[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 27 (Monday, February 12, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S956-S957]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS

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  SENATE RESOLUTION 559--RECOGNIZING THE ACTIONS OF THE RAPID SUPPORT 
  FORCES AND ALLIED MILITIA IN THE DARFUR REGION OF SUDAN AGAINST NON-
              ARAB ETHNIC COMMUNITIES AS ACTS OF GENOCIDE

  Mr. RISCH (for himself, Mr. Cardin, Mr. Scott of South Carolina, and 
Mr. Booker) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
the Committee on Foreign Relations:

                              S. Res. 559

       Whereas Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and 
     Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (in this preamble 
     referred to as the ``Genocide Convention''), adopted at Paris 
     December 9, 1948, defines genocide as ``any of the following 
     acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a 
     national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) 
     Killing members of the group; (b)

[[Page S957]]

     Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the 
     group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of 
     life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in 
     whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent 
     births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children 
     of the group to another group'';
       Whereas the genocide that began in 2003 in Darfur 
     perpetrated by the Government of Sudan and its proxy 
     Janjaweed militia--explicitly targeting the Fur, Zaghawa, and 
     Masalit ethnic communities through mass killings, forced 
     displacement, the razing of villages and cropland, widespread 
     rape, aerial bombings of civilians, and the blocking of 
     humanitarian assistance--killed at least 200,000 civilians 
     and displaced 2,000,000 people;
       Whereas Congress declared on July 22, 2004 with the passage 
     of Senate Concurrent Resolution 133 (108th Congress) and 
     House Concurrent Resolution 467 (108th Congress) that 
     atrocities occurring in Darfur were genocide, and the 
     administration of President George W. Bush declared genocide 
     in Darfur on September 9, 2004;
       Whereas, in 2013, the Government of Sudan, under the 
     administration of the National Intelligence and Security 
     Service (NISS) and the command of the Sudanese Armed Forces 
     (SAF), formed the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a formal 
     paramilitary force composed primarily of Janjaweed militia;
       Whereas Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (commonly known as 
     ``Hemedti''), a Janjaweed militia leader during the genocide 
     in Darfur that began in 2003, served as head of the RSF and 
     became the deputy head of the Transitional Military Council, 
     which took power from President of Sudan Omar al-Bashir in 
     2019, and the deputy chairman of the successor Sovereign 
     Council;
       Whereas the underlying conditions that enabled the genocide 
     in Darfur that began in 2003 were never fully addressed or 
     resolved, and the elevation of individuals who served in 
     leadership of the parties responsible for such genocide, 
     including Hemedti and General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the 
     SAF, into leadership roles in the transition government in 
     2019 only heightened the risk of atrocities across Sudan, 
     including genocide in Darfur;
       Whereas fighting between the SAF and the RSF broke out in 
     Khartoum on April 15, 2023, and quickly spread to Darfur, 
     where the RSF has taken control of four of five regional 
     capitals in Darfur--Nyala, Geneina, Zalingei, and El Daein;
       Whereas the reports, including a July 14, 2023, assessment, 
     by the Sudan Conflict Observatory, which is funded by the 
     United States, reveal that actions by the RSF in Darfur, 
     including besieging cities, destroying villages, and 
     committing extrajudicial detentions, killings, and sexual 
     violence against Masalit, Fur, and Zaghawa ethnic groups, 
     mirror the atrocities committed by the Government of Sudan 
     and the Janjaweed militias between 2003 and 2004;
       Whereas, on August 16, 2023, CNN issued an investigative 
     report on the June 15, 2023, atrocity in El Geneina, the 
     capital of West Darfur, describing the atrocity as ``one of 
     the most violent incidents in the genocide-scarred Sudanese 
     region's history'', explaining how ``the powerful 
     paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and its allied militias 
     hunted down non-Arab people in various parts of the city. . 
     .reviving a genocidal playbook'', and in which survivors 
     reported that identifying as Masalit ``was a death 
     sentence'';
       Whereas, on November 3, 2023, the Office of the United 
     Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights stated, ``We are 
     deeply alarmed by reports that women and girls are being 
     abducted and held in inhuman, degrading slave-like conditions 
     in areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in 
     Darfur'';
       Whereas, on November 14, 2023, the United Nations Special 
     Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, 
     expressed extreme concern with the ``serious allegations of 
     mass killings'' in Ardamata, which ``may constitute acts of 
     genocide'', citing reports that the violence killed more than 
