[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 143 (Thursday, November 20, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6207-S6210]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




SENATE RESOLUTION 586--CALLING ON THE GOVERNMENT OF BURMA TO DEVELOP A 
 NON-DISCRIMINATORY AND COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTION THAT ADDRESSES RAKHINE 
   STATE'S NEEDS FOR PEACE, SECURITY, HARMONY, AND DEVELOPMENT UNDER 
   EQUITABLE AND JUST APPLICATION OF THE RULE OF LAW, AND FOR OTHER 
                                PURPOSES

  Mr. MENENDEZ (for himself, Mr. Kirk, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Cardin, Mr. 
Rubio, Mr. Markey, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Booker, Mr. Coons, and Mrs. Shaheen) 
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee 
on Foreign Relations:

                              S. Res. 586

       Whereas, of the 1,500,000 members of the Rohingya ethnic 
     minority community worldwide, over 1,200,000 stateless 
     Rohingya live in Burma, mostly in northern Rakhine State, 
     including 140,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs);
       Whereas the security, stability, and development of Rakhine 
     State is dependent on the rule of law and non-discriminatory 
     access to citizenship, livelihoods and services, and 
     protection for all residents;
       Whereas, on November 12, 2014, President Barack Obama 
     traveled to Burma, where he ``stressed the need to find 
     durable and effective solutions for the terrible violence in 
     Rakhine state, solutions that end discrimination, provide 
     greater security and economic opportunities, protect all 
     citizens, and promote greater tolerance and understanding,'' 
     while noting that legitimate government is a government based 
     on ``the recognition that all people are equal under the 
     law'';
       Whereas the Department of State has, since 1999, regularly 
     expressed its particular concern for severe legal, economic, 
     and social discrimination against Burma's Rohingya population 
     in its Country Report for Human Rights Practices;
       Whereas the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human 
     Rights in Burma reported a ``long history of discrimination 
     and persecution against the Rohingya Muslim community which 
     could amount to crimes against humanity'';
       Whereas the current Government of Burma, like its 
     predecessors, continues to use the Burma Citizenship Law of 
     1982 to exclude Rohingya from a list of legally recognized 
     ethnic groups, despite many having lived in Rakhine State for 
     generations, thereby rendering Rohingya stateless and 
     vulnerable to exploitation and abuse;
       Whereas, in its March 2014 census, the first in over 30 
     years, the Government of Burma reneged on its commitment to 
     allow all people in Burma to self-identify and ordered the 
     Rohingya to ethnically identify as ``Bengali'', resulting in 
     their exclusion from census data and thereby severely 
     undermining the validity of the data for Rakhine State and 
     creating the potential for further discrimination and 
     conflict;
       Whereas local and national policies and practices 
     discriminate against Rohingya by denying them freedom of 
     movement outside their villages and camps, restricting access 
     to livelihood, education, and health care;
       Whereas authorities have required Rohingya to obtain 
     official permission for marriages, with reportedly onerous, 
     humiliating, and financially prohibitive requirements for 
     approval;
       Whereas a two-child policy sanctioned solely upon the 
     Rohingya population in two

[[Page S6210]]

