    [House Hearing, 115 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                     GENOCIDE AGAINST THE BURMESE ROHINGYA

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                          COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                               SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 115-166

                                   __________

            Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov,

                           or http://www.Govinfo.gov

                                    ______

                      U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

     32-302 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2018

                          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                       KAREN BASS, California
    DARRELL E. ISSA, California          WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
    TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania             DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island
    MO BROOKS, Alabama                   AMI BERA, California
    PAUL COOK, California                LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
    SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania   TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
    RON DeSANTIS, Florida [until 9/10/   JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
        18] deg.                         ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
    MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina         BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
    TED S. YOHO, Florida                 DINA TITUS, Nevada
    ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois             NORMA J. TORRES, California
    LEE M. ZELDIN, New York              BRADLEY SCOTT SCHNEIDER, Illinois
    DANIEL M. DONOVAN, Jr., New York     THOMAS R. SUOZZI, New York
    F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,         ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
        Wisconsin                        TED LIEU, California
    ANN WAGNER, Missouri
    BRIAN J. MAST, Florida
    FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida
    BRIAN K. FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
    THOMAS A. GARRETT, Jr., Virginia
    JOHN R. CURTIS, Utah
    VACANT

         Amy Porter, Chief of Staff      Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director

                   Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page

                                   WITNESSES

    Ms. Greta Van Susteren, host, ``Plugged In with Greta Van
      Susteren,'' Voice of America...................................     5
    Mr. Stephen Pomper, program director, United States,
      International Crisis Group.....................................    12

              LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

    Ms. Greta Van Susteren: Prepared statement.......................     8
    Mr. Stephen Pomper: Prepared statement...........................    14

                                    APPENDIX

    Hearing notice...................................................    56
    Hearing minutes..................................................    57
    The Honorable Edward R. Royce, a Representative in Congress from
      the State of California, and chairman, Committee on Foreign
      Affairs:
      Testimony by the Faith Coalition to Stop Genocide in Burma.....    59
      Statement of the Honorable Sander Levin, a Representative in
        Congress from the State of Michigan..........................    63
    The Honorable Eliot L. Engel, a Representative in Congress from
      the State of New York: State Department report dated August
      2018...........................................................    65
    The Honorable Steve Chabot, a Representative in Congress from the
      State of Ohio, and chairman: Human Rights Council report dated
      September 17, 2018.............................................    72
    The Honorable Gerald E. Connolly, a Representative in Congress
      from the Commonwealth of Virginia:
      Statement of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service......    80
      Prepared statement.............................................    83
    Written responses from the witnesses to a question submitted for
      the record by the Honorable Dina Titus, a Representative in
      Congress from the State of Nevada..............................    85

                     GENOCIDE AGAINST THE BURMESE ROHINGYA

                                  ----------

                         WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

                           House of Representatives,

                         Committee on Foreign Affairs,

                                Washington, DC.

        The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m., in
    room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Royce
    (chairman of the committee) presiding.
        Chairman Royce. Members, if you'll take your seat we are
    going to call this hearing to order.
        For more than three decades, the Government of Burma has
    systematically denied the Rohingya people even the most basic
    human rights. Add to that no access to education and no access
    to healthcare.
        Last year, this persecution reached a new low, horrific
    levels, as the Burmese military drove 700,000 Rohingya from
    their homes, burning villages and killing scores, doing so-
    called ``terrorist clearance operations.'' That's what the
    military calls it as they drive people to their death.
        One Rohingya survivor recalled the attacks on his village,
    saying ``the whole village was under random fire like rain.''
        Just this week, the State Department released a report
    detailing stomach-turning, systematic, and widespread acts of
    violence against the Rohingya northern Rakhine State.
        The report includes gruesome accounts of burning elderly
    alive in their homes, gang raping women, and slaughtering
    fleeing refugees.
        The Burmese military made no distinction between men,
    women, and children. One woman recalls watching as, to quote
    her words, ``newborns and children who could barely walk, they
    threw them in the river'' while she desperately hid in bushes
    across from that river.
        It is hard to hear these accounts without feeling queasy.
    But we must catalogue these atrocities so that we can one day
    hold the perpetrators accountable, and I want to commend the
    administration for speaking out against these atrocities.
        Ambassador Nikki Haley, in particular, has repeatedly
    demanded that the international community not ignore the plight
    of the Rohingya and that the U.S., as you know, we are
    providing desperately needed humanitarian assistance to the
    survivors, many who are now refugees in Bangladesh.
        But I encourage the administration to go further. This is
    more than just a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. To all
    who have met with the Rohingya refugees, who have heard these
    accounts, it is clear that these crimes amount to genocide.
        The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
    Crime of Genocide, signed and ratified by the United States,
    defines genocide as certain acts committed with the intent to
    destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or
    religious group.
        Those acts include, among others, killing members of the
    ethnicity or religion; causing serious bodily or mental harm to
    that ethnicity; deliberately inflicting conditions of life
    calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or
    in part; and imposing measures intended to prevent births.
        I believe that a realistic accounting of the deliberate
    campaign of murder, of intimidation, and displacement against
    the Rohingya clearly meets this legal standard for genocide.
        Making a formal determination of genocide must be the next
    step for the U.S. Defining these atrocities for what they are
    is critical to building international public awareness and
    support to stop them.
        The protection of human rights has long been our nation's
    top priority in Burma, dating back to freeing Aung San Suu Kyi,
    and today, that must include protection of the Rohingya people.
        The Burmese Government and its military must ensure the
    protection of all the people of Burma, regardless of their
    ethnic background or their religious beliefs. Those military
    leaders and security forces responsible for these atrocities
    must face justice.
        The U.S. must push the civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi to
    rise to this challenge. Confronting genocide of the Rohingya is
    a moral issue and a national security issue.
        No one is more secure when fanaticism and unchecked
    violence are growing in this part of the world.
        I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on these
    issues today and now I turn to Mr. Eliot Engel, our ranking
    member, from New York.
        Mr. Engel. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
    calling this hearing. To our witnesses, welcome to the Foreign
    Affairs Committee.
        Mr. Pomper, I am aware of the good work that you do and,
    Ms. Van Susteren, it's good to see you again. From the first
    time I appeared on your show, I was always a big fan. So thank
    you both for being here.
        Our last hearing on this topic, roughly a year ago, took
    place at the height of the horrific violence against the
    Rohingya.
        We saw startling evidence of what was taking place and
    heard about the desperate humanitarian crisis which, despite
    heroic efforts, is, sadly, no less dire today--more than
    700,000 refugees, 70 percent of whom are women and children.
        It's interesting because our congressional districts all
    have about 700,000 people each in them. So every Member of
    Congress could imagine--if every person who lived in your
    congressional district were a refuge, imagine what it would be
    like. That's the magnitude of the problem.
        Seventy percent of these 700,000 are women and children and
    they now live in the world's largest refugee camp, in its
    entirety--the constant risk of losing their temporary shelters
    to monsoon rains and all kinds of other tragedies.
        In the last year, though, we have also learned more about
    who was responsible. The Burmese military has claimed that this
    brutal crackdown is the response to a clash that took place on
    August 25th of last year. This is simply not true. Ample
    evidence shows that the Burmese military and police forces used
    this campaign to specifically target Rohingya civilians, to
    target them with rape, with indiscriminate killing, with slash
    and burn tactics that have destroyed dozens of villages.
        The U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission
    Report has undertaken the most comprehensive investigation to
    date. It recently called for the U.N. Security Council to
    authorize the ICC to investigate and prosecute senior officials
    in the Burmese military for crimes against humanity and ``so
    that a competent court can determine their liability for
    genocide.''
        So after a year of unrelenting violence and suffering, what
    will American policy be? The State Department quietly published
    its report on these atrocities last week. No announcement, no
    legal determination about what occurred, no indication of what
    comes next.
        I ask, Mr. Chairman, that it be included in the record.
        Chairman Royce. Without objection.
        Mr. Engel. Thank you.
        Will Secretary Pompeo determine that ``crimes against
    humanity'' occurred, which is, clearly, the case? Will he go
    further and say that crimes occurred with genocidal intent?
    Will he make the evidence behind the report available to use
    against the perpetrators of these crimes?
        I believe he should, as the Burmese Government is currently
    bulldozing Rohingya villages and destroying any evidence that
    remains.
        Ambassador Haley announced $185 million in additional
    humanitarian assistance for the Rohingya and communities in
    Bangladesh who are hosting refugees. This is welcome news,
    because funding humanitarian relief is necessary. But it isn't
    a sufficient response, in my opinion, to such a grave human
    tragedy. There is a range of other steps we should be taking.
    There are ways we could exercise real leadership to help
    mitigate this crisis.
        First of all, the United States should advocate for the
    U.N. Security Council to refer this case to the ICC. Instead,
    the President went in front of the world yesterday and trashed
    the ICC.
        We should use our global statute to call this crime what it
    is--clearly, a crime against humanity and likely also a
    genocide, then rally a strong international commitment to fully
    fund the latest appeal for humanitarian assistance.
        Instead, the State Department is using language that lets
    perpetrators off the hook. The President lobs insults at the
    international institutions that could make a difference instead
    of using our leverage to garner more support to address this
    crisis.
        We should be true to our history and our values and provide
    safe haven for men, women, and children who have been driven
    from their homes.
        Instead, we are slashing the number of refugees allowed
    onto our shores--a pittance of 30,000. It's really shameful.
    The United States, of course, is not to blame for this crisis.
    The Burmese military, starting with commander in chief of the
    army, Min Aung Hlaing, bears primary responsibility. The blood
    is on their hands.
        Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader once also hailed as
    her country's moral leader, has proven herself, unfortunately,
    to be part of the problem by failing to speak out, by denying
    the abuses that have taken place, and for not addressing the
    apartheid policies and conditions in Rakhine State that set the
    stage for this catastrophe. I know that Mr. Pomper points this
    out in his written testimony.
        But even though we are not responsible for the crisis, for
    decades American leadership has meant having the moral courage
    to stand up and do the right thing in the face of this kind of
    suffering.
        The administration's policies send a clear message--we are
    no longer willing to carry that mantle. When it comes to
    standing up for human rights, for justice, for the rule of law,
    for the world's most vulnerable and oppressed, the United
    States has taken itself out of the running.
        Complex challenges require multifaceted solutions and real
    leadership and we are not, in my opinion, exercising either of
    those. Shame on us.
        I look forward to hearing from our witnesses what our path
    forward might look like if the administration were inclined to
    take it.
        I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Engel.
        And before we move to our witnesses' testimony, we have a
    video from Ms. Van Susteren that we are going to play which
    includes footage from her recent trip to the refugee camps in
    Bangladesh.
        [Video played.]
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Greta.
        Let me explain to the members here and to our witnesses.
    There is some background noise from construction going on in
    the building and our staff director, Tom Sheehy, is in the
    process of trying to get that stopped.
        So we will continue here with our hearing. But this
    morning, I am very pleased to welcome Ms. Greta Van Susteren
    and Mr. Stephen Pomper to the committee.
        Greta Van Susteren currently anchors Voice of America's
    foreign policy show ``Plugged in With Greta Van Susteren,'' and
    you can access that online, by the way. She has spent 14 years
    at Fox News, where she hosted the prime time news and interview
    program ``On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.''
        She has traveled the world to cover international news
    stories, and most recently, of course, to Burma to observe the
    current genocide against the Rohingya.
        Stephen Pomper currently serves as the United States
    program director for the International Crisis Group.
    Previously, he was a senior policy scholar at the U.S.
    Institute of Peace and a Davis Distinguished Fellow at the U.S.
    Holocaust Memorial Museum.
        He also served on the staff of the National Security
    Council where he served as the senior director for multilateral
    affairs in human rights.
        And we appreciate them both being with us here today.
    Without objection, the witnesses' full prepared statements are
    going to be made part of the record.
        Members here will have 5 calendar days to submit any
    statements or questions or extraneous material for the record.
        So, if you would, Ms. Van Susteren, please summarize your
    remarks and we will go to you at this time.

