A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that the Governments of Burma and Bangladesh ensure the safe, dignified, voluntary, and sustainable return of the Rohingya refugees who have been displaced by the campaign of ethnic cleansing conducted by the Burmese military and to immediately release unjustly imprisoned journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo.

III Calendar No. 134 116TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION S. RES. 34 Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Governments of Burma and Bangladesh ensure the safe, dignified, voluntary, and sustainable return of the Rohingya refugees who have been displaced by the campaign of ethnic cleansing conducted by the Burmese military and to imme- diately release unjustly imprisoned journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES JANUARY 29, 2019 Mr. MERKLEY (for himself, Mr. RUBIO, Mr. DURBIN, Ms. COLLINS, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, Mr. YOUNG, Mr. CARDIN, Mr. TILLIS, Ms. WARREN, Mr. KAINE, Mr. VAN HOLLEN, Mr. BROWN, Mr. MARKEY, Mr. WYDEN, Mr. SANDERS, Mrs. MURRAY, Mr. COONS, Ms. KLOBUCHAR, Ms. CORTEZ MASTO, Mr. SCHATZ, Ms. HARRIS, Mr. PETERS, Mr. WARNER, Mr. KING, Mr. BRAUN, and Mr. CRUZ) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations JULY 8, 2019 Reported by Mr. RISCH, with an amendment and an amendment to the preamble and an amendment to the title [Strike out all after the resolving clause and insert the part printed in italic] [Strike the preamble and insert the part printed in italic] RESOLUTION Expressing the sense of the Senate that the Governments of Burma and Bangladesh ensure the safe, dignified, voluntary, and sustainable return of the Rohingya refu- gees who have been displaced by the campaign of ethnic VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:24 Jul 08, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6652 E:\BILLS\SR34.RS SR34 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 2 •SRES 34 RS cleansing conducted by the Burmese military and to im- mediately release unjustly imprisoned journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo. Whereas, on August 25, 2017, attacks on security posts in Burma by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army militant group resulted in a brutal, systematic, and dispropor- tionate reprisal by the Burmese military and security forces on Rohingya villages in Rakhine State; Whereas approximately 700,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh since the Burmese military commenced its scorched-earth campaign, with the burning of villages and local monuments, and reports of widespread gang rape, starvation, killing, and forcible deportation; Whereas the August 2018 United Nations report of the Inde- pendent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar states in paragraph 87 that ‘‘the Mission concluded . . . that there is sufficient information to warrant the inves- tigation and prosecution of senior officials in the Tatma- daw chain of command, so that a competent court can determine their liability for genocide in relation to the situation in Rakhine State’’; Whereas, on August 28, 2018, then-United States Ambas- sador to the United Nations Nikki Haley reported to the United Nations Security Council that the Department of State had conducted interviews with 1,024 Rohingya ref- ugees in camps throughout Cox’s Bazar and that the re- sults of the interviews were consistent with the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar; Whereas, on September 24, 2018, the Department of State report titled, ‘‘Documentation of Atrocities in Northern VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:24 Jul 08, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR34.RS SR34 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 3 •SRES 34 RS Rakhine State’’, concluded that the military’s attacks in Burma’s Northern Rakhine State were ‘‘large-scale, wide- spread and seemingly geared toward both terrorizing the population and driving out the Rohingya residents’’ and that the ‘‘scope and scale of the military’s operations in- dicate that they were well-planned and coordinated’’; Whereas, on December 3, 2018, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum concluded that ‘‘there is compelling evidence that the Burmese military committed ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Rohingya’’; Whereas the Government of Burma has consistently denied access to the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar established to investigate human rights viola- tions around the country; Whereas the fundamental operational principles of voluntary repatriation are safety, to include legal and physical safe- ty, and dignity, to include treatment with respect and full acceptance by their national authorities, including the full restoration of refugees’ rights; Whereas approximately 236,000 Rohingya refugees returned to Burma from Bangladesh under the terms of a 1992 agreement after a previous bout of violence against the Rohingya forced them to flee, only to continue to be de- nied citizenship, face prejudice, violence, and persecution, and in many instances be forced to live in internally dis- placed persons (IDP) camps with their freedom of move- ment