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FULFILLING THE HUMANITARIAN IMPERATIVE:

ASSISTING VICTIMS OF ISIS VIOLENCE

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 FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

DECEMBER 9, 2015

Serial No. 114–172

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Gregory H. Stanton, Ph.D., president, Genocide Watch ....................................... 6

The Most Reverend Bishop Francis Kalabat, Chaldean Eparchy of St. Thomas 

the Apostle in America ........................................................................................ 13

Mr. Mirza Ismail, founder and chairman, Yezidi Human Rights OrganizationInternational ......................................................................................................... 21

Mr. Carl A. Anderson, supreme knight, Knights of Columbus ............................ 28

Mr. Noah Gottschalk, senior policy advisor for humanitarian response, Oxfam 

America ................................................................................................................. 48

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Gregory H. Stanton, Ph.D.: Prepared statement .................................................. 9

The Most Reverend Bishop Francis Kalabat: Prepared statement ..................... 16

Mr. Mirza Ismail: Prepared statement .................................................................. 25

Mr. Carl A. Anderson: Prepared statement ........................................................... 31

Mr. Noah Gottschalk: Prepared statement ............................................................ 51

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 70

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 71

The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on Africa, Global 

Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations: 

World Magazine article, ‘‘Christians Martyred by the Islamic State’’ ............. 72

Oxfam Briefing Note—Solidarity with Syrians ................................................. 77

(1)

FULFILLING THE HUMANITARIAN 

IMPERATIVE: ASSISTING VICTIMS OF 

ISIS VIOLENCE 

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2015

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 p.m., in room 

2255 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H. Smith 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. SMITH. The committee will come to order, and good afternoon 

to everybody. Thank you for being here. 

Each day, our newspapers, magazines, radios, and television 

screens are filled to overflowing with images of people fleeing territory controlled by the Islamic jihadist group known as ISIS. More 

than half of the 653,000 refugees, an estimated 53 percent in Europe, are from Syria alone according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. 

While violence plays the major part in the impetus of Syrians to 

leave their homes, Shelly Pitterman of the UNHCR testified at a 

hearing I chaired on October 20th that the main trigger for the 

flight for refugee camps or shelter in nations like Jordan is the humanitarian funding shortfall. In recent months, he told us, the 

World Food Programme cut its program by 30 percent, and the current Syrian Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan for 2015 is only 

41 percent funded. The UNHCR expects to receive just 47 percent 

of the funding it needs for Syria over the next year. 

One year ago this month, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of 

Humanitarian Affairs issued a report that detailed the worsening 

humanitarian situation in Syria. An estimated 12.21 million people 

were in need of humanitarian assistance including 7.6 million 

IDPs, or internally displaced people, and more than 5.6 million 

children in need of assistance. An estimated 4.8 million people 

were in need of humanitarian assistance in hard to reach areas 

and locations. Those numbers definitely have not improved as the 

conflict has continued and worsened. 

By the third International Pledging Conference on March 31, 

2015, the crisis had become the largest displacement crisis in the 

world with 3.8 million people having fled to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt in addition to those internally displaced. In 

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support of the Syria Response Plan and Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan, international donors pledged $3.68 billion in money. 

However, according to the Financial Tracking Service at the U.N. 

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, only $1.17 of 

the $2.89 billion has been received by December 7. That constitutes 

only about 41 percent of what was considered necessary by that 

agency. 

Today’s hearing will focus on the plight of persecuted minorities, 

religious minorities in Syria and in Iraq, which today constitutes 

genocide and the failure of much of the international community to 

live up to their pledges of humanitarian assistance, factors which 

push refugees to Europe and beyond. In particular, we will examine violence targeting religious minorities such as Christians and 

Yazidis in territory controlled by ISIS in both Syria and Iraq. 

This past September, the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention 

of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum undertook a ‘‘Bearing Witness Trip’’ to northern Iraq to investigate allegations of genocide being committed by ISIS. Their report is 

chilling: ‘‘Our Generation Is Gone: The Islamic State’s Targeting of 

Iraqi Minorities in Ninewa.’’; and in it they talk about severe deprivation, rape, sexual slavery, enslavement of many kinds, and murder, perpetrated in a widespread and systematic manner that indicates a deliberate plan to target religious and ethnic minorities. 

Mirza Ismail, chairman and founder of the Yezidi Human Rights 

Organization-International, will testify today that the Yazidis are 

on the verge of annihilation. Chaldean Bishop Francis Kalabat will 

testify that, ‘‘There are countless Christian villages in Syria who 

have been taken over by ISIS and have encountered genocide and 

the Obama administration refuses to recognize their plight.’’

Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, calls 

on the Obama administration to publicly acknowledge that genocide is taking place against the Christian communities of Iraq and 

Syria. Mr. Anderson will testify that ‘‘Vulnerable religious minorities fear taking shelter in the camps of the United Nations High 

Commissioner for Refugees because of religiously motivated violence and intimidation inside the camps.’’

Syrian Christians, he notes, and other vulnerable minorities are 

disproportionately excluded from the U.S.-Syrian refugee resettlement program due to reliance on a functionally discriminatory 

UNHCR program, so that is where the mistake is initially made 

and systematically Christians are excluded. 

Dr. Gregory Stanton, the president of Genocide Watch and research professor at George Mason University, in his testimony entitled, ‘‘Weak Words are Not Enough,’’ says State’s failure to call 

ISIS’ mass murder of Christians, Muslims, and other groups in addition to Yazidis, by its proper name ‘‘genocide’’ would be an act of 

denial as grave as U.S. refusal to recognize the Rwandan genocide 

in 1994. 

And I would note parenthetically that I was in Congress in 1994. 

I was at the U.N. Commission for Human Rights in Geneva and 

worked side by side with those in the administration at that time, 

and there were some who demanded that the Rwandan genocide be 

called what it was and there was refusal. The same thing happened 

in Bosnia and it happened elsewhere, and that terrible experience 

3

now replays itself over and over again and it is replaying now. Ethnic cleansing, what does that mean, as Dr. Stanton says in his testimony. 

The administration reportedly is considering declaring the ISIS 

mistreatment of Yazidis to be genocide. Frankly, that is good; I encourage that. But there is no indication that Christians will be included. That is absurd and unconscionable. Such an action would 

be contrary to the facts and tragically wrong. 

Last year the U.N. resolution determined about the Yazidis and 

Christians were being particularly targeted by ISIS. A group of 

Christian leaders last week wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry 

to present their case for treating Christians the same as Yazidis in 

this matter but they have not yet received the reply, and hopefully 

it will be a positive one. 

As we attempt to end the ISIS threat, we must consider how to 

help ensure religious pluralism in Syria and Iraq in the future, and 

that will not be an easy task since animosities have grown during 

the conflicts in Iraq and Syria exponentially during the rise and 

the reign of terror of ISIS. Nevertheless, unless we consider how 

to make these lands safe for religious minorities, we will continue 

to see them chased out of their traditional areas even if there is 

no ISIS. 

Our witnesses today will provide us a picture of the ongoing 

struggle, provide us hopefully with some recommendations that can 

be acted upon, being faced by these religious minorities, and hopefully they will help us to begin to make this issue more prominent 

and that the designation of a Christian genocide will be declared. 

I would again note parenthetically, several years ago I chaired a 

hearing, and I have had several since, on the plight of Christians. 

And we had a representative from the administration, who when 

instance after instance was detailed by the other witnesses he said 

over and over again—and I don’t want to embarrass him—but he 

said over and again, let me take that back and take a look at that, 

as if there was a lack of awareness about the gravity of people 

being beheaded and told you either change your religion on the 

spot here or you will be slaughtered. 

In like manner, we had a witness that I met in an IDP camp in 

Jos, Nigeria. That man actually had a Boko Haram terrorist put 

an AK–47 to his cheek, on the ground, and said, you renounce your 

faith as a Christian or I am going to blow your brains out. He said, 

I am ready to meet my Lord. His wife was pleading and sobbing. 

He pulled the trigger; the Boko Haram terrorist blew half his face 

away. When he testified, you could have heard a pin drop here, he 

had nothing but love and compassion for his oppressor, and yet and 

he was the one, and thank God he survived, to tell that story. 

We need to first recognize what is actually going on, call it what 

it is. We didn’t do it in Rwanda, we haven’t done it in other places, 

and do it now. 

Ms. Bass. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you, Mr. Chair, always, for your leadership on 

these issues. And as you mention the plight of Christians both men 

and women, I did want to focus for a bit on the situation faced by 

women. We read, see, and so much hear about the unspeakable indignities, persecutions, faced daily in the region by women. I would 

4

be remiss if I didn’t raise the situation, especially in war-torn Syria 

and destabilized pockets in the immediate region, and I commend 

the efforts of the U.N. Population Fund to address the needs of this 

critical minority. Thousands of women live in fear every day and 

night. I am talking about the everyday indignities faced by mothers 

unsure of how they will feed their children on any given day, or 

a new mother facing hard choices on how to best ensure her infant 

child and her other children stay in an unsafe battle zone that they 

know or risk the unknown by moving to another safer region. 

These are just some of the real stories I have read and heard from 

the U.N. Population Fund about their critical work in Syria and 

the region addressing the needs of women and girls in the region, 

whether they be from a religious and/or cultural minority or from 

the majority Muslim population. 

I am proud to say that the U.S. supports the work of the U.N. 

in both Syria and the region, women such as an unnamed

26-year-old woman who was kidnapped, sold, and sexually 

abused for 9 months in northern Iraq who escaped and found 

shelter at one of the internally displaced camps. She was severely hurt physically, emotionally and mentally. She spent 

her first days in the camp depressed and helpless before she 

learned about the U.N. Population Fund supported women at 

the women’s support center through outreach mobilizers. 

The social workers at the women’s support center immediately offered counseling and healing sessions. Her condition 

improved noticeably, and eventually she was enrolled in training to upgrade her skills in sewing. She not only completed the 

courses successfully, but also was promoted to become a trainer. She is now leading classes for other women and girls, including survivors. 

(The U.N. Population Fund Regional Situation Report for 

Syria Crisis.)

