Posted by: Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) 

“The situation is highly exaggerated.  There is no genocide.”  Wali Kahibbir, Governor of North Darfur

“How can you call it genocide.  We are all the same color.  It is not ethnic cleansing or genocide.”  2nd Vice President of Sudan, Ali Osman Taha

It was a long day in Sudan.  Our bi-partisan Congressional Delegation led by Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi had traveled on a U.S. transport place from Khartoum to El Fashir in the state of North Darfur.  We were beginning a weeklong trip that would take us to Nelson Mandela’s prison cell on Robben Island in South Africa and a meeting with President Mbeki, to Ghana to meet with President Kufour at the “castle”, now Government building, from which slaves were sent to America, to Liberia to celebrate victory with the first woman ever elected President of an African nation, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has a huge challenge in front of her, and finally a brief overnight in Cape Verde.

Call it what you will – the U.S. Congress, thanks to several of us in the delegation, named it “genocide” – two million people in Darfur have run in fear from their homes and between 200,000 and 400,000 have been killed. 

The African Union force commander told us that at least double the 7,000 troops they have in Darfur, a region the size of France, will be needed to establish security.  The Governor says “no more troops are needed.”

Meantime, people are living in tiny tents – we visited them -- in an inhospitable environment at best, afraid to go home, if there is a home to go to.  Even so, they were smiling and friendly, especially the children.  What, I wondered, would their future be?

The Governor filled the meeting hall with pre-screened women (reminiscent of President Bush’s Town Halls) who swamped Nancy Pelosi after the formal statements to set her straight.  Women in Darfur were doing fine – no violence, no rape, just exaggerations.

Women and their children waited patiently outside one of the 12 clinics run by the International Rescue Committee.  Its director told us that they serve 400,000 people on a yearly budget of $4 million, but that their funders, including U.S. AID informed them of a 60% cut for next year.  As we left, I calculated that the U.S. spends $6 million every hour in Iraq.

From the heat, the sand and the poverty, it was surreal to sit in the air-conditioned comfort of Vice-President Taha’s gleaming white home back in Khartoum – he in his business-casuals, we having just washed the dust of Darfur off our feet.  He began, in perfect English and polished manner, rather aggressively wondering, “Why are Americans so interested in our domestic affairs?”  I read that questions as, “What gives you the right to come wag your finger at us?”   For a moment, I was furious at George Bush for so severely diminishing the moral authority of the United States.
 
Various of my colleagues, mostly leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus and Africa experts like Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters, made it perfectly clear that we supported our President’s call for more troops and the involvement of international organizations like the UN and/or NATO.  We also told him that millions of Americans, college students in particular, were fully aware of and engaged in stopping the horrific situation in Darfur.

When we questioned his government’s role in helping the murderous Janjaweed, he essentially admitted supporting them, putting it this way.  “Janjaweed – that is a wide definition...  All the tribes are fighting each other.  Some of the Arabs sought help from the Government of Sudan, and got it…”

As our meeting concluded, he asked us to “fast-track humanitarian assistance,” never once acknowledging his government’s responsibility for causing or addressing any of the misery of his people.

On the flight back from Africa, we watched Hotel Rwanda, hoping, praying that our mission to stop the killing would prove productive.