Title: Rohingya Genocide Determination Act of 2020
Policy area: International Affairs

Summary:
Rohingya Genocide Determination Act of 2020
This bill requires the Department of State to report to Congress an assessment of the persecution of the Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim group in Burma (Myanmar), by Burma's military and security forces, and whether the situation constitutes genocide under U.S. law.

[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 4659 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 4659

 To require a determination as to whether crimes committed against the 
                 Rohingya in Burma amount to genocide.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                           September 23, 2020

   Mr. Markey (for himself, Mr. Merkley, Mr. Cardin, and Mr. Durbin) 
introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the 
                     Committee on Foreign Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To require a determination as to whether crimes committed against the 
                 Rohingya in Burma amount to genocide.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Rohingya Genocide Determination Act 
of 2020''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress makes the following findings:
            (1) Since August 25, 2017, 740,000 Rohingya have fled 
        northern Rakhine State to neighboring Bangladesh to escape a 
        systematic campaign of atrocities by Burma's military and 
        security forces, and three years later, conditions are still 
        not conducive to the safe, voluntary, and dignified return of 
        the Rohingya to Burma.
            (2) On November 23, 2017, the United States Holocaust 
        Museum and Fortify Rights released a report entitled ``They 
        Tried to Kill Us All'', documenting widespread and systematic 
        atrocities committed against Rohingya civilians at the hands of 
        Burmese ``security forces, civilian perpetrators, and 
        militants'' and highlighting ``growing evidence of genocide''.
            (3) According to the Department of State's August 24, 2018, 
        report entitled ``Documentation of Atrocities in Northern 
        Rakhine State'', violence committed by the Burmese military 
        against the Rohingya, including from August to October 2017, 
        was not only ``extreme, large-scale, widespread, and seemingly 
        geared toward both terrorizing the population and driving out 
        the Rohingya residents,'' but also ``well-planned and 
        coordinated''.
            (4) On August 28, 2018, the United States Ambassador to the 
        United Nations told the United Nations Security Council that 
        the Department of State report's findings were ``consistent 
        with'' those in an August 27, 2018, report by the Independent 
        International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (IIFFMM) which 
        urged that top Burmese military officials be investigated and 
        prosecuted for genocide.
            (5) On September 12, 2018, the IIFFMM reported, ``The 
        crimes in Rakhine State, and the manner in which they were 
        perpetrated, are similar in nature, gravity and scope to those 
        that have allowed genocidal intent to be established in other 
        contexts.''.
            (6) The Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), 
        whose investigation informed the Department of State's August 
        2018 report, published in December 2018 its Factual Findings & 
        Legal Analysis Report, which concluded that ``there are 
        reasonable grounds to believe that genocide was committed 
        against the Rohingya in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State''.
            (7) According to the PILPG report, ``The scale and severity 
        of the attacks and abuses--particularly the mass killings and 
        accompanying brutality against children, women, pregnant women, 
        the elderly, religious leaders, and persons fleeing into 
        Bangladesh--suggest that, in the minds of the perpetrators, the 
        goal was not just to expel, but also to exterminate the 
        Rohingya.''.
            (8) On September 16, 2019, the IIFFMM reported that it 
        ``has reasonable grounds to conclude that the evidence that 
        infers genocidal intent on the part of the State, identified in 
        its last report, has strengthened that there is a serious risk 
        that genocidal actions may occur or recur''.
            (9) The IIFFMM also recognized in its September 16, 2019, 
        report that Burma's military and security forces have committed 
        abuses against minority groups other than the Rohingya: ``All 
        the ethnic minority communities that the Mission 
        investigated,'' including ethnic groups in Rakhine, Chin, 
        Kayin, Kachin, and Shan States, ``have been deprived of justice 
        for the serious human rights violations perpetrated against 
        them.''.

SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

    It is the sense of Congress that the atrocities committed against 
the Rohingya by the Burmese military and security forces constitute 
genocide.

SEC. 4. EVALUATION OF ATTACKS AGAINST ROHINGYA IN BURMA.

    (a) In General.--Not later than 90 days after the date of the 
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State, after consultation with 
the heads of other United States Government agencies represented on the 
Atrocity Early Warning Task Force and representatives of human rights 
organizations, as appropriate, shall submit to the appropriate 
congressional committees an evaluation of the persecution of, including 
attacks against, the Rohingya in Burma by Burmese military and security 
forces, including whether the situation constitutes genocide (as 
defined in section 1091 of title 18, United States Code), and a 
detailed description of any proposed atrocities prevention response 
recommended by the Atrocity Early Warning Task Force.
    (b) Form.--The evaluation required under subsection (a) shall be 
submitted in unclassified form and posted to the Department of State 
website, but may include a classified annex as necessary.
    (c) Appropriate Congressional Committees Defined.--In this section, 
the term ``appropriate congressional committees'' means--
            (1) the Committee on Foreign Relations, the Committee on 
        Armed Services, and the Committee on Appropriations of the 
        Senate; and
            (2) and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on 
        Armed Services, and the Committee on Appropriations of the 
        House of Representatives.
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