[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 18 (Wednesday, January 31, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Page S312]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  SENATE RESOLUTION 537--EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF THE SENATE THAT THE 
  UNITED STATES SHOULD RECOGNIZE THE 1994 GENOCIDE IN RWANDA AS ``THE 
                 GENOCIDE AGAINST THE TUTSI IN RWANDA''

  Mr. ROUNDS submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
the Committee on Foreign Relations:

                              S. Res. 537

       Whereas, in 2018, the United Nations General Assembly 
     amended the title of the annual observance of the genocide in 
     Rwanda on April 7 to be the ``International Day of Reflection 
     on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda'';
       Whereas United States officials have noted publicly that 
     the genocide in Rwanda was ``intended to destroy Tutsi'';
       Whereas, on April 7, 2023, Secretary of State Blinken 
     stated, ``The U.S. stands with Rwanda . . . in remembering 
     the Tutsi victims of genocide. We also mourn the others who 
     were murdered for their opposition to a genocidal regime.'';
       Whereas the United States Integrated Country Strategy for 
     Rwanda (approved March 14, 2022) refers to the ``1994 
     genocide against the Tutsi ethnic group'';
       Whereas Rwandan officials, in appropriately opposing 
     genocide denial or revisionism, aptly note that any 
     nomenclature that does not specifically use the phrase 
     ``genocide against the Tutsi'' is ``ambiguous'' and conducive 
     to genocide denial or revisionism;
       Whereas the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum notes 
     in its public educational materials on the ``genocide in 
     Rwanda'' that the victims were ``predominantly Tutsi'' and 
     that the goal of Hutu extremist leaders was for ``Rwandan 
     Tutsis to be exterminated'';
       Whereas the United States-based nongovernmental 
     organization Human Rights Watch, which played a central role 
     in documenting the genocide in Rwanda and in supporting 
     international efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice, 
     found that the ``Tutsi were being targeted for elimination'';
       Whereas European diplomats refer to the ``genocide against 
     the Tutsi'' in public statements;
       Whereas, starting in 2022, the Government of the United 
     Kingdom has used the terminology ``genocide against the 
     Tutsi''; and
       Whereas the United States is the only major country in the 
     world to publicly reject the terminology ``genocide against 
     the Tutsi'': Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--
       (1) the United States should recognize the 1994 genocide in 
     Rwanda as ``the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda'';
       (2) the Secretary of State should publicly affirm that 
     terminology; and
       (3) other types of atrocities occurred alongside the 
     genocide against the Tutsi, and the history of the genocide 
     should clearly affirm the other experiences of mass violence 
     against Rwandans during the same period, including the 
     killings and other violence experienced by Hutus and the 
     Indigenous Twa community, perpetrated by Hutu extremist 
     militias.

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