[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
A COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT OF U.S. POLICY TOWARD SUDAN
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
AND HUMAN RIGHTS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 4, 2011
__________
Serial No. 112-110
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
DAN BURTON, Indiana GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ELTON GALLEGLY, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California BRAD SHERMAN, California
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
RON PAUL, Texas GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
MIKE PENCE, Indiana RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
JOE WILSON, South Carolina ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
CONNIE MACK, Florida GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas DENNIS CARDOZA, California
TED POE, Texas BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
DAVID RIVERA, Florida FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York
RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina
VACANT
Yleem D.S. Poblete, Staff Director
Richard J. Kessler, Democratic Staff Director
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Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Human Rights
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas KAREN BASS, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
The Honorable Princeton Lyman, Special Envoy for Sudan, U.S.
Department of State............................................ 6
Mr. Ker Aleu Deng, emancipated slave from the Republic of South
Sudan.......................................................... 26
Gerard Prunier, Ph.D., nonresident senior fellow, Michael S.
Ansari Africa Center, Atlantic Council......................... 30
Mr. John Prendergast, co-founder, The Enough Project............. 38
Ms. Ellen Ratner, journalist..................................... 49
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Princeton Lyman: Prepared statement................ 10
Mr. Ker Aleu Deng: Prepared statement............................ 28
Gerard Prunier, Ph.D.: Prepared statement........................ 33
Mr. John Prendergast: Prepared statement......................... 42
Ms. Ellen Ratner: Prepared statement............................. 51
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 68
Hearing minutes.................................................. 69
The Honorable Russ Carnahan, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Missouri:
Prepared statement............................................. 70
Questions submitted for the record............................. 71
A COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT OF U.S. POLICY TOWARD SUDAN
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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2011
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
and Human Rights
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:22 p.m., in
room 2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H.
Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will come to order. And I want
to thank everyone for being here and especially for your
patience. We did have a series of votes on the House floor.
So, Mr. Ambassador, and to all of our distinguished guests
and friends, I apologize for the lateness. We are holding
today's hearing for the purpose of examining a wide range of
issues involving U.S. policy toward Sudan, including the
ongoing attacks on Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile States; the
continuing negotiations with the Republic of South Sudan, on
challenges, such as the demarcation of the border, the fate of
the Abyei region, citizenship in both countries, and oil
revenue sharing. Additionally, this hearing provides
opportunities to receive an update on the U.S. response to the
enduring stalemate on Darfur and to examine U.S. policy on the
release of Sudanese still held in bondage throughout Sudan.
Ambassador, thank you again for being here and for your
work on behalf of peace and justice in Sudan.
Two months ago, this subcommittee held an emergency hearing
on the attacks by the Republic of Sudan on its own Southern
Kordofan State. The crisis first arose in June, shortly after
the military forces of the Khartoum government attacked the
disputed Abyei area. This was apparently a provocation to the
Sudanese People's Liberation Movement, or SPLM, government in
what is now South Sudan just before the country's new
independence. This vicious attack didn't provoke the SPLM into
retaliation, which would have or could have derailed its
independence. Nevertheless, dozens of people were killed and
more than 200,000 were displaced in the immediate aftermath of
the Northern attack on its own territory.
This violence was a tragic resumption of a prior war by the
Khartoum government on the Nuba of Southern Kordofan. Beginning
in the 1980s, Islamic elements in the North began an
eradication campaign against the Nuba, pitting Northern Arabs
against Africans to the South. Earlier this month, the Sudanese
military bombed its own Blue Nile State, including attacks on
the Governor's residence. Nearly half a million people were
affected by the air and ground assault on Blue Nile. It seems
the so-called cease-fire in Southern Kordofan was only a
pretext to facilitate preparations for the assault on Blue
Nile.
The Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the North-
South civil war was supposed to provide for consultations for
both states, so residents could determine their political
future. However, Khartoum didn't want to risk their breakaway
and lose them, as it had South Sudan. The promised
consultations were held in Blue Nile but postponed in Southern
Kordofan.
When the SPLM-North members of Southern Kordofan and Blue
Nile didn't lay down their arms in advance of South Sudan's
independence, Khartoum used that as an excuse to eliminate
those who had supported the South in the long civil war. A
preemptive strike in Southern Kordofan evidently was meant to
chase out those who had opposed Khartoum. The members of the
SPLM-North were stalked by the Sudanese military who went door
to door to eliminate them.
The similar attack in Blue Nile was intended to purge that
state of the supposed opponents of the Khartoum government
living there as well. In fact, the Southern Sudanese People's
Liberation Army-North Governor of Blue Nile, has been chased
out of the capitol by Northern military forces.
As the world was focused on the January referendum, in
which Southerners voted for an independent South Sudan, human
rights organizations reported rising violence in Darfur. There
was a resumption of conflict in several locations in North and
South Darfur between Sudanese Government military forces and
Sudanese Liberation Army rebels loyal to Minni Minawi, a
signatory to the now-defunct 2006 Darfur Peace Agreement.
Recently, the Sudanese Army clashed with the rebel Justice
and Equality Movement, or JEM, in the remote area of North
Darfur, near Sudan's triangle border with Chad and Libya.
Darfur rebels have attacked Omdurman and Khartoum in Northern
Sudan in 2008, which resulted in a massive crackdown on
dissidents.
The brutality by the Sudanese military will not crush the
desire for freedom in Abyei, Southern Kordofan, Blue Nile, or
Darfur. In seeking to prevent the secession of these states and
the special administrative area of Abyei, Bashir's government
may be sowing seeds for Sudan's eventual dissolution. Until
that time however, the international community must continue to
press for an end to the attacks on Sudanese, using all of our
available diplomatic and economic resources. The human rights
of the people in the North must be every bit as important to us
as the rights of those in the South have been.
Meanwhile, we have known that raiders from the North were
killing Southern men and taking women and children for slavery
for decades. Reports from human rights groups in the U.S.
Department of State on Sudanese slavery gained the attention of
Members of Congress, such as myself, as early as the 1980s
because of the serious human rights implications of modern-day
slavery.
I would note parenthetically that I chaired the first
congressional hearing ever held on slavery in Sudan on March
13, 1996. Our witnesses included then-Deputy Assistant
Secretary for African Affairs William Twaddell; Samuel Cotton
of the Coalition Against Slavery in Mauritania and Sudan; Dr.
Charles Jacobs of the American Anti-Slavery Group; Baroness
Caroline Cox, Deputy Speaker of the British House of Lords, who
testified on behalf of Christian Solidarity International; and
Dr. Gaspar Biro, Human Rights Rapporteur of the United Nations.
Fifteen years ago, these witnesses cited the gross human rights
violations committed by the Government of Sudan and their
failure to cooperate in addressing slavery. Special Rapporteur
Biro referred to it as, quote, deg. ``manifest
passivity of the Government of Sudan.'' And of course, others
thought it even worse, complete and total complicity. Deputy
Assistant Secretary Twaddell said the Clinton administration
acknowledged then that slavery was an ugly reality in Sudan.
Following a visit to the Sudan People's Liberation Army-
held portion of Sudan in November 2000, then-Assistant
Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan Rice said that
neither the Clinton administration nor its successor would
cease working to end slavery in Sudan.
Why has that promise simply not been kept? When former
Assistant Secretary Rice made that pledge, the U.N. estimated
that there were as many as 15,000 Southern Sudanese held in
bondage after being abducted in raids by Arab militiamen on
Southern villages. While the current exact number of Sudanese
slaves is unknown, too many people remain in slavery in Sudan
and more continue to join them each day.
The State Department's 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report
lists Sudan as a Tier III country that is a continuing source,
transit, and destination country for men, women, and children
subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. Slavery remains
a pervasive and deeply disturbing reality in Sudan, and we
cannot in good conscience allow this to continue.
We have had active campaigns to end Sudanese slavery,
especially those initiated by Christian Solidarity
International, to end genocide in Darfur, to end the North-
South civil war, and now to end the attacks in Abyei, South
Kordofan and Blue Nile. Unfortunately, these campaigns have
been conducted in isolation from one another.
If we are to have a successful policy to stop the suffering
of Sudan's people, our Government must devise a comprehensive
policy for addressing all of Sudan's challenges. To facilitate
such a policy consolidation, civil society also must support a
coordinated policy in a matter of their particular area of
concern. Therefore, I would call on all civil society
organizations concerned about the people of Sudan--and you
certainly have done tremendous work over the years--to work
together and demonstrate to our Government the wisdom and the
effectiveness of a coordinated American policy on Sudan.
I would like to now yield to my friend and colleague, Mr.
Payne, for any opening comments he might have.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much.
And let me begin by thanking Chairman Smith for his
attention in the continuing crisis in Sudan. As indicated, we
have had numerous hearings throughout the years when he was
chair and then I was chair, and now that he is chair and we
continue to focus on this very important part of the world,
very troubled part.
So I applaud him for continuing to have attention paid to
this area.
I also would want to thank our witnesses, that we
appreciate their years and years of following this very
important issue. Of course, Ambassador Lyman, who has a career
in the State Department in troubled places, whether it is Haiti
or South Sudan, and we are very pleased that you are our
special envoy to the country.
We are looking forward to the testimony today about the
overall policy toward the Republic of Sudan in the aftermath of
the independence of South Sudan and the attacks on Southern
Kordofan and Blue Nile State. As we are all aware, on July 9th,
the people of Southern Sudan officially seceded and formed the
world's newest nation, South Sudan. I was among the delegation
with Ambassador Lyman and General Colin Powell and many others
present, Dr. Susan Rice, at the ceremony. And I witnessed the
joy of the people of South Sudan and how jubilant they felt
that day after many, many years of--22 years of civil war and 5
years of interim government, that the day finally came that
they received their independence.
Prior to secession, Sudan weathered decades of devastating
civil war. In 2005, with the help of the United States and
other nations, Khartoum's National Congress Party and South
Sudan's People's Liberation Movement, SPLM, signed a
Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and I had the opportunity to be
present at that signing. The CPA aimed to accomplish three
things: One, redistribute both power and wealth in a less
centralized structure; secondly, to transform the democratic
process in Sudan; and three, to allow the people of Southern
Sudan to decide on unity or separation.
While we celebrate the triumph of democracy for South
Sudan, many key provisions of the CPA remain unimplemented and
conflict in the North rages on. There has not been democratic
transformation in the North, and the popular consultations with
Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile have been stymied. As time
passes, the situation on the ground gets progressively worse.
For nearly 9 years now, conflict has raged in Darfur and
western Sudan. An estimated 450,000 people have been killed,
over 1.9 million internally displaced, and 240,000 forced to
flee neighboring Chad. Congress and the Bush administration
recognized that what was going on was genocide and labeled it
as such.
Since then, multiple peace agreement attempts have failed.
And to this day, violence continues. In late May, at the order
of Omar al-Bashir, Sudanese armed forces invaded Abyei, killing
over 100 and displacing an estimated 100,000. Bashir's forces
then set their sights on the Southern Kordofan State. There
were reports of mass graves and the targeted killing of the
Nuba people.
In early September, fighting also erupted between the SAF
and SPLM in the Northern border state of Blue Nile. Together,
both conflicts have displaced as many as 200,000 people, and
Bashir's regime has severely restricted access to the region
for the U.N. and other humanitarian organizations.
On September 23rd, the Satellite Sentinel Project showed
evidence that armed forces from Khartoum were mobilizing a
massive formation of troops, artillery and military aircraft to
the region, raising concerns about an escalation possibly of
the hostilities. These recent events prove that Government of
Sudan is continuing to use the same deadly method that it has
employed for years against its own people.
Yet the people of Sudan continue to push for democracy and
inclusive government. They took to the streets earlier this
year in demonstrations inspired by the Arab Spring activities
in neighboring countries. Bashir's regime responded with
extreme violence.
There has also been increased cooperation between the
various rebel groups dispersed throughout the country. Those
groups are united under the mission to forcibly remove Bashir
from power. The situation on the ground is fast approaching a
tipping point that will likely result in civil war.
It is against this backdrop that we take the opportunity
today to reevaluate U.S. policy toward the Republic of Sudan.
Two years ago, the Obama administration announced the policy, a
Sudan policy that focused on three priorities: One, Darfur; the
implementation of the CPA; and counterterrorism. Last year, a
new policy was announced focusing on diplomatic engagement and
the relaxation of sanctions and restrictions. The
administration announced the plan to normalize relations;
provide assistance and debt relief; seek congressional support
for the removal of Sudan from the State Sponsor of Terrorism
designation; support access to multilateral and bilateral
assistance; remove executive branch sanctions; and seek
congressional support to remove legislative sanctions.
