Defining Certain Atrocities As War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, and Genocide

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 75) expressing the sense of Congress that those who commit or support atrocities against Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities, including Yezidis, Turkmen, Sabea-Mandeans, Kaka`e, and Kurds, and who target them specifically for ethnic or religious reasons, are committing, and are hereby declared to be committing, ``war crimes'', ``crimes against humanity'', and ``genocide'', as amended.

The Clerk read the title of the concurrent resolution.

The text of the concurrent resolution is as follows: H. Con. Res. 75

Whereas Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities have been an integral part of the cultural fabric of the Middle East for millennia;

Whereas the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and associated extremists are committing egregious atrocities against ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq and Syria, including Christians (including Assyrian Chaldean Syriac, Armenian, and Melkite communities, among others), Yezidis, Turkmen, Shabak, Sabaean-Mandeans, and Kaka`i, among others;

Whereas ISIL specifically targets these religious and ethnic minorities, intending to kill them or force their submission, conversion, or expulsion;

Whereas religious and ethnic minorities have been murdered, subjugated, forced to emigrate, and subjected to grievous bodily and psychological harm, kidnapping, human trafficking, torture, and rape;

Whereas ISIL engages in, and publicly argues in favor of, the sexual enslavement of non-Muslim women, including pre- pubescent girls;

Whereas ISIL atrocities against Christians, Yezidis, and other minorities have included mass murder, crucifixions, beheadings, rape, torture, enslavement, the kidnaping of children, and other violence deliberately calculated to eliminate their communities from the so-called Islamic State;

Whereas ISIL has deliberately destroyed and looted numerous cultural sites, religious shrines, churches, monasteries, and museums in order to eradicate the cultures of ethnic and religious minorities from the territory it attempts to control;

Whereas these atrocities have been undertaken with the specific intent to bring about the eradication of those communities and the destruction of their cultural heritage;

Whereas ISIL operations have in fact driven minority religious and ethnic communities from their ancestral homelands;

Whereas under applicable international law referenced in section 2441 of Title 18 of the United States Code, murder, torture, mutilation, rape, cruel treatment, and hostage- taking of non-combatants constitute war crimes;

Whereas crimes against humanity, as defined by the International Military Tribunal convened at Nuremberg in 1945, and in various international instruments since then, include murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, as well as persecution on political, racial, or religious grounds in connection with such crimes;

Whereas the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, signed and ratified by the United States, defines genocide as ``any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group'';

Whereas on August 7, 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry declared that ``ISIL's campaign of terror against the innocent, including Yezidi and Christian minorities, and its grotesque and targeted acts of violence bear all the warning signs and hallmarks of genocide'';

Whereas in August 2014, the United States conducted targeted airstrikes and humanitarian assistance operations to help break the siege of Mount Sinjar, saving the lives of thousands of Yezidi men, women, and children;

Whereas His Holiness, Pope Francis, has noted that ``entire communities, especially - but not only - Christians and Yezidis have suffered and are still suffering inhuman violence because of their ethnic and religious identity'' and that, for Christians being killed for their faith in the Middle East, ``a form of genocide -- I insist on the word -- is taking place, and it must end'';

Whereas a March 13, 2015, report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights detailed ``acts of violence perpetrated [by ISIL] against civilians because of their affiliation or perceived affiliation to an ethnic or religious group'' and stated that ``[i]t is reasonable to conclude that some of these incidents, considering the overall information, may constitute genocide'';

Whereas in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on May 13, 2015, Dominican Sister Diana Momeka, whose convent was driven from Mosul, Iraq, described the ISIL offensive as ``cultural and human genocide'' and stated that today ``[t]he only Christians that remain in the Plain of Nineveh are those who are held as hostages'';