     STATEMENT OF MS. GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST, ``PLUGGED IN WITH
                 GRETA VAN SUSTEREN,'' VOICE OF AMERICA

        Ms. Van Susteren. Thank you, sir.
        Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel, members of the
    committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify.
        The video you just saw is a shortened version but it's a
    powerful witness to the tragedy unfolding for the Rohingya
    people. This is pure suffering.
        I am here today with Voice of America, part of the U.S.
    Agency for Global Media, and I volunteer to host a weekly
    affairs program, as the chairman noted, at VOA.
        And as a journalist, my job is simply to tell you what I
    saw, to tell you the truth. Today, I am sharing my personal
    observations of the crisis informed by my reporting and I'd
    like to share the work of VOA to report on and reach the
    Rohingya people. My observations should not be construed as
    official positions of the administration.
        I've made four trips to Myanmar and the surrounding region.
    My first trip to the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh was
    in December 2017 in my own capacity.
        I literally hitchhiked on the back of a cargo plane with an
    NGO, Samaritan's Purse, and I returned with VOA Director Amanda
    Bennett, again, to the refugee camp in June 2018, and as you
    saw in the video, in June the monsoon season just devastated
    the camps.
        Shelters slipped away in mudslides, walls collapsed around
    huts and people, and attempts at just basic sanitation were
    obliterated.
        The United Nations High Commission on Refugees estimates
    800,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are now living in those
    camps that are adjacent to each other.
        These people are forgotten. They are stateless. They are
    homeless. They are nameless.
        In Myanmar, the government has rejected the use of the term
    ``Rohingya.'' The Rohingya are non-people to them. They have
    been dehumanized. This attitude was evident in nearly every
    interaction I've had when I've been in Myanmar.
        The trauma of the refugees' violent departure from Myanmar
    is fresh. You saw in the video that pregnant women raped by the
    Myanmar military are shunned in the community.
        Children live with memories of unspeakable brutality. One
    young boy proudly showed me a drawing he produced in an NGO-
    sponsored art program. I asked him to explain his art work to
    me and at one point I asked, ``What is that?''
        He replied that it was a drawing of a severed bloody hand.
    He saw it on the ground near his village home in Myanmar as he
    fled with his mother.
        I heard many others speak about the Myanmar military's
    brutal use of machetes.
        But what do we do now? The international community is aware
    and concerned, but gaining traction with the Myanmar officials
    has been difficult. In August 2018, the U.N. Human Rights
    Council issued a report documenting atrocities against the
    Rohingya people.
        It details the military's mass killing of villagers, raping
    of women and girls, and the torching of villages. The report
    recommends that senior military leadership in Myanmar be
    investigated and prosecuted for genocide against the Rohingya.
        U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley confirmed that the
    State Department's own fact finding report is consistent with
    the U.N. report. She was right when she said, ``The whole world
    is watching what we do next and if we act.''
        As journalists, VOA is already acting by covering the
    crisis from the start for its international audiences including
    those in Myanmar. It's risky for VOA reporters in Myanmar to do
    this.
        Our reporters have faced pressures to stop using the term
    Rohingya in their work. But they have resisted. VOA's coverage
    includes interviews with representatives from the Myanmar and
    Bangladesh Governments, U.N. officials, human rights
    organizations, reactions from the State Department, and
    congressional comments and hearings.
        I want to emphasize that hearing the views of Congress is
    of the utmost importance for VOA's international audiences. VOA
    is also working to directly reach the refugees.
        Director Amanda Bennett's visit with me to Bangladesh in
    June was to assess how VOA can better report on and broadcast
    to the refugees.
        UNHCR representatives, NGOs in the field, and
    representatives from the government of Bangladesh were highly
    supportive. The assessment identified multiple options for
    delivering content including radio and listening groups
    established by NGOs.
        Director Amanda Bennett and her team also spoke with people
    living in the camp to learn about their news habits and issue
    preferences. Without exception, every group, male and female,
    wanted news and information. They are especially eager to hear
    news from Myanmar and what the international community is
    saying about them.
        Some refugees with prior education recognize the VOA brand.
    They were also interested in learning English. In April 2018,
    VOA started transmitting 30 minutes of learning English
    language across AM and short wave radio.
        VOA is also planning to start limited broadcasting in the
    Rohingya dialect. The value of bringing news and information to
    the Rohingya cannot be underscored. Left in these camps long
    term they will lack economic opportunity, be targets for human
    trafficking or exploitation or violent extremism. VOA news can
    make a difference.
        I am extremely passionate about this project because I see
    it as contributing to what I hope will be a strong decisive
    response by the U.S. Government to seek a long-term peaceful
    solution for the Rohingya people.
        In closing, I must acknowledge the efforts of Secretary
    Pompeo and Ambassador Haley to be forceful on this issue. I
    must also thank the many NGOs that rushed to help the Rohingya
    people fleeing from Myanmar last year, from Doctors Without
    Borders to Samaritan's Purse, the World Food Program, and so
    many more.
        And finally, thank you, Chairman Royce and Ranking Member
    Engel for convening this hearing. Journalists must document
    atrocities as they occur.
        Based on my own reporting, I firmly believe this is a
    pivotal moment for the United States and for being on the right
    side of history.
        When we say never again, we must mean it.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Van Susteren follows:]

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                 ----------

        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Greta.
        Mr. Pomper.

       STATEMENT OF MR. STEPHEN POMPER, PROGRAM DIRECTOR, UNITED
                   STATES, INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP

        Mr. Pomper. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Engel, and
    distinguished members of the committee, thank you so much for
    the opportunity to speak to you today about the atrocities
    committed against the Rohingya population of Rakhine State and
    the ongoing human rights and humanitarian disaster that has
    displaced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to southeastern
    Bangladesh.
        My name is Stephen Pomper and I am the U.S. program
    director at the International Crisis Group. Previously, I
    served in a range of policy and legal roles in the U.S.
    Government, which are summarized in my written testimony.
        Mr. Chairman, the unfathomable horrors that the Rohingya
    have suffered are documented in two recent reports that have
    received considerable attention.
        The first is a report by a U.N.-mandated fact-finding
    mission which was cited by Ambassador Haley in her remarks to
    the Security Council in late August and which describes the
    ``immediate, brutal, and grossly disproportionate'' operations
    launched by the Myanmar armed forces known as the Tatmadaw in
    the aftermath of a cluster of coordinated insurgent attacks in
    August 2017.
        That report concludes that the primarily Tatmadaw
    operations, which included indiscriminate killings, the
    targeting of children, gang rapes, villages burned to the
    ground, and people burned alive suggest, by their nature and
    scope, a level of preplanning by the Tatmadaw.
        The second is a report by the U.S. Department of State
    released just the other day which is based on a survey of over
    1,000 Rohingya refugees who have been displaced to camps in the
    Cox's Bazar region of Bangladesh and which led the State
    Department to similar factual findings about the tragic events
    that unfolded in August 2017 and its aftermath.
        Mr. Chairman, against this factual backdrop it is hardly
    surprising that the U.N. fact-finding mission found a
    reasonable basis to conclude that the Tatmadaw and others had
    committed crimes against humanity and war crimes and that there
    was a sufficient basis to investigate and prosecute the crime
    of genocide. These are all crimes of international concern--the
    gravest of crimes.
        Mr. Chairman, primary responsibility for these crimes rests
    with the Tatmadaw including its commander in chief, Min Aung
    Hlaing, and the other security forces that perpetrated them,
    and these actors must be held accountable.
        But, Mr. Chairman, this tragedy is all the more bitter
    because it comes against the backdrop of what not so long ago
    seemed a promising democratic transition which installed Aung
    San Suu Kyi as the senior civilian leader of the Myanmar
    Government.
        While she lacks control over the military, this does not
    excuse the fact that Suu Kyi has refused to face the reality of
    what has occurred or to use her moral authority to urge the
    country down a path that could culminate in the safe,
    dignified, and voluntary return of the Rohingya to their homes.
        Mr. Chairman, in the face of these terrible facts, the
    tools and strategies that are available to the United States to
    provide support to the Rohingya are few, imperfect, and
    limited.
        But in order to make progress, it will be important to use
    them all, and energetically. These tools include targeted
    sanctions adopted under the Global Magnitsky Executive Order or
    other available authorities. While not a silver bullet, these
    can send an important message that may deter other potential
    bad actors.
        These tools also include support for international
    tribunals and courts that enjoy jurisdiction over the crimes in
    question as well as the international mechanism that is,
    hopefully, being created to collect and preserve evidence for
    their benefit. These efforts may take time to yield results but
    they are the only way to achieve a measure of justice for the
    victims of these atrocities.
        These tools include humanitarian support to the Rohingya in
    Bangladesh and development support to the communities where
    they are living, which is necessary both to meet the immediate
    needs of the refugees and to prevent economic burdens from
    driving a dangerous wedge between them and their hosts.
        And, Mr. Chairman, these tools also include continued
    engagement with Aung San Suu Kyi's government, which, though
    frustrating, is the only way to encourage recognition of the
    catastrophe that the Tatmadaw has wrought and to begin working
    toward the critical changes required to enable the safe and
    voluntary return of the Rohingya.
        Mr. Chairman, there are steps that Congress can take to
    support this effort. Congress can send a signal of support by
    sending a delegation to visit Rohingya refugees in their camps.
        It could ensure that the United States is funding
    humanitarian and development assistance at generous levels. It
    can fund efforts that serve the purpose of accountability, and
    much like it created a powerful human rights tool in the form
    of the Global Magnitsky Act, Congress could signal its
    commitment to accountability by enacting a crimes against
    humanity statute to help ensure that should perpetrators from
    Myanmar ever set foot on U.S. soil they would face justice for
    their crimes.
        Mr. Chairman, thank you for opportunity to share these
    brief thoughts with the committee and I will look forward to
    taking your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Pomper follows:]

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                    ----------