restricted; Whereas Burma’s 1982 citizenship law stripped Rohingya of their Burmese citizenship, rendering them stateless; VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:24 Jul 08, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR34.RS SR34 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 4 •SRES 34 RS Whereas the Government of Burma continues to systemati- cally discriminate against the Rohingya people, a long- persecuted Muslim minority within Burma, including by continuing to restrict registration of Rohingya births and to deny them freedom of movement, access to healthcare, land, education, marriage, voting rights, and political participation; Whereas the Government of Burma has repeatedly abused land use laws to unjustly seize land from Rohingya refu- gees; Whereas the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) is working closely with the Government of Bangladesh and partners to provide protection and as- sistance to the Rohingya refugees and to support the host populations affected by the influx; Whereas, on November 23, 2017, the Government of Burma and the Government of Bangladesh signed an agreement, known as the ‘‘Arrangement’’, on the return of displaced persons from Rakhine State, which is modeled after the 1992 repatriation agreement between Burma and Ban- gladesh; Whereas the Arrangement includes references to restoring normalcy and human rights in Rakhine State, for refugee returns to comply with international standards of safety, dignity, and voluntariness, and to commencing a process to address root causes in line with the Rakhine Advisory Commission recommendations; Whereas the Department of State has assessed that Burma has not made progress on the ‘‘more crucial’’ of the 88 recommendations of the Rakhine Advisory Commission that are identified by Rohingya refugees as prerequisites VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:24 Jul 08, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR34.RS SR34 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 5 •SRES 34 RS to repatriation including freedom of movement, civil doc- umentation, and a transparent pathway to citizenship; Whereas, on June 6, 2018, the Government of Burma reached a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the UNHCR and the United Nations Devel- opment Agency (UNDP) on its role in the safe, dignified, and voluntary return of Rakhine State refugees; Whereas Rohingya refugees currently hosted in Bangladesh demonstrated in protest against an initial November 2018 repatriation plan between the Governments of Ban- gladesh and Burma, citing concerns for their security and the lack of meaningful political reforms in Burma to in- clude full citizenship; Whereas UNHCR, on January 4, 2019, reported that condi- tions in Burma’s Rakhine State remain ‘‘not conducive to return’’ on the heels of the Government of India’s regret- table decision to repatriate 16,000 Rohingya to Burma without having first ascertained the ‘‘voluntariness of their decision to return’’; Whereas, throughout this process, the Government of Burma has restricted media freedom and jailed journalists; Whereas, on December 12, 2017, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, two journalists reporting and documenting atrocities against the Rohingya, were arrested and on January 10, 2018, formally prosecuted with violating the ‘‘Official Se- crets Act’’; Whereas Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Soo had uncovered a mas- sacre of 10 Rohingya men perpetrated by Burma’s secu- rity forces and aided by local Buddhist villagers in the village of Inn Din in Rakhine State; VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:24 Jul 08, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR34.RS SR34 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 6 •SRES 34 RS Whereas, on September 3, 2018, Yangon northern district judge Ye Lwin ruled that Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo breached the colonial-era Official Secrets Act and sen- tenced them each to seven years in prison with hard labor; Whereas, on January 11, 2019, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo’s appeal of their conviction before the Yangon Regional High Court was denied; Whereas Time Magazine named Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo as co-recipients of 2018 Time Magazine’s ‘‘Person of the Year’’ in recognition for their courageous reporting; Whereas Vice President Mike Pence tweeted his concern over the sentence against Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo for ‘‘doing their job reporting on the atrocities being com- mitted on the Rohingya people’’; Whereas United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley described the conviction as ‘‘another terrible stain on the Burmese government’’ and called for ‘‘their immediate and unconditional release’’; Whereas the Department of State’s annual Human Rights Report on Burma for the year 2017 states that— (1) ‘‘legal provisions that allow the government to manipulate the courts for political ends, and these provi- sions were sometimes used to deprive citizens of due process and the right to a fair trial, particularly with re- gards to the freedom of expression’’; (2) ‘‘The government continued to detain and arrest