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“URGING BURMA TO END PERSECUTION OF ROHINGYA PEOPLE” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H3929-H3932 on May 7, 2014.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
URGING BURMA TO END PERSECUTION OF ROHINGYA PEOPLE
Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 418) urging the Government of Burma to end the persecution of the Rohingya people and respect internationally recognized human rights for all ethnic and religious minority groups within Burma, as amended.
The Clerk read the title of the resolution.
The text of the resolution is as follows:
H. Res. 418
Whereas over 800,000 Rohingya ethnic minority live in Burma, mostly in the western Rakhine state;
Whereas currently, approximately 140,000 Rohingya are internally displaced in central Rakhine state and hundreds of thousands have fled to neighboring countries, including at least 231,000 in Bangladesh, at least 15,000 in Malaysia, and many more in Thailand and Indonesia;
Whereas the current Government of Burma, like its predecessors, continues to use the Burma Citizenship Law of 1982 to exclude from approved ethnic groups the Rohingya people, despite many having lived in northern Rakhine state for generations, and has thereby rendered Rohingyas stateless and vulnerable to exploitation and abuse;
Whereas the Rohingya have historically experienced other particularized and severe legal, economic, and social discrimination, including restrictions on travel outside their village of residence, limitations on their access to higher education, and a prohibition from working as civil servants, including as doctors, nurses, or teachers;
Whereas authorities have also required Rohingya to obtain official permission for marriages and have singled out Rohingya in northern Rakhine state for forced labor and arbitrary arrests;
Whereas the Government of Burma has forcefully relocated Rohingya into relief camps, where they lack decent shelter, access to clean water, food, sanitation, health care, the ability to support themselves, or basic education for their children;
Whereas a two-child policy sanctioned solely upon the Rohingya population in the districts of Maungdaw and Buthidaung in northern Rakhine state restricts the rights of women and children, prevents children from obtaining Burmese citizenship, denies Rohingyas access to basic government services, and fosters discrimination against Muslim women by Buddhist nurses and midwives;
Whereas the United States Department of State has regularly expressed since 1999 its particular concern for severe legal, economic, and social discrimination against Burma's Rohingya population in its Country Report for Human Rights Practices;
Whereas the level of persecution, including widespread arbitrary arrest, detention, and extortion of Rohingya and other Muslim communities, has dramatically increased over the past year and a half;
Whereas communal violence has affected both Muslims and Burma's majority Buddhist population, but has overwhelmingly targeted Burma's ethnic Muslim minorities, which altogether comprise less than 5 percent of Burma's population;
Whereas violence targeting Rohingyas in Maungdaw and Sittwe in June and July of 2012 resulted in the deaths of at least 57 Muslims and the destruction of 1,336 Rohingyas homes;
Whereas on October 23, 2012, at least 70 Rohingyas were killed, and the Yan Thei village of the Mrauk-U Township was destroyed;
Whereas the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported possessing credible evidence of the deaths of at least 48 Rohingyas in Du Chee Yar Tan village in Maungdaw Township, Rakhine state in January 2014, and human rights groups reported mass arrests and arbitrary detention of Rohingya in the aftermath of this violence;
Whereas Burmese officials have denied the killings of Rohingyas in Du Chee Yar Tan village in January 2014 and responded to international media coverage of the violence with threats against media outlets, including the Associated Press;
Whereas violence has also targeted Muslims not of Rohingya ethnicity, including riots in March 2013 in the town of Meiktila that resulted in the death of at least 43 Burmese Muslims, including 20 students and several teachers massacred at an Islamic school, the burning of at least 800 homes and 5 mosques, and the displacement of 12,000 people;
Whereas on October 1, 2013, riots involving more than 700 Buddhists in Thandwe township resulted in the death of 4 Kaman Muslim men and the stabbing death of a 94-year-old Muslim woman;
Whereas over 4,000 religious, public, and private Rohingya structures have been destroyed;
Whereas Rohingyas have experienced and continue to experience further restrictions on their practice of Islam, culture, and language;
Whereas the violence against ethnic Muslim populations, including the Rohingya and other Muslim groups, is part of a larger troubling pattern of violence against other ethnic and religious minorities in Burma;
Whereas the Government of Burma expelled Medecins Sans Frontieres from Rakhine state, leaving Rohingya communities and others without access to health care and life-saving treatment for malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV; and
Whereas the Rakhine state threatens to ban all unregistered nongovernmental organizations from operating in Rakhine state, severely limiting the provision of necessary services to Rohingyas and others in need: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) recognizes the initial steps Burma has taken in transitioning from a military dictatorship to a quasi-civilian government, including the conditional release of some political prisoners, and calls for more progress to be made in critical areas of democracy, constitutional reform, and national reconciliation in order for Burma to achieve its own goal of political liberalization;
(2) calls on the Government of Burma to end all forms of persecution and discrimination of the Rohingya people and ensure respect for internationally recognized human rights for all ethnic and religious minority groups within Burma;
(3) calls on the Government of Burma to recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic group indigenous to Burma, and to work with the Rohingya to resolve their citizenship status;
(4) calls on the United States Government and the international community to put consistent pressure on the Government of Burma to take all necessary measures to end the persecution and discrimination of the Rohingya population and to protect the fundamental rights of all ethnic and religious minority groups in Burma; and
(5) calls on the United States Government to prioritize the removal of state-sanctioned discriminatory policies in its engagement with the Government of Burma.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel) each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California.