For the last month alone they delivered 298,000 services to Syrians affected by the conflict. So although we don’t have women on 

the panel today, I am hoping that the representatives here will include the plight of women in their testimony. Thank you very 

much, and I yield back. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. I yield to Dana Rohrabacher, 

chairman of the Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats Subcommittee. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, 

and your ranking member, for this hearing today. American people 

need to understand the magnitude of the crime that is going on 

today in the Middle East and is spreading in different parts of the 

world. We felt it in San Bernardino in my state just a few days ago. 

There is slaughter of innocent people, and in this slaughter there 

seems to be not just random or not just a rage that is being experienced at a moment where someone kills someone else, but it is a 

well thought-out effort to terrorize the world. And we need the good 

people of the world of every faith, Muslims, Christians, Jews, and 

Hindus and the rest, the good people of the world need to stand 

together on this. 

5

And I have a piece of legislation that is aimed specifically at 

those people who have been targeted for genocide and publicly targeted, meaning the Christians and the Yazidis have been actually 

singled-out for being eliminated from the planet. And my bill would 

just say that—it is H.R. 4017—that if Christians and Yazidis are 

trying to come to the United States through the regular refugee 

and immigration procedures, we should recognize just like we 

should have recognized that the Jews were a special case in 1939, 

instead of sending them back saying you are not going to get any 

special treatment from us, what we need to give those people who 

actually are targeted for genocide, as has been announced, a special, basically a priority status of those who are trying to come to 

the United States. But the American people need to know what is 

going on. The people of the world need to know. The United States 

also can’t carry this. 

One last idea, and I will be interested to hear the points of view 

of our colleagues today and our people who have come here to give 

us testimony, and that is the United States, yes, what about other, 

what about recommending that other people start bringing in 

Christian and Yazidis refugees? For example, Russia has introduced a very powerful weapon systems to that region, and if they 

could do that I would call on the people of Russia and the Government of Russia to bring in Christian refugees from Syria and elsewhere where Christians are being murdered for their faith. Let’s 

see not only military action, but let’s see some humanitarian action 

on the part of Mr. Putin’s Russia. 

So with that said, I am looking forward to the testimony. 

Mr. SMITH. Chairman Rohrabacher, thank you very much. I 

would like to introduce our distinguished panel, beginning first 

with Dr. Gregory Stanton who is the president of Genocide Watch 

and the research professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention at 

the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution of George Mason 

University in Virginia. 

Dr. Stanton founded Genocide Watch in 1999, was the founder 

and director of the Cambodian Genocide Project, and is founder 

and chair of the International Campaign to End Genocide, the 

world’s first anti-genocide coalition. From 2007 to 2009, he was 

president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. 

Dr. Stanton previously served in the U.S. Department of State 

where he drafted the U.N. Security Council’s resolutions that created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Burundi 

Commission of Inquiry, and the Central African Arms Flow Commission. 

We will then hear from Bishop Francis Kalabat, who heads the 

Chaldean Eparchy of Saint Thomas the Apostle in Detroit. It is 

made up of 12 parishes serving a Chaldean Catholic population of 

approximately 200,000 people. There are a large number of diaspora Iraqi Christians who stay in touch with and support the 

Chaldean Church in Iraq proper, and more than half of those remaining of approximately 250,000 faithful have sought refuge from 

the ravages of ISIS in Kurdish Iraq, home of the Chaldean Archdiocese of Erbil, the Kurdish capital. 

We will then hear from Mr. Mirza Ismail who is chairman of the 

Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International in Ontario, CanVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:07 Jul 28, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\120915\97859 SHIRL
6

ada, which he founded in 2009 to protect the rights of the Yazidi 

people worldwide. This organization has worked with the Government of Canada to attain refugee status for Iraqi Yazidis there. 

Prior to founding that organization he was chairman and co-founder of London Yezidis Community-Canada. He has written and 

given interviews extensively on the plight of the Yazidis in Iraq. He 

is from Iraq himself, but now lives in the United States. 

We will then hear from Carl Anderson who is the supreme 

knight of the Knights of Columbus where he is chief executive officer and chairman of the board of the world’s largest Catholic, family, fraternal service organization which has over 1.9 million members. 

Mr. Anderson has had a distinguished career as a public servant 

and educator. He has worked in various positions of the Executive 

Office of the President of the United States including special assistant to the President and acting director of the White House Office 

of Public Liaison. He worked on the Senate side as a key staffer 

there, and also as a member for nearly a decade for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. 

And then we will hear from Mr. Noah Gottschalk who is the senior policy advisor for humanitarian response at Oxfam America 

where he focuses on Syria, Iraq, Sudan, South Sudan, and the 

Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as border conflict and 

human rights issues. He has more than a decade of experience 

working with children, families and communities affected by conflict in these countries and elsewhere in the Middle East and in Africa. He specializes in gender issues and forced displacement and 

in the return and reintegration of refugees and internally displaced 

persons. He serves, he traveled on Oxfam Syria policy lead in mid2013 and travels regularly to Jordan and to Lebanon as part of 

Oxfam’s work with refugees from Syria and host communities. 

Dr. Stanton, the floor is yours. 

STATEMENT OF GREGORY H. STANTON, PH.D., PRESIDENT, 

GENOCIDE WATCH 

Mr. STANTON. Chairman Smith, Ms. Bass, and Mr. Rohrabacher, 

who Jack Wheeler introduced me to at a party many, many years 

ago, it is an honor to testify before this subcommittee that has always been a champion of U.S. leadership in global human rights. 

Soon the State Department is likely to recognize the Yazidi genocide, based not only on an excellent U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum report but also on the many news reports that show ISIS as 

unquestionably committing genocide against the Yazidis. But also 

the State Department is debating whether to also state that ISIS 

is committing genocide against Christians, Shia Muslims, Sabian 

Mandaeans, Turkoman Kakai, and other religious groups. 

Genocide Watch said in 2014 that ISIS is committing genocide 

against all these groups and warned many policymakers about 

that. Since then, thousands more Yazidis, Christians, Shia Muslims and others have been murdered. Such acts of genocide are 

strong proof of ISIS’ intent to destroy in whole or in part these religious and ethnic groups. 

Why is it important to use the word ‘‘genocide’’? Some people say, 

well, we can just call them crimes against humanity, and after all 

7

the penalties are the same in the International Criminal Court, 

pretty much, so what difference does it make? Well, some epidemiologists and I actually did a study of this in 2007. We counted 

up the number of times the words ‘‘genocide’’ and ‘‘ethnic cleansing,’’ which was at that time very popular, were used in four genocides—in the case of Rwanda, in the case of Bosnia, the case of 

Kosovo, and then of Darfur. 

What we discovered in every single case is as long as it was 

called ethnic cleansing no action was taken. When genocide became 

the word that described the crime then action would be taken. And 

in fact, in the report that I have submitted to you I have actually 

got the dates exact about when the term ‘‘genocide’’ began to be 

used and when our action began. And it is striking what a difference that word makes. 

Now the reason why it is so powerful is, and that is why Raphael 

Lemkin invented the word, is that genocide actually means the destruction of a people of a nation, of a whole group of people. And 

it may not be the whole group, it can be a part of the group; that 

is often forgotten. But it therefore impoverishes the entire human 

race. It is not just a crime like some of the other crimes of humanity, this is a crime against the entire future of the human race 

when you try to eliminate a people. 

Now fortunately in this case the U.S. is already taking forceful 

action to defeat ISIS, as we should, and I only want to just make 

an argument that we have adequate proof already of the intent to 

commit genocide by ISIS against Christians and against Shia Muslims. The evidence of ISIS genocide against Christians is put into 

question in the Holocaust Museum’s report by the fact that they 

fell through, they accepted the ISIS propaganda that Christians 

can pay a jizya tax and thereby be spared from being killed. 

Well, it is an ISIS lie. The truth is the ISIS tax is so high that 

few can pay it and so they are beheaded, or even more likely crucified, if they will not renounce their faith in Jesus Christ and convert to Islam. So I would argue very strongly that all of these 

groups already have plenty of evidence of the intent to destroy 

their group in part, and they should be included in the finding of 

the State Department. 

There are two especially important reasons why the State Department should declare that these groups are targets of genocide. 

First of all, as Congressman Rohrabacher has suggested, the term 

‘‘genocide’’ makes members of such groups much more likely to receive the preferential treatment as bona fide refugees that they 

should receive under the U.N. Convention and Protocols on the 

Status of Refugees to which the U.S. is a state party, and also 

under the refugee laws of the United States. It will be a huge help 

to Christians to be able to be recognized as people having a wellfounded fear of persecution on the basis of their religious faith. 

And the second reason is that the word ‘‘genocide’’ more strongly 

justifies our broad coalition for military support for Kurdish and 

Iraqi forces to defeat ISIS and, would you believe it, in this case 

also to even join with another country that would defend Christians, as Congressman Rohrabacher has suggested, namely Russia. 

It justifies also our arming and training militias of these targeted 

8

groups for self-defense, which is always the best defense against 

genocide. 

So we commend the congresspeople who have introduced H. Con. 

Res. 75 which declares that genocide is being committed against 

these groups. We commend the congresspeople who have introduced H. Res. 447 that is specifically aimed at the plight of women 

that Congresswoman Bass has particularly pointed out because 

women are treated as sex slaves by the ISIS group; it is a whole 

system of sex slavery. And we also commend Congressman Rohrabacher for his bill, H.R. 4017. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stanton follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Dr. Stanton, thank you very much. 

Bishop? 

STATEMENT OF THE MOST REVEREND BISHOP FRANCIS 

KALABAT, CHALDEAN EPARCHY OF ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE IN AMERICA 

Bishop KALABAT. I would like to take this opportunity to thank 

Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Bass as well as the other 

distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you very much 

for having us here before you today. This hearing couldn’t come at 

a more critical time as it elevates the responsibility to protect the 

most vulnerable ethno-religious populations in Iraq and in Syria. 

