I follow this, as did Mr. Payne, because we had follow-up hearings to this hearing both on slavery as well as the delivery of humanitarian food stuffs, and the denial of it, and it never got better. As a matter of fact in many cases it actually got worse.

So I would hope that there would be a "hurry-up offense" to reevaluate. I do not think we are on the precipice of a breakthrough. Maybe we are. God willing we are. But I actually believe the passage and signature of this legislation on the Sudan Peace Act will facilitate the diplomacy, will make it more possible and more probable rather than less.

And finally, in terms of delisting companies, it happens all the time. I have owned stock. Others have probably owned it as well on the NASDAQ that went from umpteen hundred down to zero, and it is gone, or once it has gone under a dollar or so for a month. So it is not the end of the world. The world goes on.

And I do think if we draw a line and say there is egregious and barbaric behavior that is so appalling that we will make a clear and unambiguous statement that you cannot facilitate and use our markets to get blood money, I think we have done a good day's work.

Mr. Tancredo asked the $64 million question earlier, you know, what is what constitutes, you know, such an appalling barbaric behavior that it would lead us to say now that has crossed the line. I think, like Mr. Payne says, Sudan is it. There are other countries probably as well, but Sudan is it, and I think we can have a major impact. So I would hope the Administration would rethink its policy and allow this conference to go forward and get that bill down to the President.

Thank you very much. We will have a short break because of a vote, then we will reconvene this hearing. Panel II, we would invite your testimony at that point. Thank you.

We stand in recess.

[Whereupon, a recess was taken.]

Mr. SMITH OF NEW JERSEY. I would like to welcome our second panel, beginning with Dr. Francis Deng, distinguished professor at the City University of New York's Graduate Center and Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution. He is a special representative of the U.N. Secretary General on internally displaced persons, and has served as human rights officer in the United Nations Secretariat. He has also served as Sudan's Ambassador to Canada, the Scandinavian countries and the United States, and as its Minister of Foreign Affairs. He has authored more than 20 books in the fields of law, conflict resolution and human rights.

Dr. Deng, my understanding is that you do have a plane to catch, so we will proceed with you. Unfortunately, we will hold questions and submit them for the record to you, and then I will then introduce the remaining panelists. If anyone else has a conflict like that, please let us know.

Dr. Deng.

STATEMENT OF FRANCIS DENG, SENIOR FELLOW, FOREIGN POLICY STUDIES, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

Mr. DENG. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, as a Sudanese, one cannot help but express profound appreciation at the sustained way the Congress has demonstrated concern over the years in the case of the Sudan, and certainly also the extent to which the President has taken a keen interest in what is happening in the Sudan.

Mr. Chairman, listening to what was said this morning and having just come from the Sudan where I was out to give a lecture in a hall that normally holds over a thousand people, it was full, there were loudspeakers outside. It was just extraordinary the yearning of people to hear about peace and that was the topic.

Í also assumed that people expected that I might say something about the American involvement, because it has captured the imagination of the Sudanese people.

I should say that all the Sudanese, including the war fraction, and not just the Sudanese, as in my contact with others in Europe and elsewhere, i.e., United Nations, the role of the United States in brokering peace in the Sudan is seen as absolutely pivotal.

Now Danforth's involvement and his report have also captured peoples' imagination about the prospects for peace. So much so that it was cautious to begin with, he is always cautious, somewhat modest you might say, incremental. I think it has in a sense raised expectations so much that I have heard people from some government circles say we expect peace to come within 6 months in the Sudan.

The Sudanese themselves expect peace to come soon because of the involvement of the United States. But if after all that has been said and all that we have been hearing for years and the yearning of the Sudanese people themselves for peace, we do not seem close to peace.

How do we explain that? I once wrote an article which I think became popular because of its title, and the title was What Is Not Said Is What Divides. The Sudanese situation is so complex and sensitive that there are certain issues Sudanese do not actually confront directly, and some of the things that were said this morning are very relevant to this.

My views are reasonably well known in the Sudan, are documented in books, in statements, even in two novels. And I think what makes it difficult to resolve the conflict of the Sudan is that it deals with serious issues of identity. This morning this was alluded to by at least two or three speakers.

