[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FULFILLING THE HUMANITARIAN IMPERATIVE:
ASSISTING VICTIMS OF ISIS VIOLENCE
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH,
GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
DECEMBER 9, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-172
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
or
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
97-859PDF WASHINGTON : 2016
_________________________________________________________________________________________
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office,
http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center,
U.S. Government Publishing Office. Phone 202-512-1800, or 866-512-1800 (toll-free).
E-mail, [email protected].
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
MATT SALMON, Arizona KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas GRACE MENG, New York
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TED S. YOHO, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
CURT CLAWSON, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
TOM EMMER, MinnesotaUntil 5/18/
15 deg.
DANIEL DONOVAN, New YorkAs
of 5/19/15 deg.
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and
International Organizations
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina KAREN BASS, California
CURT CLAWSON, Florida DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, AMI BERA, California
Tennessee
TOM EMMER, MinnesotaUntil 5/18/
15 deg.
DANIEL DONOVAN, New YorkAs
of 6/2/15 deg.
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
Gregory H. Stanton, Ph.D., president, Genocide Watch............. 6
The Most Reverend Bishop Francis Kalabat, Chaldean Eparchy of St.
Thomas the Apostle in America.................................. 13
Mr. Mirza Ismail, founder and chairman, Yezidi Human Rights
Organization-International..................................... 21
Mr. Carl A. Anderson, supreme knight, Knights of Columbus........ 28
Mr. Noah Gottschalk, senior policy advisor for humanitarian
response, Oxfam America........................................ 48
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Gregory H. Stanton, Ph.D.: Prepared statement.................... 9
The Most Reverend Bishop Francis Kalabat: Prepared statement..... 16
Mr. Mirza Ismail: Prepared statement............................. 25
Mr. Carl A. Anderson: Prepared statement......................... 31
Mr. Noah Gottschalk: Prepared statement.......................... 51
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 70
Hearing minutes.................................................. 71
The Honorable Christopher H. Smith, a Representative in Congress
from the State of New Jersey, and chairman, Subcommittee on
Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International
Organizations:
World Magazine article, ``Christians Martyred by the Islamic
State''...................................................... 72
Oxfam Briefing Note--Solidarity with Syrians................... 77
FULFILLING THE HUMANITARIAN.
IMPERATIVE: ASSISTING VICTIMS OF
ISIS VIOLENCE
----------
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2015
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health,
Global Human Rights, and International Organizations,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in
room 2255 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher H.
Smith (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Smith. The committee will come to order, and good
afternoon to everybody. Thank you for being here.
Each day, our newspapers, magazines, radios, and television
screens are filled to overflowing with images of people fleeing
territory controlled by the Islamic jihadist group known as
ISIS. More than half of the 653,000 refugees, an estimated 53
percent in Europe, are from Syria alone according to the U.N.
High Commissioner for Refugees.
While violence plays the major part in the impetus of
Syrians to leave their homes, Shelly Pitterman of the UNHCR
testified at a hearing I chaired on October 20th that the main
trigger for the flight for refugee camps or shelter in nations
like Jordan is the humanitarian funding shortfall. In recent
months, he told us, the World Food Programme cut its program by
30 percent, and the current Syrian Regional Refugee and
Resilience Plan for 2015 is only 41 percent funded. The UNHCR
expects to receive just 47 percent of the funding it needs for
Syria over the next year.
One year ago this month, the U.N. Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs issued a report that
detailed the worsening humanitarian situation in Syria. An
estimated 12.21 million people were in need of humanitarian
assistance including 7.6 million IDPs, or internally displaced
people, and more than 5.6 million children in need of
assistance. An estimated 4.8 million people were in need of
humanitarian assistance in hard to reach areas and locations.
Those numbers definitely have not improved as the conflict has
continued and worsened.
By the third International Pledging Conference on March 31,
2015, the crisis had become the largest displacement crisis in
the world with 3.8 million people having fled to Lebanon,
Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt in addition to those internally
displaced. In support of the Syria Response Plan and Regional
Refugee and Resilience Plan, international donors pledged $3.68
billion in money. However, according to the Financial Tracking
Service at the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs, only $1.17 of the $2.89 billion has been received by
December 7. That constitutes only about 41 percent of what was
considered necessary by that agency.
Today's hearing will focus on the plight of persecuted
minorities, religious minorities in Syria and in Iraq, which
today constitutes genocide and the failure of much of the
international community to live up to their pledges of
humanitarian assistance, factors which push refugees to Europe
and beyond. In particular, we will examine violence targeting
religious minorities such as Christians and Yazidis in
territory controlled by ISIS in both Syria and Iraq.
This past September, the Simon-Skjodt Center for the
Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum undertook a ``Bearing Witness Trip'' to northern Iraq to
investigate allegations of genocide being committed by ISIS.
Their report is chilling: ``Our Generation Is Gone: The Islamic
State's Targeting of Iraqi Minorities in Ninewa.''; and in it
they talk about severe deprivation, rape, sexual slavery,
enslavement of many kinds, and murder, perpetrated in a
widespread and systematic manner that indicates a deliberate
plan to target religious and ethnic minorities.
Mirza Ismail, chairman and founder of the Yezidi Human
Rights Organization-International, will testify today that the
Yazidis are on the verge of annihilation. Chaldean Bishop
Francis Kalabat will testify that, ``There are countless
Christian villages in Syria who have been taken over by ISIS
and have encountered genocide and the Obama administration
refuses to recognize their plight.''
Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus,
calls on the Obama administration to publicly acknowledge that
genocide is taking place against the Christian communities of
Iraq and Syria. Mr. Anderson will testify that ``Vulnerable
religious minorities fear taking shelter in the camps of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees because of
religiously motivated violence and intimidation inside the
camps.''
Syrian Christians, he notes, and other vulnerable
minorities are disproportionately excluded from the U.S.-Syrian
refugee resettlement program due to reliance on a functionally
discriminatory UNHCR program, so that is where the mistake is
initially made and systematically Christians are excluded.
Dr. Gregory Stanton, the president of Genocide Watch and
research professor at George Mason University, in his testimony
entitled, ``Weak Words are Not Enough,'' says State's failure
to call ISIS' mass murder of Christians, Muslims, and other
groups in addition to Yazidis, by its proper name ``genocide''
would be an act of denial as grave as U.S. refusal to recognize
the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
And I would note parenthetically that I was in Congress in
1994. I was at the U.N. Commission for Human Rights in Geneva
and worked side by side with those in the administration at
that time, and there were some who demanded that the Rwandan
genocide be called what it was and there was refusal. The same
thing happened in Bosnia and it happened elsewhere, and that
terrible experience now replays itself over and over again and
it is replaying now. Ethnic cleansing, what does that mean, as
Dr. Stanton says in his testimony.
The administration reportedly is considering declaring the
ISIS mistreatment of Yazidis to be genocide. Frankly, that is
good; I encourage that. But there is no indication that
Christians will be included. That is absurd and unconscionable.
Such an action would be contrary to the facts and tragically
wrong.
Last year the U.N. resolution determined about the Yazidis
and Christians were being particularly targeted by ISIS. A
group of Christian leaders last week wrote to Secretary of
State John Kerry to present their case for treating Christians
the same as Yazidis in this matter but they have not yet
received the reply, and hopefully it will be a positive one.
As we attempt to end the ISIS threat, we must consider how
to help ensure religious pluralism in Syria and Iraq in the
future, and that will not be an easy task since animosities
have grown during the conflicts in Iraq and Syria exponentially
during the rise and the reign of terror of ISIS. Nevertheless,
unless we consider how to make these lands safe for religious
minorities, we will continue to see them chased out of their
traditional areas even if there is no ISIS.
Our witnesses today will provide us a picture of the
ongoing struggle, provide us hopefully with some
recommendations that can be acted upon, being faced by these
religious minorities, and hopefully they will help us to begin
to make this issue more prominent and that the designation of a
Christian genocide will be declared.
I would again note parenthetically, several years ago I
chaired a hearing, and I have had several since, on the plight
of Christians. And we had a representative from the
administration, who when instance after instance was detailed
by the other witnesses he said over and over again--and I don't
want to embarrass him--but he said over and again, let me take
that back and take a look at that, as if there was a lack of
awareness about the gravity of people being beheaded and told
you either change your religion on the spot here or you will be
slaughtered.
In like manner, we had a witness that I met in an IDP camp
in Jos, Nigeria. That man actually had a Boko Haram terrorist
put an AK-47 to his cheek, on the ground, and said, you
renounce your faith as a Christian or I am going to blow your
brains out. He said, I am ready to meet my Lord. His wife was
pleading and sobbing. He pulled the trigger; the Boko Haram
terrorist blew half his face away. When he testified, you could
have heard a pin drop here, he had nothing but love and
compassion for his oppressor, and yet and he was the one, and
thank God he survived, to tell that story.
We need to first recognize what is actually going on, call
it what it is. We didn't do it in Rwanda, we haven't done it in
other places, and do it now.
Ms. Bass.
Ms. Bass. Thank you, Mr. Chair, always, for your leadership
on these issues. And as you mention the plight of Christians
both men and women, I did want to focus for a bit on the
situation faced by women. We read, see, and so much hear about
the unspeakable indignities, persecutions, faced daily in the
region by women. I would be remiss if I didn't raise the
situation, especially in war-torn Syria and destabilized
pockets in the immediate region, and I commend the efforts of
the U.N. Population Fund to address the needs of this critical
minority. Thousands of women live in fear every day and night.
I am talking about the everyday indignities faced by mothers
unsure of how they will feed their children on any given day,
or a new mother facing hard choices on how to best ensure her
infant child and her other children stay in an unsafe battle
zone that they know or risk the unknown by moving to another
safer region. These are just some of the real stories I have
read and heard from the U.N. Population Fund about their
critical work in Syria and the region addressing the needs of
women and girls in the region, whether they be from a religious
and/or cultural minority or from the majority Muslim
population.