I would like to mention, when I mention Christians, it will include Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syriac-based Christians who to this 

day still speak the Aramaic language, the language of Jesus Christ, 

and uphold an ancient culture and identity. This as we speak is 

under threat of extinction in that region. Iraq and Syria’s Christians are part of the original inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia, 

the cradle of civilization, who played a crucial role in the advancement of the sciences and philosophies of the region and even had 

a great influence on the West. 

Since the fall of Mosul in early June 2014, Christians have endured targeted persecution in the form of forced displacement, sexual violence, other human rights violations. All 45 churches and 

monasteries around Mosul fell to the hands of ISIS, which subsequently removed the buildings’ crosses, burned, looted, and destroyed much of these properties. By late July, the last of the 

Christians in Mosul escaped the city following an edict issued by 

ISIS offering minorities the option to either convert to Islam, pay 

a tax, flee, or be killed leading to a modern-day genocide. 

Before Iraq, ISIS had committed horrible genocidal atrocities 

against the Christians in Syria. Although I represent and will 

speak about the Christians, ISIS has committed horrific atrocities 

against the Yazidis of which my fellow brother sitting next to me 

will be talking in more detail about, and other sects including Muslims themselves. But I am here to represent the Christians. 

It is important to recognize that the atrocities in Iraq began as 

early as 2005. This preceded ISIS. Christians and other minorities 

in Iraq have experienced their own slow and perpetual genocide. I 

wish to note that the Obama administration, including President 

Obama himself, have neglected to mention that the ISIS atrocities 

were committed against Christians. Time and time again they 

rightly mention atrocities committed in Iraq against the Yazidis, 

absolutely, and they are horrific, but there are also atrocities of 

rape and killings and crucifixions of Christians, beheadings, hangings that the Syrian and Iraqi Christians have endured and they 

are intentionally omitted. I hate to say this, but this they do to 

their own shame. 

There are more than 150,000 Iraqi Christians who are now displaced in northern Iraq or are refugees in other countries, such as 

approximately 35,000 refugees in Jordan, 60,000 refugees in Lebanon, 30,000 in Turkey, who are being victimized—and I hate to 

say this—by the Obama administration in not recognizing their 

suffering. There are countless Christian villages in Syria who have 

14

been taken over by ISIS and have encountered genocide, and the 

Obama administration again refuses to recognize their plight. And 

again I say, shame on you. 

Speaking of these refugees, I do want to take the opportunity to 

recognize Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. They have been overwhelmed by these refugees and yet they have never closed their 

doors. And not only the Christian refugees, the Muslim refugees, 

the Yazidi refugees, all other minorities as well, they have never 

closed their doors. And especially I want to recognize Turkey went 

out of their way to grant them free medical needs, free education, 

countless other opportunities by an act of Parliament—that is huge 

on the country—to all Iraqi refugees. 

But this also brings me to a very sensitive issue. Should these 

refugees be brought to the United States, and if so should we differentiate between Muslim, Christian or Yazidi refugees? In my 

mind it shouldn’t be an issue because the other Middle Eastern 

countries should have stepped up as well. Why is it only the West 

other than the three countries that I mentioned? 

Here is my point. Where is the best place for a Muslim Syrian 

refugee to settle, Kuwait or Germany? Saudi Arabia or Canada? 

Qatar or America? My point, it is much easier for an Arab refugee 

to start over in a country where the language is the same, culture 

is similar and the official religion of that country is the same. Of 

course there is always that identifying differentiation between the 

Sunni and the Shiite. 

Where is the best place for a Yazidi or a Christian refugee? What 

ISIS was able to do is the Christian does not feel safe, neither does 

the Yazidi in his own country. Targeting of the Christian for rape, 

loss of property, killings, et cetera, as well as the Yazidi, has 

caused a loss of trust. Christians have not been part of any terrorist activity, but instead of have been the targets of terrorist activities. And now they are being looked at as possible terrorists 

when they are also lumped and they are told that you can’t come 

to any of these, at least to the United States. This is simply unfair 

on top of everything that they have gone through. Go back. 

But shouldn’t it be the same for a Muslim anywhere in the Middle East? I ask, where is Kuwait in all of this? Where is Saudi Arabia? Where is Qatar? Where is Bahrain? Arabs pride themselves on 

what is called ‘‘Arab Hospitality,’’ which includes the proper treatment of those who are needy. What happened to welcoming them 

as guests and sharing with them their needs? The Muslim faith is 

very clear about this as well. Where are they? I speak this to their 

shame as well. 

Does this mean that no Muslim Syrian or Iraqi refugee should 

enter a Western country? No, absolutely not. I don’t, not at all. I 

merely am saying that it would be a much easier task, and I believe many if given the opportunity would prefer to remain in a 

safe Middle Eastern country than go to Sweden and feel lost. Do 

I say all? No. But today it is not even an option, and again I say 

to their shame, who have lost their Arab dignity and Muslim faith, 

the reason is these refugees are seen as surplus, undignified, excess trash. They don’t want them in their countries. 

Possible solutions. First, the U.S. Government needs to continue 

to work with the United Nations and other churches, charities, priVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:07 Jul 28, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\120915\97859 SHIRL
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vate corporations. We need to find aid. The numbers that were 

mentioned by Chairman Chris Smith are just beyond understanding especially in places like Syria. The basic needs of these 

human beings are not being met. Secondly, the U.S. Government 

should not turn a blind eye to the genocidal atrocities. Proclaim it 

for what it is. If it is not, then it is not. If it is, then it is. Truth 

will set you free, a famous man once said. Autonomous regions for 

Christians is a third possibility. They need safety. If we want them 

to live in safety we need to provide it for them. Short of a genuine 

solution, Christians and other ethno-religious minorities of Nineveh 

will become extinct. Thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Bishop Kalabat follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Bishop, thank you so very much for your very powerful words, your recommendations, and then your bottom line, extinction. This is an existential threat if ever there was one and you 

have made your case very powerfully. 

Mr. Ismail, the floor is yours, and I understand you do have 

some photographs you would like to show. And I would say with 

all respect to this reality, just like the Holocaust and so many other 

atrocities committed by mankind over the centuries, I think it is 

important that people see what we are actually talking about. So 

if somebody might be offended, please don’t look at the monitor. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Chairman, we only have about 10 minutes, or less than 10 minutes for the vote. I would certainly like 

to hear the testimony and see the pictures. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay, then I think my friend and colleague makes a 

very good point. Rather than rush, we stand in a brief recess. 

There are two votes. Hopefully within about 15 or 20 minutes we 

will be back. But thank you for your patience. We stand in recess. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. SMITH. The subcommittee will resume its sitting, and we 

have been joined by two distinguished members. Dr. DesJarlais, 

who is a member of our subcommittee, and any comments that he 

might want to make or wait until—and Trent Franks who actually 

is the head of the Religious Freedom Caucus here in the House of 

Representatives and has spoken out unceasingly about the slaughter of Christians in Syria and Iraq. Doctor? Okay, or Trent? 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, first of all, I want to thank Chris Smith. I 

think that he is the most persistent and committed voice for 

human rights in the United States Congress. And for all the people 

here on the dais here, and I especially want to appreciate those 

people who have come here to give voice to those who can’t be here 

and to those who are either no longer a part of the human family 

because their lives have been taken from them or because they just 

don’t have the opportunity to speak to the world like all of you do. 

And I think it is noble, I think it is seen by God himself, and 

I think that only eternity will discover your impact or your reward 

for what you do. I know that it is as much a part of the American 

ideal as anything, this notion that all human beings bear the 

‘‘Imago Dei,’’ the Image of God, and therefore their creation and 

their being part of God’s plan for this world holds them up to such 

a value that it is beyond any of us to articulate that. 

But I am also so broken that sometimes those of us that live in 

this thing called human family miss that. And there are those that 

find themselves in the shadows of the world and of the human experience and never have the opportunity to really be seen for who 

they are. And I take great comfort in the notion that God sees each 

one of them, and if time turns every star in heaven to ashes that 

eternal moment of his deliverance will finally come to each one of 

them whether they were delivered here on this earth or not. But 

I am grateful that you folks are here today. 

I think that there are two relevant suggestions that are at least 

part of my contribution to this effort, and number one is that when 

we see malevolence and evil desecrate the innocent it is incumbent 

upon those of us who are part of the arsenal of freedom to respond 

and to make sure that it doesn’t happen. And to make sure that 

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those who do desecrate the innocent realize that they do so at great 

risk to themselves and they can never consider themselves with impunity to this country’s commitment to protecting the innocent. 

And I feel like that in the case of Iraq and ISIS that that responsibility was unconscionably failed and fell so short of what it should 

have been, even though that there were a lot of voices trying to express the need to respond to this evil before it was able to manifest 

as it most certainly did. 

And then the second thing, when these things do happen that I 

believe the people of the free world have a strong responsibility to 

make it clear to the world that these innocents did not die in vain 

nor did they suffer in vain nor were they tortured in vain. In other 

words that we in this part of the world will respond and we will 

hold those not only accountable, but we will hold them up to the 

world in disdain those that would have desecrated the innocent like 

they did. 

And it is important that we don’t leave anyone out. Certainly the 

Yazidis, I met a number of Yazidis. We had press conferences doing 

everything we could to bring attention to their plight, and we need 

to hold that up in the strongest possible way. These are a peaceful 

people that just desire to live in the light of freedom and try to see 

their children grow and to lay hold on the miracle of life. It is a 

very fundamentally reasonable request that they make. 

And of course, Mr. Chairman, it is important that we don’t leave 

out any of the religious groups, whether they are Christian, Yazidi, 

Muslim, whatever they are that they are part of the human family 

and that they should be looked upon as a brother and a sister and 

as a fellow child of God. And that means that we should not only 

stand and do everything we can to protect all of them, but we 

should do everything that we can to point out the fate of them. 

And when we make resolutions calling for assigning genocide it 

should include all of those that were victims and I say that with 

the greatest deference and the greatest respect for every last one 

of them, even those that were especially singled out for some reason than the other. Those things can be articulated in those resolutions, but we should not leave anyone out, because to do so is to 

invite that same group to be attacked again. 