        Chairman Royce. Thank you. Thank you for being with us
    today. We appreciate it.
        We've also been joined by Sandy Levin, who's been very
    passionate about this issue, involved in it for many years and
    we appreciate the Congressman being with our committee today on
    this.
        Let me begin with a question, because the Convention on the
    Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, as I
    indicated, the United States signed it. We ratified it. It
    defines genocide as acts committed with the intent to destroy
    in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial, or religious
    group.
        When President Reagan signed the legislation ratifying this
    convention, he said, ``I am delighted to fulfil the promise
    made by Harry Truman to all the peoples of the world, and
    especially the Jewish people. This represents a strong and
    clear statement by the United States that it will punish acts
    of genocide with the force of law and the righteousness of
    justice.''
        Since then, the United States Government, often with the
    encouragement of Congress, sadly, had cause to make several
    determinations of genocide. We have had to do that, most
    recently finding that ISIS had committed genocide against
    religious minorities in Iraq and in Syria.
        Ms. Van Susteren, based on your reporting, do you believe
    the actions of the Burmese security forces are designed to
    destroy in whole or in part the Rohingya and do you agree that
    these atrocities are being carried out on a massive and
    shocking scale?
        Ms. Van Susteren. Mr. Chairman, if I could just break for 1
    second--that the reason that it finally got signed by President
    Reagan was because Senator Bill Proxmire from my home state was
    so forceful in trying to get that finally signed by a U.S.
    President. It took 40 years.
        Secondly, let me speak personally and not on behalf of VOA
    or the government. I don't speak for them. But I've been there.
    I've witnessed this.
        Do I think that it meets the definition? I absolutely do,
    having witnessed it. I mean, I talked to people. I walked those
    camps. I talked to them.
        The Myanmar military elected to push the Rohingya out of
    their country and it's a little bit like if six people commit
    an armed robbery in Milwaukee you don't throw everybody out of
    Milwaukee. You go after the six people.
        But they systematically wanted to get rid of the Rohingya
    and that's what they did and, of course, it hearkens back to
    the history in 1982, where they made them noncitizens with
    their constitution.
        But there's no doubt that it's done on a mass level. It's
    no doubt that they have been identified. But I should add is
    that there are other groups in Myanmar like the Christians that
    are likewise getting persecuted, but not to the magnitude or
    the number of people of the Rohingya. But it does meet, in my
    personal opinion, the definition of genocide.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you.
        Also, in talking to some of the survivors, part of the
    issue has been getting journalists into that affected area.
    What they share with me is that the attempt or the effort by
    the military in Burma to control information gives only one
    perspective every day to the Burmese people.
        And so our efforts both on getting humanitarian assistance
    in and getting journalists to cover this first hand in terms of
    what's happening in Rakhine State is a huge challenge.
        It's important that people in the region and throughout the
    world understand the facts and it's important they get that
    information in real time.
        Sadly, we saw the two Reuters reporters convicted on framed
    charges and we've heard about the major obstacles that Radio
    Free Asia is facing.
        Maybe you could talk about your experiences on this issue
    and what the VOA is doing in the face of these challenges from
    the Burmese military and trying to get the information all over
    the world but also getting it to the Burmese so that they
    understand what the rest of us are talking about and really
    comprehend not what the military is telling them is happening
    in Rakhine State but what is actually happening up there.
        Ms. Van Susteren. You used the word challenges, which is a
    nice way to say what's really happening. The press isn't
    getting in. I mean, you have got an instance where a VOA
    stringer was invited to the Rakhine State but as part of a
    press pool with limited access.
        I've been to North Korea three times and they stand next to
    you and take notes as you do anything. Well, if you're not
    allowed in--if you don't have free access you're not really
    reporting.
        You make the best of what you get. But reporters are not
    getting access to the Rakhine State. I had the Ambassador from
    Myanmar to the United States on my VOA show and he said that he
    would take me--I am still waiting--because I would like to go
    into the Rakhine State.
        But there's a reason why those two reporters from Reuters
    are spending 7 years in prison and that's because they dared to
    begin reporting on mass graves of Rohingya inside the Rakhine
    State.
        But there is no access. I think even Senator Dick Durbin
    tried to get into the Rakhine State and a U.S. senator couldn't
    get in there.
        So it's tightly controlled. The news that does come out
    often is the Myanmar military-controlled press.
        So to suggest that we are getting any accurate news, the
    best we can do is talk to the survivors and they're all giving
    us consistently the same story.
        We are all hearing the same stories and they're not all
    getting together and cooking up a story. We are talking
    individually to them and they're telling us these horrors.
    That's the best way we can get this information.
        But if Myanmar wants to be playing the world stage they
    might want to invite journalists in so we can fairly report and
    not in a controlled environment.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you very much for your testimony. My
    time has expired.
        We'll go to Mr. Engel.
        Mr. Engel. I want to again thank our witnesses today. It's
    very interesting to hear their thoughts, and the chairman and I
    are one when it comes to this kind of thing.
        When we talk about acts of genocide or crimes against
    humanity or decide what we call it, why would the U.S. State
    Department be reluctant, based on all the available evidence,
    to upgrade its current designation of ethnic cleansing to at
    least crimes against humanity, if not genocide? Anyone have a
    thought on that?
        Ms. Van Susteren. I don't speak for the State Department. I
    don't know what maybe they haven't seen it. I don't know why
    the State Department doesn't. Maybe there's a legal
    distinction. But I don't speak for the State Department.
        Mr. Engel. Okay.
        Mr. Pomper. So neither do I anymore. But I would say on
    this issue, let me not speculate about motivation but let me
    just say the findings that were released in the report make
    pretty much a facial case for crimes against humanity.
        It doesn't use the term crimes against humanity but all the
    sort of legal predicates are sort of spelled out in language
    that, frankly, does have legal weight.
        They speak about indiscriminate killing. They speak about
    widespread and large-scale violence and they speak about
    premeditation.
        All of those are the key elements of a crimes against
    humanity finding. And I don't know why they wouldn't take the
    extra step there.
        In the past, past administrations have struggled with
    issues around legal characterizations either because they
    really had trouble sort of making the legal case to themselves
    internally or because they were concerned that announcing a
    legal conclusion might put a burden on them to take policy
    actions that they weren't prepared to take.
        I fear, in this context, it might be the latter, at least
    as it concerns crimes against humanity because it seems like
    such a straightforward determination. It really seems, based on
    the way in which the report is written that they've arrived at
    that conclusion and just been reluctant to articulate it.
        Mr. Engel. Thank you.
        The civilian Government of Burma seems to be focused on
    economic development in northern Rakhine State as the way to
    encourage Rohingya to come home, notwithstanding the desperate
    economic conditions there.
        These efforts seem devoid of an acknowledgment of the
    systematic denial of basic human rights which Rohingya in
    northern Rakhine State have endured for decades.
        So given the challenges of Rakhine State and the mixed
    results of peace-building and transitional justice initiatives
    following mass atrocities in other parts of the world, what
    would potential transitional justice mechanisms look like for
    Burma? What kind of initiatives should we be supporting as part
    of a broader policy toward Burma?
        Ms. Van Susteren. First of all, inviting them back, they've
    got a problem is that, number one, they're noncitizens. They're
    not people under the constitution.
        Secondly is that for a while they're saying they'd have to
    have some identification cards to come back. But it's not like
    they walked out with a passport and a driver's license. I mean,
    their homes were burned to the ground and everything they had.
        They left with the shirt on their backs, if they had a
    shirt on their backs, and oftentimes not with their children if
    their children have been murdered or wandered off.
        So it's a little unrealistic to think that this is some
    sort of economic development. I think sort of even before we
    get to that there has to be some recognition that these are
    people and we are not even there, and I think the condemnation
    as genocide is helpful.
        Obviously, sanctions, as has been suggested, has
    historically been somewhat helpful. But I think that we are so
    far off from thinking that they're going back anytime soon.
        Mr. Pomper. I agree with that. I think, in order to have a
    transitional justice mechanism to begin thinking seriously
    about them, you need to have a real transition and this is, at
    best right now, a stalled transition.
        You have a situation where there really isn't meaningful
    access to many areas of northern Rakhine State by humanitarian
    actors, that access is controlled by the Tatmadaw.
        You don't have a recognition of the catastrophe that's
    happened on the part of either the civilian or the military
    leadership. You don't even have a civilian leadership that's
    willing to call these people by their name.
        Without these kinds of predicates, thinking about a
    transitional justice mechanism, which is the kind of mechanism
    you would put in place when you had a sort of consensus--a
    political consensus in the country--that there was a time to
    take a step forward to a new political moment, we are not there
    yet. There's too much that needs to be done.
        Mr. Engel. Thank you.
        Let me ask one final question. Some of our colleagues in
    the Senate would argue that disciplinary measures against
    Burma's military might make it harder to transition to
    democracy and end the civil war.
        However, the U.N. fact-finding mission report found that
    these same military leaders are one of the greatest barriers to
    democratic reform.
        So given the political entrenchment of the Burmese military
    and the constitutional weakness of the civilian government,
    what can be done by the United States or the international
    community to encourage the military to get out of politics?
        Ms. Van Susteren. Well, first of all, we thought that
    lifting the sanctions in 2012 some of the sanctions would
    somehow coerce them--it was a recognition of moving toward a
    democracy.
        That, obviously, didn't work and, again, I am speaking as
    myself. We can't police the world and I don't think we can
    police the world. But we don't have to participate. We don't
    have to let people participate in the world like the military
    leaders who are behind this.
        So I don't know how you get the military to sort of back
    off. We've tried many things over many decades. But I think
    letting them participate in the world and the United States not
    taking a stronger stand makes it--I think we should take a
    stronger stand.
        Now, the reference to the International Criminal Court--if
    that worked I would be all for it.
        But the International Criminal Court has been somewhat
    feckless historically. It has had an outstanding genocide
    indictment against President Bashir of Sudan for, I don't know,
    what--5, 6, 7, 8 years and nothing has been done. So I don't
    think we can think of the ICC as some answer to all this. I
    think it really is incumbent upon the United States and
    Congress to make a decision about what kind of statement it
    wants to make.
        But I think what's been most successful, and not
    particularly successful, is when the United States takes a
    strong stand and doesn't participate with nations that are
    doing ethnic cleansing or genocide.
        Mr. Pomper. I will--just a couple of thoughts about this. I
    think the challenge that all international criminal justice
    mechanisms face is they don't have enforcement powers of their
    own. They really need to rely on member states to enforce their
    warrants and their judgments.
        So if the international community gets behind an
    accountability effort, which I think is certainly warranted in
    this case, it's also going to be important to do the diplomacy
    that's necessary to mobilize the international community to
    deliver on judgements that are reached and warrants that are
    issued.
        In terms of the question, how to bring the military along
    on this case, I mean, I tend to agree there's not a magic
    bullet.
        I think the impulse is going to have to be sort of driven
    from--internally by a reform effort that, frankly, just is not
    evident right now--that that group or that basis of reformers
    has not, I think, yet materialized.
        I think one hopes that the kinds of pressure tools that
    we've talked about targeted sanctions, threats of
    accountability, and the like can help demonstrate that this is
    not a satisfactory status quo for anybody involved.
        And then I think the other piece of this is continued
    engagement and a conversation with the civilian leadership and,
    frankly, conversations with the military leadership as well to
    make the point that if Myanmar wants to progress, if it wants
    to diversify its ability to engage diplomatically and
    militarily with a full range of international actors, then it's
    going to need to evolve beyond the sort of straitjacket that
    it's placed itself in at this point.
        Mr. Engel. Thank you. Thank you very much.
        Chairman Royce. Yes, thank you, and I think Beijing's
    pressure to the Security Council has been a very real
    impediment to trying to move the international community on
    this, given their veto.
        We go to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much, Chairman Royce and
    Ranking Member Engel, for holding this important hearing.
        It's great to see you again, Greta. Thank you for
    everything that you have been doing with your VOA show and
    shining a light on--and your important advocacy on human rights
    issues on your show every week.
        And thank you, Mr. Pomper, for being here to testify in
    front of us. For years now many of us on this committee have
    been speaking out in support of the Rohingya people.
        In 2014, we supported a resolution that this committee
    passed--Jim McGovern's House Resolution 418, which called for
    an end to persecution and for the U.S. to take more action on
    behalf of the Rohingyas.
        In the years since, members of our committee have sent
    letters after letters asking for the administration to take
    more action, urging more pressure on the Burmese Government,
    sanctions against those responsible for this genocide, access
    for humanitarian assistance.
        And just last month, we joined a letter by Ranking Member
    Engel urging the administration to levy additional sanctions
    against Burma's military leadership to make a public
    determination over this genocide.
        And this month we sign on to Jan Schakowsky and Ranking
    Member Engel's letter again expressing concern about the
    imprisonment of the two Reuters journalist.
        The list goes on and on, and in the wake of the U.N. report
    saying that the Burmese military actions meet the legal
    threshold of genocide, which we've been discussing, it also
    called for a formal international independent investigation
