The Us Response to the Political Crisis in Sudan Hearing
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THE U.S. RESPONSE TO THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN SUDAN HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION June 25, 2019 Serial No. 116–51 Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs ( Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov, or http://http://www.govinfo.gov U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 36–818PDF WASHINGTON : 2019 COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York, Chairman BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas, Ranking GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York Member ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia STEVE CHABOT, Ohio THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida JOE WILSON, South Carolina KAREN BASS, California SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts TED S. YOHO, Florida DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois AMI BERA, California LEE ZELDIN, New York JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin DINA TITUS, Nevada ANN WAGNER, Missouri ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York BRIAN MAST, Florida TED LIEU, California FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota JOHN CURTIS, Utah ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota KEN BUCK, Colorado COLIN ALLRED, Texas RON WRIGHT, Texas ANDY LEVIN, Michigan GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania GREG PENCE, Indiana TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey STEVE WATKINS, Kansas DAVID TRONE, Maryland MIKE GUEST, Mississippi JIM COSTA, California JUAN VARGAS, California VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas JASON STEINBAUM, Staff Director BRANDON SHIELDS, Republican Staff Director ---- SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS KAREN BASS, California, Chair SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania CHRISTOPHER SMITH, New Jersey, DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota Ranking Member ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania RON WRIGHT, Texas TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee JANETTE YARWOOD, Staff Director (II) C O N T E N T S Page OPENING STATEMENT Prepared statement for the record submitted from Chair Bass .......................... 3 WITNESSES Day, Ramsey, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau For Africa, United States Agency for International Development ...................................... 12 James, The Honorable Makila, Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Africa and The Sudans, Bureau of African Affairs, United States Department of State .................................................................................................................. 18 APPENDIX Hearing Notice ......................................................................................................... 38 Hearing Minutes ...................................................................................................... 39 Hearing Attendance ................................................................................................. 40 RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD Responses to questions submitted for the record from Representative Omar .... 41 (III) THE U.S. RESPONSE TO THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN SUDAN Tuesday, June 25, 2019 House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Washington, DC The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:48 p.m., in room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Karen Bass [chair of the subcommittee] presiding. Ms. BASS. This hearing for the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations will come to order. The subcommittee is meeting today to hear tes- timony on the U.S. response to the political crisis in Sudan. Let me just thank everyone here for your patience. I am sorry that we are starting so late. I know you are aware that votes were called, which means everything stops around here and we had to go vote. But I do not believe that we will be interrupted any fur- ther. Today, we are here to further explore the fluid situation in Sudan, the potential for a successful transition to a civilian-led gov- ernment, and the policy options available to the United States. Sudan is at a critical junction and must decide if it wants to con- tinue on the path of former leader Bashir or transition to a civilian- led rule as the transitional military council has promised. Initially, when the TMC seized power, they opened the political space and met with civilian-led groups. The organized protests were led by Sudanese professionals—Sudanese Professionals Asso- ciation made up of doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, and oth- ers. In January 2019, the SPA joined with other civil society orga- nizations and political coalitions to sign the Declaration of Freedom and Change. This commitment to a peaceful struggle targeted broader goals, including ending al-Bashir’s rule, forming a transi- tional government, ending violence against protesters, and restric- tions to freedom of speech and expression and accountability for the crimes against Sudanese citizens. But the situation has deteriorated. I look forward to hearing more from our witnesses regarding the U.S. response to the polit- ical crisis in Sudan and how the U.S. can address these blatant human rights violations and support efforts to get the country on the path toward democratic representative governance. So, without objection, all members have 5 days to submit state- ments, questions, extraneous materials for the record, subject to the length limitation in the rules. (1) 2 So I want to thank our distinguished witnesses who are here with us today for this hearing. I know that your staff have come to the Hill multiple times to keep us informed about events in the country, but the time has come to really understand how the U.S. is engaging the country during this political crisis. Let me say also that this is the first hearing. We anticipate hav- ing additional hearings. We did this very quickly, which is why we have one panel which is a government panel. Usually we have more than one panel and that we always include people who are from the country, but we were not able to do this on quick notice. So I do not want you to think that this is the last time we are going to have this discussion nor do I want you to think that we intentionally excluded people who are from Sudan. So there are many of us here in Congress who pay close attention to what is happening in Sudan. Considering all of the recent events in the country, the increased insecurity and the increased human rights violations, we think it is critical to get this update on events in the country, how the U.S. is responding and how the U.S. is ad- justing its policy based on this new space the country is in. So I would like to know about the Assistant Secretary’s trip to the country, the role of the new Special Envoy, how has the U.N. drawn down effective humanitarian operations, and about the drawdown of personnel at the U.S. embassy in Khartoum. Do you expect additional ordered departures? Are staff who remain in the country safe? I will tell you that several of us were planning on traveling to Sudan next week and our trip was canceled because we were told that it was not safe to be in the country. Members of Congress from both of sides of the aisle are engaged on Sudan and we want to make sure that we have a strong, unified message to help citi- zens of Sudan realize their goal of a civilian-led transition to power. I now recognize the ranking member for the purposes of making an opening statement. [The prepared statement of Ms. Bass follows:] 3 Congressmember Karen Bass AGH Subcommittee Hearing "The U.S. Response to the Political Crisis in Sudan" June 25, 2019 This hearing for the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations will come to order. I note that a quorum is present. The subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on the ''The U.S. Response to the Political Crisis in Sudan". Today, we are here to further explore the fluid situation in Sudan, the potential for a successful transition to a civilian-led government, and the policy options available to the United States. Sudan is at a critical junction and must decide if it wants to continue on the path of former leader Omar al-Bashir or transition to a civilian-led rule as the Transitional Military Council (TMC} as promised. Initially, when the TMC seized power they opened the political space and met with civilian led groups. The organized protests were led by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), made up of doctors, lawyers, journalists, teachers, engineers, and others. In January 2019, the SPA joined with other civil society organizations and political coalitions to sign the Declaration of Freedom and Change. This commitment to a peaceful struggle targeted broader goals including ending al-Bashir's rule, forming a transitional government, ending violence against protestors and restrictions to freedom of speech and expression, and accountability for the crimes against Sudanese citizens. But the situation has deteriorated 4 I look forward to hearing more from our witnesses regarding the United States response to the political crisis in Sudan, and how the US can address these blatant human rights violations and support efforts to get the country on the path toward democratic representative