And again I have no words, Mr. Chairman, to express how deeply 

I wish that we could have responded better and how I wish there 

weren’t evil impulses in the world like ISIS. But I will tell you this, 

truth and time travel on the same road. And the truth is that ISIS 

is evil and they will meet an appropriate end, and those that were 

their victims will find themselves at great advantage in the councils of eternity. 

So with that God bless you all and thank you for coming, and 

I again can’t express the level of honor and just goodwill that is 

in my heart toward each one of you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Franks, thank you very much. I would like to 

now recognize Mr. Ismail. The floor is yours. 

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STATEMENT OF MR. MIRZA ISMAIL, FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN, YEZIDI HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION–INTERNATIONAL 

Mr. ISMAIL. Dear ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chairman, Mr. 

Smith, committee members, I am honored to be here. Thank you 

for this opportunity to speak at this hearing on genocide by ISIS 

and the refugee crisis. I also want to thank the Holocaust Memorial Museum for its recent report asserting that the Yazidis are indeed the victims of genocide. The Chaldo-Assyrian Christians 

should have been included in this report. Our loss may not be the 

same, but the ISIS brutal action against both of us are the same. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I am here today to speak of preventing 

the annihilation by ISIS of my people, the Yazidis, and of the 

Chaldo-Assyrian Christians, Mandaeans, in Iraq and Syria. We 

Yazidis are desperate for your immediate help and support. During 

our 6,000-year history, the Yazidis have faced 74 genocides in the 

Middle East including the ongoing genocide. Why? Simply because 

we are not Muslims. We are an ancient and proud people from the 

heart of Mesopotamia, the birthplace of civilization and the birthplace of many of the world’s religions, and here we are today, in 

2015, on the verge of annihilation. 

In response to our suffering around the world there is profound, 

obscene silence. We Yazidis are considered infidels in the eyes of 

Muslims, and so they are encouraged to kill, rape, enslave, and 

convert us. On August 2, 2014, on the eve of ISIS’ attack on the 

Yazidis in Sinjar region, more than 10,000 of the local authority 

forces were present in Sinjar region, allegedly there to protect the 

Yazidis. In the early hours of the evening, the Yazidis tried desperately to flee for their lives to Mount Sinjar, but the local militia 

would not allow it. 

At about 10:00 p.m., these same local forces who had promised 

to defend us, began to withdraw from the Yazidi villages of the 

southern side of the Sinjar mountain, without notifying the 

Yazidis. They escaped back to the KRG region. The Yazidi men 

begged the local forces for weapons and ammunition so that we 

could defend ourselves from ISIS, but they refused. They would not 

spare even one weapon, not one round of ammo to the Yazidi men, 

women, and children whom they, the local militia, had trapped in 

what was a waiting room for the death and carnage at the hands 

of ISIS. And several Yazidis who begged and pleaded for weapons 

to save themselves and their people were killed like dogs by the 

Peshmergas. 

And so, God help us, on August 3, at around 2:00 a.m. ISIS entered Sinjar region; the stage was set for the massacre of our people, for we possessed only very basic weapons such as AK–47 rifles. 

The Yazidi women, children, and elderly, and empty-handed adults 

with no means of self-defense at all, tried to escape the barbarians 

and flee to Mount Sinjar. It didn’t take long, only 4 or 5 hours, for 

the poorly armed Yazidi fighters to run out of ammunition and the 

region was overun with death and ISIS took over Sinjar region. 

With no means of defense, of course the carnage was immense. 

Thousands of men were killed on the spot including the beheading 

of hundreds. The U.N. estimates that 5,000 Yazidis were murdered 

and thousands of women and children taken hostage. 

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Then on August 6, 2014, ISIS attacked the Yazidis and the 

Chaldo-Assyrians Christians in the Nineveh Plain. The resulting 

genocide took the lives of thousands of Yazidis and Chaldo-Assyrian and Shia minority. ISIS has wiped from existence one of the 

most culturally diverse areas across the Middle East. Today, hundreds of thousands who are still alive, have taken refuge in IDP 

camps across the Iraqi region and Shia in the southern Iraq. They 

urgently require your help. 

There are thousands of young Yazidi women, girls, and even children, who as I speak, have been enslaved and forced into sexual 

slavery. These girls are subjected to daily multiple rapes by ISIS 

monsters. According to many escaped women and girls whom I 

talked to in northern Iraq, the abducted Yazidis, mostly women 

and children, number over 7,000. Some of those women and girls 

have had to watch 7-, 8-, and 9-year-old children bleed to death before their eyes after being raped by ISIS militia multiple times a 

day. I met mothers whose children were torn from them by ISIS. 

These same mothers came to plead for the return of their children, 

only to be informed that they, the mothers, had been fed the flesh 

of their own children by ISIS. Children murdered, then fed to their 

own mothers. ISIS militia have burned many of them alive for refusing to convert and marry ISIS men. 

Young Yazidi boys are being trained to be jihadists and suicide 

bombers. All of our temples in the ISIS controlled area are exploded and destroyed. The entire Yazidi population was displaced 

in less than 1 day on August 3, 2014 in Sinjar. The Yazidis and 

Chaldo-Assyrians Christian face this genocide together. Why? 

Again, because we are not Muslims and because our path is the 

path of peace. For this we are being burned alive, for living as men 

and women of peace. 

What I have just recounted to you is what has happened to the 

Yazidis, Chaldo-Assyrians, Sabians, in Sinjar and Nineveh Plain, 

and other minorities; nothing less than genocide, according to the 

U.N. definition of genocide. 

On IDPs and refugee crisis in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, humanitarian aid, while necessary, is not sufficient. Much humanitarian 

aid distributed by the Kurdish regional authorities and the Iraqi 

Government never gets into the hands of those who need it, those 

for whom it was intended, due to skimming, corruption, and politics. Some outside observers say that as much 90 percent of the humanitarian assistance meant for Yazidis and other minorities has 

never reached their hands. 

There are more than 30,000 Yazidi refugees currently languishing in Turkey and Syria. At the top of the threatened and 

persecuted list are the Yazidis, then come the Chaldo-Assyrian 

Christians. Five thousand Yazidis were murdered by ISIS in August 2014 and 7,000 were enslaved, mostly young women and children. Thousands fled to camps where they are abused by the Muslim authorities in charge, denied food and medicine because they 

are not their own political parties. Or they cannot get into refugee 

camps at all; consequently, they are not certified as refugees since 

one cannot get refugee status without being certified and the Muslims who dominate the camps do not want them there. 

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The same holds true for the Chaldo-Assyrian Christians who 

have repeatedly been forced to renounce their religion or die. Enslavement, rape, hundreds of their churches have been desecrated 

and destroyed. If humanitarianism is the chief reason being cited 

in accepting refugees, the Yazidis, Chaldo-Assyrian Christians, 

Mandaeans and other minorities should receive priority simply because they are among the most persecuted in the Middle East and 

the ones who have nowhere else to go. 

Perhaps the worst camps for the Yazidi refugees in Turkey are 

those that border with Syria, because of the fighting between the 

PKK and the Turkish Government. The Yazidis worry about the 

Russian plane recently downed by Turkey. In the event of war between the two countries, Yazidi refugees are afraid of being used 

as human shields. Because of the unsafe situation, hundreds of 

these Yazidis are fleeing for Europe. They are seeking safety and 

a peaceful life and yet hundreds of these refugees have lost their 

lives on the journey, whether in the freezer of truck trailers, or by 

drowning in their tube boats in the sea between Turkey and 

Greece. Others die of starvation and dehydration attempting to 

reach safety by foot. In all cases, their desperation is the cause of 

death. 

I am now pleading with each and every one of you in the name 

of humanity to lend us your help and support at this crucial time, 

to save the indigenous and peaceful people of the Middle East—the 

Yazidis, the Chaldo-Assyrian Christians, the Mandaeans, and other 

minorities. 

Recognize the Yazidi and Chaldo-Assyrian Christian genocide 

and provide international protection so we can live as God created 

us. Concerned nations including the U.S., Canada, UK, NATO, and 

EU member states and the United Nations should make a concerted effort to liberate the ISIS detention centers. As mentioned, 

we estimate at least 4,000 are currently held, young Yazidi women 

and children, by ISIS. 

We ask the United Nations, the U.S., Canada, UK, and NATO, 

and other members of the international community, to intervene 

with the Iraqi Government in supporting the creation of an autonomous region for the Yazidi, Chaldo-Assyrians and other minorities 

in Sinjar region and Nineveh Plain, under the protection of international forces and directly tied to Baghdad’s central government. 

This right is guaranteed under the Iraqi constitution, Article 125, 

but it needs implementation. This is the only way we can survive 

in the Middle East. 

We ask the U.S. and all sympathetic governments around the 

world to develop refugee policies that can work quickly and effectively to provide new homes for the needy refugees, for the Yazidis, 

for the Chaldo-Assyrian Christian and other minorities who urgently need new beginnings, especially the abducted ones who were 

able to escape from ISIS, far away from the carnage we witnessed. 

Germany has agreed to accept 1,000 Yazidi refugees who were 

abducted by ISIS and about 700 have arrived already. I hope that 

the U.S. can do the same, and provide social-psycho help to the innocent. Humanitarian aid must be sent immediately to those internally displaced persons in northern Iraq. There is an imminent 

threat of starvation, dehydration, and diseases especially for the 

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Yazidis in Mount Sinjar. As much as possible this assistance 

should come from neutral, non-governmental sources to mitigate 

the diversion of food and water. 

Thank you so much for listening and for the very careful consideration going forward. We beseech you with the greatest urgency, 

to help save the remnants of our nation, of the Chaldo-Assyrians, 

of Mandaeans, and other minorities. Only with your help, after we 

have experienced so much death and suffering, is there a possibility of a peaceful life going forward for our people. Thank you so 

much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ismail follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Thank you so very much for that very powerful testimony. We are joined by Mark Meadows, vice chairman of the committee. 

We will go to Mr. Anderson now. 

STATEMENT OF MR. CARL A. ANDERSON, SUPREME KNIGHT, 

KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS 

Mr. ANDERSON. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for this 

hearing, and thank you for the opportunity to appear before the 

subcommittee to discuss the Knights of Columbus’ humanitarian 

aid programs. 

