned at the completion of the testimony.
Our panel of witnesses here will begin with Dr. Randy
Newcomb. Randy Newcomb is the president and CEO of Humanity
United, one of the world's largest private donors in the field
of international human rights. Dr. Newcomb leads the
organization's long-term strategy to stop and prevent mass
atrocities and modern-day slavery.
He is a regular speaker on international human rights
issues and has appeared as an expert commentator in the media.
Previously Dr. Newcomb was vice president of the Omidyar
Network, a philanthropic investment firm. He was a fellow at
the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford University and an
international development fellow at the University of Bath in
England. He holds a doctorate degree from the University of San
Francisco, a master's degree in development and economics and
cross-cultural studies at the University of Bath in England.
Our next witness is Mr. Enrico Carisch. Mr. Carisch, former
coordinator for the United Nations Panel on Experts on Sudan.
He has served on expert panels of the United Nations Security
Council on Somalia, Liberia, DRCN and Sudan, where he has
investigated financial aspects of arms embargo violations,
money laundering and natural resource diversions for conflict
funding.
He has advised the Central Africa member states of the
ICGLR in their effort to establish effective certification and
control mechanisms for their precious and semiprecious metals
and their timber resources. Prior to his work in Africa, Mr.
Carisch worked as an investigative print and TV journalist.
Last but certainly no stranger and not least, we have Mr.
John Prendergast. Mr. Prendergast is the co-founder of the
Enough Project, an initiative here to end genocide and crimes
against humanity.
During the Clinton administration, Mr. Prendergast was
involved in a number of peace processes in Africa while he was
director of African affairs for the National Security Council
and special advisor at the Department of State. Mr. Prendergast
has also worked for Members of Congress, the United Nations,
human rights organizations and think tanks. He has authored
eight books on Africa, including ``Not on Our Watch,'' which he
co-authored with actor Don Cheadle.
With NBA stars he co-founded the Darfur Dream Team Sister
Schools Program, which connects schools in the United States
with schools in the Darfurian refugee camps. Mr. Prendergast
travels regularly to Africa. He is a visiting professor at the
University of San Diego and the American University in Nairobi,
and he has done extensive work and continues to do so
throughout Africa.
Next we have Mr. Nhial Deng Nhial. He is a government
official. As we indicated, the official meeting will end and we
will go into the briefing. But Mr. Nhial Deng Nhial completed
his early education at Camboni College in Khartoum before
earning a law degree from the University of Khartoum in the
early 80s. He is fluent in both English and Arabic. He was the
chief Sudan People's Liberation Movement negotiator during the
CPA talks, served in a number of senior positions in the SPLM.
He is currently serving as Minister of Sudanese People's
Liberation Army's Affairs, basically the Minister of
Defense. deg.
We will begin with our next panelist, Dr. Newcomb.
STATEMENT OF RANDY NEWCOMB, PH.D., PRESIDENT AND CHIEF
EXECUTIVE OFFICER, HUMANITY UNITED
Mr. Newcomb. Thank you, Chairman Payne, Ranking Member
Smith, members of the committee for inviting me to testify at
this critically important moment for the people of Sudan.
Before I begin my remarks, I wanted to ask that my full
written statement be made a part of the record if you wouldn't
mind.
Mr. Payne. Without objection.
Mr. Newcomb. I would also like to bring greetings, Mr.
Chairman, from Pam Omidyar. You have met with her several
times, and she is disappointed to not be with you today but was
traveling and was not able to make it. But you have been an
inspiration to her and to all of our philanthropic work, so
thank you so much.
Mr. Payne. Thank you.
Mr. Newcomb. Let me first commend the committee for holding
this hearing. As you know, Mr. Chairman, there has never been a
more critical time in Sudan's history than the present while
the parties in Sudan and those in the international community
use the next 18 months may make the difference between a hard-
won peace or a return to large-scale war.
Humanity United, the organization that I run, was founded
in 2005 on a simple premise. More than just representing the
challenge to peace and security, we believe that egregious
forms of violence and injustice, including those taking place
in Sudan, threaten the very foundation of our common humanity.
As a private philanthropic organization whose mission is to
help in mass atrocities and modern-day slavery, our work on
Sudan includes supporting advocacy efforts globally, providing
grants to those working on to advance peace, as well as
engaging in a range of other activities focused on conflict
both inside and outside of Sudan.
But as requested by the committee, I will focus my remarks
today specifically on how the United States can support
conflict resolution in Sudan by working with marginalized
communities in the country and concentrating on the issues that
the various parties within Sudan need to be resolving now at
this moment in time.
It is clear that the U.S. and international attention is
focused on resolving the immediate issues. These issues are
important, and yet settling them will address only some parts
of the complex mosaic of center-periphery conflict in Sudan.
Several high-risk flash points will still threaten a return to
conflict. Time and energy should be devoted now to identifying
such potential flash points and to promoting peace-building
activities meant to reduce those local tensions which could
trigger a wider conflict.
Essential to these discussions are the transitional areas
of Southern Kordufan, Blue Nile and Abyei, the so-called three
areas, regions along the north-south border that fought with
the Sudan People's Liberation Army during the civil war. The
U.S.-backed 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement contained
separate protocols for these fragile and high-risk areas,
including establishing a parallel referendum for Abyei and a
popular consultation process for the states of Southern
Kordufan and Blue Nile, both of which will remain in northern
Sudan beyond 2011.
These processes are meant to allow local communities to
express their views on the CPA and to enter into discussions
with Khartoum on persisting grievances. While the popular
consultations in Southern Kordufan and Blue Nile represent a
potentially important step toward an inclusive governance
arrangement, little has been done to prepare for the
consultations thus far.
Abyei itself is a microcosm of the issues facing both north
and south with regard to the 2011 referendum. Abyei, as you
know, sits on large deposits of oil, includes traditional
grazing areas for northern pastoralist communities and was the
scene of the most serious post-CPA violence to date.
As you know, in May 2008, local tensions fueled by failure
to implement the CPA led to violent clashes between government
forces from the north and south, leading to widespread
destruction and many deaths. I think the Abyei incident
underscores the case with which a local conflict could trigger
a broader war between north and south, collapsing the CPA
altogether and with it any hope at all for peace.
Work with the local communities in Abyei to prevent
precisely this kind of violence has lagged dangerously behind
other efforts. As the country that drafted the Abyei Protocol,
the United States has a special responsibility here to ensure
that agreements for Abyei are not just upheld but that they are
successful.
The need for local civil society engagement in a power is
also dire in Darfur itself, as you know. As the member of the
committee knows all too well, the terrible suffering in Darfur
has led to displacement and fragmentation, with millions of
Darfuris either in refugee camps in Chad or displaced from
their homes. Sudan today boasts more displaced persons than any
nation on Earth.
Efforts to negotiate a Darfur peace deal have left critical
local voices out of the process, making consensus among
refugees and internally displaced persons outside of any part
of that peace process. If we believe that we can achieve peace
there, this can only be achieved if we help support and sustain
the civil society actors that exist in Darfur and help give
them a voice in this critical process.
Mr. Chairman, before I conclude, I do want to raise the
critical importance of thinking today about the challenges of
tomorrow. Working for peace in Sudan must also remain focused
on the 2011 referendum. If the choice for southern
independence--and I think everybody would agree that all
indications suggest that it might lead toward independence--
there are a number of issues that demand urgent attention. The
risk of conflict I believe can be reduced. But in order for
peace to prevail, international attention, coordination and
diligence by the United States Government is needed on four
pressing issues.
The first, cross-border oil revenue sharing. Southern oil
revenue is currently split 50/50 between Khartoum and Juba.
Should the south vote for secession, the bulk of the oil would
remain in the south, but the pipeline to support Sudan, the
only means for the north to get their oil to market, runs
through the north. North-south cooperation in the oil sector
will require international support, guarantees and capacity-
building in the south.