    into these crimes.
        And it's important to note Ranking Member Engel's BURMA
    Act, which still needs to be passed and that aims to impose
    additional sanctions and ensure accountability about the human
    rights violations in Burma.
        We had Joe Crowley and Steve Chabot, who's a wonderful
    member of our committee, pass an important bill condemning the
    ethnic cleansing going on.
        So, many efforts on behalf of Members of Congress,
    especially of this committee, but we need to start seeing
    results with real consequences--real deterrents to stop this
    genocide from happening.
        And the administration has commendably implemented some
    necessary sanctions. But it's also important and necessary to
    ask was there anything that could have been done differently.
        When Aung San Suu Kyi returned to Burma's political process
    in 2011, so many were encouraged by very limited democratic
    steps. But, as I said in 2012, it was far too soon to start
    easing sanctions as the last administration was committed to
    doing, never mind its outright lifting of sanctions in 2016.
        This is not to say that anyone but the Burmese military is
    responsible for the genocide. But, Greta, I would ask you is
    this a case of moving too fast too soon? Was the easing and
    lifting of economic pressure and sanctions against Burma's
    military regime a case of wishful thinking and how can we make
    sure we don't make this mistake again?
        Ms. Van Susteren. First of all, 20/20 hindsight is far
    different than reviewing something at the time. At the time
    that the sanctions were being considered for lifting and that
    they were actually lifted, I thought it was a good idea. I
    think we'll try anything, encourage anyone to be a democracy.
        So I had hoped and I think everybody else involved with it
    had hoped that those sanctions would encourage a greater move
    toward democracy in Myanmar.
        It has not turned out that way, despite everyone's best
    effort and the U.S. Government's best effort to do that. I
    think, and you have listed, Congresswoman, all the many things
    that Congress has done--the letters--and I tell you, in my
    personal opinion, those are so well received and it's so
    appreciated.
        I mean, the fact that holding the hearings today for these
    people who are a bazillion miles away sitting in horrible
    deplorable conditions and the fact that the U.S. Congress cares
    about them certainly should be significant to the American
    people. It shows about what we are.
        Frankly, if I have any sort of disappointment in what you
    have laid out, my disappointment really is in my own business
    in the media. I think the media has large--I mean, there's a
    lot to report on the world. I got that.
        But I don't think the media has put the spotlight on this
    story enough so that enough people are informed about it so the
    American people can participate in this and help as well to
    give some sort of guidance to their leaders--the Members of
    Congress. It takes 2 seconds to tweet something and it goes--we
    all have 1 million followers in the media.
        So, I thank Congress for what it's doing. I appreciate what
    the Obama administration tried to do and was ineffective. But
    we are in a new time and I hope now that there's a bigger
    spotlight on this and I hope that Congress can fashion
    something. My personal opinion is I would like to tighten the
    sanctions on those military leaders because I see that as the
    problem.
        Aung San Suu Kyi, we all hoped that she was going to be the
    answer. But she doesn't have much power as a civilian leader.
        I think we sort of almost built up in our own minds that
    she was going to be able to do these magical things. She won't
    even mention the word Rohingya. She won't even say that and
    maybe she's worried for her life.
        I don't know what it is but she won't even say that. But I
    think we can stop putting our money on her. I don't think that
    she has the power and she hasn't indicated the willingness,
    although I would hope things have changed.
        But I think it's really going to take a collective effort
    and I really call out the media. It takes 2 seconds to tweet
    things and it doesn't take a lot to report on this because we
    need to give you guys the spotlight by informing the American
    people so people care about this.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Well, thank you. My time is up, so now I
    get to interrupt you.
        Ms. Van Susteren. Okay.
        Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. Thank you so much for your advocacy.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you. Thank you.
        We go to David Cicilline of Rhode Island.
        Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you and
    the ranking member for calling this hearing and thank our
    witnesses.
        I was on the trip--the fact-finding mission with Senator
    Durbin and Senator Merkley in November and I want to begin by
    saying thank you to Greta Van Susteren for the attention you're
    bringing to this.
        I do hope that maybe as a result of this hearing that there
    will be additional attention from the media because it was the
    most haunting trip I have ever made.
        We had the opportunity to hear directly from members of the
    Rohingya community in Bangladesh about unspeakable atrocities
    and they showed us the burns on their bodies and recounted
    stories of the slaughter of their children and family members,
    and it is horrific.
        And we were in fact denied the right to go into the Rakhine
    State, and as a kind of consolation prize they took us to Aung
    Mingalar, which is a ghetto in Myanmar where they've rounded up
    the Rohingya, taken them away from their homes, and they are
    forced to live in this ghetto. They ran businesses, had shops
    nearby.
        They're not allowed to work in those shops anymore. There's
    no education, no health care, and they've done nothing at all
    other than be Rohingya and they're put into this. And so they
    were very proud to show us this place as an alternative.
        We then heard stories from that government that, oh, no,
    the Rohingya burned down their own villages. I mean, it was
    just horrific. There was no willingness to accept
    responsibility in any way. So I appreciate the work that you
    have both done to bring attention to this.
        My first question is in terms of an ICC referral, you know,
    having an international forum where some evidence can be
    presented so the world can understand what's happening, it
    seems to me, would be very useful and I am just wondering, Mr.
    Pomper, what you think would be the consequence if the United
    States stood in the way of that.
        The reason I raise that question is Mr. Bolton has said in
    a speech that we don't believe in the ICC--we'll never
    cooperate or assist them in any way.
        And so in this moment this becomes particularly important,
    in my view.
        Mr. Pomper. Thank you for the question.
        I mean, I agree generally with the tenor of the
    observations that have been made today that the United States,
    by itself, is obviously a very powerful voice and a powerful
    actor and can be a real leader on situations like this.
        But it's most effective when it also works with
    multilateral institutions that have within their remit
    addressing these kinds of situations.
        And in this particular context, two of the leading
    institutions that have those capabilities and that have that
    remit are the Human Rights Council and the International
    Criminal Court, and those are two institutions that this
    administration has spared no effort in recent months attacking
    their legitimacy, and I think that's a terrible mistake.
        And I think you saw a little bit of a tacit recognition of
    that when Ambassador Haley associated herself with the fact-
    finding commission's findings when she spoke to the Security
    Council.
        That fact-finding mission was mandated and supported by the
    U.N. Human Rights Council and it's an extremely credible
    commission and the work that it's done has been absolutely
    critical in framing international conversation around these
    atrocities. Why one would delegitimize that is absolutely
    beyond me.
        I think as far as the International Criminal Court I would
    make a couple of observations. First, the International
    Criminal Court has actually already seized itself of this
    matter.
        It's done so in an incomplete way. There was a judgment by
    a pre-trial chamber of the court recently that asserted
    jurisdiction over certain crimes that have, as part of their
    predicate, actions that took place in Bangladesh, which is a
    state party to the ICC.
        So it has partial jurisdiction. Obviously, a referral by
    the Security Council would give it greater jurisdiction and
    would allow it to do a more complete job in terms of
    investigating and potentially prosecuting these cases at some
    point.
        I think that would be useful. But it's also important to
    give them the support that they need to do that.
        Mr. Cicilline. All right. Thank you very much.
        I think also one of the principal issues that you both
    touched upon is the stripping of citizenship. We had the
    opportunity to meet with members of the National Assembly--
    their parliament--who were elected and served the members of
    the Rohingya community that have now been stripped of their
    citizenship.
        So to say to these folks, you are not citizens of this
    country when they served in the government I think shows the
    absurdity and I think the question of how do you have a
    repatriation process that makes sure that the Rohingya can
    return safely and with full citizenship so that they can return
    to their country free from intimidation, the fear of death and
    violence, I think is, obviously, an important issue.
        And I know Aung San Suu Kyi, who may not have a lot of
    power in the current construct, has a lot of moral authority
    and she has completely failed in any way to speak out against
    this violence, to acknowledge it.
        The fact that she may have less power than the military may
    in fact be true but she has the power of her voice and her
    international standing and she has completely failed in that
    responsibility and it's been a grave disappointment to many of
    us here in Congress.
        And I know my time has run out, but I thank you again for
    your thoughts, and yield back.
        Chairman Royce. We go to Mr. Dana Rohrabacher of
    California.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Where does the Burmese military get their weapons and
    ammunition? What type of weapons and ammunition do they have?
        Ms. Van Susteren. I will defer to you. Do you know that
    answer? I don't know where they get them.
        Mr. Pomper. I would be speculating. I am sorry.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. We know they're shooting people. We have--
    --
        Ms. Van Susteren. They use a lot of machetes, they burn,
    and they rape. So that's been their----
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, I don't like----
        Ms. Van Susteren. They've weaponized a lot of things like
    that. But I don't know about their weapons.
        Mr. Pomper. Not from the United States, which has an arms
    embargo in place.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Right. So would I be just really off base
    if I suggest that it's very possible that the Chinese are
    providing the Burmese military the weapons they need for these
    type of actions?
        Mr. Pomper. You're free to suggest that. Certainly, not a
    crazy suggestion.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. Well, let me just note that the
    type of genocide and brutality and mass killings that the
    Burmese Government has been known for for three decades now, at
    least.
        I remember being very active when trying to support the
    Karens and the others, and the Burmese Government and their
    military has not just been focused on the Rohingya, which we
    need to worry about today because those are the ones who are
    bearing the brunt of this brutality and genocide, but this is a
    history of this type of activity and we should know where their
    weapons are coming from.
        And I would suggest they're probably coming from China
    and----
        Chairman Royce. Mr. Rohrabacher.
        Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. We should do something about
    it. Yes, sir?
        Chairman Royce. If the gentleman would yield.
        Their weapons do principally come from China. One of the
    oddities is that the other separatist ethnic groups in Burma
    also are supplied. The Chinese sell them weapons as well.
        So they sell the weapons to the government in Myanmar and
    they sell weapons to different ethnic separatist groups.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. So it sounds like--thank you, Mr.
    Chairman. Thank you for this hearing, by the way. I appreciate
    your leadership, as usual, on human rights issues.
        And let me just note, the chairman and I had a difference
    of opinion on the title of the Magnitsky Act but not the
    substance of the Magnitsky Act.
        Is this time for us to have sanctions against the specific
    leaders of the Burmese military?
        Mr. Pomper. Yes.
        Ms. Van Susteren. And, again, I am not here representing
    the Voice of America or the government, but let me answer
    personally. Yes.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. All right. So, Mr. Chairman, today I would
    hope with that whatever comes out of this hearing that we stand
    together and that we are going to hold the individuals and
    leadership of the Burmese military responsible--personally
    responsible--as well as the government itself, and let us
    declare that the Government of Burma is an outlaw among nations
    because this is not inconsistent with their behavior over the
    last 30 years and the military has--and we declared that the
    military is guilty of crimes against humanity.
        So one of the things I would be--now, those are things we
    can recognize now. What I don't understand is how come we are
    the ones that are upset? Where are Saudis and all of these
    wealthy Muslim countries that have enormous resources available
    to them? Why are they permitting their fellow Muslims to live
    in this type of brutality and squalor?
        Ms. Van Susteren. Well, I can't answer those questions
    either but I can tell you that Bangladesh is very upset because
    this is very difficult for that nation. That's not a rich
    nation----
        Mr. Rohrabacher. That's right.
        Ms. Van Susteren [continuing]. And they--and this----
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Bangladesh has almost no money for
    helping. We know there are several countries in this world that
    are Islamic countries that have enormous resources, and are
    they the helping?
        Ms. Van Susteren. I can't answer that. I can tell you that
    there were some NGOs from different countries like Doctors
    Without Borders. But that's France. But I don't know if any of
    these other nations--I would defer to you, Mr. Pomper.
        Mr. Pomper. So I can't give you a complete answer. But I
    recall from actually your reporting that there's a very
    substantial number of Rohingya refugees living in Saudi Arabia.
        I also know that the Organization of the Islamic Conference
    has been very active diplomatically.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. I didn't catch that. The Saudis and the
    Kuwaitis and the Qataris--are they kicking in to help the
    Rohingya people?
        Mr. Pomper. I don't know how much money is flowing from
    those.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, when you see pictures of standing in
    this--the horrible--in the middle of this village or the
    horrible conditions that you just showed us, it is more than
    disappointing to think that, okay, we need to be concerned but
    what about these filthy rich Muslim countries. They don't allow
    Syrian refugees in.
        They expect Europe to take all of them. They aren't even
    helping the Rohingyas and other people who are being targets of
    genocide. Shame on them. Shame on them, and I would hope that,
    Mr. Chairman, that they're listening right now.
        But all we can do with us is we can make our own commitment
    to having standards and, Mr. Chairman, thank you for the
    leadership and the Magnitsky Act, although I disagree with the
    title, and other things like this that you have made sure that
    we are part of the solution and as compared to the Saudis and
    the Chinese.
        Thank you.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
        We go to Mr. Brad Sherman of California.
