Political Quotes

“I appreciate the chairman yielding to me. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 90. This is a bipartisan bill condemning the Burmese military's systemic attacks on the Rohingya in Rakhine State. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank especially Congressman Crowley from New York for working together in a bipartisan manner on this legislation and also with Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel and so many others. As someone who has chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee on Asia and the Pacific and who has been to Burma and met with Aung San Suu Kyi and followed Burma very closely, what has happened there is truly shocking and disheartening, and really a blot on the world in how this has been handled up to this point in many ways. The Rohingya have long been at the fringes of Burmese society and it is no secret that the Burmese military regards them as outsiders who don't even belong in Burma at all. That is why the military used some attacks back in August by a rogue group of Rohingya as a pretext to terrorize the entire Rohingya population. This campaign of terror and violence has demonically worked. Over 600,000 Rohingya have fled Burma for Bangladesh, and at least 250,000 of those people are children. Further, credible human rights organizations and the media have documented numerous horrors and abuses, including rape, murder, and torture. The most unspeakable things have happened there.…”