And what do I mean by the crisis of identity that the Sudan is suffering from? I see it in a number of gaps. First, a gap between what people are, how they perceive themselves to be, and the objective realities about them so that we talk of being Arabs, and maybe in a particular version of Islam, and identifying ourselves with a certain nationalist Arab identity while others resist that and identify themselves almost in negative terms as not this, or as Africans committed to secularism and a certain view of the world that contrasts with their fellow northern Sudanese.

But at the same time this is the effects of fluidity in which really you see a lot in common, so that people who identify themselves as Arabs and link their being Arabs with the Islam of a particular version, and a certain degree of Arab nationalism, if you look at

them and look elsewhere in Africa the differences will not be that visible.

So you have a situation which historically allowed people to be flexible in shaping their identity according to the prevailing hierarchy of races and cultures and religions, and in which being a Muslim, being Arab, culturally Arabized, and linked to the Arab world elevated one to a much higher status compared to being Black, a heathen, a potential if not actual slave. And this liberal process created a situation where in the north people became Arabized and Islamized.

In the south, which was a hunting ground for slaves, the psychology was one of resistance, so that although there has been a lot of interaction over hundreds of years in that Nile Valley, both the southern Sudanese and the northern Sudanese see very little in common even though an objective observation of the situation would indicate there is a lot indeed in common.

And things are changing. You know, people who used to deny having anything to do with the African Black identity as a result of this long war, the discussion of critical issues of identity, people are opening up. I have just come from a meeting in Sudan where a large number of people were honoring me for my region of Kodofon, and I could not believe it. People you have always taken for granted as Arabs were being identified one by one as having been grandmothers. Something that never would have happened before.

So Sudanese, despite the fact that the more margionalized their identities become, the more rigid they hold to them, there is also a degree of awareness that things are not as simple as we have always taken them to be.

What does this mean, the flexibility of identity and the rigidity of identity? It seems to me that it means two things. It means in the short run we have to recognize that dualism or differences are in the perceptions of people, distorted as it might be. In fact I am almost convinced that the rise of islamic fundamentalism in the Sudan came as a result of the SPLM coming to power, supported vigorously by regional powers, in particular, Ethiopia, and saying that they were not fighting to succeed but change the character of the country, to restructure the country and to create a new Sudan. That was seen by the establishment, which is primarily Arab-Islamic, as a threat to their dominance. And since they could not rally people in the name of Africanism or race, they did so in the name of Islam.

I should say here that while this regime has been the most vocal and perhaps the most committed to the Islamic agenda, all the major political parties of the north have, since independence, called for some form of an Islamic constitution. I think to do justice to the issues and conflict we should see that what this regime represents may be an extreme form of what other political forces in the north have tried to do in the past.

Policy-wise, it seems to me what this should lead us to is let us have a short-term coexistence, a short-term coexistence where despite the fact who people think they are, that does not necessarily reflect the realities of what they are, and where the gap between perceptions and the national framework does not allow for unity,

let us have that short-term coexistence through what we might call one country, two systems. We might call it confederation or federation.

Personally, I think we are better off not using labels. Sitting to discuss precisely what it would take for each of the two dominant parties to feel that they are masters of their own situation and their own destiny. Once we have created that framework my prediction is that the common factors will continue to evolve. And what is being denied as long as there is no oppression, as long as no confrontation will come to the fore, and an evolution of a common ground that will reunite the country and perhaps lead to integration will come about.

But what does this mean in terms of self-determination? The coexistence that I am suggesting should be during an interim period with self-determination absolutely established. Self-determination is an essential ingredient of the declaration of principles, which the African countries in IGAD agreed upon and all the political forces of the Sudan have agreed upon. They may differ as to how to interpret it, or how to implement it, but it has become almost a central theme in any discussions in the Sudan today.

To begin to question it and even say it is not feasible, it is not doable, is to be retrogressive. But for me, self-determination does not necessarily mean aspiration for separation. Self-determination is a way of forcing the Sudanese, particularly the leaders, to say we must create conditions that will sustain unity or else our country is threatened with disintegration.

If they are told, as some people have told the Sudanese, we are against self-determination because we are against partitioning the country, well, what incentive will people have to create conditions for unity if beforehand they are told that whatever the situation the country is staying together?