        Mr. Sherman. Thank you. I also believe the Islamic world
    should be doing more. To just commit diplomatic resources is
    not the same as hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.
        It's my understanding that the United States is by far the
    most generous of all countries in this and many other crises.
        Many of us supported the efforts of Aung San Suu Kyi. We
    met with her. We pushed. We adopted sanctions, and it is
    disillusioning to the entire democracy and human rights
    movement worldwide. How do I get people involved in the next
    human rights champion--in the next democracy champion when we
    see someone with a lot of influence use that influence to
    protect the military of Myanmar?
        Now, in September 2018, I joined with several of our
    colleagues on a bipartisan letter urging Secretary Pompeo to
    press for the release of the two Reuters journalists who were
    sent to prison for 7 years. I am so troubled that Aung San Suu
    Kyi has defended the conviction of these journalists.
        Ms. Van Susteren, you speak as much as anyone for the
    journalistic community of this country. What should we be
    doing?
        Ms. Van Susteren. Well, first of all, let me just add to
    this that I appreciate that letter, on behalf of journalists,
    and I shared disappointment with the U.S. media. Why aren't we
    hearing about this from my fellow journalists more? I mean,
    that would help.
        This is a partnership. The media can't do it alone.
    Congress can't do it alone. Nobody can do all this alone.
        So I share that sort of disappointment with the
    journalists. They are not, of course, the only journalists held
    in jails across the world. But these two journalists, just to
    fill in the gap, were framed by the police.
        They were given some documents and in a restaurant, and as
    soon as they walked outside the restaurant they were arrested
    for having the documents. So it's terrible.
        Aung San Suu Kyi, a huge disappointment. Maybe we expected
    way too much of her but we can all sort of look back and think,
    what could she have done? I think it really sort of behooves us
    to sort of in this crisis, as we look at what's happening to
    the people now, to figure out what can we do for them.
        But the people in this camp, they're penned in. They can't
    leave. They can't go to school. They can't do anything. It's a
    breeding ground for all sorts of diseases and for trouble--
    which is one of the reasons why the director of Voice of
    America wants to get news into the camp so that people see that
    there's opportunity outside the camp and that at least there
    are people paying attention.
        Mr. Sherman. The purpose of the Burmese military--the
    Myanmar military--is to ethnically cleanse the area, to reverse
    what they think is the wrongful act of people moving into their
    country 100 or 1,000 years ago. Most American families have
    moved into this country in the last 100 or at least the last
    1,000 years.
        And so we can hope that there are well maintained refugee
    camps in Bangladesh. But that achieves the purpose of what
    seems to be a genocide and a crime against humanity.
        I would point out that when the Government of Sudan waged
    war against its own people in the south, we saw an independent
    South Sudan. Now, things didn't work out recently.
        Mr. Pomper, if north Rakhine State was either independent
    or part of Bangladesh, would its people be safe on their own
    land? Because we know they can be more or less safe in refugee
    camps, but then they have limited opportunities.
        Mr. Pomper. So forgive me, sir. I am going to resist the
    logic of the question a little bit for the very reason that you
    said, which is that I think these kinds of separationist
    solutions, unfortunately, honor the logic of ethnic cleansing
    and I think at this point the best way to think about this is
    in terms of trying to affect a situation where it is actually
    possible for the Rohingya to come back----
        Mr. Sherman. You really think that the Rohingya could move
    back and wouldn't be killed 2 years from now, 10 years from
    now, 20 years from now?
        Mr. Pomper. I don't----
        Mr. Sherman. Do you really think that they can live in
    peace and security and confidence in a land controlled by the
    Burmese military?
        Mr. Pomper. So let me answer the question in two parts.
        I think, first, if the government succeeds or the Tatmadaw
    succeeds in this campaign, what is to stop it from then moving
    down the list of ethnicities with which it has similar
    grievances?
        Mr. Sherman. Well, if it grants independence to each of
    those ethnicities, that's exactly what they don't want to do.
    If the Burmese state loses north Rakhine as part of its
    sovereign territory, it's not going to want to repeat that
    elsewhere.
        Mr. Pomper. I would worry about the precedential value
    inside Myanmar and I would worry about the precedential value
    outside Myanmar as well.
        I think, in general, the best solution under these
    circumstances--and I agree, it's difficult to look into the
    future and say 2 years, 5 years, 10 years from now we will
    certainly be in a situation where we know that this will be
    solved in terms of creating the circumstances for repatriation,
    but that needs to remain the objective at this point. In the
    meantime----
        Mr. Sherman. Well, I think we are in favor of repatriation.
    What the question is are we in favor of the Burmese military
    having sovereignty over the repatriated individuals.
        Mr. Pomper. The Burmese military should not have
    sovereignty over anybody.
        Mr. Sherman. Well, the Burmese military can operate in the
    territory of Burma--or Myanmar--and as long as that--asking the
    people to go back and say that's the army of the country I will
    live in and I hope they don't rape my wife and slaughter my
    children, but that's why I move back----
        Mr. Pomper. So I think you put your finger on it when you
    referred to----
        Mr. Sherman. Safety requires a government that is dedicated
    to your safety rather than dedicated to your extermination.
        Mr. Pomper. Correct, and it also requires civilian control
    over a military that----
        Mr. Sherman. Well, the civilian control is also in favor or
    defending what's going on.
        I yield back.
        Chairman Royce. Steve Chabot of Ohio.
        Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
    holding this very important hearing.
        In the past month, two reports were published detailing how
    horrific the crimes actually were that we are discussing here
    today.
        First, at the end of August the U.N. fact-finding mission
    on Myanmar released a preliminary report that argued that the
    Burmese military had genocidal intent against the Rohingya and
    called for a competent international authority to try cases
    against the individuals responsible.
        The final report, issued just last week, makes the case
    even clearer, and in a hearing like this it's really hard for
    any of us to comprehend the horrors that happened to the
    Rohingya during that period of time--what they endured.
        These were human beings that endured some of the most
    horrific things that's possible in human existence and I would
    ask unanimous consent that the full U.N. report, which I have
    here, be entered into the record.
        Chairman Royce. Without objection.
        Mr. Chabot. And this report contains in great detail those
    horrors which, again, in a civilized hearing like this it's
    hard to speak about those things.
        The second report, from the State Department, was released
    2 days ago on Monday evening. This spring, the State Department
    commissioned a survey of Rohingya survivors in Bangladesh
    together from eyewitnesses and Monday's report discusses their
    stories, and the report calls the violence extreme, large-
    scale, and widespread and states that, ``The scope and scale of
    the military's operations indicate that they were well planned
    and coordinated.''
        Of the, roughly, 1,000 Rohingya refugees interviewed the
    vast majority--about 80 percent--witnessed killings and the
    destruction of villages. So these are people that actually saw
    other people murdered, and probably most of the people,
    hopefully, in this room haven't experienced that in their life.
    But we are talking about 80 percent of those people actually
    saw one or more people slaughtered.
        In total, we know that 400 villages were burned. Further,
    about half of those surveyed actually witnessed a rape.
        Statistics really only tell part of the story. The true
    perversity of these atrocities is clear from the types of
    crimes the military committed.
        Widespread gang rape, mass murders, throwing infants and
    children, literally, into fires, and burning the elderly in
    their own homes. The report describes in gruesome detail
    various crimes, and I can't read this stuff--it's so horrific--
    and I am not going to.
        But we are talking about pregnant women who were literally
    murdered and their unborn children destroyed in front of them,
    and as was mentioned, babies thrown into rivers and their
    mothers shot. There's no way in the 21st century this ought to
    happen anywhere.
        And I want to thank Mr. Pomper and Ms. Van Susteren for
    coming here today and sharing this with us and trying to make
    sure that the world knows what happened and that there's
    accountability here.
        This havoc occurred against a group of people but there was
    another group of people that did it, and they still exist and
    they're still in power, and something has to be done about this
    or it will happen again.
        So with the facts and the reports that I mentioned in mind,
    I, along with a number of my colleagues on both sides of the
    aisle, plan to introduce a resolution condemning the Burmese
    Government's crimes and their efforts to suppress information
    about those crimes and to call it what it is--what it was--and
    that's genocide.
        Words are not enough, however, which is why I also urge the
    swift passage of the BURMA Act, legislation that Ranking Member
    Engel and I wrote to apply sanctions on those individuals
    responsible for these horrific crimes.
        As I say, these perpetrators must be held accountable.
        Mr. Pomper, let me ask you about that. As I mentioned, Mr.
    Engel and I introduced the BURMA Act to impose sanctions on
    those responsible for the genocide. You mentioned sanctions in
    your testimony.
        Is that appropriate? Is that one of the tools that we
    should at least consider? What would be your opinion on that?
        Mr. Pomper. Yes, targeted sanctions are an appropriate
    tool. They send an important signal and they should be applied
    against the perpetrators.
        Mr. Chabot. Okay.
        Ms. Van Susteren, let me ask you this, and I am running out
    of time. I am co-chairman of the House Freedom of the Press
    Caucus and concerned about the two Reuters journalists
    imprisoned in Burma.
        Earlier this month, many of us on this committee sent a
    letter to Secretary Pompeo asking that he continue to advocate
    for their release. And as a journalist yourself, I would like
    to hear your perspective on that case and whether you think
    that international pressure could be effective in securing
    their release and what, if anything, else ought to be done to
    secure that release.
        Ms. Van Susteren. I think that the pressure of that would
    help enormously for these reporters. When I went deep into
    these refugee camps--now, obviously, you're talking about into
    Myanmar where they're held--is that the refugees were aware of
    things that were being done inside the United States.
        So the word does get out. It's far away but that does send
    some sort of hope that somebody cares. You went through the
    litany of things that you have read about. When I've been there
    and these people tell me these things that happen, you just
    stand there sort of--it's just thoughtless. You can't imagine
    these things can happen to human beings. So it's just
    incredible.
        But the reporters trying to report it can't even get to
    them inside Rakhine and there's no way that we are going to get
    this word out if they can't get there and if Myanmar is going
    to lock the journalists up who try, few journalists are going
    to risk their lives.
        One of the journalists you talked about--one of the Reuters
    reporters--I think his wife had a baby while he's been locked
    up. So, he's got 7 years before he'll live in a home with his
    child.
        So I think that pressure from the United States--it does
    mean something. I mean, people look up to the United States and
    our freedom of the press and the Constitution and we are quite
    proud of it and it's very important to our Government, and I
    think that if the United States puts pressure on it I think it
    will help them.
        I am not saying it's a magic bullet. But it, certainly,
    does send a message.
        Mr. Chabot. Thank you very much, and my time has expired,
    Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you.
        We go to Norma Torres of California.
        Ms. Torres. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our
    guests that are here today.
        It is incredibly offensive to humanity the crimes that we
    are seeing coming out of this place. It is unfortunate, I
    think, that the military has been in power and continues to be
    armed by China to commit these horrible crimes.
        I don't think that we truly understand how many women and
    how many children have been born out of rape and I don't know
    if we'll ever truly understand the fact that we can't get into
    Burma to assess the situation as reporters. It is incredibly
    disappointing and unfortunate.
        But more disappointing than that, as a community and world
    leaders have stood by and I think where is the responsibility--
    where does China stand on this? Are they just being complicit
    by supplying the weapons that are going into the military?
        Mr. Rohrabacher asked that question earlier about the
    Chinese weapons that are being used by the Burmese military. So
    how would you characterize China's involvement in Burma and if
    China wanted could it force the Burmese military to change its
    policy?
        Ms. Van Susteren. In terms of China arming them, I am just
    learning that here. I didn't know that. But a lot of the
    destruction I saw didn't take any weapons. It took a match, it
    took a machete, and it took raping women and putting fear, so a
    lot of that.
        The question is whether China would show any sort of moral
    leadership to try to encourage the Myanmar military to stop
    doing those things.
        Ms. Torres. With a 1,500-mile border, you would think that
    they would show some leadership.
        Ms. Van Susteren. Yes, if they bothered to even recognize
    these people as human. They're not----
        Ms. Torres. Which was exactly my point as I began.
        Ms. Van Susteren. I mean, they are not recognizing them as
    human, and to the extent that they continue to be corralled
    without any chance at education, they can't work, they can't do
    anything. The women, by the way--you talk about the women--I
    met women who were pregnant--I was there about 9 months after a
    lot of them had left--who were pregnant and they didn't know if
    their babies were their husbands' or whether it was the Myanmar
    military.
        But it didn't matter, because they were said to have evil
    in their bellies and they were shunned. And the women are
    sitting in these huts in this God-awful weather--monsoon--where
    it's about 100 degrees that we can't stand it, and they don't
    even come out.
        I mean, it gets far more graphic and terrible than we can
    ever put on the screen or put in a report. I mean, it's just
    incredible.
        I so much appreciate the delegation that has come from
    Capitol Hill to go there and see some of this stuff because it
    really does bring it home when you see it. That's why I love
    CODELs.
        Ms. Torres. I want to make one more point. I think that we
    can all agree that Aung San Suu Kyi has failed to stand up
    against the Burmese military. She's failed to stand up for
    these children. She's failed to stand up for these women, and
    she's failed to stand up for basic human rights.
        But, yet, I know that the Nobel Committee does not
    generally revoke Nobel Prizes. But should they make an
    exception for her, given the gravity of what has taken place in
    Burma?
        Ms. Van Susteren. Well, I don't speak for them and I don't
    know. So I am going to duck that question. I just know that she
    won't even say the word Rohingya and that she identifies about
