Title: A resolution condemning the mass atrocities committed against the Rohingya in Burma and urging accountability for the Burmese military.
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
Condemns the Burmese military's atrocities against Burma's minority Rohingya population, and calls on the Department of State to formally determine whether such acts amount to genocide. Commends the government of Bangladesh for receiving Rohingya refugees, and calls on Burma's government to immediately release journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo.

[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 735 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

<DOC>






115th CONGRESS
  2d Session
S. RES. 735

Condemning the mass atrocities committed against the Rohingya in Burma 
          and urging accountability for the Burmese military.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           December 19, 2018

 Mr. Markey (for himself, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Cardin, Ms. Collins, and Mr. 
Merkley) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
                     Committee on Foreign Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Condemning the mass atrocities committed against the Rohingya in Burma 
          and urging accountability for the Burmese military.

Whereas, in recent decades, the Rohingya people have lost, through systematic 
        discrimination by Burmese national, state, and local authorities, a 
        range of civil and political rights, including citizenship, and face 
        barriers today such that they have been rendered stateless;
Whereas, beginning on August 25, 2017, the Government of Burma military and 
        security forces, as well as civilian mobs, carried out widespread 
        attacks, rapes, killings, and the burning of villages throughout Rakhine 
        State, resulting in approximately 730,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh 
        and bringing the total Rohingya refugee population in Cox's Bazar to 
        over 900,000;
Whereas international observers widely agree that Burma has not made progress on 
        the ``more crucial'' of the 88 recommendations of the Rakhine Advisory 
        Commission that addresses the root causes of conflict and ensures the 
        rights and dignity of the Rohingya: freedom of movement, civil 
        documentation, and a transparent pathway to citizenship;
Whereas, since the beginning of the violence in August 2017, humanitarian and 
        media access to Rakhine State has been extremely limited;
Whereas Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested on December 
        12, 2017, for their work to report on the Burmese military's violent 
        campaign against the Rohingya;
Whereas, on November 14, 2018, Vice President Mike Pence said, ``This is a 
        tragedy that has touched the hearts of millions of Americans. The 
        violence and persecution by military and vigilantes that resulted in 
        driving 700,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh is without excuse.'';
Whereas, to date, though the refugee crisis is not of their making, the 
        Government of Bangladesh has accommodated the rapid and massive influx 
        of Rohingya refugees into Cox's Bazar;
Whereas Burma's civilian government, led by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi 
        and President Win Myint, has yet to take the necessary steps to address 
        the violence directed against the Rohingya, has failed to create the 
        necessary conditions for returns (including by actively impeding access 
        to northern Rakhine by UNHCR, UNDP, humanitarian organizations, and 
        journalists), and has failed to fully implement recommendations from the 
        Rakhine Advisory Commission that address the root causes of conflict in 
        Rakhine;
Whereas, on August 27, 2018, the United Nations International Fact Finding 
        Mission on Myanmar released a report stating that, ``The Mission 
        concluded . . . that there is sufficient information to warrant the 
        investigation and prosecution of senior officials in the Tatmadaw chain 
        of command, so that a competent court can determine their liability for 
        genocide in relation to the situation in Rakhine State.'';
Whereas, on August 25, 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that ``[a] 
        year ago, following deadly militant attacks, security forces responded 
        by launching abhorrent ethnic cleansing of ethnic Rohingya in Burma,'' 
        and continued, ``The U.S. will continue to hold those responsible 
        accountable. The military must respect human rights for Burma's 
        democracy to succeed.'';
Whereas, on August 17, 2018, the Department of the Treasury announced sanctions 
        on five Tatmadaw officers and two Tatmadaw units for human rights abuses 
        in Rakhine, Kachin, and Shan states;
Whereas, on September 24, 2018, the Department of State released a report 
        entitled ``Documentation of Atrocities in Northern Rakhine State'' that 
        stated the military ``targeted civilians indiscriminately and often with 
        extreme brutality'' and that the violence in northern Rakhine State was 
        ``extreme, large-scale, widespread and seemingly geared toward both 
        terrorizing the population and driving out the Rohingya residents'' and 
        that the ``scope and scale of the military's operations indicate that 
        they were well-planned and coordinated'';
Whereas, on November 29, 2018, the Public International Law and Policy Group, 
        which was contracted by the Department of State to collect evidence for 
        the Department's report, issued its own report that concluded ``there is 
        a reasonable basis to conclude that war crimes, crimes against humanity, 
        and genocide were committed against the Rohingya population'';
Whereas the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the 
        Crime of Genocide, signed at Paris December 9, 1948, declares that 
        genocide ``means any of the following acts committed with the intent to 
        destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious 
        group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious 
        bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately 
        inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its 
        physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended 
        to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children 
        of the group to another group'' and that ``[t]he following acts shall be 
        punishable: (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct 
        and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) Attempt to commit 
        genocide; (e) Complicity in genocide''; and
Whereas the United States Holocaust Memorial announced on December 3, 2018, that 
        ``there is compelling evidence that Burmese authorities have 
        intentionally sought to destroy the Rohingya people because of their 
        ethnic and religious identity,'' and concluded there was compelling 
        evidence genocide was committed: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the Senate--
            (1) condemns the atrocities and displacement inflicted on 
        Burma's Rohingya population by the Burmese military and 
        security forces since August 2017;
            (2) calls on the Secretary of State, based on credible 
        evidence, to make a formal determination on whether the crimes 
        committed since August 2017, amount to genocide;
            (3) commends the role of the Government of Bangladesh in 
        receiving Rohingya refugees to date and urges the Government of 
        Bangladesh to continue allowing the full participation of UNHCR 
        and human rights organization in accessing refugee camps;
            (4) calls upon Facebook and other social media platforms to 
        take the appropriate steps to guard against the dissemination 
        of hate speech exploiting ethnic divisions in Burma;
            (5) calls on the Government of Burma to immediately release 
        Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo;
            (6) urges the President to impose additional sanctions on 
        senior members of Burma's military and security forces, 
        including Burmese military owned companies and entities, who 
        are responsible for genocide and human rights abuses against 
        the Rohingya; and
            (7) calls upon the President to maintain the status of the 
        United States as a top international donor to the humanitarian 
        response in Burma and Bangladesh and to submit a budget request 
        for fiscal year 2020 that reflects that longstanding United 
        States commitment.
                                 <all>