I am proud to say that the U.S. supports the work of the
U.N. in both Syria and the region, women such as an unnamed
26-year-old woman who was kidnapped, sold, and
sexually abused for 9 months in northern Iraq who
escaped and found shelter at one of the internally
displaced camps. She was severely hurt physically,
emotionally and mentally. She spent her first days in
the camp depressed and helpless before she learned
about the U.N. Population Fund supported women at the
women's support center through outreach mobilizers.
The social workers at the women's support center
immediately offered counseling and healing sessions.
Her condition improved noticeably, and eventually she
was enrolled in training to upgrade her skills in
sewing. She not only completed the courses
successfully, but also was promoted to become a
trainer. She is now leading classes for other women and
girls, including survivors.
(The U.N. Population Fund Regional Situation Report
for Syria Crisis.)
For the last month alone they delivered 298,000 services to
Syrians affected by the conflict. So although we don't have
women on the panel today, I am hoping that the representatives
here will include the plight of women in their testimony. Thank
you very much, and I yield back.
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much. I yield to Dana
Rohrabacher, chairman of the Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging
Threats Subcommittee.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman,
and your ranking member, for this hearing today. American
people need to understand the magnitude of the crime that is
going on today in the Middle East and is spreading in different
parts of the world. We felt it in San Bernardino in my state
just a few days ago. There is slaughter of innocent people, and
in this slaughter there seems to be not just random or not just
a rage that is being experienced at a moment where someone
kills someone else, but it is a well thought-out effort to
terrorize the world. And we need the good people of the world
of every faith, Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Hindus and the
rest, the good people of the world need to stand together on
this.
And I have a piece of legislation that is aimed
specifically at those people who have been targeted for
genocide and publicly targeted, meaning the Christians and the
Yazidis have been actually singled-out for being eliminated
from the planet. And my bill would just say that--it is H.R.
4017--that if Christians and Yazidis are trying to come to the
United States through the regular refugee and immigration
procedures, we should recognize just like we should have
recognized that the Jews were a special case in 1939, instead
of sending them back saying you are not going to get any
special treatment from us, what we need to give those people
who actually are targeted for genocide, as has been announced,
a special, basically a priority status of those who are trying
to come to the United States. But the American people need to
know what is going on. The people of the world need to know.
The United States also can't carry this.
One last idea, and I will be interested to hear the points
of view of our colleagues today and our people who have come
here to give us testimony, and that is the United States, yes,
what about other, what about recommending that other people
start bringing in Christian and Yazidis refugees? For example,
Russia has introduced a very powerful weapon systems to that
region, and if they could do that I would call on the people of
Russia and the Government of Russia to bring in Christian
refugees from Syria and elsewhere where Christians are being
murdered for their faith. Let's see not only military action,
but let's see some humanitarian action on the part of Mr.
Putin's Russia.
So with that said, I am looking forward to the testimony.
Mr. Smith. Chairman Rohrabacher, thank you very much. I
would like to introduce our distinguished panel, beginning
first with Dr. Gregory Stanton who is the president of Genocide
Watch and the research professor in Genocide Studies and
Prevention at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and
Resolution of George Mason University in Virginia.
Dr. Stanton founded Genocide Watch in 1999, was the founder
and director of the Cambodian Genocide Project, and is founder
and chair of the International Campaign to End Genocide, the
world's first anti-genocide coalition. From 2007 to 2009, he
was president of the International Association of Genocide
Scholars.
Dr. Stanton previously served in the U.S. Department of
State where he drafted the U.N. Security Council's resolutions
that created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda,
the Burundi Commission of Inquiry, and the Central African Arms
Flow Commission.
We will then hear from Bishop Francis Kalabat, who heads
the Chaldean Eparchy of Saint Thomas the Apostle in Detroit. It
is made up of 12 parishes serving a Chaldean Catholic
population of approximately 200,000 people. There are a large
number of diaspora Iraqi Christians who stay in touch with and
support the Chaldean Church in Iraq proper, and more than half
of those remaining of approximately 250,000 faithful have
sought refuge from the ravages of ISIS in Kurdish Iraq, home of
the Chaldean Archdiocese of Erbil, the Kurdish capital.
We will then hear from Mr. Mirza Ismail who is chairman of
the Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International in Ontario,
Canada, which he founded in 2009 to protect the rights of the
Yazidi people worldwide. This organization has worked with the
Government of Canada to attain refugee status for Iraqi Yazidis
there. Prior to founding that organization he was chairman and
co-founder of London Yezidis Community-Canada. He has written
and given interviews extensively on the plight of the Yazidis
in Iraq. He is from Iraq himself, but now lives in the United
States.
We will then hear from Carl Anderson who is the supreme
knight of the Knights of Columbus where he is chief executive
officer and chairman of the board of the world's largest
Catholic, family, fraternal service organization which has over
1.9 million members.
Mr. Anderson has had a distinguished career as a public
servant and educator. He has worked in various positions of the
Executive Office of the President of the United States
including special assistant to the President and acting
director of the White House Office of Public Liaison. He worked
on the Senate side as a key staffer there, and also as a member
for nearly a decade for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
And then we will hear from Mr. Noah Gottschalk who is the
senior policy advisor for humanitarian response at Oxfam
America where he focuses on Syria, Iraq, Sudan, South Sudan,
and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as border
conflict and human rights issues. He has more than a decade of
experience working with children, families and communities
affected by conflict in these countries and elsewhere in the
Middle East and in Africa. He specializes in gender issues and
forced displacement and in the return and reintegration of
refugees and internally displaced persons. He serves, he
traveled on Oxfam Syria policy lead in mid-2013 and travels
regularly to Jordan and to Lebanon as part of Oxfam's work with
refugees from Syria and host communities.
Dr. Stanton, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF GREGORY H. STANTON, PH.D., PRESIDENT, GENOCIDE
WATCH
Mr. Stanton. Chairman Smith, Ms. Bass, and Mr. Rohrabacher,
who Jack Wheeler introduced me to at a party many, many years
ago, it is an honor to testify before this subcommittee that
has always been a champion of U.S. leadership in global human
rights.
Soon the State Department is likely to recognize the Yazidi
genocide, based not only on an excellent U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum report but also on the many news reports that
show ISIS as unquestionably committing genocide against the
Yazidis. But also the State Department is debating whether to
also state that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians,
Shia Muslims, Sabian Mandaeans, Turkoman Kakai, and other
religious groups.
Genocide Watch said in 2014 that ISIS is committing
genocide against all these groups and warned many policymakers
about that. Since then, thousands more Yazidis, Christians,
Shia Muslims and others have been murdered. Such acts of
genocide are strong proof of ISIS' intent to destroy in whole
or in part these religious and ethnic groups.
Why is it important to use the word ``genocide''? Some
people say, well, we can just call them crimes against
humanity, and after all the penalties are the same in the
International Criminal Court, pretty much, so what difference
does it make? Well, some epidemiologists and I actually did a
study of this in 2007. We counted up the number of times the
words ``genocide'' and ``ethnic cleansing,'' which was at that
time very popular, were used in four genocides--in the case of
Rwanda, in the case of Bosnia, the case of Kosovo, and then of
Darfur.
What we discovered in every single case is as long as it
was called ethnic cleansing no action was taken. When genocide
became the word that described the crime then action would be
taken. And in fact, in the report that I have submitted to you
I have actually got the dates exact about when the term
``genocide'' began to be used and when our action began. And it
is striking what a difference that word makes.
Now the reason why it is so powerful is, and that is why
Raphael Lemkin invented the word, is that genocide actually
means the destruction of a people of a nation, of a whole group
of people. And it may not be the whole group, it can be a part
of the group; that is often forgotten. But it therefore
impoverishes the entire human race. It is not just a crime like
some of the other crimes of humanity, this is a crime against
the entire future of the human race when you try to eliminate a
people.
Now fortunately in this case the U.S. is already taking
forceful action to defeat ISIS, as we should, and I only want
to just make an argument that we have adequate proof already of
the intent to commit genocide by ISIS against Christians and
against Shia Muslims. The evidence of ISIS genocide against
Christians is put into question in the Holocaust Museum's
report by the fact that they fell through, they accepted the
ISIS propaganda that Christians can pay a jizya tax and thereby
be spared from being killed.
Well, it is an ISIS lie. The truth is the ISIS tax is so
high that few can pay it and so they are beheaded, or even more
likely crucified, if they will not renounce their faith in
Jesus Christ and convert to Islam. So I would argue very
strongly that all of these groups already have plenty of
evidence of the intent to destroy their group in part, and they
should be included in the finding of the State Department.
There are two especially important reasons why the State
Department should declare that these groups are targets of
genocide. First of all, as Congressman Rohrabacher has
suggested, the term ``genocide'' makes members of such groups
much more likely to receive the preferential treatment as bona
fide refugees that they should receive under the U.N.
Convention and Protocols on the Status of Refugees to which the
U.S. is a state party, and also under the refugee laws of the
United States. It will be a huge help to Christians to be able
to be recognized as people having a well-founded fear of
persecution on the basis of their religious faith.
And the second reason is that the word ``genocide'' more
strongly justifies our broad coalition for military support for
Kurdish and Iraqi forces to defeat ISIS and, would you believe
it, in this case also to even join with another country that
would defend Christians, as Congressman Rohrabacher has
suggested, namely Russia. It justifies also our arming and
training militias of these targeted groups for self-defense,
which is always the best defense against genocide.
So we commend the congresspeople who have introduced H.
Con. Res. 75 which declares that genocide is being committed
against these groups. We commend the congresspeople who have
introduced H. Res. 447 that is specifically aimed at the plight
of women that Congresswoman Bass has particularly pointed out
because women are treated as sex slaves by the ISIS group; it
is a whole system of sex slavery. And we also commend
Congressman Rohrabacher for his bill, H.R. 4017. Thank you very
much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stanton follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Smith. Dr. Stanton, thank you very much.