All this was conditioned upon full implementation of the
CPA, progress in Darfur, and a commitment that Khartoum would
not support terrorism. Not only have these contingencies not
been met, but the situation is much worse. The U.S. and
international community should develop a comprehensive and
unified plan to reverse the pattern of grave crimes, human
rights abuses and humanitarian crisis in Sudan and to support
the democratic aspirations of the people of Sudan.
I am interested in hearing from our witnesses about these
issues. I am also interested in addressing the potential impact
of the proposed cuts to the United States international affairs
budget, including contributions to the United Nations, on our
ability to provide humanitarian relief and bring stability to
the region.
Thank you, again, Mr. Chairman, for bringing this hearing
today.
And I look forward to hearing the testimony of the
witnesses.
Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Ranking Member Payne.
Ms. Buerkle.
Ms. Buerkle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you very much for holding this very important
meeting.
And thank you to our witnesses here today.
Many unresolved issues and disputes remain in the wake of
the South Sudanese independence. Those issues exist because the
new Comprehensive Peace Agreement has not been fully honored,
nor has its goal been realized for the people of South Sudan,
for those in Abyei, for those in Southern Kordofan and the Blue
Nile.
I believe that most of us in this room want the new
Republic of South Sudan to flourish. We would also like to see
stability, security, and freedom for the people of not only
South Sudan but also North Sudan.
As we discuss the situation in Sudan and South Sudan, we
must not lose sight of the fact that failure to come to
enforceable agreements over oil rights and border lines
ultimately translates into more violence and greater loss of
life.
Again, thank you to our witnesses. I look forward to
hearing your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Ms. Buerkle.
And I would like to now welcome Ambassador Lyman, who was
appointed U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan on March 31st.
Immediately preceding his tenure as Special Envoy, he served as
U.S. senior advisor of North-South negotiations, where he led
the U.S. team focused on supporting ongoing negotiations
between the parties to Sudan's 2005 Comprehensive Peace
Agreement.
Ambassador Lyman previously worked as an adjunct senior
fellow for the Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign
Relations. He was also an adjunct professor at Georgetown
University from 1999 to 2003. He was executive director of the
Global Interdependence Initiative at the Aspen Institute.
His previous career in government included assignments as
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from
1981 to 1986; U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, 1986 to 1989;
Director of Refugee Programs from 1989 to 1992; U.S. Ambassador
to South Africa from 1992 to 1995; and Assistant Secretary of
State for International Organizations from 1996 to 1998. From
2008 to 2010, he was a member of the African Advisory Committee
to the United States Trade Representative. He began his
government career with USAID and served as the director in
Addis in Ethopia from 1976 to 1978.
He has his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard, and has
published extensively.
And I now turn the floor to Ambassador Lyman.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE PRINCETON LYMAN, SPECIAL ENVOY FOR
SUDAN, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ambassador Lyman. Mr. Chairman, thank you so very much for
holding this hearing.
Thank you, Ranking Member Donald Payne, and Congresswoman
Buerkle.
Thanks so much because we do need this attention on the
issues in Sudan.
There is much to discuss today, and I would ask if you
could to allow my full statement to be made part of the record.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Ambassador, without objection, so ordered.
Ambassador Lyman. Some of those issues include, as many of
you have indicated, the issues still unresolved under the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement; the fighting in Southern
Kordofan and Blue Nile; and the situation within each of these
countries, Sudan and South Sudan.
While we have witnessed the peaceful independence of South
Sudan, tensions remain between the two countries. Three post-
CPA issues in particular remain to be resolved that could in
themselves lead to confrontation or even conflict. These are
the final status of Abyei; the financial arrangements in the
oil sector; and disputed areas along the border.
Negotiations on these issues are scheduled to resume this
month in Addis Ababa under the auspices of the African Union
High Level Implementation Panel, and we are urging the parties
to come ready to address all three of these. In regard to
Abyei, we are also particularly concerned that, despite
agreement in June and reinforced in September on mutual
withdrawal of all armed forces from that area, this has not
taken place. And in particular, the Khartoum government has
introduced conditions for its withdrawal when the agreement was
very specifically that this would be an unconditional
withdrawal once the Ethiopian peacekeepers were sufficiently in
place, which they are. I and my staff will be present at these
negotiations in Addis.
But it is the fighting in the States of Southern Kordofan
and Blue Nile that capture much of our attention at this time.
Like the members of this subcommittee and many in the public
that follow Sudan closely, we are angry and deeply upset at
what has transpired there. The fighting has displaced hundreds
of thousands of people, more have--tens of thousands have fled
into Ethiopia and South Sudan. There are credible reports of
serious human rights violations, including the bombing of
civilian villages, kidnapping and murder of civilians taken
from their home, and denial of desperately needed humanitarian
assistance. We have denounced these acts and called for an
independent investigation of these abuses.
I regret that African members of the U.N. Security Council,
along with China and Russia, have not supported that proposal.
The U.N. Human Rights Council has agreed to renew the mandate
of the Independent Expert on Human Rights for Sudan, but this
is not sufficient.
We have equally demanded that the Government of Sudan allow
an international humanitarian organization to assess the needs
of the people in these states and provide necessary assistance.
We have pressed for this to take place regardless of whether a
formal ceasefire or cessation of hostilities is in place, and
we have reinforced that command most recently in our meeting
with the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Washington last week.
However, while we understand that the Government of South
Sudan has historic ties with the SPLM in the North, the United
States is deeply concerned that support to the SPLA fighters in
Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile from the Government of South
Sudan could further exacerbate the conflict in these two areas
and run the risk of instigating direct military conflict with
Sudan. The United States strongly urges the Government of South
Sudan to use the influence it has to encourage both the SPLM-
North and the Government of Sudan to reopen direct lines of
communication and work to find a negotiated political solution.
We note that President Kiir will be going later this week
to a meeting with President Bashir, and we are pleased with
that, and we hope that this offers an opportunity for the two
of them to discuss exactly this matter.
What is deeply disappointing is that this fighting was not
necessary and could have been avoided. Underlying the conflict
are unresolved political issues which were to be addressed as
part of the CPA. Just a few months ago, I attended negotiations
on these issues under the auspices of the AU High Level Panel.
And in June, the Government of Sudan and the SPLM-North signed
a framework agreement to address both the political and
security issues in these two states. Yet that agreement was
later rejected by the Government of Sudan. I commend the
efforts of President Thabo Mbeki and the AU panel which he
directs, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, and the Special Envoy
of the U.N., with all of whom we worked very closely to
reestablish these negotiations.
I am ready to discuss further as we get into the Q&As of
the situation in Darfur, which remains of major importance to
us, but let me in these opening remarks make a particular point
here that relates fundamentally to the outcome in Southern
Kordofan, Blue Nile, and Darfur. Right now, Sudan is engaged in
war in three parts of the country, the two areas of Southern
Kordofan and Blue Nile, and in Darfur. This is happening at a
time when Sudan faces particularly great economic challenges.
While we often speak of the conflicts in these areas
independently, at the root of all of them is the question of
how Sudan will be governed in the future. This is a decision
for the people of Sudan, not for outsiders. But for Sudan, the
time is right for addressing this question.
The government, in fact, recognizes that in the wake of the
South's independence and the end of the government of national
unity, a new constitution is needed. And it has promised a
broadly participatory process in creating it. Therein lies the
opportunity to address the fundamental issues that have driven
conflict in Sudan for many years, issues of power and wealth
sharing, of human rights and the role of democratic
institutions, such as political parties and the judiciary. A
broadbased national dialogue on these issues would offer the
promise of a new day in Sudan, one in which all parts of the
country and all of its people would benefit.
There are some in the armed movements and others and
elsewhere outside Sudan that have come to the conclusion that
such a dialogue and process is impossible while the present
government is in power in Khartoum. And they have committed
themselves to seeking a military overthrow of the regime. But
it is our belief that such a conclusion might well be a
prescription for years, even decades, of renewed civil war in
Sudan. Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of
Sudanese could die in such a war, and the outcome may not be
what the protagonists had desired.
Instead, we believe that there is real need for political
dialogue on all of these issues and still opportunities thereby
for peaceful collaborative change. In all our dealings with the
armed movements, we have urged them to develop a political
platform that would lay the foundation for their participation
in such a process. And we continue to urge the Government of
Sudan to cease hostilities, engage in dialogue, and put forward
its plan for a new constitutional development.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me turn to South Sudan. When
President Obama met President Salva Kiir at the United Nations
General Assembly last week, he emphasized that we are committed
to assisting the South Sudanese as they face the responsibility
and obligations of independence. U.S. assistance programs are
already helping to support health care, education,
infrastructure, good government, and economic diversification.
The U.S. sanctions that apply to Sudan do not apply to
South Sudan, and we urge American investors to take advantage
of the opportunities there.
However, critical to U.S. investment, is a commitment on
the part of the Government of South Sudan to transparency,
accountability, and inclusive governance. We welcome,
therefore, President Kiir's commitments to his people and to
the world to combat corruption and to hold those responsible
for it accountable. The key will be an implementation of those
promises with the full political backing of his government.
The Government of South Sudan should also begin the first
stage of the permanent constitutional development process and
ensure that it is inclusive, participatory and transparent.
Further, the basic rights of those currently residing in
South Sudan must not be ignored. The United States is concerned
about allegations of human rights abuse, perpetrated by the
security services of South Sudan and particularly
transgressions by the police.
We are also gravely concerned about continuing reports of
child soldiers in South Sudan. We have sent strong diplomatic
messages to both the civilian government and the armed forces
regarding this issue, and we are collaborating with the
Government of South Sudan to address it. We will continue also
to coordination with the United Nations' mission in South Sudan
and the SPLA to prevent the recruitment of any child soldiers
and to ensure that all child soldiers that are there are
immediately demobilized.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman and members, the United States
remains committed to seeing peace prevail in Sudan and an
environment in which freedom and economic growth is there for
all Sudanese. Right now, the situation is deeply worrisome. But
we must persevere in bringing an end to the nightmare of war,
depravation and suffering that has gone on for far too long in
this part of Africa. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Lyman follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much, Ambassador Lyman.
Let me just begin the questioning. We have a second panel,
as you know, and some of the statements are, while supportive
in some ways, are very critical in others.
Let me just focus on John Prendergast, who has been before
this committee many times, both when Mr. Payne chaired the
committee as well as when I have chaired the committee. And he
makes a very important point, and I would just appreciate your
response to it. He asked the question, how could U.S. policy
toward South Sudan over the last decade been so successful and
the policy toward Sudan to be such an abject failure? He says,
contrast this with the U.S. policy toward the North after he
talks about what he actually did in a bipartisan way vis-a-vis
the south. And he notes that U.S. policy is never focused on
the fundamental issue of abuse and total concentration of power
in the hands of a minority. American diplomats, he writes, or
will testify, have ineffectively chased disparate peace
processes down disparate rabbit holes in Darfur, Abyei, the
Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile State and the east, instead of
focusing on a comprehensive solution to Sudan's authoritarian
system of government. Negotiators have invested heavily in
separate regional peace processes which have played right into
Khartoum strategy of divide and conquer. None of the peace
deals that have been struck have never been implemented, no
attempt at justice or accountability has ever been seriously
supported, including that of the International Criminal Court.
The result is an unmitigated human rights and governance
disaster. And he calls for a fundamental change in U.S. policy
toward Sudan and makes a number of recommendations, including
draconian financial sanctions against officials responsible for
the attacks against civilians, a kind of micro targeting of
sanctions, which I think would be very helpful.
I would note--and I know you know this--both Bashir has
been to China in June, Turkey before that, and I know the
European Union leadership asked that Turkey deliver him,
Bashir, to the ICC at the Hague, which did not happen. And
China, obviously, didn't do anything either. An additional
question in response to that analysis of U.S. policy, did we
talk to the Chinese? Did we ask them to? We are signatory, even
though we have not ratified the ICC, did we also convey to
Beijing our concern that they hand over Bashir?
Ambassador Lyman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me address
several parts of those comments.
I would just say at the beginning, of course, we can't say
that all efforts of the peace process have been a failure
because one of the main elements of the CPA was to secure the
peaceful independence of South Sudan, and that did occur. And
when I began----
Mr. Smith. He was talking about the north, not----
Ambassador Lyman. Peace agreements for the north only.
Okay. Okay. Well, that is different.
