[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 16606-16608]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      ROHINGYA HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the Rohingya are one of many ethnic 
groups, largely Muslim, who have been living for centuries in Burma and 
now in Myanmar, with the majority of them in the western coastal 
Rakhine State.
  Deep-seated misconceptions about their roots and faith have led to 
decades of discrimination, about which many of us are aware because of 
press reports. They have been denied citizenship, had their movement 
restricted, and have been deprived of basic healthcare. It is no wonder 
that the Rohingya people are considered to be one of the most 
persecuted minorities in the world.
  Today, as a result of a military crackdown against them in the 
Rakhine State--an overzealous, disproportionate response to attacks on 
security outposts by some militants last October and then again this 
August--countless Rohingya have been brutally killed, and more than 
600,000 have fled to overwhelmed and desperate camps in neighboring 
Bangladesh.
  The scorched-earth tactic by the Burmese military has left hundreds 
of villages literally burned to the ground, and the reports of rape, 
starvation, mass killing--even reports of security forces burning 
people, babies, alive--have been horrifying. Satellite images and maps 
indicate that the destruction by the Burmese military is not episodic, 
it is systematic.
  In Bangladesh, aid groups have been unable to keep up with the influx 
of refugees. The unprecedented scale of the crisis and the lack of 
infrastructure in the makeshift camps have created significant gaps in 
access to food, medical care, and even safety and shelter.
  The international community has condemned the violence against the 
Rohingya, and rightly so.
  Countries around the world--reputable international human rights 
organizations such as the Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, 
and even the U.N.--have denounced the military's campaign against the 
Rohingya.
  In a speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva last month, 
the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, 
called the Burmese military operation against the Rohingya people ``a 
textbook example of ethnic cleansing.''
  Many of my colleagues in this Chamber joined me when I introduced S. 
Res. 250 to condemn these atrocities, and a large group of us also 
wrote to the administration recently to urge Secretary Tillerson and 
Administrator Green to help resolve the crisis and provide critically 
needed aid.
  Just yesterday, in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, my 
friend and colleague, Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, labeled the 
crisis a ``genocide.'' Yet Aung San Suu Kyi,

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the de facto leader of Burma, the Nobel laureate, has largely done and 
said too little.
  I have followed Aung San Suu Kyi over the years. I joined many of my 
colleagues in praising her struggle for democracy. After 15 years under 
house arrest, she and the National League for Democracy won a landslide 
victory in the first national vote since Burma's transition to civilian 
rule in 2015, more than two decades after her party was denied its 
victory in the 1990 election.
  I admired her so much for her nonviolent struggle for political 
freedom and human rights. And while I recognize she still has a fragile 
relationship with the Burmese military, which still has considerable 
power, I am sadly disappointed in her lack of leadership when it comes 
to the plight of the Rohingya people--her fellow countrymen--men and 
women who are in a desperate situation.
  She claims she is committed to restoring peace and the rule of law. 
Yet she has spoken of so-called allegations and counterallegations 
instead of addressing the widespread, well-documented abuses by her own 
country's security forces.
  I was glad that Aung San Suu Kyi in 2016 appointed investigators, led 
by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, who recommended this 
summer that Burma review a 1982 law that strips most Rohingya of 
citizenship. Yet the Burmese Government has yet to implement any of the 
Commission's recommendations and further continues to deny access to 
the Rakhine State to other U.N. investigators, journalists, and NGO 
groups. Some officials have even accused the Rohingya of faking rape 
and faking the burning of their own homes. What a preposterous claim.
  I recognize the dramatic progress Burma has made over the years. It 
will take a long time to overcome many of the challenges in such a 
young democracy, and I understand that Aung San Suu Kyi, as State 
Counselor, has a limited role under the power-sharing agreement with 
her military, which has largely been responsible for the violence I 
have described. But I would urge her to live up to her own words upon 
delivering her Nobel Peace Prize lecture in 2012 to address the 
historic and brutal suppression of the Rohingya and support ethnic 
reconciliation in Burma. In fact, Aung San Suu Kyi quoted the following 
passages from the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human 
Rights, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948, as the 
answer to why she fought for democracy and human rights in her home 
country in Burma. She said:

       [D]isregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in 
     barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, 
     and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy 
     freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want 
     has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common 
     people,
       [I]t is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have 
     recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and 
     oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule 
     of law.