Over the past year our programs have helped to feed, heal, shelter and educate many thousands of desperate Christians in churchrun camps or other private places of refuge in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. We have established a donation and news web 

portal titled ChristiansAtRisk.org, and have to date donated over 

$5 million in direct aid to Christians and other persecuted minorities in the region. And we have partnered with other organizations 

such as Catholic Relief Services, Aid to the Church in Need, 

Caritas, and local dioceses in Iraq and Syria. 

Our assistance has taken many forms in terms of food, shelter, 

education, and medical assistance. At times we have been required 

to give exceptional care. For example, just several weeks ago we 

helped Katreena, a very sick 15-year-old Iraqi girl, by organizing 

her airlift from a displaced persons camp in Erbil. Her life was 

saved when she was brought to a New England hospital for treatment for numerous issues for which she could not adequately be 

treated in Iraq. 

We also are funding the work of a medical clinic in the Kurdistan 

region, which is the first point of contact for many Yazidi women 

who are escaping from conditions of sexual slavery there. Through 

this humanitarian work in the Middle East we have made three 

basic observations and four recommendations bearing on U.S. 

human rights and refugee policy that I would like to focus on in 

my testimony today. In the interest of time I will just briefly summarize them. 

The Christian communities of Iraq and Syria, along with those 

of other vulnerable religious minorities, are suffering genocide that 

continues to the present time. We recommend therefore that the 

Congress swiftly adopt H. Con. Res. 75, which names and decries 

the ongoing genocide against Christians and other vulnerable minorities in Iraq and Syria. Further, we recommend that the United 

States State Department publicly acknowledge that genocide is 

taking place against the Christian communities of Iraq and Syria, 

including in its reportedly impending statement on genocide that 

according to reports refers properly, but only to Nineveh’s Yazidi 

community. 

The United States is rightly viewed, Mr. Chairman, as the 

world’s leading defender of vulnerable minorities, and it is critically 

important that our State Department consider the best available 

evidence before issuing a statement that would exclude Christians. 

An official government declaration of genocide is an opportunity to 

bring America’s religious communities together to pursue the truth, 

29

to support victims, and to bear witness to the noble principle of 

‘‘never again.’’

Last week, the Knights of Columbus sent an urgent letter to Secretary of State John Kerry asking for an opportunity to brief him 

about this genocide. This letter was signed by Cardinal Donald 

Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington, and more than two dozen 

other religious leaders and scholars from across the political spectrum and from diverse Orthodox, Protestant, Mormon, as well as 

Catholic faith traditions. A copy of the letter is submitted with my 

testimony as an addendum. 

Third, the Christian communities of Iraq and Syria, along with 

those other vulnerable religious minorities, fear taking shelter in 

the camps of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 

because of religiously motivated violence and intimidation that occurs inside the camps. We recommend therefore that the United 

States insists on proper security inside the camps and that it identifies ways to ensure that Christians and other vulnerable minorities from Iraq and Syria are not subject to violence inside the 

UNHCR facilities, including the possibility of providing separate facilities for minorities and hiring professional staff that would include members of the minority communities. 

The U.S. should require the UNHCR to gather and make public 

along with its other data the religious affiliation of all the refugees 

it serves. To ignore reports of humanitarian problems without 

prompt investigation and corrective action is itself an injustice. We 

have had aid organizations at the camps in Jordan, for example, 

Zaatari and Azraq, where there are 100,000 Syrian refugees and 

they are unable to find a single Christian in those camps. 

Our fourth recommendation: Syrian Christians and other vulnerable minorities are disproportionately excluded from the U.S.-Syrian refugee resettlement program due to a reliance on what has become a functionally discriminatory UNHCR program. So we recommend that the U.S. Government take immediate action to implement its stated policy of prioritizing the resettlement of vulnerable 

minorities including Christians. In addition, we recommend that 

the U.S. Government end its sole reliance on the UNHCR for refugee referrals and engage private contractors to identify, document 

and refer Christian, Yazidi, and other vulnerable minority refugees 

from Syria and Iraq who are in need of resettlement. 

In conclusion, permit me to observe that the near complete dependency of these refugees on our help and that of other private 

charities to meet their essential needs will continue for the foreseeable future. Therefore, the policy recommendations we have mentioned just now are urgently necessary. And it should be noted obviously that the Christian communities and other vulnerable minorities have not taken up arms on any side of the violence. They 

have been peaceful. 

Finally, let me just mention again Pope Francis has been in the 

forefront in calling attention to this ongoing crisis, especially during his visit to the United States. He has said what is happening 

to these Christians and other religious minorities is ‘‘a form of 

genocide and it must end.’’ And finally, if you permit me one final 

request in closing, I would ask you to consider special funding to 

investigate and obtain documentation and evidence of the crime of 

30

genocide that is occurring in Syria and Iraq. We need to investigate 

and preserve that evidence now before it disappears if we are going 

to move forward seriously on the issue of genocide in this region. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Anderson follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Anderson. 

And our final, Mr. Gottschalk. 

STATEMENT OF MR. NOAH GOTTSCHALK, SENIOR POLICY 

ADVISOR FOR HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE, OXFAM AMERICA 

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking 

Member Bass and members of the subcommittee. It is an honor to 

be here today to testify on the humanitarian situation in Syria and 

Iraq and on what we can do to better assist victims of the ongoing 

conflict in both countries. 

My testimony is drawn from several months spent over the last 

few years speaking to civilians caught up in these conflicts as well 

as from the ongoing work of my Oxfam colleagues in Syria, Iraq, 

Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey where they are on the ground providing aid to nearly 1.7 million people. 

In my testimony today I will highlight some of the humanitarian 

challenges facing the people of Syria and Iraq and what the U.S. 

can do to better assist them. Oxfam is calling for urgent and immediate action by the U.S. and the international community to deal 

with this deepening crisis, first, by fully funding the aid response 

in Syria, Iraq and the region; second, by ensuring humanitarian access to those in need of aid and offering refuge to those who have 

fled their country; and third, by reviving concerted efforts toward 

a resolution of these crises. 

The statistics in Syria paints a deeply grim picture. I have included more detail in my written statement but is worth highlighting here that indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks are 

being committed by all parties to the conflict including through the 

use of barrel bombs, mortar attacks, and other explosive weapons 

in populated areas. These types of attacks remain by far the primary cause of civilian deaths and injuries. Well over half the entire 

pre-war population of Syria has been forced to flee their homes, 

making Syria the largest displacement crisis in the world today. 

As the number of people in need grows, aid from humanitarian 

agencies however is being drastically reduced due to funding shortages. The U.S. remains the largest single donor to the Syria humanitarian crisis, providing more than $4.5 billion since the start 

of the conflict. Yet according to Oxfam’s analysis, the U.S. is still 

not meeting its fair share of aid to the Syria crisis based on our 

gross national income. This year we have reached approximately 72 

percent of our fair share. The U.S. must continue to lead by example and encourage our allies to follow suit. 

And I will note that I have included in my written testimony 

some of the specifics of other countries and what percentages of 

their fair share that they have met for comparison. In Iraq, the 

U.S. is also the leading donor having provided over $1⁄2 million to 

the humanitarian response over the last two fiscal years. However, 

as in Syria, the scale of need is far outpacing aid contributions with 

Iraq’s humanitarian appeal only about two-thirds funded. The U.N. 

now estimates that 11 million Iraqis will require some form of humanitarian assistance in 2016. 

The humanitarian crisis in Iraq is a protection crisis above all 

else. Today, on the second to last day of the 16 days of action 

against gender violence, we must remember that 1.4 million Iraqi 

49

women remain displaced. And while it is an honor to be testifying 

here amongst such distinguished witnesses, I do think it is unfortunate that no women are testifying today, particularly to speak on 

the impact of the conflict on women and girls. As we have seen in 

our work on the ground, gender-based violence is one of the most 

significant features of this crisis and has a major impact on the 

ability of women and girls in particular to recover from the trauma 

of conflict. 

The challenges for the people of Syria and Iraq extend beyond 

funding shortages. Inside both countries insufficient international 

aid contributions are compounded by the difficulties that far too 

many civilians have in accessing the assistance that is present. In 

Syria, shifting conflict lines, the rise of extremist groups such as 

ISIS, and restrictions imposed by the government on aid agencies 

have impeded humanitarian access. Indeed, as Chairman Smith 

recognized at the start, the United Nations estimates now that 

more than 4.8 million people in Syria in need of humanitarian assistance are in hard to reach and besieged locations. 

In Iraq, the ability of people to flee to safety is a major problem. 

On my last visit to the country earlier this year, I stood on the side 

of the road with a group of several hundred Iraqi children, women 

and men who had been forced to flee their homes in Ramadi. Horrified by the brutality they had witnessed, frightened for their 

friends and neighbors from Christian and other minority communities and terrified that they themselves would be swept up in the 

violence, they were now trying to find safety, first in Baghdad 

where they were rejected and then in the north of their country. 

One man spoke of his brother being killed and his barbershop 

being burned to the ground. Now with his children and wife in tow, 

he was trying to find refuge with his family in the Kurdistan region of Iraq where had grown up and studied. But because he is 

a Sunni Muslim, the authorities were not allowing him and many 

others to enter the region for fear that he might be associated with 

the very extremists who attacked his family and destroyed his livelihood. 

Without clear guarantees of safety and enhanced humanitarian 

space, Iraqi families like his will have little option but to turn back 

to areas held by the same extremists they seek to escape. No humanitarian efforts, however well intentioned, can take the place of 

an end to conflicts. In Syria, far too many powers are fueling conflict rather than undertaking earnest efforts to bring it to an end. 

In Iraq, any efforts to restore stability and return populations must 

be accompanied by the provision of genuine physical protection to 

all at-risk communities. Now this includes Sunni Arab populations 

in areas currently occupied by ISIS or communities who have fled 

violence and face risk of reprisal killings, threats to safety and further displacement. 

