Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, this afternoon the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health held a hearing on the Millennium Challenge Corporation in Africa. The MCC program, which was announced by President Bush on March 14, 2002 and established in January 2004, marked an incredible new approach to U.S. foreign assistance. It is based on the principle that assistance is most effective when it promotes good governance, investments in people, and economic freedom. Its goal is to reduce global poverty through the promotion of sustainable economic growth.

Grants from the Millennium Challenge Account are limited to countries with a per capita income less than $3,465. In addition, eligible countries must have an established record that satisfies 16 performance indicators in the three areas I just noted. One of the most important is a pass/fail test for fighting corruption. Seven grants--called compacts--have been signed so far for countries in Africa, with a total value of about $2.4 billion. Additional compacts are pending for the Continent.

The establishment of the Millennium Challenge Account is innovative in several respects. For one, it mandates that program proposals be developed solely by qualified countries themselves with the involvement of a broad base of their civil society. It also provides assistance to countries without regard to U.S. strategic foreign policy objectives, providing an opportunity to countries that may normally be overlooked by the United States as well as other bilateral donors. However, it cannot be said that the MCC for that reason does not serve U.S. interests. In fact, authentic development as envisioned by the MCC principle leads to a more prosperous, peaceful, and just world for all of us.

Finally, I would assert that MCC is most laudable because it recognizes the potential of the poor to lift themselves and their country out of the clutches of poverty if they are provided with the necessary infrastructure and tools. An important correlative to this is the incentive provided by MCC to the recipient country's government to focus on and respond to the needs of the poor segment of their population. The MCC provides an important means of empowerment for those who have the greatest difficulty attaining it.

A glance at the various compacts and threshold programs in Africa highlights the extraordinary needs and the necessity of expanding those programs. The subcommittee held a hearing on Africa's water crisis just a few weeks ago on May 16th, where we lamented the fact that over 1.1 billion people in developing countries do not have adequate access to safe water and approximately 2.6 billion people live without basic sanitation. We heard testimony that the reasons for these deficiencies are rooted in inequalities. The poor not only have significantly less access to water, but even when they do have access, they pay significantly more for it. The MCC with its focus on programming for the poor is one mechanism that the United States is utilizing to address this issue at its root cause.

On the political level, it is worth noting that our parliamentary colleagues in developing countries do not always have the resources they need to fulfill their role in a democracy. The MCC threshold program in Malawi will provide the National Assembly of that country with the capacity for all 13 committees to meet and perform their oversight function--a first in Malawi's history.

As with all new programs, the MCC has encountered challenges in Africa that we examined in the course of the hearing. One of the greatest has been providing disbursements in a timely manner while ensuring accountability and sustainability. Another that we are encountering time and again in numerous development efforts for Africa, including programs for HIV/AIDS, is partner country capacity. It is extremely difficult to implement country-driven initiatives when the country itself is lacking educated, experienced personnel to do the work. However, neither of these or other challenges warrant scaling back on MCC programming, but instead provide the opportunity to search for solutions to these issues together with the recipient country government as well as other bilateral and multilateral assistance donors. The MCC is not the total solution to African development, but it is an important and significant contribution, both in terms of resources and philosophy, to a more global strategy.

Madam Speaker, two days ago, on June 20th, the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health held a hearing on the occasion of World Refugee Day. This day was designated by the United Nations General Assembly in 2001 to be commemorated each year in order to honor the contributions of refugees around the world and to call attention to the plight of those who continue to suffer as refugees. This day also coincides with Africa Refugee Day, which has been commemorated since 1975 and was established by the Organization of African Unity Commission of Ten on Refugees as a way to raise funds for assistance for refugees in Africa.

It is shocking to consider that 12 million people in the world are refugees today, and almost a quarter of those, 3.2 million, live in Africa. In addition, Africa has an estimated 12 million Internally Displaced Persons, most of whom are victims of conflicts within their countries. Floods and droughts have also contributed to the dislocation of large numbers of African people. More than half of the world's refugees have lived in camps for several years, with no foreseeable prospects for returning to their homes and a normal lifestyle.

No one can measure the suffering that often comes with being a refugee--being a stranger in a strange land, the inability of children to attend school, the frustration of parents unable to provide the basic necessities for their families, the hardships and fears that come with living in a tent, or having no shelter at all. One might forget that refugees often also are suffering the emotional trauma that results from violence inherent in the conflicts that produce refugees.

For that reason, it was particularly useful to hear the testimony of Neal Porter, the Director of International Services from the Center for Victims of Torture. Legislation that I have sponsored, including the Torture Victims Relief Reauthorization Act of 2007 which passed the House on April 25, 2007 and is now pending in the Senate, provides authorization for programming that helps refugees and others suffering the effects of torture. I would encourage my colleagues in the Senate to act on this bill so that the Center for Victims of Torture and others who provide services to torture survivors can receive the assistance they so desperately need.

The international community accomplished a major milestone when it recognized refugees as having certain rights under international law in the 1951 U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees plays a major role in ensuring that the promised resources and protection are provided. However, as laudable as international recognition and assistance are for assisting those forced to flee from their homes, far more needs to be done to prevent people from becoming refugees in the first place, and to accommodate the safe return and re-establishment of those already refugees or IDPs. This subcommittee hearing provided an important opportunity to examine what we in the United States and the world community can do in this respect.

Although I and others have devoted significant attention in recent months and years to the tragedy in Darfur, one can never over-publicize the desperate situation of the victims of the Sudanese Government's genocide. When I think of refugees, my mind immediately recalls those who I met in the Mukjar and Kalma camps, only some of the 2 million who have been displaced from their homes in that region. The term ``displaced'' does not begin to describe the nightmare situation that these people must live in. As we have heard through testimony at recent hearings on Darfur, these people long most of all not for food or shelter, though they have little of either, but for protection. And with good reason--over 450,000 people have died in the violence of Darfur.

On the occasion of World Refugee Day, we could not forget those who voluntarily subject themselves to the same harsh conditions in order to care for and protect refugees and displaced persons. It was necessary to pay a special tribute particularly to the men and women who have suffered violence, many to the point of death, in their efforts to assist the people of Darfur. Humanitarian groups there have reported being harassed by the Government of Sudan and deliberately attacked by rebel groups. Over a dozen humanitarian workers have been killed over the past year. In mid-December 2006, armed groups launched a major attack against NGO compounds in Gereida, South Darfur. On January 19, 2007, Sudanese Government security forces arrested and severely beat 20 UN staff members in Nyala, South Darfur. On February 5, 2007, a civilian police officer with AMIS was killed in an IDP camp in the North.

The men and women who risk their welfare and their very lives to care for these refugees truly live out the words, ``I was hungry, and you gave me food; thirsty and you gave me drink; a stranger, and you welcomed me.'' I convey to these heroic men and women my personal gratitude for lending their hands and hearts to some of our poorest brothers and sisters.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Pitts amendment.

As an original cosponsor of the President's $15 billion, 5-year law to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa, I rise in strong opposition to the language in the bill that undermines and dismisses the successful HIV/ AIDS prevention spending requirement in the PEPFAR legislation.

Where the epidemic has spread among the general population, the only successful evidence-based approach to HIV/AIDS prevention is that which emphasizes abstinence before marriage and faithfulness in relationships, and, lastly, where necessary, condoms.

The success of the ABC approach depends on the proper balance between these three elements. The spending requirement is necessary to attain that balance.

The vast majority of PEPFAR's focus countries have generalized epidemics; and those that have emphasized A and B, abstinence and being faithful programming, have experienced significant increases in the number of youth and adults who are either abstaining or being mutually faithful, and, at the same time, they have seen significant drops in those countries, in the percentage of their population infected with

I thank my good friend for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, the Lowey amendment reiterates the unambiguous intention of the underlying language in the bill that Mr. Stupak and I will seek to strike later on, that, if enacted, provides in-kind U.S. taxpayer assistance to pro-abortion organizations around the world. That's what's happening here, nothing more and nothing less.

Prolife Members, especially some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, know and fully understand that in-kind contributions are of no less value than money. In-kind or cash, it is a distinction without a difference.

The intended recipients of the Lowey amendment are precisely those pro- abortion organizations that have refused to divest themselves of abortion and agree to the Mexico City provisions. The Mexico City policy, separates family planning from abortion. The Mexico City policy helps to ensure that foreign nongovernment organizations that want U.S. grants, be they in the form of cash or in-kind commodities contraceptives, only engage themselves in family planning, as advertised.

It stands to reason, if we support pro-abortion organizations, unborn children and their mothers, and the laws that today protect them, will be put into jeopardy; and the violence of abortion will increase and not be diminished.

Let me just note that neither the Mexico City policy, nor the amendment that Mr. Stupak and I will offer today, reduces family planning by so much as a penny. It simply strikes the language in the bill that carves out an exception to the Mexico City policy for who? The pro-abortion organizations.

As a matter of fact, since the restoration of the Mexico City policy, several countries, including Ethiopia, DR Congo, Nigeria, Uganda, Haiti, Pakistan, have gotten huge increases in contraceptives and family planning assistance. Ethiopia, for example, went from $4.9 million to $19.5 million in 2007 under the Mexico City policy, almost a 300 percent increase.

Congo went from $1 million to $9 million. Pakistan for 1.4 to 16.5. U.S. funding to Nigeria and Uganda doubled while Haiti tripled. USAID has made it clear that it targets what its analysts say is unmet need. Even Ghana has seen its average annual contraception shipment rise, from $1.5 million in calendar years 1998-2001 to $2.3 million for calendar years 2002-2003.

Under the Mexico City policy, the U.S. has remained the largest donor nation by far to international family planning. We just insist and direct that those funds are used in a way and go to the groups that are about family planning and are not double hatted, trying to enable abortionists and abortion lobbyists overseas.

