Sep 17, 2008

UPDATE: Click here for a complete transcript of the event and the text of all witness testimony

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Judith Ingram,

Communications Director

Tel. 202/523-3240, ext. 127

[email protected]

Hearing on Sudan's Unraveling Peace and the Challenge to U.S. Policy
Wednesday, Sept. 24
10 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2359

The 2005 Sudanese Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) brought an end to a 22-year long north-south civil war that killed 2 million people and forced another 4 million to flee their homes. Today that fragile peace is at grave risk of collapsing.

The CPA set a timeline of actions to be taken over six years, including a referendum in 2011 to decide whether the South would stay within a united Sudan or become independent. The CPA called for demarcation of disputed boundaries, revenue-sharing of Sudan"s oil wealth, the establishment of local governments that are truly representative of local populations, institutional protections for human rights, and crucial preparations for elections at all levels, to be held next year, to establish the principle of democratic accountability. Many of those provisions remain unfulfilled.

The hearing of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom will examine U.S. options for encouraging the full implementation of the peace agreement and averting a return to a bloody north-south civil war fueled in part by religious divisions.

Confirmed witnesses include:

  • Ambassador Richard Williamson, the President"s Special Envoy to Sudan;
  • Earl W. Gast, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for Africa, USAID
  • John Prendergast, Co-Chair, ENOUGH Project against genocide.
  • Kenneth Bacon, President, Refugees International;
  • Susan D. Page, Director for Southern and East Africa, National Democratic Institute, and former Director of the Rule of Law program, United Nations Mission to Sudan and a member of the mediation team that aided the negotiation of the CPA;
  • Dr. Douglas Johnson, former "international expert” to the Abyei Boundaries Commission and author of The Root Causes of Sudan"s Civil Wars;
  • Ted Dagne, Africa specialist, Congressional Research Service;
  • Dr. Khataza Gondwe, Research and Advocacy Officer for Sub-Saharan Africa, Christian Solidarity Worldwide; and
  • Eliseo Neuman, Director, Africa Institute, American Jewish Committee.

RSVP: [email protected]