     townships in northern Rakhine State hinders the ability of 
     additional children to access basic government services, 
     marry, or acquire property and restricts the rights of women, 
     sometimes resulting in serious health consequences due to 
     illegal and unsafe abortions;
       Whereas persecution, including arbitrary arrest, detention, 
     and extortion of Rohingya and other Muslim communities, 
     continues to be widespread;
       Whereas violence targeting Rohingya in Maungdaw, 
     Buthidaung, and Sittwe in June and July 2012 resulted in the 
     deaths of at least 57 Muslims and the destruction of 1,336 
     Rohingya homes and left thousands displaced;
       Whereas, between October 21-30, 2012, numerous people were 
     killed, and a village in Mrauk-U township was destroyed 
     during deadly ethnic violence between the Rakhine and 
     Rohingya communities;
       Whereas the lack of a credible independent investigation 
     has resulted in persistent questions about violence that may 
     have resulted in the death of Rohingya in a village in 
     Maungdaw township in January 2014, and human rights groups 
     reported mass arrests and arbitrary detention of Rohingya in 
     the aftermath of this violence;
       Whereas local, state, and national security police and 
     border officers have failed to protect those vulnerable to 
     attack and, in some cases, participated in violence against 
     Rohingya and other Muslims;
       Whereas the Government of Burma has relocated displaced 
     Rohingya into displacement camps where they have limited 
     access to adequate shelter, clean water, food, sanitation, 
     health care, livelihoods, or basic education for their 
     children;
       Whereas thousands of Rohingya are entirely reliant on 
     international assistance for food, clean water, and health 
     care because they are not permitted to move for work and 
     therefore cannot provide for their families;
       Whereas, in February 2014, the Government of Burma 
     suspended the activities of Nobel Laureate Medecins Sans 
     Frontieres, the primary provider of healthcare to hundreds of 
     thousands in Rakhine State;
       Whereas the Government of Burma entered into a Memorandum 
     of Agreement with the Medecins Sans Frontieres in September 
     2014 but all services have not resumed;
       Whereas attacks on organizations and their property in 
     Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State, in March 2014 caused 
     over 300 international aid workers to evacuate the area, and 
     while many of these aid workers have now returned, they have 
     not yet been able to resume full operations, leaving many 
     more people vulnerable, particularly in the area of health 
     care;
       Whereas the denial of unhindered humanitarian assistance 
     when populations are in need of such services is a severe 
     breach of a government's responsibility to protect and 
     support its residents and suggests disregard for individuals 
     who suffer the effects of disease and malnourishment as a 
     result of a lack of assistance;
       Whereas hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled to 
     neighboring countries, including 34,000 that have registered 
     in official camps in Bangladesh, plus another 300,000 to 
     500,000 that are unregistered in Bangladesh, and at least 
     35,000 in Malaysia, plus many thousands more in Thailand and 
     Indonesia;
       Whereas, according to the United Nations High Commissioner 
     for Refugees, approximately 100,000 Rohingya have fled from 
     Rakhine State, and up to 2,000 Rohingya who fled Burma by 
     boat are presumed dead or are missing at sea since 2012;
       Whereas up to 200,000 Rohingya, who fled persecution from 
     Burma up to 20 years ago and sought refugee protection in 
     Bangladesh, continue to face discrimination, statelessness, 
     and other hurdles to accessing necessary services in their 
     country of refuge;
       Whereas, according to the Department of State's 2014 
     Trafficking in Persons Report, the Rohingya community in 
     Bangladesh is especially vulnerable to human trafficking, and 
     unregistered Rohingya who were trafficking victims may have 
     been detained indefinitely in Bangladesh due to lack of 
     documentation;
       Whereas the Government of Bangladesh has banned marriage 
     registrars from officiating marriages involving Rohingyas 
     attempting to wed one another and those seeking unions with 
     Bangladeshi nationals; and
       Whereas, in Thailand, according to the United States 
     Department of State's 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report, 
     corrupt civilian and military officials are alleged to have 
     profited from the smuggling of Rohingya asylum seekers from 
     Burma and Bangladesh and allegedly have been complicit in 
     their sale into forced labor on commercial fishing vessels: 
     Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) calls on the Government of Burma to develop a non-
     discriminatory and comprehensive solution that addresses 
     Rakhine State's needs for peace, security, harmony, and 
     development under equitable and just application of the rule 
     of law;
       (2) welcomes the Government of Burma's announcement that 
     Medecins Sans Frontieres has been invited back to work in 
     Rakhine State and encourages the Government of Burma to 
     ensure that the organization is able to resume operations 
     alongside other humanitarian organizations without undue 
     restrictions on their humanitarian operations;
       (3) calls on the Government of Burma to end all forms of 
     persecution and discrimination, including freedom of movement 
     restrictions, of the Rohingya people and ensure respect for 
     internationally recognized human rights for all ethnic and 
     religious minority groups within Burma;
       (4) calls on the Government of Burma to respect the 
     Rohingya's right to self-identification, redraft the 
     Citizenship Law of 1982 so that it conforms to 
     internationally recognized legal standards, and include both 
     Rakhine and Rohingya leaders and community members in the 
     redrafting process;
       (5) calls on the Government of Burma to support an 
     international and independent investigation into the violence 
     that has occurred in Rakhine State since June 2012, implement 
     the recommendations put forth, and prosecute the perpetrators 
     of violence consistent with due process;
       (6) calls on the Government of Burma to conform to 
     international norms on the provision of unrestricted 
     humanitarian access by international organizations to all in 
     need, without discrimination based on nationality, race, 
     ethnicity, gender, religious belief, or political opinion;
       (7) calls on the regional governments to protect the rights 
     of Rohingya asylum seekers and refugees, as well as respect 
     the international legal principle of non-refoulement; and
       (8) calls on the United States Government and the 
     international community to call on the Government of Burma to 
     take all necessary measures to end the persecution and 
     discrimination of the Rohingya population and to protect the 
     fundamental rights of all ethnic and religious minority 
     groups in Burma.

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