I would point out, as Mrs. Lowey stated earlier when she talked about lobbying, the Mexico City policy, I have a copy for anybody to read, makes it very clear that when it comes to lobbying, we are only talking about lobbying for abortion as a method for birth control. Exempted explicitly, unlike what she said earlier, are rape, incest and life-of- the-mother provision.

I hope she will correct the record. It is clearly false.

Will the gentleman yield?

USAID has done, I think, a remarkable job in focusing on unmet needs, not just in the area of family planning, but child survival, microcredit lending and a whole host of other very important interventions that help poor people.

It's all about prioritization. I showed you earlier one country after another that has had a doubling and a tripling of their money and commodities and contraceptives since the Mexico City policy was reinstated in 2001. It's all about prioritization.

Let me also say, because Ghana was mentioned earlier today, just because Planned Parenthood of Ghana is so obsessed with abortion promotion that it won't sign the policy, other NGOs and other providers have stepped into the breach and provide family planning and abortions to the people of Ghana.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, someday future generations of Americans will look back on us and wonder how and why such a rich and seemingly enlightened society, so blessed and endowed with the capacity to protect and enhance vulnerable human life, could have instead so aggressively promoted death to children by abortion.

They will note that we prided ourselves on our human rights rhetoric and record, while precluding unusually all protection to the most persecuted minority in the world today, unborn children. They will indeed wonder why it took so long to stop just one hideous method of death, partial-birth abortion--and why dismembering a child with sharp knives, pulverizing a child with powerful suction devices or chemically poisoning a baby with any number of toxic chemicals, failed to elicit so much as a scintilla of empathy, mercy or compassion for the victims.

Abortion is violence against children, Mr. Chairman. It is extreme child abuse. It is cruelty to children. It exploits women. In America, it has destroyed 49 million unborn babies and wounded countless numbers of women.

Now, as in previous years, some Members of Congress want to export the violence of abortion to Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia and Europe by reversing the prolife Mexico City policy and by providing in- kind assistance to some of the most vociferous pro-abortion organizations on the Earth. To counter that, Mr. Stupak and I are offering an amendment, to strike the pro-abortion enabling language contained in this bill.

First announced by the Reagan administration at a 1984 U.N. Population Conference held in Mexico City, hence its name, the current policy simply requires that foreign nongovernmental organizations agree, as a condition of their receipt of Federal assistance for family-planning activities, to neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning.

The three exceptions in the Mexico City policy are rape, incest and life of the mother.

Mr. Chairman, today, scores of countries throughout the world are literally under siege in a well-coordinated, exceedingly well-funded campaign to legalize abortion on demand, putting women and children at risk. Most of the pressure is coming directly from foreign nongovernmental organizations like the International Planned Parenthood Federation based in London. IPPF and its country affiliates perform abortions and lobby aggressively for abortion on demand.

IPPF, you will recall, in 1992 adopted an abortion manifesto called Vision 2000, a sweeping ``action plan.'' Vision 2000 says that IPPF and its affiliates, and I quote this, ``Will bring pressure on governments and campaign for policy and legislative changes to remove restrictions against abortions.'' The Mexico City policy puts a stop to enabling IPPF and likeminded groups from doing just that.

So it couldn't be more clear, Mr. Chairman, that if we provide either cash or in-kind contributions to abortion organizations, we empower them and we enable them to campaign to expand abortion. Instead, we should direct our funds and in-kind assistance, including commodities and contraceptives, to organizations committed only to family planning.

IPPF's vision, Mr. Chairman, is what I call a nightmare. Earlier my friend, Mr. Jackson, was talking about the least of our brethren in found Matthew is Gospel, Chapter 25. Who in this world fits the definition of the least of our brethren more than a helpless unborn child who is being killed by dismemberment or chemical poison? I don't know who. Unborn babies are the most vulnerable people on Earth, I say to my good friend.

IPPF's vision is a world of free abortion and unfettered access to subsidized abortion rights right up until birth. It is all in their documents. They're for abortions for minors even without any parental notification or consent, and they don't like conscience clauses for doctors and health care practitioners, either.

One only has to look at Planned Parenthood here in the United States to understand where their affiliates would take the rest of the world. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America has, for example, colocated family planning clinics with abortion mills. They annually perform 265,000 abortions every year in America, a quarter of all the abortions in our country a staggering loss of children's lives. One organization. They lobby and litigate to stop women's right-to-know laws and parental consent laws. They lobby in favor of partial birth abortion. If that is not child abuse, I don't know what is. Make no mistake about it, Mr. Chairman, that is what they want to do everywhere. We kid ourselves if we don't realize that and appreciate that.

The Mexico City policy, on the other hand, separates abortion from family planning in certain foreign aid programs. It ensures that family planning is the exclusive activity of the organization and not abortion. If we provide other cash or in-kind contributions or anything of value, we again empower, we enrich and we enable these organizations. It is all about whom we give to.

Finally, I would like to say with deep respect to my prolife colleagues, especially on the Democratic side of the aisle, some of whom are under intense pressure to support the other side and to oppose Mr. Stupak and me, if protecting babies and women from abortion matters to you, and I mean really, really matters to you, there is no way that any of us could work to overturn the Mexico City policy. This is the time to stand for the innocent and the inconvenient ones who can't speak for themselves.

I would remind my colleagues again that nothing in our language today cuts by a penny the money that is allocated in this appropriations bill for family planning. If you look, and we will do this again later, at one country after another, we have seen doubling and tripling, quadrupling even, of money going to countries, especially in Africa, for family planning under the Mexico City policy.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), the coauthor of this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Tennessee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen), the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Musgrave).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 seconds just to say that the previous speaker's comments missed by a mile what this is all about.

The Mexico City policy does not apply to a single country. It applies to organizations. Countries are expressly excluded from Mexico City policy. It is all about pro-abortion organizations, and whether or not we want to enrich and enable them to expand abortion. We want to put our money and in-kind contributions to those that have divested themselves from the killing of unborn children.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

First of all, we are not punishing. We are saying that, as a matter of human rights principle, that the killing of an unborn child rises to a sufficient level that we will pick other NGOs to whom we will give our dollars.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished gentleman from Florida, Dr. Dave Weldon.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan).

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) control the remainder of the time.

Mr. Chairman, recently a new organization formed in the United States called the Silent No More Awareness Campaign. It is made up entirely of women who have had abortions. One of the women, Dr. Alveda King, niece of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, has had two abortions. She is now one of the most passionate spokeswomen on earth in favor of the unborn child and in favor of protecting women from abortion and assisting women harmed and wounded by abortion. She has pointed out that women in America, and increasingly in the world in countries where it has been legalized, become the walking wounded and carry with them the deep emotional and physical scars of having had an abortion under the cheap sophistry choice. Dr. King used to be on the other side of the issue and she, like the other women in Silent No More, are now adamantly pro-life. Dr. King and so many others call on us today to defend life and not export abortion.

The Appropritions bill on the floor today provides $441 million for overseas family planning. That is in the bill. It's untouched by the Smith-Stupak amendment. But who we give grant money or inkind donations to matters. When you pour in-kind contributions into pro-abortion organizations whose raison d'etre, and just read their literature and Web sites and look at what they're doing in those countries, is to legalize abortion on demand and to promote abortion by way of clinics, you realize that a vote against the Smith-Stupak amendment is a vote to enable abortion on demand.

Abortion is child abuse. That may not be something nice to say on this floor, some of you may cringe over it because you think it's all about choice. Choice to do what? Dismember, chemically poison a child. These are children. Welcome to 2007. Ultrasound technology has shattered the myth that an unborn child is not human or not alive. Birth is an event that happens to each and every one of us. It's not the beginning of life.

Prenatal surgery has shattered myths concerning the unborn as well. Unborn children are patients. So let's give the money to the family planners overseas that are all about family planning, not abortion promotion.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, having personally visited Uganda in April 2006, I chaired a hearing on the endangered children of northern Uganda for the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations. We heard from a number of witnesses and we raised it and continue to raise it with the administration.

But one of our witnesses was a particularly noteworthy person, Grace Akallo. Grace is, or was, a child soldier, an abducted young girl, who was totally mistreated by the Lord's Resistance Army. She was turned into a child soldier. And just a couple of days ago, announced her new book called ``Child Soldier'' which makes chilling reading for anybody who wants to know what really goes on in northern Uganda, and how crazed Joseph Kony

and his people are; and how, as the distinguished gentleman said just a moment ago, they turn girls into sex slaves and killers and the young men into killing machines. It is a terrible, horrible indictment on how low the individual can sink to.

And Joseph Kony, as we all know, has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for serious crimes against humanity. And, regrettably, this killing continues to go on.

I urge Members to read the book. It is an awakening not just on how she suffered, but also how a person when surrounded by people who love her and give her the kind of support that any individual like herself needs to get, how they can come back, the resiliency of the human spirit. She is a soft-spoken, poised, gentle, lovely young woman who has a great future, but she has been through a nightmare. We ought to keep her and her friends in our prayers.

She also pointed out just last week in a meeting that we had announcing her book that she cries out and prays every day for her friends, many of whom she does not know what happened to them. They are still there, she thinks. They may be dead. But she has no idea. I think that puts additional impetus on us to do more, to save these children, this lost generation.

Mr. Speaker, over the last 20 years as many as 1.5 million persons, an estimated 90 percent of the population of the Acholi area in northern Uganda have been forced into internally displaced camps as a result of the violence between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Government of Uganda. Nearly half of these internally displaced persons are children under the age of 15, people like Grace Akallo.

One quarter of the children in northern Uganda over 10 years of age have lost one or more parents. About a quarter of a million children receive no education at all. The fact that 60 percent of the schools in northern Uganda no longer function is directly attributable to the war. I point out that those that do function do so in a very meager way.