General Leave
Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include any extraneous materials in the Record.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from California?
There was no objection.
Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 418. This is a bipartisan resolution offered by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) calling on the government of Burma to end its persecution of the Rohingya Muslims and respect the human rights of all ethnic and religious minority groups within Burma.
The Rohingya Muslims are one of the most persecuted minority groups in the world. According to Burma's 1982 citizenship law, the Rohingya are prohibited from holding Burmese citizenship, even though they have lived in Burma for generations after generations. For over three decades, the government of Burma has systematically denied the Rohingya even the most basic of human rights, while subjecting them to unspeakable abuses.
Since 2012, 140,000 Rohingya and other Muslims in Burma have been displaced by violence, with hundreds killed. On January 13, unknown assailants entered a village in Rakhine State and killed 48 people while they slept.
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This is what happens when a government refuses to recognize its own people.
In fact, a nongovernmental organization based in Southeast Asia recently disclosed credible documents detailing the full extent of state involvement in persecuting Rohingyas.
Not long ago, the Government of Burma expelled Doctors Without Borders from the country, denying, once again, the most basic of human rights. The Government of Burma cannot claim progress toward meeting its goals for reform if it does not improve the treatment of Rohingya Muslims and other minority groups.
The United States must prioritize the protection of human rights in its engagement with Burma. I urge the State Department to take off its rose-colored glasses and recognize that progress on human rights in Burma is, indeed, limited. Now is the time for the State Department to bring additional leverage to bear, and this resolution will help us do that.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise in strong support of H. Res. 418, a resolution urging the Government of Burma to end its persecution of the Rohingya people.
I would like to thank my good friend and cochairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), for authoring this important resolution.
H. Res. 418 calls on the Government of Burma to end its persecution of the Rohingya people and to respect the human rights of all ethnic and religious minority groups. The plight of the Rohingya gets very little public attention, and I am pleased that this House is addressing the abuses they and other minorities have suffered.
The State Department's 2013 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices acknowledges ``credible reports of extrajudicial killings, rape and sexual violence, arbitrary detentions and torture and mistreatment in detention, deaths in custody, and systematic denial of due process and fair trial rights overwhelmingly perpetrated against the Rohingya.''
Last month, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Burma stated that the recent developments in Burma reflect a ``long history of discrimination and persecution against the Rohingya Muslim community, which could amount to crimes against humanity.''
The U.N. has also described the Rohingya community as virtually friendless because they are denied citizenship and face severe restrictions on marriage, employment, health care, education, and daily movement.
In February, the Burmese Government expelled Doctors Without Borders; and since then, deaths due to preventable complications during pregnancy have occurred on an almost daily basis in Rohingya camps, where pregnant women make up a quarter of the group's emergency referrals.
Mr. Speaker, as the Government of Burma transitions from decades-long military rule to a civilian government, it is important to hold it accountable for persistent human rights abuses.
The killings, arbitrary detentions, and the destruction of homes have caused 140,000 people to be internally displaced; and hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee to neighboring countries, including to Thailand, Bangladesh, and Malaysia.