Number two, cross-border population movements. As mentioned
in my previous comments on Abyei, there are populations on both
sides of the border whose livelihoods depend on continued
cross-border access either for grazing herds or for trade.
Early agreement on continued cross-border access will reduce
the likelihood of tensions, local violence and manipulation by
outside forces.
Number three, water rights. The White Nile flows through
the south before meeting with the Blue Nile in Khartoum and
flowing north to Egypt. Regional concerns about the
implications of southern independence for the Nile River Treaty
need to be addressed. Such discussions will also require robust
international engagement to ensure that neighboring countries
are confident in this outcome.
And number four, status of the southern populations in the
north. I think one of the most worrying scenarios around the
secession of the south is the status of southern populations in
the north, estimated to be between 1.5-2 million people. Most
were displaced during the decades-long civil war and would be
forcefully displaced back to the south or maybe subjected to
violence.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Smith, members of the
committee, these are complex and delicate issues. Yet we ignore
these issues raised here at the peril of the Sudanese people
and all those who care about the advancement of peace. Serious
work must commence on these four issues right away. I urge each
of you to push the administration to address these issues and
to make sure that continued Congressional oversight is
exercised as the 2011 referendum approaches.
Thank you again for allowing me to appear today, and I look
forward to addressing your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Newcomb
follows:]Randy Newcomb deg.
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Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. Mr. Carisch.
STATEMENT OF MR. ENRICO CARISCH, FORMER COORDINATOR, UNITED
NATIONS PANEL OF EXPERTS ON THE SUDAN
Mr. Carisch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to address you
today. I am particularly gratified by your continuing interest
in Darfur, which is unfortunately not matched by much of the
world even in places that talked of little else 2 or 3 years
ago.
I want to bring you the perspective from the broader
community, from the broader international community and the
multilateral efforts in bringing peace and security to Darfur.
And there I think it is important to notice that many member
states of the U.N. Security Council that 4 or 5 years ago have
advocated and helped to impose certain coercive measures on
those who have responsibility for the violence in Darfur now
seem to be backing away to continue to fight back against those
who abuse the Darfurians.
Increasingly it looks like the poorly understood and
underenforced U.N. sanctions are being sold out in favor of
mediation, whose success is at any rate far from ensured. And
that is the core of my concern which brings me here.
I had the honor of serving as the coordinator of the most
recent panel of experts on Sudan. For those who don't know, the
U.N. has imposed an arms embargo in 2004. In 2005 it revisited
the issue and expanded the embargo in order to affect all the
parties belligerent and the government and the formulation used
most. The embargo is for all the signatories of the N'Djamena
Ceasefire Agreement. That is in place since 2005.
That same resolution, 1591, also created a Sanction
Committee and with that the panel of experts, which acts
essentially as the eyes and ears of the Security Council in
Darfur and in the region.
Another important element of this resolution was that it
provided a mandate to the panel to monitor compliance with the
International Humanitarian Human Rights Law to report those who
violate such laws, to report on those who impede the peace
process, constitute a threat to stability in Darfur and the
region and are responsible for military, offensive military
overflights.
We have tried to fulfill all these obligations and duties
in our most recent report, a summary of which I would like to
have inserted into your report with your permission along with
the full written testimony.
Mr. Payne. Without objection.
Mr. Carisch. But I would like to just hit on the most
important findings of the report that basically breaks down in
eight areas or categories of abuses that we have found.
First, most of the armed actors in Darfur continue to
violate the arms embargo. The Government of Sudan and the
combatants of JEM, the Justice and Equality Movement, are the
worst offenders.
Second, many of the arms and most of the ammunition we find
in Darfur originates from China. We have attempted to cooperate
with the Chinese Government and in some instances even with
Chinese manufacturers of these arms in order to assist, to
obtain their assistance in the tracing of these items to the
actual violators of the arms embargo. It is very critical that
we get full cooperation. We have gotten far from satisfactory
cooperation so far.
Without that cooperation, we will not be able to
conclusively identify the embargo violators, and we will not be
able to help with stopping the violence or the violations of
the arms embargo.
Third, international humanitarian and human rights laws
continue to be abused and not respected.
Fourth, too frequently, indiscriminate force,
disproportionate and indiscriminate force is applied, which
leads to massive killings, injuries and mass displacements of
civilians. This past year we have seen that in several places.
Misseriya was probably the most brutal one.
Fifth, the panel has made special efforts to listen to the
half of the population that usually is never listened to, which
are the women. Every one of the ones we interacted with told us
that the biggest and greatest threat to them continues to be
sexual and gender-based violence.
Sixth, almost all parties to the conflict continue to use
child soldiers.
Seventh, Darfurians are still illegally and legally
detained according to Sudanese law or arbitrary arrests are
carried out by the National Intelligence and Security Services
of the Sudan. The detainees are interrogated and subjected to
torture and physical abuse, which includes but is not limited
to severe beatings and hitting with hands, fists and boots as
well as other objects, flogging with rubber hoses, burning with
coal heaters and other electric instruments, forced swallowing
of extremely hot water, sleep deprivation and being suspended
by ropes in stretched positions. These findings are from our
direct interactions with such victims. We have medical
testimonies as well. After they were released finally, they
obviously needed medical help.
Eighth, while the Government of Sudan has been claiming
that the Janjaweed are disarmed, that of course again goes back
to Resolution 1556 passed in 2004. We see no official
accounting for that, and we have however in the context of the
Misseriya battle found written evidence, battlefield orders
that instruct an Arab tribe to participate, interact in the
actions by the Sudanese Government forces.
The following acts by the Government of Sudan and others
have not been met with possibly the necessary counteractions by
the international community. The panel of experts had one of
its members not be allowed into Sudan; visa was simply denied
by the Sudanese Government. Once in Darfur, the panel had
difficulties to travel to places it needs to go, for example,
where the most egregious violence occurred. Of a total of 70
issues raised with the Government of Sudan in writing, 55 have
been ignored.
There is a spin-off effect of the Government of Sudan's
position. It affects very deeply the international community's
deployment. U.N., the U.N. Peacekeeping Force, UNAMID, is in
charge of our security. They denied us security clearance,
preventing us for 2\1/2\ months to work in Sudan and Darfur,
alleging security issues. But we then found out that there were
other issues, pressure from the Government of Sudan, the true
reasons.
We have also the fact that the group of the experts from
the Human Rights Council was not extended in November 2007, and
U.N. rapporteur of the human rights situation in Sudan, Ms.
Sima Samar, that post was abolished on demand of the Sudanese
Government and its political allies at the Human Rights
Council.
A mandate was replaced with another function, a U.N.
independent expert, who has a very narrow mandate that actually
allows him only to focus on the human rights forum, which is a
joint function, a joint operation by the government and UNAMID.
And then of course we also see that UNAMID is not able to even
maintain and protect its own national Darfurian employees, and
we have testimonies of those being abused by the National
Intelligence and Security Services.
The U.N. must accept responsibility for some of these
problems. The government has overwhelmed the weakened
management of UNAMID, and something must be done about this.
Back to the work of the panel. We have since its inception
in 2005 submitted close to 100 recommendations, all designed to
improve the U.N. sanctions. None of them in terms of the
substantive proposals have been taken up by the Security
Council.
For this particular mandate, we were deliberately coming up
with only three very narrowly defined recommendations in order
to provide something that is conducive to this very fractured
Security Council, allowing it maybe to let these
recommendations be adopted more easily.
The first recommendation basically encompasses a reporting
obligation that we would like to see imposed on the Government
of Sudan on essentially the steps that they are required to do
anyway based on the resolutions that have been adopted years
ago. One would be identifying exactly what they are doing in
terms of disarming the Janjaweed. The other would be
identifying when they want to move their own soldiers and
troops into Darfur, which in effect they could if they only
would obtain permission from the Sanction Committee. They have
never done that.
