[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 559 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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118th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. RES. 559
Recognizing the actions of the Rapid Support Forces and allied militia
in the Darfur region of Sudan against non-Arab ethnic communities as
acts of genocide.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
February 12, 2024
Mr. Risch (for himself, Mr. Cardin, Mr. Scott of South Carolina, and
Mr. Booker) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to
the Committee on Foreign Relations
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Recognizing the actions of the Rapid Support Forces and allied militia
in the Darfur region of Sudan against non-Arab ethnic communities as
acts of genocide.
Whereas Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide (in this preamble referred to as the ``Genocide
Convention''), adopted at Paris December 9, 1948, defines genocide as
``any of the following acts committed with 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'';
Whereas the genocide that began in 2003 in Darfur perpetrated by the Government
of Sudan and its proxy Janjaweed militia--explicitly targeting the Fur,
Zaghawa, and Masalit ethnic communities through mass killings, forced
displacement, the razing of villages and cropland, widespread rape,
aerial bombings of civilians, and the blocking of humanitarian
assistance--killed at least 200,000 civilians and displaced 2,000,000
people;
Whereas Congress declared on July 22, 2004, with the passage of Senate
Concurrent Resolution 133 (108th Congress) and House Concurrent
Resolution 467 (108th Congress) that atrocities occurring in Darfur were
genocide, and the administration of President George W. Bush declared
genocide in Darfur on September 9, 2004;
Whereas, in 2013, the Government of Sudan, under the administration of the
National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) and the command of the
Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), formed the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a
formal paramilitary force composed primarily of Janjaweed militia;
Whereas Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (commonly known as ``Hemedti''), a Janjaweed
militia leader during the genocide in Darfur that began in 2003, served
as head of the RSF and became the deputy head of the Transitional
Military Council, which took power from President of Sudan Omar al-
Bashir in 2019, and the deputy chairman of the successor Sovereign
Council;
Whereas the underlying conditions that enabled the genocide in Darfur that began
in 2003 were never fully addressed or resolved, and the elevation of
individuals who served in leadership of the parties responsible for such
genocide, including Hemedti and General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the
SAF, into leadership roles in the transition government in 2019 only
heightened the risk of atrocities across Sudan, including genocide in
Darfur;
Whereas fighting between the SAF and the RSF broke out in Khartoum on April 15,
2023, and quickly spread to Darfur, where the RSF has taken control of
four of five regional capitals in Darfur--Nyala, Geneina, Zalingei, and
El Daein;
Whereas the reports, including a July 14, 2023, assessment, by the Sudan
Conflict Observatory, which is funded by the United States, reveal that
actions by the RSF in Darfur, including besieging cities, destroying
villages, and committing extrajudicial detentions, killings, and sexual
violence against Masalit, Fur, and Zaghawa ethnic groups, mirror the
atrocities committed by the Government of Sudan and the Janjaweed
militias between 2003 and 2004;
Whereas, on August 16, 2023, CNN issued an investigative report on the June 15,
2023, atrocity in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, describing the
atrocity as ``one of the most violent incidents in the genocide-scarred
Sudanese region's history'', explaining how ``the powerful paramilitary
Rapid Support Forces and its allied militias hunted down non-Arab people
in various parts of the city . . . reviving a genocidal playbook'', and
in which survivors reported that identifying as Masalit ``was a death
sentence'';
Whereas, on November 3, 2023, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights stated, ``We are deeply alarmed by reports that women
and girls are being abducted and held in inhuman, degrading slave-like
conditions in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in
Darfur'';
Whereas, on November 14, 2023, the United Nations Special Adviser on the
Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, expressed extreme concern
with the ``serious allegations of mass killings'' in Ardamata, which
``may constitute acts of genocide'', citing reports that the violence
killed more than 800 people and displaced 8,000 Sudanese individuals to
Chad;
Whereas, on December 6, 2023, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken determined