Whereas in December 2015, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide issued a report focused on the treatement of minorities in Nineveh from June to August 2014, which found that ISIL had ``targeted civilians based on group identity, committing mass atrocities to control, expel, and exterminate ethnic and religious minorities'' and, in that context, ``committed crimes against humanity, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing against [Christian, Yezidi, Turkmen, Shabak, Sabaean-Mandean, and Kaka'i] communities in Nineva'' and ``perpetrated genocide against the Yezidi people'';

Whereas on December 7, 2015, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom called on the United States Government ``to designate the Christian, Yezidi, Shi'a, Turkmen, and Shabak communities of Iraq and Syria as victims of genocide by ISIL'' and urged world leaders ``to condemn the genocidal actions and crimes against humanity of ISIL that have been directed at these groups and other ethnic and religious groups'';

Whereas on February 3, 2016, the European Parliament expressed the view that ISIL ``is committing genocide against Christians and Yezidis, and other religious and ethnic minorities'';

Whereas Syrian President Bashar al Assad's violence against the Syrian people has attracted foreign fighters from around the world, who have supported and committed ISIL atrocities; and

Whereas according to some estimates, the conflict among all parties to the Syrian civil war has killed 470,000 and displaced 11,000,000 people: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That--

(1) the atrocities perpetrated by ISIL against Christians, Yezidis, and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide;

(2) all governments, including the United States, and international organizations, including the United Nations and the Office of the Secretary-General, should call ISIL atrocities by their rightful names: war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide;

(3) the member states of the United Nations should coordinate urgently on measures to prevent further war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq and Syria, and to punish those responsible for these ongoing crimes, including by the collection and preservation of evidence and, if necessary, the establishment and operation of appropriate tribunals;

(4) the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Lebanese Republic, the Republic of Turkey, and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq are to be commended for, and supported in, their efforts to shelter and protect those fleeing the violence of ISIL and other combatants until they can safely return to their homes in Iraq and Syria; and

(5) the protracted Syrian civil war and the indiscriminate violence of the Assad regime have contributed to the growth of ISIL and will continue to do so as long as this conflict continues.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to thank Jeff Fortenberry and his lead cosponsor, Anna Eshoo, for their extremely important resolution, H. Con. Res. 75, as amended, calling on the Obama administration to declare the annihilation of Christians, Yazidis, and other minorities, for what it is, a genocide.

On December 4 of last year, a coalition of prominent religious leaders wrote President Obama and stated, ``Christian and Yazidi minorities in Iraq and Syria are being targeted for eradication in their ancient homelands solely because of their religious beliefs.''

They had been prompted by reports of an ``imminent'' State Department finding that ISIS was committing genocide against the Yazidis, a finding they ``wholeheartedly'' endorsed, but were ``deeply troubled,'' like we all were, that the genocide of Christians was going to be bypassed or excluded.

Apparently press reports had claimed that the rationale for excluding Christians was that, unlike the Yazidis, Christians had a choice to convert to Islam and pay an Islamic tax, or be killed, tortured, enslaved, or held hostage.

In direct rebuttal of that argument at a hearing that I held on December 9, Carl Anderson, the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, stated:

Many times the payment of the tax is not presented as an option for these Christians. In instances where the Yazidi tax has been enacted or extracted, it has failed to ensure that the Christians could live as Christians, that they were protected from rival jihadists, or even other members of ISIS, or that the amendment of payment was not raised over time until it became impossible for some of them to pay, causing the family's home, and even their children, to be confiscated, and the adults to be killed or forced to become Muslims.

It is a very, very poor argument that has been made by the State Department, so we believe they have made this. Hopefully, they will rectify it.

Let me also point out to my colleagues that the Genocide Convention defines genocide as ``the killing and certain other acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.''

The religious leaders who signed the December 4 letter compiled extensive files supporting a finding that ISIS' treatment of Iraqi and Syrian Christians absolutely meets this definition. They include:

Evidence of ISIS assassinations of church leaders; mass murders; torture, kidnapping for ransom in the Christian communities of Iraq and Syria; sexual enslavement and systematic rape of Christian girls and women; its practices of forcible conversions to Islam; its destruction of churches, monasteries, cemeteries, and Christian artifacts; and its theft of lands and wealth from Christian clergy and laity alike.