Finally, we also want to see some kind of progress report
in terms of preparations to secure the humanitarian situation
in Darfur and in particular what they are doing to protect
women, who suffer now much more since the eviction of the NGOs
in March this year.
The second recommendation pertains to an idea that has been
floating around that has been supported already by a
Presidential statement of the Security Council in May as well
as the regional forces. This is about the establishment of a
Chad-Sudan joint border monitoring mechanism.
Finally, the third one, recommendation, we were trying to
close the gap between the international community and globally
operating companies, private sector members who knowingly or
unknowingly end up being involved in the problems of Darfur. We
need to develop due diligence standards that
helps deg. them to understand when to make business
and when not to do business with certain parties. We are not
there. We need to develop a solution to this.
Finally, there is a confidential annex about which I cannot
really talk to you here because it is a confidential annex. But
anyway, this brief description is that we are trying to list in
there those individuals we feel are deserving of targeted
sanctions. That is an asset freeze as well as a travel ban.
Now, in terms of the reaction in the Security Council; I
think it is noteworthy that of course you always have
opposition when you come in, particularly with a hard-hitting
report. It is quite normal that people don't want to discuss
recommendations and basically just would like the thing to go
away.
What is new this time around, however, is that those states
who used to be the original sponsors of the U.N. presence,
particularly the arms embargo and other coercive measures, are
not speaking up. At least that is the conclusion you have to
take when you look at the public record. We have already the
new resolution, 1591, that is basically the response to our
report. It is literally the same as the one from a year ago,
which was virtually the same as the one the year before.
The lack of adjustment to new emergencies and to the
inability to stand on the principles previously decided and
adopted is sending a very loud signal to the Darfurians. The
Security Council and member states, including the United
States, are not going to come to help. And I think there is a
larger issue here.
Imposing sanctions only to fail to enforce them is
destructive and counterproductive to the policy goals that
motivated the sanctions in the first place. Making such empty
threats endangers the lives of those who need protection and
tends to escalate violence because the perpetrators feel
emboldened by the very apparent paralysis of the international
community. Failing to enforce sanctions also jeopardizes
peacekeepers and other members of the international community
who are deployed in the conflict area. It makes a mockery of
everyone associated with sanctions, including the U.S.
Government, whose firm leadership made those sanctions possible
in the first place. And of course we contrast that with the
leadership provided in 2004 and 2005.
We see of course also the need that maybe a policy
adjustment has to be made and that it is good and helpful to
have China now more actively participate in the dialogue, in
the international dialogue. But I don't think that the
fundamental principles that are at the bottom, at the heart of
the sanctions can be just disregarded. Sanctions need to be
supported by the international community, and then they can
also be an integral part and an important part in fact of
mediation. And I think that is an important element that should
be considered in the U.S. policy toward Sudan.
If applied properly, U.N. sanctions we know can have a
very, very beneficial effect. We have seen it in Angola. I have
been involved in Liberia with the financial sanctions against
the people around Charles Taylor and Charles Taylor himself. We
have done it in the Congo. There is undeniably a positive
effect if the sanctions are properly designed and then also
properly enforced.
I think the same has come clear. There is a report from
OFAC that explains how the sanctions that you are imposing
unilaterally have a very good coercive effect.
Mr. Chairman, I hope that this testimony helps to maybe
illuminate a little bit the role that the U.S. is now playing
on the international scene. But I would like to bring this to
specifics because I feel very much that the belligerents and
the Government of Sudan should not be given an opportunity to
play enforcement, sanction enforcement against mediation, and I
think that we need to develop very concrete ideas how mediation
can be supportive of sanctions.
And therefore, I propose that you consider four points that
the U.S. Government could maybe insist on, for example, the
full cooperation by the Government of Sudan with the sanction-
monitoring efforts by the coming next panel, including of
course a timely and immediate issuance of entry visas.
Secondly, that all the parties to the conflict, in
particular the Government of Sudan, are pressed that they reply
comprehensively and transparently to all the issues that are
being raised by the panel.
Number three, that the Government of the United States is
insisting with the Government of Sudan to provide safe access
to all locations, that the panel must be able to inspect and
provide unfettered access.
And the fourth proposition is that your government
encourages and works much more closely with the Government of
China to ensure that China too is becoming a full partner in
the enforcement of sanctions.
By adhering to these benchmarks, the U.S. Government can
begin to demonstrate that while the world may suffer from
Darfur sanction fatigue, it will not surrender the Darfurians
and the mediation process.
Thank you for your interest, Mr. Chairman, in this problem
and the efforts of the Panel of Experts to provide hopefully in
the future again useful information to you. Thanks.
[Note: The following submissions for the record by Mr.
Carisch are not reprinted here but are available in committee
records: U.N. Report of the Panel of Experts established
pursuant to resolution 1591 (2005) concerning the Sudan and
Vol. 5, Issue 47, of The CPA Monitor. The CPA Monitor may also
be accessed via the Web at http://unmis.unmissions.org/
Default.aspx?tabid=2213.]
[The prepared statement of Mr. Carisch
follows:]Enrico Carisch deg.
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Mr. Payne. Thank you very much for your very comprehensive
report, and we appreciate the work that you have done on the
Panel of Experts.
Mr. Prendergast.
STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN PRENDERGAST, CO-FOUNDER, ENOUGH PROJECT
Mr. Prendergast. Thank you, Chairman Payne. And I would
like to add my voice to the chorus this morning of praise for
you and Congressman Smith, particularly for being such
extraordinary upstanders for peace and human rights in the
world's forgotten places and for the world's forgotten issues.
This moment in Sudan's history requires utter clarity. It
is crucial I think that we admit particularly after this
morning that the existing strategy of the United States and the
broader international community to end the genocide in Darfur
and prevent all-out war in Sudan is failing. And it is time to
alter our course and our policy in bold and specific ways in
order to avert what could be the deadliest conflagration in
Sudan's war torn postcolonial history.
As we all know, two of the pillars, two of the principal
pillars of the CPA are the elections and the referendum. But it
is critical to note that the CPA also calls clearly for
conditions that must exist for the holding of a credible
election, including, as has been articulated this morning, a
new security law to reduce the kind of harassment and
intimidation of opposition, media access and freedom of
assembly for opposition parties and then of course unrestricted
access for the international observation.
Not one of these preconditions has been met to date. I
think we have to stand up and particularly this subcommittee
has to stand up and say that the emperor is as naked as he ever
was in the last 20 years of this rule of this ruling party and
blow the whistle now on this deadly charade. Why? Well, I think
the risks of ignoring the prerequisites that are called for in
the CPA for holding an election and the risks of holding a
noncredible election are enormous.
Why? Noncredible elections are going to do the following
things. They are going to fuel violence and divisions
throughout the country but particularly in the south. And from
my time living in southern Sudan in the 1990s and your frequent
visits, as you well know, that was the deadliest time in
Sudan's history because the ruling party in Khartoum was able
to divide and destroy the south. It was able to rip the south
to pieces using these strategies of pulling opposition figures
and arming them and having them attack and create intercommunal
conflict.
The second thing that noncredible elections will do is to
undermine the fundamental aim of the CPA, which is a
transformation, a democratic transformation of the country. You
don't start a process out of transforming a country with a
nonfree and a nonfair election. That sets the trend in the
opposite direction.
The third thing a noncredible election will do is to
disenfranchise millions of Darfuris and fuel further violence
there in Darfur as the contest erupts and the divisions that
occur will be used by the National Congress Party and others
who want to undermine stability and peace in Darfur, to further
the instability.
The fourth thing a noncredible election will do is to
provide false legitimacy to an indicted war criminal and to the
party that he represents. And that is the last thing we need to
be doing.
And that rolls right into the fifth thing, which is let us
not waste tens of millions, I think the number is $96 million,
of U.S. taxpayers' money underwriting a noncredible election
that is going to legitimize that war criminal.
