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[Congressional Bills 113th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 418 Engrossed in House (EH)]

H. Res. 418

                In the House of Representatives, U. S.,

                                                           May 7, 2014.
Whereas over 800,000 Rohingya ethnic minority live in Burma, mostly in the 
        western Rakhine state;
Whereas currently, approximately 140,000 Rohingya are internally displaced in 
        central Rakhine state and hundreds of thousands have fled to neighboring 
        countries, including at least 231,000 in Bangladesh, at least 15,000 in 
        Malaysia, and many more in Thailand and Indonesia;
Whereas the current Government of Burma, like its predecessors, continues to use 
        the Burma Citizenship Law of 1982 to exclude from approved ethnic groups 
        the Rohingya people, despite many having lived in northern Rakhine state 
        for generations, and has thereby rendered Rohingyas stateless and 
        vulnerable to exploitation and abuse;
Whereas the Rohingya have historically experienced other particularized and 
        severe legal, economic, and social discrimination, including 
        restrictions on travel outside their village of residence, limitations 
        on their access to higher education, and a prohibition from working as 
        civil servants, including as doctors, nurses, or teachers;
Whereas authorities have also required Rohingya to obtain official permission 
        for marriages and have singled out Rohingya in northern Rakhine state 
        for forced labor and arbitrary arrests;
Whereas the Government of Burma has forcefully relocated Rohingya into relief 
        camps, where they lack decent shelter, access to clean water, food, 
        sanitation, health care, the ability to support themselves, or basic 
        education for their children;
Whereas a two-child policy sanctioned solely upon the Rohingya population in the 
        districts of Maungdaw and Buthidaung in northern Rakhine state restricts 
        the rights of women and children, prevents children from obtaining 
        Burmese citizenship, denies Rohingyas access to basic government 
        services, and fosters discrimination against Muslim women by Buddhist 
        nurses and midwives;
Whereas the United States Department of State has regularly expressed since 1999 
        its particular concern for severe legal, economic, and social 
        discrimination against Burma's Rohingya population in its Country Report 
        for Human Rights Practices;
Whereas the level of persecution, including widespread arbitrary arrest, 
        detention, and extortion of Rohingya and other Muslim communities, has 
        dramatically increased over the past year and a half;
Whereas communal violence has affected both Muslims and Burma's majority 
        Buddhist population, but has overwhelmingly targeted Burma's ethnic 
        Muslim minorities, which altogether comprise less than 5 percent of 
        Burma's population;
Whereas violence targeting Rohingyas in Maungdaw and Sittwe in June and July of 
        2012 resulted in the deaths of at least 57 Muslims and the destruction 
        of 1,336 Rohingyas homes;
Whereas on October 23, 2012, at least 70 Rohingyas were killed, and the Yan Thei 
        village of the Mrauk-U Township was destroyed;
Whereas the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported 
        possessing credible evidence of the deaths of at least 48 Rohingyas in 
        Du Chee Yar Tan village in Maungdaw Township, Rakhine state in January 
        2014, and human rights groups reported mass arrests and arbitrary 
        detention of Rohingya in the aftermath of this violence;
Whereas Burmese officials have denied the killings of Rohingyas in Du Chee Yar 
        Tan village in January 2014 and responded to international media 
        coverage of the violence with threats against media outlets, including 
        the Associated Press;
Whereas violence has also targeted Muslims not of Rohingya ethnicity, including 
        riots in March 2013 in the town of Meiktila that resulted in the death 
        of at least 43 Burmese Muslims, including 20 students and several 
        teachers massacred at an Islamic school, the burning of at least 800 
        homes and 5 mosques, and the displacement of 12,000 people;
Whereas on October 1, 2013, riots involving more than 700 Buddhists in Thandwe 
        township resulted in the death of 4 Kaman Muslim men and the stabbing 
        death of a 94-year-old Muslim woman;
Whereas over 4,000 religious, public, and private Rohingya structures have been 
        destroyed;
Whereas Rohingyas have experienced and continue to experience further 
        restrictions on their practice of Islam, culture, and language;
Whereas the violence against ethnic Muslim populations, including the Rohingya 
        and other Muslim groups, is part of a larger troubling pattern of 
        violence against other ethnic and religious minorities in Burma;
Whereas the Government of Burma expelled Medecins Sans Frontieres from Rakhine 
        state, leaving Rohingya communities and others without access to health 
        care and life-saving treatment for malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV; and
Whereas the Rakhine state threatens to ban all unregistered nongovernmental 
        organizations from operating in Rakhine state, severely limiting the 
        provision of necessary services to Rohingyas and others in need: Now, 
        therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) recognizes the initial steps Burma has taken in transitioning 
        from a military dictatorship to a quasi-civilian government, including 
        the conditional release of some political prisoners, and calls for more 
        progress to be made in critical areas of democracy, constitutional 
        reform, and national reconciliation in order for Burma to achieve its 
        own goal of political liberalization;
            (2) calls on the Government of Burma to end all forms of persecution 
        and discrimination of the Rohingya people and ensure respect for 
        internationally recognized human rights for all ethnic and religious 
        minority groups within Burma;
            (3) calls on the Government of Burma to recognize the Rohingya as an 
        ethnic group indigenous to Burma, and to work with the Rohingya to 
        resolve their citizenship status;
            (4) calls on the United States Government and the international 
        community to put consistent pressure on the Government of Burma to take 
        all necessary measures to end the persecution and discrimination of the 
        Rohingya population and to protect the fundamental rights of all ethnic 
        and religious minority groups in Burma; and
            (5) calls on the United States Government to prioritize the removal 
        of state-sanctioned discriminatory policies in its engagement with the 
        Government of Burma.
            Attest:

                                                                          Clerk.
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