Mr. Smith. He was saying that is the model, and we seem to
have been chasing, you know, a disparate strategy vis-a-vis----
Ambassador Lyman. That goes to a point that I addressed in
my opening remarks. Clearly, the fundamental issue that has
created conflict in many parts of Sudan, the two areas that we
have mentioned, Darfur, is this whole question of governance,
this whole question of power sharing, of human rights, et
cetera.
That is an issue that is fundamental. The question is, what
is our role in that regard? To be candid, the government of
Khartoum thinks that the only interest we have is in regime
change. They tell me that all the time.
What we really want to do is to encourage the kind of
change that is absolutely necessary for Sudan.
We have sanctions on Sudan. We have individual sanctions on
people that have perpetrated human rights. We have had
sanctions in place for 8 years. They are some of the most heavy
sanctions we have on any country in the world. They have had
some effect. They, obviously, haven't had the effect that
people would have wanted.
And what motivates the government of Khartoum is not so
much the sanctions as their own view of retaining power as they
see it in Sudan.
But I think all of us concerned care about these
fundamental issues of governance, and encouraging that kind of
change is all we can do. But reaching inside and forcing that
change is something we probably can't do.
Now, the attitude of other countries is important here.
Yes, we have said to China and to others that they shouldn't
invite the President, and we have made that point in every
case. China has a very important role in Sudan, and we have
urged China to use that influence both to avoid further
confrontation with the South over the oil issues and to follow
a peaceful process of political negotiation in Southern
Kordofan and Blue Nile.
I think they have conveyed those messages, but I cannot
tell you how strongly or in what fashion they delivered them.
But they say they have delivered those messages.
On the attitude of our European friends, I think they are
very much on the same wavelength as we are.
But when we go into the U.N. Security Council, if you were
to want to get more multilateral sanctions or, as I mentioned,
even an independent human rights investigation, you find that
there isn't unanimity of that approach.
Mr. Smith. Which countries are objecting?
Ambassador Lyman. I would say the African countries, South
Africa, Nigeria, as well as China and Russia objected to an
independent investigation of----
Mr. Smith. Nigeria is the chair of the Security Council.
Ambassador Lyman. They are now chairing it. The issue came
up just before. So getting the kind of unanimity in the
international community on such international issues is an
upward battle.
They have their own reasons. They take a different view of
how to influence Sudan.
So we work on those issues. We continue to push for an
independent investigation of human rights, for example. We try
to mobilize all of the other countries to emphasize the need
for humanitarian access, and I think everybody is concerned
about how Khartoum responds to these fundamental issues of
governance.
Mr. Smith. How hard have we pushed back with the allies and
friends who have looked askance to some extent, like Nigeria?
We are close to Nigeria, and we are close to South Africa. I,
frankly, liked what Mr. Prendergast said when he talked about
draconian sanctions. We usually use the word draconian to talk
about the bad guys, but we need to become draconian ourselves
in at least isolating--and I know you know this, and you have
given them no quarter either. But you are not everywhere in our
Government, and so the thought is, how hard do we push it at
the U.N.?
Ambassador Lyman. I know at the U.N., our permanent
representative, Susan Rice, has certainly pressed these issues
very hard, and we have addressed them when we meet with them.
And it was true in our meetings with them up in New York during
the General Assembly, and our Ambassadors raised them.
They take a different view. For example, the African
countries, Nigeria, South Africa, argue that there should be
more incentives rather than sanctions, that they should be
given more rewards for having gone along with the secession of
the South. So they have a different perception of what would
work to move--than we do and they feel very strongly about
that.
The Russians and the Chinese in general don't like to
support sanctions. So I think it is a very fundamental
disagreement as to how you approach the issue in Sudan, and we
keep working with them.
Now, we do work together on the negotiation, the Africa
Union High Level Panel plays a major role in bringing about
negotiations trying to find peaceful solutions. We work very
closely with them.
And I was in Beijing just recently to urge the Chinese to
play a more active role in these areas.
So it is a question of working with them where we can find
common ground, recognizing that they take a different approach
to how to motivate the Government in Sudan.
Mr. Smith. Did anyone in our Government ask Hu Jintao or
anybody below him to arrest and to facilitate the arrest of
Bashir? I mean, as we all know, Bashir did not go to Ankara
because of the pressure. Another reason was----
Ambassador Lyman. We did convey to the Chinese Government
that we thought it was wrong for them to invite President
Bashir. That came from the White House. I don't have exact
details. But I know that message was conveyed.
Mr. Smith. Could you provide that for the committee? It
could be very helpful to have that, because the stronger and
the higher up, the better, obviously.
Let me just ask you with regards to slavery, we will hear
from Ker Deng very shortly, who, as you know, Christian
Solidarity effectuated his rescue. Ellen Ratner, a journalist,
helped to mobilize the effort to bring him here, and he
recently got some significant surgery. And we will hear from
him shortly. But he in his testimony said, I was treated worse
than the animals I slept with. Like them, I was property. I was
a slave held in Northern Sudan. But the animals weren't beaten
every day. I was, every single day with a horsewhip; sometimes
on my front, sometimes on my back, sometimes with my clothes
on, sometimes not, but every day. The animals were fed every
day, but I wasn't. And then he talks about how the chili
peppers were rubbed in his eyes as he was upside down. Cruel,
cruel torture, making him blind. And thankfully, the
intervention--this will, we believe, lead to him regaining his
eyesight and is in the process of healing. Can you speak to the
issue of slavery? How many do you think? What are we doing to
help free the slaves in Sudan?
Ambassador Lyman. As you indicated, you have put a
spotlight on this issue for some years, and it is--it is not
only a tremendous human rights issue, but it is a source of a
great deal of lingering bitterness among communities that have
suffered. I found this in several trips to Sudan; that it
remains a source of great bitterness.
Some of the type of attacks in slavery were ended when the
civil war ended and the South was able to gain its
independence, but we still have people who are held. And we
still have instances of it occurring in other contexts, between
groups that engage in raids on other ethnic groups, sometimes
in South Sudan, and capture children or others and keep them.
So it is an ongoing issue, not quite the scale before, but
still an ongoing issue. It is part of that general need in
Sudan to establish a constitution that protects human rights,
that investigates wrongdoing and brings people to
accountability. That doesn't exist today.
And it is the fundamental issue that divides the people of
Sudan. Whether it is considered--felt to be ethnic, whether it
is felt to be political, et cetera, when people are arrested,
when people are enslaved, when people are dragged out of their
homes, this is the fundamental issue in Sudan.
And what we are urging and hoping is that there are people
in Khartoum who say, this is not a path we can stay on, this is
not a path that will survive, that we have got to change the
political system. There are people inside the government of
Khartoum who recognize this. The question is, how will they
come forward and create a process that people have confidence
in?
We don't see it yet, but we think it is terribly important.
Otherwise, there are going to be situations like Southern
Kordofan, like Blue Nile, continuing trouble in Darfur. These
are the fundamental issues.
Mr. Smith. With deep respect, I would ask that you raise
the profile of this labor issue. When I held that first
hearing--and I did subsequent briefings and hearings--we even
heard from a woman who told the story about how the door of her
small home was kicked in, her sons were taken, were forced--
given Islamic names, forced into Islam, and she was beaten
senseless. And she stood there--or stood here and told her
story. It is a tool of war, just as rape is being used as a
hideous method of war, so is that. So I just would ask you to
raise the profile of it if you would.
Ambassador Lyman. I will. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Payne.
Mr. Payne. Thank you very much, Ambassador Lyman.
As we have seen the problem in South Kordofan and the Blue
Nile, what solutions--there has been criticism because it has
been alleged that the SPLA supported their comrades in South
Kordofan when they were being attacked by the Sudan armed
forces. As you know, the SPLM in South Kordofan were aligned
with the South, and it would sort of be unconscionable I
suppose to allow the Government of Sudan to continue the
atrocities they were doing without expecting that SPLM from
South Sudan would respond.
What is the U.S. expecting from the SPLM when the
Government of Sudan is bombing and, as you know, went house to
house, and what do you suggest as a resolution? Of course, we
want to see a cessation of hostilities, but without the SPLM
being able to protect themselves in South Kordofan, they are
sort of left in an untenable position. What does the U.S.
suggest that they do there?
Ambassador Lyman. Well, Congressman. There is clearly a
historical link and important links from the civil war between
the SPLM and the SPLA in South Sudan and the elements in the
North. But now that South Sudan is an independent country, this
is an issue that takes place in another country; it takes place
in Sudan across the border. And while we certainly understand
those linkages, we don't think it is wise to encourage the idea
on the SPLA side in those states anymore than on the government
side that there is a military solution to this problem. And
there are some who do feel that is the answer. This is the
beginning of the revolution. And what we see is continued
fighting with neither side being able to achieve a military
victory.
So what we would like the Government of South Sudan to do--
and I think President Kiir's visit this week with President
Bashir offers an important opportunity--is to convey to both
sides that there isn't a military solution in this area, that
there must be political negotiations, that Government of Sudan
will help in any way it can, the Government of South Sudan, to
encourage and facilitate those negotiations. But we don't want
this to become another North-South war. And for the South to
engage militarily in those states does run that risk, and that
would widen the war in a major way. And it would have
consequences that I would not like to anticipate.
So what we are asking of South Sudan is, be vocal on behalf
of the fact that neither side can win a military battle here,
that the fighting should come to an end and there should be
political negotiations and to offer its good office in any
other way it can to help bring that about.
Mr. Payne. Well, the Government of Sudan has been unwilling
to allow outsiders into Southern Kordofan. Where do the
Ethiopian troops stand at this point?
Ambassador Lyman. The Ethiopian troops are in Abyei. They
are not in Southern Kordofan or Blue Nile. They have taken up
their position in Abyei. And even though they aren't at full
strength, they are at sufficient operational capability that
they are arguing that the withdrawal from Abyei should now
proceed immediately. The force commander is very good. He is
very capable. And he has been urging the sides to adhere to the
agreement, which is that there would be an unconditional
withdrawal. And we have supported him in that regard, and this
issue will come up at the U.N. Security Council on Thursday.
And we see no reason for the delay that has taken place. There
were various delays in this process. But right now it is the
government of Khartoum that is not withdrawing its troops, and
it is raising conditions that are not in the agreement. So we
have to press for that.
But on Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, there is no
international presence. The government has not allowed it. And
that is one of our great disadvantages. Because even to get a
good handle on the humanitarian situation, let alone the human
rights situation, we don't have independent verification there.
And we have pressed the government very hard on this--
Government of Sudan--very hard on this, the humanitarian issues
are becoming overwhelming. And they do themselves no good by
denying humanitarian access. And pressures are building up in
this regard. People are looking at alternative ways of getting
humanitarian assistance there. That is not in the interest of
the Government of Sudan.
So we think the humanitarian access issue is a top
priority, and we think they ought to allow it. And I am sure
that the SPLM will open its areas to any independent
international organization that comes in.
Mr. Payne. I agree that I don't think that continued
hostilities, that it is certainly not going to lead to anything
but worse conditions. However, the Government of Sudan refuses
to allow even humanitarian assistance. And it is true, I was
mixing Abyei and Ethiopia up with Southern Kordofan. But if the
Government of Sudan continues to refuse to allow there to be
some protection, you know, they are sort of baiting the SPLM if
they, once again, have attacks on them. And I think that we
should certainly also urge them strongly--I am sure you will--
that there needs to be some protection from a neutral party in
Southern Kordofan to protect the SPLM-North that are there.
As has been mentioned, we find that Bashir definitely
refuses to cooperate. We feel that there perhaps even needs to
be more pressure. I know there is some thinking in the
Department of State that we should give kudos to the Government
of Sudan for allowing the separation. But it seems to me that
when we talk about easing sanctions as was--not by you, but by
the previous Special Envoy, I just think that that is really
going in the wrong direction because this government just seems
like they simply defy all logic and just refuses to come with
any kind of solutions.
I know that there was a meeting in Uganda that you recently
had. And I wonder, were there any kind of breakthroughs in your
negotiations there?
Ambassador Lyman. Well, thank you. I just pick up on
another point you made, and it goes to a question you asked
earlier, Mr. Chairman. When we talk to other governments, they
often take the position that we haven't offered enough rewards
to Khartoum. Our position has been, look, sanctions are there
for a reason; they are there to change behavior, to signal the
need for change. And the normalization process requires change
on their part in terms of fulfilling the CPA and certainly
ending the fighting now going on in Southern Kordofan and Blue
Nile. Other countries say to us, we should have given them more
at the beginning, but that hasn't been our policy.
