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[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1328 Introduced in House (IH)]

<DOC>

118th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 1328

Recognizing the actions of the Rapid Support Forces and allied militias 
 in the Darfur region of Sudan against non-Arab ethnic communities as 
                           acts of genocide.

_______________________________________________________________________

                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             June 27, 2024

    Mr. James (for himself and Mr. Allred) submitted the following 
   resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION

 
Recognizing the actions of the Rapid Support Forces and allied militias 
 in the Darfur region of Sudan against non-Arab ethnic communities as 
                           acts of genocide.

Whereas Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the 
        Crime of Genocide (in this preamble referred to as the ``Genocide 
        Convention''), adopted at Paris on December 9, 1948, defines genocide as 
        ``any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole 
        or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: 
        (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental 
        harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group 
        conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in 
        whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births 
        within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to 
        another group'';
Whereas the genocide that began in 2003 in Darfur perpetrated by the Government 
        of Sudan and its proxy Janjaweed militia, explicitly targeting the Fur, 
        Zaghawa, and Masalit ethnic communities through mass killings, forced 
        displacement, the razing of villages and cropland, widespread rape, 
        aerial bombings of civilians, and the blocking of humanitarian 
        assistance, killed at least 200,000 civilians and displaced 2,000,000 
        people;
Whereas, on July 22, 2004, Congress declared, with the passage of House 
        Concurrent Resolution 467 (108th Congress) and Senate Concurrent 
        Resolution 133 (108th Congress), that atrocities occurring in Darfur 
        were genocide, and the administration of President George W. Bush 
        declared genocide in Darfur on September 9, 2004;
Whereas, in 2013, the Government of Sudan, under the administration of the 
        National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) and the command of the 
        Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), formed the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a 
        formal paramilitary force composed primarily of Janjaweed militia;
Whereas Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (commonly known as ``Hemedti''), a Janjaweed 
        militia leader during the genocide in Darfur that began in 2003, served 
        as head of the RSF and became the deputy head of the Transitional 
        Military Council, which took power from the President of Sudan Omar al-
        Bashir in 2019, and the deputy chairman of the successor Sovereign 
        Council;
Whereas the elevation of individuals who served in leadership of the parties 
        responsible for such genocide, including Hemedti and General Abdel 
        Fattah al-Burhan of the SAF, into leadership roles in the transition 
        government in 2019 only heightened the risk of atrocities recurring 
        across Sudan, including genocide in Darfur;
Whereas fighting between the SAF and the RSF broke out in Khartoum on April 15, 
        2023, and quickly spread to Darfur, where the RSF has taken control of 
        four of five regional capitals in Darfur: Nyala, Geneina, Zalingei, and 
        El Daein;
Whereas, on August 16, 2023, CNN issued an investigative report on the June 15, 
        2023, atrocity in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, describing the 
        atrocity as ``one of the most violent incidents in the genocide-scarred 
        Sudanese region's history'', explaining how ``the powerful paramilitary 
        Rapid Support Forces and its allied militias hunted down non-Arab people 
        in various parts of the city . . . reviving a genocidal playbook'', and 
        in which survivors reported that identifying as Masalit ``was a death 
        sentence'';
Whereas, on November 3, 2023, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner 
        for Human Rights stated, ``We are deeply alarmed by reports that women 
        and girls are being abducted and held in inhuman, degrading slave-like 
        conditions in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in 
        Darfur'';
Whereas, on November 14, 2023, the United Nations Special Adviser on the 
        Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, expressed extreme concern 
        with the ``serious allegations of mass killings'' in Ardamata, which 
        ``may constitute acts of genocide'', citing reports that the violence 
        killed more than 800 people and displaced 8,000 Sudanese individuals to 
        Chad;
Whereas, on December 6, 2023, Secretary of State Antony Blinken determined that, 
        since the fighting between the SAF and the RSF began on April 15, 2023, 
        Sudan has experienced war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic 
        cleansing in ``haunting echoes of the genocide that began almost 20 
        years ago in Darfur'', including Masalit civilians being ``hunted down 
        and left for dead in the streets, their homes set on fire, and told that 
        there is no place in Sudan for them'';
Whereas a December 15, 2023, Reuters special investigative report detailed the 
        targeted killing of Masalit men and boys by the RSF, about which an 
        emergency protection officer for the United Nations High Commissioner 
        for Refugees explained that ``the objective of the killings seems to be 
        the elimination of future fighters as well as the line of ancestry of a 
        specific ethnic group'', referring to the Masalit people;
Whereas the RSF has killed Masalit political and traditional leaders in El 
        Geneina, West Darfur, including Khamis Abdullah Abbakar, the Governor of 
        West Darfur, and Farsha Mohamed Arbab, a prominent leader of the Masalit 
        Sultanate;
Whereas, on May 9, 2024, Human Rights Watch reported that attacks by the RSF and 
        allied militias in El Geneina, the capital city of Sudan's West Darfur 
        state, killed thousands of people and left hundreds of thousands as 
        refugees, from April to November 2023;
Whereas there is significant evidence of widespread, systematic actions against 
        the non-Arab ethnic communities of Darfur, including the Masalit people, 
        committed by the RSF and allied militias that meet one or more of the 
        criteria under Article II of the Genocide Convention, including--