journalists, activists, and critics of the government and the military during the year.’’; and (3) ‘‘Threats against and arrests of journalists in- creased. . . . Freedom of expression was more restricted VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:24 Jul 08, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR34.RS SR34 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 7 •SRES 34 RS during the year compared with 2016. This included a higher number of detentions of journalists using various laws, including laws carrying more severe punishments than those used previously.’’; Whereas, according to PEN America, the discontinuation of Radio Free Asia’s broadcasting in Myanmar on a domes- tic channel constitutes a further shrinking of the space for free expression in the country; and Whereas, additionally, PEN America reports that— (1) there continues to be increased legal threats, im- prisonment, and physical harassment of journalists; (2) there continues to be restrictions on the ability to report from and receive information on conflict areas; and (3) the lack of reform of media laws and institutions is driving a decline in media freedom: Now, therefore, be it Whereas, on August 25, 2017, attacks on security posts in Burma by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army militant group resulted in a brutal, systematic, and dispropor- tionate reprisal by the Burmese military and security forces on Rohingya villages in Rakhine State; Whereas over 740,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Ban- gladesh since the Burmese military commenced its scorched-earth campaign, with the burning of villages and local landmarks, and reports of widespread gang rape, starvation, killing, and forcible deportation; Whereas the August 2018 United Nations report of the Inde- pendent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar states in paragraph 87 that ‘‘the Mission concluded . . . that there is sufficient information to warrant the inves- VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:24 Jul 08, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR34.RS SR34 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 8 •SRES 34 RS tigation and prosecution of senior officials in the Tatma- daw chain of command, so that a competent court can de- termine their liability for genocide in relation to the situa- tion in Rakhine State’’; Whereas, on August 28, 2018, then-United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley reported to the United Nations Security Council that the Department of State had conducted interviews with 1,024 Rohingya refugees in camps throughout Cox’s Bazar and that the results of the interviews were consistent with the United Nations Inde- pendent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar; Whereas, on September 24, 2018, the Department of State re- port titled, ‘‘Documentation of Atrocities in Northern Rakhine State’’, concluded that the military’s attacks in Burma’s Northern Rakhine State were ‘‘large-scale, wide- spread and seemingly geared toward both terrorizing the population and driving out the Rohingya residents’’ and that the ‘‘scope and scale of the military’s operations indi- cate that they were well-planned and coordinated’’; Whereas, on December 3, 2018, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum concluded that ‘‘there is compelling evi- dence that the Burmese military committed ethnic cleans- ing, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Rohingya’’; Whereas the May 2019 Amnesty International report on war crimes in Rakhine State, outlines continued human rights violations, including ‘‘indiscriminate attacks’’ on civilians, and expresses alarm about the impact of continued fight- ing on the food security of Rakhine State; Whereas, on May 14, 2019, the United Nations International Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar urged the inter- VerDate Sep 11 2014 23:24 Jul 08, 2019 Jkt 089200 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR34.RS SR34 kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS 9 •SRES 34 RS national community to cut off all financial aid and other support to the Burmese military; Whereas the Government of Burma has consistently denied ac- cess to the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar established to investigate human rights viola- tions around the country; Whereas the fundamental operational principles of voluntary repatriation are safety, to include legal and physical safe- ty, and dignity, to include treatment with respect and full acceptance by their national authorities, including the full restoration of refugees’ rights; Whereas approximately 236,000 Rohingya refugees returned to Burma from Bangladesh under the terms of a 1992 agree- ment after a previous bout of violence against the Rohingya forced them to flee, only to face continued denial of citizenship, prejudice, violence, and persecution, and in many instances forced to live in internally displaced per- sons (IDP) camps with their freedom of movement re- stricted; Whereas Burma’s 1982 citizenship law stripped Rohingya of their Burmese citizenship, rendering them stateless; Whereas the Government of Bu [Text truncated for display. 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