Because of the war in the north, Uganda has developed a lost generation that has grown up in dire circumstances with fear and deprivation as their constant companions. Nearly half of the children in one town are stunted from malnutrition. They are likely to never recover.

The latest 2006 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices summarized in a chilling fashion the horror that has been perpetrated on the people of northern Uganda, particularly by the head of the Lord's Resistance Army, Joseph Kony. It states that ``at the height of the war, the LRA, led by Joseph Kony, committed serious abuses and atrocities, including abduction, rape and the killing of civilians. The LRA used children as soldiers, held children and others in slave-like conditions, and subjected female captives to rape and other forms of severe sexual exploitation.''

This resolution tries to put additional focus, additional girth, behind the effort to finally find a negotiated solution to this ongoing killing fields, and we all hope and pray this will have at least a happier ending than thus far.

Again, I urge Members to read the book by Grace Akallo, ``Girl Soldier.''

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding, and I want to thank Ambassador Watson for being one of the cosponsors of this resolution, as well as all of those who join us today in making this collective statement to the Russians that there needs to be significant change, a reform, as to how they treat journalists.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in strong support of H. Con. Res. 151, a resolution which calls upon Russian President Putin to seek outside law enforcement assistance in investigating the unsolved murders of dozens of Russian journalists over the past decade. We also encourage President Bush to formally offer President Putin law enforcement assistance from the United States.

Most observers think, Mr. Speaker, that some Russian officials have ordered or at least connived at these murders since most of the murdered journalists were investigating government corruption or involvement in human rights abuses. There is good reason to think that people in high places are still protecting the murderers.

Mr. Speaker, Russia holds the second worst position in the world in the number of journalists killed in the last 10 years, according to the International News Safety Institute. Reporters Without Borders counts 21 murdered journalists since March of 2000. This is a conservative number. It does not include the death under extremely suspicious circumstances of Ivan Safronov. It does include the murders of Paul Klebnikov and Anna Politkovskaya.

Mr. Speaker, any Member can do this, do a Google search, put in Russian journalists and murders, and you come up with one headline after another and one news story after another, usually in the Western press, of individuals being killed.

On June 15, there was a headline, ``Russian Journalist Attacked in Moscow''; May of 2005, ``Radio Journalist Badly Beaten Up''; April 21, ``Russian Reporters Get Beaten Despite Wearing Special Jackets''; April 20, ``Russian Activists Skeptical About Special Clothing For Journalists At Protests,'' they've got to wear special clothing, protective gear, to protect them from the police; April 9, ``Television Journalist Found Dead''; April 9, again, ``Critical Television Journalist Fears For His Life''; ``Photo Journalist Beaten, Injured'', on April 5; ``Journalist Assaulted During Demonstration''; and the list goes on and on and on. Sorry, Mr. Speaker, but I see a pattern, and I think other Members do as well.

Let me just say a brief word about the three journalists that all three of us are mentioning today, also delineated in the resolution, whose deaths are sadly illustrative of so many others.

Paul Klebnikov was the editor of the Russian edition of Forbes Magazine. In July 2004, he was shot to death in Moscow while investigating suspect business dealings and corruption cases.

Anna Politkovskaya was an award-winning Russian journalist and human rights activist. She wrote many articles criticizing Russian atrocities committed during the war in Chechnya. In October 2006, she was shot to death in Moscow.

Ivan Savronov reported for the Russian newspaper, Kommersant. He wrote articles criticizing the failure of Russian military programs and was planning to report on potential Russian arms sales to Iran and Syria, state sponsors of terrorism. In March of 2007, he died under suspicious circumstances, as has been recounted by both of my colleagues. He fell five stories from a window in the stairwell of his Moscow apartment building. That was no accident, Mr. Speaker. That was a murder.

None of these cases have been solved, and very few of the less famous cases have been even looked at in a meaningful way.

Many of my colleagues in this House have other concerns about human rights problems in Russia. Xenophobic violence continues throughout the Russian Federation.

People continue to disappear in Chechnya. Local officials still discriminate against non-Orthodox religion, and the rule of just law remains shaky. Of course we all care about these. But I would point out to you that a situation in which journalists can be killed with impunity is a human rights problem of a different order.

It is a human rights problem that mitigates the resolution of other human rights problems. When journalists investigating a corruption case or a human rights abuse can be killed without their killers being brought to justice, or without a convincing effort being made to do so, this intimidates and has a chilling effect on other journalists. It marks off the borders of what others know they must not investigate.

As a result, the Russian press cannot properly fulfill its function of holding officials to account. This is exactly what the killers intend.

I raised this issue recently at a hearing of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. I was glad when Daniel Freed, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, acknowledged the nature of the problem and said, ``attacks on journalists, including the brutal and still unsolved murders of Paul Klebnikov and Anna Politkovskaya, among others, chill and deter the fourth estate.''

Mr. Speaker, journalists fulfill an essential role in every society, and none more than those who uncover the theft of a country's assets by its elected officials or commit human rights outrages in its name. Journalists who do this at risk of their lives fully deserve to be called heroes. Make no mistake about it. These journalists knew what they were risking as they wrote and wrote and used the power of the pen to expose.

We owe it to them to raise our voice to bring the killers to justice. Mr. Putin, sadly, does not seem to be making any serious efforts to do so. Unfortunately, we have the situation as it exists today in Russia.

Only when journalists can work without fear of intimidation and death will we be able to say that we have a truly democratic Russian Government. Russian journalists, they are the watch dogs, just as they are in this country and every other country.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the great conscience of Russia, said in his Nobel Peace Prize speech in 1970, ``Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.''

My resolution addresses the violence of the murder of independent journalists, and the lie in the claim that their murders have been seriously investigated. Solzhenitsyn said of Communist Russia, in our country, the lie has become not just a moral category, but a killer of the state. We have to ask ourselves and ask Mr. Putin, was this terrible statement also true of post-Communist Russia?

I think we send a clear message today, and I hope Members in a bipartisan way will support this.

Finally, I just want to thank Mark Milosch and Mark Gauge for their work in helping to put this resolution together.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Every week, Mr. Speaker, medical journals, science periodicals, as well as the mainstream media, announce and report on yet another promise and advance in adult stem cell research and clinical application. Unlike embryonic stem cell research, which has had a poor track record, adult stem cell therapies are not only the present, they are the future as well. Cord blood stem cells, for example, are healing and mitigating a myriad of diseases today and promising research that suggests better therapies to come.

Let me just say a word about embryo destroying stem cell research. It has at least three strikes against it. First, it has an incredible propensity to morph into tumors. Secondly, if embryonic stem cells are ever successful and transplanted into humans, embryonic stem cells carry an enormous proclivity for rejection. And third, embryonic stem cell research requires the killing of human embryos. If it ever worked, the limited supply of so-called spare embryos, and that's a very offensive word, let me just say. Those children who have been adopted from cryogenic tanks--snowflake babies--are a witness against this idea of saying somehow there's a spare embryo. But just take that for what it is. If it ever worked, there would be a near insatiable demand for freshly killed human embryos.

On that last point, let me ask my colleagues to consider what Dr. Robert Lanza, vice president of research and scientific development at Advanced Cell Technology said, and he said, ``creating that many lines,'' talking about to meet what would be the need, ``would require millions of embryos from IVF clinics.''

In the March 16, 2006, edition of Stem Cells, Civin and Rao calculated how many embryos would be needed for clinical applications, and they said that embryonic stem cell lines could reach into the millions if the therapies live up to their potential. Millions of human embryos would be killed. That's unconscionable.

So this is the tip of the iceberg. You are talking about spare embryos now in this debate but if it ever did work, especially when we have an ethical alternative that does work, but if it ever did work, it would mean requiring the killing of millions of embryos, and I don't think enough Members have looked forward enough to realize where this could take us. That is a brave new world. This is the tip of the iceberg today, and hopefully we will not go that way. We must do ethical stem cell research instead.

And let me say one last thing. The Bush administration doubled from 300 to 600 million dollars the amount of money that we are spending on stem cell research. We are passionately in favor of stem cell research, but only the ethical kind.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, in early January, a team of scientists from Wake Forest University and Harvard Medical School announced a historic breakthrough: a new readily available source of life-saving stem cells derived exclusively from amniotic fluid.

The Washington Post called these highly ethically derived pluripotent stem cells ``highly versatile and readily available.''

Newsweek said, ``A new era begins. Stem cells derived from amniotic fluid show great promise in the lab and may end the divisive ethical debate once and for all because the amniotic fluid stem cells are pluripotent, able to transform into cells representing each of the three major kinds of tissues found in the body.''

And ABC News pointed out that these stem cells can be taken from amniotic fluid with no harm to either the mother or her unborn child.

Earlier this week, I met with the Wake Forest University researcher, Dr. Anthony Atala, who led the team credited with this extraordinary study. Dr. Atala made it absolutely clear that these amniotic stem cells are pluripotent and that this research, along with numerous other remarkable initiatives in regenerative medicine, are progressing robustly.

Mr. Speaker, in April, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that cord blood stem cells, not embryonic stem cells, were transplanted into 15 patients diagnosed with Type I diabetes and resulted in 13 becoming completely insulin-free.

We all know about the New York Times and the other news media carrying the surprise development that's in today's papers.

Finally, let me say, Mr. Speaker, recently Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Catholic Conference compiled a comprehensive list of what he calls New Reasons for Hope, 111 recent developments published since Congress's stem cell votes of 2006. It is filled with one breakthrough after another, all attributed to adult stem cells, cord blood, amniotic fluid and the like. That's where the hope is, not in destroying embryos so as to derive their stem cells.

Vote ``no'' on this bill.