So what is the bottom line on this then? Until the parties
agree to conditions that are in the CPA that will allow a
credible election, I think the United States and the broader
international community, but the United States has to lead it,
we need to suspend all of our electoral assistance, the tens of
millions of our taxpayers' dollars that are being spent on this
thing. And the noncredible elections simply shouldn't be
funded.
We need to live by the principle. Noncredible elections
shouldn't be financed by the United States taxpayers. And the
parties, I think we should encourage them to agree to delay
these elections until the CPA-mandated conditions for free and
fair elections, for democratic transformation exist, because we
can't be party to recognizing the results of any election that
doesn't meet basic standards. We have done it too many times
around Africa, and this furthers problems and deepens problems
rather than resolves them.
However, we have to equally vigorously continue to press
for those conditions for free and fair elections and press for
the conditions, the necessary preconditions for holding the
referendum on time. If we don't hold that referendum, if the
referendum is not held on time in January 2011, that is
probably the most certain trigger for a return to full-scale
national war.
Now, to be clear, we are not demanding a postponement of
the election per se. But what we are doing here, and there is a
reason for it, is pushing for the conditions for a free and
fair election as spelled out by the CPA, in other words, total
adherence to the CPA, not selective adherence to the CPA.
If the international community lets then the National
Congress Party just gloss over the provisions that would create
a fair election without any consequences, this will
demonstrate--and this is the crucial point--this will
demonstrate once again that we, the international community,
lack the will to enforce the basic elements of the CPA. And
what does that do? That signals to the CPA that it can wriggle
out of further CPA requirements going down the road, which
further imperils the fragile peace that exists today in the
south.
So that is why we are calling for the full implementation
of the CPA. And we think rushing toward elections, which are 5
months away, without the proper conditions in place will end
badly, particularly for the people of the south and the people
of Darfur. And it will further embolden--this is the
punchline--it will further embolden the National Congress Party
to undermine the next major CPA process, which is the
referendum. So we have to hold the line here. It is not a
future benchmark we are looking at, it is a present one.
But there is an even more important point from our
perspective at the Enough Project. There is a reason Sudan is
facing this 10-minutes-til-midnight, make-or-break scenario
that we are facing today.
Until now--and this is for me the most important point the
advocacy community can make--because there has been no cost for
nonimplementation of key parts of the CPA, because there has
been no cost for the commission of genocide, because there has
been no cost for the commission of another genocide in the
south, which wasn't called a genocide for 20 years, the
parties, but particularly the National Congress Party, continue
to trample on any agreement that is signed because there is no
consequence for nonimplementation. It is very obvious and basic
human nature.
So it is time, and this is why the Congress is so crucial,
it is time for President Obama to decide to implement his own
administration's benchmark-based policy, because flouting the
establishment of conditions for a credible election and the
referendum, that should trigger immediate consequences now. The
U.S. should work within the United Nations Security Council and
outside of it because a lot of things are simply not going to
be able to move, as we all know, because of the membership
there, and we should work to build that coalition of countries
that are willing to introduce some of these consequences.
Sometimes we will have to go it alone, but let us at least
do the diplomatic work to build the coalition to try to go
multilaterally on some of these things and impose these
consequences as soon as possible on the National Congress Party
for its obstruction of basic conditions for peace. And the
consequences, everyone always says oh, we already tried
pressure. This is what General Gration has said a number of
times publicly: We have tried pressure, it doesn't work.
We haven't. We haven't tried credible pressures. And we
list a few here, and they are incredibly important, valuable
points that Mr. Carisch has raised in the Panel of Experts
report about the effectiveness of sanctions when they are
actually implemented and the ineffect of sanctions when you
pass them, but then you don't implement them and don't execute
them.
So first and foremost, we need to ratchet up and actually
impose some of the targeted sanctions on the people listed in
that confidential annex and do it in a sequential way so people
can see the tidal wave is coming at their head, so they can see
you are working up through the chain of command on the basis of
empirical evidence that these people are either obstructing
implementation of agreements or are actually responsible for
grave human rights abuses.
So we can do those multilateral sanctions, the travel bans
and asset freezes. They are scarlet letters. There are
political impacts for economic measures.
Secondly, we can deny multilateral debt relief. The
Sudanese Government is on a mission right now. They want debt
relief. They have got a serious economic problem even though
they are making money hand over fist from the oil, going into
private accounts. So publicly the coffers are bare. They need
multilateral debt relief. We need to be in every forum they are
in asking for debt relief saying sorry, not today.
Third, we can be pushing for enforcement of this arms
embargo that has been talked about. And I will just refer you
back to the previous testimony.
And then fourth, we can provide as the United States now
that the conclusion of the process, the interagency process of
examining what the Obama administration's policy should be
toward the International Criminal Court is finished, we ought
to be providing more robust support for the ICC investigations
and indictments for ongoing atrocities.
And all that word game, wordsmithing that was going on
there about whether genocide is occurring or not in Darfur
obscures the fact just because 16 or 18 people according to
General Gration died in Darfur in whatever month he was
referring to, let us count the number--but we can't because we
have no access--let us count the number of women who have been
raped, let us count the number of children who are malnourished
directly as a result of policies that are aimed at destroying
in whole or in part a particular group of people. Call it
genocide or don't call it genocide, it doesn't just mean gas
chambers or village-burning. Genocide has many different forms.
Let us look at that.
Now these consequences in this confidential annex that
General Gration says doesn't exist, which concerns me greatly,
these are the instruments if we are to believe Secretary
Clinton and Ambassador Rice in their elaboration of this
confidential annex, these are the consequences and the
instruments that I think can help prevent an all-out war in
Sudan.
In conclusion then, in your opening statement, Mr.
Chairman, you made a very important point about engagement.
When we are talking about increasing consequences, we are not
talking about cutting off negotiations engagement. You have to
engage to get your priorities advanced. But you use the
consequences to back up and give leverage to the engagement.
And we think, not to leave Darfur out of the equation here,
we think it is time for a real diplomatic surge in Darfur. Let
us not forget Darfur as we become obsessed with our efforts to
try to prevent a return of the north-south war. And we think a
surge, a diplomatic surge by the United States and its allies
on Darfur should include the immediate drafting of a proposal,
a peace proposal, that addresses the root cause in Sudan and
put that draft down and start the debate and the dialogue
between the Darfurians and amongst the broader Sudanese public
about what the basic elements of a peace agreement will look
like in Darfur.
After 6 years of this nightmare for the people of Darfur,
we have yet to have seen one document laid down by the United
States and the broader international community that addresses
the core issues, the core issues that every Darfuri knows,
lives and breathes. It is a stunning failure of international
diplomacy.
There is nothing preventing us from going to Bassole, the
United Nations African Union representative, working with him
to put the draft together. How many consultations more does one
need to say these are the basic issues, put those positions
down and get people negotiating over an actual text? That will
move the ball forward.
Thanks very much for having me, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member Smith.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Prendergast
follows:]John Prendergast deg.
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Mr. Payne. Thank you. Thank you very much. This ends the
hearing phase, and we will now move into the briefing.
And we will now hear from Lieutenant General Nhial Deng Nhial.
The floor is yours. deg.
[Whereupon, the subcommittee proceeded to an off-record
briefing.]
Mr. Payne. Let me thank you very much. Let me thank all of
you. We have another series of votes. I wonder if the ranking
member wanted to make any concluding remarks. I intend to come
back for a few minutes to ask several questions if the panel
will indulge. We have three votes, three to four votes. They
are 5-minute votes each. Normally it should be 20 minutes for
the duration of the votes. So at that time, we will----
Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, I have several questions that I
will reduce to just a few.
Mr. Payne. Okay.
Mr. Smith. But I hope our panelists, I know they hopefully
will understand.