Bishop?
STATEMENT OF THE MOST REVEREND BISHOP FRANCIS KALABAT, CHALDEAN
EPARCHY OF ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE IN AMERICA
Bishop Kalabat. I would like to take this opportunity to
thank Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Bass as well as the
other distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thank you very
much for having us here before you today. This hearing couldn't
come at a more critical time as it elevates the responsibility
to protect the most vulnerable ethno-religious populations in
Iraq and in Syria.
I would like to mention, when I mention Christians, it will
include Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syriac-based Christians who to
this day still speak the Aramaic language, the language of
Jesus Christ, and uphold an ancient culture and identity. This
as we speak is under threat of extinction in that region. Iraq
and Syria's Christians are part of the original inhabitants of
ancient Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, who played a
crucial role in the advancement of the sciences and
philosophies of the region and even had a great influence on
the West.
Since the fall of Mosul in early June 2014, Christians have
endured targeted persecution in the form of forced
displacement, sexual violence, other human rights violations.
All 45 churches and monasteries around Mosul fell to the hands
of ISIS, which subsequently removed the buildings' crosses,
burned, looted, and destroyed much of these properties. By late
July, the last of the Christians in Mosul escaped the city
following an edict issued by ISIS offering minorities the
option to either convert to Islam, pay a tax, flee, or be
killed leading to a modern-day genocide.
Before Iraq, ISIS had committed horrible genocidal
atrocities against the Christians in Syria. Although I
represent and will speak about the Christians, ISIS has
committed horrific atrocities against the Yazidis of which my
fellow brother sitting next to me will be talking in more
detail about, and other sects including Muslims themselves. But
I am here to represent the Christians.
It is important to recognize that the atrocities in Iraq
began as early as 2005. This preceded ISIS. Christians and
other minorities in Iraq have experienced their own slow and
perpetual genocide. I wish to note that the Obama
administration, including President Obama himself, have
neglected to mention that the ISIS atrocities were committed
against Christians. Time and time again they rightly mention
atrocities committed in Iraq against the Yazidis, absolutely,
and they are horrific, but there are also atrocities of rape
and killings and crucifixions of Christians, beheadings,
hangings that the Syrian and Iraqi Christians have endured and
they are intentionally omitted. I hate to say this, but this
they do to their own shame.
There are more than 150,000 Iraqi Christians who are now
displaced in northern Iraq or are refugees in other countries,
such as approximately 35,000 refugees in Jordan, 60,000
refugees in Lebanon, 30,000 in Turkey, who are being
victimized--and I hate to say this--by the Obama administration
in not recognizing their suffering. There are countless
Christian villages in Syria who have been taken over by ISIS
and have encountered genocide, and the Obama administration
again refuses to recognize their plight. And again I say, shame
on you.
Speaking of these refugees, I do want to take the
opportunity to recognize Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. They have
been overwhelmed by these refugees and yet they have never
closed their doors. And not only the Christian refugees, the
Muslim refugees, the Yazidi refugees, all other minorities as
well, they have never closed their doors. And especially I want
to recognize Turkey went out of their way to grant them free
medical needs, free education, countless other opportunities by
an act of Parliament--that is huge on the country--to all Iraqi
refugees.
But this also brings me to a very sensitive issue. Should
these refugees be brought to the United States, and if so
should we differentiate between Muslim, Christian or Yazidi
refugees? In my mind it shouldn't be an issue because the other
Middle Eastern countries should have stepped up as well. Why is
it only the West other than the three countries that I
mentioned?
Here is my point. Where is the best place for a Muslim
Syrian refugee to settle, Kuwait or Germany? Saudi Arabia or
Canada? Qatar or America? My point, it is much easier for an
Arab refugee to start over in a country where the language is
the same, culture is similar and the official religion of that
country is the same. Of course there is always that identifying
differentiation between the Sunni and the Shiite.
Where is the best place for a Yazidi or a Christian
refugee? What ISIS was able to do is the Christian does not
feel safe, neither does the Yazidi in his own country.
Targeting of the Christian for rape, loss of property,
killings, et cetera, as well as the Yazidi, has caused a loss
of trust. Christians have not been part of any terrorist
activity, but instead of have been the targets of terrorist
activities. And now they are being looked at as possible
terrorists when they are also lumped and they are told that you
can't come to any of these, at least to the United States. This
is simply unfair on top of everything that they have gone
through. Go back.
But shouldn't it be the same for a Muslim anywhere in the
Middle East? I ask, where is Kuwait in all of this? Where is
Saudi Arabia? Where is Qatar? Where is Bahrain? Arabs pride
themselves on what is called ``Arab Hospitality,'' which
includes the proper treatment of those who are needy. What
happened to welcoming them as guests and sharing with them
their needs? The Muslim faith is very clear about this as well.
Where are they? I speak this to their shame as well.
Does this mean that no Muslim Syrian or Iraqi refugee
should enter a Western country? No, absolutely not. I don't,
not at all. I merely am saying that it would be a much easier
task, and I believe many if given the opportunity would prefer
to remain in a safe Middle Eastern country than go to Sweden
and feel lost. Do I say all? No. But today it is not even an
option, and again I say to their shame, who have lost their
Arab dignity and Muslim faith, the reason is these refugees are
seen as surplus, undignified, excess trash. They don't want
them in their countries.
Possible solutions. First, the U.S. Government needs to
continue to work with the United Nations and other churches,
charities, private corporations. We need to find aid. The
numbers that were mentioned by Chairman Chris Smith are just
beyond understanding especially in places like Syria. The basic
needs of these human beings are not being met. Secondly, the
U.S. Government should not turn a blind eye to the genocidal
atrocities. Proclaim it for what it is. If it is not, then it
is not. If it is, then it is. Truth will set you free, a famous
man once said. Autonomous regions for Christians is a third
possibility. They need safety. If we want them to live in
safety we need to provide it for them. Short of a genuine
solution, Christians and other ethno-religious minorities of
Nineveh will become extinct. Thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Bishop Kalabat follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Smith. Bishop, thank you so very much for your very
powerful words, your recommendations, and then your bottom
line, extinction. This is an existential threat if ever there
was one and you have made your case very powerfully.
Mr. Ismail, the floor is yours, and I understand you do
have some photographs you would like to show. And I would say
with all respect to this reality, just like the Holocaust and
so many other atrocities committed by mankind over the
centuries, I think it is important that people see what we are
actually talking about. So if somebody might be offended,
please don't look at the monitor.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Chairman, we only have about 10
minutes, or less than 10 minutes for the vote. I would
certainly like to hear the testimony and see the pictures.
Mr. Smith. Okay, then I think my friend and colleague makes
a very good point. Rather than rush, we stand in a brief
recess. There are two votes. Hopefully within about 15 or 20
minutes we will be back. But thank you for your patience. We
stand in recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. Smith. The subcommittee will resume its sitting, and we
have been joined by two distinguished members. Dr. DesJarlais,
who is a member of our subcommittee, and any comments that he
might want to make or wait until--and Trent Franks who actually
is the head of the Religious Freedom Caucus here in the House
of Representatives and has spoken out unceasingly about the
slaughter of Christians in Syria and Iraq. Doctor? Okay, or
Trent?
Mr. Franks. Well, first of all, I want to thank Chris
Smith. I think that he is the most persistent and committed
voice for human rights in the United States Congress. And for
all the people here on the dais here, and I especially want to
appreciate those people who have come here to give voice to
those who can't be here and to those who are either no longer a
part of the human family because their lives have been taken
from them or because they just don't have the opportunity to
speak to the world like all of you do.
And I think it is noble, I think it is seen by God himself,
and I think that only eternity will discover your impact or
your reward for what you do. I know that it is as much a part
of the American ideal as anything, this notion that all human
beings bear the ``Imago Dei,'' the Image of God, and therefore
their creation and their being part of God's plan for this
world holds them up to such a value that it is beyond any of us
to articulate that.
But I am also so broken that sometimes those of us that
live in this thing called human family miss that. And there are
those that find themselves in the shadows of the world and of
the human experience and never have the opportunity to really
be seen for who they are. And I take great comfort in the
notion that God sees each one of them, and if time turns every
star in heaven to ashes that eternal moment of his deliverance
will finally come to each one of them whether they were
delivered here on this earth or not. But I am grateful that you
folks are here today.
I think that there are two relevant suggestions that are at
least part of my contribution to this effort, and number one is
that when we see malevolence and evil desecrate the innocent it
is incumbent upon those of us who are part of the arsenal of
freedom to respond and to make sure that it doesn't happen. And
to make sure that those who do desecrate the innocent realize
that they do so at great risk to themselves and they can never
consider themselves with impunity to this country's commitment
to protecting the innocent. And I feel like that in the case of
Iraq and ISIS that that responsibility was unconscionably
failed and fell so short of what it should have been, even
though that there were a lot of voices trying to express the
need to respond to this evil before it was able to manifest as
it most certainly did.
And then the second thing, when these things do happen that
I believe the people of the free world have a strong
responsibility to make it clear to the world that these
innocents did not die in vain nor did they suffer in vain nor
were they tortured in vain. In other words that we in this part
of the world will respond and we will hold those not only
accountable, but we will hold them up to the world in disdain
those that would have desecrated the innocent like they did.
And it is important that we don't leave anyone out.
Certainly the Yazidis, I met a number of Yazidis. We had press
conferences doing everything we could to bring attention to
their plight, and we need to hold that up in the strongest
possible way. These are a peaceful people that just desire to
live in the light of freedom and try to see their children grow
and to lay hold on the miracle of life. It is a very
fundamentally reasonable request that they make.
And of course, Mr. Chairman, it is important that we don't
leave out any of the religious groups, whether they are
Christian, Yazidi, Muslim, whatever they are that they are part
of the human family and that they should be looked upon as a
brother and a sister and as a fellow child of God. And that
means that we should not only stand and do everything we can to
protect all of them, but we should do everything that we can to
point out the fate of them.
