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oil. Unfortunately, our colleagues in the Senate have yet to appoint conferees in order to reconcile the two versions of the bill.

The Bush Administration had demonstrated its keen interest in bringing about an end to the conflict. On September 6, 2001, President Bush appointed Former Senator John Danforth as Special Envoy for Peace in the Sudan. During a White House ceremony the President stated that,

"For nearly 2 decades the government of Sudan has waged a brutal and shameful war against its own people, and this is not right, and this must stop."

We welcome the President's asserted engagement in Sudan.

Senator Danforth was given the mandate to ascertain if there is a role for the United States to play in the peace process. As part of his mandate, he first sought to test the parties to the conflict to determine if they were serious about a negotiated settlement. He proposed four confidence-building measures. These included: (1) a cease-fire in the Nuba Mountains region to facilitate relief assistance; (2) the creation of "days of tranquility" to administer immunizations and provide humanitarian relief assistance; (3) an end to aerial bombardment of civilian targets; and (4) the creation of an Eminent Persons Group on slavery in Sudan.

In April 2002, Senator Danforth submitted his report to President Bush, recommending continued U.S. engagement in the peace process. The release of the Danforth Report provides an opportunity for Congress to assess the direction of U.S. engagement in the peace process. While I am encouraged by the Administration's high level commitment, I am disheartened to learn conditions on the ground have not changed.

However, the witnesses today will lend us greater insight into the problems involved in the peace process and the impact which implementation of the recommendation contained in the Danforth Report might have on easing the conflict in Sudan.

I now turn to the Ranking Member, Mr. Lantos, for his opening remarks.

Mr. LANTOS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and before offering my opening remarks I want to commend you for your opening statement which I had the privilege of reading, and I want to explain to you that I was on the Floor making a statement on the most recent suicide bombing in Israel, which I think needed to be commented on.

Sixteen Israelis were massacred this morning in a suicide bombing of a bus, with 50 Israelis being injured, many of them critically. With a population 50 times that of the State of Israel, this is the equivalent of 800 Americans having been blown to bits and some 2500 Americans injured, many of them critically. If in the morning paper we would be reading that 800 of our citizens were killed in suicide attacks, we would understand the climate that permeates our friend and ally, Israel, this morning.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for convening this very important hearing on Sudan, a country where an 18-year civil war has claimed more than 2 million lives and has required the delivery of more than $1.2 billion in U.S. humanitarian assistance since

1988, when our Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance became involved in Sudan.

I would also like to congratulate my friend, Senator Danforth, on his mission and commend him on his efforts to move the Sudanese government and the Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement toward accommodation and peace.

It is important to note that Senator Danforth's report on Sudan and indeed this hearing, are both taking place in the context of an ongoing campaign of terror perpetrated by the Sudanese government against innocent civilians in the south. From January to April this year, the government destroyed 42 villages in the upper Nile region and routinely denied humanitarian flights. These are not signs of a government ready to engage honestly in a serious and substantive peace process.

Last June, Mr. Chairman, the House recognized that as long as financial capital was available for oil companies to invest in exploiting the 4 billion barrels of oil primarily in southern Sudan, the Sudanese government would continue its war of destruction. By a vote of 422 to two we voted to include capital market sanctions in H.R. 2052, the Sudan Peace Act. Now I am deeply troubled by the lack of movement in the Senate toward a conference between our respective measures.

Unfortunately, in the Senate our Republican colleagues oppose capital market sanctions. They have used Senate rules to block the appointment of conferees on this critically important piece of legislation. In fact, Senate Majority Leader Daschle has tried three times to appoint conferees, including as recently as May 7, and three times a key Republican Senator has used Senate rules to anonymously block the appointment of conferees.

Mr. Chairman, out of deference to Senate rules, I will not name the Senator publicly today, but I would urge Members of the House who care about the Sudan to speak to their colleagues in the Senate as I have, to learn who is stopping the progress on this bill, and to get this hold removed.