that, since the fighting between the SAF and the RSF began on April 15,
2023, Sudan has experienced war crimes, crimes against humanity, and
ethnic cleansing in ``haunting echoes of the genocide that began almost
20 years ago in Darfur'', including Masalit civilians being ``hunted
down and left for dead in the streets, their homes set on fire, and told
that there is no place in Sudan for them'';
Whereas a December 15, 2023, Reuters special investigative report detailed the
targeted killing of Masalit men and boys by the RSF, about which an
emergency protection officer for the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees explained that ``the objective of the killings seems to be
the elimination of future fighters as well as the line of ancestry of a
specific ethnic group'', referring to the Masalit people;
Whereas the RSF has killed Masalit political and traditional leaders in El-
Geneina, West Darfur, including Khamis Abdullah Abbakar, the Governor of
West Darfur, and Farsha Mohamed Arbab, a prominent leader of the Masalit
Sultanate;
Whereas there is significant evidence of widespread, systematic actions against
the non-Arab ethnic communities of Darfur, including the Masalit people,
committed by the RSF and allied militia that meet one or more of the
criteria under Article II of the Genocide Convention, including--
(1) killing members of the non-Arab ethnic communities in Darfur in
mass killings of civilians, including summary executions in the streets and
shootings of civilians fleeing across the Wadi Kaja river and to the Chad
border, targeted killings of men and boys, targeted killings of Masalit
leaders, and burials in mass graves;
(2) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of such
communities, including through extrajudicial detention, torture and
beatings, extortion, sexual and gender-based violence, mass rape, sexual
slavery, and forced displacement; and
(3) deliberately inflicting on such communities conditions of life
calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part,
including the annihilation of villages, targeted attacks on marketplaces
and schools, widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure and
telecommunication, the looting of homes and hospitals, assaults on camps
for displaced persons, the destruction of humanitarian facilities, the
killing of aid workers, and restrictions on humanitarian aid and access;
and
Whereas credible descriptions of the RSF's objective of elimination of the line
of ancestry of the non-Arab tribes of Darfur, survivors' statements that
identifying as Masalit is a death sentence, and reports that the RSF
made clear that there is no place in Sudan for the Masalit, against the
backdrop of the prior genocide in Darfur, evince a specific intent on
the part of the RSF to destroy the Masalit and other non-Arab ethnic
groups in Darfur in whole or in substantial part: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the Senate--
(1) condemns atrocities, including those that amount to the
genocide, being committed by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and
allied militias against the Masalit people and other non-Arab
ethnic groups in Darfur, and the roles of the RSF and Sudanese
Armed Forces (SAF) in perpetrating atrocities, humanitarian
catastrophe, and the destruction of Sudan;
(2) calls for an immediate end to the war and all violence
and atrocities in Sudan;
(3) urges the Government of the United States--
(A) to take urgent steps work with the
international community, including through multilateral
fora, to establish means to protect civilians,
including by establishing safe zones and humanitarian
corridors, enforcing the United Nations Security
Council arms embargo on Darfur, and brokering a
comprehensive ceasefire and disarmament of the warring
parties in Sudan;
(B) to support the consistent and transparent
documentation of atrocities and genocidal acts in Sudan
by instituting a mechanism that will, to the greatest
extent possible, publicly release such documentation on
a consistent and regular basis;
(C) to immediately identify mechanisms through
which to fund local, community-based organizations that
are currently providing humanitarian assistance to the
Sudanese people in conflict affected areas that
traditional implementing partners cannot reach,
including for the delivery of food, medical aid, and
shelter to individuals impacted by the war in Sudan;
and
(D) to regularly review and update the atrocities
determination for Sudan;
(4) supports tribunals and international criminal
investigations to hold the RSF and allied militias accountable
for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide; and
(5) calls on the Atrocity Prevention Task Force to conduct
a comprehensive review of its efforts to prevent, analyze, and
respond to atrocities in Sudan, in alignment with the 2022
United States Strategy to Anticipate, Prevent, and Respond to
Atrocities.
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