And when we make resolutions calling for assigning genocide
it should include all of those that were victims and I say that
with the greatest deference and the greatest respect for every
last one of them, even those that were especially singled out
for some reason than the other. Those things can be articulated
in those resolutions, but we should not leave anyone out,
because to do so is to invite that same group to be attacked
again.
And again I have no words, Mr. Chairman, to express how
deeply I wish that we could have responded better and how I
wish there weren't evil impulses in the world like ISIS. But I
will tell you this, truth and time travel on the same road. And
the truth is that ISIS is evil and they will meet an
appropriate end, and those that were their victims will find
themselves at great advantage in the councils of eternity.
So with that God bless you all and thank you for coming,
and I again can't express the level of honor and just goodwill
that is in my heart toward each one of you. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Franks, thank you very much. I would like to
now recognize Mr. Ismail. The floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF MR. MIRZA ISMAIL, FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN, YEZIDI
HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION-INTERNATIONAL
Mr. Ismail. Dear ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Chairman, Mr.
Smith, committee members, I am honored to be here. Thank you
for this opportunity to speak at this hearing on genocide by
ISIS and the refugee crisis. I also want to thank the Holocaust
Memorial Museum for its recent report asserting that the
Yazidis are indeed the victims of genocide. The Chaldo-Assyrian
Christians should have been included in this report. Our loss
may not be the same, but the ISIS brutal action against both of
us are the same.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am here today to speak of
preventing the annihilation by ISIS of my people, the Yazidis,
and of the Chaldo-Assyrian Christians, Mandaeans, in Iraq and
Syria. We Yazidis are desperate for your immediate help and
support. During our 6,000-year history, the Yazidis have faced
74 genocides in the Middle East including the ongoing genocide.
Why? Simply because we are not Muslims. We are an ancient and
proud people from the heart of Mesopotamia, the birthplace of
civilization and the birthplace of many of the world's
religions, and here we are today, in 2015, on the verge of
annihilation.
In response to our suffering around the world there is
profound, obscene silence. We Yazidis are considered infidels
in the eyes of Muslims, and so they are encouraged to kill,
rape, enslave, and convert us. On August 2, 2014, on the eve of
ISIS' attack on the Yazidis in Sinjar region, more than 10,000
of the local authority forces were present in Sinjar region,
allegedly there to protect the Yazidis. In the early hours of
the evening, the Yazidis tried desperately to flee for their
lives to Mount Sinjar, but the local militia would not allow
it.
At about 10:00 p.m., these same local forces who had
promised to defend us, began to withdraw from the Yazidi
villages of the southern side of the Sinjar mountain, without
notifying the Yazidis. They escaped back to the KRG region. The
Yazidi men begged the local forces for weapons and ammunition
so that we could defend ourselves from ISIS, but they refused.
They would not spare even one weapon, not one round of ammo to
the Yazidi men, women, and children whom they, the local
militia, had trapped in what was a waiting room for the death
and carnage at the hands of ISIS. And several Yazidis who
begged and pleaded for weapons to save themselves and their
people were killed like dogs by the Peshmergas.
And so, God help us, on August 3, at around 2:00 a.m. ISIS
entered Sinjar region; the stage was set for the massacre of
our people, for we possessed only very basic weapons such as
AK-47 rifles. The Yazidi women, children, and elderly, and
empty-handed adults with no means of self-defense at all, tried
to escape the barbarians and flee to Mount Sinjar. It didn't
take long, only 4 or 5 hours, for the poorly armed Yazidi
fighters to run out of ammunition and the region was overun
with death and ISIS took over Sinjar region. With no means of
defense, of course the carnage was immense. Thousands of men
were killed on the spot including the beheading of hundreds.
The U.N. estimates that 5,000 Yazidis were murdered and
thousands of women and children taken hostage.
Then on August 6, 2014, ISIS attacked the Yazidis and the
Chaldo-Assyrians Christians in the Nineveh Plain. The resulting
genocide took the lives of thousands of Yazidis and Chaldo-
Assyrian and Shia minority. ISIS has wiped from existence one
of the most culturally diverse areas across the Middle East.
Today, hundreds of thousands who are still alive, have taken
refuge in IDP camps across the Iraqi region and Shia in the
southern Iraq. They urgently require your help.
There are thousands of young Yazidi women, girls, and even
children, who as I speak, have been enslaved and forced into
sexual slavery. These girls are subjected to daily multiple
rapes by ISIS monsters. According to many escaped women and
girls whom I talked to in northern Iraq, the abducted Yazidis,
mostly women and children, number over 7,000. Some of those
women and girls have had to watch 7-, 8-, and 9-year-old
children bleed to death before their eyes after being raped by
ISIS militia multiple times a day. I met mothers whose children
were torn from them by ISIS. These same mothers came to plead
for the return of their children, only to be informed that
they, the mothers, had been fed the flesh of their own children
by ISIS. Children murdered, then fed to their own mothers. ISIS
militia have burned many of them alive for refusing to convert
and marry ISIS men.
Young Yazidi boys are being trained to be jihadists and
suicide bombers. All of our temples in the ISIS controlled area
are exploded and destroyed. The entire Yazidi population was
displaced in less than 1 day on August 3, 2014 in Sinjar. The
Yazidis and Chaldo-Assyrians Christian face this genocide
together. Why? Again, because we are not Muslims and because
our path is the path of peace. For this we are being burned
alive, for living as men and women of peace.
What I have just recounted to you is what has happened to
the Yazidis, Chaldo-Assyrians, Sabians, in Sinjar and Nineveh
Plain, and other minorities; nothing less than genocide,
according to the U.N. definition of genocide.
On IDPs and refugee crisis in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey,
humanitarian aid, while necessary, is not sufficient. Much
humanitarian aid distributed by the Kurdish regional
authorities and the Iraqi Government never gets into the hands
of those who need it, those for whom it was intended, due to
skimming, corruption, and politics. Some outside observers say
that as much 90 percent of the humanitarian assistance meant
for Yazidis and other minorities has never reached their hands.
There are more than 30,000 Yazidi refugees currently
languishing in Turkey and Syria. At the top of the threatened
and persecuted list are the Yazidis, then come the Chaldo-
Assyrian Christians. Five thousand Yazidis were murdered by
ISIS in August 2014 and 7,000 were enslaved, mostly young women
and children. Thousands fled to camps where they are abused by
the Muslim authorities in charge, denied food and medicine
because they are not their own political parties. Or they
cannot get into refugee camps at all; consequently, they are
not certified as refugees since one cannot get refugee status
without being certified and the Muslims who dominate the camps
do not want them there.
The same holds true for the Chaldo-Assyrian Christians who
have repeatedly been forced to renounce their religion or die.
Enslavement, rape, hundreds of their churches have been
desecrated and destroyed. If humanitarianism is the chief
reason being cited in accepting refugees, the Yazidis, Chaldo-
Assyrian Christians, Mandaeans and other minorities should
receive priority simply because they are among the most
persecuted in the Middle East and the ones who have nowhere
else to go.
Perhaps the worst camps for the Yazidi refugees in Turkey
are those that border with Syria, because of the fighting
between the PKK and the Turkish Government. The Yazidis worry
about the Russian plane recently downed by Turkey. In the event
of war between the two countries, Yazidi refugees are afraid of
being used as human shields. Because of the unsafe situation,
hundreds of these Yazidis are fleeing for Europe. They are
seeking safety and a peaceful life and yet hundreds of these
refugees have lost their lives on the journey, whether in the
freezer of truck trailers, or by drowning in their tube boats
in the sea between Turkey and Greece. Others die of starvation
and dehydration attempting to reach safety by foot. In all
cases, their desperation is the cause of death.
I am now pleading with each and every one of you in the
name of humanity to lend us your help and support at this
crucial time, to save the indigenous and peaceful people of the
Middle East--the Yazidis, the Chaldo-Assyrian Christians, the
Mandaeans, and other minorities.
Recognize the Yazidi and Chaldo-Assyrian Christian genocide
and provide international protection so we can live as God
created us. Concerned nations including the U.S., Canada, UK,
NATO, and EU member states and the United Nations should make a
concerted effort to liberate the ISIS detention centers. As
mentioned, we estimate at least 4,000 are currently held, young
Yazidi women and children, by ISIS.
We ask the United Nations, the U.S., Canada, UK, and NATO,
and other members of the international community, to intervene
with the Iraqi Government in supporting the creation of an
autonomous region for the Yazidi, Chaldo-Assyrians and other
minorities in Sinjar region and Nineveh Plain, under the
protection of international forces and directly tied to
Baghdad's central government. This right is guaranteed under
the Iraqi constitution, Article 125, but it needs
implementation. This is the only way we can survive in the
Middle East.
We ask the U.S. and all sympathetic governments around the
world to develop refugee policies that can work quickly and
effectively to provide new homes for the needy refugees, for
the Yazidis, for the Chaldo-Assyrian Christian and other
minorities who urgently need new beginnings, especially the
abducted ones who were able to escape from ISIS, far away from
the carnage we witnessed.
Germany has agreed to accept 1,000 Yazidi refugees who were
abducted by ISIS and about 700 have arrived already. I hope
that the U.S. can do the same, and provide social-psycho help
to the innocent. Humanitarian aid must be sent immediately to
those internally displaced persons in northern Iraq. There is
an imminent threat of starvation, dehydration, and diseases
especially for the Yazidis in Mount Sinjar. As much as possible
this assistance should come from neutral, non-governmental
sources to mitigate the diversion of food and water.
Thank you so much for listening and for the very careful
consideration going forward. We beseech you with the greatest
urgency, to help save the remnants of our nation, of the
Chaldo-Assyrians, of Mandaeans, and other minorities. Only with
your help, after we have experienced so much death and
suffering, is there a possibility of a peaceful life going
forward for our people. Thank you so much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ismail follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Smith. Thank you so very much for that very powerful
testimony. We are joined by Mark Meadows, vice chairman of the
committee.