While the persecution of minorities has been the most visible and 

systemic, on all sides of the conflict, civilians have been targeted 

on the basis of group identity—the Yazidis, Christians, Turkmen, 

and even Sunni Arabs. Iraq’s social fabric has been torn apart. In 

attempting to help put it back together we must make sure that 

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tion in both countries will enable the return and reintegration of 

the displaced, but this will require a meaningful process of reconciliation and genuine safety for all of Syria’s and Iraq’s citizens. 

Finally, no discussion of the ways to assist Syrians and Iraqis 

would be complete without reference to refugee resettlement. Although it will ultimately benefit just a tiny fraction of Syrian and 

Iraqi refugees, America’s well established, secure and successful resettlement program is literally a life and death matter for persecuted women, men, and children who have no other means of 

survival. It is also a fundamental expression of our values as Americans to offer safe haven to the persecuted, and allows us to show 

the suffering and oppressed around the world the best of who we 

are as a people. Thank you very much, and I look forward to your 

questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gottschalk follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Thank you for your testimony. I would just point out 

that we had planned on Yazidi women testifying today and they 

couldn’t get their visas in time. 

This has not been the first hearing that I have chaired on this 

and it won’t be the last. As a matter of fact, we will have the administration, or request that they come and provide an accounting. 

Hopefully it will be a positive one where they have indeed declared 

that Christians and other minority faiths have been designated the 

subject of genocide. Yes, the Yazidis absolutely, but also these others, and we will hold the administration to account. 

When I got word of this about 3 weeks ago myself from someone 

inside the State Department, I immediately put out a press release 

and a statement and tried to contact folks there to convey my utter 

disbelief that this egregious abandonment was about to happen. 

And it was, as Dr. Stanton pointed out, eerily reminiscent to what 

happened in Rwanda when there was this foolishness of the greatest degree and unwillingness to call what was happening, 800,000-

plus dead in Rwanda, a genocide. 

And we saw similar actions by the international community, including the United States, occur. It was so bad that when Kofi 

Annan went to Rwanda, members of their Parliament stood up and 

turned their backs on him, and a similar sense of disgust also was 

leveled against Bill Clinton. And as you point out, Dr. Stanton, we 

had a hearing on the famous facts where Kofi Annan was advised 

that the genocide was about to occur he ignored it. He was head 

of peacekeeping at the time. And General Dallaire suffered immensely emotionally, because he probably could have mitigated if 

not ended that completely. 

So just for the record I would like to include in the record a very 

heartbreaking, but a story, ‘‘Unconquered: Christians Martyred by 

the Islamic State’’ that just came out in the December 12 issue of 

World Magazine. They have named these unbelievably brave Christians faithful to the end as their ‘‘Daniels of the Year.’’ So without 

objection that will be made a part of the record. 

Just a few questions because your testimonies were brilliant, I 

believe. They have really laid out and anticipated much of what I 

and perhaps others might have asked. 

But again, Obama and the administration seem to be on the 

verge of getting it wrong. I think the letter that you provided as 

an addendum as part of your testimony, Mr. Anderson, laid it out 

very clearly, and others have done so as well as to how that would 

be a mistake of monumental proportions to exclude a group of people who have been targeted for extinction. It is not even in part, 

it is whole. And whole or in part, and even the threat of whole in 

part is the boilerplate language of the Genocide Convention. So, I 

mean, this fits that definition, sadly, to a T. 

The abandonment, perhaps some of you or any of you might want 

to speak to the why of it. I can’t get my arms around this lack of 

acceptance of reality on the ground that has been documented time 

and time again. Two years ago I introduced a resolution and tried 

to get the administration, I wrote on behalf of it in the Washington 

Post, to create a Syrian war crimes tribunal to hold all sides to account for atrocities. This was before the emergence of ISIS, SepVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:07 Jul 28, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\120915\97859 SHIRL
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tember 13th, and put in a resolution that would do the exact same 

thing. 

I have asked Secretary Kerry. We know that the International 

Criminal Court has been very flawed in prosecuting anyone—one 

conviction in over a dozen years. Great idea, but it just doesn’t 

have the horsepower or the capabilities to do what is right. We had 

the former chief prosecutor of Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal, 

David Crane, testify, and others who gave riveting testimony why 

a regional court would make all the difference in the world. And 

we are losing, as was mentioned, vital information and testimony 

that bleeds out as people move on or die or don’t have the recollection they might have if it is done sooner rather than later. 

I am asking again that the administration work within the 

United Nations Security Council to convene such a war crimes tribunal. ICC, they haven’t done it. They have one person in the DR 

Congo, a lower-level person that they were able to convict. They 

will look into it, they will issue a report, they will go after two people and that will be the end of it. And they will never get those 

two people. Bashir remains in Khartoum despite his crimes in 

Darfur and South Sudan. 

So anyone who might want to hazard a guess as to if this is an 

idea whose time has come? Dr. Stanton indicated that already. Carl 

Anderson, I think you brought up an issue that just is beguiling 

and it begs immediate correction, and that is that the UNHCR 

itself has not been able to provide the protection inside the camps, 

so a place that ought to be the place of welcoming becomes a place 

of continued horror for Christians. I promise we will use this subcommittee to look into that and push that to the nth degree. The 

administration should be doing the same. 

And I think your point about sole reliance on referrals from the 

UNHCR is an excellent point that needs to be embraced immediately because of all this exclusion again of the Christians. And 

of course designation of genocide against Christians, like Yazidis 

and other minority faiths, will make the processing of their refugee 

appeals happen that much sooner rather than later. And maybe it 

might not have happened at all without it. 

So those couple of thoughts I can’t get my arms around, maybe 

you can, why the exclusion of Christians. It just is mind boggling. 

If anybody wants to hazard a guess, otherwise I will yield to my 

distinguished colleagues. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Again, thank you for the leadership. Let me 

just note in my 28 years in Congress whenever there has been an 

issue that calls for a moral stand by the United States of America, 

Chris Smith has always led the way and I have always been honored to follow him as he led the way. And this is, I think, one of 

those instances of historical significance that demands people of a 

certain moral fortitude to step forward and make their moral convictions known on a major contention of the day. 

How many, let me just ask the panel. We are talking about 

Christians and Yazidis now, but there are other groups as we know 

that are facing slaughter. But if we don’t do what is right, if we 

have an administration in charge of our Government now that refuses to recognize that Christians are targeted as the Jews were in 

World War II, how many people is the world going to lose? How 

58

many Christians? Are we talking about millions of people? What is 

the Christian population of this part of the Middle East, and what 

can we expect if those people are not given refuge? 

Mr. STANTON. About 1.5 million in Iraq alone, Christians, were 

there before the second Iraq war. We now have, I think, under 

what, about 100,000 or so. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And that is just Iraq. 

Mr. STANTON. And that is only, they are in refugees camps in 

Kurdistan, and that is just Iraq. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay, and in Syria and throughout in different places. 

Mr. STANTON. Syria, you had 10 percent of the population is 

Christian and they have had to basically flee wherever they can go, 

because not only ISIS has targeted them, but of course the Assad 

regime has bombed so many parts of Syria that they have had to 

flee to Turkey or Jordan. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So do you have some guesses in terms of, or 

I say educated guesses? So we are talking about over 1 million 

or——

Mr. STANTON. Yes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER [continuing]. One million people dead unless 

we step forward. Is that maybe 2 million people dead? 

Mr. STANTON. Possible. 

Bishop KALABAT. It is also very important to understand that 

ISIS isn’t just targeting people in that region. Their ultimate aim 

is the United States, Vatican, Europe. It is the world. In establishing an Islamic State right now, that Islamic State needs to 

grow until they can rule the world. So this isn’t just an isolated 

group. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So what we are talking about in the short 

term is that there are maybe 1 million or 2 million people who are 

in danger right now, but what you are saying is unless we step up 

to this part of the challenge——

Bishop KALABAT. Paris——

Mr. ROHRABACHER [continuing]. There is going to be many more 

millions of people. 

Bishop KALABAT [continuing]. I mean, what we just went through 

just not too long ago. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes. Let me note that I worked in the White 

House. God blessed me with the opportunity of working for Ronald 

Reagan as one of his speechwriters for 7 years, and I remember 

when Ronald Reagan declared that the Soviet Union was the focus 

of evil in the modern era. And let me say, Mr. Chairman, that I 

think that we need to make sure that we declare that this Islamic 

terrorist threat of killing people for their faith is now the focus of 

evil in our era, and call upon all good people of every faith to step 

forward and say this will not be tolerated by civilization. 

Just as Communism, which was trying to use terror and brutality and the same kind of Stalinist obliteration of peoples’ lives 

in order to terrorize the population into an atheistic dictatorship, 

we defeated that evil and we must defeat this evil as well. As we 

all know Ronald Reagan did not declare war on Russia and send 

our military to attack Russia. We did not do that. Everybody assumed that that is what would happen, that is how we will defeat 

59

the Soviet Union. That is not what we did. Ronald Reagan mobilized the people of the world and especially reached out to those 

people who were struggling against Communism and worked with 

them and helped them not just provide safe haven, but the means 

to help secure themselves from that evil at that day. We need to 

do that here. 

But let me note, just like Ronald Reagan was really criticized for 

calling the Soviet Union the evil empire, and he was being, it was 

I can remember very clearly, oh my God, what did you 

speechwriters give him; what is going on there? And actually 

Reagan was very much part of the whole effort and he knew what 

he was saying. And the bottom line is by labeling this something 

that people could understand and by mobilizing behind it, we were 

able to destroy the Soviet Union which was an evil empire of atheist dictatorship. We were able to eliminate that without a war. 

And this President’s inability to use the words ‘‘Islamic terrorist’’ 

in the same sentence and/or to use the word ‘‘Christian’’ when we 

are talking about genocidal movements that are going on this world 

today does not give me faith that we are going to solve this problem. 

So it is up to us, the U.S., by the way, U.S., United States. U.S. 

is us and what we represent, what does the United States represent? Hopefully, we represent every race, religion, and ethnic 

group in the world standing together for higher values than those 

values they had when they left their homeland. 

So I thank you all for being with us today. Thank you, Chris 

Smith, for your wonderful leadership on this issue. And let me just 

remind everybody I have H.R. 4017, and I would hope that all religious groups get behind this. It says basically that if in those areas 

where we have this genocide taking place that those people who 

are targeted for genocide, particularly the Christians and the 

Yazidis that they will be given a priority status for immigration 

and for refugee status by our Government. 

