U.S. Senator Russ Feingold on the Crisis in Darfur, Sudan
Posted at 9:35:29 on May 10, 2004
Apparently, I need to check the "Speeches" section of Feingold's senate website more often, because I missed one last week.
On May 6th, Senator Russ Feingold made a speech on the crisis in Darfur (read the full text here).
Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in calling attention to the horrifying crisis in Darfur, a part of western Sudan where over a million people have been displaced by a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by government-backed militia forces and sometimes official Sudanese forces themselves.
Human Rights Watch has documented massacres, widespread rape, massive forced displacement, and indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilians in Darfur. Amnesty International indicates that the ceasefire agreement signed on April 8 has not stopped the attacks against civilians on the ground, stating that "attacks on villages continue; indiscriminate and deliberate killings of civilians continue; looting continues and rapes continue." Doctors without Borders, which is actually on the ground delivering services in parts of Darfur, warns of desperate malnutrition and tells us that the absence of food aid on the ground is especially alarming because measles have broken out among the displaced, and measles can seriously aggravate malnutrition.
Because so many homes and farms and mosques and entire villages have been burned and totally destroyed, and because normal life has been so thoroughly disrupted, because fear still dominates the lives of so many civilians, and because the rainy season is beginning - making much of Darfur completely inaccessible by road - literally hundreds of thousands could die of starvation. The humanitarian task before the world would be mammoth even if a major political breakthrough occured backed by what we have not seen to date - actual effective action taken by the Government of Sudan to put a stop to the attacks on civilians. Without such action, the crisis deepens each day.
- Trae
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