We will go to Mr. Anderson now.
STATEMENT OF MR. CARL A. ANDERSON, SUPREME KNIGHT, KNIGHTS OF
COLUMBUS
Mr. Anderson. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for this
hearing, and thank you for the opportunity to appear before the
subcommittee to discuss the Knights of Columbus' humanitarian
aid programs.
Over the past year our programs have helped to feed, heal,
shelter and educate many thousands of desperate Christians in
church-run camps or other private places of refuge in Iraq,
Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. We have established a donation and
news web portal titled ChristiansAtRisk.org, and have to date
donated over $5 million in direct aid to Christians and other
persecuted minorities in the region. And we have partnered with
other organizations such as Catholic Relief Services, Aid to
the Church in Need, Caritas, and local dioceses in Iraq and
Syria.
Our assistance has taken many forms in terms of food,
shelter, education, and medical assistance. At times we have
been required to give exceptional care. For example, just
several weeks ago we helped Katreena, a very sick 15-year-old
Iraqi girl, by organizing her airlift from a displaced persons
camp in Erbil. Her life was saved when she was brought to a New
England hospital for treatment for numerous issues for which
she could not adequately be treated in Iraq.
We also are funding the work of a medical clinic in the
Kurdistan region, which is the first point of contact for many
Yazidi women who are escaping from conditions of sexual slavery
there. Through this humanitarian work in the Middle East we
have made three basic observations and four recommendations
bearing on U.S. human rights and refugee policy that I would
like to focus on in my testimony today. In the interest of time
I will just briefly summarize them.
The Christian communities of Iraq and Syria, along with
those of other vulnerable religious minorities, are suffering
genocide that continues to the present time. We recommend
therefore that the Congress swiftly adopt H. Con. Res. 75,
which names and decries the ongoing genocide against Christians
and other vulnerable minorities in Iraq and Syria. Further, we
recommend that the United States State Department publicly
acknowledge that genocide is taking place against the Christian
communities of Iraq and Syria, including in its reportedly
impending statement on genocide that according to reports
refers properly, but only to Nineveh's Yazidi community.
The United States is rightly viewed, Mr. Chairman, as the
world's leading defender of vulnerable minorities, and it is
critically important that our State Department consider the
best available evidence before issuing a statement that would
exclude Christians. An official government declaration of
genocide is an opportunity to bring America's religious
communities together to pursue the truth, to support victims,
and to bear witness to the noble principle of ``never again.''
Last week, the Knights of Columbus sent an urgent letter to
Secretary of State John Kerry asking for an opportunity to
brief him about this genocide. This letter was signed by
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington, and more
than two dozen other religious leaders and scholars from across
the political spectrum and from diverse Orthodox, Protestant,
Mormon, as well as Catholic faith traditions. A copy of the
letter is submitted with my testimony as an addendum.
Third, the Christian communities of Iraq and Syria, along
with those other vulnerable religious minorities, fear taking
shelter in the camps of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees because of religiously motivated violence and
intimidation that occurs inside the camps. We recommend
therefore that the United States insists on proper security
inside the camps and that it identifies ways to ensure that
Christians and other vulnerable minorities from Iraq and Syria
are not subject to violence inside the UNHCR facilities,
including the possibility of providing separate facilities for
minorities and hiring professional staff that would include
members of the minority communities.
The U.S. should require the UNHCR to gather and make public
along with its other data the religious affiliation of all the
refugees it serves. To ignore reports of humanitarian problems
without prompt investigation and corrective action is itself an
injustice. We have had aid organizations at the camps in
Jordan, for example, Zaatari and Azraq, where there are
100,000is a hundred thousand deg. Syrian refugees and
they are unable to find a single Christian in those camps.
Our fourth recommendation: Syrian Christians and other
vulnerable minorities are disproportionately excluded from the
U.S.-Syrian refugee resettlement program due to a reliance on
what has become a functionally discriminatory UNHCR program. So
we recommend that the U.S. Government take immediate action to
implement its stated policy of prioritizing the resettlement of
vulnerable minorities including Christians. In addition, we
recommend that the U.S. Government end its sole reliance on the
UNHCR for refugee referrals and engage private contractors to
identify, document and refer Christian, Yazidi, and other
vulnerable minority refugees from Syria and Iraq who are in
need of resettlement.
In conclusion, permit me to observe that the near complete
dependency of these refugees on our help and that of other
private charities to meet their essential needs will continue
for the foreseeable future. Therefore, the policy
recommendations we have mentioned just now are urgently
necessary. And it should be noted obviously that the Christian
communities and other vulnerable minorities have not taken up
arms on any side of the violence. They have been peaceful.
Finally, let me just mention again Pope Francis has been in
the forefront in calling attention to this ongoing crisis,
especially during his visit to the United States. He has said
what is happening to these Christians and other religious
minorities is ``a form of genocide and it must end.'' And
finally, if you permit me one final request in closing, I would
ask you to consider special funding to investigate and obtain
documentation and evidence of the crime of genocide that is
occurring in Syria and Iraq. We need to investigate and
preserve that evidence now before it disappears if we are going
to move forward seriously on the issue of genocide in this
region. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Anderson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Anderson.
And our final, Mr. Gottschalk.
STATEMENT OF MR. NOAH GOTTSCHALK, SENIOR POLICY ADVISOR FOR
HUMANITARIAN RESPONSE, OXFAM AMERICA
Mr. Gottschalk. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member Bass and members of the subcommittee. It is an honor to
be here today to testify on the humanitarian situation in Syria
and Iraq and on what we can do to better assist victims of the
ongoing conflict in both countries.
My testimony is drawn from several months spent over the
last few years speaking to civilians caught up in these
conflicts as well as from the ongoing work of my Oxfam
colleagues in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey where
they are on the ground providing aid to nearly 1.7 million
people.
In my testimony today I will highlight some of the
humanitarian challenges facing the people of Syria and Iraq and
what the U.S. can do to better assist them. Oxfam is calling
for urgent and immediate action by the U.S. and the
international community to deal with this deepening crisis,
first, by fully funding the aid response in Syria, Iraq and the
region; second, by ensuring humanitarian access to those in
need of aid and offering refuge to those who have fled their
country; and third, by reviving concerted efforts toward a
resolution of these crises.
The statistics in Syria paints a deeply grim picture. I
have included more detail in my written statement but is worth
highlighting here that indiscriminate and disproportionate
attacks are being committed by all parties to the conflict
including through the use of barrel bombs, mortar attacks, and
other explosive weapons in populated areas. These types of
attacks remain by far the primary cause of civilian deaths and
injuries. Well over half the entire pre-war population of Syria
has been forced to flee their homes, making Syria the largest
displacement crisis in the world today.
As the number of people in need grows, aid from
humanitarian agencies however is being drastically reduced due
to funding shortages. The U.S. remains the largest single donor
to the Syria humanitarian crisis, providing more than $4.5
billion since the start of the conflict. Yet according to
Oxfam's analysis, the U.S. is still not meeting its fair share
of aid to the Syria crisis based on our gross national income.
This year we have reached approximately 72 percent of our fair
share. The U.S. must continue to lead by example and encourage
our allies to follow suit.
And I will note that I have included in my written
testimony some of the specifics of other countries and what
percentages of their fair share that they have met for
comparison. In Iraq, the U.S. is also the leading donor having
provided over $\1/2\ million to the humanitarian response over
the last two fiscal years. However, as in Syria, the scale of
need is far outpacing aid contributions with Iraq's
humanitarian appeal only about two-thirds funded. The U.N. now
estimates that 11 million Iraqis will require some form of
humanitarian assistance in 2016.
The humanitarian crisis in Iraq is a protection crisis
above all else. Today, on the second to last day of the 16 days
of action against gender violence, we must remember that 1.4
million Iraqi women remain displaced. And while it is an honor
to be testifying here amongst such distinguished witnesses, I
do think it is unfortunate that no women are testifying today,
particularly to speak on the impact of the conflict on women
and girls. As we have seen in our work on the ground, gender-
based violence is one of the most significant features of this
crisis and has a major impact on the ability of women and girls
in particular to recover from the trauma of conflict.
The challenges for the people of Syria and Iraq extend
beyond funding shortages. Inside both countries insufficient
international aid contributions are compounded by the
difficulties that far too many civilians have in accessing the
assistance that is present. In Syria, shifting conflict lines,
the rise of extremist groups such as ISIS, and restrictions
imposed by the government on aid agencies have impeded
humanitarian access. Indeed, as Chairman Smith recognized at
the start, the United Nations estimates now that more than 4.8
million people in Syria in need of humanitarian assistance are
in hard to reach and besieged locations.
In Iraq, the ability of people to flee to safety is a major
problem. On my last visit to the country earlier this year, I
stood on the side of the road with a group of several hundred
Iraqi children, women and men who had been forced to flee their
homes in Ramadi. Horrified by the brutality they had witnessed,
frightened for their friends and neighbors from Christian and
other minority communities and terrified that they themselves
would be swept up in the violence, they were now trying to find
safety, first in Baghdad where they were rejected and then in
the north of their country.
One man spoke of his brother being killed and his
barbershop being burned to the ground. Now with his children
and wife in tow, he was trying to find refuge with his family
in the Kurdistan region of Iraq where had grown up and studied.
But because he is a Sunni Muslim, the authorities were not
allowing him and many others to enter the region for fear that
he might be associated with the very extremists who attacked
his family and destroyed his livelihood.
Without clear guarantees of safety and enhanced
humanitarian space, Iraqi families like his will have little
option but to turn back to areas held by the same extremists
they seek to escape. No humanitarian efforts, however well
intentioned, can take the place of an end to conflicts. In
Syria, far too many powers are fueling conflict rather than
undertaking earnest efforts to bring it to an end. In Iraq, any
efforts to restore stability and return populations must be
accompanied by the provision of genuine physical protection to
all at-risk communities. Now this includes Sunni Arab
populations in areas currently occupied by ISIS or communities
who have fled violence and face risk of reprisal killings,
threats to safety and further displacement.
