Further to the article in the Washington, Congressman Frank Wolf (Republican, Virginia)appeared on C-SPAN this morning to discuss the situation in Sudan. He held a press conference today wherein he was to discuss the following:
"...We’re going to be asking several things, we’re one, going to be commending the Bush administration, the President and Secretary Powell for what they’ve done (peace treaty between North and South Sudan), I think it borders on Nobel Peace Prize. Secondly we are going to ask the administration to send a very tough spokesman, ambassador, acting ambassador to go to Khartoum, quickly, to be a presenc for the United States to put pressure on the Khartoum government. To live up to the accords but also to deal with the Darfur issue. Thirdly we’re going to ask them to urge John Gurang whose the head of the SPLA, who is now going to be the new vice-President, to go to Darfur and deal with the rebels in Darfur. Lastly, perhaps the most controversial one would be, we’re going to ask Kofi Annan to go back to Darfur (He was in, we were in, I was with Sam Brownback, we went to Darfur in June of this year, Kofi Annan came in the following week) we are going to ask him to go back and look at the conditions (and the conditions in Darfur are worse today that they were then) and come back and make recommendations to the Security Council and if the Security Council doesn’t adopt it we are going to ask him that he should just resign.
…What happens is, you have Africans living in villages, they come in, they bomb the villages, they then have helicopters come in just to strafe, they then come in and kill the men, they rape the women and then the women and children walk for miles to refugee camp. Every morning, they go out for wood, they are raped. It’s a horrible, horrible condition.
…first a plane comes over and drops a bomb; it’s a Russian made plane. Then a Soviet Hind (sp?) helicopter comes in and with gatling guns kill the people. Then the janjaweed come in riding and screaming on horse back with guns. They kill some men, burn the village, if you will, pull any valuables out. They put them on a helicopter, again a helicopter flown by a Sudanese military person and they go away."
And where does the money come from to do this?
"..Oil has been the problem. If Sudan were an oil-free nation perhaps this war would have ended faster. The Chinese have come in, even with Chinese labour they have built a pipeline in Sudan. If you go to Khartoum the Chinese are all over town, the Chinese embassy is probably the largest embassy in town. Oil and China have really kind of complicated this."
Of course two permanent members of the UN Security Council are Russia and China so you can guess how easy it will be pass a UN resolution.