We think that the government faces now very severe economic
problems. There is a $2 billion deficit in their budget for the
balance of this year, $4 billion next year, because of the loss
of oil revenues. They need to address these fundamental
economic issues. And that means turning away from this war and
these wars and engaging in a different set of both economic and
political policies.
But coming to your question about Kampala. I went to
Kampala to meet with members of the SPLM-North, Yasir Arman and
Abdul Aziz, and also with an element of the JEM, the Justice
Equality Movement, from Darfur. And the point of those
meetings, Mr. Congressman, was to say to them, what is your
political platform? It is one thing to say you are against the
regime or whatever, but what is the political platform that you
are putting out there that if there was an opportunity for a
political dialogue, what do you represent? It can't just be, I
am against the regime. It has to be for something. And I think
you will see in some of the material coming out from the SPLM-
North more along those lines of what a political platform would
be.
In relationship to Darfur, we now have a split taking place
in JEM. Khalil Ibrahim has come back from Libya, apparently
with a lot of weapons, and we foresee further fighting in
Darfur. But another part of JEM has split off and said we are
prepared to go to Doha and do further negotiations. So we have
a split there. And we are trying to pursue a process whereby
the government implements some of the things they have promised
to do, but where the armed movements say we are prepared to
negotiate, here is our political platform.
Mr. Payne. I guess my time has expired, but there is
continued frustration out of Darfur. I will be having a meeting
in my district just this Friday coming up with the Darfur
Coalition. And they are certainly disappointed at the lack of
progress. I know that a JEM person has been appointed Vice
President. But I am not sure that is going to solve the
question. I wish that--and just I know that the oil sector is
going to impact on South Sudan. One of the problems with U.S.
businessmen is that they are confused. It is not that they are
confused, it is they say our State Department--not you per se;
everyone but you--are confused because they get confusing
answers.
And so Treasury says one thing, USAID says something else,
Department of State says something else, National Security says
something else. When do you think the policy will be clarified
and we might have a single policy?
Ambassador Lyman. Sometimes I get confused. The first
point, as I mentioned, is that sanctions generally do not apply
to South Sudan.
Mr. Payne. Right.
Ambassador Lyman. The issue in the oil sector is to
determine when investments there have a benefit for the North,
on which there are still sanctions. And quite frankly, the
Treasury, and this is not a criticism of the Treasury, they
have to issue guidelines along these lines, because a license
will be required. What we would like American companies to do
is to make application for those licenses, because that will
help clarify what the dimensions of investments might look like
and how we would structure the licenses to meet the
requirements. We want American companies there. We want them in
the oil sector, as well as others. And it is tricky, with all
respect to the people working on it. But it would help. We only
have one license request from an American oil company. So if we
could get more, we would have a caseload on which to say, okay,
these are the guidelines that make sense.
Mr. Payne. Let me thank you very much. I recall about a
decade ago we talked about a no-fly zone for Sudan that John
Prendergast and some of us supported it, Joe Biden. Perhaps if
we had had that no-fly zone then, perhaps we would have had a
Libya-type situation, where we don't have a dictator like
Ghadafi anymore. Maybe Bashir would have been gone by now. But
we didn't do it, so we are still stuck with him. But thank you
very much.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Payne. Mr. Lyman, just
one final question. Dr. Prunier of the Atlantic Council does,
in his seven recommendations, ask that the feasibility of a no-
fly zone be looked at. Is that something that is under
consideration?
Ambassador Lyman. It isn't under active consideration. I
would just say this about it, and you can draw a little bit of
experience from Libya. If you had a no-fly zone, you would
still face a lot of artillery. And then the question is what do
you do next? And Sudan has a lot of artillery, and it can be
just as damaging. So the question is do we want to go down the
path that way? And we have not indicated we want to go down
that path. And it would be very complicated. And we would be
alone. So I think right now, as far as the administration is
concerned, it is to avoid going down a path of further war. We
think the government needs to reconsider its rejection of the
framework agreement. It needs to come back to negotiations, as
they are being urged to do, and bring this to a halt before it
gets totally out of hand.
I want to say just one quick thing about Darfur. We haven't
had a chance to talk about it. I just want to say a word about
it, because Congressman Payne has raised it. It is a
frustrating situation. Because you don't have a CPA, you don't
have a structure. We have a peace agreement between the
government and one of six now, six different armed groups, a
split LJM, a split JEM, a split SLA. And you have some
interested in negotiations, some saying we are not going to
negotiate, we are just going to fight. So what we are trying to
do is work on several different fronts here. One is the
government has signed this agreement with LJM. They said they
are going to set up a land commission, a human rights
commission, a compensation commission. We are saying set them
up. Let's see if you are really going to do these things and
demonstrate that you are really going to move on these things.
That might affect the situation. We are saying to the armed
movements, as I mentioned when I met with JEM in Kampala, what
is your political platform? You are fighting. What are you
fighting for? What is the political platform that you might be
able to sit down and negotiate?
And finally, we are saying to the government, you can't say
just because you signed with LJM, or one element of LJM, that
everybody else has to sign this agreement, there is no further
negotiations. That is not realistic. You have got to keep the
door open to further negotiation. Now, it is not a perfect
situation by any means, and I am very worried about renewed
fighting. But we got to work on all three of these right now,
because we have such a disparate situation in that area.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Ambassador, thank you so very much for your
testimony, for giving this subcommittee the benefit of your
counsel and your recommendations, and your take on the
situation, and for your leadership.
Ambassador Lyman. Thank you. Thank you, Congressman Payne.
Mr. Smith. I would like now ask our second panel if they
would make their way to the witness stand. We will be beginning
first with Mr. Ker Deng, a former slave from Sudan. He is a
victim of modern day slavery. As a toddler, he and his mother
were captured by Arab slave raiders who destroyed his village,
and massacred the men. He grew up under brutal conditions,
eating the same grains as the slave master's horses.
When a goat escaped on one occasion, his master hung him
upside down from a tree and rubbed chili peppers in his eyes,
causing him to go blind. Mr. Deng was freed by Christian
Solidarity International, and hopes that his recent cornea
surgery will help him to regain his sight. His mother, along
with thousands of others in southern Sudan, remains enslaved. I
would note I mentioned Christian Solidarity. John Eibner, the
president of CSI, is here. Dr. Julia Haller, chief of retinal
surgery at the famed Wills Eye Institute, who actually
performed the surgery, is here. Mark Ackermann, president of
Lighthouse International, is also here. They are working on the
rehabilitation. And Diane Gooch, who is an activist, and who
actually traveled to Sudan and has worked for his release. And
then just to introduce her, Ellen Ratner, by unanimous consent
will be part of our panel.
And I thank Mr. Payne for his willingness to accommodate
this activist. An accomplished journalist, who works with Talk
Radio News Service and Talkers Magazine, she has a long and
distinguished career in the media, and she was at the news
conference earlier. She became an activist upon attending slave
liberations with Christian Solidarity International. And she
worked very, very hard to help Mr. Deng be here today, to get
out of the country, get his surgery, and be here today. And she
will join us on the panel as the fourth witness.
We will hear from Dr. Prunier, who is a nonresident senior
fellow with the Atlantic Council's Michael S. Ansari Africa
Center. He previously served as an adviser to the French
Government, as well as a consultant for the U.S. State and
Defense Departments, various European and African governments,
as well as private companies. Dr. Prunier also served as a
senior researcher at France's largest research organization,
and directed a center for Ethiopian Studies in Addis. He has
published over 200 articles and a dozen books, many of them
focused on genocide in Africa, and especially in Darfur.
Then we will hear from Mr. John Prendergast, who heads up
the Enough Project. A human rights activist, best selling
author, and co-founder of the Enough Project, an initiative to
end genocide and crimes against humanity. He has worked for the
Clinton administration, the State Department, and in Congress.
He has also worked for the National Intelligence Council,
UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, and
the U.S. Institute of Peace. He has helped fund schools in
Darfurian refugee camps, and helped launch the Satellite
Sentinel Project with George Clooney. Mr. Prendergast has
worked for peace in Africa for over 25 years, and has been a
frequent and a very welcomed and very esteemed witness before
this subcommittee and the full committee. And I thank you for
being here as well.
I would like to now begin with Mr. Deng. We are going to
show a taped video with Dr. Garang, and then we will go to Mr.
Deng.
[Video shown.]
Mr. Smith. We are joined on the subcommittee by a long-time
activist for peace and reconciliation and justice in Sudan,
Congressman Frank Wolf. Chairman Wolf?
Mr. Wolf. I just appreciate you, Mr. Smith, having the
hearing. Mr. Payne. And you know, I just came to, you know,
just support you. I guess Mr. Lyman has left. But this really
can't continue. This has been going on for so long. But I just
want to thank you and Mr. Payne. With that, I will end.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much. Mr. Deng.
STATEMENT OF MR. KER ALEU DENG, EMANCIPATED SLAVE FROM THE
REPUBLIC OF SOUTH SUDAN
Mr. Deng. Hello.
Mr. Payne. Hello.
Mr. Deng. I am here today to tell you about my life
experience as a slave, and how my life has changed since I got
out of slavery. I am happy to be here right now to share this
moment with you. I used to hear a lot about Washington, but now
I am here. Even though I do not fully see everything around me,
I feel it.
I love American food, broccoli.
When I was in the North, I never had some meals like I had
here in the U.S. I didn't have good nutrition. So when I came
here I was not used to eating every single day, three times a
day, and I was worried about my weight. Now that I have been
very fortunate to get out of the situation, I still think about
those who are in the same situation I was in. All I want, I
just want them to get out of the situation and have freedom
just like I am now.
So when I got out of Zacharia's house, who was my master,
one day it just came to me that I have to go. Now I am free. I
have to go back to my homeland, the South. When I was at
Zacharia's, it was something unimaginable. Now, every now and
then I have a relapse. Every single day it plays in my head.
But I have hope that everything will be okay from now onward.
So I am very happy to be meeting with all these people that I
have always never thought I could meet.
When I was in the North with Zacharia, I was basically like
his goats. Like every single night I spent the night with his
goats. And my mother would sleep in the garden. Every single
day I warned Jalaliah. They give me a name, Habagah, and they
made me to be a Muslim. While some of the people in the South
were Christian, and I didn't even know that. So when I came
back to the South, I decided to go to church.
You have seen in me now what happened to me and how my
situation was. You have heard it all. And it is not me alone.
It didn't just happen to me alone. Many, many people in the
same situation, they don't have the power, the means to get out
of that. And they give us, they call them Jengae. That is the
name. So it was very difficult. When you are in that situation
you try to get out of it, but you are also afraid. If you try
to escape, you are going to get caught along the way before you
reach the South.
So we stayed, and my mother would teach me my Dinka
language, even though Zacharia prohibited us to speak our own
language. Most of the time we speak Arabic. He taught us to
pray in a Muslim way. You don't have any other God with this.
So many other people are in the same situation. So Zacharia
would take his kids to school, but not me. The school was far.
I couldn't, maybe even if I wanted to sneak out and try to go
to school. So I just heard about it, there is something called
school. I didn't even know there were markets. I didn't see any
other person who looks like me.
So after Zacharia had tortured me, got me blinded, and I
was no longer useful to him, I got into the care of the other
man called Bakit. Even though he tried to give me good care, he
didn't have medicines or anything like that to treat my eyes.
So when people got me out of slavery and went back to Sudan, I
got along with them. I just wanted to come back to the South.
So we walked a long way from the North back to the South many
months.
So when we came back to the South, we gathered in the same
place. So people came and saw us, asked us where we were coming
from. We didn't even know where to go and how to start our new
life in the South. And then the Christian Solidarity, that is
when they came in. We were hungry. So they tried to feed us,
give us some food, provide. And the same organization got me to
America today. So Momma Chicken is right here, the one who
brought me here. I am very happy for the job that she has done
in my life. I wouldn't have been here today without her.
I just wanted to let you know that there are still many
people in the same situation I was in. They don't have the
means to get out of there, but they want so badly to get out.
Like during Ramadan, they were never given a chance to, and
many horrible things were done to them. If they had the power,
they would have left a long time ago from the North. So many
things, I have no words to describe everything that went on
with us in the North. I know that you have the power to get
them out of there so they can have their freedom like I am now.
I am very happy. And thank you all.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Deng follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Mr. Deng, thank you so very much for your
testimony, which gives all of us a great deal of hope. But with
so many people still remaining in Sudan enslaved, the challenge
is formidable. And we need to, all of us need to do more to
liberate those slaves. Without objection, your written
testimony will be made a part of the record. And you are a
very, very articulate man. Knowing that you couldn't read your
testimony, all of that was done extemporaneous. So thank you so
much again for your testimony. Dr. Prunier.