While the persecution of minorities has been the most
visible and systemic, on all sides of the conflict, civilians
have been targeted on the basis of group identity--the Yazidis,
Christians, Turkmen, and even Sunni Arabs. Iraq's social fabric
has been torn apart. In attempting to help put it back together
we must make sure that we do not inadvertently stigmatize
communities which still consider themselves, first and
foremost, Iraqi. A lasting political solution in both countries
will enable the return and reintegration of the displaced, but
this will require a meaningful process of reconciliation and
genuine safety for all of Syria's and Iraq's citizens.
Finally, no discussion of the ways to assist Syrians and
Iraqis would be complete without reference to refugee
resettlement. Although it will ultimately benefit just a tiny
fraction of Syrian and Iraqi refugees, America's well
established, secure and successful resettlement program is
literally a life and death matter for persecuted women, men,
and children who have no other means of survival. It is also a
fundamental expression of our values as Americans to offer safe
haven to the persecuted, and allows us to show the suffering
and oppressed around the world the best of who we are as a
people. Thank you very much, and I look forward to your
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gottschalk follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Smith. Thank you for your testimony. I would just point
out that we had planned on Yazidi women testifying today and
they couldn't get their visas in time.
This has not been the first hearing that I have chaired on
this and it won't be the last. As a matter of fact, we will
have the administration, or request that they come and provide
an accounting. Hopefully it will be a positive one where they
have indeed declared that Christians and other minority faiths
have been designated the subject of genocide. Yes, the Yazidis
absolutely, but also these others, and we will hold the
administration to account.
When I got word of this about 3 weeks ago myself from
someone inside the State Department, I immediately put out a
press release and a statement and tried to contact folks there
to convey my utter disbelief that this egregious abandonment
was about to happen. And it was, as Dr. Stanton pointed out,
eerily reminiscent to what happened in Rwanda when there was
this foolishness of the greatest degree and unwillingness to
call what was happening, 800,000-plus dead in Rwanda, a
genocide.
And we saw similar actions by the international community,
including the United States, occur. It was so bad that when
Kofi Annan went to Rwanda, members of their Parliament stood up
and turned their backs on him, and a similar sense of disgust
also was leveled against Bill Clinton. And as you point out,
Dr. Stanton, we had a hearing on the famous facts where Kofi
Annan was advised that the genocide was about to occur he
ignored it. He was head of peacekeeping at the time. And
General Dallaire suffered immensely emotionally, because he
probably could have mitigated if not ended that completely.
So just for the record I would like to include in the
record a very heartbreaking, but a story, ``Unconquered:
Christians Martyred by the Islamic State'' that just came out
in the December 12 issue of World Magazine. They have named
these unbelievably brave Christians faithful to the end as
their ``Daniels of the Year.'' So without objection that will
be made a part of the record.
Just a few questions because your testimonies were
brilliant, I believe. They have really laid out and anticipated
much of what I and perhaps others might have asked.
But again, Obama and the administration seem to be on the
verge of getting it wrong. I think the letter that you provided
as an addendum as part of your testimony, Mr. Anderson, laid it
out very clearly, and others have done so as well as to how
that would be a mistake of monumental proportions to exclude a
group of people who have been targeted for extinction. It is
not even in part, it is whole. And whole or in part, and even
the threat of whole in part is the boilerplate language of the
Genocide Convention. So, I mean, this fits that definition,
sadly, to a T.
The abandonment, perhaps some of you or any of you might
want to speak to the why of it. I can't get my arms around this
lack of acceptance of reality on the ground that has been
documented time and time again. Two years ago I introduced a
resolution and tried to get the administration, I wrote on
behalf of it in the Washington Post, to create a Syrian war
crimes tribunal to hold all sides to account for atrocities.
This was before the emergence of ISIS, September 13th, and put
in a resolution that would do the exact same thing.
I have asked Secretary Kerry. We know that the
International Criminal Court has been very flawed in
prosecuting anyone--one conviction in over a dozen years. Great
idea, but it just doesn't have the horsepower or the
capabilities to do what is right. We had the former chief
prosecutor of Sierra Leone war crimes tribunal, David Crane,
testify, and others who gave riveting testimony why a regional
court would make all the difference in the world. And we are
losing, as was mentioned, vital information and testimony that
bleeds out as people move on or die or don't have the
recollection they might have if it is done sooner rather than
later.
I am asking again that the administration work within the
United Nations Security Council to convene such a war crimes
tribunal. ICC, they haven't done it. They have one person in
the DR Congo, a lower-level person that they were able to
convict. They will look into it, they will issue a report, they
will go after two people and that will be the end of it. And
they will never get those two people. Bashir remains in
Khartoum despite his crimes in Darfur and South Sudan.
So anyone who might want to hazard a guess as to if this is
an idea whose time has come? Dr. Stanton indicated that
already. Carl Anderson, I think you brought up an issue that
just is beguiling and it begs immediate correction, and that is
that the UNHCR itself has not been able to provide the
protection inside the camps, so a place that ought to be the
place of welcoming becomes a place of continued horror for
Christians. I promise we will use this subcommittee to look
into that and push that to the nth degree. The administration
should be doing the same.
And I think your point about sole reliance on referrals
from the UNHCR is an excellent point that needs to be embraced
immediately because of all this exclusion again of the
Christians. And of course designation of genocide against
Christians, like Yazidis and other minority faiths, will make
the processing of their refugee appeals happen that much sooner
rather than later. And maybe it might not have happened at all
without it.
So those couple of thoughts I can't get my arms around,
maybe you can, why the exclusion of Christians. It just is mind
boggling. If anybody wants to hazard a guess, otherwise I will
yield to my distinguished colleagues.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Again, thank you for the leadership. Let
me just note in my 28 years in Congress whenever there has been
an issue that calls for a moral stand by the United States of
America, Chris Smith has always led the way and I have always
been honored to follow him as he led the way. And this is, I
think, one of those instances of historical significance that
demands people of a certain moral fortitude to step forward and
make their moral convictions known on a major contention of the
day.
How many, let me just ask the panel. We are talking about
Christians and Yazidis now, but there are other groups as we
know that are facing slaughter. But if we don't do what is
right, if we have an administration in charge of our Government
now that refuses to recognize that Christians are targeted as
the Jews were in World War II, how many people is the world
going to lose? How many Christians? Are we talking about
millions of people? What is the Christian population of this
part of the Middle East, and what can we expect if those people
are not given refuge?
Mr. Stanton. About 1.5 million in Iraq alone, Christians,
were there before the second Iraq war. We now have, I think,
under what, about 100,000 or so.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And that is just Iraq.
Mr. Stanton. And that is only, they are in refugees camps
in Kurdistan, and that is just Iraq.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay, and in Syria and throughout in
different places.
Mr. Stanton. Syria, you had 10 percent of the population is
Christian and they have had to basically flee wherever they can
go, because not only ISIS has targeted them, but of course the
Assad regime has bombed so many parts of Syria that they have
had to flee to Turkey or Jordan.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So do you have some guesses in terms of,
or I say educated guesses? So we are talking about over 1
million or----
Mr. Stanton. Yes.
Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. One million people dead
unless we step forward. Is that maybe 2 million people dead?
Mr. Stanton. Possible.
Bishop Kalabat. It is also very important to understand
that ISIS isn't just targeting people in that region. Their
ultimate aim is the United States, Vatican, Europe. It is the
world. In establishing an Islamic State right now, that Islamic
State needs to grow until they can rule the world. So this
isn't just an isolated group.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So what we are talking about in the short
term is that there are maybe 1 million or 2 million people who
are in danger right now, but what you are saying is unless we
step up to this part of the challenge----
Bishop Kalabat. Paris----
Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. There is going to be many
more millions of people.
Bishop Kalabat [continuing]. I mean, what we just went
through just not too long ago.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Yes. Let me note that I worked in the
White House. God blessed me with the opportunity of working for
Ronald Reagan as one of his speechwriters for 7 years, and I
remember when Ronald Reagan declared that the Soviet Union was
the focus of evil in the modern era. And let me say, Mr.
Chairman, that I think that we need to make sure that we
declare that this Islamic terrorist threat of killing people
for their faith is now the focus of evil in our era, and call
upon all good people of every faith to step forward and say
this will not be tolerated by civilization.
Just as Communism, which was trying to use terror and
brutality and the same kind of Stalinist obliteration of
peoples' lives in order to terrorize the population into an
atheistic dictatorship, we defeated that evil and we must
defeat this evil as well. As we all know Ronald Reagan did not
declare war on Russia and send our military to attack Russia.
We did not do that. Everybody assumed that that is what would
happen, that is how we will defeat the Soviet Union. That is
not what we did. Ronald Reagan mobilized the people of the
world and especially reached out to those people who were
struggling against Communism and worked with them and helped
them not just provide safe haven, but the means to help secure
themselves from that evil at that day. We need to do that here.
But let me note, just like Ronald Reagan was really
criticized for calling the Soviet Union the evil empire, and he
was being, it was I can remember very clearly, oh my God, what
did you speechwriters give him; what is going on there? And
actually Reagan was very much part of the whole effort and he
knew what he was saying. And the bottom line is by labeling
this something that people could understand and by mobilizing
behind it, we were able to destroy the Soviet Union which was
an evil empire of atheist dictatorship. We were able to
eliminate that without a war.
And this President's inability to use the words ``Islamic
terrorist'' in the same sentence and/or to use the word
``Christian'' when we are talking about genocidal movements
that are going on this world today does not give me faith that
we are going to solve this problem.
So it is up to us, the U.S., by the way, U.S., United
States. U.S. is us and what we represent, what does the United
States represent? Hopefully, we represent every race, religion,
and ethnic group in the world standing together for higher
values than those values they had when they left their
homeland.