And I do not believe that this is discriminatory against anyone. 

It is simply recognizing that they are the most in danger and those 

are the ones we should focus on first. And just as when the Jews 

came here in 1939 and we turned them away, we should not have 

turned them away saying you are not going to get any special favors from us. No, that was horrible and we know what happened. 

Well, now we need to pay particular attention to those in danger 

and to focus on helping them. Anybody who can support my legislation, I will be very happy to have that too. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Gentleman Rohrabacher, thank you very much and 

thank you for your leadership. And added to that Jackson-Vanik, 

most favored nation status vis-a`-vis the Soviet Union, was predicated on singling out Jewish refuseniks, those men and women who 

were denied and treated harshly by the Soviet regime. So it is not 

a religious test. That is absurd talk. 

Ms. Bass. 

Ms. BASS. I wanted to know if you could talk about the refugees 

that have gone to Europe and what their status is. I have been 

very concerned about that knowing that some have been returned 

back. But I wanted to know if you could speak about that. And 

then also the ones that are wanting to come to the United States, 

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where are they now? Are they in Germany? Are they in Greece? 

Where are they now and what is their plight? And I open that up 

to anyone. 

Mr. ISMAIL. Well, our Yazidi refugees are mostly in Turkey and 

Syria. They are United Nations refugees. But also most of the abducted ones are in Iraq, and we hope that the U.S. can do something to help those innocents. The U.S. has more than like 300 million-plus people. I think they are able to provide help and support 

to those innocent people, both Yazidi, Christian and other minorities who are facing the genocide. 

Ms. BASS. How many people did you say it is? 

Mr. ISMAIL. The Yazidi have more than 30,000 in Syria and Turkey. But in northern Iraq there are many who are unable to prove 

their identity with passports or other documents, because they 

were attacked in the middle of the night and were running for 

their lives. 

Ms. BASS. How are they faring in Turkey? 

Mr. ISMAIL. They are not good. 

Ms. BASS. Are they in refugee camps? 

Mr. ISMAIL. Yes, in June, thousands of them tried to cross the 

Bulgarian border on foot. Many of them were beaten by the Turkish Government, but when they came close they did not let them 

come in. They stayed more than 2 weeks outside. They were sleeping outside in the streets. So the Yazidis had nothing to bring with 

them. So if you have nothing, you are only relying on the donations 

that the world, the international community is providing. 

And the other problem, when it goes to the Iraqi Government or 

Kurdish Government, unfortunately that aid does not reach the 

needy people. And we cannot say that in Iraq. If you say it, your 

family is going to face real consequences by the authority based 

there. Many of those abducted women and girls I spoke to, they 

were afraid to tell me the truth. 

Ms. BASS. They what, I am sorry? 

Mr. ISMAIL. They were afraid to tell the truth. 

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Mr. ISMAIL. When they came they were taught what to say and 

how to say. And also, because they saw people from different 

groups who joined up with ISIS who raped them, who tortured 

them, who kidnapped them, who sold them into sexual slavery, 

many of them they were their neighbors. They were beheaded and 

put in a bakery oven by their neighbors. So it is a very difficult situation. 

When that delegation visits Iraq, it is accompanied by the authorities. They provide what they call the security for them. So 

when there are four or five armed men behind you and then you 

ask me a question and how you want me to answer your question, 

why I cannot say anything. 

Ms. BASS. So what is your thought about what the U.S. should 

do? Should the U.S. bring over, how many, and do you have——

Mr. ISMAIL. Whatever the possibility we hope that you can bring, 

especially as I said, those abducted women who were able to escape 

on their own, and with their families to provide social-psycho help 

so that they can go back to their normal life. 

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Ms. BASS. Do you have relationships here like with religious organizations or particular states that would receive the people? 

Where would they go? 

Mr. ISMAIL. Well, the Yazidis are very easy in integration, and 

I think Bishop knows like we have been together for thousands of 

years. That is like brothers and sisters. The Yazidis are not against 

any people, just say we are human beings. We are human beings. 

God created us and we should respect God’s works. 

Ms. BASS. Yes, I just wondered if there were organizations here 

you were affiliated with that if we were able to bring people——

Mr. ISMAIL. But we have at least about probably 350 to 400 

Yazidi families here. They are all willing to help. 

Ms. BASS. Where are they, everywhere? 

Mr. ISMAIL. In Lincoln, Nebraska, in New York, in Houston, 

Texas, and some are based in DC area. 

Ms. BASS. And they have been here for a while? 

Mr. ISMAIL. Yes. 

Ms. BASS. And they would be willing to receive people? 

Mr. ISMAIL. There are many of them that were the victims of 

Saddam’s attack in 1991. 

Ms. BASS. I see, okay. 

Mr. ISMAIL. So they sat in a refugee camp probably for about, 

many of them more than 10 years. We have many who were sponsored by U.S. Government. So we hope that you could provide the 

same help in bringing these needy people. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. 

Mr. Gottschalk? 

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Thank you very much. I just wanted to respond to your two questions. First, I had the opportunity to travel 

to Serbia last month and spent some time talking to the people 

who were traveling. Most had come from Turkey via Greece, Macedonia, were heading to Serbia, passing through on their way to 

Croatia and then further afield. The people in that were probably 

some of the nicest, friendliest people I have ever met in the many 

years I have been involved in humanitarian work, and none of 

them that I spoke to had any interest in going to the U.S. They 

were looking to go to Austria, Germany, Sweden, and Belgium. 

UNHCR actually came out with an interesting study today or 

yesterday, I believe, that highlights the percentage, the very large 

percentage of those who are moving to Europe who are actually 

students. And a lot of the people that I met were looking to continue their education. I met people who were marketing majors at 

University in Damascus, people who just wanted to find some way 

of resuming their studies and resuming a normal life as best they 

could. 

On the question about the people who do want to come to the 

U.S., I think it is really important to highlight that the vast majority of the 4.2 million refugees from Syria who are being hosted in 

the region are actually staying outside of camps. Those people who 

are registered with the UNHCR are eligible for resettlement. They 

are able to go through that process irrespective of being in the 

camp or not. 

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tries where they are. We have seen that the average refugee crisis 

now lasts about 10 years and it seems that Syria will be likely to 

certainly not be an exception and perhaps stretch that amount 

even longer. It is really important that aid gets to people where 

they are and not just focusing on the camps, and that people can 

be able to work for themselves to provide for their own families and 

really have that dignity that through working comes in being able 

to take care of yourself. 

The process of resettlement as I said is available to people who 

are outside of the camps. Most of them though are in Jordan and 

Turkey. There is not a processing facility as far as I know, as the 

last I checked, available in Erbil for the U.S. to process people 

there, and there has been really a lot of delays due to space in the 

Embassy in Beirut for there to be interviews conducted in Lebanon. 

So we are seeing the majority of people who are being processed 

happening in Jordan and Turkey. 

It is worth again noting that the process is incredibly expensive. 

It takes usually 2 to 3 years. We unfortunately just heard the really tragic news that one of the families that we were working with 

who were undergoing this process, they are a family of seven from 

Syria. They are living in northern Jordan. They have five children, 

three of whom have very serious medical conditions. We just received the word that the youngest of their children, a 1-year-old 

boy who really required open heart surgery died just a few days 

ago. They have already gone through two interviews at the Embassy. They are in this very expensive——

Ms. BASS. Why did he not get the medical treatment or he died 

in the process of receiving the treatment? 

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. He wasn’t able to have the surgery that he 

needed, and their hopes were really pinned on coming to the U.S. 

They have been through I don’t know how many months of screening process, two interviews which of course requires——

Ms. BASS. When a situation like that where there is a life-threatening disease we don’t expedite? 

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. I don’t think there are that many opportunities. Certainly on the security side those processes do take a long 

time. And I think this is one of the reasons that our response to 

some calls for a pause to the resettlement process——

Ms. BASS. Right. 

Mr. GOTTSCHALK [continuing]. To observe it, we wanted to really 

educate people and particularly Members of Congress that the dangers that that kind of pause could bring. It sounds very reasonable 

and something that might give us an opportunity to reassess. 

But the way their system works is that people who are in the 

midst of the process who have various processes, steps, have checks 

and screening processes, those checks will expire and they will 

have to start again from scratch. And people like that family would 

have to restart if we were to pause that process. So what we are 

trying to emphasize is——

Ms. BASS. Oh, wait a minute, if we were to pause the process 

then they would have to go back? 

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. In all likelihood, yes. 

Bishop KALABAT. If I may also continue with what Mr. 

Gottschalk was saying that in Turkey, I was there in April and visVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:07 Jul 28, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\120915\97859 SHIRL
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ited, was able to celebrate Easter with many of the refugees. In a 

minimum of 10 to 12 different regions in Turkey, when you register 

with the United Nations as a refugee your first interview in 2022. 

That is interview, that is not——

Ms. BASS. You register today? 

Bishop KALABAT. If you register today, actually those who registered had already been registered in June—I am sorry, in April 

of this year. Their first appointment is in 2022, 2023. 

Ms. BASS. Why did we say it was a 2-year process then? 

Bishop KALABAT. I do know of refugees that have been there for 

7, 8, 9 years. I do know that also Homeland Security have gotten 

cases where everything is ready, everything is done, and in many 

cases, and we have proof and we have the files where it has been 

9 years, 10 years, 11 years, 13 years. 

Ms. BASS. So you have seen what legislation we have been discussing in passing over the last few days? Well——

Bishop KALABAT. I have not seen the legislation, no. I am a little 

behind that to be honest. But I can say——

Ms. BASS. But we are making it slower. 

Bishop KALABAT. Well—yes. 

Ms. BASS. What did we do yesterday? 

Bishop KALABAT. I think we froze it for a while. 

Ms. BASS. Oh, visa waiver. A couple of weeks ago, or was it a 

week ago that we slowed it up? 