    26 terrorists of ARSA--the terrorist group of Rohingya--and she
    is content to have 1 million people essentially persecuted for
    the conduct of a few.
        Ms. Torres. You were talking about American focus on this
    atrocity that is happening there. Where is the international
    community--something as simple as this--to send a clear message
    that, as human beings, we are not going to tolerate this? It
    is, to me, just--they are being complicit to what is happening
    there.
        Mr. Pomper. I will link that comment back to your questions
    about China. I mean, one place where China has been,
    unfortunately, very effective in a negative way has been in
    terms of blocking a clear statement by the U.N. Security
    Council.
        Ms. Torres. Absolutely.
        Mr. Pomper. And that would be very--the things that the
    Council could do--the tools that it could bring to bear--
    probably could be pretty effective in sending a clear signal
    and applying meaningful pressure through sanctions, through
    referrals, et cetera.
        And so I think China is a very, very good target for
    diplomatic suasion in this case because they are standing in
    the way of meaningful action and that clear voice you're
    talking about.
        Ms. Torres. My time is up, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so much.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Congresswoman Torres.
        Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
        Mr. Perry. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
        Ms. Van Susteren, Mr. Pomper, thanks for being here.
        We met a year ago tomorrow on this very subject and
    lamented the circumstance where we sit here, comfortably, and
    these people are being slaughtered halfway around the world and
    we have conversations, but there's no action and that's the
    frustration of this place. There is no action.
        But the United States and the world can't turn their face
    away from what is happening. Seventy years ago this happened
    halfway around the world and people were shoved into ghettos
    and exterminated and now we see it happening in Burma and
    across the little portion of water where they're all housed and
    corralled in.
        And I applaud you, Ms. Van Susteren, as a member of the
    press. Eighty years ago a man won a Pulitzer Prize for lying
    about the terror famine executed by Russia in Ukraine and that
    Pulitzer Prize still hangs today in the New York Times office,
    as far as I know.
        So it's important that we see, that we hear, that we are
    made aware of what's happening. I remain frustrated because I
    don't see any action. The U.N. is not going to be--unless, Mr.
    Pomper, and I doubt--Ms. Van Susteren, it's not your expertise
    but, Mr. Pomper, I doubt you can tell me that the U.N., with
    China and Russia involved, are going to support the United
    States or any of the freedom-loving countries of the world in
    robust meaningful action against the Burmese military, right?
    They're not going to do anything. The U.N. is going to be
    feckless.
        Mr. Pomper. Things do not look good at the Security
    Council.
        Mr. Perry. Yes, they don't--yes.
        Mr. Pomper. The Human Rights Council might be a different
    story.
        Mr. Perry. That's a larger discussion. But I guess for you
    I have a question. China is, in my opinion, enabling this
    whether it's arms or whether it's their agreement with Burma
    and the port, and while the President is offering trade tariffs
    on China regarding their malign behavior around the world and
    particularly the United States, is it time to sanction China?
        Is it time to sanction--use the word sanction--China for
    this action? Will it make a difference.
        Ms. Van Susteren, the Voice of America--you're saying we
    want to get that information into the camps. We want to inform
    them that people around the world and people in the United
    States. We want something done about it. We understand their
    plight. We are horrified by their situation.
        Is there something impeding that effort?
        Ms. Van Susteren. Well, first of all, I have to tell you
    that the director of the Voice of America, Amanda Bennett, who
    first approached me about telling me that she wanted to get
    information into it and it reminded me a little bit of the
    mission of Voice of America with the Iron Curtain. It was to
    get information behind the Iron Curtain.
        When I went into the camps, I was surprised, you know, at
    how hungry they were for information. The refugees inside--they
    were getting little bits and pieces and I don't know what tools
    or what's needed by Voice of America or what they need. I don't
    know that. I am not privy to that. It's above my pay--my
    volunteer job pay grade.
        But I do know that if we can get more information into the
    refugee camp, if we can get broadband in or if you can get
    radios in and they can hear a little more that certainly would
    benefit the people inside because they are completely lost. I
    mean, even hearing that the United States has a congressional
    hearing at least gives them a little hope that somebody cares
    halfway around the globe.
        And I always think putting a spotlight on a crisis--if the
    American media were more engaged in this I think more people--
    maybe China would pay a little more attention to it.
        I don't know. I think that's important. But I do think
    getting Voice of America inside that camp and getting
    information would help.
        Mr. Perry. Okay. So that's a do out for us here on this
    committee and in this body to do a better job and to find out
    what the hang-up is and what the holdup is and what the
    obstruction is and take action.
        Ms. Van Susteren. That hang-up may be on the ground,
    though. It may not have anything to do with the United States
    or Voice of America. I don't know. That's above my pay grade.
        Mr. Perry. I understand, but we got to understand that and
    try and--we want to be people of action. We want to see some
    results, right--that talk is cheap but people are suffering.
        Mr. Pomper--China.
        Mr. Pomper. I think I agree with what Greta said about
    trying to raise the profile of this issue. I think the U.S.
    Government could be speaking with a much clearer voice.
        I think there was a lot of value in the report that the
    State Department put out earlier this week. But it was a little
    bit of a missed opportunity in terms of using specific terms
    about their legal conclusions, which I think they pretty
    clearly had reached. That's just my supposition, based on
    reading it.
        I think it's important to pressure China through diplomatic
    channels by making clear that we see what's going on--that
    we've analyzed it. We should associate ourselves with the good
    work that's done by international bodies on this.
        Mr. Perry. With all due respect, Mr. Pomper, everybody
    knows. China knows that these Burmese people--these military
    officers that have been designated as specially designated
    nationals and blocked persons and put on that--they don't care.
        If you're willing to hack somebody apart with a machete, I
    don't think you're worried about being put on a list as a
    designated bad person.
        So while the diplomatic--look, that's--we wish that would
    always be effective. What we are looking for is something to be
    effective and, from my standpoint, I don't see China buckling
    under the withering diplomacy from the United States.
        It seems to me that action regarding their significant
    investment in that port is something that they might buckle to.
        Mr. Pomper. Yes. It's hard to make great powers buckle and
    so I am hesitant to sort of suggest coercive measures there.
    But I will say I do agree that they should--I understand your
    point about not caring. I think there is a great callousness, I
    think, toward the suffering and I don't want to defend them in
    any way.
        But I do think that continuing to raise the pressure,
    speaking with a clearer voice, can create greater costs for
    people who take that posture.
        Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Royce. We go to Joaquin Castro of Texas.
        Mr. Castro. Thank you, Chairman.
        Thank you all for your testimony today, and I was glad to
    see yesterday the announcement about the United States
    committing another $185 million to help combat this
    humanitarian tragedy.
        Let me ask you about--because I am co-chair of the U.S.-
    ASEAN Caucus--about the involvement of the ASEAN nations or any
    effort that they've made to help in this situation that you all
    may be aware of.
        Ms. Van Susteren. I am not personally aware but with 1
    million people on the ground--there are almost 1 million
    people--there are NGOs from literally every place.
        I was privy mostly to the American ones--Samaritan's Purse,
    of course. I mean, there's other ones, too. Doctors Without
    Borders are doing incredible--but you hear stories about how
    everyone is so proud that they've vaccinated 400,000 people
    from cholera.
        But the problem is when they told me that and they were all
    excited, I am doing the math and I think, well, what about the
    other 400,000. So a lot more help is needed.
        Mr. Pomper. Yes, and I am afraid I am not sort of on top of
    the specifics of the ASEAN response. But I do associate myself
    with Greta's comments that more is always needed and
    particularly if we are talking about multilateral responses,
    getting the region on board with whatever the United States has
    in mind in terms of coercive measures--if there's going to be
    some sort of international criminal justice proceeding that
    might result in arrest warrants at some point, getting the
    region on the same page so that those will actually be
    meaningfully enforced is incredibly important.
        Mr. Castro. Thank you. I yield back.
        Chairman Royce. All right. We go now to Dan Donovan of New
    York.
        Mr. Donovan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you both for
    your insight and you describe this atrocity tremendously in
    your video, Greta. It was, if not eye opening, stomach
    sickening because of what's happening to these people.
        I just wanted to ask two different areas, one about helping
    these poor people. Is there a struggle getting resources? Is
    there a blocked--is someone trying to block our abilities to
    assist the people who are now refugees? Or is it a matter of
    just getting more help and relief to them?
        Ms. Van Susteren. Well, I mean, getting--they always need
    more medicine. When I was there they needed more medicine. They
    were out of medicine.
        There's always a food shortage. There always--so yes, they
    can always use more. One of the other sort of practical
    problems is that to get there from Cox's Bazar, which is the
    city that where you'd probably start positioning things, is
    that it's the worst roads you can imagine--the worst traffic
    you can imagine.
        I mean, it's really sort of hard to get the trucks through
    when you have--even within the camps themselves, when I was
    there, is that we went into the camp and an hour later that the
    bridge--the mud bridge that got us into the camp had washed
    away from the monsoons, and there was an ambulance that
    couldn't get across the mud bridge because it had washed out.
        So, I mean, it's all sorts of problems like that with any
    giant catastrophe. The good news is all these organizations
    that are on the ground are so well coordinated because they
    have responded to every single crisis you can imagine.
        Whether it's an earthquake in Haiti or it's a refugee camp
    in Sudan, they all sort of know each other and work well
    together and the U.N.
        It appeared to be really well organized. The problem is the
    magnitude of the problem and you have got the weather, which is
    so punishing--the monsoon. It's indescribable.
        Mr. Donovan. But the local government services, and they're
    not preventing us from getting there?
        Ms. Van Susteren. Well, I don't think they are. But the
    local people are starting to get upset. Much like you see with
    the Syrian refugees going into Jordan, when people do sort of
    slip out and then they start taking the jobs, then the local
    people start get upset.
        And you have got the other problem that it was a beautiful
    lush area and the Rohingya have come in and they've cut down
    every single piece of foliage there so they could build huts
    and have fuel.
        There's nothing there, which, of course, then contributes
    to the whole problem with the mudslides when the monsoon comes.
        So naturally, this is such a burden on Bangladesh. I
    scanned the newspapers when I am here and it has been
    relatively quiet in the media about complaining about it.
        I think they've been quite generous. But this is a huge
    burden on a very poor country and at some point they're going
    to break.
        Mr. Donovan. All right.
        Mr. Pomper, you spoke earlier about our message--the United
    States message about the crisis not being clear. What should we
    be doing?
        Mr. Pomper. What I meant by that was when the State
    Department issued its report it sort of went up to a point in
    terms of the conclusions that it reached but it did not
    actually crystallize those conclusions around the kinds of
    provisional legal conclusions that people were expecting the
    report to articulate.
        It also wasn't rolled out in a very clear way. It wasn't
    accompanied by any kind of policy vision. Normally, when you do
    an exercise like that I think the hope is that while you're
    doing it you're also thinking about what you're going to say
    about where a policy is supposed to go and how it's going to
    create sort of a meaningful context into which this kind of
    work can laud and I think that work still needs to be done.
        Mr. Donovan. But it didn't indicate that our commitment is
    wavering at all, did it?
        Mr. Pomper. I just think it was a little bit of a missed
    opportunity.
        Mr. Donovan. Okay. My last question in my last minute is
    about a lot of my colleagues spoke about China's ability, if
    they wanted to, to influence the atrocities that are happening
    and help us to stop the genocide that's occurring.
        Are they the only other country? Are there other people who
    have influence in the region that could be helpful to us?
        Mr. Pomper. So the entire region is going to be important
    to any kind of response that the United States wants to help to
    craft and to lead. The Chinese are by far the most important
    because of their veto power at the Security Council and because
    of the importance of the Security Council to creating a legal
    framework for collective action.
        Mr. Donovan. Back in New York we would say, who else could
    we put the arm on.
        Mr. Pomper. I think I would be very liberal in terms of
    outreach at this point because the entire region is going to be
    important to the response.
        Mr. Donovan. Okay. I thank you both.
        Chairman Royce. Mr. Chris Smith of New Jersey.
        Mr. Smith. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank our two
    distinguished witnesses for their leadership as well as for
    their testimony today.
        It's very challenging and certainly you put a very
    important bit of emphasis on the need for significant action.
    We are nowhere near doing what we could or should be doing.
        You mentioned the ICC and I think the ICC has had two
    convictions since its founding, at least up to 2016. I've met
    with Bashir in Khartoum.
        He still has what should be a Sword of Damocles being held
    over his head and he travels the world. He goes to China, and
    they don't grab him and send him to the Hague for prosecution.
    So it has been feckless.
        But I would hope that there would be a referral by the
    Security Council. China will likely veto that, but we ought to
    pursue that. So thank you for that.
        Let me just ask, and maybe you might want to comment on
    that I was the House sponsor of the Global Magnitsky Act.
    Pushed very hard. We got it into the NDAA. It is an excellent
    law and it makes a difference.
        Since 2017, General Maung Maung Soe was sanctioned. In
    August 2018, three more military and one police sanctioned--the
    33rd Light Infantry, the 99th Light Infantry.
        The first question would be, is that enough or should more
    be listed on that sanctions list?
        Secondly, in 2013, one of my staffers interviewed the
    infamous Buddhist monk Wirathu, who called himself the Buddhist
    bin Laden, and he instigated, as we know, much of the violence
    targeting the Rohingya.
        And he concluded--and this goes to your point, Mr. Pomper,
    about the list of ethnicities that could still be targeted and