If Burma truly seeks to rejoin the international community, the manner in which it treats its own people will be a key marker of the government's sincerity. Burma must abide by human rights principles of equality and human dignity, and this resolution calls upon the Burmese Government to do just that.
I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting H. Res. 418, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio
(Mr. Chabot). He is the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.
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.
Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I now yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), the author of the resolution.
Mr. McGOVERN. I want to thank my colleague, Mr. Engel, for yielding me the time and for his leadership on this and on so many other issues of human rights. I also want to thank Chairman Royce for his support and Chairman Chabot. I appreciate all that you do for human rights.
I admire all of these gentlemen who are here on the floor. They have been outspoken for human rights, not only in Burma, but all around the world.
Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to rise in support of this resolution 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 especially want to thank my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Congressman Joe Pitts, for his leadership on this issue and for joining me in introducing this bipartisan resolution.
Over 800,000 people of the Rohingya ethnicity live in Burma, mostly in the Rakhine State. Even though many Rohingyas have lived in the Rakhine for generations, the Burma citizenship law of 1982 has excluded them from approved ethnic groups, thereby rendering them stateless and vulnerable to exploitation, violence, and abuse.
While the Rohingya and other minorities in Burma have historically experienced severe discrimination, there has been a dramatic increase in discrimination and violence against them in the past 2 years.
Attacks in June and July of 2012 resulted in the deaths of at least 57 Muslims and in the destruction of 1,336 Rohingya homes. On October 23, 2012, at least 70 Rohingyas were killed, and their township was destroyed.
Further, the United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights reported possessing credible evidence of the deaths of at least 48 Rohingyas in January of this year, and human rights groups reported mass arrests and arbitrary detentions of Rohingya in the aftermath of this violence.
In addition, other Muslim minorities have also suffered from violent attacks, and many have lost their lives and property in the last year and a half. Such violence against ethnic Muslim populations, including the Rohingya, is part of a larger, troubling pattern of violence against ethnic and religious minorities in Burma.
The Government of Burma remains apathetic to the plight of the Rohingya population, and it has failed to properly investigate the major events of anti-Rohingya violence. Instead, both the Rakhine State and central government continue to impose explicitly racist policies that seek to control the everyday lives of the Rohingya.
Authorities require Rohingya to obtain official permission for marriages and have often singled out Rohingya for forced labor and arbitrary arrests. The Government of Burma has forcefully relocated Rohingya into relief camps, where they lack decent shelter, access to clean water, food, sanitation, health care, and the ability to support themselves, or basic education for their children.
The Rohingya are the sole targets of the two-child policy and are the subjects to severe restrictions of movement. Further, as evidenced by the latest census in Burma, the Burmese Government continues to deny the Rohingyas their right for self-identification, sending a clear message that the Rohingya are outsiders who have no place in Burma.
Today, approximately 140,000 Rohingya are internally displaced, and hundreds of thousands have fled to neighboring countries by boats; many have died at sea. Those who remain in the country live in dire poverty and deprivation.
Some relief used to come from humanitarian organizations like Doctors Without Borders, but even that aid is no longer available. The Government of Burma expelled Doctors Without Borders in March, allegedly after the group cared for the victims of a violent assault on a Rohingya village, an assault which the government denies ever happened.
Increasingly, severe restrictions and violent attacks on other humanitarian aid groups have forced the majority of them to flee the Rakhine State, and the Rohingya now remain with no one and with nowhere to turn for help and health care. Every day, more and more people die of causes that could be preventable or treatable if humanitarian groups had the chance to help.
According to a March 14 article in The New York Times, which I will submit for the Record, nearly 750,000 people, the majority of them Rohingya, have been deprived of medical services since the Burmese Government banned the operations of Doctors Without Borders.
According to the article, during the first 2 weeks of March alone, about 150 of those most vulnerable and in need of care died, including 20 pregnant women who were facing life-threatening deliveries.
Ban on Doctors' Group Imperils Muslim Minority in Myanmar
(By Jane Perlez)
Bangkok.--Nearly 750,000 people, most of them members of a Muslim minority in one of the poorest parts of Myanmar, have been deprived of most medical services since the government banned the operations of Doctors Without Borders, the international health care organization and the main provider of medical care in the region.
