Bill Text: CA SR105 | 2017-2018 | Regular Session | Introduced

California Senate Resolution 105 (Prior Session Legislation)

Introduced

Bill Title: Relative to the Rohingya in Rakhine State.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 2-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2018-04-16 - Introduced. Referred to Com. on RLS. [SR105 Detail]

Download: California-2017-SR105-Introduced.html

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2017–2018 REGULAR SESSION

Senate Resolution

No. 105

Introduced by Senators Glazer and Pan

April 16, 2018

Relative to the Rohingya in Rakhine State.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SR 105, as introduced, Glazer.

WHEREAS, The Rohingya are one of Myanmar’s many ethnic minorities that have lived under military dictatorship for most of the last few decades; and

WHEREAS, Approximately one million Rohingya live predominantly in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where they have faced ongoing repression under the Burmese military, including the revocation of their citizenship, killings, and mass rape; and

WHEREAS, There is historical animosity between the majority Buddhist population and the minority Rohingya, with many in the Buddhist majority seeing the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from across the border in Bangladesh, despite the Rohingya’s generational roots in Myanmar; and

WHEREAS, Since 1999, the United States Department of State has regularly expressed concern over legal, economic, and social discrimination against Myanmar’s Rohingya population; and

WHEREAS, An outbreak of communal violence in the Rakhine State in 2012 saw more than 100,000 Rohingya displaced and tens of thousands of Rohingya forced into squalid camps where travel was, and continues to be, restricted; and

WHEREAS, The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar reported a long history of discrimination and persecution against the Rohingya; and

WHEREAS, Aung San Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest for her peaceful advocacy of democracy in Myanmar, and during those years, she was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament, the Nobel Peace Prize, the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal for her tireless struggle for democracy and human rights; and

WHEREAS, In her 2012 Nobel Lecture, Aung San Suu Kyi made an impassioned appeal to the world not to forget those who are suffering hunger, disease, displacement, joblessness, poverty, injustice, discrimination, prejudice, bigotry, and war, and that “wherever suffering is ignored, there will be the seeds of conflict, for suffering degrades and embitters and enrages”; and

WHEREAS, In a landmark election held in November 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in the first national vote since Myanmar’s nominal transition to civilian authority, after which Aung San Suu Kyi was named State Counsellor, a role created for her that made her the country’s de facto leader; and

WHEREAS, In August 2016, Aung San Suu Kyi helped to establish the high-level Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, which is headed by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in order to address the mistreatment of the Rohingya; and

WHEREAS, In October 2016, attacks on border police outposts led to reports of horrific human rights abuses against the Rohingya in a brutal military crackdown; and

WHEREAS, In December 2016, a letter to the United Nations Security Council signed by 23 international activists, including more than a dozen fellow Nobel Laureates, urged Aung San Suu Kyi to address the escalating crisis facing the Rohingya in Myanmar; and

WHEREAS, In February 2017, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report, finding that crimes against the Rohingya “seems to have been widespread as well as systematic, indicating the very likely commission of crimes against humanity”; and

WHEREAS, In March 2017, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution creating a fact-finding mission to Myanmar to investigate allegations of human rights abuses against the Rohingya and to issue a report by the following year; and

WHEREAS, On August 25, 2017, fighters from a small militant group, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, conducted surprise raids on 30 police stations and an army base in Rakhine State in which more than 100 people died, including at least 10 policemen and many militants; and

WHEREAS, The attack resulted in a brutal and methodical reprisal by the Burmese military on villages, with helicopters firing on civilians, the razing of villages with petrol bombs, and front line troops cutting off families’ escape routes; and

WHEREAS, The assault caused more than 140,000 Rohingya to flee for Bangladesh and more than 30,000 Rohingya are estimated to be trapped in conflict zones in western Myanmar; and

WHEREAS, United Nations field work and the delivery of vital supplies of food, water, and medicine were suspended by the government of Myanmar due to security concerns, leaving thousands of Rohingya vulnerable amid the deadly outbreak of violence; and

WHEREAS, On August 31, 2017, the United Nations Security Council met to discuss the violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine State; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, that the Senate (1) condemns the violence and displacement inflicted on Myanmar’s Rohingya civilians, (2) calls for an immediate halt to all hostilities by Burmese authorities, (3) condemns the attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army militant group, (4) urges the government of Myanmar to allow unrestricted access to the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, a safe and sustainable volunteer-based return for Myanmar’s Rohingya civilians that is to be monitored by the United Nations, and the resumption of the delivery of field work and aid from critical humanitarian organizations to help those displaced and injured and to monitor events in Rakhine State, (5) calls on the government of Myanmar to implement the August 2017 recommendations of its Advisory Commission on Rakhine State, including ending restrictions on the movement of the Rohingya and providing the Rohingya with citizenship, and (6) encourages Aung San Suu Kyi to address the historic repression of the Rohingya in Rakhine State; and be it further

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.