Top Democrats call on Biden administration to declare attack on Rohingya genocide

Top Democratic lawmakers are calling on the Biden administration to recognize the Myanmar military’s 2017 attack on the Muslim Rohingya community as a genocide.

“We welcome the steps that the Biden administration has taken in response to the coup – including targeted sanctions on the military and military-owned enterprises – as well as Secretary Blinken’s announcement earlier this year that he is carrying out a review of a Rohingya genocide determination,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said in their statement.

“But a genocide determination can no longer wait,” the two concluded. 

Menendez is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, while Meeks is the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee. 

The statement was released on the four-year anniversary of the Rohingya attack.

Menendez and Meeks said that the failure to recognize the attacks has led other international entities to turn a blind eye to abuses by the military of Myanmar, which was formerly known as Burma.

The lawmakers noted that 900,000 Rohingya refugees are in Bangladesh, and urged that country’s government to pursue policies that will help protect the refugees in the future.