STATEMENT OF GERARD PRUNIER, PH.D., NONRESIDENT SENIOR FELLOW,
MICHAEL S. ANSARI AFRICA CENTER, ATLANTIC COUNCIL
Mr. Prunier. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Payne,
distinguished members of the subcommittee, I would like to
thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the current
situation in the Sudan, and to comment, perhaps, on the policy
options that would be available to the U.S. in this respect. I
am not a humanitarian, I am not a political activist, but I am
an academic. So perhaps I will take this opportunity to try to
go back into the deeper background of the present situation.
What we are witnessing now, stretching from south Darfur
all the way to Blue Nile, is not a violation of the peace or
humanitarian crisis; it is something much bigger, much more
serious. After 56 years of conflict, this is probably the last
stage of a fundamental and massive restructuration of the very
basis of Sudanese polity. Sudan has never been a nation-state.
It is an arbitrarily cut chunk of the African continent, which
its Ottoman conquerors slapped together during the 19th
century. It was a mixture of three, not two, basic strands of
humanity, cultural Arabs, African Muslims, and African animists
who later converted to Christianity. That polity was dominated
by the first group of people, to the detriment of the two
others under the Turks, under the British, and since 1956,
under the independent Government of the Sudan Republic.
The religious contradictions appeared to loom very large,
and were, at first, thought to be the main, if not the only
ones, leading to two extremely long civil wars, the first one
between 1955 and 1972, the later one between 1983 and 2002. But
one thing many observers often missed at the time, the Islamic
culture was, in terms of size, the dominant one, but the Arab
culture was not. In other words, the Arabs are a minority in
the Sudan. And the fact that the Muslims are a majority, the
two were often confounded. This put the Black African Muslims
in a tremendously ambiguous position. During the first war,
they sided with the Arabs, and most of the fighters, most of
the soldiers fighting in the South killing Black Africans were
other Black Africans, not Arabs. But during the second war, the
clear message of guerilla leader John Garang de Mabior insisted
on culture and economic marginalization, not religion. Garang
was not fighting for the independence of Southern Sudan, he was
fighting for more equal, more democratic restructuration of the
whole of the Sudan.
As a result of this new ideology, African Muslims switched
progressively from siding with the Arab minority to aligning
themselves with the Southerners, either by joining the SPLA
directly, as was the case of the Nuba in Southern Kordofan, or
else by starting anti-Khartoum insurrections of their own in
Darfur and along the Bija populations of the east.
The problem came to a head in January 2005, when the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed, because this
agreement treated the conflict and its solution in a binary
manner. On the one side, the Arab North versus the Southern
Africans. On the one side, the Arab Muslims versus the
Christian Blacks. But what about the problem of those
populations who were Black Africans and Muslims? Northerners,
but fighting alongside the South? The agreement had nothing for
them apart from a very vague mention of popular consultations,
which carried no political weight, and carried no legal
obligation in the postwar period. What we see now is a refusal
of that very large section of the Sudanese population,
basically one-third of it, to fit on the Procrustean bed, where
their hopes and aspirations are supposed to die.
One-third of the population neglected and made invisible by
the CPA, in spite of the benefits it could have for the South,
is revolting and fighting from Darfur to the Blue Nile Province
by way of Southern Kordofan. It started with the nonresolution
of the Darfur war in the unrealistic Doha process, which has
not put an end to the conflict at all. It went on with the
attempt at disarming the Nuba SPLA forces in Southern Kordofan,
which was legal from the point of view of the CPA, but which
was a completely unrealistic move because these people were the
guarantors of their community. And it ended in June with the
government attacking the elected SPLM governor of Blue Nile,
Malik Agar, in an attempt at reducing any manifestation of the
political force with which it was faced.
This now means open war from the border with Chad to the
border with Ethiopia, clear across the whole country.
Considering the situation, what are the possibilities now open
for a constructive U.S. approach to this massive structural
crisis? First of all, I will have to disagree with the special
envoy. Getting Khartoum--but, of course, in his position this
is quite normal that he would say so--getting Khartoum to
genuinely negotiate peace is an unlikely prospect. Why? The
present regime is, after 56 years, the last rampart, the last
protection of Arab domination in the Sudan. And its track
record hardly suggests flexibility and adaptability.
The second point I would mention--there are seven of them--
is that Sudan's neighbors probably have a better access to the
problem, particularly in the case of Ethiopia and Uganda. Their
initiatives to attenuate the effects of the conflict should be
helped and supported.
The third point is the ways and the means to help the
victims, because the war will go on. Regardless of what we
might want, the war is the last resort of the people who have
been completely marginalized as a result of the CPA, and it
will go on. So ways and means to help the victims, regardless
of Khartoum's claims about the fact that they are bandits or
rebels, should be helped and furthered.
The fourth point is that consultations with the Juba
government and military support to the Southern Sudanese
authority are necessary to help them guard themselves against
Northern destabilization attempts. These are going on now, and
they will go on. They are a kind of quid pro quo of what is
going on in the strip between North and South.
The fifth point is to discourage Eritrean intervention in
the region. It has already occurred with the help that Eritrea
has tried to bring to the George Athor group. We have seen what
the Eritreans have done in Somalia. It is still going on in
Somalia. And very likely, given the desperation of the Eritrean
regime, they will try to fiddle with that situation in a most
nefarious way.
The sixth point is that there should be contacts with the
SPLM-North. And I was extremely happy to realize that the
special envoy had taken the important step in Kampala of
meeting with them. Because their representativity should be
heightened, their visibility should be heightened, and they
should be helped, also, with the possibilities of alternative
humanitarian help that they can do for the war situation where
access would be denied to ``foreigners.''
And finally, something which is not very easy technically,
would be trying to restore a no-fly zone from the base in
Djibouti. Now, as the special envoy was saying, this is not a
solution for the whole war problem. There is artillery indeed.
But then we have seen in Libya that airplanes can knock down
artillery forces. So the no-fly zone maybe could be extended
for further benefits. So I thank you for your attention, and I
look forward to questions.
Mr. Smith. Doctor, thank you so very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Prunier follows:]
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Mr. Smith. And now Mr. Prendergast.
STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN PRENDERGAST, CO-FOUNDER, THE ENOUGH
PROJECT
Mr. Prendergast. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members
of this subcommittee, and for you three human rights champions,
Congressmen Smith and Payne and Wolf, for all the efforts that
you have made to shine a bright light for so many years
actually on the plight of the people of Sudan and South Sudan.
Mr. Chairman, since you stole what little thunder I had by
reading parts of my testimony to Ambassador Lyman, I thought I
would have to get a little creative. So I want to pick up on
something that Ambassador Lyman testified on. He talked about
the importance, and as President Obama said directly to
President Kiir when they met in New York at the United Nations,
the very strong emphasis the United States has on trying to
stop the South from giving any kind of support to the people in
the Nuba Mountains, and Blue Nile, and even in Darfur, and
their very strong opposition, at least stated at this point, to
any idea of doing proactive civilian protection, such as the
kind of things that you have been very strong in asserting, at
least consideration of ideas like a no-fly zone.
And I want to look empirically at what happened over the
last 10, 15 years, and why I think that is very injudicious as
a means of basing your policy toward the North, toward Sudan,
and the potential for conflict between North and South. Because
if you look at the way we have dealt with this issue of our
relationship with opposition movements, we have demanded that
the South and other elements within Africa not support the
SPLA-North. We, in fact, went further on the Darfur front, and
demanded that the Chadian Government stop its support of any
kind for the Darfurian rebels. And we, of course, were at the
time, as you pointed out, or as Congressman Payne actually
pointed out in his cross-examination of Ambassador Lyman, we
opposed, the United States opposed any kind of no-fly zone
during the last decade in Darfur, as there had been calls for
that.
So the result has been, interestingly, a weakening of the
rebellions, a splitting of the rebellions, which makes it
actually less likely that they will come to the table and
negotiate and be able to deliver a real peace deal. It makes it
unlikely, more unlikely that the Government of Sudan will come
to the peace table and negotiate with elements inside Sudan
that are actually strong enough to exact concessions.
The one and only exception to that is the referendum in the
South. Because the United States, led by the Congress over the
last 15 years, stayed very, very supportive of the South
Sudanese aspirations for self-determination. We were
unwavering, Congress was unwavering, the activists that cared
about this issue were unwavering. And every time the Clinton or
the Bush or the Obama administration sort of swayed off to the
side, Congress batted them back to where they should be. And we
were front and center right behind General Sembeiywo in
negotiating the deal that got the self-determination
referendum, called the CPA, the only, by the way, element of
the CPA that was implemented. Then we stayed on the ball,
actually dropped it for a while with General Gration, and
picked it back up because history never ends. And President
Obama himself led the policy process, and we led the
international community to back the South Sudanese heroic
efforts to have that referendum held on time and peacefully.
That is the successful model, of us being supportive of
opposition demands for change, not running away from them, not
finding ways to undermine any kind of support to the
opposition. It simply flies in the face of the facts of our
history here in Sudan.
So I want to just use the rest of my time to go straight to
the policies that I think the U.S. should be pursuing now in
Sudan. And the trigger, you know, today we may not be able to
get President Obama's attention to alter this policy
immediately. But I do think people streaming out of the Nuba
Mountains and the Blue Nile, the way they are doing out of
Somalia now, because they are starving to death, because the
Government of Sudan--2 or 3 months from now--because the
Government of Sudan is blocking and denying humanitarian
access, and using food as a weapon of war, as they have done
over the last 22 years of their rule in Sudan, I think that
will be a potential for a trigger.
We have needed triggers of street protests in Egypt. We
have needed triggers of the march across Libya that the Ghadafi
forces. We needed the guy literally setting himself on fire in
Tunisia. We need triggers. And I feel like this potentially
could be a trigger. And we need to be ready, those that have
advocated for so long for a stronger policy, to push the Obama
administration to go in the right direction. The three areas I
think we should focus on are democracy, protection, and
justice. And these are very consistent with everything that
this subcommittee and you, Congressman Wolf, have pushed for
for so long. And I want to just get very specific quickly on
each of those three areas.
On the democratic transition side, we have so many levers
of being supportive of opposition elements within a country
that is authoritarian. There are the above-board efforts that
we all know about that we have all supported, the NDIs and
IRIs, and all the kind of political party development and civil
society support. There are also under the table ways of doing
it. And I think we need to look at all those ways of
strengthening the opposition now in the face of this
authoritarian regime in Khartoum.
Secondly under democratic transition, I think having and
building unified support internationally for elections that are
internationally monitored. It probably won't happen, but at
least we are leading with the right principles. And now we have
sort of capitulated on basic principles. We are not dealing
with what we ought to be fundamentally dealing with. As
Ambassador Lyman acknowledged, the fundamental issues are the
abusive governance at the center of the country. Well, one way
you get at that is democratic elections. And there are elements
within the regime that want this, elements within the regime
that don't want it. So push it and help create divisions
within.
The third piece on the democratic transition side is we
have wasted years chasing all these different peace processes
in Darfur and in Southern Kordofan, Blue Nile, and East, and
all these other places. And now we are going to take the
unusual step of bringing the Darfurian parties, some of them,
to Washington at the end of this month, and waste more people's
time. Instead of cratering that process, accepting and
acknowledging that it was dead a long time ago, the Doha
process, and folding our peace efforts into a national strategy
that addresses all of the core issues at once. All the regions
share the same problems. They are cut out of the pie, the
division, the slices of the pie politically and economically.
That has to be restructured. The constitution has to be
revised. And we have to end up with elections that allow people
of Sudan to just choose their leaders. That is the democratic
transition part of it.
The second part is civilian protection. This is the one
where we get all hung up on, everybody gets very agitated, and
we spend a lot of time divided. First, I think everyone agrees,
but unfortunately the administration hasn't moved on it, that
we need to have those really harsh sanctions. We don't need to
crow about it. We just need to go after the businesses, really,
it is the businesses that the senior members of the National
Congress Party are financing. The military-industrial complex
that keeps this country afloat, that the Iranians have invested
heavily in, this is where the money is, let's go after it. And
if we can't freeze those accounts, then let's identify it and
publicize it, and show the people of Sudan how this regime is
stealing all of the oil money and keeping it in the hands of a
few people. So there is at least the idea of exposure, even if
we can't get at those assets to be able to freeze them. So that
is the first element of civilian protection.