    we know the Christians were targeted before.
        I remember when we called this junta the SLORC and they
    continue to be as bad as they have ever been, if not worse,
    with this genocide against the Rohingya.
        But he said, and this is his words to a member of my staff,
    ``First the Muslims, then the Christians. Both are threats to
    our Buddhist future.'' And as been said by my colleagues, we've
    all been disappointed in Aung San Suu Kyi and others.
        But it seems to me that they're not going to stop with the
    Muslims and, of course, there's already killings of Christians.
        But you might want to speak to that as well.
        Let me also ask you about, and some of my colleagues have
    referenced it, but China's goal is to make the world safe for
    dictatorships and authoritarian regimes.
        They certainly want a warm water port on the Bay of Bengal,
    and you got a situation, as we all know, where they are not
    only providing weapons but they are simpatico. They are in
    solidarity with the atrocities being committed by this regime.
        We need to put more pressure on China and you might want to
    speak to that. Are we raising it sufficiently with Xi Jinping
    or not and if you could speak to that as well.
        And finally, on trafficking, I am the author of the
    Trafficking Victims Protection Act. We have another bill
    pending today--this hour--over on the Senate side. Hopefully,
    if it does pass it'll be my fifth law on combatting human
    trafficking.
        The question is, what is your sense of what's happening?
    And you have been to the camps, Greta. Thank you for your
    leadership on that.
        What's the deal with the trafficking? Do you have any
    insights you could provide us?
        Ms. Van Susteren. First, I can tell you about the
    trafficking.
        Mr. Smith. Yes, please.
        Ms. Van Susteren. That's just a growing crisis in there
    because you have got a lot of young girls in there and what
    happens is the brokers come in and that's a huge problem and
    it's only going to get worse. It's not going to get better
    because what happens is--at least I talked to someone who was
    working on the camps and trying to combat it--is that the
    brokers come in and they say to these families, look, send your
    13-year-old girl with me--I will take her to beauty school in
    Saudi Arabia or China or something and she'll send all this
    money back.
        So trafficking--we haven't even touched that. That is such
    a problem. It's a bad problem now. It's not going to get
    better. So you can put that one on your list.
        The question about the Christians--the attention, of
    course, is on the Rohingya--the Muslims. But information that I
    am told is that the Christians--the Karens--they're also
    getting persecuted, just not at the numbers. But they're not
    getting the media attention, either. So we don't know much
    about that and, of course, they don't have the magnitude of the
    Rohingya.
        The ICC--I don't have a lot of hope in the ICC but I
    definitely think we should do everything we can and use every
    tool in your tool box, and to the extent that we can get the
    ICC interested in this I think that's good. It puts attention
    on it.
        And you mentioned China protecting Bashir. Well, it's not
    even just China. Even South Africa Presidents--then President
    Zuma helped Bashir sneak out of South Africa and they're a
    signatory to the ICC.
        So the ICC is not going to answer this but it's going to
    put more world pressure. It's sort of collective. It's why we
    need them--we need Congress. We need the U.N. We need the ICC
    and all those things.
        Sanctions--and I say this personally is that if we can put
    more sanctions and more people put a squeeze on more people.
        Mr. Pomper. I think I agree with all that. I think,
    starting with the ICC, yes, it's an imperfect institution with
    a track record that's a little bit better than it was a few
    years ago but still it's struggled to be effective and I think,
    as I mentioned earlier in this hearing, one of the issues is
    that the international community needs to support this effort.
    It doesn't have a police force. It doesn't have an enforcement
    arm. It relies on member states. It relies on the international
    community to support it.
        So that's where U.S. diplomacy can actually be helpful.
    Right now, U.S. diplomacy is committed to actually undermining
    the coordinates' legitimacy. So it's going in the wrong
    direction.
        In a perfect world, the U.S. Government would actually be
    supplying information and actually helping them build the case,
    which they've already sort of started in the--to build. They've
    launched a preliminary examination. They've seized themselves
    jurisdiction. There is an opportunity there. Unfortunately, I
    think we are missing that opportunity.
        On targeted sanctions, the fact-finding mission, I think,
    listed a number of potential targets who have not yet been
    designated by the United States. I would hope that the State
    Department and the Treasury Department would be looking into
    those targets.
        On the other ethnic minorities, yes, the Shan and the
    Kachin were both, I think, subjects of a little bit of the
    fact-finding mission report. There's a lot that should be
    explored there. It would be great if Congress could bring
    attention to their plights as well.
        Thank you.
        Chairman Royce. Okay. We are going to go to Sandy Levin of
    Michigan and then Mike McCaul of Texas.
        Mr. Levin. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate the
    committee letting me join in.
        I don't know--is it appropriate for me to enter a statement
    in the record? Is that appropriate?
        Chairman Royce. Without objection.
        Mr. Levin. So let me just say very few things. I think I
    wanted to come here to congratulate the committee on paying
    attention to this serious issue and to your testimony.
        I think the evidence is totally clear. I think genocide is
    occurring. There's been some hesitation to say that is recent
    with the State Department to report where they spelled it out
    so clearly as was spelled out in the U.N. report.
        But they hesitate to call it genocide when it is.
        Secondly, I think there's been hesitation because of the
    role of Aung San Suu Kyi, and I understand that, and others who
    have met her can understand that.
        She was a champion. The problem is that the events there
    have, I am afraid, caused her to pull back and it's had a
    dramatic effect, I think, throughout. And you mentioned the
    failure of the media here to really bear down.
        And I think at times there was some hesitation within this
    Congress. I think it was a year and a half or more ago that the
    late John McCain and Dick Durbin introduced a resolution in the
    Senate that said it very clearly, and I essentially took that
    resolution and I introduced it in the House.
        And, again, I think because of Aung San Suu Kyi there was
    some hesitation. But I recently read a comment of hers--it's
    one of many--and this is what she said about the treatment of
    the Rohingya: ``There are, of course, ways in which with
    hindsight, I think, the situation could have been handled
    better. We believe for the sake of long-term stability and
    security we have to be fair to all sides.''
        When it comes to this circumstance, to genocide, there
    really is only one side.
        And I want to close, Mr. Chairman and others, by
    remembering a time. It was a couple decades ago, and President
    Clinton was there with Elie Wiesel. It was on a different
    subject, and Elie Wiesel turned to the President of the United
    States and said, ``Don't forget the Bosnian genocide.''
        And so I want to close, Mr. Chairman, again saying the work
    of this committee is so important, and while it's too late, I
    think, before we recess Friday, it's my hope that in addition
    to what has been done by this committee and the Congress so far
    that when we come back there will be further steps taken.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Levin.
        Mr. Levin. So let me thank you again for this opportunity
    and I want, with so many others, to join you in taking the
    further steps necessary to bring to the attention of the world
    and everybody in this country including the release of those
    two reporters, the need for still further action.
        Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, sir, and I also want to thank
    Tom Garrett here with us. Tom was here since before 10 o'clock
    this morning and, without objection, I would like to go to Mr.
    Garrett for his questioning now, if we could.
        Mr. Garrett. Thank you a lot, Mr. Chairman, and I really
    appreciate this hearing and I appreciate the work of the Voice
    of America, let alone Ms. Van Susteren.
        The Voice of America, when properly levied, has been
    instrumental to the freedom of literally hundreds of millions
    of people and that shouldn't be underestimated, but not
    properly levied we probably are pouring bad money after good.
    But in this circumstance we are on the right side of history.
        As it relates to the points made by Mr. Pomper, I find both
    agreement and disagreement. And Ms. Van Susteren said earlier,
    Mr. Chair, that we should use all of the above. I
    wholeheartedly agree.
        Having said that, the questions as it relates to the U.N.
    Human Rights Commission, et cetera, exacerbates some of us
    because, candidly, those bodies have been used to stymie
    progress in the right direction, right.
        I mean, when you have a body wherein there are members like
    the DRC, Angola; Pakistan, who horribly exploits ethnic
    minorities; China, who has imprisoned north of 1 million Uighur
    and oppress that population; Saudi Arabia, who I need not speak
    to; and Cuba, who maimed members of the U.S. State Department
    staff on the UNHCR, maybe their credibility is in question.
        Having said that, work with the tools you have, not the
    tools you wish you had.
        Refugee camps breed hopelessness, hopelessness breeds
    extremism, and extremism stymies the most fundamental of human
    rights, that being paramount the right to life, amongst others.
        I spent 8 months in a tent standing between Bosnia and
    Serbs and Muslims in the Army when I was younger, better
    looking, and had more hair, and I think it's been poignant that
    some members of this committee, Mr. Chair, have pointed out the
    role of China in these egregious circumstances.
        There is a role of China, some of which I can't speak about
    in this forum. How dare China wag its finger at us when they
    continue to perpetrate this aforementioned violations against
    the Uighurs, against the Falun Gong, against those who practice
    the Christian faith?
        And yet, we need to understand how China works. China
    drives wedges between potential alliances. There's probably no
    more important region in the next 30 years of our world than
    ASEAN, and Burma maintains the second--Myanmar maintains the
    second largest standing army in that region after Vietnam. They
    are wholly dependent upon the Chinese and the Chinese have
    interests, again, that I can't discuss in this forum in some of
    the atrocities that have been perpetrated. We need to speak the
    truth to that.
        I understand, as Mr. Pomper said and I will paraphrase that
    sometimes it's hard to move a great power. You will not
    accomplish anything you do not try to do. So we need to try.
        Understanding the Chinese drive wedges between potential
    alliances, use proxies to advance Chinese interests, create
    regional vacuums that the Chinese can fill, and then lie, lie,
    lie. That's the China paradigm.
        So what can we do here today, and this is a passion of
    mine. I've had the opportunity to work with Americans both
    Muslim and non-Muslim in groups like Our Aim to send aid to the
    Rohingya; building wells, building houses, building bridges,
    because when children can't get across a raging torrent during
    a monsoon then you have a secondary child separation.
        But we need to worry about what we can do and we need to
    understand where we come from. We had Dred Scott. We had Jim
    Crow. We had the first Article 1 with three-fifths of a person.
        We even proved, because the Preamble calls for forming a
    more perfect union, not establishing a perfect one--we should
    demand the same of those with whom we work.
        Global Magnitsky--it's been hit on. I have to tip my hat
    repeatedly to Chairman Royce, to Chris Smith, to members across
    the aisle. We should walk this dog all the way to the end of
    the line and pound everybody we can. We can do that
    unilaterally and we should.
        And I've heard--in fact, I've called for in this committee
    the revocation of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi's Nobel Peace Prize. But
    we can't control that.
        What we can control is the Congressional Gold Medal that
    was awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi in 2008 and then given to her
    in person in this town 400 yards from where we sit by this
    body.
        It is the highest honor bestowed by Congress and has been
    enjoyed by Pope John Paul, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ronald
    Reagan, Raoul Wallenberg, who saved tens of thousands, Mother
    Teresa, and the Dalai Lama, and Aung San Suu Kyi.
        So we can't control the Nobel Prize but we can send a
    pretty loud signal. Now, I understand that there are
    complexities here--that Ms. Suu Kyi's hands at some level are
    tied. But silence at some point is complicity, and the words
    that she has spoken about democracy and freedom for individuals
    across communities ring hollow in light of her current inaction
    in the face of a massive, massive displacement and murder and
    rape and enslavement of human beings in her nation.
        So these are things we can do now. We need to ramp up
    Global Magnitsky. It is an amazing tool, and this body bestowed
    upon her an award enjoyed by the likes of Dr. Martin Luther
    King, Jr. and Mother Teresa. We should see immediately about
    revoking that because that we can control.
        I will yield back and I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Royce. Mr. Garrett, thank you.
        We go now to Mike McCaul, chairman of the Homeland Security
    Committee.
        Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
    hearing.
        Ms. Van Susteren, thanks for putting a media spotlight on
    this, and I agree with you--the media should call more
    attention. We did that in Sudan and exposed the genocide
    happening there. I think it's happening here in this case in
    Burma.
        It is a crime against humanity, and what I worry about is
    the role of China because we know that they are providing the
    Burmese military--they're basically arming them with major arms
    suppliers. They are trying to invest in Burma under the One
    Belt, One Road Initiative where we've seen time and time again
    they go into countries, leverage them, and then take over their
    ports like in Sri Lanka, like in Djibouti.
        Here, they have the Indian Ocean ports in Burma. So we know
    they're trying to--that's their strategy going in and so the
    question is diplomacy, sanctions.
        I know some in the Senate think we need more diplomacy.
    It's not time for sanctions. But what--the two of you, what are
    your thoughts on sanctioning the military--the Burmese military
    and, if so, what impact would that have on the Burmese
    Government to possibly turn to China for more investment?
        Ms. Van Susteren. Well, first of all, let me speak
    personally, not for the Voice of America. I keep saying this
    like a broken record but just that everyone is clear.
        Look, I am all for whatever--as I said, every tool we have
    is to use it and to increase the sanctions I think is
    particularly good.
        When you say what is going to happen if we do that with
    Burma, well, we've seen with the trade war that we have with
    the tariffs, with the soybeans, is that China just went
    someplace else. They're getting it from Brazil and they're
    getting it from some other nations.
        So, there's always a problem when you put in sanctions that
    they just look for another market and they get the market.
        Nonetheless, the question is, as a nation do we want to
    stand up to this? That's really sort of the issue and that's
    really your decision as Representatives and not mine.
        But there's no question that if you put in sanctions
    oftentimes they just go someplace else.
        Mr. McCaul. Right.
        Mr. Pomper. Where I've been on this is that targeted
    sanctions against perpetrators of these atrocities is an