  These are wise words used by Aung San Suu Kyi when she received her 
Nobel Prize. They are words that apply today to this crisis within her 
own country.
  I am committed to doing what I can in Congress to hold those in the 
Burmese military personally accountable for the reprehensible human 
rights violations against the Rohingya.
  I want to note that I have also had the opportunity over the October 
recess to meet with some members of the Rohingya community who have 
resettled in my home State of Illinois over the years.
  About 1,500 Rohingya people live in the Chicagoland area. Among them 
is Nasir Zakaria. He helped found the Rohingya Culture Center in 
Chicago--the first Rohingya community center in America. The center 
helps provide a safe, familiar space for Rohingya people new to the 
country, as well as critically needed resources, such as translators, 
ESL and computer classes, help with paperwork, and much more.
  When I met Nasir and the other members of the community about a week 
ago with my wife, they told me about the phone calls and photos they 
receive late at night from family and friends fleeing the violence, 
looking for safety in Bangladesh.
  I also heard from community members who recently returned from a 
medical mission to Bangladesh. They showed me the photos they brought 
back. One food line to feed refugees was literally 1 mile long. 
Healthcare is limited. Safe drinking water is limited. Cholera is 
detected. It is a horrible situation for these people who have been 
tossed out of Myanmar and now are trying just to survive nearby 
Bangladesh. The stories are horrific, and they are all the same.
  Here is an image of this exodus that was printed in the New York 
Times. It shows families fleeing Burma across the border to Bangladesh 
with smoke rising in the background from the villages that they lived 
in being burned.
  The stories I heard were of helpless, poor families walking on foot 
through jungles, crowding in boats along the Naf River, leaving behind 
everything with accountings of rape, killing, and arson by the Burmese 
military. They arrive in Bangladesh sick, exhausted, and desperately in 
need of the most basic things--food, clean water, medicine, a safe 
space to rest their heads.
  Here is another image, which is heartbreaking. It is an indication of 
what happens in the refugee camps when food arrives, this time in a 
camp known as Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh.
  A UNICEF report last week stated that 58 percent of the refugees who 
have poured into Cox's Bazar are children, noting that they are in hell 
on Earth. They are acutely malnourished, they need clean water and 
vaccines, and they are at risk of exploitation by traffickers. This is 
unacceptable.
  I understand that Bangladesh and Burma have discussed a repatriation 
plan recently, but many refugees don't have any documents. They were 
literally burned out of their homes. We need to call on the U.N. High 
Commissioner for Refugees. Filippo Grandi was in my office last week, 
and he stressed how important it is for us to speak up and to help on 
this issue, that we ensure the voluntary right of return and we ensure 
the safety of those who do return and we make sure that the paper 
requirements for return are reasonable for people who are literally 
homeless and stateless at this moment.
  Many are wary of returning without an assurance of full citizenship, 
given the risk of further persecution or the threat of being placed in 
camps in Myanmar when they return. I don't blame them, because the 
atrocities committed against the Rohingya over the past months and 
weeks are not new by any means.
  Nasir Zakaria in Chicago told me that more than three decades ago, 
when he was only 14, he was kidnapped by militants targeting the 
Rohingya in Burma. He never saw his parents again.
  Nasir eventually escaped to Bangladesh, made his way to Malaysia, 
where he worked for 18 years in construction before he finally made it 
to the United States with a green card in 2013. He learned English, 
worked as a dishwasher in a hotel near Chicago, supported his wife and 
three children, met others in the community, and helped to create the 
Rohingya Center that I visited.
  Here is a picture of Nasir Zakaria with his son, Mohamed, in their 
Chicago apartment. You can see the American flag in the background. He 
is very proud of this Nation that he now calls home.
  The Rohingya Culture Center provides critical resources to more than 
400 families in the Chicago area, one of the largest concentrations of 
Rohingya refugees in America. More than three decades after Nasir first 
escaped Burma, the Rohingya continue to be attacked and demonized.
  Let me close by saying that we met today with the Myanmar Ambassador. 
Seven Senators sat down with him and expressed the sentiments that I 
have included in this statement.
  First, let me give Mr. U Aung Lynn, the Ambassador, credit for coming 
to the meeting. He knew what we were going to raise. Yet he came, he 
took notes, and he assured us that he would respond to this; that we 
would be able to come back in a week or two for a

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progress report on what is being done; that he would allow or plead for 
access of U.N. personnel, as well as NGO groups, into the northern 
Rakhine area currently being denied access; that he would personally 
make it clear to his government we want those responsible for these 
atrocities held accountable. We want to make certain, as well, that 
those who are repatriated have a fair chance to return to a safe 
atmosphere in Myanmar and, ultimately, for citizenship.
  It was a long list of requirements and requests that we gave to the 
Ambassador. He took them all in a positive way and told us he would be 
back to us in a matter of a week or two with a progress report.
  Let me close by appealing to Aung San Suu Kyi to help resolve this 
crisis. I am counting on her. I do believe she is a good person. I hope 
that she will respond to this crisis in her own country the way she 
stood up with so much courage before.
  I plan to meet with this Ambassador in a few weeks to chart the 
progress, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on a 
bipartisan basis to end this ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people in 
Myanmar. We cannot allow the Burmese military to commit these 
atrocities.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, before Senator Durbin leaves the floor, I 
just want to commend our colleague from Illinois. He and I have worked 
together for many years, and throughout that time, the Senator from 
Illinois has constantly been a voice for those who have no voice on 
these human rights concerns, laying out why the effort to step up is 
what we are all about as Americans.
  I thank him. I enjoyed listening to him again. You don't really enjoy 
it because you hear about the suffering, but I am so glad that Senator 
Durbin has made this case, and I thank him for it.

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