Bishop KALABAT. The case with Homeland Security, these are 

cases that are already done that just need to do—I mean, there has 

been no response. If it is denied, it is denied. It is not even a denial, it is cases that are lost in some cases in some issues. And to 

be able to deal with people and countries that are hosting them 

such as Jordan and Lebanon, they are overwhelmed, Turkey as 

well. 

Ms. BASS. Oh, I know. I know, especially Jordan too. 

Bishop KALABAT. So processing centers are extremely important 

to have. I am working with the United Nations trying to get processing centers. And also allowing different countries who have 

avowed to say, you know what, we will take an X amount of refugees from these particular situations, and if they are not processed 

then there is nothing that can be done. 

Ms. BASS. So Mr. Ismail, you are proposing that we kind of fast 

forward all that, right? I mean, the 30,000 people you are talking 

about——

Mr. ISMAIL. Yes, we are not saying that the U.S. should bring all 

of them——

Ms. BASS. Oh, I am sorry, did you want——

Bishop KALABAT. No, no. I am good. 

Ms. BASS. Oh, okay. 

Mr. ISMAIL [continuing]. But just could help them, many of those 

families that lost just more than half of their family members, and 

there is just no way that they can go back to Iraq because——

Ms. BASS. Yes, but given this process, I guess I am asking——

Mr. ISMAIL. It is the same thing, where they provide their 

UNHCR PAPER. And they have many of those. They give them 

like 7 years, 8 years. And also we have some sponsored by a private group. There are other people, they have an interview in less 

64

than 6 months. So there is something going on that is not right. 

They don’t get equal treatment. And there are many of those that 

especially in dealing with for the kind of easy cases, I don’t know 

how many they have in Canada. They give them like, probably the 

soonest one they give like more than 5 years. 

Ms. BASS. Okay. 

Mr. ISMAIL. So I think 5 years, how they are going to survive. 

Ms. BASS. Right. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Ms. Bass. 

Let me just ask a question about disproportionality of those who 

are Christian who come here. Over the last 5 years the estimates 

are that there has been one Yazidi, 53 Syrian Christians, and that 

2.6 percent of the 2,003 Syrian refugees that have come to the 

United States are Christian from Syria, so disproportionate to the 

need. 

Mr. Anderson, you spoke very eloquently to the issue of how 

there is a discrimination that happens starting in the camps, or at 

least those under protection of the UNHCR. That seems to be an 

area ripe for reform. One Yazidi, 53 Syrian Christians in 5 years. 

That is outrageous, I believe. And very few Jews, Baha’is, or 

Zoroastrians as well, like 10 total. 

Maybe, Mr. Anderson, you might want to expound a little bit on 

what needs to be done on the refugee side. And secondly, in the letter that was signed by you and many other people of faith, leaders, 

where there is a call for a limited review, when you exclude or narrow what it is that you are looking at so unnecessarily, which I 

think has happened or is happening at State, it is like a fireman 

entering just one room in a burning building and concluding that 

one room of that building is on fire while the whole building is 

ablaze. 

And so my question would be why the limited review? 

Again going back to Dr. Stanton who just showed the 

connectivity over the years to this false reliance on terms like ‘‘ethnic cleansing’’ which have no legal definition and it was used extensively at the U.N. and here during Bosnia as well as in Croatia. 

So if you could, what could we do to get it right immediately so 

that these refugees—and follow-up to Ms. Bass, there has been a 

vote on pausing but it is not law. Nothing precludes the person 

who was so sick getting that help right now from this administration, and why haven’t they? I mean that is what my colleagues and 

I often do with case work, we try to find someone who is really, 

really being hurt, whether it is a health issue or whatever, in trying to find a way through the bureaucracy to mitigate that pain. 

So Mr. Anderson, did you want to touch on that and any others, 

because we are going to have to conclude in a minute because there 

are five votes on the floor. 

Mr. ANDERSON. Well, then let me just say quickly I think that 

it is very clear that the religious minorities are not welcome and 

do not feel safe in the camps. And therefore if the process hinges 

on being in the camps, we have to find alternative mechanisms to 

go out and register these people outside of the camps and that requires an extra effort. I think that is why the designation of genocide is so important because it gives priority to these vulnerable 

minorities who, as Mr. Ismail said, cannot go back to their commuVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:07 Jul 28, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_AGH\120915\97859 SHIRL
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nities. Their homes are destroyed or occupied by other individuals. 

They have no opportunity. We are talking about 5 or 10 years to 

get a visa and immigrate to another country. It may be that 

amount of time before they could go back to their own communities, but by that time what are those communities going to look 

like? They are going to be totally populated by people who are not 

just going to move away and say come back to your homes that you 

left 10 years ago or 5 years ago. So I think the designation of genocide is essential to prioritize these minority communities that have 

no alternative in the region. 

Mr. STANTON. Just to reiterate that our conclusion as genocide 

scholars is that when lesser terms, weaker terms, are used it is a 

sure indicator of an unwillingness to act. In other words it is a sure 

indicator of lack of political will. And in this case what we have got 

is a lack of political will to accept Christians on a preferential basis 

as the refugees that we will accept in this country. 

I think there is a general view that there should be no preferences at all. In fact, I think President Obama has said such, almost exactly that. And our view is that in fact certain groups are 

being targeted, and let’s call what that means. Let’s call out the 

right name and that is called genocide. And that is why we think 

what is going on when they are making these selective determinations is an expression of lack of political will. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, Mr. Gottschalk. 

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. If I could just have, Mr. Chairman, in response 

to your point about and Mr. Anderson’s point about expanding the 

referral process, I think that is something we would absolutely 

agree with, and just want to let you know that there is in fact 

precedent for that. I believe at present there is one NGO that has 

been authorized to conduct referrals to the U.S. for resettlement. 

There is, I think it is a short curriculum that NGOs would have 

to go through in order to, or any contractor would have to go 

through, to be able to learn what criteria the U.S. is looking for, 

and it is something that we would very much like to see. It would 

be really a way of expanding the reach of resettlement referrals 

across the region. 

And also just finally to add, the funding shortages that you made 

the subject of this hearing and that I testified about and others 

have mentioned has directly resulted in many, many refugee families really falling through the cracks. Because these appeals are so 

underfunded, 40 percent inside Syria, about 50 percent in the regional response, the prioritization is given to lifesaving services, 

which means that social services and the types of activities that 

are really about protection and making sure that communities and 

refugees who are living in host communities where the majority are 

can be safe and can resolve some of their own challenges—those 

type of programs just aren’t being funded. 

They are the very types of programs that would identify vulnerable people, get them to where they could get referred for resettlement or for treatment or whatever they might need in the host 

community if that was in fact the case, but those very programs 

are the ones that are really first on the chopping block when it 

comes to funding shortages. 

66

Mr. SMITH. Well, thank you. And that was an eye opener for 

many of us at the hearing I chaired in September just how underfunded it is, so your point is very well taken. And we are pushing 

the administration to do more, and our allies too. We have asked 

them to give us the list of those who have not come forward with 

the pledges at least, and what diplomatic efforts are being done by 

the administration to say to Saudi Arabia—I asked the Saudi Ambassador when he was here a week ago. He was claiming that they 

were giving 2.5 million Syrians refuge and that they had spent $1 

billion last year, I think $1 billion was the total; it was approximately $1 billion. 

So your point is well taken and I agree with you wholeheartedly. 

We have got to push, and I said even if it is seen as a bridge, we 

try to get the others to come up with the money, but this is a shortterm tourniquet that is needed because people, and he himself, 

Shelly Pitterman said, that the trigger for the mass exodus to Europe was undoubtedly the funding shortfall for humanitarianism 

exacerbated by the World Food Programme’s 30 percent cut. They 

said they don’t care, we are off, we are leaving. And it was a very, 

it was a point well taken. We had PRM’s Assistant Secretary here 

and asked what could be done. We are still trying to work with 

them, so I agree wholeheartedly on that. 

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. If I might as you wait for the list from the administration, we, Oxfam, actually has a list of major countries and 

what they have donated according to their fair share. According to 

our statistics, Saudi Arabia has only contributed 6 percent of their 

fair share this year; Qatar 17 percent; United Arab Emirates 38 

percent. 

Mr. SMITH. Wish I had that last week, but I follow——

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. I will pass it on to your office. 

Mr. SMITH. Let’s make it a part of the record, if you don’t mind. 

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Absolutely. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. GOTTSCHALK. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Any other comments before we conclude? There is a 

vote and I am going to have to run. I do thank you so very much. 

I think the President got it wrong when he said that we don’t want 

a religion test. This has to do with who is being targeted. It is a 

whole different issue than a religious test. 

And I again underscore my first trip on human rights issues was 

to Moscow and Leningrad, 1982, during my first term on behalf of 

Soviet Jews, and I was very happy that our country was wholeheartedly using its policies, Jackson-Vanik in particular, to protect 

Jewish people who were being put into psychiatric prisons or 

worse, killed. 

Yes, Mr. Ismail? 

Mr. ISMAIL. Two important points, we hope that for the short 

term solution, you can bring as many as possible of those needy 

refugees, especially those traumatized ones, whether they are in 

Syria, in northern Iraq, in Jordan, or in Turkey. And for the long 

term solution, we hope that you could work with the Iraqi Government and the Kurdish Government to create a safe haven for the 

Yazidis and other minorities. 

67

Mr. SMITH. You had that in there as your number three point, 

I saw that. 

Mr. ISMAIL. So that these people can survive in an ancient homeland where we survived for thousands of years. Yes, there are 

many people who because of fear, they want to get out, but there 

are also thousands of people who say we are ready to die, but we 

are not ready to leave our homeland. 

Mr. SMITH. If that is done it has to be better than what we have 

done before. When Srebrenica and other safe haven areas were designated they became mustering areas for killing. 

Mr. ISMAIL. Now most of these, if you ask, they are going to tell 

you this is the end of Yazidis in the Middle East because no action 

has been taken actually to save them, to provide safety and security for them, this could be the end of the Yazidi people in the Middle East. Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. The meeting is adjourned and I thank you all so very 

much. 

[Whereupon, at 4:21 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(69)

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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, 

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SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS


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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, 

A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, AND CHAIRMAN, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS


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