The government ordered a halt to the work of Doctors Without Borders two weeks ago after some officials accused the group of favoring the Muslims, members of the Rohingya ethnic group, over a rival group, Rakhine Buddhists.
Already, anecdotal evidence and medical estimates show that about 150 of the most vulnerable have died since Feb. 28, more than 20 of them pregnant women facing life-threatening deliveries, medical professionals said. Doctors Without Borders had been the only way for pregnant women facing difficult deliveries to get a referral to a government hospital, they said.
At the time of the order, the government said it was suspending the group's operations in Rakhine State in the far north, but it has offered no time frame for when services might be resumed. The deputy director general of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Soe Lwin Nyein, said in a statement that his department would manage the health needs of the ``whole community.'' A spokesman for President Thein Sein, Ye Htut, said the government dispatched an emergency response team with eight ambulances after the Doctors Without Borders clinics were closed.
Myanmar's health services are among the most rudimentary in Asia, and with severe government restrictions on movement that prevent Muslims from seeking medical help outside their villages in Rakhine State, the impact of the shutdown will be severe, medical professionals said.
Doctors Without Borders was by far the biggest health provider in the northern part of Rakhine around the townships of Maungdaw and Buthidaung, serving about 500,000 people, most of them Rohingya, they said. An additional 200,000 people, many of them Rohingya in displaced camps around the state capital, Sittwe, had access to the group's services.
In Aung Mingla, a Muslim neighborhood in Sittwe, patients with tuberculosis, a common disease in the area, said they were down to their last supplies of medicine. The Rohingya who live in Aung Mingla are prevented from leaving the district by barbed-wire security posts and police officers.
``Since Doctors Without Borders is not in Rakhine, I don't know who will provide medicine when my supply runs out in three months,'' said one patient, Muklan, 30, who like many people in Myanmar goes by a single name. ``I hope Doctors can come back as soon as possible.''
Another Rohingya man, Shafiul, who worked for Doctors Without Borders in Aung Mingla, said he was concerned for his patients with tuberculosis, malaria and H.I.V. ``These patients have been getting help from Doctors Without Borders for years,'' he said.
In northern Rakhine State, where Doctors Without Borders had run five permanent clinics and 30 mobile ones, about 20 percent of children are acutely malnourished, medical professionals said. An intensive feeding center for those patients was shuttered as part of the government's directive.
For the most part, Western donors and the United Nations say they are reluctant to antagonize the government of Myanmar, which has started along the path of economic and political reform. The donors have chosen quiet diplomacy over outspoken criticism of the government's policies toward the Rohingya.
But the action against Doctors Without Borders raised some public alarm.
``We are extremely concerned about the situation,'' said Mark Cutts, the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Myanmar. ``We are in intense discussion with the government in a way that will allow operations to resume as soon as possible.''
The deputy health director, Dr. Soe Lwin Nyein, said the government would accept supplies of medicine for tuberculosis and H.I.V. from Doctors Without Borders. But how these supplies will be distributed remains unclear. Negotiations are underway with the government over the distribution, Western officials said.
Other international organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, which supports government health centers around the towns of Sittwe and Mrauk U, have been allowed to continue operations in Rakhine. But Doctors Without Borders was by far the largest health provider.
The government targeted the group after its rural clinics provided treatment to 22 Muslims in the aftermath of a rampage by Rakhine security officers and civilians in the village of Du Chee Yar Tan in January. The United Nations says 40 people were killed in the violence that night.
The government has denied that the deaths occurred, and on Tuesday, a presidential commission sent to the village to conduct an inquiry reported that it could find no evidence of the killings. The commission was the third investigative group sent by the government, and its findings matched those of the previous inquiries.
After the killings in January, the government criticized Doctors Without Borders for hiring Rohingya and said the group was giving disproportionate attention to Rohingya patients. Under state regulations in Rakhine, Rohingya are prevented from visiting many of the state-run clinics.
Doctors Without Borders says it has treated patients in Rakhine since 1994 regardless of ethnicity, and foreign aid workers point out that the Rakhine Buddhist ethnic group has access to government health facilities that are generally denied to the Rohingya.
