IV 
115TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 528 
Condemning horrific acts of violence against Burma’s Rohingya population 
and calling on Aung San Suu Kyi to play an active role in ending 
this humanitarian tragedy. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
SEPTEMBER 14, 2017 
Mr. LEVIN submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Condemning horrific acts of violence against Burma’s 
Rohingya population and calling on Aung San Suu Kyi 
to play an active role in ending this humanitarian trag-
edy. 
Whereas the Rohingya are one of Burma’s many ethnic mi-
norities that have lived under military dictatorship for 
most of the last few decades; 
Whereas approximately one million Rohingya live predomi-
nantly in Burma’s Rakhine State, where they have faced 
ongoing repression under the Burmese military, including 
the revocation of their citizenship, killings, and mass 
rape; 
Whereas there is historical animosity between the majority 
Buddhist population and the minority Rohingya, with 
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•HRES 528 IH 
many in the Buddhist majority seeing the Rohingya as 
illegal immigrants from across the border in Bangladesh 
despite generational roots; 
Whereas the Department of State has, since 1999, regularly 
expressed concern over legal, economic, and social dis-
crimination against Burma’s Rohingya population; 
Whereas an outbreak of communal violence in the Rakhine 
State in 2012 saw more than 100,000 displaced, and tens 
of thousands of Rohingya forced into squalid camps 
where travel was and continues to be restricted; 
Whereas the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human 
Rights in Burma reported a ‘‘long history of discrimina-
tion and persecution against the Rohingya’’; 
Whereas the most recent State Department Country Report 
on Human Rights Practices for 2016 recognized ‘‘abuses 
and restrictions on members of the Rohingya population’’ 
among the leading human rights problems in Burma; 
Whereas Aung San Suu Kyi spent fifteen years under house 
arrest for her peaceful advocacy of democracy in Burma, 
and during those years Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded 
the Sakharov human rights prize from the European 
Parliament, the Nobel Peace Prize, the U.S. Presidential 
Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal for 
her tireless struggle for freedom and human rights; 
Whereas in her 2012 Nobel lecture, Aung San Suu Kyi made 
an impassioned appeal to the world not to forget those 
who are suffering ‘‘hunger, disease, displacement, jobless-
ness, poverty, injustice, discrimination, prejudice, big-
otry’’ and war . . . continuing that ‘‘wherever suffering 
is ignored, there will be the seeds of conflict, for suffering 
degrades and embitters and enrages’’; 
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•HRES 528 IH 
Whereas in a landmark election held in November 2015, 
Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy 
won a landslide victory in the first national vote since 
Burma’s nominal transition to civilian authority, after 
which Aung San Suu Kyi was named State Counsellor, 
a role created for her that made her the country’s de 
facto leader; 
Whereas in August 2016, Aung San Suu Kyi helped establish 
the high-level Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, 
headed by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi 
Annan in order to address the mistreatment of the 
Rohingya; 
Whereas in October 2016, attacks on border police outposts 
led to reports of horrific human rights abuses against the 
Rohingya in a brutal military crackdown; 
Whereas in December 2016, a letter signed by 23 inter-
national activists, including more than a dozen fellow 
Nobel laureates, to the United Nations Security Council 
called out Aung San Suu Kyi for her silence on the treat-
ment of the Rohingya; 
Whereas in February 2017, the United Nations Office of the 
High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report, 
finding that crimes against the Rohingya ‘‘seem to have 
been widespread as well as systematic, indicating the very 
likely commission of crimes against humanity’’; 
Whereas in March 2017, the United Nations Human Rights 
Council adopted a resolution creating a Fact-Finding 
Mission to Myanmar to investigate allegations of human 
rights abuses against the Rohingya and issue a report by 
the following year; 
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•HRES 528 IH 
Whereas in April 2017, Aung San Suu Kyi denied that ethnic 
cleansing had taken place against her country’s Rohingya 
minority despite widespread and reputable reporting of 
human rights abuses in Rakhine State; 
Whereas, on August 25, 2017, fighters from the small mili-
tant group the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army con-
ducted surprise raids on 30 police stations and an army 
base in Rakhine State, in which more than 100 people 
died, including at least ten policemen and many mili-
tants; 
Whereas the attack resulted in a brutal and methodical re-
prisal by the Burmese military on villages, with heli-
copters firing on civilians, razing villages with petrol 
bombs, and front line troops cutting off families’ escape 
routes; 
Whereas the assault caused more than 140,000 Rohingya to 
flee for Bangladesh and more than 30,000 Rohingya are 
estimated to be trapped in conflict zones in western 
Burma; 
Whereas United Nations field work and the delivery of vital 
supplies of food, water, and medicine were suspended by 
the Government of Burma due to security concerns, leav-
ing thousands of Rohingya vulnerable amid the deadly 
outbreak of violence; and 
Whereas, on August 31, 2017, the United Nations Security 
Council met to discuss the violence against the Rohingya 
in Rakhine State: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) condemns the violence and displacement in-
flicted on Burma’s Rohingya civilians and calls for 
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•HRES 528 IH 
an immediate halt to all hostilities by Burmese au-
thorities; 
(2) condemns the attacks by the Arakan 
Rohingya Salvation Army militant group; 
(3) urges the Government of Burma to allow 
unrestricted access to the United Nations Fact- 
Finding Mission on Myanmar as well as resume the 
delivery of field work and aid from critical humani-
tarian organizations to help those displaced and in-
jured and to monitor events in Rakhine State; 
(4) calls on the Government of Burma to imple-
ment the August 2017 recommendations of its Advi-
sory Commission on Rakhine State, including to end 
restrictions on the movement of the Rohingya and 
provide them with citizenship; and 
(5) encourages Aung San Suu Kyi to live up to 
her inspiring words upon receiving the 2012 Nobel 
Peace Prize with respect to ethnic reconciliation in 
Burma, and in particular to address the historic and 
brutal repression of the Rohingya in Rakhine State. 
Æ 
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