Recognizing the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda and joining people in Rwanda and around the world in remembering and mourning the victims of the genocide.

Bill: 118-hres-1171
Sponsor: full_name: Rep. Omar, Ilhan [D-MN-5]
Introduced: 2024-04-26
Policy area: International Affairs
Latest action: action_date: 2024-04-26
text: Referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Summaries:
action_date: 2024-04-26
action_desc: Introduced in House
text: <p>This resolution recognizes the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda.</p><p>The resolution also reaffirms the commitment of the United States to the goals of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.</p>

tv_txt: IV 118th CONGRESS 2d Session H. RES. 1171 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES April 26, 2024 Ms. Omar (for herself, Mr. Jackson of Illinois , Ms. Norton , Mr. Carson , and Mr. McGovern ) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs RESOLUTION Recognizing the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda and joining people in Rwanda and around the world in remembering and mourning the victims of the genocide.

Whereas, 30 years ago, for approximately 100 days from April to June 1994, an estimated 800,000 people, the majority members of the Tutsi minority, were killed in the Rwandan Genocide; Whereas the genocide targeted Tutsis, Twa, and Hutus who opposed the genocide; Whereas nearly 70 percent of the Tutsi population of Rwanda was killed during the genocide; Whereas the Rwandan Genocide is remembered for its particular brutality, wherein the majority of those killed were killed with hand-held weapons like machetes and clubs; Whereas the genocide included not just mass killings, but mass displacement, and the extensive use of rape as a weapon of war; Whereas the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, hereinafter referred to as UNAMIR , was dramatically scaled down in the early days of the genocide, with many countries choosing to withdraw their contingents; Whereas the force commander of UNAMIR, Canadian General Roméo Dallaire, had accurately predicted the genocide months before it began, but was denied the additional resources and authorities he needed to help prevent it; Whereas the Clinton administration showed sustained public reluctance to refer to the genocide as a genocide, instead choosing to employ euphemism such as acts of genocide despite knowing that genocide was indeed occurring; Whereas President Clinton has, on several occasions, expressed profound regret for the United States inaction during the genocide, saying in 2013 that he believed that had the United States intervened, 300,000 lives could have been saved; and Whereas the United States was the first signatory of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, but did not ratify it until 1988: Now, therefore, be it

That the House of Representatives— (1) recognizes the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda; (2) joins people in Rwanda and around the world in remembering and mourning the victims of the genocide; (3) expresses profound regret at the United States and international community’s failure to adequately respond to the genocide as it was unfolding; (4) reaffirms the commitment of the United States to the goals of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; and (5) reaffirms the importance of atrocity prevention and justice as fundamental principles of American foreign policy.