Washington DC — Bipartisan Congressional voices denounced Sudan's government at a press conference in Washington D.C., Thursday, and called for sanctions against the north-east African nation which has been torn by civil war for eighteen years.
"It is a nightmare of unspeakable proportions," said House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX). He condemned the government for crimes against the civilian population in the South, citing slavery in particular. "We see in the Sudan today a return to slavery. We thought we were done with this awful practice. It is frightening to see it anyplace in the world."
Eighteen years of continuous warfare have left over two million people dead and four million displaced. Representative Armey called for President Bush to send a special envoy to begin pressing the National Islamic Front government to end the conflict.
In an unusual show of agreement between conservative and liberal, Donald Payne (D-NJ), ranking minority member of the House Africa subcommittee, and Charles Rangel (D-NY) who authored the African Trade Act stood with Armey and joined his denunciation.
"We must recoil in horror at the practice of slavery in Sudan," Congressman Rangel said, "and work with the international community to end the war which is the root cause."
In 1999, Leonardo Franco, an Argentinian attorney investigating human rights violations in the Sudan for the United Nations reported that the war had worsened Sudan's slavery problem. The government uses nomadic northern tribesmen known as "Muraheleen" as escorts of supply trains and other important caravans, Franco said. And "as war booty," these Muraheleen are permitted to engage in "destructive and predatory attacks against the civillian population, including the abduction of women and children who are taken up North to be subjected to forced labour or other conditions amounting to slavery."
Payne announced the formation of a bipartisan "Sudan Caucus" which will be co-chaired by Rangel and Frank Wolf (R-VA). "Our goal is to have peace with justice by the end of the year," said Wolf. "Its not a Republican thing. Its not a Democratic thing. Its a humane thing," said Rangel.
Earlier this month, in letters to the chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, the acting Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Treasury Secretary Paul ONeill, Wolf voiced concern about the role foreign oil companies were "inadvertently" playing in perpetuating human rights abuses by the Sudanese government. "The facts cannot be any clearer about the effects of oil development and resources in supporting the Government of Sudans continuing campaign against the suffering people in southern Sudan," he wrote.
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"Blood oil", and the money from it, is leading Payne to seek divestiture by foreign companies and multilateral sanctions against the government. "The human rights abuses, the slave trading are just unconscionable," said Payne. He has introduced a resolution calling for sanctions and the creation of a $500,000 scholarship fund for southern Sudanese students.
Standing with the legislators was the director of the NAACP Washington Bureau, Hilary O. Shelton, who read a statement from NAACP President and CEO Kweisi Mfume calling for strong U.S. sanctions. "The problems in Sudan warrant a stronger, more aggressive action on the part of the United States," Mfumes statement said. "A bipartisan, public/private approach is not only proper, but it is necessary if we are going to effectively address this insidious evil."