They went on to cite ``ISIS' own public statements taking credit for mass murder of Christians, and expressing its intent eliminate Christian communities from the Islamic State.''

The letter recounted how ``ISIS jihadis have stamped Christian homes in Mosul with the red letter N for Nazarene in the summer of 2014,'' pointing out how the ``elimination of Christians in other towns and cities in Iraq and Syria began long beforehand.''

Mr. Speaker, I held a hearing 3 years ago extolling and urging the administration to recognize the genocide against Christians, and our witnesses, the private witnesses who spoke, gave instance after instance of crimes against Christians that were done simply because they were Christians.

At a December 9 hearing, we heard from four witnesses. I mentioned one a moment ago, Carl Anderson, from the Knights of Columbus. We also heard from Dr. Stanton, of Genocide Watch, who said, ``Failure to call ISIS' mass murder of Christians, Shiia, Muslims, and other groups in addition to the Yazidis by its proper name, genocide, would be an act of denial as grave as the U.S. refusal to recognize the Rwanda genocide back in 1994.''

Bishop Kalabat, a Chaldean bishop, was extremely pointed in his remarks when he said that ``the Obama administration, including President Obama himself, have neglected to mention that the ISIS atrocities were committed against Christians. They rightly mention atrocities committed in Iraq against the Yazidis, and they are horrific.'' The bishop went on, ``But there are also atrocities of rape, killings, crucifixions, beheadings, hangings that the Syrian and Iraqi Christians have endured, and they are intentionally omitted.'' He compellingly stated that ``the U.S. Government should not turn a blind eye to the genocidal atrocities faced by Iraq's ethnic and religious minorities, including the Christians, the Yazidis, and others.''

Finally, in very, very powerful testimony, the head of Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International, Mr. Ismail, stated that though his people, the Yazidis, were on the verge of annihilation, he called upon the administration not to neglect the others who are also on the verge of annihilation, and said, ``the Yazidis and the Chaldo-Assyrian Christians face this genocide together.''

Now is the time to act. We cannot let the cries of the victims go unheeded as we once did when we confronted the genocide in Rwanda and other genocides that have occurred around the world. Mr. Speaker, I therefore urge my colleagues to vote for H. Con. Res. 75.

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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Con. Res 75.

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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank Mr. Fortenberry for his very eloquent remarks and for reminding us that this is an existential threat to Christians, but really, as well, to civilization. I thank him again for the resolution.

He is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

I thank my good friend, Mr. Sherman, for his good, bipartisan, strong remarks expressed today during both of these debates on the war crimes tribunal and now on Mr. Fortenberry's genocide resolution, another bipartisan piece of legislation.

I want to thank my colleagues for their moving words today. Judge Poe, again, hit the nail right on the head, as did our friend from New York.

I think we need to say it and we need to say it with exclamation points, that declaring genocide is a solemn and extremely serious step not to be taken lightly.

I am very proud of the work that the Foreign Affairs Committee did. I want to thank our chairman, Ed Royce, and the ranking member, Eliot Engel, for their work on this resolution.

All of us understand the seriousness of calling crimes genocide. It represents an assertion that a legal definition has been met and that we are witnessing acts of physical and mental violence intended to destroy a group in whole or in part.

The targeted depravity of ISIS against the Yazidis, Christians, and other minorities more--I will say it again--more than meets that definition.

But far more than the legality, speaking clearly of genocide, is an appeal to the conscience of the world. It evokes the moral gravity and the imperative of never again.

The United States must not wait any longer to find its voice and call these bloody purges what they are: genocide. We and our partners must defeat ISIS so that Christians, Yazidis, all religious communities, and all the people of Syria and Iraq, can live in peace, free from this grotesque persecution.

I urge passage of the resolution.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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