Statement of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold
Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs Hearing
on Chad and the Central African Republic: The Regional Impact of the
Darfur Crisis
As Prepared for Delivery
March 20, 2007
On behalf of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs,
I welcome all of you to the second hearing of this Subcommittee in the
110th Congress. I would like to offer a special welcome to my colleague,
Senator Sununu, who has already demonstrated a dedicated commitment
to Africa in his first couple months as Ranking Member of this Subcommittee.
By now we are all aware of the tragedy unfolding in the Darfur region
of Sudan. More than two and a half years ago, my colleagues and I
were among the first to condemn the atrocities in Darfur as genocide
and since then, Congress has appropriated more than $1.5 billion to
ease the suffering of innocent Darfurians. The U.S. government and
many other concerned states -- acting alone as well as through the
UN and the African Union -- have intervened with diplomatic, humanitarian,
human rights, and development assistance, efforts driven in large
part by effective grassroots activism.
Despite these ongoing and well-intentioned efforts, today in Darfur
millions remain displaced, and at least 200,000 are dead. Humanitarian
space continues to shrink and peacekeepers, aid workers, and human
rights actors are increasingly the targets of violent crimes. Perhaps
most worrisome is the Sudanese Government’s ongoing denial of
the crimes and crisis in the west. Just this morning on the Today
Show, Sudanese President Bashir claimed that rape “doesn’t
exist. We don’t have it.” He went on to allege that the
United States was fabricating evidence of atrocities in Darfur just
as it supposedly had before invading Iraq, implying that the Americans
have ulterior motives in seeking to end the violence in Darfur.
In the meantime, we are seeing the brutal tactics of Darfur –
and their tragic consequences –transferred across the porous
border into eastern Chad and the Central Africa Republic. Even before
the recent outbreak of hostilities in the north, the Central African
Republic was suffering extreme poverty and deemed by the UN’s
Office of Humanitarian Assistance as “one of the world's most
neglected emergencies.” I visited the Iriba refugee camp in
eastern Chad in January of 2005 and was struck by the rising inflows
of Darfurian refugees. During that same visit to Chad, I also noted
the growing disillusionment with President Deby’s government
and lack of democratic space for political change. My conclusion from
this trip was that Chadians outside the government were preoccupied
with the problems of poverty and rural development, but it worried
me that this was not a major concern of the Chadian government, nor
was it at the top tier of the U.S.-Chad bilateral relationship. Political
unrest in Chad has sparked violence that has displaced more than one
hundred thousand Chadians, adding to refugees from Sudan and the Central
African Republic in crowded camps, and creating a downward spiral
of security and humanitarian conditions throughout the region.
Last month, Senator Sununu and I introduced a resolution to highlight
the destabilizing impact of the ongoing violence in the Darfur region
of Sudan on neighboring Chad and the Central African Republic. Each
of these countries is struggling to cope with security and humanitarian
challenges of their own, but the spillover of rebels, weapons, and
brutal tactics – along with the flood of refugees and internally
displaced persons that such violence creates -- across Sudan’s
western border has exacerbated these emergencies. As long as these
conflicts persist, the crisis in Darfur will be prolonged -- and vice
versa.
No effort to restore peace and stability to this bloodied region
in the heart of Africa can succeed unless we commit ourselves to a
coordinated, comprehensive approach. Tribal rivalries are not constrained
by national boundaries, so neither should we pursue localized solutions
to what has become a regional conflict. That was the motivation for
our bipartisan resolution calling on the United States government
and the international community to promptly develop, fund, and implement
a comprehensive regional strategy to protect civilians, facilitate
humanitarian operations, contain and reduce violence, and contribute
to conditions for sustainable peace in eastern Chad, the Central African
Republic, and western Sudan. This hearing will explore the need for
an integrated approach to peace in this region.
With that said, let me introduce our three distinguished panels.
On our first panel we have Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
African Affairs, Mr. Jim Swan. In addition to having previously served
as Director of Analysis for Africa in the Bureau of Intelligence and
Research, Mr. Swan has devoted most of his professional life as a
career foreign service officer to African countries facing complex
political transitions. I hope he will be able to draw upon this experience
to give us some insights into the current situations in Chad and the
Central African Republic. We look forward to a review of recent developments
in U.S. policy in this region, including the Administration’s
priorities as well as its strategies and allocated resources towards
achieving these aims. Mr. Swan, I would also appreciate your assessment
of the impact you believe the United States in having in each of these
countries in addressing both the immediate needs and longstanding
grievances of the affected populations.
We will then hear testimony from two respected individuals representing
the humanitarian and academic communities, respectively. Both Ken
Bacon and John Prendergast have firsthand experience with these conflicts
and their victims, and both have written extensively – and even
testified before Congress – on these and related foreign policy
issues. Ken Bacon is the president of Refugees International, an advocacy
organization based in Washington but with operations that serve forgotten
or neglected populations in crisis all over the world, including Chad
and the Central African Republic. To learn more about the needs of
internally displaced people and what can be done to reduce attacks
on civilians in these areas, Refugees International recently sent
an assessment mission to visit IDP camps in eastern Chad as well as
the extremely isolated and nearly inaccessible conflict zones in northeast
and northwest CAR. We are fortunate to be privy to this on-the-ground
update, and I hope Mr. Bacon will also share his perspective on both
to the successes and failures of existing efforts to ease and resolve
the conflicts in this troubled region and what more needs to be done.
John Prendergast has worked on crisis issues in Africa for the past
two decades and is currently Senior Advisor to the International Crisis
Group and Co-Founder of the recently-launched ENOUGH Campaign that
aims to end ongoing crimes against humanity and prevent future mass
atrocities. We look to you, Mr. Prendergast, for analysis of the internal
political situations in Chad and the Central African Republic as well
as the regional dynamics that bind these conflicts with the Darfur
crisis. Additionally, the Subcommittee would appreciate your insights
into what you believe is needed at the national, regional, and international
levels in the short-, medium-, and long-term to ease and resolve the
inter-related challenges facing this troubled region.
We’re very glad that you’re all here today, and we appreciate
your willingness to testify. Thank you and welcome. The information
and insights you share with us this morning will help my colleagues
and myself better understand these complex conflicts and the role
we can play in resolving them through a coordinated, comprehensive
approach.
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