Mr. Chairman, while the Senate minority stalled these deliberations, Khartoum is playing the game of peace while conducting a vicious war of annihilation. I am deeply concerned that its leaders will logically interpret this obstruction as an indication that movement toward peace is not a prerequisite for normal relations with the United States Government.

Of the four Danforth confidence building measures upon which a peace process will be built, only the Nuba cease-fire has been implemented. Government attacks on civilians in the upper Nile region have escalated. Civilian abductions continue unabated. And according to Senator Danforth himself, there has been, and I quote, a great deal of confusion over the days of tranquility for humanitarian programs.'

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Mr. Chairman, oil and access to capital to exploit the reserves are at the heart of the conflict in Sudan. According to Senator Danforth, oil has reshaped Sudan's civil war. More than just the war of self-determination, the government of Sudan has made absolute control of the oil region a major goal. It is pursuing a military course that spares no school, no clinic, indeed no civilian life that

stands between it and the wealth oil promises. As long as the oil revenues flow to Khartoum, there is little that pushes the government of Sudan to negotiate peace.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, the Administration has attempted a constructive engagement policy with Sudan, particularly in the light of our war against terrorism, and we applaud all efforts to end the conflict and find an enduring peace. However, I must state for the record that I have grave reservations about whether we can trust Khartoum to negotiate any serious peace deal in good faith.

In April, Mr. Chairman, I wrote to the Administration expressing outrage that Sudan's President Bashir called publicly for the reopening of militants training camps to fight the State of Israel. I was assured in writing that the Administration had called on Khartoum to cease the rhetoric of Jihad and violence.

Mr. Chairman, I call upon the Sudanese government not only to cease the rhetoric of Jihad and violence, but to cease the acts of violence against its people and the threat of violence against the State of Israel. I also call upon this Administration to avoid Khartoum's diplomatic game playing, and to ensure that the rights of the people of southern Sudan to practice their religion and culture is put squarely on the table where it belongs.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Lantos.

I am going to ask the indulgence of the Committee to forego at this time making opening statements except Mr. Sherman, who has entreated me for 1 minute's recognition, but we have a complicated panel of witnesses. We have the Secretary of State coming in early this afternoon, and we want to be through with this. So if you will please withhold your request for opening statements, and put them in the record, without objection all Members may have 5 days in which to insert opening statements into the record of today's hearing.

Without objection, I would like to insert into the record the written comments of the Government of Sudan and the statement of the Reverend Walter Fountroy, a former Member of the House, whom I invited to testify. Reverend Fountroy was unable to attend today's hearing due to a scheduling conflict. I would like to have the record have the benefit of his remarks.

I further ask unanimous consent that the statement of Mr. John Eidner of Christian Solidarity International and the statement of Dennis E. Bennett of Servants Heart, an organization in my congressional district, also be included in the record.

The Chair recognizes for 1 minute Mr. Sherman of California.
Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Two years ago the World Bank loaned $232 million to Iran, and later this year it is likely to approve another $755 million. Sudan is eligible and may well receive concessionary loans from the IDA branch of the World Bank, the very branch that is likely to receive $800 million appropriated this year by Congress.

We will, of course, use our voice and vote against these loans, but this choreographed feeble protest is but a cynical excuse for a failure to enact legislation that would end all American appropriations to the World Bank if that bank loans money to the current vicious regimes in Khartoum and Tehran.

Thank you.

Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Sherman.

Mr. Gilman has asked for 1 minute.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you.

Chairman HYDE. It is difficult for me give 1 minute to Mr. Sherman and not to Mr. Gilman.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman HYDE. And so we are off and running.

Mr. GILMAN. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this importing hearing. There is an urgent need for reconciliation for peace and economic development in Sudan and our nation working closely with our allies is now in a position to provide the leadership that is needed to put an end to this conflict.