    appropriate consequence and it sends the right message and it's
    something that the United States should pursue.
        It's important as much as anything as a signal to future
    perpetrators both in Myanmar and elsewhere and making it clear
    that the United States and others who, hopefully, it can bring
    along in this effort and will not let these kinds of crimes go
    unanswered.
        Mr. McCaul. Well, and I tend to agree. I think we have a
    moral obligation here to do something and I think Congress has
    that authority--that we can issue sanctions.
        The United Nations, the International Criminal Court--
    they've been called upon to prosecute this. I think I agree
    with you, Ms. Van Susteren--they have been a bit feckless,
    powerless. They can't go into these countries and you and I
    were prosecutors and it's hard for them to adequately prosecute
    if they don't have access to the witnesses.
        And the U.N. has its problems. But that's one thing I think
    Congress can do here and it is issue sanctions against the
    Burmese military.
        And so with that, Mr. Chairman, I--in the interests of
    time, I yield back.
        Chairman Royce. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you very much.
        We'll go to Mr. Ted Yoho, chairman of our Asia and the
    Pacific Subcommittee.
        Mr. Yoho. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for
    having the endurance to stay here.
        Ms. Van Susteren, when you started off you said journalists
    must document atrocities, and I agree with that because that's
    the only way that message gets out.
        And I think you followed up that when we say never again,
    we must mean it, and I agree. So the question always comes out
    how, who, and when, and just as we've heard over and over again
    the history. When Nazi Germany went in and they were going
    through Europe collecting, rounding up, separating, processing,
    and murdering the Jews, the world stood by.
        I don't think purposely. It was happening while Hitler was
    taking over Europe and conquering countries. It was the
    aftermath of that, and we all remember, I guess us older ones
    remember, when General Eisenhower stated, ``Never again,'' when
    they went to Auschwitz and they saw these camps, that exposed
    that to the world. That was the journalists. And I commend you
    for what you're doing.
        And so we say never again, yet here we are saying never
    again, and all we have to do is look back in the last 20 or 30
    years. We see Darfur. Mao Zedong murdered 80 million people in
    his own country. Darfur, Sudan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Syria, Yemen,
    now the Rohingya.
        Never again, like you said. When do we mean that? So the
    questions that come up, who should be the policing force? Is it
    one country? Can the U.S. do that by itself?
        I would think not. How do you do that? And we've heard
    sanctions. We do sanctions all the time, and yes, they have
    some effect. But as Chairman McCaul brought out, we can
    sanction but China comes in, another country comes in, and it's
    the same thing we are going through with the DPRK. We put
    sanctions on there but if another country cheats, so there's
    got to be a better enforcing body that we together,
    collectively as nations, agree this will be the body that goes
    in there, and you can do isolation. You can isolate a country.
    You can put embargoes and then, of course, the last one is the
    kinetic actions.
        In your opinions, in your experience--both of you--if you
    could write policy and direct and say, if you guys would do
    this we could have this outcome, how would you like to see it?
        Because I know you're on the ground all the time and you
    see it and you will probably see some things that are just
    obvious.
        Ms. Van Susteren. Well, first of all, we can't police the
    world. I mean, you listed a couple places. There are other
    places even that aren't on your list like the Nuba Mountains in
    Sudan that nobody's paying attention to. I mean, it's just
    impossible to think of us as policing it.
        I think for me at least as an American is that I at least
    want to stand up to this and say we know about this and we are
    not going to be part of it.
        We are not going to do business with you. We are going to
    sanction you, and just from a moral standpoint we are going to
    do everything we can not to let you, meaning Myanmar, to
    participate in the rest of the world.
        I think that's the best we can do. We can't solve all these
    problems. I mean, it's unrealistic.
        But at least we can have the confidence that at least we
    are trying to do something and we are making a statement about
    where we are on these human rights things.
        You know, and the other problem too is that, quite frankly,
    the more practical thing is that these refugee camps are
    breeding camps for some very bad things.
        Mr. Yoho. As we know.
        Ms. Van Susteren. Eventually, the women go off to the
    trafficking. The men go off to the fishing boats and then we
    have extremist groups--that it's a fertile breeding ground
    because they've got nothing to do all day long.
        They even--I mean, they're lucky if they get food that they
    need or medicine that they need. They see their kids die--their
    babies die because Doctors Without Borders might not have
    enough medicine.
        I mean, I hear--when I was there the stories, you wouldn't
    believe what these doctors are trying to do. I mean, we can put
    people on ventilators here. What they have to do they have to
    take a bladder and just pump it all night long--pump it, if
    they've got a dying child. Well, that makes a very unhappy
    situation inside the camps.
        So, I don't think we can solve this but at least we can
    have moral authority in the world and we can say we are not
    doing business with you and we are going to sanction you.
        But that's just--you asked me what my wish list is it's in
    light of being very practical that we can't solve all these
    problems. But we can at least stand up to them.
        Mr. Yoho. Well, I think one of the most important things we
    can do is expose it and I commend both of you for doing that.
        Mr. Pomper, do you have any ideas or thoughts of what you
    would recommend?
        Mr. Pomper. I agree that there are limits to American
    influence. I think American influence does get expanded when it
    works----
        Mr. Yoho. Oh, yes.
        Mr. Pomper [continuing]. Through other bodies and with
    international partners. I do agree that the tools out there are
    imperfect. But one has to work with the tools that are there.
        And so I think as part of efforts toward pressure and
    accountability the United States needs to sort of survey the
    landscape and be very realistic about the fact that if it wants
    to be effective in this space there's a Human Rights Council
    that's actively seizing this matter and it's done a lot of good
    work.
        There's an International Criminal Court that is actively
    seizing this matter and has the potential to do something more
    and think about ways it can support those efforts.
        At the same time, I do think that the United States needs
    to keep on talking to the civilian government, needs to keep
    talking to the military and helping to coax them along, as
    frustrating and as limited as those prospects might be at this
    point.
        Mr. Yoho. Thank you both. I am out of time.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Royce. Ann Wagner of Missouri.
        Mrs. Wagner. Last but not least. It's probably all been
    said but we all haven't said it yet.
        So, Mr. Chairman, first of all, thank you for hosting this
    hearing on a topic that I have drawn attention to again and
    again. I have worked with my colleague, Congressman Castro--it
    was here earlier this month--to send a letter to Aung San Suu
    Kyi urging her to commute the sentences of the two Reuters
    journalists who were sentenced to 7 years of jail time for
    investigating the Rohingya massacres.
        Last week, I was pleased to see that the U.N. finally
    recommended that Burmese generals be investigated for the
    genocide of Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine State.
        This is a welcome, albeit long overdue, first step in
    bringing the perpetrators to justice. I am proud, really proud,
    that so many members and in a bipartisan way of this body have
    not hesitated to call the violence against the Rohingya what it
    is.
        It is genocide. There is broad bipartisan consensus that
    the United States should be doing everything it can to prevent
    and end genocide. Yet, I will say that our track record is
    deplorable. We failed to stop genocides in Rwanda, in Syria,
    and now in Burma.
        We have waited on the sidelines as the Burmese Government
    actively attempts the extermination of the Rohingya. I am just
    beyond outraged that the officials responsible for this
    genocide have gone unpunished and remain unaccountable.
        Mr. Pomper, the International Crisis Group has done great
    work, and I don't mean to diminish that work in any way. But I
    am curious about something.
        In 2013, sir, your organization awarded its In Pursuit of
    Peace Award to President Thein Sein. This award followed on the
    heels of a wave of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing
    of the Rohingya beginning in October 2012, which the Thein Sein
    government failed to adequately respond to and even encouraged.
        Can you elaborate on why the International Crisis Group
    gave this award to the man who refused to address an emerging
    genocide? I know that many human rights advocates at the time--
    because I was here in Congress--were very upset and I remember
    hearing about it then.
        Would you like to elaborate?
        Mr. Pomper. I mean not to dodge this question, but I was
    ensconced in the U.S. Government at that time. So I don't
    actually know what the thinking specifically behind the
    provision of that award was.
        I mean, as has been discussed broadly, about a lot of this
    sort of encouragement that different bodies inside the United
    States gave to different elements of the reform effort, there
    was a hopeful logic that was animating a lot of decision making
    at that time that did not pan out, clearly.
        But beyond that, I don't really have anything--I have
    literally no insight to give you. I am sorry.
        Mrs. Wagner. Well, if there's anything that you can find
    out. I know that you work closely with the organization now,
    obviously, and there was such outrage at the time and it made
    no sense and I just would--if there's any insight that you can
    provide my office or the committee I would--I would greatly
    appreciate it.
        And, again, I don't mean to diminish in any way, shape, or
    form the good work that you do do.
        Mr. Pomper. Thank you.
        Mrs. Wagner. The House recently passed my bill, the Elie
    Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act, which I
    introduced to spur significant improvements in the way the
    United States responds to genocide and other crimes against
    humanity.
        One of its provisions would mandate training for foreign
    service officers in early warning and response measures.
        Mr. Pomper, what resources did U.S. entities on the ground
    lack, do you think, that impaired our response to the crisis?
        Mr. Pomper. Sorry. The resources that the entity--I didn't
    quite follow the question.
        Mrs. Wagner. My legislation provides that Foreign Service
    officers in early warning and response measures they would have
    to be schooled up in their crisis prevention on these kinds of
    things.
        Were there other things that at the State Department level,
    at the U.S. level, that we could have done in response to this
    crisis that were lacking on the early side of this?
        Mr. Pomper. The early warning--gosh, I don't--I don't have
    a particularly complete answer for you but--I don't see this as
    a function, frankly, of the United States' failure to see what
    was happening.
        I think this is really a function of a premeditated plan on
    the part of the Tatmadaw--that they were determined to carry
    that out.
        Mrs. Wagner. I am just concerned that our Foreign Service
    officers have the kind of training on the front side of these
    kinds of crises when it comes to warning and response measures.
    So----
        Mr. Pomper. So let me be supportive of that. I certainly
    think that every time we cross a threshold like we've crossed
    right now of an atrocity happening where it was not possible to
    prevent it, it's important to take stock of the toolbox and
    make sure that the United States is doing everything it can--
    that it has all the resources that it can muster to do better
    the next time.
        And so if there's a way to get more training and resources
    into the sort of effort of prevention that is certainly a
    worthwhile----
        Mrs. Wagner. Well, I hope you take a look at the
    legislation. We'll be sending it along. It's a good first step
    in the right direction.
        I've run out of time. Ms. Van Susteren, thank you for being
    here. I have some questions for you too. We'll submit it for
    the record.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Chairman Royce. Well, thank you. I think this has been a
    very informative hearing and I think you surfaced many, many
    bits of information about this because of your firsthand
    knowledge of being there.
        And let me just concur with you, Greta, on your observation
    that one of the most important things we can do here is try to
    get this information out not just to the American people but to
    the world, and that's one of the things you're trying to do.
        Ms. Van Susteren. And can I just add one thing----
        Chairman Royce. Absolutely.
        Ms. Van Susteren [continuing]. Just a personal standpoint
    is that I really appreciate this because I know this hearing
    back home probably doesn't play--the people across America
    probably don't--this is not going to help you in any way.
    You're doing this for all the right reasons.
        There's no politics in this one. It's just to help people,
    because we don't get any more money out of this--the U.S.
    Government--nobody gets anything out of it. We just get a
    chance to maybe do the right thing.
        Chairman Royce. We just, hopefully, get some level of
    humanity for those who've been through this and some hope for
    their future for all the reasons that you have detailed out
    besides the horror of what we've been through and the fact that
    we've made a commitment on this issue of genocide.
        As they say, never again, and here it is going on with the
    international community held spellbound in the middle of it.
        So thank you to both of you for what you're doing to try to
    drive awareness on this issue and drive action on this issue.
        And thank you to the members for being here today, and we
    stand adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:12 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

                                A P P E N D I X

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             Material Submitted for the Record

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     Material submitted for the record by the Honorable Edward R. Royce, a
    Representative in Congress from the State of California, and chairman,
                          Committee on Foreign Affairs

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     Material submitted for the record by the Honorable Edward R. Royce, a
    Representative in Congress from the State of California, and chairman,
                          Committee on Foreign Affairs

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     Material submitted for the record by the Honorable Eliot L. Engel, a
             Representative in Congress from the State of New York

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    Note: The preceding document has not been printed here in full but may
    be found at https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/
    ByEvent.aspx?EventID=108717

      Material submitted for the record by the Honorable Steve Chabot, a
       Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio, and chairman,
                      Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific

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    Note: The preceding document has not been printed here in full but may
    be found at https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/
    ByEvent.aspx?EventID=108717

    Material submitted for the record by the Honorable Gerald E. Connolly,
         a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Virginia

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