[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 183 (Wednesday, December 16, 2015)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1801-E1802]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE CHRISTIAN AND YEZIDI GENOCIDE

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, December 16, 2015

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, each day, our newspapers, 
magazines, radios and television screens are filled with images of 
people fleeing territory controlled by the Islamic jihadist group known 
as the Islamic State of al-Sham, or ISIS.
   More than half of the 635,000 refugees--an estimated 53 percent--in 
Europe are from Syria alone, according to the United Nations High 
Commission for Refugees or UNHCR.
   While violence plays the major role in the impetus of Syrians to 
leave their homes, Shelly Pitterman of the UNHCR testified at a hearing 
I chaired on October 20th that the main trigger for flight from refugee 
camps or shelter in nations like Jordan is the humanitarian funding 
shortfall. In recent months, he told us that the World Food Programme 
cut its program by 30 percent, and the current Syrian Regional Refugee 
and Resilience Plan for 2015 is only 41 percent funded. The UNHCR 
expects to receive just 47 percent of the funding it needs for Syria 
over the next year.
   One year ago this month, the United Nations Office for the 
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs issued a report that detailed a 
worsening humanitarian situation in Syria. An estimated 12.21 million 
were in need of humanitarian assistance, including 7.6 million 
internally displaced people and more than 5.6 million children in need 
of assistance. An estimated 4.8 million people were in need of 
humanitarian assistance in hard to reach areas

[[Page E1802]]

and locations. Those numbers have not improved as the conflict has 
continued.
   By the third international pledging conference on March 31, 2015, 
the crisis had become the largest displacement crisis in the world, 
with 3.8 million people having fled to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq 
and Egypt, in addition to those internally displaced. In support of the 
Syria Response Plan and the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan, 
international donors pledged US$3.8 billion. However, according to the 
Financial Tracking Service at the UN Office for the Coordination of 
Humanitarian Affairs or OCHA, only $1.17 billion of $2.89 billion in 
the plan had been received as of December 7th. This constitutes only 
41% of what is considered necessary by OCHA.
   Last week's hearing focused on the plight of persecuted religious 
minorities in Syria and Iraq, which constitutes genocide, and the 
failure of much of the international community to live up to their 
pledges of humanitarian assistance, factors which ``push'' refugees to 
Europe and beyond. In particular, we will examine violence targeting 
religious minorities such as Christians and Yezidis (a non-Islamic 
religious minority) in territory controlled by ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
   This past September, the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of 
Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum undertook a 
``Bearing Witness'' trip to northern Iraq to investigate allegations of 
genocide being committed by ISIS. In a report entitled ``Our Generation 
is Gone'' The Islamic State's Targeting of Iraqi Minorities in 
Ninevah,'' the report stated that: ``Based upon the public record and 
private eyewitness accounts, we believe the self-proclaimed Islamic 
State (IS) perpetrated crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethnic 
cleansing against Christian, Yezidi, Turkmen, Shabak, Sabaean-Mandaean, 
and Kaka'i people in Ninevah province between June and August 2014. In 
our interviews, we heard accounts of the forcible transfer of 
populations, severe deprivation of physical liberty, rape, sexual 
slavery, enslavement, and murder perpetrated in a widespread and 
systematic manner that indicates a deliberate plan to target religious 
and ethnic minorities. Some specific communities--notably the Yezidi, 
but also Shia Shabak and Shia Turkmen--were targeted for attack.''
   Mirza Ismail, Chairman and Founder of the Yezidi Human Rights 
Organization-International, testified that the Yezidis are on the verge 
of annihilation.
   Chaldean Bishop Francis Kalabat testified that, ``There are 
countless Christian villages in Syria who have been taken over by ISIS 
and have encountered genocide and the Obama administration refuses to 
recognize their plight.''
   Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, calls on 
the Obama administration to publicly acknowledge that genocide is 
taking place against the Christian communities of Iraq and Syria. Mr. 
Anderson testified that ``vulnerable religious minorities fear taking 
shelter in the camps of the United Nations High Commissioner for 
Refugees because of religiously motivated violence and intimidation 
inside the camps.'' ``Syrian Christians'', he notes, ``and other 
vulnerable minorities are disproportionately excluded from the U.S. 
Syrian Refugee Resettlement Program due to reliance on a functionally 
discriminatory UNHCR program.''
   Dr. Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch and research 
professor at George Mason University, in his testimony entitled ``Weak 
Words Are Not Enough'', he states, ``Failure to call ISIS' mass murder 
of Christians, Muslims, and other groups in addition to Yazidis by its 
proper name--genocide--would be an act of denial as grave as U.S. 
refusal to recognize the Rwandan genocide in 1994.''
   The administration reportedly is considering declaring the ISIS 
treatment of Yezidis to be genocide, but there is no indication that 
Christians will be included. That's absurd. Such an action would be 
contrary to the facts and tragically wrong. Last year, a United Nations 
resolution determined that both Yezidis and Christians were being 
particularly targeted by ISIS.
   A group of Christian leaders recently wrote to Secretary of State 
John Kerry to present their case for treating Christians the same as 
Yezidis in this matter, but they have not received a reply thus far.
   As we attempt to end the ISIS threat, we must consider how to help 
ensure religious pluralism in Syria and Iraq in the future. That will 
not be an easy task since animosities have grown during the conflicts 
in Iraq and Syria, exponentially so during the rise and reign of terror 
of ISIS. Nevertheless, unless we consider how to help make these lands 
safe for religious minorities, we will continue to see them chased out 
of their traditional areas even if there is no ISIS.
   Our witnesses last week provided us a picture of the ongoing 
struggle faced by religious minorities in ISIS territory, and 
hopefully, they will help us to begin the discussion of making these 
areas safe for their people in the years to come.

                          ____________________