    (1) killing members of the non-Arab ethnic communities in Darfur in 
mass killings of civilians, including summary executions in the streets and 
shootings of civilians fleeing across the Wadi Kaja river and to the Chad 
border, targeted killings of men and boys, targeted killings of Masalit 
leaders, and burials in mass graves;

    (2) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of such 
communities, including through extrajudicial detention, torture and 
beatings, extortion, sexual and gender-based violence, mass rape, sexual 
slavery, and forced displacement; and

    (3) deliberately inflicting on such communities conditions of life 
calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part, 
including the annihilation of villages, targeted attacks on marketplaces 
and schools, widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and 
telecommunication, the looting of homes and hospitals, assaults on camps 
for displaced persons, the destruction of humanitarian facilities, the 
killing of aid workers, and restrictions on humanitarian aid and access; 
and

Whereas credible descriptions of the RSF's objective of elimination of the line 
        of ancestry of the non-Arab tribes of Darfur, survivors' statements 
        reporting that identifying as Masalit is a death sentence, and reports 
        that the RSF made clear that there is no place in Sudan for the Masalit, 
        against the backdrop of the prior genocide in Darfur, evince a specific 
        intent on the part of the RSF to destroy the Masalit and other non-Arab 
        ethnic groups in Darfur in whole or in substantial part: Now, therefore, 
        be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) condemns atrocities, including those that amount to 
        genocide, being committed by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and 
        allied militias against the Masalit people and other non-Arab 
        ethnic groups in Darfur, and the roles of the RSF and Sudanese 
        Armed Forces (SAF) in perpetrating atrocities, humanitarian 
        catastrophe, and the destruction of Sudan;
            (2) calls for an immediate end to the war and all violence 
        and atrocities in Sudan;
            (3) urges the Government of the United States--
                    (A) to take immediate steps with the international 
                community, including through multilateral fora, to 
                protect civilians, including by establishing safe zones 
                and humanitarian corridors, enforcing the United 
                Nations Security Council arms embargo on Darfur, and 
                brokering a comprehensive cease-fire between the 
                warring parties in Sudan;
                    (B) to support the consistent and transparent 
                documentation of atrocities and genocidal acts in Sudan 
                by instituting a mechanism that will, to the greatest 
                extent possible, publicly release such documentation on 
                a consistent and regular basis;
                    (C) to immediately identify mechanisms through 
                which to fund local, community-based organizations that 
                are currently providing nonlethal assistance to the 
                Sudanese people in conflict-affected areas that 
                traditional implementing partners cannot reach, 
                including for the delivery of food, medical aid, and 
                shelter to individuals impacted by the war in Sudan; 
                and
                    (D) to review and update the atrocities 
                determination for Sudan every 180 days for 3 years from 
                enactment;
            (4) supports tribunals and international criminal 
        investigations to hold the RSF and allied militias accountable 
        for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide; and
            (5) calls on the Atrocity Prevention Task Force to conduct 
        a comprehensive review of its efforts to prevent, analyze, and 
        respond to atrocities in Sudan, in alignment with the 2022 
        United States Strategy to Anticipate, Prevent, and Respond to 
        Atrocities.
                                 <all>
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