S.Amdt. 2341

SA 2341. Mr. MERKLEY (for himself and Mr. Young) submitted an
amendment intended to be proposed to amendment SA 2282 submitted by Mr.
Inhofe (for himself and Mr. McCain) and intended to be proposed to the
bill H.R. 5515, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2019 for
military activities of the Department of Defense, for military
construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy,
to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for
other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of subtitle E of title XII, add the following:

SEC. 12__. SENSE OF SENATE ON RETURN OF ROHINGYA REFUGEES TO
BURMA.

It is the sense of the Senate that the Senate--
(1) condemns the violence and displacement inflicted on
Burma's Rohingya and other ethnic minorities;
(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) calls on the Government of Burma to allow full access
to Rakhine State and ensure the full participation of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the
internationally endorsed organization tasked with ensuring
that refugee returns are voluntary, safe, dignified, and
respect fundamental human rights, and that the voices of
refugees are represented to ensure the sustainability of such
returns and to prevent further waves of displacement;
(5) calls on the Government of Burma to allow the United
Nations-backed Independent International Fact-Finding Mission
on Myanmar immediate and unfettered access to Burma,
including northern Rahkine

[[Page S3251]]

State, to establish the facts and circumstances of the
alleged recent human rights violations by Burmese military
and security forces against the Rohingya and other ethnic
minorities;
(6) commends the positive role of the Government of
Bangladesh in receiving Rohingya refugees to date and urges
the Government of Bangladesh to continue allowing the full
participation of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees and human rights organizations in accessing refugee
camps;
(7) calls on the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees and international nongovernmental organizations to
play a role in monitoring repatriation efforts by the
Governments of Bangladesh and Burma to ensure a process that
meets international norms for voluntary, safe, and dignified
repatriation;
(8) agrees that any return of Rohingya should include
guarantees that any returns of refugees will be voluntary and
dignified, that there will be no threats to protection or
security upon return, that refugees will be able to return to
their places of origin or other locations as desired, and be
able to enjoy equal rights with others in Burma, including
the restoration or granting of full citizenship, freedom of
movement, and access to basic services;
(9) recognizes that any forced relocation of Rohingya
refugees into temporary settlements, internally displaced
persons (IDP) camps, ``model villages,'' or other areas not
of refugees' choosing is unacceptable;
(10) calls on the Government of Burma to allow for a
flexible and practical approach to dealing with evidence of
Rohingya residence in Burma, recognizing that the Rohingya
refugees in Bangladesh possess a wide range of documents and
that some refugees have no documents and will need to
establish their residence by other means;
(11) calls on the Government of Burma to address root
causes consistent with the Rakhine Advisory Commission
recommendations and fully implement all of the
recommendations of the Commission, including providing equal
access to full restoration or granting of full citizenship
for the Rohingya population;
(12) calls on the Government of Burma to acknowledge and
address the issue of statelessness for the Rohingya, the
deprivation of rights, and institutionalized and pervasive
discrimination of the Rohingya population in order to bring
about any sustainable solutions;
(13) commends the Government and the people of Bangladesh
for their extraordinary generosity and efforts to provide
shelter and relief for nearly 1,000,000 Rohingya refugees
forced to flee their homes in Burma;
(14) calls on the Government of Bangladesh to ensure all
refugees have freedom of movement and under no circumstances
are subject to unsafe, involuntary, precipitous, or
uninformed returns to Burma; and
(15) calls on the Government of Burma to immediately
release journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo.
______