Mr. Payne. Okay, great. Well, we will recess. We will
probably readjourn at about 2 o'clock. We have to be out of
this room at 2:30 anyway, so we will be evicted if we are not
finished. The meeting stands in recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Payne. Thank you once again for your patience, and we
apologize for the interruptions, but that is a day on Capitol
Hill.
At this time, reconvene, and we will have a few questions
for the panel.
John Prendergast, you recommended a delay and suspension of
U.S. assistance for the 2010 agreement. I certainly completely
agree that the CPA must be fully implemented, but I have always
had a problem with the delaying of elections or referendums,
because sometimes the delay, then you have another delay, and
many times we have a difficulty really biting the bullet and
moving forward.
So I wonder how we can address both issues. That is, can
the conditions that you mentioned be met in time to delay
elections and hold a referendum in 2011? I know they are two
separate issues; the election is coming up next year, the
referendum coming up in 2011. We know that the month of
November was the month for registration. Like I said, I was
there 2 weeks ago. Registration started late; there was a
concern.
However, once the process began, there was more excitement
about registering. I went to sites, went to a training site, I
went to an actual registration site. And I understand that
registration has increased. Of course I think that the 1 month
of November was not long enough, and I do believe that
registration has been extended. So why don't you give me
further clarification on your statement.
Mr. Prendergast. Thanks for asking for the clarification,
Congressman Payne. Ultimately, at the end of the day, any delay
will have to be a result of the agreement of the parties. So I
wanted to reinforce that we are not calling for a delay or a
postponement; we are calling on the parties to consider,
particularly of course the SPLM as the party that has been more
forward-leaning in the negotiations, to consider what their
options are going forward in the negotiations with respect to
the holding of the election on time.
What I guess we are getting at as outsiders is we don't
want to provide international validation to the process. We
know if it is not a free and fair election that we won't
recognize it, we won't provide a validation of the results. We
shouldn't along that same line provide validation to the
process by providing all kinds of resources and support to it
if the preexisting conditions, the various laws and conditions
of freedom of assembly and others, and the security laws are
not in place to allow for a free and fair election.
So in other words, they can have the election; let us just
not underwrite it and support and go through the charade of
supporting what is going to be an unfree and an unfair
election. I guess that is the distinction we are making. And
stay on time and stay on track for the referendum.
The referendum doesn't have the kind of wiggle room that
the elections have. The referendum has to occur in January
2011. I think it is the ultimate trigger for a return to war.
Everyone's focus has to be, that cares about southern Sudan and
cares about the transitional areas and cares about the country,
has to focus on making sure that referendum occurs in January
2011.
So the elections, it is more important to have a free and
fair, a credible election, than it is to have just any old
election. So that is why we are saying at least suspend the
assistance. It is up to the parties whether they are going to
delay or not delay, postpone or not postpone, but at least the
international community doesn't have to be perceived to be
supporting an electoral process in which the very conditions in
which that electoral process is being conducted are designed to
create a noncredible result.
Mr. Payne. Mr. Carisch, do you have any feelings on the
election and the referendum? You have spent a lot of time with
your panel of experts.
Mr. Carisch. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, for asking. I generally
would like to refrain from commenting on territories that I
didn't have responsibility to monitor, but maybe I can add
something to the general issue.
Up to the very late, the last days when we still were in
Sudan, we would quite frequently ask the Darfurians and the
government in Khartoum, What are you doing to ensure that fair
elections are being held in Darfur, that the Darfurians are
able to fully participate? And one of the things I wanted to
know is, are you translating all the material into Masalitfur
and Sagaba? A lot of people don't speak Arabic in Darfur. I
have not found anybody who could affirm this, that they
actually are doing an effort. Sorry I can't add more to this.
Mr. Payne. No problem. Dr. Newcomb?
Mr. Newcomb. It is an interesting question, and it is one
that we have struggled with. And it is from a different
perspective. Since we are a philanthropy, we have been
approached by many of the NGOs and private sector groups that
are looking to monitor. And we have taken the position that
until the international community signals sort of thresholds
and benchmarks that would ensure legitimacy within the election
that we can't move capital in that direction. And the capital
remains locked up because the ways in which that capital could
be used to actually legitimize a faulty election would be a
tragedy.
And so our position has been to not move capital toward
elections until somebody begins to signal what those thresholds
will be.
Mr. Payne. And also a follow-on, since you are involved in
assisting in the funding and election observers, I am just
wondering what your feeling is on the countries that--and then
I might ask the others of you to comment if you would like. As
you know, the government of the National Congress Party
identified certain areas or countries or areas of countries
where ex-Sudanese living abroad can vote.
Now, as we know, there were just two sites in the U.S. I
think, one in Canada, Egypt, a couple of Gulf countries. But
countries around, close to Sudan, were all excluded. And I just
wonder whether that has been brought to your organization's
attention, and do you have any comment on that?
Mr. Newcomb. In fact, it has. And a part of our work has
been around working among Sudanese diaspora globally and have
funded quite a bit of work to help organize and support. And
this is a message that we are hearing from a number of these
civil society gatherings is that it is a highly selective
identification of who is able to participate in a vote outside,
among the members of the diaspora.
Mr. Prendergast. You can take right here, Congressman
Payne, in the United States where thousands and thousands of
southern Sudanese here living here in the United States can't
register because they don't have either a valid passport or a
birth certificate.
I mean, what I fear and many fear is that if these
elections go forward without any alteration of the existing
terms of reference that hundreds of thousands of Sudanese in
the diaspora around the world and millions inside Sudan,
particularly in Darfur, are going to be disenfranchised by this
process. And these are just part and parcel of the way the
National Congress Party does business again. And if they are
not challenged at each and every one of these junctures with
consequences for these kinds of obstructions, then does anyone
in this room really think there is going to be a referendum in
January 2011? They are going to allow it?
If they see that they can get away with these smaller
things, these little nickel-and-dime things, one after the
other, when it is time for the dollar store cash-in, they are
going to be like no, I am sorry, can't have it. There is this
problem or that problem or whatever other issue undermines the
process.
We have got to stand up now to each one of these things and
ensure that the administration imposes the consequences that
the Secretary and the President said that they were going to
impose if certain benchmarks are met. I think these are the
kind of things we should be saying, hey, some of your
benchmarks are being met. And when you get that confidential
briefing, if you ever get it, you know, you are going to find
that it is inescapable. There are all these issues that have
already passed time, where there should have been international
pressure that the United States leads to make sure that there
is some movement on the part of the NCP.
And it is not just a vilification of the NCP. If it is the
Darfur parties, rebel groups that are the problem, then you
have got to hit them with consequences. If it is SPLM, hit them
with consequences. But right now, the preponderance of
obstruction, the preponderance of warmongering is coming from
the usual source that it has over the last 20 years, which is
the ruling party.
Mr. Payne. Just say, for example, all things worked well.
Elections were held fair and free, the referendum was held fair
and free, and the south decided to secede. Have there been any,
have you had any discussion, or have you heard from any of our
U.S. officials? And then if, in fact, the National Congress
Party refuses to respect the outcome, have you heard anything
from U.S. officials about any kind of mechanisms to enforce the
referendum? Use your mike, your mike is off.
Mr. Prendergast. I appreciate that. This is the essence of
the policy review that occurred over the last 9 months, and I
think was the essence of the debate.
General Gration very publicly--I mean, this was an
unusually public internal policy debate, because he was so
public in his position, which was we ought to provide an
incentive-laden strategy that gets the National Congress Party
to change its behavior. Others inside the administration, who
we all know who they are, fought the other way for much more
pressures and consequence-based strategy.
But the end of the day, what they came out with and what
they announced is well, we will give rewards for better
behavior, and consequences for negative ones. The enchilada,
the big enchilada at the end of the January 2011 is whether the
NCP allows a referendum, and then respects its result. And one
assumes, but none of us know, because there isn't transparency
around the policy, that there would be significant and serious
consequences for nonrespect or for not respecting the results
of that referendum, if all of the things happen that you
outlined, Congressman Payne, happen.
