On the recordJune 30, 1999
It is important to view this amendment in the greater context of the current humanitarian situation in southern Sudan. The situation is dire, to say the least: the famine of last year took the lives of hundreds of thousands as flights of relief were banned by Khartoum from large areas outside their control, an act which triggered famine and starvation. The regime in Khartoum is allowed to halt U.N. relief flights at will because of the terms of the 1989 agreement which establish Operation Lifeline Sudan--the U.N. relief organization. As I noted in an op-ed in The Washington Post on July 19, 1998, the ``practice starves combatants and noncombatants alike and compromises the integrity and effectiveness of relief groups desperately trying to fend off famine.''
Source
govinfo.gov
