S.Res. 151

119 SRES 151 IS: Expressing the sense of the Senate that the United States should recognize the 1994 genocide in Rwanda as “the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda”.
 U.S. Senate
 2025-04-01
 text/xml
 EN
 Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.
 III  119th CONGRESS  1st Session  S. RES. 151  IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES   April 1 (legislative day, March 31), 2025   Mr. Rounds  (for himself and  Mr. Coons ) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the  Committee on Foreign Relations    RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the Senate that the United States should recognize the 1994 genocide in Rwanda as  the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda .
Whereas, in 2018, the United Nations General Assembly amended the title of the annual observance of the genocide in Rwanda on April 7 to be the  International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda ;
Whereas United States officials have noted publicly that the genocide in Rwanda was  intended to destroy Tutsi ;
Whereas, on April 7, 2023, Secretary of State Blinken stated,  The U.S. stands with Rwanda … in remembering the Tutsi victims of genocide. We also mourn the others who were murdered for their opposition to a genocidal regime. ;
Whereas the United States Integrated Country Strategy for Rwanda (approved March 14, 2022) refers to the  1994 genocide against the Tutsi ethnic group ;
Whereas Rwandan officials, in appropriately opposing genocide denial or revisionism, aptly note that any nomenclature that does not specifically use the phrase  genocide against the Tutsi  is  ambiguous  and conducive to genocide denial or revisionism;
Whereas the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum notes in its public educational materials on the  genocide in Rwanda  that the victims were  predominantly Tutsi  and that the goal of Hutu extremist leaders was for  Rwandan Tutsis to be exterminated ;
Whereas the United States-based nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch, which played a central role in documenting the genocide in Rwanda and in supporting international efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice, found that the  Tutsi were being targeted for elimination ;
Whereas European diplomats refer to the  genocide against the Tutsi  in public statements;
Whereas, starting in 2022, the Government of the United Kingdom has used the terminology  genocide against the Tutsi ; and
Whereas the United States is the only major country in the world to publicly reject the terminology  genocide against the Tutsi : Now, therefore, be it
That it is the sense of the Senate that—
(1)
the United States should recognize the 1994 genocide in Rwanda as  the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda ;
(2)
the Secretary of State should publicly affirm that terminology; and
(3)
other types of atrocities occurred alongside the genocide against the Tutsi, and the history of the genocide should clearly affirm the other experiences of mass violence against Rwandans during the same period, including the killings and other violence experienced by Hutus and the Indigenous Twa community, perpetrated by Hutu extremist militias.