So self-determination as I see it may well be a way of actually giving inducement or incentives for the Sudanese to create conditions that are appropriate for unity.

Quickly, the incremental approach and the catalytic incremental approach that Danforth has created and which has worked very well in the Nuba Mountain area has actually given many peoples who are along the borders of north and south and who are victims not so much of government SPLM confrontation, but from tribal militias who are unleashed to fight the proxy war and who have devastated lost border areas.

The relief that has come to the Nuba Mountain is being seen by many people in many areas as something that they would like to be replicated. It may not be absolutely replicable, but the area, for instance, where the Ngok Dinka in southern Kordofan or western Kordofan, the Twet in Bahr el Ghazal, and the Arabs in the north, an area which historically has been a strategic bridge and a linkage, a point of conciliation or peaceful coexistence and which has not been devastated by militias, has just reached a trial agreement of peace among themselves, the tribes, and they are calling on the government and the international community to help support this peace, and to help the return of the many thousands of people who have left the area, the completely depopulated area, and want to come back to their villages.

And I think the example is a good one to apply there too and begin to be incremental in showing that maybe the process of peace, even though it is in small incremental forms, is underway.

But as a last word, Mr. Chairman, I think the United States has to take a decisive lead that goes beyond simply a process, to take a peace process working with others in the region, particularly the IGAD countries, but also others if need be, and the European allies, but to get to the core issues that are divisive. Those core issues are issues of identity with the parties. It is a zero sum case as I think has been said by Danforth, but with third party mediation, pointing out what is possible in terms of giving unity a chance through an interim period of coexistence. I believe personally, judging from previous experiences like the Addis Ababa agreement, that if we had a framework of coexistence and interaction peacefully the Sudanese can shift their attitudes toward even unity, that will be by choice, not by imposition.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Deng follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF FRANCIS DENG, SENIOR FELLOW, FOREIGN POLICY

STUDIES, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

Mr. Chairman and Distinguished members of the Committee, people around the world, including the parties to the conflict in the Sudan, consider the role of the United States pivotal to the prospects for peace in that country. The war in the Sudan has gone on for far too long, has inflicted untold suffering and devastation on the people, especially in the areas where the war is being fought, and has cost the international community enormous resources in humanitarian assistance. The people of the Sudan desperately yearn for peace, but, to be achievable and sustainable, peace must be just and comprehensive.

I. THE PREMISE OF THE QUEST FOR A JUST PEACE

The initiative taken by the United States through the President's Special Envoy, Senator John Danforth, and the correlative role of the Special Humanitarian Coordinator, Andrew Natsios, Administrator of USAID, and his senior assistant, Roger Winter, are already bearing tangible fruits. Reluctant, cautious and modest as Senator Danforth's involvement was initially, his pragmatic approach and incremental achievements on humanitarian issues have generated a momentum for peace, both within and outside the Sudan. The situation is, however, exceedingly complex and involves very sensitive issues of identity, historical memories, gross injustices, and a quest for the dignity of full citizenship. These are issues that will continue to demand very careful handling and sensitivity to a variety of conflicting perspectives. My views on the conflict in the Sudan are well known. They have been documented in numerous publications, including two novels, and in public statements, both at home and abroad. In fact, I have just returned from the Sudan, where I gave a public lecture on the prospects for peace at the University of Khartoum. A hall that holds about a thousand people was full to capacity, with people standing on the sides and more people outside, listening through loud speakers. My lecture, which was very candid on the issues, was followed by a stimulating and remarkably open discussion, with wide ranging views. This event indicated the popular yearning for peace and interest in the current efforts of the United States, on which I was expected to comment.

The gist of my perspective on the Sudanese conflict is that the country is suffering from an acute crisis of national identity whose roots go deep into the history of racial, cultural, and religious interaction along the Nile valley. This crisis is currently manifested in the contest for the soul of the nation. Among the critical questions posed by this crisis are whether the country is Arab or African, Islamic or multireligious, and what the role of religion in the affairs of the state should be. These questions do not merely reflect differing perspectives on race, culture and religion, but the implications of those differences in the shaping and sharing of power, national wealth, public services, opportunities for development and the enjoyment of the status and rights of citizenship.