Chairman Gardner, Ranking Member Markey,\nand distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to\nappear before this committee to testify on the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya\npeople in Burma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I speak as a survivor of decades-long\npersecution by the Government of Burma, which is now carrying out a genocide\nthat has long been in the making. My own personal history reflects this story.\nMy extended family experienced first-hand waves of government-orchestrated\nmilitary attacks and mass violence against unarmed and peaceful communities\nthroughout Rakhine region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1978, my parents, then in their\ntwenties, fled their homeland of Northern Rakhine into Bangladesh during the\nvery first wave of violent mass deportation of the Rohingya community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In response to this humanitarian crisis,\nthe late Senator Edward Kennedy travelled to Bangladesh and bore witness to the\ndevastating impact of the Burmese military\u2019s policies of targeted persecution\nagainst the Rohingya. He helped secure vital humanitarian aid for Bangladesh to\nsupport the refugee population. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than a generation has passed and\nthough my father and Senator Kennedy are no longer with us, we continue to live\nwith the policies that have enabled the vicious persecution of the Rohingya\npeople.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, Burma \u2013 despite continued\npromises to the international community to improve the lives of the Rohingya\npeople, to listen to recommendations from the Kofi Annan Commission, to set up\nits own investigation into abuses \u2013 continues to fail the Rohingya community.\nThere is absolutely no political will or desire by the Burmese authorities to\nimprove the lives of Rohingya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a government and a military that\nhave actively tried to wipe us out as a people for several decades. They\ncontinue to deny my community as an ethnic group integral to the Union of Burma,\ndepriving our children any meaningful access to education, denying us access to\nessential health and other social services, and worse, maintaining conditions\nthat are designed to bring about the eventual destruction of our entire\ncommunity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, there are far greater numbers of\nRohingya people outside of their ancestral homeland of Rakhine State than\ninside of it. After a widespread, deliberate campaign of egregious violence,\nthere are approximately one million displaced Rohingya people who now live in\nsub-human conditions in camps in Bangladesh where they are recognized neither\nas \u201crefugees\u201d nor by their very group identity as \u201cRohingyas.\u201d They have left\nbehind nearly 400 villages, most of which have been burned and bulldozed and\nare being primed for commercial development by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi\u2019s NLD\ngovernment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With all of the evidence of the last\nyear and a half, the world has caught up with what we have been saying for many\nyears \u2013 the only word to describe what is going on is genocide. Mr. Chairman,\nit is genocide \u2013 the intentional destruction of an ethnic community, our\nRohingya community \u2013 that Burma has commissioned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently at the Free Rohingya Coalition\nConference one of the distinguished members of the UN International\nFact-Finding Mission and a Yale-trained legal scholar, Professor Radhika\nCoomaraswamy, asked the question: \u201cIs what happened to the Rohingya genocide?\nWhat else could it be?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An array of organizations \u2013 legal,\nhumanitarian, and religious organizations, including a coalition of American\nJewish groups \u2013 have issued statements calling this a genocide. This is welcome\nsupport, but we need to move beyond what civil society globally has widely\nrecognized as Rohingya genocide. We need action from governments and the\ninternational community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That is why the hearing today is so\nimportant. We must stand together and push for change. The international\ncommunity must do more. \u201cNever again\u201d is a meaningless phrase unless it is\nbacked up with action. The world of conscience must now use all legal tools to\naddress this heinous situation by pursuing international justice mechanisms\nthat will hold the perpetrators of this atrocity accountable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A powerful action that the United States\nSenate can take is to re-introduce the Burma Human Rights and Freedom Act and\npass it and sign it into law. The legislation addresses the Rohingya refugee\ncrisis from a few different angles. It authorizes humanitarian assistance for\nRohingya refugees in Bangladesh. It calls for a safe, dignified, and voluntary\nrepatriation process of Rohingya refugees to Burma and for any repatriation\nprocess to be developed with significant input from the Rohingya community. It\nfurther calls for the restoration of full citizenship for the Rohingya people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The legislation also calls for targeted\nsanctions and visa denials against military officials implicated in human\nrights abuses, which is very much welcome and needed. While the Treasury\nDepartment has sanctioned five military officials and two units, it is yet to\nsanction the most senior Burmese military officials, including General Min Aung\nHlaing and his Deputy, Vice Senior-General Soe Win, who are considered most\nresponsible for the violence. Even though