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“THE CRISIS IN SUDAN” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S9544-S9545 on July 31, 1998.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE CRISIS IN SUDAN
Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, as an original cosponsor of the sense-of-
the-Senate on providing humanitarian relief to the Sudan, I believe it is important that we focus on the tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes. The people of southern Sudan are starving. Khartoum is using the denial of food as a weapon in its war against the rebels in the south--
and we are letting the government of Sudan get away with this odious practice by allowing Khartoum to have a veto over aid deliveries.
Sudan has been torn by a devastating civil war between the Muslim north and the predominantly Christian and animist south for most of history since independence. The current phase of the war started in 1983 when the then-President embarked on an Islamization program. Recurring famine is just one of the tragic outcomes of Khartoum's brutal method of warfare where women, children, and livestock are taken as prizes of war. It has also resulted in institutionalized slavery, more than 4 million internally displaced people, and more than 1.5 million casualties in the past 14 years.
Our State Department lists Sudan as a terrorist state. We have sanctions on Sudan which prohibit American investment. But we respect the right of the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum to veto the delivery of humanitarian relief to the south. That just doesn't make sense.
Most of the aid flowing to southern Sudan is through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) participating in a United Nations relief program, Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS). While traveling through east Africa in December, I had the opportunity to visit the OLS Southern Sector headquarters and see firsthand the efforts of the NGOs. These NGOs are on the ground, along with UNICEF, mounting a heroic effort to distribute aid to these starving people. And I know that many of them share my frustration with the UN's political agreement with the government of Sudan which allows Khartoum to have the final say in the distribution of aid to the south. This has resulted in the starvation of citizens and soldiers alike when Khartoum decides it is advantageous to halt the delivering of aid.
For the past few years, Khartoum has restricted flights during the planting season so that aid organizations cannot deliver the seeds and tools necessary to help the people of southern Sudan feed themselves. This year Khartoum went a step further. Khartoum didn't just restrict flights. It banned relief flights in the Bahr el Ghazal region. It should be no surprise that another poor harvest is predicted in the Fall. According to the UN World Food Program, 2.6 million people in Southern Sudan are in imminent peril of starvation. Quite frankly, until we can find a way to deliver seeds and tools to southern Sudan during planting season, I see this cycle of famine continuing indefinitely. This is a warfare tactic of cowards.
The flight ban wasn't the only problem that OLS had in delivering aid effectively. When the flight ban was lifted and aid could once again be provided, OLS faced another barrier put in its way by Khartoum. OLS was forced to wait for Khartoum's permission to add four Ilyushin cargo planes to the handful of C-130s that deliver relief supplies to southern Sudan. Any agreement by the United Nations which permits Khartoum a veto over the number of relief planes as well as when and where they can fly is fatally flawed. The President should aggressively seek to change the terms of this agreement which restricts the ability of Operation Lifeline Sudan to distribute aid effectively to southern Sudan.
As chairman of the International Operations subcommittee, I have to say I hold little hope that the United Nations will take any significant steps in this direction. That leaves, of course, the option of unilateral action by the United States to bypass Khartoum's veto. Currently, U.S. AID funnels aid to Sudan almost exclusively through OLS-affiliated groups. That must change if we are to have any chance to effectively combat the use of starvation as a tactic of war. The United States government shouldn't just cooperate with these non-OLS groups when Khartoum institutes restrictions on the delivery of aid--as we did during the Bahr El Ghazal flight ban. The United States should actively assist and develop relief distribution networks outside of Operation Lifeline Sudan's umbrella which are not subject to the whims of Khartoum. If we don't, yet another planting season will pass without seeds being sown, and hundreds of thousands of more people will starve.
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