The second element is really pushing the administration to
look at how do you protect those people in the Nuba Mountains,
in Darfur, in Blue Nile from these aerial attacks? The reason
why I would differ with Ambassador Lyman, and Gerard just got
to the point right away, is that, yes, of course they have
artillery on the ground. But the biggest advantage that the
government has had in all of these conflicts in Sudan has been
their air superiority. Take that away from them, and you
suddenly get the hurting stalemate that the North and South had
to get the CPA to get the referendum.
Absent the hurting stalemate, absent removing the air
advantage, the war actually would go on longer, which is
precisely what he said is what will happen if we actually do
these things. So I feel like our analysis of that is completely
the opposite, is this would actually accelerate a peaceful end
to the conflict, as opposed to throw gasoline on the fire.
And then, of course, third point under civilian protection,
and this is the one we can have a big difference right now, to
prevent those people from streaming out of Nuba Mountains and
Blue Nile starving to death 3 months from now, we need a cross-
border program of humanitarian assistance right now. The United
States did it in the South. The U.S. and Europe did it in the
South in the 1980s before Operation Lifeline in Sudan. We did
it during the time of Mengistu during the great famine in
Ethiopia, where we initiated the cross-border operation to save
millions of lives in Ethiopia and Eritrea. We can't sit back
and just beg the Sudanese Government to let humanitarian
agencies in to stop starving their own people. We need to jam
them by pushing food assistance through the border, like we
have done in other places. It is not like this is the first
time. We don't have to reinvent the wheel.
Finally, support for justice, and I will close very
quickly. We need to increase our support for the apprehension
of those already--arrest warrants have already been issued for,
including the President. And your follow-up comments,
Congressman Smith, were very helpful during Ambassador Lyman's
testimony, in that way, going after the countries that are
supporting his visits when the President goes and visits these
countries. And then especially that further cases of the
International Criminal Court be opened of specific senior
members of the National Congress Party that are most
responsible for the atrocities, not only that have been
committed in Darfur, but also in the Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile,
and Abyei.
And if any of these things happened, anything we have
talked about today, your recommendations and ours, it will
only, I believe, be because Congress takes a leading role, just
like you have over the last 20 years, in crafting a meaningful
U.S. policy and demanding meaningful U.S. action, action that
in the case of Sudan can actually save millions of lives. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Prendergast follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Mr. Prendergast, thank you very much for your
testimony and your leadership. You talked about us being
battlers. Well, you have been a battler-in-chief. And I applaud
you for your profound impatience with the situation as it is.
Because no matter who is in the White House, you have been
consistent, and you have been absolutely bold. So thank you for
that. And we all know that the people who have been so
malaffected, thank you, even though they may not know how you
have raised your voice and your actions on their behalf. I
would just point out, and I didn't say this earlier, but Agha
Deng, who was the translator for Mr. Deng, is a Lost Girl
herself. She lived in a refugee camp from the age of seven,
spent 10 years without her parents, apart from her parents. And
so she too is a very noble and courageous young woman. And
thank her for her courage and for being here today. I would
like to now ask Ellen Ratner if she would present her
testimony.
STATEMENT OF MS. ELLEN RATNER, JOURNALIST
Mr. Ratner. I will go quick. Thank you, Chairman Smith,
Ranking Member Payne, and members of the subcommittee. My name
is Ellen Ratner. And since 1993, I have been a journalist here
in Washington, and I have been privileged to cover Capitol Hill
and the White House as a member of the Radio-TV galleries here.
My interest in South Sudan began when, as political editor of
Talkers Magazine, I was approached by Joe Madison, a well known
radio colleague, who suggested that we form a diverse group of
hosts to travel of what was then Southern Sudan. We brought
with us six hosts, each representing a different point in the
political spectrum, from left, right, and center.
The humanitarian organization, Christian Solidarity
International, arranged and guided our trip. I have traveled
extensively through the third world. And despite our religious
differences, I am Jewish, I have been very impressed with the
Christian Solidarity International's impressive work, low
costs, and efficiency.
Our first visit was in March 2008. It moved me greatly. We
met with the President of South Sudan, President Kiir, and then
went to Gok Machar in Aweil North County, where we slept with
tents and saw abductees who have been liberated from the North.
I say abductees because it is not politically correct these
days to use the word ``slave.''
In the late 1990s, Bashir's government in Khartoum
successfully pressured the United Nations agencies and many
members of states to refer to Sudanese slavery as abduction and
slaves as abductees. However, as a member of the press and as a
radio person, I call things as I see them without political
niceties. And let me assure you and assure the subcommittee
what is happening is slavery, plain and simple. People are
being beaten, stabbed, raped, and having their throats slit.
The violence and murder is committed because these individuals
are considered by their captors as war booty. In the minds of
their captors, they are outside the law, they can be beaten,
raped, insulted, branded, and even killed with impunity.
If there is anyone on the subcommittee who doubts the
horrible reality of Sudanese slavery, come with me to South
Sudan. I would be glad to take anybody in this room. After my
visit, I came back came back to tell the story, and I have
returned to Sudan regularly. I just left there on Saturday to
attend this hearing. And even these hearts, the heart that I am
wearing right now is made by women who have seen at least one
person killed in front of them and are in a PTSD recovery group
there.
In the course of these visits, my life has been profoundly
changed by a blind teenager, Sudanese boy named Ker Deng, who I
am sitting next to. He is a member of the Dinka tribe of South
Sudan. I met Ker in September 2010, when I was asked by John
Eibner of Christian Solidarity International, to help him. John
knew that I too had lost vision in one eye. And after four
retinal detachments, what I have in my right eye was saved by
Dr. Julia Haller, who is now the ophthalmologist-in-chief at
Wills Eye. And she is also the surgeon who guided the team for
Ker's surgery. I also serve on the board of Lighthouse
International. And Mark Ackermann, who is the president, is
here as well. And since I enjoy some of the access to the best
eye surgeons, I came to serve as Ker's sponsor in the United
States.
You have heard Ker's story, so I am not going to review
that, although it is in my written record. And I want to say
that every time I look into Ker's damaged, unresponsive eyes, I
sense the unspeakable suffering endured by him and his mother,
and the countless others still being held. I certainly heard
about slavery growing up. I grew up Jewish. I attended Passover
services for 2 nights every year, and I have heard about
slavery. So the whole idea that it is happening currently very
much moved me.
The world has really known about the horrible reality of
Sudanese slavery in our time. And it is that Americans, I
believe, should be paying attention to this. I certainly have
been talking about it on radio. The 2000 peace accords ended
hostilities in South Sudan, and also the North Sudanese
Government sponsored slave raiding, but negotiations have
failed to produce a mechanism for the liberation and
repatriation of slaves held in the North like Ker and his
mother. We are very much working with the Arab slave retrievers
and Christian Solidarity International to try and get Ker's
mother out of slavery.
And in 2000, then-Secretary of State for African Affairs
Susan Rice said we have an obligation not to speak out, but to
ameliorate the suffering. And despite official condemnations
and blue ribbon panels, there has been little done by the U.S.
Government or U.N. agencies--and, by the way, we also cover the
United Nations at Talk Radio News--to ameliorate the suffering
of South Sudanese slaves.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Payne, members of the subcommittee, it is
time to take affirmative steps. Christian Solidarity
International, in concert with thousands of people in good
will, regardless of race or religion, have stepped in to fill
the void. Diane Gooch has certainly been a partner in our work
there, and certainly Tony Sayegh have been working with her
with Christian Solidarity. Slavery is an internationally
recognized crime against humanity. And effective action by the
United States and the international community is long overdue.
And I am hoping that today's hearing and Ker's testimony
inspire our Government, along with Christian Solidarity
International and other NGOs, to do something about this
horrible crime. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Ms. Ratner, thank you so very much for your
testimony, and for your very strong and principled advocacy. It
is certainly, I think, having a profound impact.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ratner follows:]
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Mr. Smith. Let me ask just a couple of questions of our
distinguished panel. And I did, as you know, Mr. Prendergast,
borrow some of your testimony to ask Ambassador Lyman. I think
it is important. Very often I think we ought to try to reverse
the order, but protocol usually wins out, and the
administration goes first. So they don't get to hear what you
have to say, which is why I tried to tee that up for him to try
to get a response. So I thank you all for your testimony.
Without objection, all of your written testimonies will be made
a part of the record.
Mr. Prendergast, you mentioned that the opportunity for
more aggressive action may come in the next few months, when
the denial of humanitarian assistance, which will skyrocket, as
you say in Southern Kordofan, Blue Nile, and, you know--so
early warning, it is coming. It will be very severe.
Skyrocketing is, I think, an apt description. Do you think that
the international community grasps that, as well as our own
administration?
Mr. Prendergast. It doesn't. And I think that, you know,
with the competing crises in the region to the north and east,
with Arab Spring, with the Somali famine, and other things,
that it just isn't--you know, something that is on the next--
over the next horizon is just not going to be prioritized as
much as the things that are on this horizon. And especially
with Libya and Syria unfolding now, and the Somali famine, and
the effort that is going to be necessary to try to stop tens
and tens of thousands of children from starving to death, you
can understand why.
And with all the things coming at people, they just ignore
the thing they don't have to worry about for another few
months. Well, our job as activists, and yours of course, and
you have taken this on so strongly, both of you, as the
legislative branch, is to take the battering ram and hammer it
against the door of the executive branch until they listen. And
the people of Southern Kordofan, the people of Blue Nile, and
we have already seen the displaced, ethnically cleansed people
of Abyei strewn like rubbish all over the northern part of Bahr
el-Ghazal, we have seen what has happened with 8 years of this
kind of a strategy in Darfur, and we just want to get ahead of
that. And this is an opportunity now to take some bold actions,
particularly, first and foremost, on the humanitarian front, to
get the cross-border humanitarian assistance through the
courageous NGOs that are willing to deliver that assistance,
both Sudanese and international, get that assistance in and
break the attempt to try to create starvation as a principal
weapon of war, which the government has used so effectively for
so many years.
So my feeling is that our job is to push and push, get some
early action. But the sky will open up, I have no doubt, in the
next few months. We will have an opportunity in the next few
months to push a more aggressive policy. We just need to be
there with a unified position about what the things are we
expect from the Obama administration, the legislative branch,
and civil society working together, pushing those people within
the administration. Because there are very good people in the
administration who do want to make a difference, including--
well, we can go on, the list goes on of all kinds of people
that have a long history on Sudan advocacy. So I think that it
isn't like they don't want to do anything. We just have to push
it up to the top of that pyramid that is constantly pushing
issues like Sudan down and say, no, it is time now for the
people, or hundreds of thousands will die.
Mr. Smith. Ambassador Lyman, in response to a question,
said that Nigeria and South Africa have not been as helpful.
They come at this from a whole different perspective. I would
appreciate your view, especially with Nigeria as President of
the Security Council for this month. It seems to me that some
very aggressive work on their part, if they could be persuaded,
could help mitigate this additional looming crisis on top of
the already existing crisis.
And, Dr. Prunier, you might want to speak to that as well,
Mr. Prendergast and anyone else.
Mr. Prendergast. I think that, you know, it certainly has
been the case that some of the members of the African
delegation, African Union delegation, that have made their way
to the Security Council have been difficult on the issue of
Sudan, and others have been forward leaning. Right now we have
two countries, as you point out, that have been unfortunately
some of the biggest obstacles to getting any kind of human
rights advocacy moved forward in Sudan today.
And so I think what is required, and having done it when I
worked for the Clinton administration, you have to go--you have
to send senior emissaries from the White House to their version
of the White House in Pretoria and Abuja and talk frankly about
our shared interests and where we are going on this stuff.
Mr. Smith. And that has not been done?
Mr. Prendergast. And do it frequently.
No, it is talking point 37 in a demarche by the Ambassador,
our Ambassador, going in and doing his regular meetings. That
is not--it just isn't going to get anyone's attention. It has
to be a priority. Again, we don't have to advertise it either.
Not every diplomatic venture the United States takes has to be
in the headlines. We can go quietly. They will appreciate that.
Let us do the kind of diplomacy that actually gets results
with Africa instead of just waiting until the thing is a
traffic jam and then sort of issuing, well, they should do
this, they should do that publicly. Now, that will dig them
deeper into a trench against taking formal action. So I think
that is the kind of diplomacy, proactive diplomacy, we need to
see on behalf of an issue that matters so much to the American
people and matters so much to the United States Congress.
