Political Quotes

“later this afternoon, I have the honor of hosting Sudan's First Vice President, Salva Kiir, in the U.S. Capitol. I have come to the floor many times to speak on Sudan, having gone to that country just about every year for the last 7 or 8 years, having spent most of that time in southern Sudan. I look forward to being with and hosting Salva Kiir, who is a founding member of the SPLM, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. In January of this year, the SPLM and the Sudanese Government in Khartoum signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, bringing an end to 21 years of a brutal civil war, a civil war that has destroyed much of that country, especially in the south. When I first started going to Sudan, literally there was no hospital in southern Sudan, and the one hospital that was eventually reopened was a hospital that had been closed about 18 years previously, with landmines placed all around that hospital. It destroyed health care there, obviously, but it had destroyed commerce, any touch of humanity, and had driven the entire southern population out of villages, dispersing them, with 5 million people displaced and about 2 million people who died in that civil war. In June of this year, longtime SPLM chairman and a very close friend of mine, Dr. John Garang, went back to Khartoum for the first time in 21 years. It was a momentous time. At that time, he was sworn in as First Vice President of Sudan. Up until that time, he had always been in southern Sudan.…”