John W. Olver: “Mr. Chairman, I rise today simply to applaud the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) and the gentleman from…”

“Mr. Chairman, I rise today simply to applaud the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) for including the appropriation that was added in the supplemental portion of this bill to deal with the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. By adding $70 million in disaster and famine relief and another $25 million for refugee aid, we are addressing the most immediate and urgent human rights and humanitarian disaster in the world today. Mr. Chairman, the Janjaweed, a Sudanese Government-backed militia, is committing human rights atrocities on a massive scale in Darfur and the population there is in grave danger. Hundreds of villages have been razed, thousands of women have been raped and branded, and crops have been systematically destroyed. More than 1 million people have been forced to flee their homes and an estimated 30,000 people have been killed. According to the U.N., it will require $250 million to save the lives of the 2 million people that it estimates are now in acute need. The Sudanese Government has a 15-year record of curbing genocidal activity only when it becomes the source of public condemnation and exposure. By approving these emergency funds today, the House sends a message to the Sudanese regime in Khartoum that it must stop the genocide in Darfur.”