Mr. Prunier. I might add a little caveat to that. I have
lived over the past 8 years in Addis Ababa, and I have been in
constant contact with the African Union. There is a very
special feeling there. The indictment of Bashir was taken as an
insult to Africa. It is very difficult, but you are trying to
talk with people. They say, well, the victims are Black
Africans. Yeah, but this is an insult to Africa. And, you know,
you--this is the same thing that we saw with this lost stamina
of support for Ghadafi.
There is a kind--I would quote Julius Nyerere on this when
he had a big fight with the Organization of African Unity in
1978, when he was invaded by Idi Amin and they refused to help
him. And he said, ``You are not the Organization of African
Unity, you are a trade union of heads of state.'' And these
were very harsh words. Nyerere was a very plainspoken, direct
man. And the same phenomenon is at work. It is not that they
love Bashir. It is a group thing. And for the United States to
try to dictate another position would be extremely difficult.
Mr. Smith. Let me just ask you, If there were a court like
the Sierra Leone court, headed so well by David Crane, or the
Rwandan court, which were regional courts, would that have been
more acceptable? It seems to me that just because it is housed
at The Hague, it is the International Criminal Court--you know,
it is very superficial. I certainly can understand, and I know
you are conveying what you found, but when monstrous deeds are
committed, would a regional court have been more effective?
Mr. Prunier. Yes. But I cannot see a regional court
happening. Who would be part of that regional court? The only
countries that would love to have such a regional court would
be Uganda, Kenya and the usual gang of suspects. And I am not
sure at all that this would happen as an internal part of the
AU debates.
Mr. Smith. Yes.
Mr. Prendergast. One of the things that is important to
point out is I think--and I think Gerard and I would agree on
this--is that, you know, the fact that the first few cases that
the ICC took up were African, you know, and that----
Mr. Smith. Milosevic, although that was----
Mr. Prendergast. That was a regional court. And it
appeared--and then Bashir gets the arrest warrant against him.
And as Gerard is saying, it appeared to be the International
Criminal Court against Africa, two heads of state, you know,
who is next, you know, because many of them have human rights
abuses that could potentially rise up. And now we are seeing
the Ivory Coast being looked at, we are seeing Libya and a
number of other countries.
I think that as time goes on, and the ICC widens its lens
to other regions and begins to pick up on these issues, it will
become less of a sting, a difficulty, less of a solidarity-
based rejection by a number of these heads of state. But right
now it is--the phenomenon is, as Dr. Prunier said. However,
quiet diplomacy in support of specific interventions, like
having an international investigation of what goes on, what has
gone on in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, these kinds of
things, working quietly on some of these things could yield
fruit. It is not a guarantee, but we need to try a lot harder
than we are trying now, and to do that, you have to send
representatives from Washington.
Mr. Smith. One last point on the Court. Do you feel the
U.S. Government sufficiently weighed in with Beijing to--when
the visit occurred with Bashir to get them to do something
constructive? I know they are not signatories and all of that,
but, I mean, the hero's welcome that he was afforded was
unconscionable.
Mr. Prendergast. I will go ahead, too, also. But unlikely
it could have changed their view, but we should have been
stronger.
Mr. Prunier. You could have done it, not immediately. But
the Chinese are lost. When you talk to them, they are trying
now to get on better terms with Juba. At the same time they
don't want--because Khartoum is their old ally. They are new
imperialists. They are not really used to this situation. And,
of course, they would not accept immediately an injunction of
the United States, but the idea would make its way because they
themselves are uncertain about what to do.
Ms. Ratner. I just want to say one thing. I travel around
the world. I am in Grenada and the West Indies quite a bit, and
in Sudan and other places in the world, and the Chinese are
there, everywhere. I mean, our presence is minor often compared
to the Chinese and difficult unless we put some pressure on
them.
Mr. Smith. Well, they all have their own human rights
atrocities to account for as well. So dictatorships don't
usually put people first.
Let me ask with regards to your statement, Mr. Prendergast,
about draconian financial sanctions against officials and their
associated businesses responsible for attacks against citizens.
As you know, in April 2006, President Bush did an Executive
order. I think it only included four people. It seems to me
that list and the annex should have been much larger. But has
that been implemented in any way?
And I think when you get to the businesses and the
connections in terms of a personal sanction--government
sanctions are important, but when you go after and target
individuals, that might have a more chilling effect and
hopefully an accountability effect as well.
Would you recommend, any of you, that the administration
promulgate a new Executive order, an expanded one building on
this one, to hold individuals to account?
Mr. Prendergast. I think that was a really insightful
moment. Again, trying to understand--because we are all--at the
same time as we are advocates for a stronger policy, we also
need to be students of what has gone on before. If you
remember, Andrew Natsios articulated this whole idea of a plan
B, that we were going to--if they don't do X, then we are going
to do Y. And Y was plan B, and it was going to be this very,
very strong series of deep and biting unilateral sanctions
which we would work to multilateralize aggressively, and talked
a big game about it, and then we didn't do it.
We, as you said, put a few--all they do is change the name
of the company, and it is no longer the next month--I mean, it
is just silly. So you have to chase and have active
intelligence that focuses on all of these very wily efforts
that the private sector in Sudan and their international
counterparts take in order to evade having a light shining on
them.
So the biggest argument that cratered plan B during the
Bush administration and undermines the use of more aggressive
sanctions under the Obama administration--in other words, it is
a bipartisan executive branch paralysis on this issue--and that
is that our diplomacy will be undermined if we push more
strongly this accountability tool.
I believe--and I think we all share this--the opposite;
that, in fact, speaking of accountability and then backing it
up with these kinds of things, with draconian sanctions, with
crossborder humanitarian operations when they deny humanitarian
assistance, a no-fly zone when they keep bombing civilian
populations, that would actually strengthen our diplomatic
hand. That would actually mean that we are backing up what we
are saying all these years about human rights, and governance,
and on democracy, and all the peace and all the other stuff
that we are doing. And we would be taken more seriously instead
of making these vague threats, never implementing them, and
then looking even more like the paper tiger that America gets
accused of being all the time. We don't have to be a paper
tiger in Sudan if we make some policy decisions that our first
interest and foremost interest in Sudan is the people of Sudan.
Mr. Smith. Let me ask two final questions. Dr. Prunier, you
mentioned as your fifth point that the Eritrean Government
should be told that intervening in South Sudan for aiding and
abetting such Khartoum-based destabilization plans is not
acceptable. The danger here is to see a repeat of Eritrea's
support for al-Shabab's terrorist movement in Somalia, and such
a development would be strongly encouraged.
Who should make that appeal? We have very little contact
with the Eritrean Government ourselves. What government or
governments should do that?
And my final question to all of you, obviously Ambassador
Princeton Lyman knew that we had a former slave here today. It
is an issue that I had raised. I am not the only one. Many of
you have raised it for many, many years. As was mentioned
earlier--John mentioned this from Christian Solidarity
International--slavery was kind of resurrected back in 1983 as
a means of war, exploitation, but also as a means of
demoralizing. And as Mr. Deng pointed out in his testimony, the
men were killed; the women and the children were abducted, put
into slavery and abused thereafter.
My question, because it was not in Ambassador Lyman's
testimony at all, no reference to slavery, which I thought was
an oversight perhaps, he did say he would address it--your
feeling about the issue. We heard from Dr. Garang earlier in
his taped statement, obviously having died so long ago so
unfortunately. But this issue seems to be on the sidelines. I
am at a loss to know why.
Ms. Ratner.
Ms. Ratner. You know, it is interesting that--I have talked
to some of my friends in the military, and one of the things
they say is, look, whenever there is a war, there are prisoners
of war taken. And even if you don't want to call it slavery,
although it is clearly slavery, people are returned. So if this
is a prisoner--if you want to call it prisoner of war, okay,
you know, we can argue about words. Why not return these
people? The war is done. It is now a separate country.
Mr. Prunier. Physically a lot of the people who have been
reduced into slavery are in the area which is now part of the
fighting. They don't go all the way north. They remain in the
strip of that Sahelian, which is neither North nor South. And
physically, you know, it is part of the war now.
Ms. Ratner. I totally disagree. I am not saying that there
aren't a lot of people in that area, but the people I just
talked to on Wednesday and Thursday a week ago were not from a
war area. They were from a peaceful area where there has been
no conflict for years, and they are just held.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Prendergast.
Mr. Prendergast. I think that, you know, this is a regime
in Khartoum that has created an environment and uses
starvation, uses slave raiding, uses aerial bombing, uses
ethnic conflict, all of these tools. These are the tools that
it uses to fight war. Therefore, we need to highlight the
individual abuses, the slave trade that it fostered during the
1980s and 1990s, the use of starvation as a weapon, all of the
ethnic conflict that it will foster inevitably in South Sudan,
the kind of tactics it is undertaking, and we need to highlight
all of these. But we need to focus all of that attention then
on what are we going to do about that regime that does all of
these things.
And so there are important steps that need to be taken to
demand and press for people to be able to return safely home to
their home areas, and those need to continue. U.S., the United
States, can back those more strongly. At the same time, though,
we need to be more focused on ending the kind of government
that allows for these kinds of things to be part and parcel of
what goes on as normal in Sudan today. And that is just simply
unacceptable morally.
Mr. Smith. Ranking Member Payne.
Mr. Payne. Thank you. Thank you all very much. And thank
you, Mr. Deng, for your testimony.
And on this whole question of, I think--I think Dr. Prunier
gave a very interesting historical background on the problems,
and I couldn't agree with you more, the whole question of the--
I think, too, there is a psychological attitude that went into
the Arabization of Sudan because it seems that it is a
superiority feeling that wasn't helped with the Ottomans
separating the country.
The British had two rules, one for the North, as you know,
and another administration for the South. So when independence
came in 1956, it was just a natural thing to follow the British
model and--but the fact that--one of the things that was very
surprising, which also points out--your point is that the
Darfurians--throughout the history, of course, the poor people
are usually in the military, and these were people who actually
fought against SPLM, SPLA. You know, you are in the army, and
the army fights, and poor people get in the army, and so when
Darfur occurred, because they were Islamic, it kind of shocked
people because of the fact that they were Islamic believers, as
was the government in Khartoum, where the conflict had been
argued for many years as it was the Islamic North, the Arabic
North, against the animus or Christian South, so more of a
religious conflict.
So that was very alarming and surprising to people that
they went and bombed their own religious allies, which was
shocking. And that was, of course, right after the CPA and the
agreement between the North and the South occurred. So I think
that it is much more of a superiority complex.
I agree with these three groups wholeheartedly, with what
you say, but I don't necessarily agree that the--you know, I
think that Bashir has used his cleverness more so with getting
people to say that the indictment of the ICC is because we are
in Africa that this is happening, and that it is unfair, and
they wouldn't do it other places because, you know, you didn't
get the outcry when Charles Taylor was indicted. He was the
head of state, you know, and the DRC, one of the Vice
Presidential candidates, Bemba, was indicted by the
International Criminal Court. And when he was simply visiting,
I guess it was in France or somewhere, or Belgium, he was
arrested, and we did not get the outcry.
I think that Bashir has used very cleverly and
manipulatively himself to somehow influence some other leaders
in Africa. I don't know whether they have special
relationships, countries that might need oil. I don't know. But
I don't think that the overall feeling in Africa is that you
are going--because, like you said, Africans weren't killing
white men, you know, they were killing Africans. And so I think
that he used--one, he used religion to say, you are going after
me because I am Islamic, because when I first got involved in
the issue, when the whole question came up of slavery, there
was--people said, well, there was opposition to raising the
issue, and it was--religion was brought in, you are attacking
us because of our religion. And, of course, I do think that the
Islamic religion has been attacked, unfortunately, and put in a
category of everyone being evil and wrong, which I think is
wrong. So therefore, it does give the argument to Islamic
leaders that they are doing this because of our religion. So I
think that because of the longtime-held discrimination against
Islam in general, some of these issues occur.
But, you know, the whole question of what should be done--I
agree--the question--and maybe, Mr. Prendergast, you could
answer it. If we say we are not going to--we are going to
insist that SPLA keep out of Southern Kordofan--and I, you
know, also agree. I don't think that prolonged fighting is the
answer. But if Bashir refuses to allow, one, humanitarian food
coming in because there is already becoming a food shortage;
and number two, if they continue to kill people without the
SPLM North being able to defend themselves, I mean--and they
won't let peacekeepers in, I don't know, maybe Dr. Prunier,
John Prendergast, what is the solution? I mean--and secondly,
would you clarify more the images that you say your satellite
has possibly seen, that there may be mass graves in part of
Southern Kordofan or Blue Nile?