they do not hold assets in your country\nThe United States\u2019 leadership in sanctioning these two individuals would help\nstop ongoing atrocities taking place in Burma and may well have a \u201cdomino\neffect\u201d on the actions of countries in holding Burma accountable. It is also no\ncoincidence that at least four of the five military officials sanctioned thus\nfar have been quietly retired from the Burmese military. The Burmese military\nhas also started hiding their patches that identify their battalion command for\nfear of international condemnation. It demonstrates that the Burmese military\nis taking notice of US action and underscores that accountability starts at the\ntop of the military command. It is also important that the United States\ntargets military-linked companies and entities as the European Union is already\nconsidering doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, Mr. Chairman, both civilian\nministries and the security ministries have for decades been engaged in\npolicies of genocidal persecution. Therefore, we must address larger issues of\njustice and accountability. For example, the United Nations Fact-Finding\nMission (FFM) stressed that NLD Government is complicit in the genocide due to\ntheir crimes of omission and other acts of dismissal of genocide findings. The\nappointment of Nicholas Koumjian as head of the Independent Investigative\nMechanism for Myanmar is a positive step and the United States should continue\nto support and fund the mechanism. The United States should also support\ninternational justice mechanisms that are impartial, credible, and independent\nincluding the establishment of a new ad-hoc international criminal tribunal in\nwhatever way possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The international community should be\nfully conscious that since 2012, the Burmese military and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi\nhave established eight inquiry commissions with the clear objective of\nbleaching the crimes of the Burmese state against the Rohingya people and to\nexonerate the Burmese state. None of the commissions have been proven credible.\nBurma\u2019s judicial system does not have the will or the capacity for trying war\ncrimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, the three gravest crimes which\nthe UN FFM has officially said are being committed in Burma in Rakhine, Shan\nand Kachin states. Criminal accountability is only one tool for justice, and it\ncannot wholly reverse the damage done, but it can make break the entrenched\ncycle of violations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The international community must also\naddress citizenship and repatriation with full rights. At present, China\nhas helped to draw up a plan where no single Rohingya is prepared to return to\nBurma voluntarily. This is not acceptable. For forty years, we have been\npromised safety by the Burmese government, only to be slaughtered and violently\ndeported subsequent to our return. As in the cases of Tibet and Uyghurs,\nChina has been an evil force in our oppression. China protects Burmese\nperpetrators instead of standing up for the Rohingya people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I also understand that there is a\ngenuine interest throughout the US Government to protect Burma\u2019s fragile\ndemocratic transition. But there is no such thing as a democratic\ntransition under the current conditions. The UN Special Rapporteur on the human\nrights situation in Myanmar, Professor Yanghee Lee, has reiterated a widely\nshared observation: that no democracy can emerge under the Constitution of\n2008, which was drawn up by the military to keep itself in power. The Burmese\nmilitary has never relinquished levers of state power: they have only allowed\nthe civilian fa\u00e7ade of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and NLD to emerge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burma\u2019s non-existent democratic progress\nmust not be pursued or supported at the expense of several million Rohingya\npeople, whether they are in Burma, in refugee camps in Bangladesh, or in the\ndiaspora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr. Chairman, I call on the US Congress\nto recalibrate its policies towards Burma by focusing on finding ways to\naddress the root cause of our decades-long suffering. It is important that\nRohingya voices are included in finding effective pathways to end the ongoing\ngenocide of our people. This also includes the crimes the Burmese military is\ncommitting in Shan and Kachin states against other ethnic brethren\nthere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, the US Government should use\nits influence to prevent its humanitarian and strategic partners of India and\nBangladesh to treat Rohingyas as survivors of atrocity crimes. India must\nstop all attempts to deport Rohingya refugees back to Northern Rakhine State.\nBangladesh should also be requested to halt its plan to relocate 100,000\nRohingya survivors to the remote island of Bhasan Char, which the UN and other\nexperts have widely considered unfit and unsafe for human life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In closing, the US government and the\ninternational community must act now. We are grateful for the efforts of US\nlawmakers, as exemplified by last year\u2019s Burma Human Rights and Freedom Act. I\nurge you to reintroduce it and pass it and to work with the Rohingya diaspora\nand the survivors in the camps to ensure the protection of the Rohingya\npeople. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thank you for your time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chairman Gardner, Ranking Member Markey, and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before this committee to testify on the ongoing genocide of the Rohingya <\/p>\n