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Mike on Sudan

I am deeply concerned about the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan and am doing everything I can to end it. The horrors in Sudan have troubled me since 2002, when the Boston Anti-Slavery Group met with me to inform me about the persistence of slavery. I will never forget meeting a fellow human being who had been, for some years, the property of another person. Since that day, I have worked to end such atrocity. On July 16, 2003, my resolution condemning slavery in Sudan passed unanimously in the House.

Sudan has been plagued with conflict throughout its history and a bloody civil war between its Northern and Southern regions remains uneasily suspended by a Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Worse conflict arose in Darfur, the western part of Sudan, home to an estimated 7 million people. The crisis in Darfur began in February 2003, when two rebel groups emerged to challenge the National Islamic Front (NIF) government on the grounds that the Government of Sudan discriminates against Muslim African ethnic groups in Darfur and has systematically targeted them for years. In 2004, the Sudanese government began a major military campaign against the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). These attacks were carried out by the Government of Sudan and its militia, the Janjaweed. The Janjaweed have terrorized citizens of Darfur by burning villages, contaminating the water supply, and murdering and raping civilians. On July 22, 2004 Congress declared that the actions of the Sudanese government constituted genocide. On September 9th, 2004 the Bush administration also declared it Genocide. Since 2003 over 400,000 civilians have died, 2.5 million have been internally displaced and 200,000 have fled to neighboring Chad. Over half of the population of Darfur has been affected by the genocide.

In October 2005, I co-founded the Congressional Caucus on Sudan, and I have since traveled to the region. I have gone to Khartoum and personally confronted President Omar al-Bashir, now under indictment by the International Criminal Court. I was in the region on a Congressional delegation trip led by Rep. Nancy Pelosi in February of 2006 and later met with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton to urge that UN peacekeeping forces be moved quickly into Darfur. In March of 2006, I secured an additional $50 million for the African Union Mission in Sudan through a House emergency appropriations bill.

Currently, the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force (UNAMID) is authorized to operate on the ground in Darfur, a region the size of France. Unfortunately, the deployment of this force has been plagued by a lack of international resources and stymied by the Government of Sudan, leaving it largely unable to bring security or stability. Last Congress, I introduced a resolution calling on the President to encourage the international community to donate much-needed resources to UNAMID, including essential helicopter assets. But the peacekeepers remain hampered by their lack of numbers and logistical capacity, and unspeakable civilian suffering continues.

I do believe that President Obama is committed to ending the genocide and I am very encouraged that one of his first acts as President was to appoint a Special Envoy to Sudan. I continue to closely monitor the situation and I sincerely hope that this increased focus will speed the end of the horrors.

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