And that is where I really think in terms of, for our role
as advocates and your role as oversight of the executive
branch, we need to know, even if it is not publicized, that
there are significant and serious consequences now for
nonimplementation of things that need to be done now, and much
more serious ratcheting up of the consequences in January 2011
if the National Congress Party either obstructs the referendum
or doesn't respect its result.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. Just finally I note, Mr.
Carisch, you have to leave. But let me just ask one question
regarding your panel of experts.
The latest report of the U.N. Panel of Experts on Sudan
mentioned sexual and gender-based violence as one of the
critical issues facing Darfur women and children. What
assessment have you made of the provision of sexual and gender-
based violence services? What specific steps should the U.S. be
taking to ensure their restoration? And by what benchmark
should we measure the progress of the gender-based and sexual
violence services?
Mr. Carisch. Thank you. Well, the expulsion of the NGOs in
March has contributed a great deal of diffusing and obscuring
this subject. We know that a substantial amount of the
organizations that were involved, and now are no longer there,
had an important role in addressing these problems, and did so
with some success.
I think that the principal problem that we are facing now,
expressed in all of these various things that we have been
looking at, the forms of abuses and problems that you are
looking at in Darfur comes to the forefront even more
prominently in the gender and sexual-based violence issue, that
we have no longer a solid, good reporting mechanism, or a
monitoring mechanism.
We are getting incredibly frivolous statements from the
Government of Sudan to prove that they have overcome the
issues; that they have been able, with a few additional, a few
new NGOs that they let in, and some of their own resources that
they put into place, that they have overcome these problems.
I was in Salingee myself, and talking to the staffs of the
various medical facilities that used to be there, and now it is
just national staff there. And they told me well, yes, we had
actually some doctors that were sent from Khartoum. They were
here a few weeks, and they didn't get paid. And they didn't
like the fact that this wasn't really that secure. So they
packed up and went home.
And that is now the balance of this whole situation in
Salingee, which is a relatively large area. It has four IDP
camps, with tens of thousands of people. They have now far less
medical care facilities, doctors, et cetera, and absolutely no
attention any more to the whole issues pertaining to the women.
So not only we know just from the anecdotal and empirical
knowledge that we were able to gather, which is by no means a
systematic overview, that the situation has gotten
significantly worse. But worse than that is that we don't have
a mechanism to exactly determine what needs to be done.
Mr. Payne. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. I yield to
the ranking member.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I want to
thank all four of our very distinguished presenters for the
work that you have done, and for sharing your valuable insights
with the subcommittee.
I have a number of questions, but I will narrow it to just
a few, given the lateness of the hour. Let me start, first of
all, with Mr. Prendergast. I mean, your testimony couldn't be
more clear, that the CPA preconditions have not been met. And
you go through them. And you know, from my work with the OSCE,
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, for
years--I have been on that since my second term in 1983--a free
and fair election isn't just the day of the balloting; it is
the access to the media, the harassment or worse of opposition
figures, all the points that you point out that the CPA covers
that appear to be falling by the wayside.
And then I read, you know, juxtapose the testimony from
General Gration, and he spends one paragraph on the elections.
And he says, ``We are also focused on ensuring the April 2010
elections are credible,'' and he talks about voter registration
very briefly. But he makes it sound like everything is just
moving along without much concern.
And I find that very disturbing. And you might want to
comment on that.
And the second thing--maybe I will lay all my questions out
again in the interest of time--the idea of having confidential
benchmarks, you know, wittingly or unwittingly, could very
quickly lead to no action, subterfuge, and all kinds of other
nasty outcomes. Because where is the accountability? I can't
even get a secret, what do you call it, I can't think of the
word. I can't even be apprised of the----
Mr. Prendergast. A briefing?
Mr. Smith. A briefing. Can't even get it. And I was told I
would get it today, so I will work on getting that.
But it seems to me you want these kinds of benchmarks in
neon lights, rather than somewhere in an annex somewhere in the
table. Because that, to me, makes it much easier for the
offensive and the offending individuals to violate, and then it
gets brushed over.
So I am very concerned about that. Human rights always
suffer when they are done or focused upon behind closed doors.
Sometimes it helps a little bit; often, it does not.
So I would ask you if you would speak to that. The
coalition of the willing you talked about, is anything like
that being put together? And I know that, Mr. Carisch, you make
a point that we have sat on the sideline. We joined the chorus
who do nothing. And I remember in 2005, we tried very hard as a
country, our negotiating team, to get at the U.N. a resolution
that had further teeth, that would have not just focused on the
Janjaweed and others getting weapons, but also on the
government itself in Khartoum.
We also, you point out in your testimony, and if you
could--and I think your testimony was outstanding. When you
talk about the eight categories of abuse, you testified that
some arms and a majority of ammunition originate from Chinese
manufacturers; that there is minimal cooperation and response
to requests to the Chinese authorities.
If you could define some arms. Where are the other arms
coming from? And minimal cooperation. Are they really
cooperating at all? Are they, I mean, you mentioned also in
your testimony the dialogue. Very often human rights dialogue,
or even dialogue with regards to Sudan, becomes a facade for
further mischief. Because after all, we are dialoguing, but the
Chinese Government meanwhile is providing all these munitions.
Because again, you also point out that the material that
was manufactured in China may have been legally delivered to
the territory of Sudan not under the embargo. I know that was
attempted to be covered, and did not get covered.
It would seem to me that our negotiators should be saying
wait a minute. You know, it is where the weapons end up that
really matters the most, obviously. And if it is in the hands
of killers and people committing genocide, that is what it is
all about.
But to use a deadly loophole, like you know, they are
coming ashore somewhere where this doesn't apply, I mean, that
is a deadly loophole. You might want to speak to that.
Let me also ask briefly, if I could, in the time remaining,
What would you recommend to the United States in particular,
and to other countries who do care? But talk to us. When you
talked about that the new resolution, 1891, is almost identical
to previous ones, has no lack of adjustment to new emergencies,
and the inability to stand on the principles previously decided
and adopted, and is sending a loud signal to Darfurians the
Security Council members, including the United States, are not
coming to help.
I think that is very profound, that they are taking their
cue that, you know, been there, done that, and we are not going
to update the resolution. The mandate stays status quo. And you
even get even stronger in your statement--and the others might
want to speak to this, as well--that when you impose sanctions
and don't enforce them, empty threats leads to more violence.
And again, we are standing, as the United States, on the
sidelines and not doing all that much. I am very, very
concerned about that, and you might want to speak to that, as
well.
And I think, and finally, we heard earlier from General
Gration that regarding the arms to southern Sudan, the 79,000
AK-47s we have heard about, and I am sure there is a lot of
other materiel making its way south, that we have not found
linkages to Khartoum. I mean, can you say that with a straight
face?
Mr. Prendergast. Who gets to go first? To deal quickly with
each of the excellent points, first, I am really worried about
the mixed messages that are coming out of the U.S. Government,
that have been coming out of the U.S. Government for the last 7
or 8 months.
There is a strange disconnect between General Gration and
what he says about the elections, as you read in his testimony.
But then the State Department issued a very negative assessment
of their take on where the electoral process was just a few
days after he got back, as if they hadn't coordinated. And then
there is this exchange today about whether there is a
confidential annex or not. I mean, that is incredible. The
Secretary of State said there was a confidential annex. To me,
you don't contradict that in public; that is a story. You are
making, you are generating controversy for no reason.
And I don't know what it means. Does it mean we don't have
a confidential annex, or is he just calling it something else?
It is worth investigating, worth asking about.
Third, you know, this genocide or not genocide; this just
ongoing difficulty with being able to just simply say what the
policy of the President of the United States is, who has said
it is an ongoing genocide. Where is the controversy?
