Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month

Floor Speech

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Mrs. WAGNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in honor of Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month. Today we remember the millions of victims of genocide throughout history, and we recommit to working toward the day when genocide and mass-atrocity crimes are not only inconceivable, Mr. Speaker, but they are nonexistent.

April marks the commemorations of some of the worst genocides in history, including the Holocaust and Rwandan, Cambodian, and Armenian genocides. Time and again, senseless bloodshed has ended innocent lives and fractured families and livelihoods.

My hometown, St. Louis, is home to the largest Bosnian community outside of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This community has shaped what the city looks and feels like. It has added great cultural diversity to the city, immense intellectual capital, thriving small businesses, and a strong religious presence.

Two decades ago, members of our Bosnian community were refugees. In 1995, Orthodox Serbs, under the command of General Ratko Mladic, initiated a horrific ethnic cleansing campaign against majority Muslim Bosniaks. The escalating bloodshed forced 130,000 Bosnian refugees to seek new lives in the United States. Thousands were murdered in Srebrenica. Today I wish to honor these brave men and women.

The resilience of our Bosnian neighbors has enriched our city, and their courage inspires me. It has inspired me to seek change. Tomorrow I am offering an amendment to the State Department Authorization Act of 2018 asking the administration to study countries at risk of genocide and mass-atrocity crimes and craft training regimens for U.S. Foreign Service officers.

Should this bill become law, America's diplomats will have the know- how to respond to those conflicts on the ground and act before violence spirals out of control. Most importantly, this amendment establishes that the official policy of the United States of America is to regard the prevention of genocide and atrocity crimes as a core national security interest.

However, this is just one step in the right direction. The U.S. Government must improve how it responds to conflicts. Last April, I introduced the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act to improve U.S. efforts to prevent mass-atrocity crimes, named after the courageous Auschwitz survivor. The legislation honors the legacy of Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and his life work to fight evil around the world.

Mr. Wiesel was just 15 years old when the Nazis deported him and his family to Auschwitz. He was the only member of his family to survive. Having witnessed the near total destruction of his people, he spent his life defending the persecuted. In his honor, we fight to rectify injustice and protect the most vulnerable in our society and across the globe.

As Mr. Wiesel understood so well, the true horror of genocide is that it is preventable, and the U.S. Government has the tools to effect real change. The Elie Wiesel Act would affirm the mission of the United States Atrocities Prevention Board and its work to coordinate prevention and response efforts. It would also authorize the Complex Crisis Fund to support agile, efficient responses to unforeseen crises overseas.

This time, when America says ``never again,'' our actions will reinforce our platitudes and our words. I thank the Chair, Mr. Speaker, and I thank all of my colleagues who share in this fight.

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Mrs. WAGNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) for his outstanding words and his support, his support and that of Representative Randy Hultgren on sponsoring and cosponsoring with me my piece of legislation, the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act.

This truly is an issue that is not just about human rights and giving voice to the voiceless and speaking for the most vulnerable in our society; it is about human dignity across our globe.

It is about the U.S. responding to these conflicts in the way that only we can and should do and provide the kind of moral authority and support to do so through both our Congress and through our foreign service officers and others who are working across the globe. So I thank the gentleman for his fine words.

I now yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Tenney).

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Mrs. WAGNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her kind words.

The gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Tenney) is also a leader in this cause and this effort that is really about, as we said, human dignity and human rights across this world.

We want a day when no longer are these refugees suffering, whether it is in Syria. On the day that President Macron addressed a joint session here in this very Chamber, the President of the People's Republic of France, that stood with the United States, along with the United Kingdom, in the bombings against Syria that were targeted against those who had been barrel-bombed and victimized and murdered by the Assad regime in Syria.

We share a common bond with the Bosnian community. We both have very large Bosnian communities, many of whom started out as refugees some 20 years ago. Now, as I said, the cultural diversity, the business, the religious presence has been just wonderful to see flourish in a district like Missouri's Second Congressional District, so I recognize the common bond that we have there.

I thank Ms. Tenney for participating in this Special Order that goes to the heart of genocide and mass atrocities across our globe. I know that the people of Ms. Tenney's district in New York are also appreciative of all she does there to represent them and those who are the most vulnerable in our society, so I thank the gentlewoman from New York.

I now yield to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot).

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Mrs. WAGNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot) for his kind words. He is a leader and a senior member of our House Foreign Affairs Committee, and I also have the privilege of serving on it.

It is an honor to have Congressman Chabot here at this Special Order during Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month to give voice to those millions of victims and to say we live for a time when this is nonexistent in society.

I look forward, Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, to offering my amendment to the State Department Authorization Act of 2018, asking the administration to study countries at risk of genocide and mass atrocity crimes and crafting the kind of training regimens for U.S. foreign service officers that are so very important.

I look forward to the time when my piece of legislation, the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act, will, Mr. Speaker, be signed into law. It will improve the U.S. efforts to prevent mass atrocity crimes, and I think we all, in this Chamber, on a bipartisan level, Mr. Speaker, continue to hope and, more importantly, to work towards a time when America says, ``Never again,'' and our actions reinforce our words.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for coming out. I thank those advocates on the Friends Committee on National Legislation's stand. Together we remember the Carl Wilkens Fellowship and so many others that stand with the victims of genocide and mass atrocities.

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