Urging Burma to End Persecution of Rohingya People

Floor Speech

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Mr. CHABOT. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a strong supporter and cosponsor of H. Res. 418, urging the Government of Burma to end the persecution of the Rohingya people and to respect internationally recognized human rights for all ethnic and religious minority groups within Burma.

I want to commend the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), my friend and colleague, for offering this legislation, which is certainly timely, and we appreciate his leadership on this.

As chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, I believe it is imperative that the U.S. and the international community raise awareness of this ongoing crisis in Burma and of the need for its government to respect the human rights of all of its ethnic and religious minority groups, which it is clearly not doing at this time.

Last year, we held two hearings in my subcommittee to examine the deteriorating human rights situation and ethnic unrest in Burma. It has become abundantly clear that the political and social situation there is extremely fragile and that the continuing persecution of the minority Rohingya population is just, as was said, a profound crisis.

Some 140,000 displaced Rohingya have been forced to live in camps described as open-air prisons. Doctors Without Borders was forced out by the Burmese Government, and since then, nearly 150 Rohingya have died of medically-related causes.

This particular photo illustrates that the Doctors Without Borders' clinic is shuttered. They are gone. The people are not getting the medical care that they are entitled to, and people are literally dying as a result of this.

Further, mob violence has made a number of other international NGOs evacuate Burma for fear and for being, essentially, excluded by the government. They were doing good work for people who really needed it, who were in dire straits.

The Burmese Government has taken few, if any, steps to forge a peaceful, harmonious, and prosperous future for the Rakhine State. It is complicit in extrajudicial

killings, rape, arbitrary detention, torture, deaths in detention, and for the denial of due process and fair trial rights for the Rohingya.

As these horribly repressed people who are afforded no identity by the Burmese Government have been forced into camps, the Burmese Government has confiscated their land, their homes, and property for redistribution to the Buddhist Rakhine majority.

A recent report by the group United to End Genocide found that nowhere else in the world are there more precursors to genocide--signs that genocide may well happen--than in Burma right now.

This is why I recently introduced H.R. 4377, the Burma Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2014, with my colleague from New York (Mr. Crowley), a Democrat. This legislation would place conditions on providing International Military and Educational Training or for Foreign Military Financing assistance to the Burmese Government.

In light of the Burmese Government's and military's complicity in these ongoing human rights abuses against the Rohingya and other ethnic groups, it is much too soon for us to be engaging at a level that provides U.S. foreign assistance to Burma's corrupt and abusive military.

It concerns me that the administration still refuses to cooperate or to detail what its strategy really is for the future of military engagement with Burma.

Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 418 highlights its need for the U.S. and international community to continue pressuring Burma to end its blatant persecution and discrimination of the Rohingya population.

I want to, again, thank Mr. McGovern, Mr. Franks, Mr. Pitts, and Mr. Smith for cosponsoring this resolution. I believe the passage of the resolution will send a strong message to the Burmese Government, and I would urge my colleagues to support this measure.

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