Second point there is that about the issue of having these
benchmarks not be public. I think the reason why, having worked
in the White House before, is that the executive branch is
generally--Republican, Democrat, anything--don't like to be
pinned down on what they are going to do. In other words, if
they said publicly a benchmark for us doing something is, you
know, something about the elections, then if that thing
happens, then they have got to do something. They would rather
leave it somewhat vague so they can make a week-to-week, day-
to-day assessment of their options, and so they keep it
deliberately vague.
That is why it is so important for you to demand the
briefings, and get these briefings, so that you can at least
have something to hold them to it in an oversight capacity. We
don't, sadly, have the capacity, as advocates, to have a
confidential briefing. We have just got to trust that they are
telling the truth, that in fact there is a, you know, a set of
benchmarks with real consequences or real incentives in that
package, but who knows?
So third, I do want to make a very strong point, at least
strongly felt point, about why we are talking so much about
consequences.
We are not looking to punish the NCP; we are looking at the
empirical evidence of the last 20 years. When the National
Congress Party has changed its position and compromised, it has
been when there has been concerted multilateral pressure.
They booted bin Laden out when there was concerted
multilateral pressure through the United Nations Security
Council. They stopped, remember, the slave rating support to
the Misseriyan militia. You guys, this subcommittee and you two
in particular were so important in that happening, because they
feared that Congress was going to provide aid to the SPLM. That
is why they stopped. There was no other reason. There was a
potential serious consequence, so they said whoa, wait a
minute.
Same thing with the aerial bombing. Remember Franklin
Graham and all that stuff. And they worried that the Christian
Coalition and conservative Christian groups were going to tell
President Bush to do something more. So they stopped it because
it became untenable for them to do it.
The counterterrorism cooperation after 9/11. Before 9/11
they didn't help us with anything. After 9/11, they helped real
fast, after Wolfowitz said maybe we ought to look at Sudan as
the next one to invade.
And then finally, the CPA itself. There was real, you know,
there was frustration on Capitol Hill, maybe we should be
supporting the SPLM more strongly, and Darfur was building. So
there was real pressure, multilateral pressure, and that led to
the compromises necessary to have a CPA. That is real evidence
that this kind of approach or policy works.
That is what is so distressing, to see the current Special
Envoy, who doesn't seem to at least acknowledge the history, a
20-year history, where previous policy has actually succeeded
when the United States led multilaterally to achieve a human
rights objective in Sudan, and succeeded because we stuck to
our principles, and then worked the pressures route, and
actually was able to accomplish what our particular objectives
were.
And I think again, in the oversight capacity and in the
watchdog capacity that Congress and civil society has, we ought
to be really hammering on them as much as we can.
Mr. Carisch. Thank you, Congressman Smith. Just very
briefly, then--I think we are running out of time--the arms
embargo that was imposed, 1591 in 2005, I think did a good
thing by expanding it to all the signatories of the germane
ceasefire agreement.
What it failed to do is to make sure that it puts into,
this is of course still this kind of regional limitation just
on the three to four states.
When you look at the topography of Sudan, of course
immediately it becomes apparent that to monitor those borders,
a substantial part within Sudan, and then you have
international borders, is a difficult thing to do. Correctly,
they addressed this a little bit by giving UNAMIN actually an
arms embargo monitoring mandate as well.
Well, they have never reported a line about it. So that
needs to be addressed.
Mr. Smith. Can you touch on those other points, too,
briefly? I know we have got to go soon.
Mr. Carisch. Sorry?
Mr. Smith. Could you touch on some of those other points,
too?
Mr. Carisch. Right. So then regarding China. Look, I mean,
in the U.N., when you sign a letter, and you get the letter
back acknowledging that they have received the letter, that is
cooperation. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. So now that is the extent of it? That is
important to know, because minimal cooperation means exchange
of letters.
Mr. Carisch. There are maybe some little incremental bits
and pieces. But by and large, if you look in our report we have
a table where we say how many issues we raised per country, and
what has been answered. I mean, it is just----
Mr. Smith. And some of the other munitions and some arms,
but where are those other arms coming from that----
Mr. Carisch. Some we are still tracing.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
Mr. Carisch. But there is, of course, a fair amount of
really old stock, particularly in terms of arms, firearms, that
is circulating the region. Some of it has probably come from
the various, neighboring conflicts have come in. It is a
laborious process, and member states need to participate in
this tracing process in order for us to succeed. Unfortunately,
I don't.
Mr. Smith. Does anybody want to take a stab at whether or
not, how credible the statement was that AK-47s are making
their way down 79,000 strong, and maybe more? And it doesn't
have Khartoum's fingerprints all over it?
[Off-record response from briefer.]
Mr. Smith. Well, again, General Gration pretty much, it was
kind of a boast. And if it is true, it would be, and if it was
truly a registration it could be verified. But he talked about
the 12 main Sudanese who have signed up.
Do you have any idea how many of those might be just
carried by lists by the--okay, that is very disturbing.
I want to thank you very much for this hearing, and I will
send additional questions to our distinguished panel. And I
thank you.
Mr. Payne. Thank you. We are on a--Dr. Newcomb has to
leave. But we do have, and if you have to leave, we won't say
it is an affront to our Congresswoman.
But Congresswoman Jackson Lee has joined us, and we
appreciate it. I know you have been in other markups all day.
And so if you have any questions you want to ask.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I will try to go directly to Dr. Newcomb,
but let me just thank you, Mr. Chairman, one for having the
envoy here. We were in a Homeland Security hearing on the White
House breach. I wish I didn't have to be in that hearing; I
wish that breach of security did not occur. I wish it was not
taken in the light format that it was, but it was a serious
consideration. I thank you for your patience for my absence.
I am committed to victory in Sudan, and everyone has a
different interpretation of that. I missed the envoy, but I
understand that he is steadfastly looking to define the
conflict, or a definitive into the conflict, to implement the
North-South Comprehensive Peace Agreement and ensure that Sudan
does not provide safe haven for terrorists.
Dr. Newcomb, can you--I am just going to go down the row
here until I get to the Lieutenant General. First, what do you
want? And two, do we have the right posture now, as the United
States postures itself, in bringing about the solution as
articulated by the envoy? And is he on the right track?
And this is not speaking on someone who is absent. All of
this will be on the record. And I look forward to engaging with
the envoy, as well. Dr. Newcomb.
Mr. Newcomb. I appreciate that question. You know this
phrase, you campaign in poetry, and you manage in prose. And I
have often felt that once the campaign was over, that the
expectations that were set by the poetry during the campaign
don't meet the management of the prose in the policy.
And I represent the private sector, where we are engaged
philanthropically to support the good efforts of the United
States Government, as well as others. And this lack of
signaling, this lack of leadership role overall has really led
to just keep a lot of the philanthropic efforts on the margins.
And so I think the liberation and the significant moral
authority, if you will, that the U.S. plays here to signal and
to play that leadership role is so important, at least for my
organization and many others that I work with.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So we should be more vocal, and we should
denounce actions and be clear about our position.
Mr. Newcomb. I think we have a leadership role to play in
the international community, that is not being played at this
moment. And that we should step into that vacuum, and play a
far more deliberate role there.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Carisch, if I could? Thank you. Thank
you, Doctor. Just, same question.
Mr. Carisch. Well, thank you for asking the question. Well,
as I have pointed out hopefully with my testimony, there is a
definite need for leadership. And maybe this allows us to come
back to a question that Congressman Smith had asked; What can
be done?
The central point that I was trying to make today is that
the leadership now I think that the U.S. can demonstrate to the
world is by finding a way how to combine mediation and the
sanction process.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Combine the what?