     800 people and displaced 8,000 Sudanese individuals to Chad;
       Whereas, on December 6, 2023, Secretary of State Anthony 
     Blinken determined that, since the fighting between the SAF 
     and the RSF began on April 15, 2023, Sudan has experienced 
     war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing in 
     ``haunting echoes of the genocide that began almost 20 years 
     ago in Darfur'', including Masalit civilians being ``hunted 
     down and left for dead in the streets, their homes set on 
     fire, and told that there is no place in Sudan for them'';
       Whereas a December 15, 2023, a Reuters special 
     investigative report detailed the targeted killing of Masalit 
     men and boys by the RSF, about which an emergency protection 
     officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 
     explained that ``the objective of the killings seems to be 
     the elimination of future fighters as well as the line of 
     ancestry of a specific ethnic group'', referring to the 
     Masalit people;
       Whereas the RSF has killed Masalit political and 
     traditional leaders in El-Geneina, West Darfur, including 
     Khamis Abdullah Abbakar, the Governor of West Darfur, and 
     Farsha Mohamed Arbab, a prominent leader of the Masalit 
     Sultanate;
       Whereas there is significant evidence of widespread, 
     systematic actions against the non-Arab ethnic communities of 
     Darfur, including the Masalit people, committed by the RSF 
     and allied militia that meet one or more of the criteria 
     under Article II of the Genocide Convention, including--
       (1) killing members of the non-Arab ethnic communities in 
     Darfur in mass killings of civilians, including summary 
     executions in the streets and shootings of civilians fleeing 
     across the Wadi Kaja river and to the Chad border, targeted 
     killings of men and boys, targeted killings of Masalit 
     leaders, and burials in mass graves;
       (2) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of 
     such communities, including through extrajudicial detention, 
     torture and beatings, extortion, sexual and gender-based 
     violence, mass rape, sexual slavery, and forced displacement; 
     and
       (3) deliberately inflicting on such communities conditions 
     of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction 
     in whole or in part, including the annihilation of villages, 
     targeted attacks on marketplaces and schools, widespread 
     destruction of civilian infrastructure and telecommunication, 
     the looting of homes and hospitals, assaults on camps for 
     displaced persons, the destruction of humanitarian 
     facilities, the killing of aid workers, and restrictions on 
     humanitarian aid and access; and
       Whereas credible descriptions of the RSF's objective of 
     elimination of the line of ancestry of the non-Arab tribes of 
     Darfur, survivors' statements that identifying as Masalit is 
     a death sentence, and reports that the RSF made clear that 
     there is no place in Sudan for the Masalit, against the 
     backdrop of the prior genocide in Darfur, evince a specific 
     intent on the part of the RSF to destroy the Masalit and 
     other non-Arab ethnic groups in Darfur in whole or in 
     substantial part: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) condemns atrocities, including those that amount to the 
     genocide, being committed by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) 
     and allied militias against the Masalit people and other non-
     Arab ethnic groups in Darfur, and the roles of the RSF and 
     Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in perpetrating atrocities, 
     humanitarian catastrophe, and the destruction of Sudan;
       (2) calls for an immediate end to the war and all violence 
     and atrocities in Sudan;
       (3) urges the Government of the United States--
       (A) to take urgent steps work with the international 
     community, including through multilateral fora, to establish 
     means to protect civilians, including by establishing safe 
     zones and humanitarian corridors, enforcing the United 
     Nations Security Council arms embargo on Darfur, and 
     brokering a comprehensive ceasefire and disarmament of the 
     warring parties in Sudan;
       (B) to support the consistent and transparent documentation 
     of atrocities and genocidal acts in Sudan by instituting a 
     mechanism that will, to the greatest extent possible, 
     publicly release such documentation on a consistent and 
     regular basis;
       (C) to immediately identify mechanisms through which to 
     fund local, community-based organizations that are currently 
     providing humanitarian assistance to the Sudanese people in 
     conflict affected areas that traditional implementing 
     partners cannot reach, including for the delivery of food, 
     medical aid, and shelter to individuals impacted by the war 
     in Sudan; and
       (D) to regularly review and update the atrocities 
     determination for Sudan;
       (4) supports tribunals and international criminal 
     investigations to hold the RSF and allied militias 
     accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and 
     genocide; and
       (5) calls on the Atrocity Prevention Task Force to conduct 
     a comprehensive review of its efforts to prevent, analyze, 
     and respond to atrocities in Sudan, in alignment with the 
     2022 United States Strategy to Anticipate, Prevent, and 
     Respond to Atrocities.

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