111 New Reasons to Reconsider the Alleged Need for Stem Cell Research

That Destroys Human Embryos

Recent Advances (published since 109th Congress's stem cell votes) in Adult Stem Cell Research and Other Alternatives to Embryonic Stem Cell

Research

June 2006-early June 2007

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, beware of false and misleading bill titles.

H.R. 2560, rushed to the floor today after only being introduced several hours ago, is misnamed the ``Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2007.''

The fact is, this bill doesn't ban any human cloning at all. Absolutely none. Researchers are absolutely free, are given the green light, to clone human life to their heart's content, so long as they kill and destroy the cloned human embryo at some point, perhaps weeks, after its creation. As a matter of fact, the legislation makes it a serious crime to allow a cloned human being to survive pass a certain point.

In other words, this bizarre piece of legislation would make it illegal not to kill a cloned human being; and the penalties are stiff, up to 10 years in prison and a $10 million fine.

By redefining human cloning as ``implantation'' rather than the creation of a new human being that would be then transferred into a uterus or a functional equivalent, this phony ban sanctions unlimited human cloning for research. Even more bizarre, under the bill, if a woman were to have a cloned human embryo implanted in her womb, she could go to jail for up to 10 years and/or be fined up to $10 million. Is that something we want to vote for? I think not. The plain language in the Weldon-Stupak cloning ban penalizes those who facilitate the creation of the clone--not the woman.

My colleagues, I am sure all of us are aware of the fact that a cloned human embryo will be indistinguishable from an embryo created using in-vitro fertilization. Dolly the Sheep looked just like every other sheep. How will this be enforced? If a woman is found carrying a cloned baby, are you willing to fine her and send her to jail for 10 years?

Mr. Speaker, the United States should join many countries, including Canada, Germany, Italy and France, in totally banning all cloning. The Democratic leadership should bring the Weldon-Stupak bill to the floor, instead of the DeGette pro-cloning measure.

Finally, what a difference a few years makes. In 2003, Ms. DeGette said, ``We are not and we do not support creating embryos for the purpose of research.'' This legislation begs the question. Apparently you do. Why aren't you bringing a total ban before this body?

I would point out when a similar bill to H.R. 2560 was brought to the floor as an amendment in the nature of a substitute by Congressman Jim Greenwood we voted it down 174-231. Charles Krauthammer wrote, and I think this is very insightful, that ``Greenwood,'' and read that now DeGette, ``is a nightmare and an abomination. It sanctions, licenses and protects the launching of the most ghoulish and dangerous enterprise in modern scientific history, the creation of nascent cloned human life for the sole purpose of its exploitation and destruction.''

I urge my colleagues, let's pass a real ban on cloning, not this phony ban.

I thank my good friend and colleague for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Ms. Lee for introducing H. Res. 422, which calls on the government of the People's Republic of China to use its unique influence and economic leverage to stop the atrocities being committed in Darfur.

This measure builds on numerous steps that this Congress and the United States Government, through the White House and the executive branch, have taken over the past several years to call a halt to the relentless killings, rapes and displacement of the innocent men, women and children in that region.

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that Sudan's soil has been soaked in the blood of innocent people. Sudan has not suffered just one, but two genocides. Everybody will recall that in southern Sudan, some two million people were slaughtered by the Bashir government; another 4 million people were displaced.

When President Bush came into office, he announced that Senator Danforth would become our special envoy, and very vigorous and robust efforts were made to try to stop the killing in southern Sudan. We succeeded. But after a short period of time new hostilities broke out in the Darfur region in 2003, in February, and the blood-letting was beginning again. Darfur is now the second genocide that has occurred in Sudan.

I think we should note for the record that no other nation on Earth has done as much as the United States to stop the genocide. Most of the food and the medicines at the refugee camps that my colleagues and I have all visited, looked in the eyes of so many people who have suffered so much, has come from the U.S. taxpayer. I think that should give us some sense of meaning that we have played a significant role in alleviating at least some of this suffering.

Just last week, President Bush announced the expansion and tightening of economic sanctions against the Sudanese government. These sanctions include the barring of 30 more companies owned and controlled by the government of Sudan from the U.S. financial system, and it is a crime for Americans to knowingly engage in businesses with these companies.

It is apparent, Mr. Speaker, that more can and must be done by other members of the international community to address these crimes against humanity. A primary culprit is the complicity in this genocide by the People's Republic of China. Instead of joining the international community in calling an end to the genocide, China has served as enabler-in-chief to the atrocities that continue to take place in Darfur. Not only has the Chinese government provided Bashir with funds and weapons, about over $90 million worth in 2005 alone, but it has lavished him with gifts and a false sense of legitimacy. The money and the weapons that Sudan has received from China has made the Chinese government absolutely complicit in these crimes against humanity.

And now we see China's thwarting or attempting to thwart a U.S.-led effort at the U.N. Security Council for a resolution that would impose extended international arms embargo and new sanctions against the Sudanese government. According to Reuters last week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said, ``New sanctions against Sudan would only complicate the issue. China appeals to all parties to maintain restraint and patience.''

I would urge this spokeswoman and all Chinese officials to go to Darfur and again look into the eyes of those who have suffered, look in the eyes of at least some of the 2 million people who have been displaced from their homes, look into the eyes of some of the families, the survivors of the 450,000 that have been killed and say, ``let's look for patience and restraint.''

China has covered itself in shame. It has enabled two genocides, southern Sudan and now in Darfur. Still, because so many victims are going to be suffering today and tomorrow and the next day, we appeal to the Chinese government, Mr. Speaker, to join us as peacemakers in that troubled region.

Madam Speaker, yesterday the House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health held a briefing and hearing on the important issue of Africa's water crisis. We tend to take for granted this basic necessity for human existence, and yet we are told by the United Nations Development Programme that over 1.1 billion people in developing countries do not have adequate access to safe water. Access to water is closely correlated to basic sanitation, and there too the world is facing a crisis. Some 2.6 billion people live without this second essential aspect of good health.

In its Human Development Report for 2006, the UNDP presents a heavy indictment against the international community, noting that every year 1.8 million children die from causes related to unclean water and poor sanitation. This is equivalent to 4,900 deaths every day, and diarrheal disease is the second highest cause of death in the world for children under 5. This occurs despite the fact that we now have oral rehydration therapy. These numbers dwarf the number of deaths resulting from violent conflict, and yet the UNDP points out that water and sanitation are rarely highlighted as an international concern.

In sub-Saharan Africa--the focus of the hearing--over 300 million people lack access to safe water, and some 460 million do not have access to proper sanitation. These overwhelming numbers hide the even deeper tragedy that it is the poor, both poor individuals and poor countries, who carry the greatest burden. Sub-Saharan Africa loses about 5 percent of its GDP, or about $28.4 billion each year, to the water and sanitation deficit. This figure exceeds the total amount of aid and debt relief provided to the region in 2003. And most of this loss is suffered by those households that are below the poverty line, those who can least afford to pay the cost. The lack of water also unduly affects women and girls, who in many societies have the responsibility of collecting and transporting water, which can occupy their energy and time for several hours each day.

Beyond the apparent costs in human suffering and loss of life, there are broader social and economic costs as well. Improper water management impacts agricultural and industrial development, economic growth, and the preservation of land, coastal and marine ecosystems. Equitable access to sufficient quantities of safe water is necessary for a secure, peaceful society, and threats to such access can become a source of conflict and even violence.

It is worthwhile to note that, according to the UNDP, the scarcity of water worldwide is not the result of physical availability. The Human Development Report states that household water requirements represent a very small fraction of water use, often less than 5 percent of the total. Instead the UNDP asserts that the source of the problem lies in power, poverty and inequality. Households in high-income urban areas of Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa have access to several hundred liters of water each day through public utilities, while slum dwellers and poor households in the rural areas of those same countries have access to far less than the 20 liters a day per person required to meet the most basic human needs. The same analysis is said to apply to the areas of agriculture and industry. Income levels and access to water and sanitation systems are key elements. UNDP explicitly rejects the notion that the global water shortage is due to population increases.

Fortunately, the United States Government is acting to provide more safe water and proper sanitation to the poor of the world. Thanks to the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor

Act of 2005, authored by our good friend Congressman Earl Blumenauer who we welcomed as a witness at the hearing, the provision of affordable and equitable access to safe water and sanitation in developing countries is a legislative component of our country's foreign assistance programs.

I have learned that the lack of access can be addressed by relatively simple means by an amazingly few but deeply committed people. I learned this first-hand when I was in Uganda last year and met Robert Wright from Living Waters International. I often emphasize the importance of faith-based organizations in meeting the global health needs of the world, and Living Waters is a Christian ministry that implements water development through training, equipping and consulting. Robert was living a comfortable life in my home state of New Jersey when he decided to move himself and his family to the remote regions of Uganda to assist the poor. He went to a school operated by Living Waters to learn how to drill a well to provide water for the hospital he was building. Although he was suffering from a bout of malaria, he drove several hours to Kampala to inform our delegation of the work of Living Waters and to press the need for water for the peoples of Africa. Therefore, I was particularly pleased to welcome Mr. Malcolm Morris, the chairman of Millennium Water Alliance, which represents a number of partners including Living Water International, who informed the Subcommittee of the work being done by faith-based organizations on this issue.

Mr. Chairman, after scouting possible targets in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the six members of a terrorist cell arrested in New Jersey last week chose to attack Fort Dix due to the access one member had to that installation. As a pizza delivery man, he was able to get on the base, survey the infrastructure and personnel, draw maps, and determine the best locations for the highest kill rate.

If not for a citizen's tip and a thorough and aggressive law enforcement team led by U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, who through a 16- month surveillance effort dotted every ``i'' and crossed every ``t,'' terrorists could have infiltrated the base with the sole intent of killing as many people as possible.