Mr. Carisch. Combining the mediation efforts that you are
undertaking with the ongoing and existing sanction mechanisms
that are in place, and to which obviously the United States is
part of. I think that needs now some work to develop this, in
terms of practical steps that can be implemented. But I think
that is now a realistic approach to the situation we are
encountering there.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mediation and sanctions should go hand in
hand.
Mr. Carisch. That is true.
Ms. Jackson Lee. The last two witnesses, Mr. Prendergast
and Lieutenant General, if you would add to your comments. Are
there still killings going on in the region? And what does our
position that we are taking as Americans with the envoy do to
the, the idea that killings are going on, and our efforts may
not equate to that intensity?
Mr. Prendergast. This is not, in the last 20 years,
Congresswoman, this isn't one of those times, one of those
moments, if you take a snapshot, where mortality rates are
spiking. You know, 2 years ago in Darfur, they were spiking.
Six years, 8 years ago in southern Sudan they were spiking.
But we see different manifestations of the same policy of
dividing and destroying the communities, from which political
opposition emerges. So in Darfur, people hemmed in camps, a
policy of rape as a tool of war, turning aid on and off,
throwing out NGOs. General Gration misses the point about
throwing those 13 NGOs out. Those 13 NGOs, the majority of them
were focusing on violence against women.
It is hard enough to replace the humanitarian capacity. He
is absolutely right, we desperately worked to barely replace
the humanitarian capacity over the last 6 months. But we
haven't replaced the capacity to treat the survivors of
horrific sexual violence. And violence is a tool of war. That
is a grossly negligent position on the part of this
administration, not standing up for the women and the girls in
Darfur who are being targeted.
In the south we are seeing the beginnings of what we saw in
Darfur in 2002, the year before the genocide began. And what we
saw during the 20-year war, from 1983 on. And that is the use
of militias in the south to destabilize. And you see what are
sometimes called inter-communal violence, or tribal violence,
or cattle raiding or things like that. Suddenly, hundreds and
hundreds of people are being executed in the context of a
cattle raid? Well, I mean, as Congressman Smith just said, can
you credibly argue that this isn't an escalation? No, I don't
think so.
So the approach, now to answer the first question, the
approach that has been taken so far I think is marked by four
elements. Quiet engagement by the Special Envoy. Incentivizing
the path to behavior change. So offering incentives in the form
of better relations with the United States, or continuing
engagement, playing nice publicly even is an incentive.
Then the third aspect is moral equivalency, never blaming
one side or the other, just saying this thing isn't happening,
or this thing is wrong, without saying somebody is actually
responsible for it.
And then fourth, a total lack of consequences for the
violence that we have just described, and for undermining peace
efforts.
The alternative that I think some of us on the outside
within the various coalitions of activists are saying should be
marked by a very different set of four approaches.
The first one is higher-level engagement. We do need the
President, we do need the Secretary of State to occasionally
engage on these kinds of things. We know Ambassador Rice is,
but we need to see that higher-level engagement, so that it is
clear to the world that this is an issue that matters.
It was disappointing to all of us that, when President
Obama and President Hu rolled out their, whatever you call it,
communique at the end of their meetings. There was no mention
of Sudan, even though we were told that he raised it privately.
It would have been good even just to say, Hey, we pledged to
work together to end violence or something. You know, anything.
So higher-level engagement, number one.
Number two, instead of the incentivizing, instead of
incentivizing the path to better behavior, pressure. Because
that has worked. And that is what I was talking about when you
came in.
The third element is, stop the moral equivalency. When one
of the parties is undermining, dramatically undermining forward
progress on implementation of the CPA, dramatically undermining
security in Darfur, we ought to say publicly, very clearly,
that that party is doing it, and that is why we have a problem
with what is happening. At least stand up for the people who
are suffering the results.
And then finally in the fourth element of an alternative
strategy to the one that is being pursued presently by the
Special Envoy, and the most important one, is we have got to
introduce consequences. If you are going to commit genocide, if
you are going to undermine peace deals, if you are going to mar
the preparations for a credible election, then there should be
some form of multilateral consequence that the United States
needs to lead the building of and imposition of around the
world.
And we talked a lot during the hearing about what kinds of
things can be done. Those that argue we have tried everything,
and they didn't work, are incorrect. There are many other
things that can be done to ratchet up the pressure and work
multilaterally to bring about change.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Lieutenant General? Thank you very much,
Mr. Prendergast.
[Off-record response from briefer.]
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much.
Ms. Jackson Lee. If I may just conclude, and just say
something, Mr. Chairman. If you would just yield.
Mr. Payne. Yes, go right ahead. Because we have to leave
the room. They have a big reception coming up here in about 10
minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And I do want to accommodate. Let me just
thank you again.
In his absence, let me thank Major General Gration for his
love of Africa, and his concern. Mr. Chairman, however, I would
offer to say that we are getting a potential roadmap here of
these very fine leaders that may be the road to nowhere. And I
thank the committee for bringing to our attention this crisis
that does not get the attention that I think it deserves.
Mr. Prendergast, I am going to want to work with you
directly on this whole question of sexual violence. When I was
in Darfur it was occurring. It is not murder and death, as you
note, but for some it is the death of their lives in terms of
how they lived it.
Lieutenant General, I think the pitting one against another
leaves us in the condition and predicament that southern Sudan
needs help, and Darfurians are still in camps. It is our
commitment that we must not abandon this cause.
I yield back.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much. And thank you for coming.
Let me certainly thank the panel. This has been extremely
informative.
We have a very serious situation here. We know, because we
have been watching the Government of Sudan for several decades.
And as has been indicated, they only respond to pressure.
I think that John Prendergast really hit the nail on the
head. I think this current administration is trying to come up
with a policy, but time is moving on. As I indicated before,
half of our current term as Congressmen are up. As a matter of
fact, after May or June, you are into campaign mode, and so
almost two-thirds of your term is up.
Now, the administration doesn't necessarily have to gauge
their progress, or lack of it, on our terms. However, we do
look at what are we going to accomplish in a term. And it has
taken quite a while for the team dealing with Africa in
general, and Darfur, I mean Sudan in particular, some time to
assemble itself. And we have been patient. This was the first
hearing we have had with the Special Envoy, and we are almost
going into a new year, having 1 year already pass.
And so there has been a level of frustration. I think that
this has been a very good airing. I think that the
administration is attempting to come up with policies.
Afghanistan has taken some time to try to come up with a so-
called policy, but it has been all this time deciding what the
policy is.
We have seen China, whether we are going to be in love or
at war, or angry or friendly. And they are still coming up with
a policy on Tibet or Burma, et cetera.
So we have been giving, we know it is a new administration.
And there are many, many issues on the table. Many of the
problems have been exacerbated by the fact that they were
denied things like climate change, dealing with some of these
other tough issues that have been, that have been postponed or
delayed. So there are a lot of things on the table.
I think that we, though, need to step up with some
affirmative action. I do believe there may be several points of
view in the administration, and that is one of the reasons why
it is grappling with a Sudan policy, as it has grappled with an
Afghanistan policy, trying to come up with a policy. Things
that happened in the past, cattle raids and inter-communal
violence years ago was not as deadly as it is now, because AK-
47s were not that available. And so violence was in a different
manner. You had few deaths, perhaps. With AK-47s you can't
predict the number of casualties you will have. With these same
kinds of issues, now they can be escalated.
And so we are going to certainly urge the administration to
really kind of fine-tune its policy. And we are going to keep
the pressure on. We feel that there must be a solution. Time is
running out. We have been patient, but we must, as I mentioned
before, make some strong affirmative actions in the right
direction.
So I would like to once again thank all of you here, and
also our Special Envoy who was here. I would like to say that I
ask unanimous consent that statements from the Save Darfur
Coalition be made a part of the record. Without objection, so
ordered.
And I ask unanimous consent for our members to have 5 days
to revise and extend their remarks. Without objection, so
ordered.
Once again, thank you, and the meeting stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:34 p.m., subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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