Mr. Prendergast. Our focus has to be front and center on
protecting civilian populations. I think the opposition to
taking any action is the sort of inertia, the status quo
position, and it will always be that unless we politicize this
issue.
So I would actually give a political answer to the policy
question, that a group of Congresspeople led by you two and
others, who--like Congressman Wolf, who have been on the front
lines for so long, and get some Senators and begin to have
meetings at the seniormost levels at the White House. If you
can get the President, great, but Denis McDonough speaks for
the President on foreign policy. He is the key person. He has
led on this issue, and he was constructive once he turned and
focused on this. He was very constructive on the referendum.
Valerie Jarrett, Mike Strautmanis. Go for the politicos and
demonstrate that there is wide and deep support and that--I
mean, that is you guys leading and getting some of your
colleagues to go.
I don't think that talking to--Princeton Lyman is one of
the best Ambassadors we have, so it is not him that is the
problem here. It is that it hasn't--there was a surge of
interest around the North-South referendum. The President got
directly involved. Bipartisan support for the President to do
more. The administration was extremely successful in supporting
that and helping to birth a new country, and then it turned
away and stopped focusing at a higher level. So you are left
with Ambassador Lyman, who has to sort of roll around at this
level where nothing gets through the glass ceiling.
You guys have to break the glass ceiling like you have over
and over again. I don't see another way to do it. The activists
will be out there, too, hammering away, doing the ads, doing
the call-ins, doing the email campaigns, the demonstrations,
the protests and stuff. But we have got to make the issue of
protecting civilian populations that you have championed so
strongly a political issue somehow, just like it was
politicized that we had to be supportive of the referendum,
just like it was politicized in the last decade that we had to
do something about Darfur. It is the only way we are going to
get action on an issue like this.
So I would say it is incumbent on us as activists to figure
out better ways of targeting President Obama for getting his
attention and getting some action on these issues, because we
already know--we feel we know what the solutions are. We have
talked about them many times. We just have to recapture the
imagination and the attention of the senior policy people.
So I think finding those folks at 1600 Pennsylvania and
making them somewhat accountable to this wide and deep group of
Americans who care about these people in Sudan and their well-
being, which hasn't gone away. We still have the Darfur
coalition, and the antigenocide coalition, and the folks that
care about the North-South issues and want to protect them.
They are all there. They are still doing their little things.
We have got to, in fact, have that kind of leadership.
So I look at it as very much up to us here in Washington to
press and pound the administration. When there is a lot of
things going on, going into election season and saying, you
know what, all of your pollsters and all of your political
advisors are focusing so much on the youth vote, the youth vote
is going to swing it this year in 2012. Well, there is a
substantial portion of young people on campuses and high
schools all across this country who care about this question,
actually care about the fate of the people of Sudan, that care
about the fate of the people of Darfur. They may not know all
the ins and outs of the policy angles, but they care. This is a
policy and political win if this administration, backed by
bipartisan congressional support, takes a more supportive and
aggressive action in support of human rights in Sudan.
Ms. Ratner. I just want to remind both Mr. Smith and Mr.
Payne that, first of all, the people who retrieved the slaves
are Arabs. And I asked, in fact, one of the retrievers, I said,
``Why do you do this?'' and he said, ``Because in my religion,
Allah tells me that this is the most important thing to do'';
and that also there are these Arab Dinka slave committees that,
you know, give the novidium and assess what it is going to cost
to get people.
So there are, you know--anybody who wants to say it is all
one way or the other, it is not. There are people who are Arabs
who are very much trying to help out. And, in fact, Ker talked
to one of them the other day, and he is going to try to get his
mother.
And the second thing I want to say is that in 1994, I was
one of the six journalists that went with President Clinton's
hunger commission to the Horn of Africa. And we went to
Eritrea, and Eritrea was touted as this new democracy. It had
just won its independence, whatever, from Ethiopia in this war,
and it was touted as AID was giving it money, and it was going
to be this great free democracy, et cetera, and look what has
happened.
So I just want to say I think it is very important that we
as Americans keep our finger on the pulse over there, because
what happens in South Sudan and Sudan proper can affect all of
us for many generations.
Mr. Payne. I think there is no question about it. I agree,
I think you substantiate what I said, that people have broad-
brushed Islam and Arab people as being all negative, especially
since 9/11, things that are happening, just unbelievable, and I
think that is unfortunate. And somehow we have got to really
work out and say there are bad--everything--it was a Christian
that bombed Oklahoma Oklahoma City Federal building. He was a
church-going guy.
So, you know, we have this way of broad-brushing whole
groups, and I think the quicker we can get out of that, the
better.
And finally, I do think that we ought to really reach out.
I have been to Eritrea, and I have tried to see if that
government can do things in the right direction. I do think
that they have made some--believe it or not, they made some
overtures in the last several months asking to have
discussions. So I think that we should have an open door to
hear, well, what is it that you really want to talk about, and
if there are some things that we can really do to change it.
But they are getting ready to, you know, mold them almost to a
step up with Iran and North Korea, State Sponsors of Terrorism,
which I think is a little bit much.
Sudan isn't even close. And I do think that we need to have
negotiations with people that we--we do it with everyone else
now, North Korea, Iran. But we tend to have things shut off,
and I do think we--an error was made when the border decision
was made in Ethiopia. Our great military allies were found to
be wrong in the Badme situation. But our policy, our Government
did not push to enforce the decision, which, you know--I mean,
that doesn't mean, therefore, you stay there for a decade.
But, you know, our policy is relatively inconsistent, and I
think that if we could ever figure out our policy under any
administration, I would love to see that day. When we have a
consistent policy where you have Assad shooting people down in
the street, and know Ghadafi is hiding somewhere, and no one is
saying too much about Assad, it baffles me. But I really
appreciate all of the great work that each and every one of you
are doing.
And, Ker, what do you want to be when you get big?
Mr. Deng. Say again.
Mr. Payne. What do you want to be when you get big?
Mr. Deng. I want to help people.
Mr. Payne. Well, you can't have a better want than that. So
congratulations. And I hope you--and I know you will be able to
do that when you get grown.
Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Payne. I want to thank
the panel.
I do have one final question with regards to an issue that
I think is extremely important, and it often gets underfocused
upon, and that is the issue of forced Islamization. I recently
chaired a hearing as chairman of the Helsinki Commission on a
very disturbing and absolutely underfocused upon issue in
Egypt. We heard--as some of you may know, I have worked on
human trafficking for the last 15 years, actually wrote the
Trafficking Victims Protection Act. And a woman, who was a lead
investigator at ODIHR as part of the OSCE on trafficking--she
is now a professor or serving as a professor right here in
town--testified and had huge amounts of corroborating evidence
that in Egypt young Coptic Christian girls are being abducted
at 12, 13 and 14 years of age not by the dozens, not by scores,
but by the thousands, sold and forced into Islam. And then at
age 18, after having been abused, are given to an Islamic man
as his bride.
Our Government has said next to nothing. I brought it up
with our Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor and gave him the data. Michele Clark was the lead
investigator. She was number 2 at the OSCE working on
trafficking, and she did much of the investigations herself.
But somehow it didn't play into the idea that you don't raise
that issue. And many of the Coptic Christian leaders have been
very quiet.
These women do not come back. They are shunned by many,
unfortunately. And there have been other incidents of this
forced Islamization. I say that having worked very closely with
Ceric, the Grand Mufti of Bosnia, who takes a completely
different view of respecting all faiths, Christian, Islam,
Buddhist, whatever the faith might be, affording it full and
complete respect.
I think it is important to point out in the United States
that the FBI does track hate crimes, and Christians--hate
crimes against Christians are under 10 percent. Hate crimes
against followers of Islam are under 10 percent. But Jews, the
smallest minority in the United States in terms of major
religions, have over 70 percent of the hate crimes committed
against them as recorded by the FBI, so a very serious
disproportionality.
And I have always been concerned--and it is baffling, and,
Doctor, you might want to speak to this, and maybe Mr. Payne
was onto this with the superiority deal with the Arab Muslim
versus the Black Muslim--but in the South it was clear that it
was an effort for forced Islamization, the imposition of Sharia
law on the South. Some may disagree with that, but there was
ample evidence throughout the invasion of the South that this
was the case.
So I would appreciate your thoughts, because very often the
radicals, the Wahhabis and the others who are so radicalized,
as opposed to mainstream Islam, which can and does coexist
peacefully with other religions, which is the way it should be,
obviously. So your thoughts on that, because I think, you know,
the why of it always is a concern to all of us: Why are they
attacking the South; why are they opposing Sharia law the way
they are?
We know that there has been some very serious violence in
Nigeria, and, again, there was a Catholic bishop and a major
imam traveling throughout Nigeria preaching respect. But
frankly, that was not the case for others who were showing a
profound lack of it. And then who can forget the Pakistani
Minister Bhatti, who was very horrifically gunned down,
executed by a radical Islamic group in Pakistan, and his
message was one of respect for all religions, including the
Christian religion in Pakistan.
So I would just appreciate maybe final thoughts, if you
would, or if you just want to leave it at that, we will just
conclude.
Ms. Ratner. Well, you know, I think that at least the
people we talk to as they are coming back--and I interview by
myself, you know, 15 or 20 people--everytime I go. There is a
lot of forced religion. As I say, I call it like I see it.
There are a lot of wackos out there. And it is not just there.
There are people in other parts of the world that want people
to be their religion.
And so I think that at least a lot of the people we see--we
saw a guy with a cell phone, and I have never seen a returnee
slave with a cell phone. Well, his job was to try to convert
other Dinkas, and then his master would call him and take them
to the mosque.
I mean, there are people who have their points of view, and
they are going to make people in their view, and unfortunately
we see a lot of that.
Mr. Smith. But there is a big difference between
proselytizing and coercion.
Ms. Ratner. No, our people are forced with a stick to
convert. And women--I mean, the women and the being--you know,
we talk and--were you forced, we ask the women, to be an Arab
woman; in other words, a female circumcision. And I have got to
tell you, it is off the charts. And I won't even describe in
the committee how they do it.
Mr. Prunier. Perhaps I have a slightly different point of
view, because it is not religious, it is social. And it is
really seen almost in terms of an army, how many men do we have
on our side, men, women and children; how many do they have on
the other side.
The notion of religion, most of the people who try to push
people into conversion into Islam are so ignorant of Islam
themselves, it is appalling. These are not doctors of theology
that do that at all. And there is a kind of--which is totally
betrayed by the reality on the ground, because the evolution in
mentalities--if you go to Darfur now, if you were in Darfur 30
years ago, it is completely different. The notion that I am a
Muslim, therefore I have to be with the people in Khartoum,
this is dead. It is completely dead. Thirty years ago it was
true. So people who are still acting that way, like toward the
Dinka and themselves, belong to another era. They don't realize
it themselves, but they are sort of like walking ghosts. They
express the position of a society which has died in Sudan.
Ms. Ratner. But there are a lot of them, and then they take
people and they are hurting them physically and mentally.
Mr. Prunier. That is not because something is dead that it
doesn't have supporters. There are plenty of neo-Nazis in
Europe. I doubt very much that they ever come back to power.
The question is not one of religion, because when you are
in America, you tend to think of religion as a spiritual thing,
as a personal one. There it is really a social process which
is--they try to impose on people, and it doesn't work. If it
worked, we wouldn't have the war now that we have in Southern
Kordofan, that we have in Blue Nile, because the people who are
fighting there are Muslims.
Mr. Smith. Okay.
Mr. Prendergast. I think we can't forget that the biggest
Jihadist recruitment drives, the biggest forced conversion
campaigns during the 1990s were--at the height of sort of the
regime's--the National Congress Party's, then the National
Islamic Front's--sort of ideological period were focused in the
Nuba Mountains and other border areas as pushing into those
areas where they could target often minority, non-Muslim
populations. But the reason why both are right is they did it
as a political tool, not because of pure ideological--purely
ideologically, you know, creating enemies to develop solidarity
in the North.
And I think as the Government of Sudan and the regime in
Khartoum becomes more and more inward looking now and paranoid,
and as Bashir, as clearly evidence would indicate, is reaching
out more and more to radicalized elements that are inside Sudan
and in Iran, we need to be very focused on this issue as sort
of one of the crucial potential human rights issues in Sudan,
the abuse and politicization of religion to suppress human
rights, and I think that is what it is about, and that is why
both of them are correct, I think.
Mr. Smith. Thank you so much for your leadership. I really
appreciate your time today, and we look forward to working with
you going forward. The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:56 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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