Mr. Chairman, my South Jersey colleagues and I have been arguing for years that easy civilian access to our military bases--across the Nation--could leave them vulnerable to those wishing to do us harm.

In 2004, we passed a modified version of my bill, the Military Bases Security Act, H.R. 3695, and mandated a pilot program in which the Department of Defense could test and increase the vetting of civilians who worked on our bases as employees of private contractors. Because the greatest vulnerability exists when contractors are brought in to complete major construction and facility maintenance jobs, my bill also instructed DOD to use the pilot program to test and implement the best value contracting process instead of the lowest bidder process.

In the best value process, contractors are given points for their staffing plans and employee training programs--two effective means for vetting and eliminating unqualified and even undocumented workers from construction jobs. The thought is that by rewarding contractors who vet, train, and hire experienced workers, another layer of protection would be put in place as we attempt to secure our bases.

Regrettably, DOD has yet to issue its final analysis on the pilot program and an interim report indicates that their implementation of the program has been feckless at best. And despite the insistence by the Department of Defense that they are doing everything possible to ensure our bases are employing qualified and legal workers, we consistently learn of Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel arresting dozens of illegal aliens ``working'' on military bases around the country. In January of this year, the International Herald Tribune ran a story that stated nearly 40 illegal aliens were arrested on military installations in Georgia, Virginia and Nevada. And one arrested in Nevada was a member of MS-13, one of the most dangerous gangs in the U.S.

I remain convinced that through best value contracting we can and will do a better job of ensuring that those who obtain contracts on our bases are employing legal and qualified workers. And I am committed to ensuring that DOD gives more than lip service to the pilot program and its provisions to vet unqualified workers and attain the best workmanship and better security at our bases.

The amendment offered today by my colleague Jim Saxton also seeks to vet civilians who enter or conduct business on our bases. Specifically, the Saxton amendment, which is part of an en bloc amendment, requires FBI criminal background checks and clearance from the Department of Homeland Security for any ``unescorted civilian seeking access to a military installation or facility or any civilian who is an employee of a contractor or vendor of a military installation.'' Without the background check, these civilians will be blocked from entering a base.

Mr. Chairman, we cannot hermetically seal our military bases--many of which have great activities for the general public--but we can and must make every effort to provide greater protection. The Saxton amendment is another positive step in this direction and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, Mr. Pitts of Pennsylvania, for authoring this important resolution recognizing the abolishment of the inhumane, grossly immoral and ubiquitous British slave trade 200 years ago, and the highly principled member of the House of Commons, William Wilberforce, who poured his life into that noble cause. One man can--and did--make a difference.

H. Res. 158 also links the abolition issue to today's modern-day slave trade, human trafficking, and I appreciate that the gentleman from Pennsylvania recognized that there are lessons learned that need to be applied to our current battle against modern-day slavery.

Madam Speaker, William Wilberforce was 21 years old when he was elected to the House of Commons in 1780. And perhaps like some of us, later said, ``The

first years in Parliament I did nothing, nothing to any purpose. My own distinction was my darling object.''

But that all changed, Madam Speaker, after a profound conversion to Christianity and a serious rethinking as to whether politics, with all of its diversions, distractions, vanity, lies, and deception, was compatible with his ever-deepening religious faith. He even thought of quitting politics and entering into a ministry.

John Newton, the former slave captain turned convert to Christ, among others, encouraged him to fight the battle against slavery where it could be won, in Parliament. The Commons is the place where you can stop slavery. Wilberforce agreed, and then poured his life into that battle.

William Wilberforce once said: ``Never, never will we desist until we extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic to which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times, will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long to disgrace and dishonor this country.''

He also said: ``So enormous, so dreadful, so remediable did the trade's wickedness quickly appear that my own mind was completely made up for its abolition.''

Madam Speaker, 200 years ago the slave trade was abolished, and he went on for the rest of his life with a group of prayer warriors, men and women who prayed every day for the abolishment of the slave trade, who believed it was a blight not just against man and woman, but against God himself. And it was through prayer and action that they came up with a number of very interesting and creative legislative ways of trying to stop it.

Wilberforce was also tenacious. Time and time again, he would offer his bill to abolish the slave trade, only to have all kinds of shenanigans, filibusters and misinformation, diversions, and threats including physical threats to himself, used as a way of deferring action, but he nevertheless persisted and in the end, he prevailed.

We need to learn from that example, Madam Speaker, because we have a slave trade today. In 1990s, the phenomenon of human trafficking, ever present in all of history, exploded in prevalence, sophistication and cruelty.

With the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations, suddenly new mobsters, many of them former KBG operatives, were all of a sudden on the scene buying and selling young women as commodities.

Additionally, the Internet suddenly brought pornography, including child porn, into homes all over the world, furthering the demand for victims. The sleazy X-rated theater went mainstream.

Organized crime in countries all over the world, including the United States, made profits seemingly without limit while incurring next to no risk of prosecution.

As Mr. Pitts pointed out earlier, today the United States is the net importer of upwards of 18,000 people, mostly women or children, who are trafficked into this country to be exploited. That is an abomination.

We also have our own interstate slave trade where young girls who are runaways are quickly picked up by pimps and bought and sold like commodities. That, too, must stop.

Madam Speaker, I believe that because too much evil is involved here and because the prospect of making billions of dollars has enticed some of the most unsavory and cruel individuals, including and especially organized crime, into this nefarious trade we have to beef up our efforts to stop this slavery. Because too much demand enabled by crass indifference, unbridled hedonism and misogynistic attitudes has turned people, especially women, into objects valued only for their utility in the brothel or in the sweat shop we have to accelerate and expand our fight, and because of the relative lack of visibility, all of this makes the task of combating trafficking in modern day slavery all the more difficult.

But trafficking, like germs, infection and disease, thrives only in the shadows and in the murky places and cannot survive when brought to the light. Light remains a very, very powerful disinfectant.

So my challenge to all of us is that we have to bring the light, the bright light of scrutiny, of criminal investigations, the disinfecting of investigations and convictions, probing legislative inquiry, having the students, as Mr. Pitts in this bill encourages them to do, to form student groups to look into slavery. We need to use every tool, best practice and well-honed strategy to win the freedom of the slaves and to spare others the agony, especially through prevention measures, the agony of slavery.

Together, we can make the pimps and the exploiters pay by doing serious jail time, as well as the forfeiture of their assets. The boats, the villas and the fat-cat bank accounts must go. Together we can end this barbaric and utterly cruel modern day slavery, just as William Wilberforce and other great men and women did so in antiquity.

Make no mistake about it; the abolition of modern day slavery is a winnable war. We need to fight in ways so as to win. We need to pray. I believe we need to fast, and we need to have good, well-developed strategies, and we need to work as a bipartisan team, to end this cruelty.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Vietnam has long been known as a major violator of human rights. The U.S. House of Representatives went on record in the 109th Congress condemning and deploring the violations of human rights in Vietnam and strongly urging the Vietnamese Government to consider the implications of its human rights abuses for the broader relationship between the United States and Vietnam. I point out parenthetically that the House almost a year ago to the day passed a resolution that I sponsored similar to this one, H. Con. Res. 320, on April 6, 2006. There was some initial improvement. Regrettably, there has been a snapback to its original and even worsened situation when it comes to human rights observance. That is why I have sponsored H. Res. 243--calling on Vietnam to immediately and unconditionally release Fr. Ly, Mr. Dai, Mrs. Whan and other political prisoners and prisoners of conscience.

Mr. Speaker, the U.S. Department of State in its ``Country Reports on Human Rights Practices'' notes that the human rights record in Vietnam remains ``unsatisfactory,'' and that government officials continued ``to commit serious abuses.'' The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom stated in its 2006 annual report that Vietnam ``continues to commit systematic and egregious violations of freedom of religion and belief.''

However, in November 2006, pursuant to a boatload of assurances and solemn promises that the human rights situation would improve dramatically, Vietnam became the first country to be removed from the list of Countries of Particular Concern, so designated pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act. Late last year, the U.S. Congress agreed to Vietnam becoming an official member of the World Trade Organization, and a group of Asian countries at the United Nations has nominated Vietnam as the sole regional candidate for a nonpermanent seat on the U.S. Security Council.

Despite this flurry of international recognition and tangible economic benefit, despite the hopes of many, including and especially the Vietnamese people, Vietnam has reverted to its repressive practices and has arrested, imprisoned, and imposed lengthy prison sentences on numerous individuals whose only crime has been to seek democratic reform and respect for fundamental human rights in their country.

The crackdown in Vietnam, Mr. Speaker, on religious and human rights activists is unconscionable and of course it is unnecessary. I have been to Vietnam, Mr. Speaker, on many human rights trips, and chaired several hearings on it as well. But on one of the most recent trips, I actually met with Father Nguyen Van Ly who recently got 8 years in prison; I also met with Nguyen Van Dai and about 60 other human rights activists and religious leaders and people who are pressing for reform in that country.

I was struck by how smart, talented, and kindhearted these people were. I believe they are Vietnam's best and brightest and bravest. I was amazed how they harbor no malice, no hate towards the government; nor do they hate the government leaders. They only want a better future for their country, and each and every one of the people I met with was committed, and is committed, to peaceful nonviolent reform.

But just one month ago, on March 30, the government sentenced Father Ly to 8 years imprisonment after subjecting him to a sham trial for distributing ``antigovernment materials.''

When I met with Father Ly he was under house arrest, he sounded just like the activists I had met and spoke to during the dark years of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. During those years of domination by communism, men like Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, and Anatoly Shcharansky--people who, like the folks in Charter 77 in the Czech Republic--only wanted freedom, democracy, and human rights. None of them wanted violence, and yet we see that men like Father Ly now get 8 years imprisonment on top of the 13 years he has previously served in the Gulag on trumped-up charges. Jailing dissidents is a window into the malice and evil of the government of Vietnam.