A radical Buddhist leader in Myanmar, Ashin Wirathu, who has compared Muslims to dogs, arrived in Sittwe on Wednesday for a five-day visit that was likely to stir anti-Muslim sentiments further. In a sermon at the main Buddhist temple Wednesday night, he said that if Western democracies were allowed to have influence in Myanmar, the Rakhine people would be overwhelmed by increasing numbers of Muslims, and would eventually disappear.
The monk's visit appeared to be timed ahead of a national census--the first in Myanmar in more than 30 years--that is due to take place March 30 to April 10 across Myanmar. Tensions during the census, funded in part by the United Nations and the British government, are expected to be high in Rakhine.
Rakhine politicians have said they oppose allowing the Rohingya to identify themselves as Rohingya when they fill out the census forms. If they did, the census would probably show that their numbers are greater than the current estimate of 1.3 million. The overall population is estimated at 60 million.
By shutting down Doctors Without Borders, the government is ensuring that there will be fewer foreigners to witness any outbreaks of violence during the census process, aid workers said.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, when Doctors Without Borders was able to work in Rakhine, they sent approximately 400 emergency cases every month to local hospitals, but according to the World Health Organization, fewer than 20 people received referrals by the government for emergency care in March. Such a difference suggests that the Rohingya who are in desperate need of emergency care are left to suffer or to die.
In light of these disturbing events, it is important that the House speaks with one voice today and calls on the Government of Burma to end all forms of persecution and discrimination of the Rohingya people and to ensure respect for internationally recognized human rights for all ethnic and religious minority groups within Burma.
The Burmese Government needs to recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic group indigenous to Burma and work with the Rohingya to resolve their citizenship status.
Finally, the U.S. Government needs to make the removal of state-
sanctioned discriminatory policies a priority in their engagement with the Government of Burma.
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Let me be clear: the situation is dire and rapidly deteriorating. Multiple recognized independent human rights NGOs, as well as the U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in Burma, have stated that the series of actions directed at the Rohingyas in Burma could amount to crimes against humanity.
Further, a recent report by the U.S. NGO, United to End Genocide, states that nowhere in the world are there more precursors to genocide than in Burma right now.
In the past few weeks, we have all taken time to remember and commemorate the victims of the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, and the genocide in Rwanda. We saw the same disturbing signs in other moments of history, and we know what the consequences are of not paying attention. Showing support for this bill is one step that we can take today to fulfilling the solemn pledge of ``never again.''
I urge my colleagues to vote in support of this bill.
Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
In closing, I would like to thank Congressman McGovern, the gentleman from Massachusetts, for drafting this important legislation. Once again, I thank Chairman Royce for his continued bipartisan leadership.
As has been said, this resolution calls upon the Burmese government to end the persecution of the Rohingya people and to respect the human rights of all ethnic and religious minority groups.
Until now, the treatment of the Rohingya has been largely ignored by the international community. That is the purpose of this resolution--so they cannot be ignored any longer.
It is time for the United States to send a clear and strong message to the government of Burma that we will not tolerate the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities, and that it must abide by human rights principles of equality and dignity if it is to rejoin the international community.
So I urge my colleagues to support this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Again, I want to thank the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), for his support of the Rohingya people, but also for his dedication to human rights. I have had an opportunity to work with Mr. McGovern on a number of different human rights bills. I think he eloquently explained tonight the challenge that we face here. I was proud to join him as a cosponsor of this measure and work with him.
I also, of course, want to thank the gentleman from New York, Eliot Engel, for his continued focus on human rights around the world.
On this issue, it is true that the Burmese government has recently taken steps to open its closed society, but the reality is that the recent events here are deeply, deeply troubling to anyone who is watching. As I indicated, 48 Rohingya were murdered, aid workers trying to care for thousands of displaced have been attacked in the country, and Doctors Without Borders was kicked out of Burma.
This resolution calls on the government of Burma to immediately recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic minority and to grant them citizenship, a step that is long overdue, as Mr. McGovern pointed out.
I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan resolution. Let's all send a message that the current state of human rights in Burma is unacceptable.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) that the House suspend the rules and agree to the resolution, H. Res. 418, as amended.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the rules were suspended and the resolution, as amended, was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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