So I thank you all for being with us today. Thank you,
Chris Smith, for your wonderful leadership on this issue. And
let me just remind everybody I have H.R. 4017, and I would hope
that all religious groups get behind this. It says basically
that if in those areas where we have this genocide taking place
that those people who are targeted for genocide, particularly
the Christians and the Yazidis that they will be given a
priority status for immigration and for refugee status by our
Government.
And I do not believe that this is discriminatory against
anyone. It is simply recognizing that they are the most in
danger and those are the ones we should focus on first. And
just as when the Jews came here in 1939 and we turned them
away, we should not have turned them away saying you are not
going to get any special favors from us. No, that was horrible
and we know what happened. Well, now we need to pay particular
attention to those in danger and to focus on helping them.
Anybody who can support my legislation, I will be very happy to
have that too. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Gentleman Rohrabacher, thank you very much and
thank you for your leadership. And added to that Jackson-Vanik,
most favored nation status vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, was
predicated on singling out Jewish refuseniks, those men and
women who were denied and treated harshly by the Soviet regime.
So it is not a religious test. That is absurd talk.
Ms. Bass.
Ms. Bass. I wanted to know if you could talk about the
refugees that have gone to Europe and what their status is. I
have been very concerned about that knowing that some have been
returned back. But I wanted to know if you could speak about
that. And then also the ones that are wanting to come to the
United States, where are they now? Are they in Germany? Are
they in Greece? Where are they now and what is their plight?
And I open that up to anyone.
Mr. Ismail. Well, our Yazidi refugees are mostly in Turkey
and Syria. They are United Nations refugees. But also most of
the abducted ones are in Iraq, and we hope that the U.S. can do
something to help those innocents. The U.S. has more than like
300 million-plus people. I think they are able to provide help
and support to those innocent people, both Yazidi, Christian
and other minorities who are facing the genocide.
Ms. Bass. How many people did you say it is?
Mr. Ismail. The Yazidi have more than 30,000 in Syria and
Turkey. But in northern Iraq there are many who are unable to
prove their identity with passports or other documents, because
they were attacked in the middle of the night and were running
for their lives.
Ms. Bass. How are they faring in Turkey?
Mr. Ismail. They are not good.
Ms. Bass. Are they in refugee camps?
Mr. Ismail. Yes, in June, thousands of them tried to cross
the Bulgarian border on foot. Many of them were beaten by the
Turkish Government, but when they came close they did not let
them come in. They stayed more than 2 weeks outside. They were
sleeping outside in the streets. So the Yazidis had nothing to
bring with them. So if you have nothing, you are only relying
on the donations that the world, the international community is
providing.
And the other problem, when it goes to the Iraqi Government
or Kurdish Government, unfortunately that aid does not reach
the needy people. And we cannot say that in Iraq. If you say
it, your family is going to face real consequences by the
authority based there. Many of those abducted women and girls I
spoke to, they were afraid to tell me the truth.
Ms. Bass. They what, I am sorry?
Mr. Ismail. They were afraid to tell the truth.
Ms. Bass. Right.
Mr. Ismail. When they came they were taught what to say and
how to say. And also, because they saw people from different
groups who joined up with ISIS who raped them, who tortured
them, who kidnapped them, who sold them into sexual slavery,
many of them they were their neighbors. They were beheaded and
put in a bakery oven by their neighbors. So it is a very
difficult situation.
When that delegation visits Iraq, it is accompanied by the
authorities. They provide what they call the security for them.
So when there are four or five armed men behind you and then
you ask me a question and how you want me to answer your
question, why I cannot say anything.
Ms. Bass. So what is your thought about what the U.S.
should do? Should the U.S. bring over, how many, and do you
have----
Mr. Ismail. Whatever the possibility we hope that you can
bring, especially as I said, those abducted women who were able
to escape on their own, and with their families to provide
social-psycho help so that they can go back to their normal
life.
Ms. Bass. Do you have relationships here like with
religious organizations or particular states that would receive
the people? Where would they go?
Mr. Ismail. Well, the Yazidis are very easy in integration,
and I think Bishop knows like we have been together for
thousands of years. That is like brothers and sisters. The
Yazidis are not against any people, just say we are human
beings. We are human beings. God created us and we should
respect God's works.
Ms. Bass. Yes, I just wondered if there were organizations
here you were affiliated with that if we were able to bring
people----
Mr. Ismail. But we have at least about probably 350 to 400
Yazidi families here. They are all willing to help.
Ms. Bass. Where are they, everywhere?
Mr. Ismail. In Lincoln, Nebraska, in New York, in Houston,
Texas, and some are based in DC area.
Ms. Bass. And they have been here for a while?
Mr. Ismail. Yes.
Ms. Bass. And they would be willing to receive people?
Mr. Ismail. There are many of them that were the victims of
Saddam's attack in 1991.
Ms. Bass. I see, okay.
Mr. Ismail. So they sat in a refugee camp probably for
about, many of them more than 10 years. We have many who were
sponsored by U.S. Government. So we hope that you could provide
the same help in bringing these needy people.
Ms. Bass. Thank you.
Mr. Gottschalk?
Mr. Gottschalk. Thank you very much. I just wanted to
respond to your two questions. First, I had the opportunity to
travel to Serbia last month and spent some time talking to the
people who were traveling. Most had come from Turkey via
Greece, Macedonia, were heading to Serbia, passing through on
their way to Croatia and then further afield. The people in
that were probably some of the nicest, friendliest people I
have ever met in the many years I have been involved in
humanitarian work, and none of them that I spoke to had any
interest in going to the U.S. They were looking to go to
Austria, Germany, Sweden, and Belgium.
UNHCR actually came out with an interesting study today or
yesterday, I believe, that highlights the percentage, the very
large percentage of those who are moving to Europe who are
actually students. And a lot of the people that I met were
looking to continue their education. I met people who were
marketing majors at University in Damascus, people who just
wanted to find some way of resuming their studies and resuming
a normal life as best they could.
On the question about the people who do want to come to the
U.S., I think it is really important to highlight that the vast
majority of the 4.2 million refugees from Syria who are being
hosted in the region are actually staying outside of camps.
Those people who are registered with the UNHCR are eligible for
resettlement. They are able to go through that process
irrespective of being in the camp or not.
One of the things that we are advocating for is for more
opportunities for livelihoods for those people to be opened up
in the countries where they are. We have seen that the average
refugee crisis now lasts about 10 years and it seems that Syria
will be likely to certainly not be an exception and perhaps
stretch that amount even longer. It is really important that
aid gets to people where they are and not just focusing on the
camps, and that people can be able to work for themselves to
provide for their own families and really have that dignity
that through working comes in being able to take care of
yourself.
The process of resettlement as I said is available to
people who are outside of the camps. Most of them though are in
Jordan and Turkey. There is not a processing facility as far as
I know, as the last I checked, available in Erbil for the U.S.
to process people there, and there has been really a lot of
delays due to space in the Embassy in Beirut for there to be
interviews conducted in Lebanon. So we are seeing the majority
of people who are being processed happening in Jordan and
Turkey.
It is worth again noting that the process is incredibly
expensive. It takes usually 2 to 3 years. We unfortunately just
heard the really tragic news that one of the families that we
were working with who were undergoing this process, they are a
family of seven from Syria. They are living in northern Jordan.
They have five children, three of whom have very serious
medical conditions. We just received the word that the youngest
of their children, a 1-year-old boy who really required open
heart surgery died just a few days ago. They have already gone
through two interviews at the Embassy. They are in this very
expensive----
Ms. Bass. Why did he not get the medical treatment or he
died in the process of receiving the treatment?
Mr. Gottschalk. He wasn't able to have the surgery that he
needed, and their hopes were really pinned on coming to the
U.S. They have been through I don't know how many months of
screening process, two interviews which of course requires----
Ms. Bass. When a situation like that where there is a life-
threatening disease we don't expedite?
Mr. Gottschalk. I don't think there are that many
opportunities. Certainly on the security side those processes
do take a long time. And I think this is one of the reasons
that our response to some calls for a pause to the resettlement
process----
Ms. Bass. Right.
Mr. Gottschalk [continuing]. To observe it, we wanted to
really educate people and particularly Members of Congress that
the dangers that that kind of pause could bring. It sounds very
reasonable and something that might give us an opportunity to
reassess.
But the way their system works is that people who are in
the midst of the process who have various processes, steps,
have checks and screening processes, those checks will expire
and they will have to start again from scratch. And people like
that family would have to restart if we were to pause that
process. So what we are trying to emphasize is----
Ms. Bass. Oh, wait a minute, if we were to pause the
process then they would have to go back?
Mr. Gottschalk. In all likelihood, yes.
Bishop Kalabat. If I may also continue with what Mr.
Gottschalk was saying that in Turkey, I was there in April and
visited, was able to celebrate Easter with many of the
refugees. In a minimum of 10 to 12 different regions in Turkey,
when you register with the United Nations as a refugee your
first interview in 2022. That is interview, that is not----
Ms. Bass. You register today?
Bishop Kalabat. If you register today, actually those who
registered had already been registered in June--I am sorry, in
April of this year. Their first appointment is in 2022, 2023.
Ms. Bass. Why did we say it was a 2-year process then?
Bishop Kalabat. I do know of refugees that have been there
for 7, 8, 9 years. I do know that also Homeland Security have
gotten cases where everything is ready, everything is done, and
in many cases, and we have proof and we have the files where it
has been 9 years, 10 years, 11 years, 13 years.
Ms. Bass. So you have seen what legislation we have been
discussing in passing over the last few days? Well----
Bishop Kalabat. I have not seen the legislation, no. I am a
little behind that to be honest. But I can say----
Ms. Bass. But we are making it slower.
Bishop Kalabat. Well--yes.
Ms. Bass. What did we do yesterday?
Bishop Kalabat. I think we froze it for a while.