As I mentioned, attorney, Nguyen Van Dai, a tenacious campaigner for human rights who uses the law, international and domestic, to press his cause, nonviolently--he's totally nonviolent, hates violence, abhors it, stands up and tries to use the law to try to get remedies for his clients. He, too, is now awaiting a trial which will be another kangaroo court and a sham deal at that.

Another human rights lawyer, Le Thi Cong Nhan, is a labor activist. And according to reports, she too now will undergo another one of these bogus trials.

We know that Vietnam, due to our robust trade and recently enacted PNTR and their ascension into the WTO, we know that trade will increase between the United States and Vietnam. So when this lawyer seeks to be an activist for what the ILO and all of us in this room believe to be fundamental freedoms like collective bargaining, the secret police raids her office and drags her away. She is now awaiting another one of these kangaroo trials.

Another victim of the crackdown is Le Quoc Quan. Here's a person who just returned to Vietnam in early March after completing a fellowship right here in Washington at the National Endowment for Democracy. He was arrested on March 8, apparently for the crime of engaging in research on civil society development at NED. And all of us who know NED know what a great, completely transparent and human rights rule of law oriented organization NED is, a group funded, by this Congress and by the executive branch. It's a great organization. Quam goes back to victim and is basically arrested soon after his arrival and now he is awaiting a trial as well.

Mr. Speaker, a little over a year ago, a group called Block 8406 devised a statement of human rights principles. It reminds me of Charter 77. Brave men and women banded together united by a statement of principles, human rights concerns. We've seen such expressions in Cuba, we've seen it all over the world in despotic countries. These brave men and women sign on the dotted line, in a way not unlike our own forefathers who signed the Declaration of Independence. In Vietnam's case, they are pertaning for reforms. And openness. And I have read it. It is very, very simple and eloquent and to the point. It's all about human rights and democratization. And for being part of 8406, other activists are now being caught in this dragnet.

I would note parenthetically, Father Ly was also a signer of this Block 8406 a manifesto on Freedom and Democracy for Vietnam. The 8406 stands for April 8, 2006. That's when they founded this courageous organization.

H. Res. 243, the resolution before us, Mr. Speaker, is intended to send a critical and timely message to the Vietnamese government that these serious violations of basic human rights are absolutely unacceptable and bring profound dishonor on the government of Vietnam.

These human rights violations cannot be overlooked. They cannot be trivialized. These human rights violations which are ongoing, and they occur as we meet here today, cannot continue without equally serious consequences. It also urges our Government to make human rights a top priority in our bilateral relations with Vietnam. I do believe this recent snap back to human rights abuse underscores the unwitting naivete on the part of some who think if we just trade, if we just open our pocket books, dictatorships will automatically matriculate into democracies and freedom loving human rights respecting countries. It hasn't happened anywhere. Not in the PRC, it has not happened in Vietnam and it is not happening anywhere where that naive view is embraced.

So we've got to send some clear messages. Human rights do matter. And we will stand up for those who are mistreated. We will stand with the oppressed and not with the oppressor.

Finally, I've heard it from informed and very reliable sources that some of the recent jailees, the human rights activists that are now behind bars suffering torture and mistreatment, that they are being told that the United States really doesn't care about them; that we've walked away. I have heard this on a couple of occasions from people who have very good inside information. They are actually being taunted with that kind of mantra.

I want to tell the presecuted--you are not forgotten. It's a bipartisan expression today, you are no forgotten. We care deeply about these human rights activists and we will not forget you. And we will do all that is humanly possible, God willing, to effectuate your release and hopefully, some day, see a free and democratic Vietnam.

At this point in the Record, I would like to include 8406--manifesto on Freedom and Democracy for Human Rights.

Manifesto 2006 on Freedom and Democracy for Vietnam by 118 Democracy

Activists Inside Vietnam--April 8, 2006

Dear Compatriots Inside and Outside of Vietnam: We, the

undersigned, representing hundreds of Vietnamese democracy

activists inside Vietnam and all those Vietnamese citizens

yearning for True Democracy for Vietnam, hereby unanimously

proclaim the following:

I. The Current Realities of Vietnam

1. In the August 1945 Revolution, the entire Vietnamese

nation made a choice for national independence and not

socialism. Vietnam's Declaration of Independence on September

2, 1945 did not contain a single word about socialism or

communism. The two mainsprings behind the success of that

Revolution were the Vietnamese people's aspiration for

national independence and also the desire to fill the power

vacuum that existed after the Japanese surrender on August

15, 1945, following their overthrow of the French colonial

administration on March 9, 1945.

It is thus clear that the Vietnamese communists had

abandoned the main objective of the August Revolution. As a

result, the Vietnamese peoples' aspiration for self-

determination was disregarded. There have been two occasions,

one in 1954 in North Vietnam and the other in 1975 in all of

Vietnam, when there were good opportunities for the

Vietnamese nation to set a new course towards a true

democracy. Sadly, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV),

failed to take advantage of those opportunities. This failure

is due to the well-known fact, as propounded by Lenin, that

once a dictatorship of the proletariat has been installed,

its very first function is to foster violence and repressive

terror!

2. On September 2, 1945 in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, President of

the Interim Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam,

solemnly declared to the [Vietnamese] nation and the world

that: ``All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator

with certain inalienable Rights, among them the Right to

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,'' undying words

taken from the U.S. Declaration of Independence of 1776.

Interpreted broadly, this sentence can mean that all nations

are created equal and that they are entitled to Life, Freedom

and Happiness. The 1791 French Declaration on Human and Civil

Rights also proclaims: ``All people are born free and have

equal rights, and they must remain free and equal in all

rights.'' These are undeniable truths . . .'' (This quote is

taken directly from the September 2, 1945 Vietnamese

Declaration of Independence).

Nevertheless, the communist government of Vietnam began to

trample upon these sacred rights the moment they came to

power.

3. By February 1951, the Vietnam Workers Party (VWP, now

rechristened the CPV) proclaimed in a Manifesto at its Second

Party Congress that: ``The ideology of the VWP is Marxism-

Leninism.'' This was something that was even more clearly

expressed in the Party Bylaws, under the rubric of ``Goal and

Leading Principles'': ``The Vietnam Workers Party takes the

ideology of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin and the thought of Mao

Zedong in combination with the revolutionary realities of

Vietnam to be its ideological foundation and compass for all

Party activities.

Since then, especially in the North after 1954, and in the

entire country after April 30, 1975, the specter of Communism

has been imposed on the Vietnamese nation. For all practical

purposes, this specter has been used to deprive the

Vietnamese people of all their human rights. And even today,

its overwhelming influence is evident in the spiritual as

well as the material spheres of the Vietnamese nation.

II. Universal Laws Affecting All Societies

1. History has demonstrated that under every totalitarian

regime, whether communist or non-communist, all democratic

rights and freedoms are mercilessly repressed, the difference

being only in the degree of repression. Unfortunately, to

this day the Vietnamese nation is still one of the few that

is under the rule of a totalitarian communist regime. This

fact is unabashedly declared in Article 4 of the Socialist

Republic of Vietnam (SRV) Constitution, which says: ``The

CPV. . . follows Marxism-Leninism and the thought of Ho Chi

Minh, and it is the leading force of the state and society.''

It is on the basis of this article that democratic rights and

freedoms of the Vietnamese people have been extremely

curtailed.

2. The power structure in Vietnam rejects competition and

totally minimizes the possibility of its replacement by

something else. This record has helped accelerate the

degeneration of government, and its transformation from what

it started out to be. Because there are no rules and

principles regarding fair competition in the current

political culture of the country, election after election,

people have not been allowed to choose the most deserving

individuals and political parties to represent them. For that

reason the leadership, management and operational set-ups

become ever more corrupt, and can now be compared to a creaky

piece of equipment from the center down to the localities. As

a result, Vietnam is now a nation that has fallen way behind

other nations in the region and in the world. In the

prevailing environment, this shameful national performance

and other nation-wide problems are beyond correction. The

problem of all problems, the source of all evils, resides in

the fact that the CPV is now the one and only political force

leading Vietnam! The realities of history have shown that

any country, once it has fallen into the orbit of

Communism, ends up in ruin and misery. The Soviet Union

itself, the very cradle of world communism, has, together

with other former Eastern European countries valiantly

overcome its own weaknesses to rediscover the correct path

leading them forward.

3. We all understand that no one can remake history, but it

is possible to redirect its course. What is even more

important is that through history's lessons, one can find the

correct orientation for the nation's future. The path chosen

by the CPV for the Vietnamese nation was designed in haste,

and

thoughtlessly imposed. That is why today, it is necessary to

choose once again a new path for our nation. And a path

chosen by the entire nation must necessarily be better than

the one chosen by just one person or one group of persons.

Given that the CPV is, after all, only one component of the

nation, it should not claim to speak on behalf of the entire

nation! Considering that for almost half a century, from 1954

to 2006, the ruling party in Vietnam has usurped the voice of

the nation, it is by no means a legitimate government! Why?

Because there had simply not been a single free election

during all that time in Vietnam.

On the basis of the above realities and the stated

universal laws, being fully conscious of our responsibilities

as citizens, and faced with the nation's fate, we would like

to declare the following to our compatriots both inside and

outside of Vietnam:

III. Objective, Methods and Significance of Our Struggle

1. The highest objective in the struggle to fight for

freedom and democracy for the Vietnamese nation today is to

make sure that the present political regime in Vietnam is

changed in a fundamental way, not through incremental

``renovation'' steps or, even worse, through insignificant

touch-ups here and there. Concretely speaking, it must be a

change from the monolithic, one-party, non-competitive regime

that we have at the present time to a pluralistic and

multiparty system; one in which there is healthy competition,

in accordance with the legitimate requirements of the nation,

including at least a clear separation of powers among the

Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches of government.