Sudan continues to experience some of the worst human rights practices on record, such as its trading in slaves, religious discrimination, the starvation, and wanton killing of civilians, over 2 million dead during their period of independence. For quite some time Sudan has been supporting terrorists whose activities were aimed against our nation and our allies.

However, things seemed to improve a little bit since September 11. Sudan placed itself in the camp of those countries fighting international terror, and that change of heart by the Sudanese government provides the opportunity to effectively address its own internal conflicts.

Accordingly, the Administration's recent efforts to help mediate this conflict, as exemplified by sending Senator Danforth into the region as the President's special envoy for peace in Sudan should be commended.

Mr. Chairman, I thank our witnesses for taking the time to help in our deliberations with their knowledge and experience, and I hope this hearing will provide further insight for clarifying the complex issues raised by the hearing.

And thank you for your recognition.

Chairman HYDE. After consultation with the Ranking Minority Member, Mr. Lantos, who feels strongly that all of the representatives of the United States Government organizations should testify on one panel, I have decided to have Mr. Young join the other witnesses on Panel No. I. So Mr. Young, if you would come to the witness table with the other members of Panel I, which I will now introduce.

I would like to welcome Walter H. Kansteiner, III, who is Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of African Affairs at the Department of State.

Secretary Kansteiner was sworn in just 1 year ago, bringing with him more than 20 years' experience with African and emerging market business issues. He is a founding principal of the Scocroft Group, has served the U.S. Government as a director of African affairs on the National Security Council, and also has served on the Secretary of State's policy planning staff, and with the Department of Defense.

We welcome you today, Secretary Kansteiner.

And also on Panel I, it pleases me to introduce Roger Winter, Assistant Administrator of the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and

Humanitarian Assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Mr. Winter was director of U.S. AID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance prior to being sworn in as assistant administrator in January of this year. He served as executive director of the nonprofit U.S. Committee for Refugees for many years, and has farreaching field experience in Africa, Southeast Asia, the former Soviet Union, and Central America.

We welcome you today, Mr. Winter.

And we also welcome Michael K. Young, Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Ambassador Young comes to the commission with a wide background of government service at the Department of State in addition to his positions as dean on the staffs of the George Washington University Law School and the School of Law at Columbia University. He is known as a scholar of Far Eastern affairs; has been published extensively in those areas, as well as international environmental law, human rights and religious freedom.

And we thank you for coming today, Dean Young.

I kindly ask that each of you summarize your statements within 5 minutes if at all possible. Your full statement will be placed in the hearing record.

And so all the preliminaries having been completed, we recognize you, Secretary Kansteiner.

Would you press the button?

Mr. KANSTEINER. That always helps.
Chairman HYDE. Yes.

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE WALTER KANSTEINER, AS-
SISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF AFRICAN AFFAIRS, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Mr. KANSTEINER. I am please to have the opportunity to appear before this Committee to discuss what you and Secretary Powell have described as one of the greatest humanitarian tragedies on the world. The oft-quoted statistics of Sudan, which you mentioned in your opening remarks, include 36 years of civil war, 2 million dead, 4 million internally displaced, 500,000 refugees, these are numbing in their magnitude.

Slave raiding, aerial bombing of civilians, attacks on relief centers, use of food as a weapon, forced displacements, interference with religious freedom, any of these would guarantee a country a prominent spot on the dismal map of human suffering, but in Sudan we see all of these together.

The United States of America cannot ignore what is going on there. Sudan must be a priority in the context of our policy toward Africa, and I can assure this Committee that it is.

As you mentioned, Mr. Chairman, we do have a keen interest in Sudan and the President and the Secretary and this Administration are committed to trying to bring peace to this country. We have set a policy course with four objectives in mind. These are: to deny Sudan as a base of operations for international terrorism; bring about a just and lasting peace; push for unhindered humanitarian access; and open the doors for improved human rights and religious freedom.

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