[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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