This would be in tune with international criteria and the

experiences and lessons Mankind has learned from highly

respected and successful democracies.

The concrete objective is to re-establish the following

fundamental rights of the people:

The Freedom of Information and Opinion as defined in the

United Nations' International Covenant on Civil and Political

Rights, ratified on December 16, 1966, and endorsed by

Vietnam on September 24, 1982, Article 19.2: ``Everyone

shall have the right to freedom of opinion; this right

shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart

information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of

frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the

form of art, or through any other media of his choice.''

This means that political parties, organizations and

individuals all have the freedom to express their opinions

through the printed media, radio, television and any other

mass media without having to wait for prior approval by

the government.

The Freedom to Assemble, form Associations, Political

Parties, Vote and Stand for Elected Offices as defined in the

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article

25: ``Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity

(a) to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly

or through freely chosen representatives; (b) to vote and to

be elected in genuine periodic elections which shall be by

universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret

ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the

electors.'' This means that political parties of every

orientation are allowed to fairly compete in a genuine

pluralistic and multiparty democracy.

The Freedom to participate in Independent Labor Unions and

the Right to Legitimate Strikes in accordance with the

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural

Rights ratified by the United Nations on December 16, 1966,

Articles 7 and 8: ``The States Parties to the present

Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of

just and favorable conditions of work . . ., the right of

everyone to form trade unions and join the trade union of his

choice, subject only to the rules of the organization

concerned, for the promotion and protection of his economic

and social interests . . . [including] the right to strike .

. .'' These Labor Unions must be independent of, and in

practice, not subservient to the state.

The Freedom of Religion as defined in the International

Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 18:

``Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought,

conscience and religion. This right shall include the freedom

to have or adopt a Religion or Belief of his choice, and the

freedom, either individually or in community with others and

in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in

worship, observance, practice and teaching.'' These religions

must also operate independently; they cannot be made the

instruments of the state.

2. The method of this struggle must be peaceful and non-

violent. The Vietnamese nation must itself be actively

engaged in it. Of course, we are extremely thankful for the

warm and ever more effective support of all our friends in

the world. Using modern information media and through ever

larger international exchanges, we will seek in every way to

help our compatriot to fully understand the issues involved.

Once this has been achieved, they surely will know how to act

appropriately and effectively.

3. This struggle is meant to make the Right Cause triumph

over the Bad Cause, and, Progress over Backwardness. There

are popular movements that are currently trying to use the

laws of life and the tendencies of our time in order to

defeat those evil forces that are trying to go against these

tendencies and laws. Whether the CPV marches hand-in-hand

with the Nation or not will depend on whether it is

objective, fair, enlightened and modest enough to accept the

principle of equality in a fair competition. The one-party

political regime must be once and for all buried in the

dustbin of history. From such a departing point, the

Vietnamese nation will be able to find its best citizens and

the most capable political organizations after each election

to lead it. The ``total triumph of the right cause''

principle will be established, and one's individual life will

become better, our society more humane, and our Compatriots

will live together on more friendly terms.

We hope that this Manifesto would foster the positive

contributions of our compatriots living outside of Vietnam

and the support of our international friends. We are

sincerely grateful and call on the United Nations, national

parliaments, governments, international organizations and our

friends all over the world to continue supporting

enthusiastically and effectively this fully legitimate

struggle. This will soon help bring our Fatherland, Vietnam,

to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with civilized, moral,

prosperous and free countries in today's community of

Mankind--Unanimously declared in Vietnam on 8 April 2006.

Dr. Nguyen Xuan An, Hue; Teacher Dang Van Anh, Hue; Prof.

Nguyen Kim Anh, Hue; Writer Trinh Canh, Vung Tau; Teacher Le

Can, Hue; Teacher Tran Thi Minh Cam, Hue; Teacher Nguyen Thi

Linh Chi, Can Tho; Teacher Nguyen Viet Cu, Quang Ngai; Writer

Nguyen Dac Cuong, Phan Thiet; Teacher Tran Doan, Quang Ngai;

Teacher Ho Anh Dung, Hue; Dr. Ha Xuan Duong, Hue; Attorney

Nguyen Van Dai, Hanoi; Dr. Ho Dong, Vinh Long; Businessman

Tran Van Ha, Da Nang; Dr. Le Thi Ngan Ha, Hue; (Mrs.) Vu Thuy

Ha, Hanoi; Teacher Tran Thach Hai, Haiphong; Teacher Dang

Hoai Anh, Hue; Dr. Le Hoai Anh, Nha Trang.

Prof. Nguyen Ngoc Anh, Da Namg; Rev. F.X. Le Van Cao, Hue;

Rev. Giuse Hoang Can, Hue; Rev. Giuse Nguyen Van Chanh, Hue;

Prof. Hoang Minh Chinh, Hanoi; Dang Quoc Cuong, MA, Hue;

Businessman Ho Ngoc Diep, Da Nang; Ms. Le Thi Phu Dung,

Saigon; Prof. Truong Quang Dung, Hue; Ex-Col. Pham Que Duong,

Hanoi; Kt (Architect?) Tran Van Don, Phan Thiet; Rev. Phero

Nguyen Huu Giai, Hue; Teacher Le Thi Bich Ha, Can Tho;

Teacher Le Nguyen Xuan Ha, Hue; Eng. Do Nam Hai, Saigon; Kt

(Architect?) Tran Viet Hai, Vung Tau; Eng. Doan Thi Dieu

Hanh, Vung Tau; Teacher Phan Thi Minh Hanh, Hue; Writer

Tran Hao, Vung Tau; Teacher Le Le Hang, Hue.

Nurse Che Minh Hoang, Nha Trang; Teacher Le Thu Minh Hung,

Saigon; Rev. Gk Nguyen Van Hung, Hue; Teacher Le Thi Thanh

Huyenh, Hue; Mai Thu Huong, MA, Haiphong; Candidate Nguyen

Ngoc Ke, Hue; Nguyen Quoc Khanh, MA, Hue; Prof. Tran Khue,

Saigon; Writer Bui Lang, Phan Thiet; Mr. Le Quang Liem, Head,

Traditional Hoa Hao Buddhist'' Church, Saigon; Rev. G.B.

Nguyen Cao Loc, Hue; Teacher Ma Van Luu, Haiphong; Rev. Tadeo

Nguyen Van Ly, Hue; Teacher Cao Thi Xuan Mai, Hue; Writer Ha

Van Mau, Can Tho; Writer Le Thi Thu Minh, Can Tho; Teacher

Nguyen Anh Minh, Saigon; (Mrs.) Bui Kim Ngan, Hanoi; Rev.

G.B. Le Van Nghiem, Hue; Rev. Dominic Phan Phuoc, Hue.

Rev. Giuse Cai Hong Phuong, Hue; Eng. Ta Minh Quan, Can

Tho; Rev. Giuse Tran Van Quy, Hue; Dr. Tran Thi Sen, Nha

Trang; Eng. Hoang Son, Haiphong; Prof. Nguyen Anh Tai, Da

Nang; Dr. Ta Minh Tam, Can Tho; Pastor Pham Ngoc Thach,

Saigon; Teacher Van Ba Thanh, Hue; Tran Manh Thu, MA,

Haiphong; Writer Hoang Tien, Hanoi; Rev. Tephano Chan Tin,

Saigon; Writer Ton Nu Minh Trang, Phan Thiet; Dr. Nguyen Anh

Tu, Da Nang; Teacher Le Tri Tue, Haiphong; Businesswoman

Nguyen Thi Hanh, DaNang; Prof. Dang Minh Hao, Hue; Writer

Tran Manh Hao, Saigon; Rev. Giuse Nguyen Duc Hieu, Bac

Ninh; Teacher Van Dinh Hoang, Hue.

Prof. Nguyen Minh Hung, Hue; Teacher Phan Ngoc Huy, Hue;

Teacher Do Thi Minh Huong, Hue; Nurse Tran Thu Huong, Da

Nang; Prof. Nguyen Chinh Ket, Saigon; Teacher Nguyen Dang

Khoa, Hue; Ex-Major Vu Kinh, Hanoi; Teacher Ton That Hoang

Lan, Saigon; Dr. Vu Thi Hoa Linh, Saigon; Rev. Phero Phan Van

Loi, Hue; Teacher Nguyen Van Ly, Haiphong; Teacher Cai Thi

Mai, Haiphong; Teacher Nguyen Van Mai, Saigon; Teacher Phan

Van Mau, Hue; Teacher Ma Van Minh, Hue; Dr. Huyen Ton Nu

Phuong Nhien, Da Nang; Dang Hoai Ngan, MA, Hue; Teacher Le

Hong Phuc, Haiphong; Eng. Vo Lam Phuoc, Saigon; Pastor Nguyen

Hong Quang, Saigon.

Rev. Augustino Ho Van Quy, Hue; Dr. Vo Van Quyen, Vinh

Long; Hoa Hao Lay preacher Le Van Soc, Vinh Long; Rev. Phao

Lo Ngo Thanh Son, Hue; Eng. Do Hong Tam, Haiphong; Prof.

Nguyen Thanh Tam, Hue; Teacher Nguyen binh Thanh, Hue; Hoa

Hao Lay preacher Nguyen Van Tho, Dong Thap; Prof. Dr. Tran

Hong Thu, Saigon; Ex-Officer Tran Dung Tien, Hanoi; Teacher

Nguyen Khac Toan, Hanoi; Teacher Che Thi Hong Trinh, Hue; Dr.