Ms. Bass. Oh, visa waiver. A couple of weeks ago, or was it
a week ago that we slowed it up?
Bishop Kalabat. The case with Homeland Security, these are
cases that are already done that just need to do--I mean, there
has been no response. If it is denied, it is denied. It is not
even a denial, it is cases that are lost in some cases in some
issues. And to be able to deal with people and countries that
are hosting them such as Jordan and Lebanon, they are
overwhelmed, Turkey as well.
Ms. Bass. Oh, I know. I know, especially Jordan too.
Bishop Kalabat. So processing centers are extremely
important to have. I am working with the United Nations trying
to get processing centers. And also allowing different
countries who have avowed to say, you know what, we will take
an X amount of refugees from these particular situations, and
if they are not processed then there is nothing that can be
done.
Ms. Bass. So Mr. Ismail, you are proposing that we kind of
fast forward all that, right? I mean, the 30,000 people you are
talking about----
Mr. Ismail. Yes, we are not saying that the U.S. should
bring all of them----
Ms. Bass. Oh, I am sorry, did you want----
Bishop Kalabat. No, no. I am good.
Ms. Bass. Oh, okay.
Mr. Ismail [continuing]. But just could help them, many of
those families that lost just more than half of their family
members, and there is just no way that they can go back to Iraq
because----
Ms. Bass. Yes, but given this process, I guess I am
asking----
Mr. Ismail. It is the same thing, where they provide their
UNHCR PAPER. And they have many of those. They give them like 7
years, 8 years. And also we have some sponsored by a private
group. There are other people, they have an interview in less
than 6 months. So there is something going on that is not
right. They don't get equal treatment. And there are many of
those that especially in dealing with for the kind of easy
cases, I don't know how many they have in Canada. They give
them like, probably the soonest one they give like more than 5
years.
Ms. Bass. Okay.
Mr. Ismail. So I think 5 years, how they are going to
survive.
Ms. Bass. Right. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Ms. Bass.
Let me just ask a question about disproportionality of
those who are Christian who come here. Over the last 5 years
the estimates are that there has been one Yazidi, 53 Syrian
Christians, and that 2.6 percent of the 2,003 Syrian refugees
that have come to the United States are Christian from Syria,
so disproportionate to the need.
Mr. Anderson, you spoke very eloquently to the issue of how
there is a discrimination that happens starting in the camps,
or at least those under protection of the UNHCR. That seems to
be an area ripe for reform. One Yazidi, 53 Syrian Christians in
5 years. That is outrageous, I believe. And very few Jews,
Baha'is, or Zoroastrians as well, like 10 total.
Maybe, Mr. Anderson, you might want to expound a little bit
on what needs to be done on the refugee side. And secondly, in
the letter that was signed by you and many other people of
faith, leaders, where there is a call for a limited review,
when you exclude or narrow what it is that you are looking at
so unnecessarily, which I think has happened or is happening at
State, it is like a fireman entering just one room in a burning
building and concluding that one room of that building is on
fire while the whole building is ablaze.
And so my question would be why the limited review?
Again going back to Dr. Stanton who just showed the
connectivity over the years to this false reliance on terms
like ``ethnic cleansing'' which have no legal definition and it
was used extensively at the U.N. and here during Bosnia as well
as in Croatia.
So if you could, what could we do to get it right
immediately so that these refugees--and follow-up to Ms. Bass,
there has been a vote on pausing but it is not law. Nothing
precludes the person who was so sick getting that help right
now from this administration, and why haven't they? I mean that
is what my colleagues and I often do with case work, we try to
find someone who is really, really being hurt, whether it is a
health issue or whatever, in trying to find a way through the
bureaucracy to mitigate that pain.
So Mr. Anderson, did you want to touch on that and any
others, because we are going to have to conclude in a minute
because there are five votes on the floor.
Mr. Anderson. Well, then let me just say quickly I think
that it is very clear that the religious minorities are not
welcome and do not feel safe in the camps. And therefore if the
process hinges on being in the camps, we have to find
alternative mechanisms to go out and register these people
outside of the camps and that requires an extra effort. I think
that is why the designation of genocide is so important because
it gives priority to these vulnerable minorities who, as Mr.
Ismail said, cannot go back to their communities. Their homes
are destroyed or occupied by other individuals. They have no
opportunity. We are talking about 5 or 10 years to get a visa
and immigrate to another country. It may be that amount of time
before they could go back to their own communities, but by that
time what are those communities going to look like? They are
going to be totally populated by people who are not just going
to move away and say come back to your homes that you left 10
years ago or 5 years ago. So I think the designation of
genocide is essential to prioritize these minority communities
that have no alternative in the region.
Mr. Stanton. Just to reiterate that our conclusion as
genocide scholars is that when lesser terms, weaker terms, are
used it is a sure indicator of an unwillingness to act. In
other words it is a sure indicator of lack of political will.
And in this case what we have got is a lack of political will
to accept Christians on a preferential basis as the refugees
that we will accept in this country.
I think there is a general view that there should be no
preferences at all. In fact, I think President Obama has said
such, almost exactly that. And our view is that in fact certain
groups are being targeted, and let's call what that means.
Let's call out the right name and that is called genocide. And
that is why we think what is going on when they are making
these selective determinations is an expression of lack of
political will.
Mr. Smith. Yes, Mr. Gottschalk.
Mr. Gottschalk. If I could just have, Mr. Chairman, in
response to your point about and Mr. Anderson's point about
expanding the referral process, I think that is something we
would absolutely agree with, and just want to let you know that
there is in fact precedent for that. I believe at present there
is one NGO that has been authorized to conduct referrals to the
U.S. for resettlement. There is, I think it is a short
curriculum that NGOs would have to go through in order to, or
any contractor would have to go through, to be able to learn
what criteria the U.S. is looking for, and it is something that
we would very much like to see. It would be really a way of
expanding the reach of resettlement referrals across the
region.
And also just finally to add, the funding shortages that
you made the subject of this hearing and that I testified about
and others have mentioned has directly resulted in many, many
refugee families really falling through the cracks. Because
these appeals are so underfunded, 40 percent inside Syria,
about 50 percent in the regional response, the prioritization
is given to lifesaving services, which means that social
services and the types of activities that are really about
protection and making sure that communities and refugees who
are living in host communities where the majority are can be
safe and can resolve some of their own challenges--those type
of programs just aren't being funded.
They are the very types of programs that would identify
vulnerable people, get them to where they could get referred
for resettlement or for treatment or whatever they might need
in the host community if that was in fact the case, but those
very programs are the ones that are really first on the
chopping block when it comes to funding shortages.
Mr. Smith. Well, thank you. And that was an eye opener for
many of us at the hearing I chaired in September just how
underfunded it is, so your point is very well taken. And we are
pushing the administration to do more, and our allies too. We
have asked them to give us the list of those who have not come
forward with the pledges at least, and what diplomatic efforts
are being done by the administration to say to Saudi Arabia--I
asked the Saudi Ambassador when he was here a week ago. He was
claiming that they were giving 2.5 million Syrians refuge and
that they had spent $1 billion last year, I think $1 billion
was the total; it was approximately $1 billion.
So your point is well taken and I agree with you
wholeheartedly. We have got to push, and I said even if it is
seen as a bridge, we try to get the others to come up with the
money, but this is a short-term tourniquet that is needed
because people, and he himself, Shelly Pitterman said, that the
trigger for the mass exodus to Europe was undoubtedly the
funding shortfall for humanitarianism exacerbated by the World
Food Programme's 30 percent cut. They said they don't care, we
are off, we are leaving. And it was a very, it was a point well
taken. We had PRM's Assistant Secretary here and asked what
could be done. We are still trying to work with them, so I
agree wholeheartedly on that.
Mr. Gottschalk. If I might as you wait for the list from
the administration, we, Oxfam, actually has a list of major
countries and what they have donated according to their fair
share. According to our statistics, Saudi Arabia has only
contributed 6 percent of their fair share this year; Qatar 17
percent; United Arab Emirates 38 percent.
Mr. Smith. Wish I had that last week, but I follow----
Mr. Gottschalk. I will pass it on to your office.
Mr. Smith. Let's make it a part of the record, if you don't
mind.
Mr. Gottschalk. Absolutely.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Gottschalk. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. Any other comments before we conclude? There is
a vote and I am going to have to run. I do thank you so very
much. I think the President got it wrong when he said that we
don't want a religion test. This has to do with who is being
targeted. It is a whole different issue than a religious test.
And I again underscore my first trip on human rights issues
was to Moscow and Leningrad, 1982, during my first term on
behalf of Soviet Jews, and I was very happy that our country
was wholeheartedly using its policies, Jackson-Vanik in
particular, to protect Jewish people who were being put into
psychiatric prisons or worse, killed.
Yes, Mr. Ismail?
Mr. Ismail. Two important points, we hope that for the
short term solution, you can bring as many as possible of those
needy refugees, especially those traumatized ones, whether they
are in Syria, in northern Iraq, in Jordan, or in Turkey. And
for the long term solution, we hope that you could work with
the Iraqi Government and the Kurdish Government to create a
safe haven for the Yazidis and other minorities.
Mr. Smith. You had that in there as your number three
point, I saw that.
Mr. Ismail. So that these people can survive in an ancient
homeland where we survived for thousands of years. Yes, there
are many people who because of fear, they want to get out, but
there are also thousands of people who say we are ready to die,
but we are not ready to leave our homeland.
Mr. Smith. If that is done it has to be better than what we
have done before. When Srebrenica and other safe haven areas
were designated they became mustering areas for killing.
Mr. Ismail. Now most of these, if you ask, they are going
to tell you this is the end of Yazidis in the Middle East
because no action has been taken actually to save them, to
provide safety and security for them, this could be the end of
the Yazidi people in the Middle East. Thank you.
Mr. Smith. The meeting is adjourned and I thank you all so
very much.
[Whereupon, at 4:21 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]