Political Quotes

“this evening there was a meeting in my office with the U.S. Special Convoy to the Sudan, Andrew Natsios. It was an unusual meeting by Senate and Capitol Hill standards. It was a bipartisan meeting called by Senator Sam Brownback, my Republican friend from Kansas, and myself, inviting our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to try to address the escalating crisis in Darfur, in the Sudan. In the meeting, we talked about the urgent need for international action to stop this genocide. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Darfur over the last 3 years. Two and a half million people have been driven from their homes. There are refugee camps not only in Sudan but in Chad and neighboring countries filled with those from Darfur who have been driven out by the violence. Nearly two-thirds of the people living in this region are now dependent on humanitarian aid, and hundreds of thousands are in need but far beyond the reach of humanitarian organizations. Humanitarian access, the ability to help those in such desperate straits, is, sadly, diminishing when, in fact, we need more. The Sudanese Government in the capital of Khartoum has orchestrated this campaign of genocide. It continues to deny the death toll, and it continues to reject the United Nations peacekeeping mission.”