Doan Minh Tuan, Saigon; Nurse Tran Thi Hoai Van, Nha,Trang;

Teacher Ngo Thi Tuong Vi, Quang Ngai; Ho Ngoc Vinh, MA, Da

Nang; Teacher Nguyen Le Xuan Vinh, Can Tho; Eng. Lam Dinh

Vinh, Saigon.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) who

has been a leader on global human rights for 27 years, and that especially relates to Vietnam.

Mr. Speaker, I just yield myself 2 final minutes to close.

First of all, let me thank Mr. Wolf, Chairman Wolf for his very eloquent and passionate statement. And I think by injecting China into this debate as well, there is a modus operandi by both of those countries to talk a good game about human rights while doing absolutely nothing, as a matter of fact, by doing just the opposite. It is doublespeak. It is Orwellian, and unfortunately, it is what is happening on the ground today.

Let me also say that when I visited dissidents, several of whom were under house arrest in Ho Chi Min City, Hue and Hanoi, I was struck by the heart breaking vulnerability of those individuals and their families, because the secret police don't just go after the individual. They target their families, their kids, their brothers their sisters- in-law, their nephews and nieces. It is widespread. The bullies inflict maximum, they being the communist regime, maximum pain on the individual and his or her family.

I'll give you an example of just how it works. One of the individuals who downloaded ``What is Democracy'' from the Internet, which was on the U.S. embassy Web site, translated and then resent it out, got 5 years in prison. He was recently let out. But his wife Vu, who I met in a Hanoi restaurant with at least three bully boys sitting about 5-10 feet away taking her picture, from the secret police, told me again and again how fearful she was that she would be targeted--and hit. She rides a motor bike; she feared that they would run her down. Modus operandi, again, of the secret police.

Sure enough, just a few weeks ago, she was hit on the road by the police. Would you say that was an accident? If you think that is an accident, I will sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.

Mr. Speaker, human rights abuse is getting worse in Vietnam. It is widespread. It is pervasive. And it has got to be stopped. We need to speak out with one voice. The administration needs to speak out with one voice.

This resolution has a number of action clauses in it. I hope it is taken seriously both in Hanoi as well as down at Foggy Bottom.

We need to help those suffering individuals. We are their last best hope. Let's work for them because they deserve our--and Vietnam's-- respect and protection.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, last week the House Committee on Foreign Relations held an important hearing on the current situation in Darfur. I am grateful to Chairman Tom Lantos for keeping this critical issue in the spotlight of the committee.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir has proven that he considers the people of Darfur to be merely pawns in a game that he is playing with the international community. Even as his representative is sending a letter to the UN Secretary General accepting the Heavy Support Package that is supposed to lead to a joint UN-AU protective force in the region, we are receiving news reports that his government is flying arms and heavy military equipment into Darfur under the disguise of UN and AU aircraft in order to fuel the conflict.

The gulf between Bashir's actions and his words is as wide as the callous attitude I encountered when I met with him personally in Khartoum and the desperate, deeply grieved look on the faces of the refugees I met in the camps of Darfur. It is time for the global community to stop considering Bashir as a legitimate negotiating partner and to start treating him as he is--the despotic tyrant responsible for more than 400,000 deaths and 2 million people displaced from their homes in Darfur. That is in addition to the 2 million dead and 4 million who were displaced during the war in the south.

I welcome President Bush's announcement last week that our government will be taking several new steps if the Sudanese Government does not meet its commitments. I strongly urge the President to make that window of opportunity for Bashir to finally follow through on his word extremely short. Bashir has long since lost any entitlement to one day more than is absolutely necessary to establish peace in Darfur.

In order to be effective, however, the efforts of the United States must be joined by those of the international community. We must ALL decide that NOW is the time to end this crisis. Our partners on the UN Security Council should agree immediately to the resolution that will be introduced by the United States applying new sanctions against the Sudanese Government and any individual that violates human rights or obstructs the peace process. Particularly given the revelations of the government's continued military support to the Arab militias, the Security Council must also impose an expanded embargo on arms sales to the government of Sudan, prohibit Sudan's government from conducting any offensive military flights over Darfur, and strengthen the international community's ability to monitor and report any violations.

The Government of the People's Republic of China, in particular, should take a leadership role in ending the Darfur conflict. Instead of lending money to Bashir for a new presidential palace, the Chinese Government should be pressuring him to enable the people of Darfur to live in their own homes in peace and security. I have long exhorted the Chinese Government to stop the reprehensible violation of the human rights of its own people, and I have signaled the upcoming 2008 Olympics in Beijing as a singular opportunity for the international community to insist on the respect of those rights. I applaud the outstanding efforts of Ms. Mia Farrow, one of our distinguished witnesses at the hearing, to galvanize the world to object to China's hosting of the Olympics at the same time it is ignoring the plight of our brothers and sisters suffering in Darfur. I would encourage my colleagues here in Congress to join these efforts with respect to the Olympics and to seek other measures to end the genocide.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in very strong support of H. Con. Res. 7, and congratulate Congresswoman Jackson-Lee for authoring this important measure. It sends a very clear and nonambiguous message to the Arab League to recognize the killing fields of Darfur as ``genocide'' and to support the deployment of the hybrid U.N. peacekeeping force pursuant to U.N. Resolution 1706.

It is timely that we consider this resolution today as leaders and activists around the world unite to raise awareness and urge action to stop the genocide during this week's Global Days for Darfur.

Madam Speaker, no other people on Earth have suffered more than the people of Sudan. Tragically, they have been victimized by not one, but two genocides. In the south, over the course of 2 decades, some 2 million people were murdered by the Khartoum regime, and only a robust peacemaking effort, backed by the military efforts on the ground by Dr. Garang, resulted in a comprehensive peace agreement that was very ably brokered by Senator Danforth as the Special Envoy appointed by President Bush. Indeed, President Bush, I think, made the crucial difference in bringing peace to southern Sudan.

But just as that peace was breaking out, in February of 2003, hostilities began in Darfur, and now we have, regrettably, another genocide, in excess of 400,000 people dead and 2 million people displaced.

Several months ago, Madam Speaker, I traveled to Darfur and met some of the heroic survivors of genocide at two camps, at Mukjar and at Kalma camp. When our old Soviet era helicopter landed at the remote Mukjar camp, thousands of women and children danced, clapped and sang beautiful traditional African songs. The people of Darfur, as we all know, have a remarkable generosity and spirit. And it was awe inspiring and heart breaking at the same time.

At first glance most of the people had a superficial glow of physical wellness, thanks in large part to the brave NGOs bearing food, clothing, shelter, and medicine. However, even those necessities are now at risk due to the insecurity in Darfur caused by a lack of protection of humanitarian aid workers.

As the H. Con. Res. 7 points out, Khartoum is now targeting relief agencies and NGOs, and at least 12 humanitarian workers have been killed in Darfur.

It profoundly troubles me, and troubled me especially on the trip, to look at the appalling fear and trepidation. It is ever-present. Trauma, posttraumatic stress disorder is everywhere. I spoke with many women who told me personal stories of rape, senseless beatings and massacres by the Janjaweed and the Sudanese militias. Among the refugees and IDPs, emotional woundedness and brokenness is everywhere. Like you and me, Madam Speaker, all that the wonderful people of Darfur really want is to love God and their families and their friends and to earn a living and to live in peace, and yet they have had atrocities imposed upon them that no human should have to bear.

On that same trip, Madam Speaker, I also had a lengthy meeting with President Bashir at his presidential suite in Khartoum. All Bashir wanted to talk about was ending United States trade sanctions, not the horrific loss of life in Darfur. For me the exchange was eerily reminiscent of a conversation I had had in Serbia with the late Slobodan Milosevic after he invaded Croatia, then Bosnia, and unleashed the Balkan genocide. He too, like Bashir, was unmoved by the plight of suffering people.

On October 5 of 2006, I wrote a letter, cosigned by 175 Members of Congress, to the Secretary General of The League of Arab States, asking him to use his authority to employ all diplomatic means available to encourage Bashir to halt Sudan's military offensive in North Darfur, to withdraw Sudanese troops from the area, and to reverse the Arab League's opposition to the U.N. deployment of peacekeepers. I believe, and this resolution makes absolutely clear, that the UN-AU hybrid force is today the best option to enforce a cease-fire, protect civilians, ensure access to humanitarian assistance, and begin the path to reconstruction and reconciliation in Darfur. We pointed out in the October letter that the collective voice of the Arab League could clearly help save thousands of lives and bring peace and security to Darfur. Right now they are part of the problem. It is time the Arab League became part of the solution.

Finally, this legislation strongly urges the League of Arab States to declare that the systematic torture, rape, and displacement of Darfurians is a genocide, and strongly urges the Arab League to agree and pass a resolution to accept and support the U.N. peacekeepers, again, as the best option to enforce that cease-fire and to give the people of Darfur what they so desperately need: peace and reconciliation.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the distinguished gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran).

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

First, let me say to the distinguished majority leader, I want to thank him for his leadership on a broad range of human rights issues. And I think it speaks volumes that the first trip as majority leader that you put together was to Darfur to try to promote peace and reconciliation. So I very much want to commend you for that.

I also thank you for your compliments to Frank Wolf and I; but I would add to that, when you talk about going to remote places, that also applies to you. I think Members should know that there were a number of trips that we undertook during the dark days of the Soviet Union when human rights were being crushed daily. I will never forget a trip we took to Lithuania, led by then Chairman Hoyer when Lansbergis, the President, was under siege, was literally surrounded by Soviet Black Berets. And we went there, to be a presence, to be a deterrent. Just prior to our arrival, more than a dozen people were murdered at TV tower, the gentleman will recall, but he nevertheless led our delegation to Vilnius and I do believe it had an impact in trying to mitigate further bloodshed. That's just one example. So I want to commend the distinguished majority leader for his leadership on Darfur.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to Ms. Sheila Jackson-Lee.

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Ackerman), and that he may control that time.